Heather Cox Richardson: Making Sense of the Past Week

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2026 //
3

Heather Cox Richardson does a masterful job of drawing together the wildly disparate events of the past several days. Trump seems to be doing a good job of distracting the public, as he generates crises and then jumps into them.

HCR writes:

The news has seemed to move more and more quickly in the last week.

The story underlying all others is that the United States Congress passed a law requiring the Department of Justice to release all the Epstein files—the files from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into the activities of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—no later than December 19, and it has not done so.

Epstein and President Donald J. Trump were close friends for many years, and the material the Department of Justice (DOJ) has released suggests that Trump was more closely tied to Epstein’s activities than Trump has acknowledged. Although Trump ran in 2024 on the promise of releasing the Epstein files, suggesting those files would incriminate Democrats, his loyalists in the administration are now openly flouting the law to keep them hidden.

Despite the clear requirement of the Epstein Files Transparency Act that they release all the files by December 19, to date they have released less than 1% of the material.

Another part of the backstory of the past week is that the Supreme Court on December 23, 2025, rejected the Trump administration’s argument that it had the power to deploy federalized National Guard troops in and around Chicago, a decision that seemed to limit Trump’s power to use military forces within the United States.

Yet another part of the backstory is that on New Year’s Eve, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released a 255-page transcript of former special counsel Jack Smith’s December 17 closed-door testimony before the committee. In that testimony—under oath—Smith said that his office had “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power. Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”

With pressure building over the Epstein files and Jack Smith’s testimony, and with the Supreme Court having taken away Trump’s ability to use troops within the United States, the administration went on the offensive.

Only a week ago, on January 3, the military captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. After months of suggesting that he was determined to end what he called “narco-traffickers,” Trump made it clear as soon as Maduro was in hand that he wanted control of Venezuela’s oil.

Then, on January 6, the fifth anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters determined to keep Trump in office despite Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s majority of 7 million votes, Trump’s White House rewrote the history of January 6, 2021, claiming that the rioters were “peaceful patriotic protesters” and blaming the Democrats for the insurrection.

That same day, after the Supreme Court had cut off the administration’s ability to federalize National Guard soldiers and send them to Democratic-led cities, the administration surged 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis in the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever launched.

The next morning, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good, and the administration responded by calling Good a domestic terrorist.

On Thursday, January 8, as protests broke out across the country, Republicans in both chambers of Congress began to push back against the administration. In the House, Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), the leading sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, asked U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer to appoint “a Special Master and an Independent Monitor to compel” the DOJ to produce the Epstein files as the law requires. The House also passed a measure to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years.

The Senate advanced a bill to stop the Trump administration from additional attacks on Venezuela without congressional approval. And, just two days after Trump had reversed the victims and offenders in the January 6, 2021, insurrection, suggesting that Capitol Police officers had been among the offenders, the Senate unanimously agreed to hang a plaque honoring the police who protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Congress passed a law in March 2022 mandating that the plaque be hung, but Republicans until now had prevented its installation.

Friday was a busy day at the White House.

On Friday, Trump threatened Greenland, saying that he was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

Trump’s threat against a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally has had American lawmakers and foreign allies scrambling ever since. In a joint statement, the leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom said that “Greenland belongs to its people.” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) released a video explaining that “what you are essentially talking about here is the United States going to war with NATO, the United States going to war with Europe. You’re talking about the U.S. and France being at war with each other over Greenland.”

Trump’s threats against Greenland came at a meeting with oil executives. When he attacked Venezuela to capture Maduro, Trump told reporters that United States oil companies would spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken infrastructure of oil extraction in that country. But apparently the oil companies had not gotten the memo. They have said that they are not currently interested in investing in Venezuela because they have no idea how badly oil infrastructure there has degraded and no sense of who will run the country in the future.

What oil executives did suggest to Trump on Friday was that they would quite like to be repaid for their losses from the 2007 nationalization of their companies from the sale of Venezuelan oil Trump has promised to control. ConocoPhillips, for example, claims it is owed about $12 billion. “We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault,” Trump told them. “That was a different president. You’re going to make a lot of money, but we’re not going to go back.”

Yesterday the government made public an executive order President Donald J. Trump signed on Friday, declaring yet another national emergency—his tenth in this term, by my count—and saying that any use of the revenue from the sale of Venezuelan oil to repay the billions of dollars owed to oil companies “will materially harm the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

Specifically, the executive order says, such repayment would “interfere with our critical efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela” and, by extension, jeopardize U.S. foreign policy objectives including “ending the dangerous influx of illegal immigrants and the flood of illicit narcotics;…protecting American interests against malign actors such as Iran and Hezbollah; and bringing peace, prosperity, and stability to the Venezuelan people and to the Western Hemisphere more generally.” So, it appears, Trump wants to retain control of the money from the sale of Venezuelan oil.

Tonight Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he is under federal criminal investigation related to his congressional testimony about a $2.5 billion renovation of historic Federal Reserve buildings. On Friday the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve grand jury subpoenas.

Powell, whom Trump appointed, released a video noting that he has kept Congress in the loop on the renovation project and saying that complaints about renovations are pretexts. Trump is threatening criminal charges against Powell because the Fed didn’t lower interest rates as fast as Trump wanted, instead working in the interest of the American people. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.” Powell vowed to “continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do, with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.”

The Federal Reserve is designed to be independent of presidents to avoid exactly what Trump is trying to do. The attempt to replace Powell with a loyalist who will give Trump control over the nation’s financial system profoundly threatens the stability of the country. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, appeared to have had enough. He posted that “[i]f there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.” He said he would “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.”

Kyle Cheney of Politico observed that it is “[h]ard to overstate what a remarkable statement this is from a Republican senator…accusing the Trump White House of weaponizing DOJ to control the Fed.”

Over a picture of the demolished East Wing of the White House, conservative lawyer George Conway noted: “I also must say that it’s a bit rich that Trump and his DOJ think it’s a good idea to gin up a bullshit investigation about supposed illegalities in….{checks notes}…renovating a federal building.”

On social media tonight, Trump posted a portrait of himself with the title: “Acting President of Venezuela.”

—

Notes:

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/10/what-the-big-oil-executives-told-trump-about-investing-in-venezuela.html

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/safeguarding-venezuelan-oil-revenue-for-the-good-of-the-american-and-venezuelan-people/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/j6/

https://substack.com/redirect/119b4481-d7a5-4e79-bec9-06b8e6aeee1a?j=eyJ1IjoicmxzOCJ9.pJwy2TTXEYwSmvNpP_gTSRSciwi41pWVFZ9UBZrPJHY

https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2026-01-09/sen-king-says-its-nonsense-that-u-s-needs-to-own-greenland-for-national-security

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/12/fed-jerome-powell-criminal-probe-nyt.html

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20260111a.htm

Supreme Court rejects Trump’s effort to deploy National Guard in Illinois

https://substack.com/redirect/2fda544c-e56d-42cb-96dd-7c8ea01feacd?j=eyJ1IjoicmxzOCJ9.pJwy2TTXEYwSmvNpP_gTSRSciwi41pWVFZ9UBZrPJHY

https://substack.com/redirect/109f24be-066d-4312-8c2a-2a4a48fbcc7a?j=eyJ1IjoicmxzOCJ9.pJwy2TTXEYwSmvNpP_gTSRSciwi41pWVFZ9UBZrPJHY

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/08/17-republicans-vote-to-restore-lapsed-obamacare-subsidies-00717497

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-republican-senators-venezuela-war-powers/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/2000-federal-agents-sent-to-minneapolis-area-to-carry-out-largest-immigration-operation-ever-ice-says

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/01/08/congress/senate-unanimous-approves-jan-6-plaque-law-enforcement-00717799

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4405/text

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/06/epstein-files-release-justice-department

Bluesky:

chrismurphyct.bsky.social/post/3mc4iyclym222

gtconway.bsky.social/post/3mc73ftktkj2w

gtconway.bsky.social/post/3luuiczrpis2e

federalreserve.gov/post/3mc6san2usk2g

justinwolfers.bsky.social/post/3mc6wyjaqwk2g

muellershewrote.com/post/3mc6vzhk2dk2o

kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3mc6xpvvtez26

Categories Democracy, Disruption, Extremism, International, Trump

Trump Says Civil Rights Laws Discriminate Against Whites

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2026 //
11

In an interview with The New York Times, President Trump explained his hostility towards the civil rights laws meant to end discrimination against racial minorities and women and to expand opportunities for them in the workplace and in education.

He believes that civil rights protections have hurt white men. That is the rationale for his aggressive campaign to purge policies of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) from all institutions receiving federal funding.

Trump is indifferent to the long history of slavery, racism, Jim Crow laws, bigotry, and segregation that harmed minorities, especially African Americans. He is equally indifferent to the long history of sexism and misogny that restricted the careers of women.

Erica Green reports:

President Trump said in an interview that he believed civil rights-era protections resulted in white people being “very badly treated,” his strongest indication that the concept of “reverse discrimination” is driving his aggressive crusade against diversity policies.

Speaking to The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr. Trump echoed grievances amplified by Vice President JD Vance and other top officials who in recent weeks have urged white men to file federal complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

When asked whether protections that began in the 1960s, spurred by the passage of the Civil Rights Act, had resulted in discrimination against white men, Mr. Trump said he believed “a lot of people were very badly treated.” 

“White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college,” he said, an apparent reference to affirmative action in college admissions. “So I would say in that way, I think it was unfair in certain cases.”

He added: “I think it was also, at the same time, it accomplished some very wonderful things, but it also hurt a lot of people — people that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job. So it was, it was a reverse discrimination.”

Trump’s approach is calibrated to appeal to white men who blame their grievances on laws that protect racial minorities and women.

Carrying out Mr. Trump’s agenda is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was formed in 1965 under the Civil Rights Act. The commission’s chair, Andrea Lucas, issued a striking video message last month underlining the agency’s new posture.

“Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?” Ms. Lucas said in the video posted on X. “You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws. Contact the E.E.O.C. as soon as possible. Time limits are typically strict for filing a claim.”

“The E.E.O.C. is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating ALL forms of race and sex discrimination — including against white male applicants and employees,” she said.

In the video, Ms. Lucas pointed white men to the commission’s F.A.Q. on “D.E.I.-related discrimination,” which notes that D.E.I. “a broad term that is not defined” in the Civil Rights Act.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the nation’s primary litigator of workplace discrimination, and for decades has been a resource for minorities, women and other groups who have historically faced discrimination. But Ms. Lucas has endeavored to make it one of Mr. Trump’s most powerful tools against D.E.I., with a particular focus on remedying perceived harms against white men.

Trump has combatted DEI in universities by threatening to cut off the funding of institutions that implement affirmative action for students and faculty and that have programs to encourage minorities.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, History, Racism, Segregation, Trump

How Florida Cheats Public School Students By Lavishly Funding Kids in Non-Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2026 //
4

The Network for Public Education reposted this analysis of school funding in Florida by Sue Kingery Woltanski. She was not surprised to discover that the state provides much more aid to students in non-public schools than to those in public schools. Imagine what a difference that money would make if it were directed to public schools, where it belongs. Florida now subsidizes the tuition of every student in private schools, religious schools, and home schools. Most of that state money goes to students who never attended public schools. Florida is underwriting the

In this post, Sue Kingery Woltanski breaks down the finances in just one Florida district to show how taxpayer-funded vouchers are actually resulting in more taxpayer dollars going to private schools than to public ones. Reposted with permission. 

What Monroe County’s numbers reveal about Florida’s broken school funding priorities
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1UT3ALNtP1/

I saw this image today, and it prompted me to take a closer look at the numbers for my Florida school district: Monroe County.

SURPRISE! Here is the state funding breakdown for Monroe:

  • Monroe’s 8,457 Public School students (district and charter) receive $181.86 each from the state (for a total of  $1,537,924).
  • While Monroe’s 743 Family Empowerment Scholarship voucher recipients receive $6,786.03 each from the state (for a total of $5,040,326).

What if that $5,040,326 was used to fund Monroe’s public school students instead? Per pupil funding would be nearly $600 more per pupil, which could translate into teacher raises of $8,000/year or a reduction in class sizes, expanded electives,  richer learning experiences, or some combination of all of the above – all of which could directly improve classrooms and student learning

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, DeSantis, Education Industry, Florida, Funding, Inequity, Privatization, Vouchers

MUST READ! Stephen Schmidt on Our Nazis

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2026 //
2

Here is the link:

https://open.substack.com/pub/steveschmidt/p/stephen-miller-and-the-ice-nazis?r=g8fo&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

This is a clip from his post. Open the link and read it all.

Schmidt writes:

What is Stephen Miller?

He is, of course, deranged, unserious, bombastic, crude, shrill and violent, but that alone does not suffice when it comes to seeing him clearly.

Let’s travel back in time a bit.

Let’s set the dial to September 21, 2025, and head to Phoenix, Arizona, on the occasion of the fascist rally that was dressed up as a memorial service that opened the gates to the best years of Erika Kirk’s life.

Here is Donald Trump announcing his hatred of “his opponents:”

pJzfp8QyiNw

Here is Stephen Miller:

Jw6_W5oEz5I
“You have made Charlie Kirk immortal”

These words mark Miller as a Nazi, which, of course, is appalling, given that he is a Jew, and no doubt the cause of his family’s denouncements.

Dorothy Thompson, the first American journalist to interview Hitler, and the first to be kicked out of Nazi Germany, was well acquainted with the mentality of the Nazis.

Among her greatest columns was this piece, entitled “Who goes Nazi?” published in Harper’s in August 1941.

Here is how it begins:

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France.

I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers.

And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics.

Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it.

Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling.

I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance.

There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become “Honorary Aryans and Nazis”; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service.

Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality.

It appeals to a certain type of mind.

Stephen Miller has a contaminated mind, as does Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem.

Covering the crimes of a pedophile and prosecuting innocent people are the fruit of a poisonous tree, as is animal cruelty, as is the deep hatred for human beings that Stephen Miller carries within him.

Their poisonous ideology is a disease of the spirit and a sickness of the soul.

Why do they hate so many so virulently?

Thompson offered a take 85 years ago, but imagine her living in the era of TikTok, X and the algorithm.

She continues:

It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation — the generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war.

This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans.

It is the disease of the so-called “lost generation.”

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work — a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature.

He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline.

He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions.

His body is vigorous.

His mind is childish.

His soul has been almost completely neglected.

A must-read Substack for me is Salty Politics with Julie Roginsky. She’s a brilliant writer, and a very accomplished Democratic campaign strategist, who has been personally sanctioned by Vladimir Putin. 

He has banned her from Russia as Thompson was banned from Germany, with the difference that Roginsky was born in Russia.

I highly recommend that you follow her — and better yet — subscribe and support her work.

Let me share something that she wrote, lest you have any inclination to think the Nazi label is a bridge too far, and be seduced by Tom Homan the way that he was by a CAVA bag with $50 large in it. Homeland Security@DHSgovWe’ll have our home again. JOIN.ICE.GOV8:58 PM · Jan 9, 2026 · 847K Views1.49K Replies · 3.19K Reposts · 24.7K Likes

“We’ll Have Our Home Again” is a well-known neo-Nazi anthem.

The Toronto Holocaust Museum has documented it as a white nationalist song associated with a neo-Nazi fraternal group known as the Männerbund. When a federal law-enforcement agency adopts language drawn directly from white supremacist culture, it is not a coincidence. It is a signal.

If legacy media bothered to do its homework, this would be a national scandal. ICE is no longer even pretending to hide what it is. One almost expects the next recruitment poster to read “ICE Über Alles.”

I do have one minor disagreement with Julie’s observation.

It is not a signal.

It is a declaration.

Listen to the song. It is a Nazi marching song, and now it is the basis of the Department of Homeland Security Nazi recruiting campaign.

SG7rBTP2H90

Josef Goebbels is an important figure for the MAGA gangsters who hold power because they are apostles of both his faith and greatest insight, which is that, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “the broad masses of the nation more readily fall victim to a big lie than to a small lie.”

I must share something evil with you today, so that you may understand what Tony Dokoupil and Bari Weiss are apologists for, and what the MAGA party believes.

Why does Stephen Miller hate people with brown skin so much?

Why does he hate all Somalis, Mexicans, Venezuelans and Africans?

Why has Trump announced his hate for the people of what he calls “shithole nations?”

Goebbels explained to the world why the Nazis hated the Jews. It is a perfect window into why MAGA hates the Somalis, for example, and why JD Vance smeared Haitian immigrants in a peaceful Ohio town as “eating pets,” which was a pristine example of a Nazi calumny.

Goebbels was perfectly clear about where the hate came from when he published a paper entitled “Why are we enemies of the Jews?”

We are enemies of the Jews Somalis because we are warriors for the freedom of the German people.

The Jew Mexican is the cause and the beneficiary of our slavery.

He has used the social troubles of our broad masses in order to widen the split between the Right and Left among our people, he has split Germany into two halves.

Here is the real reason for the loss of the World War on one side and for the betrayal of the revolution on the other side.

For the record, Jews accounted for less than one percent of the German population and Somalians represent less than 0.1 percent of the US population.

The Jew Muslim has no interest in the solution of the questions regarding the German fate.

He can’t, since he exists only because they remain unsolved.

Once you turn the German people into a unified community and give them freedom on the world stage, there would no longer be a place among us for the Jew Somali.

He holds the better cards when a nation lives in domestic and foreign slavery than when it is free, hard-working, self-confident and united.

The Jew Venezuelan has caused our misery, and today he makes a living from it.

That is the reason why as nationalists and as socialists national conservatism we are enemies of the Jew Africans.

He has tainted our race, spread moral rot, undermined our morality, and broken our strength.

Thanks to him we are the pariahs of the entire world today.

As long as we were Germans, he was a leper among us.

Since we have forgotten our Germanic character, he has triumphed over us and our future.

The Jew Mexican is the malleable demon of decline.

Wherever he scents debris and rot, he comes out of hiding to begin his criminal butchery among the people.

He wears the mask of those whom he wants to deceive, pretends to be the friend of this victim, and before the unsuspecting victim knows it, he has broken his neck.

The Jew Muslim is uncreative.

He does not produce anything, he merely trades in goods.

With rags, clothes, pictures, precious stones, stocks and bonds, shares in mining operations, people and states.

And everything he trades in he has stolen somewhere at some point.

While he is launching an attack on a state, he is a revolutionary, yet as soon as he is in possession of power, he preaches peace and order so he can leisurely devour his prey.

What has antisemitism to do with socialism?

I’m asking in turn: what has the JewVenezuelan to do with socialism?

Socialism is the doctrine of work.

Who ever saw a Jew Somali work and not plunder, steal, sponge (schmarotzen) and profit from the sweat of another man’s brow?

As socialists we are enemies of the JewsMuslim because we see in the Hebrew the incarnation of capitalism, i.e. the abuse of the goods belonging to the people.

What has antisemitism to do with nationalism? I’m asking in turn: what has the Jew Mexican to do with nationalism?

Nationalism is the doctrine of blood, of race.

The Jew Somali is the enemy and the destroyer of unity created by blood, the deliberate destroyer of our race.

As nationalists we are enemies of the JewsHaitian because in the Hebrew we see the eternal enemy of our national honor and our national freedom.

“But Jews Mexican are human beings, too.”

Certainly, and none of us has ever doubted it.

We only doubt that he is a decent human being.

He doesn’t belong with us. He lives according to different inner and outer laws.

The fact that he is a human being is not a good enough reason for us to allow him to oppress and bully us in the most inhuman manner.

He is indeed a human being – but what kind?

If someone beat your mother in the face with a whip would you then say: “Thank you, he’s only human?”

That is no human being, that is a brute (Unmensch)!

How much worse has the Jew Somali done to our mother Germany and how much worse does he still do today?

[ . . . ]

Antisemitism is un-Christian. So that means that it is Christian to look on as the JewHaitian cuts bootstraps from our skin and to let him add insult to injury.

Being a Christian means: Love your neighbor as you love thyself!

My neighbor is of the same nationality and blood as I.

If I love him, then I must hate his enemies.

He who thinks like a German must despise the Jew Muslim. One results from the other.

Christ himself once saw that love is not the answer in all situations.

When he came across the jobbers and profiteers in the temple, he didn’t say: “Children, love each other!”

Instead he took a whip and drove the pack away.

We are enemies of the Jews Somalis because we stand up for the German people. The JewMexican is our greatest misfortune.

That is going to change, as sure as we are Germans.

Hate is what binds the Nazis and MAGA.

Categories Evil, Extremism, Fascism

Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller: Voices of Evil

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2026 //
11

Jake Tapper asked Kristi Noem about the tape of the killing of Renee Good.

Tapper tried to pin down Stephen Miller about whether the U.S. would rule out using military force to “take Greenland” and whether there might be elections in Venezuela. Miller’s view: might makes right.

Gal Beckerman wrote in The Atlantic:

If you want to know a political leader’s governing philosophy, you could cut through a lot of bluster by just asking them who their guy is: John Locke or Thomas Hobbes? Anyone who’s taken Poli Sci 101 will understand what this means. The 17th-century philosophers each offered a picture of human nature in its rawest form, and they came to different conclusions. Locke, whose ideas were central to the birth of modern democracy, thought that people were capable of reason and moral judgment. Hobbes, on the other hand, believed that we were vicious creatures who needed to be protected from ourselves by a powerful king. Whether a leader is Lockean or Hobbesian really does set the table for the kind of government they want.

One way to understand the head-spinning nature of being an American over the past couple of decades is that this debate—one that history seemed to have settled in Locke’s favor—is alive again. Barack Obama was a Lockean through and through—insisting, repeatedly, that if citizens were just given accurate information and a fair hearing, they would converge on something like the common good. Then came Donald Trump, Hobbesian extraordinaire, who has often portrayed life under anyone’s leadership but his own much as Hobbes describes the state of nature: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Nasty is even one of Trump’s favorite words.)

Comments this week from Stephen Miller, the influential deputy chief of staff often cast as the president’s “brain,” only reinforced this impression. Miller might have been Hobbes in a skinny tie as he confidently articulated what he understood to be the “iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” His monologue was like something out of the English philosopher’s 1651 political treatise,Leviathan: “We live in a world, in the real world,” he said, “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

Miller’s might-makes-right declaration came after Trump’s decision to overthrow the president of Venezuela, and in anticipation of the United States possibly acquiring Greenland from Denmark, perhaps by any means necessary (a notion that Miller’s wife found fit to turn into a meme). The will to dominate, seize other countries’ resources because you can, and generally bully those that can’t fight back is nothing to worry about, Miller reassured Americans: This is the natural state of things. This is how it all works. Power does what it wants. The rest is commentary and toothless United Nations resolutions—or, as he put it, “international niceties.”

Categories Education Reform

Becca Good, Wife of Renee Good, Releases a Statement About Her Death

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2026 //
40

On Wednesday, Renee Macklin Good was fatally shot by a federal ICE agent. Becca Good, her wife, shared the following statement with MPR News.

#

First, I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out from across the country and around the world to support our family.

This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.

Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.

Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.

Like people have done across place and time, we moved to make a better life for ourselves. We chose Minnesota to make our home. Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles.

What we found when we got here was a vibrant and welcoming community, we made friends and spread joy. And while any place we were together was home, there was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.

We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.

On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.

Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.

We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.

Categories Ethics, Goodness

Peter Greene: Judge Blocks West Virginia Charter Schools…Because…

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2026 //
6

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2025/12/18/court-ruling-a-roadblock-to-west-virginia-charter-schools/

On December 3, Kanawha Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey issued a permanent injunction that prevents the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board from authorizing any new charter schools without the approval of the voters in the county where the charter wants to do business.

West Virginia passed a charter school law in 2019; that law stated that charter schools would be authorized by county school boards, or in some rare cases, the state school board. But local elected school boards can be reluctant to open up competing schools funded with local taxpayer dollars (in fact, the very first application for establishing a charter school was rejected by the county board). In 2021, the state modified the charter law. The bill turned every mention of “charter school” into “public charter school,” and it created the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board, a new path for charter authorization.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, West Virginia

Colorado: School Choice Is Theft of Public Funds

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2026 //
5

Kevin Bolling is executive director of the Secular Student Alliance, which advocates for schools free of religious ideology. Bolling writes here about the attack on public schools in Colorado.

In Colorado, a quiet revolution is underway, one that threatens the very idea of public education.

The Colorado Schools Fund, launched in 2024 with $50 million in philanthropic support, is not simply financing new charter and microschools. It is reshaping the public narrative about education itself. Through a strategic mix of capital, ideology and political influence, CSF and its allies are advancing a powerful message: that market-driven “choice” is the only remedy for supposedly irredeemable public schools.

Once public schools are cast as broken beyond repair, charters and microschools become steppingstones toward something far more consequential: a broad voucher system that redirects public money to private and religious education. The Daniels Fund, whose donation seeded CSF, has long championed vouchers. Their investment signals the next phase, a push to convince parents that privatization is not only desirable, but inevitable.

The consequences are profound. This approach doesn’t merely siphon resources away from neighborhood schools; it erodes their legitimacy. When foundations and political operatives rebrand public education as a failure, they create the very conditions they claim to solve. And as public confidence collapses, the argument for taxpayer-funded private schooling becomes easier to sell.

That dynamic is already playing out in Pueblo, where Riverstone Academy presents an alarming test case. Operating under Education reEnvisioned BOCES, the school has marketed itself as a public elementary school while pushing a Christian curriculum. Ken Witt, head of the BOCES, even described Riverstone as “Colorado’s first public Christian school” during a board meeting last fall. Yet the school’s official paperwork made no mention of religious instruction. Was the omission accidental or intentional?

The backstory suggests the latter. Emails show Brad Miller, a lawyer for Pueblo County School District 70, requesting permission to establish a new school inside the district’s boundaries but governed by neighboring District 49. The arrangement, he wrote, would allow the group to work with Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal organization known for high-profile religious liberty cases to test “the legalities around the issue of whether a public school may provide religious education.”

Riverstone Academy appears designed as a legal provocation: a taxpayer-funded public school created to force a battle over whether public dollars can support explicitly Christian instruction. This is not a misunderstanding. It is a strategy, one aimed at normalizing religious schools operating with public funds.

This local experiment unfolds alongside a national effort to redefine public education. The Trump administration’s recently passed federal voucher bill casts public schools as a “monopoly” in need of disruption, echoing decades of market rhetoric. But as Kevin Welner of the National Education Policy Center warns, the supposed “flexibility” states gain under the bill is illusory. Instead, it invites federal overreach, weakens student protections and replicates the academic declines already associated with large-scale voucher expansion.

Those protections matter, especially for LGBTQ+ students and families. Behind the lofty language of empowerment lie schools that quietly, and sometimes openly, exclude them. Across the country, private schools participating in voucher programs deny admission to LGBTQ students or the children of LGBTQ parents. Some embed exclusion in handbooks or “morality clauses”; others teach explicitly anti-LGBTQ doctrine. Yet taxpayer dollars increasingly subsidize these institutions under the banner of choice.

The Douglas County School District’s “Choice Scholarship” program, a voucher initiative struck down in court, would have funneled public funds to religious schools with documented histories of exclusion. As Gregory M. Lipper of Americans United for Separation of Church and State put it, “Taxpayer money can’t be used to fund religious schools or religious education.” Voucher systems blur that principle, and families who accept vouchers lose crucial federal civil rights protections, including those guaranteed by Titles VI and IX, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and even constitutional rights to free expression and due process.

When a Colorado district court ruled in 2011 that Douglas County’s program violated the state constitution it reaffirmed a moral commitment: that public education, however imperfect, rests on the promise that every child, regardless of identity, belongs.

If we abandon that promise in pursuit of “choice,” we are not expanding opportunity. We are narrowing it. And for LGBTQ+ students, the cost of that illusion may be nothing less than their place in America’s classrooms.

Creative Commons License

Categories Education Reform

Carol Burris: Time to Fix Charter School Laws

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2026 //
5

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, is an expert on charter schools and charter legislation. For the past decade, she has studied the charter school movement, state charter laws, and federal funding for charters and the consequences of those laws and funding more closely than anyone I know.

She wrote the following article, which was published in the current issue of The Progressive:

More than thirty years have passed since nineteen states first embraced charter schools as laboratories of innovation, and the evidence is clear: The model has broken down. Public trust has sharply eroded. School closures are routine, leaving students stranded and families frustrated. And nearly every day brings yet another charter school scandal.

The second installment of “Charter School Reckoning: Disillusionment,” a three-part report by the National Center for Charter School Accountability, reveals that the very structure of this sector—rather than merely isolated bad actors—is what enables mismanagement, profiteering, and instability at high cost to students and taxpayers. The need to rewrite charter laws is no longer a matter of debate; it is a matter of protecting students, taxpayers, and the public trust.

Roughly half of all charter schools by the 2018-19 school year were operated by management corporations, both for-profit and nonprofit. In Michigan, for-profit operators run 70 percent of the state’s charter schools. In Ohio and Florida, for-profits run half. Nevada’s, North Carolina’s, and South Carolina’s for-profit-run school sectors are quickly increasing. Charter schooling is now an industry, not a public school reform.

This growth in corporate chartering has been accompanied by the expansion of complex real estate and contracting structures. These arrangements are not incidental; they are built into the fabric of many charter school laws. In nearly every state, management companies can own school buildings, set their own lease terms, and collect “management fees” that reach 10 percent to 25 percent of a school’s total revenue. Through these related-party transactions, companies maximize profits, siphoning off funding that should be benefitting students.

In every state, authorizing entities that issue charters for schools are responsible for ensuring that the school is fiscally sound, well-managed, and that students are achieving. According to the new report, authorizers “decide who can start a new charter school, set academic and operational expectations, and oversee school performance. They also decide whether a charter should remain open or closed at the end of its contract.” Unfortunately, fee incentives, multiple authorizers, and political appointees to state authorizing boards often make the authorization process vulnerable to corruption and mismanagement. 

In 25 percent of states with charter school laws, four or more types of organizations—including universities, nonprofits, struggling colleges, junior colleges, school districts, and state agencies—are permitted to authorize charters to collect at least 3 percent of a school’s funding. In some states, small and cash-strapped nonprofits and colleges have created charter portfolios that generate millions of dollars. The “Charter School Reckoning” report also documents examples of failing schools that “authorizer shopped” to avoid being shut down, as well as one case of an authorizer who took charter customers on junkets to London and Stockholm.

Charter school board governance also generally remains slap-dash and unaccountable. Only five states require charter school governance to be based on elections. Nearly all other appointments are created by charter school boards’ bylaws, with only a handful of states having any requirements around term limits or membership.

Too often, board members have been sought out by the school’s operator and serve without term limits or approval beyond the board. The Epic Charter Schools case in Oklahoma shows how boards stacked with associates of the school’s founders failed to oversee tens of millions of dollars in questionable spending, with one board member admitting that he was a childhood friend of co-founder David Chaney.

Drawing from news stories published between September 2023 and September 2025, the “Charter School Reckoning” report documented a staggering $858 million in taxpayer funds lost to fraud, theft, profiteering, or incompetence. In story after story, board members were asleep at the wheel, claiming ignorance of the theft, fraud, and incompetence occurring on their watch. Only three states—California, Minnesota, and Massachusetts—“expressly prohibit contracts between a charter school board member and a company with whom the school is doing business.”

The consequences of these system design flaws fall heavily on students and families, with more than one in four charter schools closing by their fifth year and nearly 40 percent shuttering by year ten. And the funds taken from the public school system and taxpayer pockets are irretrievably lost.

These documented patterns point to a clear conclusion: Charter laws in many states create predictable opportunities for profiteering, opacity, and instability. Reform must therefore address the systemic issues that enable these outcomes. The report concludes with ten concrete legislative changes that, if correctly implemented, will reduce fraud and abuse and bring charter schools back to their original mission to serve as laboratories of educational innovation, deserving of the word “public.” Among the specific changes supported by the evidence in this report are stronger financial transparency rules, clear prohibitions on related-party transactions, limits on authorizer fees, democratic governance requirements for charter school boards, and renewal terms capped at five years.

The report concludes, “We can still incubate good ideas, but we should do so where they belong: inside the public system, with the sunlight, stewardship, and community voice that public money requires. Recommitment to that principle—public dollars for public schools under public rules—is the surest way to move from reckoning to repair.”

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud

Update on the Murder of Nicole Good

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2026 //
20

Yesterday, 37-year-old Nicole Good was murdered while driving away from ICE agents.

As her car slammed into another car, a man approached ICE and identified himself as a medical doctor. He wanted to check her pulse. The ICE agent said “I don’t care,” and they prevented him from aiding the dying woman.

ICE called for an ambulance but it could not get close to the crash scene because of barricades. The ambulance crew arrived at Nicole’s car without a stretcher, and they carried her away by her limbs.

The first reaction from Trump and Noem was to insult the victim as a “domestic terrorist” who was trying to kill ICE agents. The films showed that this was not true. They said she was trying to run over the ICE agent who fired three shots at her. This was not true. Nicole turned sharply to the right to avoid hitting him after he stood in front of her car. He fired a shot directly at her, which pierced her windshield. As she turned away, he fired two more shots at her. She did not endanger him. He killed her. He could have shot out her tires but he chose to kill her by shooting her in the head.

Parker Molloy wrote about the barrage of lies:

Immediately, DHS had a story ready. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin released a statement saying Good had “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Secretary Kristi Noem added that agents had been trying to push their vehicles out of the snow when Good “attacked them.” President Trump posted on Truth Social that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.”

There’s video. Multiple angles. You can watch it. The video shows agents approaching Good’s car. It shows one grabbing her door handle, yelling at her to get out. It shows her car reverse, then pull forward. It shows an agent fire through the windshield. It shows her car drift forward and crash.

The video does not show anyone getting run over. It does not show anyone stuck in snow. The street is clear.

Lies. Lies. Lies.

There was supposed to be a federal-state investigation but the FBI and ICE have said they will not collaborate with state investigators. They will not share their records or films. By now, based on what federal authorities have said over the past 24 hours, we know that we can’t trust federal agents to tell the truth.

Everyone has had multiple opportunities to view videos taken from different angles. None of those videos show Nicole “weaponizing” her car, trying to hit or kill the ICE agent. None of them show her being violent, willful, or vicious. Nothing in her background portrays her as a “professional activist.”

Once again the Trump administration will lie and blame the victim. Unless there is a statement by state and federal authorities, the investigation will have no credibility.

Categories Lies, Minneapolis, Trump
« Older Entries