Archives for the month of: April, 2024
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Dana Milbank: Trump Forgot But We Should Not

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2024 //
16

Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Post, wrote that Trump is counting on voters to forget how chaotic it was when he was President. Even now, we are daily inundated with the chaos that, as Nikki Haley said, always follows in Trump’s wake.

Milbank reminds us of the character of the man who would be President again or dictator for a day:

The Very Stable Genius is glitching again.
This week, he announced that he is not — repeat, NOT — planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He apparently forgot that he had vowed over and over again to do exactly that, saying as recently as a few months ago that Republicans “should never give up” on efforts to “terminate” Obamacare.

“I’m not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME,” the Republican nominee wrote this week on his Truth Social platform. Rather, he said, he wants to make Obamacare better for “OUR GREST AMERICAN CITIZENS.”

Joe Buden disinformates and misinformates? For a guy trying to make an issue of his opponent’s mental acuity, this was not, shall we say, a grest look.

The previous day, Trump held a news conference where he nailed some equally puzzling planks onto his platform.

“We’ll bring crime back to law and order,” he announced.

Also: “We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after a Tuesday already.”

And, most peculiar of all: “You can’t have an election in the middle of a political season.”

If he can’t recall that elections frequently do overlap with political seasons, then he surely can’t be expected to remember what was happening at this point in 2020. “ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?” he asked last week. The poor fellow must have forgotten all about the economic collapse and his administration’s catastrophic bungling of the pandemic.

Or maybe he didn’t forget. Maybe he’s just hoping the rest of us will forget. In a sense, Trump’s prospects for 2024 rely on Americans experiencing mass memory loss: Will we forget just how crazy things were when he was in the White House? And will we forget about the even crazier things he has said he would do if he gets back there?

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments from antiabortion forces who want to ban mifepristone, the pill used in about 60 percent of abortions. But just as the justices were taking up the case, Trump’s own proposal to ban the abortion pill vanished.

The Heritage Foundation-run Project 2025, to which Trump has unofficially outsourced policymaking for a second term, said that a “glitch” had caused its policies — including those embracing a mifepristone ban — to disappear from its website. The Biden campaign said it was “calling BS on Trump and his allies’ shameless attempt to hide their agenda,” and the missing documents returned — including the language calling abortion pills “the single greatest threat to unborn children” and vowing to withdraw regulatory approval for the drugs.

About seven in 10 Americans believe the abortion pill should be legal. So it’s easy to see why Trump might wish to erase his plan to ban the pill — just as he would like to erase his calls for the repeal of Obamacare, which has the support of 6 in 10 Americans.

The extremism isn’t just at Project 2025, stocked with former Trump advisers. The House Republican Study Committee, which counts 80 percent of House Republicans as members, put out a budget last week that would rescind approval of mifepristone, dismantle the “failed Obamacare experiment” and embrace a nationwide abortion ban from the moment of conception.

Trump and some vulnerable congressional Republicans might wish that Americans will forget such things by November. But it’s all there in black and white.

Trump is a man of greatness. So says Trump. “It is my great honor to be at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach tonight, AWARDS NIGHT, to receive the CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY & THE SENIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY,” he proclaimed over the weekend. “I WON BOTH!

So much winning. “Congratulations, Donald,” President Biden tweeted. “Quite the accomplishment.”

Trump won a more significant victory on Monday, when an appellate panel reduced the bond he needs to post as he appeals a fraud verdict against him to $175 million from $454 million. Trump didn’t have enough cash to secure the larger bond. But at a news conference he assured reporters that he was still really, really rich: “I have a lot of money … I don’t need to borrow money. I have a lot of money. … I have a lot of cash. … I have a lot of cash and a great company. … I have very low debt. … I built a phenomenal company that’s very low leverage, unbelievably low leverage with a lot of cash, a lot of everything else.”

Give that man another trophy.

Trump seemed particularly hurt that the judge in the fraud case valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million, he said, when “half of the living room is worth more than that. So it’s worth anywhere from 50 to 100 times that amount.”

Give that man $1.8 billion for Mar-a-Lago, and another trophy.

Actually, Trump’s supporters have already given him about $5 billion this week — at least on paper — for doing nothing at all. His Truth Social went public, and even though it had a loss of $49 million in the first nine months of 2023 on revenue of just $3.4 million, it was valued at more than $8 billion. That’s because Trump’s fans, wanting a piece of the action, bid up the price. The stock in the company will almost certainly collapse. The only question is whether Trump can unload his shares before then (he’s supposed to keep them for six months) and leave his supporters once again holding the bag.

Trump uses Truth Social to post doctored articles about him that omit negative details, and now he’s making up stuff about Truth Social. He said he didn’t list the company on the New York Stock Exchange because it would be “treated too badly in New York” by Democratic officeholders. So he instead listed the company on Nasdaq, which is based in … New York. Trump said the “top person” at the NYSE “is mortified. … He said, ‘I’m losing business.’ ” As CNN pointed out, neither the president nor the chair of the exchange is a “he.”

Trump must not have a lot of faith that he’ll make off with his billions before the Truth Social bubble bursts, because he’s actively seeking other ways to grift. This week he started hawking bibles.

“Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again,” Trump posted. “As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.” He directed his supporters to a website selling the Good Book for $59.99 a copy.

The website boasts: “Yes, this is the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” Read on and you find out that the bible mongers are using Trump’s name and likeness “under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC,” a company owned by Trump.
Trump is getting kickbacks for selling the gospel — marketing God the same way he sold Trump-branded “Never Surrender High-Tops” sneakers last month for $399 a pair and, before that, digital trading cards showing Trump as a superhero.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in the video promoting his new bible hustle.
Trump has an arms-length relationship with the Bible, which he brandished outside a church near Lafayette Square after protesters were dispersed with tear gas; he once referred to a passage from Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians” and, at another point, couldn’t come up with a favorite Bible verse.

But the man does have a God complex. His campaign has promoted a video at rallies announcing that “God Gave us Trump.” He has called himself “the chosen one” and has shared a post calling him “the second greatest” after Jesus.

This week, Trump shared another post with a verse from Psalms, topped by a message likening Trump’s suffering in the fraud case to the Crucifixion: “It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you,” the message said, along with Trump’s reply: “Beautiful, thank you!”

A crucial difference, however, is that Jesus was not facing a trial over hush money paid to a porn actress. The judge in that case, Juan Merchan, said the trial will begin on April 15. Trump responded to this news by attacking the judge because his daughter works for a Democratic consulting firm. The judge slapped a gag order on Trump blocking him from harassing jurors and people who work for the judge or for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and their families. Trump responded with another attack on the judge and his daughter (who weren’t included in the gag order). Merchan is “suffering from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump said of the judge, postulating that “maybe the Judge is such a hater because his daughter makes money by working to ‘Get Trump.’”

If there is a trophy for pretrial self-sabotage, Trump wins that one, too.

Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party grew yet tighter this week. The Post’s Josh Dawsey reported that those seeking employment at the Republican National Committee have been asked during job interviews whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen. (The correct answer, from the RNC’s perspective, is “Hell yes.”)

Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump, installed as RNC co-chair this month as part of a pro-Trump purge, this week brought Scott Presler to party headquarters. “Exciting things to come!” she promised. No doubt: Presler was on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, promotes QAnon conspiracy ideas, planned “stop the steal” events, and organized “March Against Sharia” protests in his work for an anti-Islam group.
As for the Trump effort to win over disenchanted Nikki Haley voters, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman report in the New York Times that he has opted to “bypass any sort of reconciliation” with her. Said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon: “Screw Nikki Haley — we don’t need her endorsement.”

But the MAGA takeover goes far deeper than personnel. Consider the wild conspiracy theories that came from the Trump crowd right after a massive cargo ship lost power and struck Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it. “Is this an intentional attack or an accident?” asked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), demanding an investigation. Fox’s Maria Bartiromo invited speculation about the “potential for foul play given the wide-open border.” Others blamed racial-diversity policies.
Nothing shows the thoroughness of the MAGA takeover of the GOP as well as the House’s Republican Study Committee budget. The group is the GOP mainstream now, counting some 172 of the 218 House Republicans as members, including many from swing districts and five — Juan Ciscomani and David Schweikert (Ariz.), Mike Garcia (Calif.), Don Bacon (Neb.) and Brandon Williams (N.Y.) from districts Biden won.

Yet here the RSC is, embracing a nationwide abortion ban without exceptions; a ban on the abortion pill, an increase in the retirement age for Social Security; defunding the police (through cuts to the Community Oriented Policing Services program); ending Amtrak funding and selling it off; eliminating broadband provided by the Affordable Connectivity Program; and blocking the “red flag” provisions that keep guns from dangerous people.

This is what Republicans will do next year if Trump wins the White House and Republicans control Congress. Don’t forget it.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, For-Profit, Republicans, Stupid, Trump

Tom Nichols: Trump and the Cult of Violence

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2024 //
12

Trump claims to love “law and order,” but he continually incites violence. He incited the single most violent uprising in our history against the law and the Constitution on January 6, 2021. And he treated the Capitol police with contempt, those defending law and order.

He regularly attacks the judicial system—the bastion of law and order—because he is under multiple indictments.

He writes posts on social media intended to incite hatred, division, and yes, violence.

He recently paid a visit to the wake of a New York City policeman who was murdered by a criminal. It was performative politics.

The father and brother of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after defending the U.S. Capitol, slammed Trump for playing politics. Trump did not pay a condolence call to the families of police officers who died after the riot that Trump incited. He didn’t visit any injured police officers in the hospital. Instead, he refers to those who beat up the police as “patriots.” This is sick and twisted. The people who menaced the Congress, threatened to kill the Vice-President, and damaged the seat of government are, to Trump, “patriots” and those who were convicted for their violence are “hostages.” Not the police who defended Congress. Not those who defended law and order.

Tom Nichols wrote in The Atlantic about Trump’s obsession with violence, about his encouragement of violence, about his threats and intimidation.

He wrote:

On Good Friday, Donald Trump shared a video that prominently featured a truck with a picture of a hog-tied Joe Biden on it. I’ve seen this art on a tailgate in person, and it looks like a kidnapped Biden is a captive in the truck bed.

The former president, running for his old office, knowingly transmitted a picture of the sitting president of the United States as a bound hostage.

Of course, Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung quickly began the minimizing and what-abouting: “That picture,” he said in a statement, “was on the back of a pick up truck that was traveling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”

I cannot recall prominent elected Democrats calling for hurting Trump or his family. The closest Biden got was when he once lost his temper six years ago and said that if he and Trump were in high school, he’d have wanted to beat him up behind the gym, a comment Biden later said he regretted. And there is certainly no evidence to suggest that Biden or his spokespeople ever promoted the idea that the 45th president should be taken hostage. Over the weekend, Trump’s defenders took to social media to keep raising the 2017 picture in which the comedian Kathy Griffin held up an effigy of Trump’s severed head. So let us all stipulate: Her stunt was ghastly. Griffin’s comedy—or parody, or protest art—was in bad taste and potentially a risk to a sitting president. She paid for it: The Secret Service investigated her, and her career at CNN was torched.

But Griffin is not a former president seeking once again to become commander in chief of the armed forces and the top law-enforcement authority in the United States. And Griffin did not incite a mob of rioters—some of whom were bent on homicide—to attack the Capitol. Donald Trump is, and he did.

Meanwhile, Trump also had words last week for the people trying to hold him accountable—or, more accurately, for their children. The day before he promoted imagery depicting the torture of the sitting president, Trump fired off a Truth Social post in which he mentioned the daughter of Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over his hush-money criminal trial: “Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately,” Trump wrote. “His Daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me.”

Then, on Saturday, Trump blasted out a New York Post article that included Loren Merchan’s picture to his followers.

Trump’s fan base will shrug off its leader’s condoning of violent fantasies and implied threats of violence as more harmless lib-owning. But what Trump is doing is dangerous, and the time is long past to stop treating support for his candidacy as just one of many ordinary political choices. As the historian of authoritarianism Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted on Friday on X: “This is an emergency. This is what authoritarian thugs and terrorists do. Trump is targeting the President of the United States.”

Other Americans are well within their rights to wonder if this is what Trump supporters actually want to see in 2024.

Perhaps a thought experiment might help: Would today’s Trump supporters think it hilarious, say, to see Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter bound in the same way that Biden was depicted? Perhaps Bill Clinton or the Bushes tied up like hostages? (We can only begin to imagine what kind of ugly end the truck Rembrandts might have portrayed for Barack Obama.)

After seeing Trump post this video, I found myself wanting to ask his voters the questions that always occur after one of his outrages: Is this okay with you? Is this something you’d want your children to see?…

Unfortunately, we’re not getting much help in making those determinations from some of the media. On Sunday morning, for example, Kristen Welker of Meet the Press noted that Trump had “stepped up his attacks on the judge and his family in the New York hush money case” and is “falsely calling the criminal proceedings ‘election interference.’” Her verdict: “It is yet another reminder that we are covering this election against the backdrop of a deeply divided nation.”

Well, sure, that’s one way to put it. More accurately, however, we might say that a mostly coherent and decent nation is under electoral assault from a violent seditionist minority that has captured one of our two national parties, and its leader encourages and condones threats against officials at every level across the country, including threats of violence against the sitting president of the United States.

Every ardent Trump supporter should be asked when enough’s enough. And every elected Republican, including the sad lot now abasing themselves for a spot on Trump’s ticket or in his possible Cabinet, should be asked when they will risk their careers for the sake of the country, if not their souls. We have reached an important moment—one of many over the past years, if we are to be honest. After all we have learned and seen, and all of the questions we might ask of Trump supporters, perhaps only one simple and direct question truly matters now:

Is this who you are?…

In my view, Trump’s behavior towards others is vile, immature, narcissistic, and pathological. Anyone who is a critic or antagonist to Trump is treated with hatred and contempt. They deserve punishment. They should be hog-tied and beaten. They should be publicly shamed. They are not competitors, they are enemies. When Trump identifies them as such, they are certain to get death threats, threats of violence.

This is not normal. Trump has the mind of a mafia boss or a ruthless authoritarian.. He demands total loyalty. Those unwilling to embrace him and his lies and hatreds are cast out. This is not normal.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Evil, Fake, Hypocrisy, Injustice, Trump

William S. Becker: How to Fix the Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2024 //
6

William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs. He is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, a nonpartisan initiative founded in 2007 to develop action plans for facing the climate crisis.

In this post, he proposes ways to restore the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court is the ultimate authority on the Constitution and the nation’s laws. But who judges the justices when they violate the public trust? 

It’s not a hypothetical question. In recent decisions and revelations, the current court has shown it is co-opted by right-wing ideology and corrupted by a certain ex-president trying to escape justice on more than 90 felony charges. 

So, who ultimately judges the justices?  

As usual, the answer is voters. Our Supreme Court must abide by higher standards for objectivity and fairness than any other government institution. Yet public respect for the court has been declining for years.  

Earlier this month, a Politico poll found that a big majority of Americans want Donald Trump to stand trial before the November election. A third said his conviction would make a difference in how they vote, but 75 percent don’t fully trust the Supreme Court to be fair and nonpartisan.   

Unfortunately, voters have no direct authority to restore the court’s integrity. The people’s recourse is to elect a Congress willing to force the court to reform. The next opportunity is Nov. 5. 

So, what are the several ways the Roberts Court has undermined public trust?  

Until recently, it refused to subscribe to the ethics standards set for other members of the federal judiciary. Even after the news media found at least two members engaged in apparent conflicts of interest, the justices hesitated for months before adopting an ethics code. It turned out to be neither binding nor enforceable. 

Second, the court has abandoned the standard of judging without fear or favor. Its conservative majority has bent over backward to protect Trump from accountability for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The justices even agreed to hear Trump’s specious claim that he enjoys total immunity for his alleged crimes. It delayed oral arguments until next April, making it unlikely Trump’s trial will occur before the election. 

In another case, the justices decided to protect Trump by rewriting the Constitution rather than enforcing it.  

The 14th Amendment disqualifies people from public office if they swear to support the Constitution, then aid an insurrection. It says oath-swearing insurrectionists can escape disqualification only with a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate. The court’s conservatives gave Congress a new role, saying no insurrectionist can be sanctioned unless Congress says so, apparently on a case-by-case basis. So, a highly partisan body, rather than the Constitution, will make these decisions. 

Third, the justices disregard “settled laws” decided by and repeatedly affirmed by previous courts. The most egregious example was its reversal of Roe v. Wade. Now, state politicians decide whether women have the right to make their own reproductive decisions. The court also gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, reasoning, perhaps naively, that racism is no longer a problem in the South. 

Fourth, the court opened the floodgates for corporations to make unlimited anonymous monetary contributions to political campaigns. The majority reasoned unrealistically that campaign contributions don’t influence how members of Congress vote. It also stretched credulity by ruling that money is speech and corporations are people. As a result, corporations and wealthy Americans gained even more power to shape the nation’s laws to their benefit. 

So, Supreme Court reform should be a top objective for voters this year. That requires a Congress committed to the goal. In a previous article, I pointed out that Congress has the necessary powers. Democrats (ideally joined by moderate Republicans and independents) should promise to use them if voters give them a trifecta: control of the White House, House, and Senate.  

Congress could: 

  • Allow President Biden to create better ideological balance on the court by adding four new justicesduring his second term; 
  • Establish by rule that the Senate’s duty in confirming Supreme Court nominees includes maintaining ideological balance on the court. The rule also should require that the Senate act on presidential appointments to the court regardless of their proximity to elections; 
  • Require the Judicial Conference of the United States to create and enforce a strict code of ethics for justices, including mandatory disclosure of potential and apparent conflicts of interest. The code should require justices to recuse themselves from cases where real or apparent conflicts exist; 
  • Establish term limits of 18 years for justices and require them to retire at or before age 70. This would bring the Supreme Court in line with the District of Columbia and 32 states that have set mandatory retirement ages for appellate court judges; 
  • Send President Biden legislation to restore Roe v. Wade and a strong Voting Rights Act as the laws of the land; 
  • Pass legislation to strengthen the Federal Elections Commission, end gerrymandering and voter suppression, and eliminate unlimited and anonymous campaign contributions.  
  • By statute or proposed constitutional amendment, clarify that the president of the United States a) does not have absolute immunity for violating laws, b) can be prosecuted while in office, and c) can be permanently disqualified from public office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment without an act of Congress. 
  • Under Article III of the Constitution, strip federal appellate courts including the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over certain classes of cases, including those involving women’s reproductive rights and the obligation of governments to protect “public trust assets” for current and future generations. 
  • Discourage growing abuses of the First Amendment by racists, militants, domestic terrorists, accelerationists and other extremists by compelling the court to define unprotected speech by contemporary standards. For example, pass a law that clarifies when predictions of civil violence and “blood baths” cross the line into true threats; when hate speech becomes discriminatory harassment; and when threats of violence or death constitute unprotected “true threats.” 

These and other commitments for reforming the Supreme Court should be part of the next Congress’s Contract with America. 

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Justice

Florida Supreme Court Does a Two-Step on Abortion

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2024 //
18

The Florida Supreme Court issued two decisions on abortion today. Five of the seven judges were appointed by Governor DeSantis.

First, the Court ruled that the pro-abortion forces could have a referendum on the ballot in November. The referendum seeks to protect abortion rights in the state constitution. The referendum must be approved by 60% of those who vote. (In Ohio, a similar amendment was passed by 58% of voters.)

Second, the Court approved the state’s new ban on abortion by 15 weeks, which will be replaced at the end of 30 days by an even newer six-week ban, one of the strictest in the nation. Few women know they are pregnant at the six-week mark. It’s not until a woman has missed her menstrual period twice (eight weeks) that women suspect they may be pregnant.

Republican leaders are preparing to fight the referendum.

Categories DeSantis, Elections, Florida, Gender

Trump Stock Declines Sharply in Today’s Trading

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2024 //
20

The reckoning for Donald Trump’s highly overvalued social media company is coming faster than anyone expected. The stock debuted a few days ago at $70 a share, rose to $78, then dropped into the 60s. Today the stock price plunged after the company reported its losses for 2023. At 3:30 pm, it was selling for $48.07.

Drew Harwell of The Washington Post wrote:

Former president Donald Trump’s social media company said Monday it lost more than $58 million last year, sending its stock plunging roughly 25 percent only days after a highflying public debut valued it at more than $8 billion.
Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, said in a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday that the company generated just over $4 million in revenue last year, including less than $1 million in the last quarter of 2023.


The nosediving share price of the company — which uses the stock ticker DJT, for Trump’s initials — shaved off a quarter of its market value in a single day. It also slashed the value of Trump’s 57 percent ownership in the company by roughly $1 billion, to $3.6 billion.


The new financial figures throw into stark relief the gap between Trump Media’s highly hyped investor-driven valuation on the public stock market and the reality of its business performance.


It also raises questions about the possibility that Trump could use the company as a financial lifeline. Trump cannot sell his shares or use them as collateral for a loan for six months due to a provision in the company’s merger agreement, known as a lockup.

The company’s board could vote to waive that requirement but has yet to do so, the filings state. Cashing out early could sink the stock price further by flooding the market with shares and undermining investor confidence in Trump’s commitment to the brand, financial analysts said.


Trump, who invested no money in Trump Media, was given 78 million shares of the company last week and stands to earn tens of millions more over the next three years if the stock stays above $12 to $17, a filing shows.


Trump Media said in a filing that it expects to incur more “operating losses and negative cash flows” as it works to expand its user base but that it expects its growth will come from Truth Social’s “overall appeal.”


The company said in a filing that its management had “substantial doubt” as of the end of last year that it would have enough money to pay its debts as they come due. The company paid nearly $40 million in interest expenses last year and racked up about $16 million in operating losses.

Categories Accountability, Economy, Trump

What Did Trump and Biden Do on Easter Sunday?

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2024 //
21

Thanks to our friend Rick Charvet for sharing this very interesting clip from “Morning Joe,” in which Mika B. describes how Trump and Biden each spent Easter.

Trump apparently did not go to church and didn’t have much time for his family. Instead, he spent the day posting comments on his social media platform Truth Social. He posted 77 times. Seventy-seven times. He even posted notes from members of his cult likening him to Jesus.

In what ways is he like Jesus? Jesus was a teacher, a man beloved for his kindness, humility, compassion, and love for those in poverty, those in greatest need.

From Matthew:

Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!

What did Biden do? He went to church with family.

Categories Biden, Billionaires, Education Reform, Religion, Trump

Julian Vasquez Heilig: A New Concept for a Charter School

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2024 //
15

Julian Vasquez Heilig, Provost of Eastern Michigan University, writes a blog called Cloaking Inequity. Today he proposed a new concept for a charter school that takes advantage of Michigan’s lakes to explore its environmental challenges.

He writes:

In the heart of Michigan, nestled within the vast, freshwater seas that are the Great Lakes, I’m excited that my revolutionary idea for a new charter school is taking shape. Aquatica: The Great Lakes Underwater School, is a new charter school set to launch in the fall of 2024. The school is not just a new chapter in my life and an educational innovation; it’s a bold reimagination of what a deeper learning environment can be. By submerging students in the literal depths of Lake Michigan, Aquatica aims to foster a profound connection with the natural world, leveraging the immersive power of water to enhance learning and cultivate a generation of environmental stewards.

The Vision Behind Aquatica

The vision for Aquatica was born from my desire to transcend traditional classroom boundaries, creating a space where education and the environment intersect in the most direct manner possible. In a world where ecological concerns are increasingly pressing, Aquatica stands as a beacon of innovative thought, merging the necessity of environmental education with the transformative potential of experiential learning. The school’s location in the Great Lakes near South Haven, a critical freshwater resource, underscores the urgency of its mission: to educate students not just about the world, but on how to care for it.

A Curriculum That Goes Beneath the Surface

Aquatica’s curriculum will be crafted to take full advantage of its unique underwater setting. The school will offer a holistic STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) curriculum, enriched with a strong emphasis on environmental science and sustainability. This multidisciplinary approach ensures students receive a well-rounded education, while the unique context of learning under water provides unparalleled opportunities for deep, really deep, experiential learning.

Aquatic Sciences classes: Students have the unparalleled opportunity to study aquatic life and ecosystems up close, turning Lake Michigan into a living classroom where lessons in biology, chemistry, and environmental science come alive.

Sustainable Engineering classes: Tasked with designing solutions to real-world challenges, students apply the principles of engineering within the context of sustainability, learning the importance of creating systems that protect and preserve natural resources.

Underwater Robotics classes: By integrating technology and environmental exploration, this class empowers students to engage with the underwater world in innovative ways, fostering skills in robotics, coding, and environmental conservation.

Technological Integration for Deeper Learning

Technology plays a pivotal role in bringing my vision of Aquatica to life. Advanced technological tools, including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), will allow students to interact with their surroundings in ways previously unimaginable. AR applications will enable learners to identify species, understand ecosystems, and conduct virtual experiments, all without leaving the underwater classroom. VR, on the other hand, will transport students to distant environments, from coral reefs across the world to the polar ice caps, expanding their understanding of global environmental issues.

Environmental Stewardship at Aquatica’s Core

At its core, Aquatica is more than just an educational institution; it’s a statement about the importance of environmental stewardship. The charter school’s design and operation are models of sustainability, utilizing renewable energy sources and minimizing its ecological footprint. More importantly, the curriculum will be designed to instill a sense of responsibility towards the environment, encouraging students to think critically about their impact on the world and empowering them to take action towards its preservation.

To learn more, open the link.

Categories Charter Schools, Environment, Humor, Michigan

Tim Slekar: Join and Listen to “Busted Pencils!”

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2024 //
3

Tim Slekar is an energetic, unstoppable fighter for public schools. In addition to serving as Dean at different colleges of education, he is a blogger and a broadcaster, always focused on defending the commons, the spaces that belong to all of us.

Tim wants you to join him on his show “BUSTED PENCILS.”

He wrote:

https://bustedpencils.blogspot.com/2024/03/bustedpencils-wants-you-to-give-it-all.html

BustEDpencils Wants YOU to Give it All!

It’s time to amplify our voices and take our fight for public education to the next level. We’re calling on all passionate advocates, educators, parents, grandparents, students, researchers, and anyone who believes in the power of public schools to join us on the airwaves of BustEDpencils Radio!

We’re on a mission to make BustEDpencils the go-to platform for unapologetic, no-holds-barred conversations about public education. But we can’t do it without YOU. We want to hear YOUR stories, YOUR struggles, and YOUR triumphs in the fight to protect and transform our public schools into true incubators of democracy and critical thought.

Teachers, we know you’re on the front lines, and your insights are invaluable. We want to hear your voices loud and clear, sharing the realities of the classroom, the challenges you face, and the victories you’ve won.

Parents and Grandparents, you’re the backbone of our school communities. Your perspective on what’s happening in our schools and how it’s affecting our kids is crucial. We want you to share your experiences and your unwavering support for public education.

Students, you’re the reason we’re all here. Your experiences, ideas, and dreams matter. We want to hear your voice, your perspective on education, and your vision for the future of our schools.

University and College Researchers, your expertise sheds light on the policies and practices shaping our schools. We need you to break down the research and help us understand what’s at stake and what we can do about it.

And here’s where it gets even more exciting – we’re also looking for volunteers to host BustEDpencils Listening Parties! Let’s boost our ratings, spread the word, and create a movement that the mainstream media can’t ignore. It’s time to make public education a national priority, and with your help, we can make it happen.

This is our moment, folks. It’s time to rally together, share our stories, and make our voices heard. If you’re ready to join the fight and be a part of something big, email me at timslekar@gmail.com to volunteer. Let’s take BustEDpencils mainstream and show the world that when it comes to public education, we mean business.

Together, we can save and transform our public schools. Let’s Give it All!

Categories Education Reform, Media, Resistance, Supporting public schools

NEPC: Can You Tell Fact from Fiction?

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2024 //
12

The National Education Policy Center used to publish clever jokes or parodies on April 1 every year. But this year is different. Reality is so bizarre that NEPC challenges readers to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Try it.

NEPC writes:

This April 1st, we want to begin with an acknowledgement that April Fools’ Day stories have become redundant, even obsolete. Some of our past stories which were meant to be so absurd that they couldn’t be reasonably believed turned out to be prophetic. In 2021, for instance, our April Fools’ story told readers of a “turducken voucher” bill in Florida:

A traditional roast turducken is a chicken stuffed in a duck and then stuffed in a turkey. For Florida’s legislative chefs, the chicken is a traditional voucher, the duck is a neovoucher (which is funded through tax-credited donations), and the turkey is an education-saving-account (ESA) voucher. The legislators then pushed previous limits by squeezing their whole bundle of Turducken fowl goodness into a wild goose: a charter school.

Just a few years later, we see versions of this turducken hitting dinner tables in states throughout the nation. Oklahoma has authorized a charter school that looks a lot like a voucher scheme, with the charter run by a church providing religious instruction and proselytizing, and even allowed to practice faith-based discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community (currently being challenged in court). Missouri is among the states that have adopted a voucher program stuffed with a neovoucher funding mechanism for an ESA program. And of course Florida’s always-creative legislators continue to push the voucher envelope, although ironically by consolidating programs as they’ve expanded (so at least we got that part wrong).

Faced with reality’s stubborn impudence, we offer this year’s April 1st newsletter as a challenge to our readers to distinguish counterfeit parodies from actual news stories from the past year (answers are provided below). We’ll take you to three states: Missouri, Texas, and (of course) Florida.

Missouri

Option #1: A bill introduced in January in Missouri would require an annual human growth and development unit, beginning in the third grade, that includes a high-definition video, which must be at least three minutes long, of fetal development. Schools must also show these students a specific video called “Meet Baby Olivia,” showing an animated fetus that develops over the course of (another) three minutes. Olivia is a “new human being” who came “into existence at fertilization.” The video helps its audience develop an affinity and attachment to Olivia, who is shown wearing a cross necklace as a fetus, by telling her in-utero story.

Option #2: A bill introduced a month ago in Missouri would jail teachers for using trans students’ preferred pronouns. Any person acting in an official capacity in a school, who uses trans students’ chosen names or pronouns, would be considered to be “contributing to social transition” and subject to a maximum of four years in prison. That educator would then have to register as a sex offender.

Texas

Option #1: A new law in Texas allows school districts to replace school counselors with unlicensed chaplains. These religious chaplains could, according to the law’s supporters, help prevent shootings by returning God to schools. The chaplains can volunteer, or schools can choose to use funding that would otherwise go to school safety to pay the chaplains for work in mental health roles. Legislators rejected an amendment to the bill that would have barred proselytizing or attempts to convert students.

Option #2: Mike Miles, the state-appointed superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, announced that he would be “repurposing” the libraries of “priority” schools into “team centers,” where misbehaving students would watch “virtual” lessons and would earn $3/hr helping to make license plates for the state. The money earned by the students would be split 50-50 with the local school districts to help compensate for their behavior.

Florida

Option #1: Most readers also already know that this has been an interesting year for Moms for Liberty in Florida. In particular, co-founder Bridget Ziegler went from promoting Don’t Say Gay legislation to having a three-way sexual encounter with a woman plus Ziegler’s husband, who was then Florida’s GOP chairman. But how many remember that the Hillsborough County school district switched to using only excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays to avoid “raunchiness” that they feared would violate one of Florida’s state-of-the-art censorship laws? Or the complaints by a Moms-follower against Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb (which was recited by Gorman at the 2021 Biden inauguration), which resulted in a Miami K-8 school restricting the poem to the middle-school section of the library?

Option #2: Most readers will remember last year’s (true) news story about the governing board of a “classical” charter school in Florida asking the principal to resign after horrified parents learned that a photo of Michelangelo’s statue David was included in a lesson on Renaissance art. Readers might also remember the state’s adoption of middle-school history guidelines that included the job-training benefits of slavery (teaching that Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills). But readers may have missed the story from a couple months ago of the chair of a Moms for Liberty chapter who complained, citing the state’s new Don’t Say Gay law, that an elementary school library in Indian River County, Florida possessed illustrated children’s books showing nudity in drawings. For instance, Maurice Sendak’s book In The Night Kitchen included drawings she called “pornographic.” The Moms for Liberty chair agreed to a compromise, whereby the district drew clothing over the naughty bits in the offending illustrations. For instance, here is a before-and-after from the Sendak book:

To see the answer sheet, open the link.

Categories Humor
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