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Florida: Republicans Scheme to Destroy Teachers’ Unions

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2023 //
20

Republicans don’t like teachers’ unions. They don’t like them for many reasons. The unions get a seat at the table when it’s time to bargain over wages, health care, pensions, and working conditions. They are the collective voice of working people. Republicans don’t want working people to have power.

Unions also are skewed toward Democrats, so killing unions hurts the Democrats.

The Florida legislature passed a law declaring that unions would be decertified if their membership was below 60% of the relevant workforce. The law is aimed at the teachers’ unions. The 60% cutoff is intended to block unions; in a normal democratic election, the winner needs to get 50% plus one, not 60%.

The Miami Herald reported:

Florida’s largest teachers union, United Teachers of Dade, will head down the path toward decertification if it cannot prove that hundreds more teachers began paying dues over the last week — an unprecedented situation that threatens to leave about 30,000 Miami-Dade public school teachers and personnel vulnerable to possible labor contract changes.

On Friday, to meet the requirements of a new state law that requires at least 60% of union members pay dues, Miami-Dade Public Schools was gauging how many eligible employees were union-paying members within UTD. The last tally — conducted on Nov. 10 — put that number at just 58.4%.

It was unclear Friday whether the 60% threshold would be met, and union leaders and district administrators were uncertain exactly what the future would hold if they fell short.

During a news conference Thursday night, Karla Herndandez-Mats was unable to detail what the potential ramifications could be as a result of submitting the audit. “We don’t know what it means, because we don’t know what the numbers will be tomorrow,” she said.

The potential collapse of the state’s largest teachers union could minimize the collective voice of educators in a state that has increasingly been hostile to teachers unions, and undercut them locally when they find themselves in need of collective representation.

Teachers unions have often been at the forefront of criticism toward the governor and Republicans over education policies. If the unions are decertified, it would mark the first wave of change from a law that went into effect July 1 and was criticized by union leaders and Democrats as a “union-busting” effort to silence critics.

Decertification would leave the union unable to bargain for things such as pay and protections in the classroom. Without that ability, Hernandez-Mats said, there would be “detrimental” effects and a “mass exodus of teachers” who are tired of political attacks. (The union successfully bargained for its members to receive pay raises ranging from 7% to 10% this school year.)

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article281987848.html#storylink=cpy

Categories DeSantis, Florida, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Unions

Texas: Conservative Rural Republican Legislator Explains Why He Opposes Vouchers

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2023 //
1

Drew Darby is an elected state legislator who represents 10 rural counties in Texas. On most legislation, he’s a garden-variety Republican. On education, he breaks from the Republican majority. He is a friend of public schools and an opponent of vouchers. He was one of the most outspoken of the 21 rural Republicans who bucked Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.

Darby explains in this article why he voted to reject vouchers.

“Editor’s Introduction: On Friday, Nov. 17, 2023, the Texas House voted to remove private school funding vouchers from the public education funding bill known as House Bill 1 against the wishes of the majority in the Texas Senate and Gov. Greg Abbott. The House voted 84-63 in favor of the amendment introduced by John Raney of College Station that removed the vouchers provision. Digging further, this means there were 21 Republicans and 63 Democrats in the House of 150 representatives (though one seat is currently vacant) who voted against vouchers.

“State Rep. Drew Darby, who represents San Angelo and Big Spring in HD 72, was among those Republican representatives who voted against the implementation of school vouchers.

“This is a very important issue because it has many implications for funding for public school districts from now and into the future years as well as how our government in Texas will live up to the Texas Constitution, Article 7, Section 1, that reads:

  • A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.

Here are Darby’s own words as to why he voted against vouchers:

Since you elected me as your state representative, I have sworn a duty to the Constitution and House District 72 to protect public education, the separation of public and private institutions, and the millions of rural West Texas students, parents, and educators who want our communities to succeed. Today, I continue to uphold those same principles by voting to separate the discussion on Education Savings Accounts or vouchers from that of funding our public education system.

The structure proposed in House Bill 1 would have allowed a private institution to discriminate against students with special needs; reject eligible students based on their economic status, race, or religion; and balloon to a $2 billion expense to taxpayers in just two years. In states that have passed a voucher, almost 75% go to those already in private schools, leaving our rural communities to foot the bill.

In the coming weeks and months, various special interest groups and donors, some of whom you may believe you can trust, will flood your mailboxes and airwaves, attempting to argue that I do not support parental rights or school choice. The reality could not be further from the truth. I proudly support our private, public, charter, and homeschool options across West Texas and the Concho Valley. We are truly blessed to have tremendous educational opportunities, which parents already exercise their ability to choose from. Thousands of parents have already decided to send their kids to various schools in our communities, the schools that best suit their needs. I oppose, and have always fought, the taking of taxpayer dollars to be funneled toward institutions with no accountability, no requirement to accept all students, and no requirement to provide for our special education students.

Let me be clear: our teachers need raises, and our schools need more funding. I voted for both of those during the regular session. Now, they are being held hostage in an attempt to force through an unproven voucher program.

Throughout my tenure, my opposition to these programs has been a consistent effort to support a free public education system and uphold the values enshrined in the Texas Constitution. I have become a thorn in the side of the wealthy special interest groups, and I expect a solid attempt from them to install a puppet wholly beholden to the rich and out-of-touch with the needs of our rural communities.

I believe West Texas and the Concho Valley are worth more than 30 pieces of silver.

I am proud to advocate for our rural communities consistently and to have never switched my position or sold out our communities to gain votes, money, or win elected office. I shall happily take the fight to any Judas lurking in our communities and defend my record for as long as it takes against out-of-state interests seeking to buy my vote and distort my record.

I stand with students, parents, and teachers, and I stand against any attempts to rob our communities of our local schools and values.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Rural Schools, Texas

President Biden: The U.S. Will Not Retreat in the Fights Against Putin and Hamas

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2023 //
26

President Biden published an opinion article in The Washington Post today, explaining his administration’s policies in confronting Putin and Hamas. His statement shows that he has a long-term vision to end the cycle of violence in the Mideast. I applaud his wisdom and experience.

He wrote:

Today, the world faces an inflection point, where the choices we make — including in the crises in Europe and the Middle East — will determine the direction of our future for generations to come.
What will our world look like on the other side of these conflicts?


Will we deny Hamas the ability to carry out pure, unadulterated evil? Will Israelis and Palestinians one day live side by side in peace, with two states for two peoples?


Will we hold Vladimir Putin accountable for his aggression, so the people of Ukraine can live free and Europe remains an anchor for global peace and security?


And the overarching question: Will we relentlessly pursue our positive vision for the future, or will we allow those who do not share our values to drag the world to a more dangerous and divided place?

Both Putin and Hamas are fighting to wipe a neighboring democracy off the map. And both Putin and Hamas hope to collapse broader regional stability and integration and take advantage of the ensuing disorder. America cannot, and will not, let that happen. For our own national security interests — and for the good of the entire world.


The United States is the essential nation. We rally allies and partners to stand up to aggressors and make progress toward a brighter, more peaceful future. The world looks to us to solve the problems of our time. That is the duty of leadership, and America will lead. For if we walk away from the challenges of today, the risk of conflict could spread, and the costs to address them will only rise. We will not let that happen.

That conviction is at the root of my approach to supporting the people of Ukraine as they continue to defend their freedom against Putin’s brutal war.
We know from two world wars in the past century that when aggression in Europe goes unanswered, the crisis does not burn itself out. It draws America in directly. That’s why our commitment to Ukraine today is an investment in our own security. It prevents a broader conflict tomorrow.


We are keeping American troops out of this war by supporting the brave Ukrainians defending their freedom and homeland. We are providing them with weapons and economic assistance to stop Putin’s drive for conquest, before the conflict spreads farther.


The United States is not doing this alone. More than 50 nations have joined us to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself. Our partners are shouldering much of the economic responsibility for supporting Ukraine. We have also built a stronger and more united NATO, which enhances our security through the strength of our allies, while making clear that we will defend every inch of NATO territory to deter further Russian aggression. Our allies in Asia are standing with us as well to support Ukraine and hold Putin accountable, because they understand that stability in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific are inherently connected.


We have also seen throughout history how conflicts in the Middle East can unleash consequences around the globe.


We stand firmly with the Israeli people as they defend themselves against the murderous nihilism of Hamas. On Oct. 7, Hamas slaughtered 1,200 people, including 35 American citizens, in the worst atrocity committed against the Jewish people in a single day since the Holocaust. Infants and toddlers, mothers and fathers, grandparents, people with disabilities, even Holocaust survivors were maimed and murdered. Entire families were massacred in their homes. Young people were gunned down at a music festival. Bodies riddled with bullets and burned beyond recognition. And for over a month, the families of more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas, including babies and Americans, have been living in hell, anxiously waiting to discover whether their loved ones are alive or dead. At the time of this writing, my team and I are working hour by hour, doing everything we can to get the hostages released.

And while Israelis are still in shock and suffering the trauma of this attack, Hamas has promised that it will relentlessly try to repeat Oct. 7. It has said very clearly that it will not stop.


The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own and a future free from Hamas. I, too, am heartbroken by the images out of Gaza and the deaths of many thousands of civilians, including children. Palestinian children are crying for lost parents. Parents are writing their child’s name on their hand or leg so they can be identified if the worst happens. Palestinian nurses and doctors are trying desperately to save every precious life they possibly can, with little to no resources. Every innocent Palestinian life lost is a tragedy that rips apart families and communities.


Our goal should not be simply to stop the war for today — it should be to end the war forever, break the cycle of unceasing violence, and build something stronger in Gaza and across the Middle East so that history does not keep repeating itself.

Just weeks before Oct. 7, I met in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The main subject of that conversation was a set of substantial commitments that would help both Israel and the Palestinian territories better integrate into the broader Middle East. That is also the idea behind the innovative economic corridor that will connect India to Europe through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, which I announced together with partners at the Group of 20 summit in India in early September. Stronger integration between countries creates predictable markets and draws greater investment. Better regional connection — including physical and economic infrastructure — supports higher employment and more opportunities for young people. That’s what we have been working to realize in the Middle East. It is a future that has no place for Hamas’s violence and hate, and I believe that attempting to destroy the hope for that future is one reason that Hamas instigated this crisis.

This much is clear: A two-state solution is the only way to ensure the long-term security of both the Israeli and Palestinian people. Though right now it may seem like that future has never been further away, this crisis has made it more imperative than ever.


A two-state solution — two peoples living side by side with equal measures of freedom, opportunity and dignity — is where the road to peace must lead. Reaching it will take commitments from Israelis and Palestinians, as well as from the United States and our allies and partners. That work must start now.


To that end, the United States has proposed basic principles for how to move forward from this crisis, to give the world a foundation on which to build.


To start, Gaza must never again be used as a platform for terrorism. There must be no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, and no reduction in territory. And after this war is over, the voices of Palestinian people and their aspirations must be at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza.


As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution. I have been emphatic with Israel’s leaders that extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank must stop and that those committing the violence must be held accountable. The United States is prepared to take our own steps, including issuing visa bans against extremists attacking civilians in the West Bank.

The international community must commit resources to support the people of Gaza in the immediate aftermath of this crisis, including interim security measures, and establish a reconstruction mechanism to sustainably meet Gaza’s long-term needs. And it is imperative that no terrorist threats ever again emanate from Gaza or the West Bank.


If we can agree on these first steps, and take them together, we can begin to imagine a different future. In the months ahead, the United States will redouble our efforts to establish a more peaceful, integrated and prosperous Middle East — a region where a day like Oct. 7 is unthinkable.


In the meantime, we will continue working to prevent this conflict from spreading and escalating further. I ordered two U.S. carrier groups to the region to enhance deterrence. We are going after Hamas and those who finance and facilitate its terrorism, levying multiple rounds of sanctions to degrade Hamas’s financial structure, cutting it off from outside funding and blocking access to new funding channels, including via social media. I have also been clear that the United States will do what is necessary to defend U.S. troops and personnel stationed across the Middle East — and we have responded multiple times to the strikes against us.


I also immediately traveled to Israel — the first American president to do so during wartime — to show solidarity with the Israeli people and reaffirm to the world that the United States has Israel’s back. Israel must defend itself. That is its right. And while in Tel Aviv, I also counseled Israelis against letting their hurt and rage mislead them into making mistakes we ourselves have made in the past.

From the very beginning, my administration has called for respecting international humanitarian law, minimizing the loss of innocent lives and prioritizing the protection of civilians. Following Hamas’s attack on Israel, aid to Gaza was cut off, and food, water and medicine reserves dwindled rapidly. As part of my travel to Israel, I worked closely with the leaders of Israel and Egypt to reach an agreement to restart the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance to Gazans. Within days, trucks with supplies again began to cross the border. Today, nearly 100 aid trucks enter Gaza from Egypt each day, and we continue working to increase the flow of assistance manyfold. I’ve also advocated for humanitarian pauses in the conflict to permit civilians to depart areas of active fighting and to help ensure that aid reaches those in need. Israel took the additional step to create two humanitarian corridors and implement daily four-hour pauses in the fighting in northern Gaza to allow Palestinian civilians to flee to safer areas in the south.


This stands in stark opposition to Hamas’s terrorist strategy: hide among Palestinian civilians. Use children and innocents as human shields. Position terrorist tunnels beneath hospitals, schools, mosques and residential buildings. Maximize the death and suffering of innocent people — Israeli and Palestinian. If Hamas cared at all for Palestinian lives, it would release all the hostages, give up arms, and surrender the leaders and those responsible for Oct. 7.


As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a cease-fire is not peace. To Hamas’s members, every cease-fire is time they exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing by attacking innocents again. An outcome that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza would once more perpetuate its hate and deny Palestinian civilians the chance to build something better for themselves.


And here at home, in moments when fear and suspicion, anger and rage run hard, we have to work even harder to hold on to the values that make us who we are. We’re a nation of religious freedom and freedom of expression. We all have a right to debate and disagree and peacefully protest, but without fear of being targeted at schools or workplaces or elsewhere in our communities.

In recent years, too much hate has been given too much oxygen, fueling racism and an alarming rise in antisemitism in America. That has intensified in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. Jewish families worry about being targeted in school, while wearing symbols of their faith on the street or otherwise going about their daily lives. At the same time, too many Muslim Americans, Arab Americans and Palestinian Americans, and so many other communities, are outraged and hurting, fearing the resurgence of the Islamophobia and distrust we saw after 9/11.


We can’t stand by when hate rears its head. We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate and bias. We must renounce violence and vitriol and see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans.


In a moment of so much violence and suffering — in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and so many other places — it can be difficult to imagine that something different is possible. But we must never forget the lesson learned time and again throughout our history: Out of great tragedy and upheaval, enormous progress can come. More hope. More freedom. Less rage. Less grievance. Less war. We must not lose our resolve to pursue those goals, because now is when clear vision, big ideas and political courage are needed most. That is the strategy that my administration will continue to lead — in the Middle East, Europe and around the globe. Every step we take toward that future is progress that makes the world safer and the United States of America more secure.

Categories Biden, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Freedom, International

Fact-Checking Trump’s Fantastical Memory of Clash with Iran

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2023 //
27

Glenn Kessler is the official Fact-Checker for The Washington Post. He scrupulously reviews the public statements of public officials and rates them according to their accuracy or inaccuracy. He is nonpartisan and judges Presidents of both parties. He awards “Pinocchios.” A small lie gets one Pinocchio. The highest level of lying gets four.

In this post, he reviews Trump’s claims about standing up to Iran.

Kessler begins:

We have a high bar for fact-checking statements by former president Donald Trump — any speech of his can contain dozens of falsehoods — but in a recent hour-long interview with Univision, the former president offered a tale of relations with Iran so startling that it begged to be explored.

In Trump’s telling, when he was president, the United States retaliated after Iran destroyed an American drone, and then when Iran decided to hit back, it purposely missed a military base with U.S. troops. Not only that, Iranian officials called Trump and let their plans be known, apparently out of respect for him.

You can read our full report and find out the Pinocchio rating by clicking this link (but you’ve probably already guessed the rating).

Could this really have happened? Of course not. We reviewed the public record on both incidents. In the first case, Trump canceled a planned strike on Iran after it downed a $150 million drone, to the shock of his aides. In the second case, most of Iran’s missiles struck a base housing U.S. personnel in Iraq. No one was killed, though many soldiers suffered serious brain injuries, but the absence of deaths was more a result of a well-planned evacuation than Iranian targeting. A vague warning without a target had been given to the Iraqi president — but not to Trump.

I clicked the link and this is what he wrote:

“You remember they [Iran] fired. They hit one of our drones and I hit them. …. They called us to tell us that we’re going to hit back. Here’s the target, but we’re not going to hit the target. We’re going to just miss it. It’s a military base.”

— Former president Donald Trump, in an interview with Univision, streamed Nov. 10

In his hour-long interview with Univision, the former president offered a tale of relations with Iran so startling that it begged to be explored. In his telling, the United States retaliated after Iran destroyed an American drone, and then when Iran decided to hit back, it purposely missed a U.S. military base. Not only that, Iranian officials called Trump and let their plans be known, apparently out of respect for him.

“It was quite an evening,” Trump recounted. “And they sent in 18 drones. Five of them self-destructed. The rest of them essentially missed the base. They were outside the base in areas where there weren’t [people]. Nobody was killed — with all of that, you know, being out there. But they called us. They call me and … this is Iran. This is,you know, this is Iran who’s supposed to be so hostile. They respected us. And I respect them.”

Were Trump and Iran’s supreme leader on speed dial with each other? Trump’s account “is complete nonsense,” said former Trump national security adviser John R. Bolton, who vividly recounted the first drone incident in his critical memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

Little else that Trump said is correct either. As Bolton put it in an interview, “It’s about five or six things mixed together and reported inaccurately.”

The Facts

As we learned during his presidency, Trump is not detailed-oriented and struggles to recount events with precision. He places himself at the center of action, a superhero president whom opponents respect or cower before, and the outcomes are always perfect. Whether he convinces himself the fake stories are true — or whether he deliberately tells falsehoods — is always open to question.

In this case, there was an Iranian attack on a U.S. drone in 2019 — but Trump did not hit back. He lost his nerve at the last minute, according to various news accounts. Then there was an Iranian attack on a U.S. military base in 2020. It involved missiles, not drones. No one was killed, though more than 100 service members suffered from traumatic brain injuries.

Let’s explore each incident in turn.

“They hit one of our drones and I hit them.”

On June 19, 2019, Iran shot down its second U.S. drone, a $150 million RQ-4A Global Hawk, in two weeks. The U.S. military said the drone had been operating in international airspace. Trump’s top national security advisers unanimously recommended that the United States answer back with attacks on three military facilities. According to Bolton’s book, Trump and his aides discussed possible casualties — he was told they would be small given the hour of the planned attack, though it might include Russians — and then Trump briefed congressional leaders about what was coming. He also tweeted: “Iran made a big mistake!”

Then, suddenly, Trump called off the attack with just minutes to go. In the undisciplined Trump White House, a legal adviser had wandered into the Oval Office and told the president that 150 people would be killed. It was not an official estimate but based on a guesstimate that 50 people worked at each base. (According to Bolton, the aide didn’t know the target list had shrunk to two bases.)

“Too many body bags,” Trump told Bolton in a phone call, telling him he had changed his mind, according to Bolton. “Not proportional.” After that, no one could convince Trump to stick to the original plan he had approved, even though he had worried that the attack was not robust enough. He repeatedly said he didn’t want to see a lot of body bags on television.

“In my government experience, this was the most irrational thing I ever witnessed any president do,” wrote Bolton, who also had worked for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Then to compound the internal angst about the turn of events, Trump tweeted about what he had done.

Open the link to see Trump’s tweet.

“On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters,” he wrote. “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not … … proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”

In an interview a few months later with Sean Hannity, Trump suggested that his restraint had generated goodwill with Iran. “We have a lot of goodwill built up,” he said. “They took down a drone, there was nobody in it. They took down a second drone, there was nobody in it. There’s a lot of goodwill.”

But just before that first drone strike, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had made his views about Trump known. Trumphad encouraged Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to meet with Khamenei to try to discover whether Iran was willing to enter new negotiations on the nuclear agreement that President Barack Obama had negotiated and that Trump had terminated. “I don’t consider Trump as a person deserving to exchange messages with; I have no response for him & will not answer him,” Khamenei tweeted.

“They called us to tell us that we’re going to hit back. Here’s the target, but we’re not going to hit the target. We’re going to just miss it.”

Given that Khamenei had said he wouldn’t even consider exchanging messages with Trump, it defies the belief that an Iranian official would call up Trump and inform him in advance that Iran was going to attack a U.S. military base and deliberately miss it.

Any Iranian attack that nearly struck a U.S. base would have made news. The only event that comes close to Trump’s description is a 2020 Iranian ballistic missile attack on al-Asad air base in northern Iraq, which came about six months after Trump scrubbed his planned attack.

The Islamic Republic fired ballistic missiles, with warheads weighing more than 1,000 pounds, at the base just days after Trump ordered the drone killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020. Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force, which is part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and conducts operations outside the country. U.S. officials claimed that he was actively developing plans for attacks on Americans.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said he received a post-midnight warning from Iran that its response to Soleimani was about to start. He was told Iran would target only locations where U.S. forces were present, but the message did not specify the locations, his spokesman said at the time.

Meanwhile, U.S. military intelligence had been watching Iran fill its missiles with liquid fuel and assumed the base would be a target. Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie Jr., commander of Central Command, waited until he believed Iran had downloaded the last of the commercial satellite photos, locking in the target, before he ordered about half of the 2,000 U.S. troops to evacuate the base, according to a detailed account by CBS News. The troops were divided by age — with the oldest ordered to remain to defend it.

The first missile hit at 1:34 a.m. on Jan. 8, less than 90 minutes after the message to Mahdi was received. The barrage lasted 80 minutes, with 11 of 16 missiles striking the base. Miraculously, no one was killed — and Iran later asserted to the United Nations that it was deliberate — but McKenzie estimated to CBS that had he not ordered the evacuation, 100 to 150 Americans would have been killed or wounded and 20 to 30 aircraft destroyed.

Trump initially bragged about the fact that no one was killed, but eventually it emerged that a U.S. contractor suffered a serious eye injury and 110 troops had traumatic brain injuries while sheltering in place, with 35 being sent to Germany and the United States for treatment. Trump dismissed the injuries as headaches: “But I would say, and I can report, it is not very serious. Not very serious.”

Asked to comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded, “I think you’re conflating a few different things here. President Trump’s recounting of what took place is true.” He did not respond to a request for documentation of Trump’s claims.

The Pinocchio Test

How many ways does Trump get this wrong? He claims that he hit Iran after a U.S. drone was downed, but in fact he canceled the strike, to the shock of his aides. He also asserts that Iran personally warned him they would attack a U.S. base and deliberately miss it. That’s ludicrous. In reality, a vague warning without a target was given to the Iraqi president — and most of the missiles hit the base. No one was killed, but that was more the result of a well-planned evacuation than Iranian targeting. Somehow Trump embraces Iran’s self-serving after-the-fact explanation to the United Nations. And while no one was killed, many soldiers suffered serious brain injuries.

Such a jumbled-up recollection of events is par for the course for Trump. So is the fact that he yet again earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios

Categories Lies, Trump

Dan Rather and Elliott Kirschner: Democracy Will Not Survive Another Trump Term

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2023 //
12

Dan Rather and Elliott Kirschner write on their blog Steady about the dangers of another Trump presidency. Trump 2.0, they predict, will mean the end of democracy. They call it “a horrific sequel.” Trump has pledged to turn the Department of Justice into a partisan tool to punish his enemies, both Republicans and Democrats. He will politicize the career civil service and stock it with Trump loyalists. He will use the Insurrection Act to mobilize the military to shut down demonstrations and protests. His plan, Project 2025, lays out a radical plan to redesign the federal role into an instrument of Trump’s vengeance and egotism.

Rather and Kirschner write:

Lately, much of the attention of the Washington establishment, and the media ecosystem that feeds it, has been focused on debating (or diminishing) the electoral prospects of President Biden. There is no shortage of diving boards from which to plunge into the punditry.

One jumping-off point is a series of polls that show Biden in dire straits. These are accompanied by the predictable news reports that quote Democratic “elected officials,” “party leaders,” “campaign strategists,” or even “people close to Biden,” who decline to go on the record when they echo the prevailing wisdom that he is in trouble.

Then there is a rash of third-party candidates threatening to further splinter an already fractured electorate. For example, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s decision not to seek reelection is being framed as both an omen of Biden’s weakness and a threat, because Manchin could represent yet another possible rival for the presidency. Meanwhile, the decisive victories of Democrats across multiple state elections last week have already disappeared in the news cycle’s rearview mirror.

At this point in the campaign season, it is typical for an incumbent president to face this level of scrutiny, second-guessing, and soul searching. Usually, the opposition party is far from deciding on a nominee, and horse race coverage of the current occupant of the Oval Office is catnip for pundits looking for things on which to opine. Furthermore, it is easier to judge an incumbent than a challenger, because we have a lot of data points for how the former would perform in the job of president of the United States — a role without parallel in the world.

But all of these conventions should be thrown out the door for 2024. For starters, while there is a pantomime of a primary campaign going on for the Republican nomination, it has about as much uncertainty as a Harlem Globetrotters game. There is a frontrunner so far ahead that he feels no need to even show up for the debates. And he has paid no price for skipping them. Furthermore, we don’t have to guess what it would be like to have him as president. We’ve already lived through that nightmare once.

But here is where things get even more grim. If Trump were to be reelected, it would be worse, much worse, than the first time. That’s not idle speculation or fantastical conjecture. Trump’s not hiding the truth that he would end American democracy.

We’ve already seen how lies about the 2020 election have become a litmus test for Republican elected officials — including the new speaker of the House. And a recent Washington Post report details how Trump and his allies plan to use the Department of Justice to go after his political rivals, in the kind of revenge politics one finds in dictatorships. Then, in an interview with the Spanish language news service Univision, Trump doubled down on weaponizing the DOJ to attack his opponents.

In a Veterans Day rant in New Hampshire, Trump called upon the authoritarian playbook of dehumanizing political opponents. He railed against “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country” and added, “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”

Of course, Trump has always been a master of projection. His eagerness to weaponize the DOJ stems from his misplaced sense of victimhood — his belief that he has been targeted with his numerous indictments. The legal jeopardy he faces stems from his attempts to tear down American democracy once. In his rage, he promises to escalate. That has been his playbook in business and politics.

Trump is who he is. And that means it is all the more important for the press not to normalize this election. Yes, there will be polls. And yes, there is a horse race. And yes, reporters can and should cover Biden and his policies with objectivity, to the extent humanly possible. But there should be no diminishing what the other candidate intends to do if he regains the White House. There should be no acceptance of the fact that large swaths of one of our two major political parties are denying the results of a free and fair election.

Recently, reporters are becoming bolder in demanding Republicans state that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen. That is a positive trend and should be followed up with questions about Trump’s attacks on democracy and the rule of law.

This is not simply an election between a Democrat and a Republican or an incumbent and a challenger. This is not primarily about weighing polls and voter enthusiasm in battleground states. This should not be reduced to comparing advertising dollars or voter registration numbers. This is about a vote that will decide the future of our nation in ways unlike any since the Civil War.

Trump isn’t hiding his intentions. There is no excuse for minimizing the threat he poses. What’s at stake in the upcoming election is the continuity of America’s precarious experiment in democracy.

Categories Bigotry, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Trump

Mothers Against Greg Abbott Celebrates Defeat of Voucher Bill!

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2023 //
2

Mothers Against Greg Abbott is celebrating because Governor Gregg Abbott’s voucher proposal—his highest priority—was defeated for the fifth time this year. Once, in the regular legislative session, then again and again and again and again in four special sessions.

Abbott offered bribes: more funding for public schools, a pay raise for teachers—but the bribes didn’t persuade the rural Republicans who saw vouchers as a threat to their small community public schools.

Abbott threatened to primary Republicans who didn’t vote for vouchers. That didn’t work either. Now the Moms (MAGA!) have to go back to work to get their public schools funded.

This is their message, issued within hours after vouchers went down for the fifth time:

From Mothers Against Greg Abbott:

The Texas House has just voted down school vouchers.

This is a huge victory for Texas public schools… and for mothers, and others, like us. Today’s victory  wouldn’t have been possible without the help you provided over the last several months. We asked you to help us support public schools, and you stepped up time and again.

Our hard work paid off. 

I don’t want to spike the football to celebrate our success. Not least because our public schools might not have a football to spike if the voucher plan had succeeded. (Yes, I know that spiking the football in a high school game is a 15-yard penalty, but let’s go with the metaphor...)

The same people who tried to strip our public schools of funding, and to give that money to rich private schools instead, aren’t going away. They will be back. 

And so will we: We defended our public schools today, and we will defend them again.

At Mothers Against Greg Abbott, we believe in high quality, free public education for our children. We support our public school teachers and our public school children. And we won’t let a handful of anti-school activists steal our children’s futures from us.

We’re here in support of public education, and we aren’t going anywhere. The next time public education is on the legislative table, we’ll be there to defend it. 

We won’t spike the football then either. We’ll celebrate because our public schools will still be there — to educate our children, to help them become our future leaders, to create the civic engagement that we all need.

And, yes, to give our kids a football, a softball, a volleyball, a tennis ball, a baseball, a basketball, arts programs, orchestra, school plays, reading specialists, school counselors, beloved school librarians, and so much more. 

With love for our public schools and our public school educators,

Nancy Thompson, Founder
Mothers Against Greg Abbott

This week, our Mothers For Democracy Institute shares the mic with YOU this week on the newest episode of The Voucher Scam! 

Hosts Claire O’Neal and Nichole Abshire ask listeners this week to share their love of public schools and their worries about vouchers. With today’s VICTORY on school vouchers in the Texas House, there is no better time to start streaming. Tune in to the conversation, here ›››

And, if you like what you hear, shoot over a donation and help support our podcast series.

Mothers for Democracy Institute is a 501(c)(3) and
donations are Tax Deductible. We just launched our podcast series The Voucher Scam, but we more planned for 2024 to further support democracy and civics education. And we
would love your support.
https://bit.ly/voucherscam

Mothers For Democracy / Mothers Against Greg Abbott is the largest coalition dedicated to defeating the extremist MAGA movement in Texas. While we don’t agree on every topic, we all agree the Texas GOP isn’t Texas values.

Since 2021, we’ve been helping lead the Democratic resistance in Texas, we’ve organized thousands of local voters and our public issue campaigns have reached millions of Texans in key battleground areas. Now, we’re backed by thousands of Texas parents who are mobilizing in their own neighborhoods to ensure the Texas we hand over to the next generation is better than the one we’ve inherited. 

We’re sick and tired of being linked to a handful of extremist MAGA spokesmen—divisive politicians like Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz. We know it’s going to take all of us to defeat them this election cycle. The power of mothers and others like us means we know we can do it: It’s time for democracy to prevail. 

100% of our work is powered by individual donations and our average donation is just $23. We can’t stop until our children have the future they deserve. So this election cycle, we’re taking down Ted Cruz and dozens more of his Texas MAGA cronies. With you by our side, we’ll deliver the kind of leadership everyone living in Texas can be proud of. 

Support Our Work

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Lies, Parents, Privatization, Republicans, Resistance, Rural Schools, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

BREAKING NEWS: Vouchers Defeated in Texas Again!

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2023 //
5

The Texas House of Representatives met in special session for the fourth time, called together by Governor Greg Abbott specifically to pass voucher legislation. The House voted to strip vouchers out of HB1.

Rural Republicans sunk the voucher program, joined by every Democrat.

The vote to kill vouchers passed by 84-63.

Those opposed to vouchers included 21 Republicans, which was 25% of all Republicans in the House.

The vote for vouchers was 63 Republicans and 0 Democrats.

Will Governor Abbott understand? Vouchers will not pass. Rural Republicans support their public schools.

Categories Republicans, Resistance, Rural Schools, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

Hillary Clinton: Hamas Must Go

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2023 //
53

Hillary Clinton wrote in The Atlantic about why Hamas must go. It is a barrier to any future peace, she writes. It is a terrorist organization that has consistently blocked a two-state solution. It shamelessly uses the Palestinians as human shields. As the Washington Post recently documented, the massacre of October 7 was intended by Hamas to provoke an overwhelming Israeli military attack, which was sure to turn public opinion to the Gazans and eclipse any memory of the savage murders, rapes, and brutality of October 7. And for maximum impact, the Hamas terrorists wore body cams to document their atrocities.

She wrote:

One morning in November 2012, I knocked on the door of President Barack Obama’s suite in the Raffles Hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, so early that he was barely out of bed. I had an urgent question that could not wait for the president to finish his morning coffee: Should we try to broker a cease-fire in Gaza? Then, like now, the extreme Islamist terror group Hamas had sparked a crisis by indiscriminately attacking Israeli civilians. Israel had responded with air strikes, and a ground invasion of Gaza appeared imminent.

The president and I debated whether I should leave Asia, fly to the Middle East, and try to negotiate a halt to the fighting before the situation escalated further. The reason to go was clear: Stopping the violence would save lives and prevent the conflict from spiraling into a wider regional war.

The reasons not to go were more nuanced but also compelling. President Obama and I were both wary of suggesting that Israel did not have a right and a responsibility to defend itself against terrorists. If Hamas did not face consequences for its attacks, it would be emboldened to carry out more. We also knew Hamas had a history of breaking agreements and could not be trusted. For that matter, neither side seemed ready to pull back from the brink. Diplomacy is all about leverage and timing. If I tried and failed to negotiate a cease-fire, it would reduce America’s credibility in the region and lower the likelihood that we could reengage successfully later.

In the end, we decided the risks were worth it. I headed to the region and began intense shuttle diplomacy among Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Late into the night in Cairo, I went line by line through a proposal I’d worked out with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The Egyptians were on the phone with Hamas leaders in Gaza. Finally, I was able to announce that all parties had agreed to a truce.

On the long plane ride home, I asked my aide Jake Sullivan, who is now President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, if Hamas was abiding by the agreement we’d just struck. So far, he told me, the answer was yes. I was relieved that we’d prevented further bloodshed, but I worried that all we’d really managed to do was put a lid on a simmering cauldron that would likely boil over again in the future.

Unfortunately, that fear proved correct. In 2014, Hamas violated the cease-fire and started another war by abducting Israeli hostages and launching rocket attacks against civilians. Israel responded forcefully, but Hamas remained in control of Gaza. The terrorists re-armed, and the pattern repeated itself in 2021, with more civilians killed. This all culminated in the horrific massacre of Israeli civilians last month, the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.

This history suggests three insights for the current crisis and the future of this complex and volatile region. First, October 7 made clear that this bloody cycle must end and that Hamas cannot be allowed to once again retrench, re-arm, and launch new attacks—while continuing to use people in Gaza as expendable human shields. Second, a full cease-fire that leaves Hamas in power would be a mistake. For now, pursuing more limited humanitarian pauses that allow aid to get in and civilians and hostages to get out is a wiser course. Third, Israel’s long policy of containment has failed—it needs a new strategy and new leadership.

For me, Israel and Gaza are not just names on a map. I have grieved with Israeli families whose loved ones were abducted or killed in terrorist attacks. I have held the hands of the wounded in their hospital beds. In Jerusalem, I visited a bombed-out pizzeria and will never forget it.

I have also been to Gaza. I have talked with Palestinians who have suffered greatly from the conflicts of the past decades and dream of peace and a state of their own. Before Hamas seized power, I met women using microloans from the United States to start new businesses and become breadwinners for their families, including a dressmaker who—because she was finally able to buy a sewing machine—could send her two daughters to school. My decades of experience in the region taught me that Palestinian and Israeli parents may say different prayers at worship but they share the same hopes for their kids—just like Americans, just like parents everywhere.

That is why I am convinced Hamas must go. On October 7, these terrorists killed babies, raped women, and kidnapped innocent civilians. They continue to hold more than 200 hostages. They have proved again and again that they will not abide by cease-fires, will sabotage any efforts to forge a lasting peace, and will never stop attacking Israel.

Hamas does not speak for the Palestinian people. Hamas deliberately places military installations in and below hospitals and refugee camps because it is trying to maximize, not minimize, the impact on Palestinian civilians for its own propaganda purposes. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is heartbreaking—and every death means more blood on Hamas’s hands.

So the Biden administration is correct not to seek a full cease-fire at this moment, which would give Hamas a chance to re-arm and perpetuate the cycle of violence. Hamas would claim that it had won and it would remain a key part of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance.

Cease-fires freeze conflicts rather than resolve them. In 1999, the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević called for a cease-fire in Kosovo, where NATO air strikes were trying to stop his brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. It was a cynical attempt to preserve Serbia’s control of Kosovo, and the Clinton administration continued bombing until Milošević’s forces withdrew. Today, global allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin call for a cease-fire in Ukraine because they know freezing the conflict will leave Russia in control of large swaths of Ukrainian territory that it seized illegally. Putin could reinforce his troops and then resume the conflict at a time of his choosing.

In 2012, freezing the conflict in Gaza was an outcome we and the Israelis were willing to accept. But Israel’s policy since 2009 of containing rather than destroying Hamas has failed. A cease-fire now that restored the pre–October 7 status quo ante would leave the people of Gaza living in a besieged enclave under the domination of terrorists and leave Israelis vulnerable to continued attacks. It would also consign hundreds of hostages to continued captivity.

Cease-fires can make it possible to pursue negotiations aimed at achieving a lasting peace, but only when the timing and balance of forces are right. Bosnia in the 1990s saw 34 failed cease-fires before the Clinton administration’s military intervention prompted all sides to stop fighting and finally negotiate a peace agreement. It is possible that if Israel dismantles Hamas’s infrastructure and military capacity and demonstrates that terrorism is a dead end, a new peace process could begin in the Middle East. But a cease-fire that leaves Hamas in power and eager to strike Israel will make this harder, if not impossible. For decades, Hamas has undermined every serious attempt at peace by launching new attacks, including the October 7 massacre that seems to have been designed, at least in part, to disrupt progress toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. (Those negotiations also aimed to bring important benefits for Palestinians.)

By contrast, the humanitarian pauses advocated by the Biden administration and tentatively accepted by the Israelis can save lives without rewarding Hamas. There is precedent: During previous wars in Gaza, Israel and Hamas agreed to a number of pauses so that relief could get into the area. Recent conflicts in Yemen and Sudan have also undergone brief humanitarian pauses. Whether for hours or days, breaks in the fighting can provide safety to aid workers and refugees. They could also help facilitate hostage negotiations, which is an urgent priority right now.

Rejecting a premature cease-fire does not mean defending all of Israel’s tactics, nor does it lessen Israel’s responsibility to comply with the laws of war. Minimizing civilian casualties is legally and morally necessary. It is also a strategic imperative. Israel’s long-term security depends on its achieving peaceful coexistence with neighbors who are prepared to accept its existence and its need for security. The disaster of October 7 has discredited the theory that Israel can contain Hamas, ignore the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, and freeze Israeli control over Palestinians forever.

Going forward, Israel needs a new strategy and new leadership. Instead of the current ultra-right-wing government, it will need a government of national unity that’s rooted in the center of Israeli politics and can make the hard choices ahead. At home, it will have to reaffirm Israeli democracy after a tumultuous period. In Gaza, it should resist the urge to reoccupy the territory after the war, accept an internationally mandated interim administration for governing the Strip, and support regional efforts to reform and revive the Palestinian Authority so it has the credibility and the means to reassume control of Gaza. In the West Bank, it must clamp down on the violence perpetrated by extremist Israeli settlers and stop building new settlements that make it harder to imagine a future Palestinian state. Ultimately, the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a secure, democratic, Jewish state is by achieving two states for two peoples. And in the region, Israel should resume serious negotiations with Saudi Arabia and others to normalize relations and build a broad coalition to counter Iran.

For now, Israel should focus on freeing the hostages, increasing humanitarian aid, protecting civilians, and ensuring that Hamas terrorists can no longer murder families, abduct children, exploit civilians as human shields, or start new wars. But when the guns fall silent, the hard work of peace building must begin. There is no other choice.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Evil, Extremism, Hillary Clinton, International

Adam Grant: What We Can Learn from International Assessments

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2023 //
26

I have been critical of the focus on international tests because real life teaches us that the test scores of 15-year-old students do not predict future economic success for nations. I find it bizarre that people say that America is a great country but its schools are no good. That doesn’t make sense.

Adam Grant, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, injects a dose of common sense into that newspaper’s education coverage:

He writes:

Which country has the best education system? Since 2000, every three years, 15-year-olds in dozens of countries have taken the Program for International Student Assessment — a standardized test of math, reading and science skills. On the inaugural test, which focused on reading, the top country came as a big surprise: tiny Finland. Finnish students claimed victory again in 2003 (when the focus was on math) and 2006 (when it was on science), all while spending about the same time on homework per week as the typical teenager in Shanghai does in a single day.

Just over a decade later, Europe had a new champion. Here, too, it wasn’t one of the usual suspects — not a big, wealthy country like Germany or Britain but the small underdog nation of Estonia. Since that time, experts have been searching for the secrets behind these countries’ educational excellence. They recently found one right here in the United States.

In North Carolina, economists examined data on several million elementary school students. They discovered a common pattern across about 7,000 classrooms that achieved significant gains in math and reading performance.

Those students didn’t have better teachers. They just happened to have the same teacher at least twice in different grades. A separate team of economists replicated the study with nearly a million elementary and middle schoolers in Indiana — and found the same results.

Every child has hidden potential. It’s easy to spot the ones who are already sparkling, but many students are uncut gems. When teachers stay with their students longer, they can see beyond the surface and recognize the brilliance beneath.

Instead of teaching a new cohort of students each year, teachers who practice “looping” move up a grade or more with their students. It can be a powerful tool. And unlike many other educational reforms, looping doesn’t cost a dime.

With more time to get to know each student personally, teachers gain a deeper grasp of the kids’ strengths and challenges. The teachers have more opportunities to tailor their instructional and emotional support to help all the students in the class reach their potential. They’re able to identify growth not only in peaks reached, but also in obstacles overcome. The nuanced knowledge they acquire about each student isn’t lost in the handoff to the next year’s teacher.

Finland and Estonia go even further. In both countries, it’s common for elementary schoolers to have the same teacher not just two years in a row but sometimes for up to six straight years. Instead of specializing just in their subjects, teachers also get to specialize in their students. Their role evolves from instructor to coach and mentor.

It didn’t occur to me until I read the research, but I was lucky to benefit from looping. My middle school piloted a program to keep students with the same two core teachers for all three years. When I struggled with spatial visualization in math, Mrs. Bohland didn’t question my aptitude. Having seen me ace a year of algebra, she knew I was an abstract thinker and taught me to use equations to identify the dimensions of shapes before drawing them in 3D. And after a few years of observing what fired me up in social studies and the humanities, Mrs. Minninger knew my interests well. She saw a common theme in my passions for analyzing character development in Greek mythology and anticipating counterarguments in mock trial — and suggested doing my year-end project on psychology. Thank you, Mama Minnie.

Most parents see the benefit of keeping their kids with the same coaches in sports and music for more than a year. Yet the American education system fails to do this with teachers, the most important coaches of all. Critics have long worried that following their students through a range of grades will prevent teachers from developing specialized skills appropriate to specific grade levels. Parents fret about rolling the dice on the same teacher more than once. What if my kid gets stuck with Mr. Snape or Miss Viola Swamp? But in the data, looping actually had the greatest upsides for less effective teachers — and lower-achieving students. Building an extended relationship gave them the opportunity to grow together.

The Finnish and Estonian education systems are far from perfect, and Finland’s PISA scores have dipped a bit in recent years. But both countries have done more than just achieve high rates of high performers — they’ve achieved some of the world’s lowest rates of low performers, with remarkably small performance gapsbetween schools and between richer and poorer students. Being disadvantaged is less of a disadvantage in Finland and Estonia than almost anywhere else.

Looping isn’t the only practice that makes a difference. Both Finland and Estonia have professionalized education systems — they often require master’s degrees for teachers, training them in evidence-based education practices and methods for interpreting ongoing research in the field. And teachers are entrusted with a great deal of autonomy. Whereas American kindergarten has become more like first grade, with more emphasis on spelling, writing and math, Finland and Estonia make learning fun with a play-based curriculum. Elementary schoolers typically get 15 minutes of recess for every 45 minutes of instruction. Teachers don’t have to waste time teaching to the test. And over the years, if students start to struggle, instead of labeling them as remedial or forcing them to repeat grades, schools in both countries offer earlyinterventions focused on individual tutoring and extra support. That helps students get up to speed without being pulled off track.

Over the years, American students have consistently lagged behind two to three dozen countries on the PISA. A major factor in our lackluster results is the huge gapbetween our highest- and lowest-performing students. The U.S. education system is built around a culture of winner take all. Students who win the wealth lottery get to attend the best schools with the best teachers. Those who win the intelligence lottery may get to enroll in gifted-and-talented programs.

Great education systems create cultures of opportunity for all. They don’t settle for no child left behind; they strive to help every child get ahead. As the education expert Pasi Sahlberg writes, success is when “all students perform beyond expectations.” Finnish and Estonian schools don’t invest just in students who show early signs of high ability — they invest in every student regardless of apparent ability. And there are few better ways to do that than to keep students with teachers who have the time to get to know their abilities.

Categories International, Standardized Testing, Students

Thom Hartmann: The GOP is the Party of Austerity, Tax Cuts, and Death

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2023 //
12

I don’t know how Thom Hartmann does it. He puts out one brilliantly researched article after another, connecting the dots and explaining why our country and our democracy are in trouble. The Democrats want to build a sturdy safety net; the Republicans want everyone to fend for himself or herself. If you are rich, the Republican formula works; if you are not, you are in trouble. It’s amazing that so many who rely on government programs give their vote to a party pledged to kill those programs.

He writes:

In the 1930s, after FDR rolled out programs to aid the homeless and unemployed across the country, America enjoyed a longer life expectancy — and more healthy years within that life expectancy — than any other wealthy nation.

While some of that was due to the public health crisis echoing across Europe in the wake of World War I, it was largely because FDR’s Democrats in charge of the country were building schools and hospitals like there was no tomorrow. 

Republican President Eisenhower followed in that tradition through the 1950s, and in the 1960s LBJ rolled out Medicare and Medicaid. As a result, we continued to have the world’s best lifespans and quality-of-life.

Then came Reagan’s austerity and neoliberalism campaigns in 1981 and America began to become unraveled.

A new study published by the National Academy of Sciences in the journal PNAS Nexus looked at “excess deaths” (they called them “missing Americans”) in our country versus others around the world. The researchers from Boston University School of Public Health, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Harvard Medical School and TH Chan School of Public Health found:

“The United States had lower mortality rates than peer countries in the 1930s–1950s and similar mortality in the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning in the 1980s, however, the United States began experiencing a steady increase in the number of missing Americans, reaching 622,534 in 2019 alone.”

The excess deaths, it turns out, are almost all entirely the result of Republican policies, both at the federal and state level. 

The researchers found:

“Stagnant minimum wages and losses of collective bargaining protections have contributed to widening economic inequality. A scant safety net for working-age adults and the absence of universal healthcare have privatized risk, tying health more closely to personal wealth and employment.

“Additionally, lax regulation of opioids, firearms, environmental pollutants, unhealthy foods, and workplace safety has contributed to elevated US mortality, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income people.

And it’s worse in Red states:

“Increasingly divergent policies at the state level have resulted in widening health gaps across US states. In those geographic areas of the United States where excess mortality has increased the most, voters have turned towards policy-makers who have further undermined population health, e.g. through refusal to expand Medicaid or to implement firearm regulations.”

While not coming right out and saying that people live longer in Blue states than Red states, that’s largely what the study found. And it’s not a small effect:

“In 2021, there were 26.4 million years of life lost due to excess US mortality relative to peer nations…”

While President Eisenhower ran for re-election in 1956 by bragging about how on his watch millions more Americans had gotten good union jobs or signed up for Social Security, by 1981, when Reagan took office, the 1978 efforts of five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court to legalize political bribery were beginning to seriously take hold.

That’s when everything changed. Since 1981, millions of Americans have died unnecessarily because of neoliberal austerity policies: their lives were sacrificed on the altars of increased corporate profits and lower taxes for billionaires.

— Reagan told us that the “union bosses” were just out for themselves and the best thing American workers could do was to rely on their employers’ good will. He also claimed that the minimum wage actually hurt low-wage workers because, he said, it prevented employers from hiring more people.

Both were lies, as history has vividly shown, and both contributed to our epidemic of early and unnecessary deaths, as Red state minimum wages are still as low as $7.25/hour and Red “Right to Work for Less” states make it nearly impossible to unionize.

“Stagnant minimum wages and losses of collective bargaining protections have contributed to widening economic inequality” that leads to early deaths, reported the researchers.

— The Republican backlash to Obamacare extending Medicaid to everybody in the country wasn’t limited to their lawsuit before the Supreme Court that ended up letting Red states opt out of coverage, or to the Astroturf “Tea Party” movement funded by rightwing billionaires.

— To this day, more than a decade later, there are still a dozen Red states that have taken the five Republican justices up on their offer and refuse to expand the program. Those Republican-controlled states have also thrown hundreds of bureaucratic roadblocks to people getting any kind of state services, from food stamps to unemployment insurance to housing assistance.

“A scant safety net for working-age adults and the absence of universal healthcare have privatized risk, tying health more closely to personal wealth and employment” that leads to early deaths, reported the researchers.

— A collaborative research project between the University of Texas and the University of Toronto published in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that the Red state preference for deregulation and a lack of oversight: 

“…explained 9.2% of an enrollee’s odds of receiving prolonged opioids… The correlation between a county’s Republican presidential vote and the adjusted rate of … prolonged opioid use was 0.42 (P<.001). In the 693 counties with adjusted rates of opioid prescription significantly higher than the mean county rate, the mean Republican presidential vote was 59.96%, vs 38.67% in the 638 counties with significantly lower rates.”

— Cancer alley is alive and well in Texas and Louisiana thanks to Republican governments’ in those states refusal to enforce environmental regulations that would keep carcinogens out of the air and water.

— A child living in Mississippi is ten times more likely to die from gunshot than a child in Massachusetts because Republicans in Mississippi refuse to adopt rational, constitutional gun control regulations like Massachusetts has had for decades.

— Obesity and the diabetes, heart disease, and strokes associated with it are vastly more prevalent and thus deadly in Red states than Blue states because so many more people are living in poverty in Red states and junk food is cheaper than healthy food.

— Twenty-nine states, encompassing virtually all the nation’s Red states, have no state-level workplace safety agencies; those only exist in 21 mostly Blue states. As a result, Red Wyoming has 10.4 workplace deaths per 100,000 workers while Blue Rhode Island only has 1.0 deaths per 100,000 workers.

“Additionally, lax regulation of opioids, firearms, environmental pollutants, unhealthy foods, and workplace safety has contributed to elevated US mortality, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income people” wrote the researchers about unnecessary/early deaths in America.

When The Washington Post looked into the differences between Red and Blue states, what they found was shocking. 

For example, noted the authors:

“Ohio sticks out — for all the wrong reasons. Roughly 1 in 5 Ohioans will die before they turn 65, according to Montez’s analysis using the state’s 2019 death rates. The state, whose legislature has been increasingly dominated by Republicans, has plummeted nationally when it comes to life expectancy rates, moving from middle of the pack to the bottom fifth of states during the last 50 years, The Post found. Ohioans have a similar life expectancy to residents of Slovakia and Ecuador, relatively poor countries.”

While it would be easy and glib to say that Republican politicians want the citizens of their states to die young, the simple truth is that they don’t care: their priority, instead, is the profitability of the companies in their states and keeping the taxes on their oligarchs low.

Author Mark Jacob noted on Xitter: 

“Voting for Republicans is like eating poison.”

In fact, eating poison is a choice. Most people trapped in Red states, though, don’t have the means or ability to move to a Blue state because they’ve been denied a good education, are saddled with medical debt, and/or haven’t made enough at their work to afford the transition.

Blue states, for their part, are fighting back on behalf of their citizens. As Bernie’s poverty advisor Nikhil Goyal wrote for The New York Times:

“Fourteen [Blue] states have adopted a state-level child tax credit, with many featuring a fully refundable provision so that families with little to no income can benefit. This year, New Mexico has expanded free preschool seats and made child care free for families earning up to four times the federal poverty rate — roughly $120,000 for a family of four.

“In the upcoming fiscal year, Minnesota will pour more than $250 million of additional funding into early childhood education to reduce the costs of child care and create thousands of new preschool slots. This includes $10 million to supplement funding of the federal Head Start program, which serves children up to the age of 5 and should be bolstered by states.

“Today, nine [Blue] states have universal free school breakfast and lunch on the books. Just last month, the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, established a $20 million initiative that will help fund grocery stores in food deserts.”

But every action draws a reaction, as Isaac Newton was quick to point out. Republicans are now trying to do to Blue states — to all of America — the same damage they’ve done to Red states over the past 40 years.

In the eleven months since Republicans have taken control of the US House of Representatives, child poverty in America has doubled. This is because Republicans in the House refused to renew programs Democrats put in place providing health care, food assistance, housing support, the child tax credit, and subsidized child care: all have now expired.

In the past 40 days, 3.2 million children lost access to healthcare, 70,000 childcare and preschool programs have closed, and the child tax credit has expired. So have the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s emergency allotments. As of yesterday, 10,046,000 Americans have been kicked off Medicaid, nearly all in Red states.

And it’s all intentional.

Republicans will proudly tell you it’s necessary to keep taxes low on their billionaire donors, and to prevent poor people from becoming “lazy.” Speaker MAGA Mark Johnson will tell you that it’s the Christian way, just like trashing queer people and forcing 10-year-old rape victims to carry their pregnancies to term.

Welcome to the 2023 GOP and their plans to “deconstruct the administrative state” and drag America back to the 19th century.

Mark Jacob was right about the poison part. But instead of Republican voters eating it, their politicians are determined to force it down the throats of all of us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Democrats, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Funding, Health, Republicans
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