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John Thompson: What Happened When Oklahoma Adopted the “Mississippi Miracle”

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2026 //
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John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, explains what happened when state officials in Oklahoma decided to adopt the “Mississippi Miracke.”

He writes:

In so many places, there is a push to implement the reward-and-punish “Mississippi Miracle.” And, unfortunately too many journalists believe their simplistic claims about increasing literacy. Oklahoma is just one example of a state implementing the so-called “Miracle,” so, our story should be a warning to others. 

The Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce featured Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves in an event this June. Given the misinformation that the Chamber has been spreading about the so-called “Mississippi Miracle,” I assumed that Gov. Reeves would spin the same message. But, his false and misleading statements were far worse.

The leaders of the state Chamber have long repeated the falsehood that NAEP Proficiency is “grade level” when, in fact, grade level is closer to the much lower “Basic” category. This claim was invented in the 1980s in order to attack our public schools as irreparably broken. 

Getting back to Gov. Reeves, Mississippi spins its State “Proficiency” rates as if they were connected with the reliable NAEP rates.  But, from 2019 to 2024, the Mississippi State 8th grade Reading Proficiency rates increased by 6 points, while its NAEP Proficiency scores dropped by 2 points, increasing its State/NAEP Proficiency Gap to 19 points. The 4th grade gap reached 25 points.

So, I looked at Reeves’ record as governor and found an even more disturbing history. And I wondered whether the Chamber looked into his past before they hosted him.

But, I must start with Gov. Reeves plan for expanding test prep and retention policies to 8th graders.

Reeves and the Oklahoma Chamber seem unaware that a major reason why test-driven accountability did so much damage was that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) set impossible targets that pressured schools to treat kids like numbers in order to try to minimize the inevitable harm the law would inflict. 

However, he acknowledged that Mississippi hasn’t increased 8th grade scores. Over the last 28 years, Mississippi’s 8th grade NAEP reading scores improved by one point, indicating that they did not improve reading for comprehension, or help students “learn to read, so that they can read to learn.”

In 2023, their average 8th grade NAEP reading score was 253. But, in 1998, the average score was 255. 

Worse, NAEP – which (at least previously) couldn’t be taught to – has a long history of being the most reliable metric. But, Mississippi’s new 2025-26 standards:

Are based on multiple measures including statewide assessment results in English language arts, math and science, English learner progress, advanced course and career and technical education performance, and graduation rates.

Since Mississippi’s new tests are designed to be taught to, there is little reason to believe they reflect growth in learning.  

Reeves then bragged about recently increasing Mississippi’s new targets. Under state law accountability, standards must increase “when 75 percent of students are proficient or when 65 percent of schools or districts earn a grade of B or higher.”  But, their State and NAEP proficient scores were dramatically different. In 2024, only 23% of Mississippi 8th graders scored Proficient or above in NAEP reading.

I also wish the Oklahoma Chamber would fact check Reeves’ unsubstantiated claim that raising the bar leads to increased student learning. They could start with former Oklahoma Secretary of Education Daniel Hamlin’s research which found that states which set high performance test standards “have not found a way to translate these new benchmarks into higher levels of student test performance.” 

Next, I would like to ask the Oklahoma State Chamber’s leaders if they looked into Reeves’ history. As the Mississippi Free Press explained, Reeves’ ties to the Sons of Confederate Veterans were longstanding. In 2013, He:

Spoke to the SCV’s national gathering in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in front of a massive Confederate battle flag and in a room decorated with smaller Confederate flags and cotton plants. After then-Lt. Gov. Reeves congratulated the organization for “keeping history for our youth,” speakers defended the Confederate “cause” and compared “Yankees” to German “Nazis” in World War II.

Moreover, Reeves’ subsequent proclamation did not mention the role of slavery and white supremacy.

And this April, Reeves, once again, signed the proclamation for the “Confederate Heritage Month.”

I have asked but received no answer as to what the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce knew about Reeves when it invited him to Oklahoma City.

In terms of improving schools, I would urge them to pay more attention to peer reviewed education research. And, it seems to me, that state leaders also should pay more attention to the Oklahoma City Chamber’s approach to school improvements, as opposed to the State Chamber.

It’s “Civic Lab is working to advance civic collaboration. Their practice is to look at what makes community collaboration flow best, document what they find and share those practices at a broad level.” Rhonda Baker, Director of Education for the Chamber, explained that they seek to report to the state legislature about better ways to connect the community and improve educational outcomes. And, “they’re talking to the nonprofit community to seek recommendations on policy and alignment changes to ultimately make programs mesh better.”

That, not praise for Jim Crow, sounds more like the Oklahoma Standard to me.

Categories Accountability, Literacy, Mississippi, Oklahoma

Trump Nominees Flagrantly Lie to Keep Him Happy

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2026 //
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This past week, Trump nominees appeared before Senate committees seeking their approval. when Senators ask direct questions, the nominees lied to avoid offending Donald Trump.

Mary Trump observes that the Big Question predictably elicits the Big Lie.

The Big Question is: Who won the 2020 election? Trump nominees dare not say, truthfully, Joe Biden. They have to find a way to pretend they didn’t hear the question or to duck answering.

Mary Trump writes:

Donald’s nominees continue to struggle with the most basic facts. They reject any history that does not fit the mythology he has created, and they seem far more concerned with demonstrating personal loyalty to Donald than with telling the truth to the American people.

Over the past several days, that pattern played out repeatedly during confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill.

Donald’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence refused to acknowledge who won the 2020 presidential election. Another nominee claimed ignorance about Tulsi Gabbard’s role in the FBI raid on Fulton County’s election office in Georgia, despite the fact that it happened only months ago. Donald’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control could not even commit to refusing an illegal order from the President. And Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche once again tied himself into knots attempting to defend the indefensible while continuing to shield Donald from accountability over the Epstein files.

Taken individually, each exchange was disturbing. Taken together, they reveal something much more dangerous. Donald is not selecting public servants. He is selecting people willing to deny objective reality if doing so pleases him.

Donald’s nominee’s are lying through their teeth because they desperately want to continue working for, or begin working for, a pathetic little man they are apparently terrified of offending.

The Senate Intelligence Committee held this confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, Donald’s nominee to replace Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. It is difficult to overstate how important this position is. The Director of National Intelligence oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the NSA, and works closely with the FBI and countless other intelligence organizations. The entire purpose of the position is to provide the President with accurate intelligence, even when that intelligence is inconvenient or politically damaging.

The job is not to protect the President’s feelings. The job is to tell the truth. Does anybody honestly believe somebody unwilling to acknowledge who won an election four years ago would tell Donald something he does not want to hear today?

Not if he wants to keep his job.

Jon Ossoff, Democratic Senator from Georgia recognized exactly what was happening and continued pressing Clayton during the hearing.

This is the exchange: 

Ossoff: It’s a simple question, Mr. Clayton.

Clayton: I’ve answered it.

Ossoff: Who won the 2020 presidential election?

Clayton: I’ve answered it.

Ossoff: You are here asking for the support of senators to lead America’s intelligence community. We’ve established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with this committee and with the American public, but you refuse to answer a simple matter of fact about the 2020 election. Is that right?

Clayton: No, that’s not right.

Ossoff: Then answer the question. Who won the 2020 election?

Clayton: I have answered the question.

Ossoff: Answer it. What is your answer?

Clayton: I’ve given you my answer.

Ossoff: What is your answer? You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America’s intelligence community. Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions? We know you know. Everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?

Clayton: I think I gave you the answer.

No.

He could not given the answer because he knows exactly what would happen if he did.

If he simply stated the obvious fact that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election by nearly eight million votes, Donald would immediately withdraw his nomination.

Clayton understands that. Every nominee understands that. Their confirmations are contingent upon demonstrating absolute loyalty, not competence. That is why they continue speaking in this absurd coded language about certifications, procedures, and Electoral College votes while refusing to utter one simple sentence.

Joe Biden won. Donald Trump lost. Those facts remain intolerable inside the Trump regime because Donald himself cannot tolerate them.

If I had been asking questions during that hearing, I would have taken a different approach. I would have asked who won the 2016 election. Then I would have asked who won the 2012 election. Then 2008. Then 2004.

I suspect they would answer every single one correctly. Only one election has become unspeakable. Only one historical fact has been erased from acceptable Republican discourse. That tells you everything you need to know.

The hearing became even more disturbing when Clayton was questioned about Tulsi Gabbard’s involvement in the FBI raid on Fulton County’s election offices in Georgia earlier this year.

This was not an obscure historical event. It happened only six months ago. It involved the very office Clayton hopes to lead. And yet he suddenly developed an astonishing case of selective amnesia.

This is what Senator Jon Ossoff asked.

Ossoff: Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid in Georgia earlier this year?

Clayton: You discussed that with me yesterday in your office.

Ossoff: Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid earlier this year?

Clayton: You brought it to my attention yesterday.

Ossoff: What is going on here? You’ve said at the beginning of this you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee. I’m asking a very simple question. Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid earlier this year? Yes or no?

Clayton: I was…

Ossoff: You won’t answer that question either.

Clayton: I just said I was made aware of it by you yesterday.

Ossoff: The first time you learned that Director Gabbard was present at that raid was in my office yesterday?

Clayton: It was the first time that, in my recollection, I’ve thought about it recently. Now, was I aware of it before? You brought it to my attention yesterday. I had not thought…

Ossoff: So you had not known until…

Clayton: I had not thought about it until you brought it to my attention yesterday.

Ossoff: Your answers lack credibility. Your testimony lacks credibility. You’re being evasive and you’re not being candid or forthright. Everybody across the country is going to watch this and know that.

Ossoff: Are you aware that former Director Gabbard testified that her presence at the raid was requested by the president?

Clayton: I’m not aware of that until now.

What?

How could he possibly not know? This is a man seeking confirmation to oversee the nation’s intelligence apparatus. He either knew and lied about it, or he truly did not know one of the most controversial actions taken by the office he hopes to inherit. Neither possibility inspires confidence.

As Senator Ossoff pointed out, these confirmation hearings are job interviews. The nominees are expected to answer questions honestly, demonstrate competence, and reassure senators that they can be trusted with enormous responsibility.

Donald Trump’s nominees do exactly the opposite. They evade. They deflect. They pretend not to remember. They refuse to acknowledge reality when reality happens to inconvenience Donald Trump. And somehow they expect the American people to forget everything we have watched unfold over the last several years.

That is not intelligence. It is obedience. And that increasingly appears to be the only qualification Donald requires.

The same pattern continued when the Senate Health Committee held a confirmation hearing for Dr. Erica Schwartz, Donald’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the hearing, Senator Maggie Hassan asked Schwartz a direct and entirely reasonable question: if Donald instructed her to take an action that violated the law, would she follow the law or obey him? For anybody seeking to lead one of the most important public health agencies in the world, the answer should have been immediate and unequivocal.

This is what Senator Maggie Hassan asked Dr. Erica Schwartz:

Hassan: Dr. Schwartz, just a few minutes ago, you said in response to a question from Senator Kaine, you will always follow the law. So just to be clear, if the President of the United States instructs you to take an action that would break the law, will you follow the law or follow the President’s instruction, Dr. Schwartz?

This is what Dr. Erica Schwartz said:

Schwartz: The President would never ask me not to follow the law, but I will always follow the law.

Senator Hassan responded:

Dr. Schwartz, there are multiple examples of the President actively instructing people to break the law over and over again. So I hope you will update yourself on that because it’s not a satisfactory response to say he would never do that.

Yes, Donald would never do the thing he does on a regular basis. That is like saying Donald never lies. Give me a break. This is the quality of nominee we are getting from the Republican Party: people who cannot answer basic questions because the truthful answer might offend Donald. Schwartz could have simply said she would obey the law under all circumstances. Instead, she began by protecting Donald from a hypothetical that is barely hypothetical, given the number of times he has pressured officials to ignore legal limits or bend institutions to serve his personal interests.

Then, of course, there is the execrable Todd Blanche, Donald’s former personal attorney, although he still behaves very much like Donald’s personal attorney, who is also serving as Acting Attorney General. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened a two day confirmation hearing on whether to give Blanche the position permanently. Doing so would inflict untold damage on a Department of Justice that has already been profoundly compromised.

Blanche is the person Donald can rely upon to help with his Epstein problem, and he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is willing to bend over backwards to do exactly that. He is also the Justice Department official who personally met twice with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted co conspirator in the rape and sex trafficking of girls and young women. Blanche was instrumental in Maxwell’s transfer to a minimum security facility, where she now enjoys privileges unavailable to most inmates convicted of comparable crimes.

Blanche is despicable, and yet he is poised to assume the most powerful law enforcement position in the country. During the hearing, Senator Dick Durbin asked whether Blanche would extend to Epstein’s survivors the same personal attention he extended to Maxwell. Ten survivors were sitting in the room. According to Durbin, none of them had been given an opportunity to speak with Blanche or anyone else at the Department of Justice or FBI, despite repeatedly asking to do so.

This is what Senator Dick Durbin asked Todd Blanche:

Let me talk to you for a moment about the survivors who are in the room. There are ten individuals who were exploited and abused by Mr. Epstein. They are here today. None of them have had a chance to speak to anyone in the department or FBI, though they’ve asked repeatedly. So can I get your word under oath that within the next thirty days you will personally sit down with these ten victims and hear their case in terms of what needs to be done by the Department of Justice?

This is what Todd Blanche said:

Chairman, I appreciate them being here today. I also have somebody from my office who’s spent her entire career working on cases like Mr. Epstein’s. She’s in charge of our task force investigating human trafficking. She’s available to talk to them.

Senator Durbin pressed him:

She can sit right next to you. She can sit right next to you when you meet with these survivors.

Blanche responded:

I have never said I will not meet with survivors.

Senator Durbin asked again:

Will you meet with these ten survivors? I’m asking you on the record.

Blanche replied:

If they have lawyers, as you know, I’m prohibited from meeting directly with them.

Blanche does not care about the survivors. He cares only about doing Donald’s bidding. Blanche had no difficulty personally meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker and Epstein’s co conspirator, but when ten survivors ask him to sit down and hear them, he suddenly discovers procedural complications and delegates the responsibility to somebody else.

This is not Blanche’s first time obfuscating about Epstein and the Epstein files. During a Senate hearing in May on the Justice Department’s budget, Senator Jeff Merkley asked Blanche whether the Epstein investigation remained open. Blanche, who now leads the Department of Justice, suddenly appeared unsure what the term “Epstein investigation” even meant.

This is what Senator Jeff Merkley asked Todd Blanche:

I want to go on to the Epstein investigation. Is it closed or open?

Blanche responded:

When you say the Epstein investigation, what are you referring to, Senator?

Senator Merkley clarified:

Well, the FBI said last year in July that it had closed the Epstein investigation. So I’m just using their words. Is it open or closed?

Blanche replied:

I don’t believe the FBI said that. I mean, if you’re referring to…

Senator Merkley interrupted:

Well, you’re head of the Department of Justice. Is the Epstein investigation open or closed?

Blanche answered:

I guess I don’t understand what Epstein investigation means. The investigation of Jeffrey Epstein himself?

These people are liars, but it is so much worse than that. They are seeking positions from which they can destroy the rule of law in this country. Blanche, in particular, has demonstrated that he is absolutely and utterly willing to do so in order to protect one of the most prolific and recidivist criminals in American history, Donald Trump.

The evasions in these hearings are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern. Jay Clayton refuses to say who won the 2020 presidential election because Donald cannot tolerate the truth. Clayton claims ignorance about Tulsi Gabbard’s involvement in a federal raid he should understand if he wants to run the intelligence community. Erica Schwartz cannot simply say she would reject an unlawful order because even acknowledging that Donald might issue one is apparently unacceptable. Todd Blanche will meet personally with Ghislaine Maxwell but will not commit to meeting with Epstein’s survivors. He then pretends not to understand what senators mean when they ask about the Epstein investigation.

They all know what they are doing. They are denying reality, evading basic questions, and humiliating themselves because protecting Donald is more important to them than telling the truth. That is not public service. It is submission to a criminal boss.

The danger is not merely that these people lie. The danger is that they are being placed in charge of institutions whose legitimacy depends upon truth, independence, and fidelity to the law. The Director of National Intelligence must tell the president facts he does not want to hear. The head of the CDC must follow science and the law, even when the president objects. The Attorney General must serve the United States, not the person occupying the Oval Office.

Donald does not want any of that. He wants officials who will indulge his delusions, erase inconvenient facts, and protect him from accountability. He wants people who understand that their positions depend entirely upon refusing to acknowledge reality whenever reality threatens him.

That is why they are lying. They are not confused. They are not forgetful. They are not struggling to understand the questions. They know the truthful answers, and they know that giving them could cost them Donald’s approval and, therefore, their jobs.

Every one of these hearings is exposing the same thing. Donald is not building a government of qualified public servants. He is assembling a collection of loyalists willing to discredit themselves, corrupt the institutions they lead, and deny what everybody knows to be true in order to protect their criminal boss.

Categories Accountability, Lies, Trump

Paul Thomas: The Proficiency Mirage: Florida Version

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2026 //
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Paul Thomas taught in public high schools for many years, before becoming a professor at Furman College in South Carolina. He is a persistent critic of the “Mississippi Miracle.” He uses data to check on state claims. In this post, he fact-checks Florida.

He wrote:

Reading proficiency is a powerful data point despite it being a moving target.

When anyone refers to “reading proficiency,” that usually means a percentage of students who have met or exceeded an established score on a standardized test of reading.

However, “proficiency” is not a standard term. States tend to use “proficient” as grade level expectations while NAEP uses “proficient” as an aspirational achievement level (and “basic” more closely correlates with state grade-level proficiency).

To further complicate “reading proficiency,” not only does the measurement vary from state to state, but also the expectations for what percentage of students should be proficient at any grade is more a debate than an established fact.

How many students should be proficient in reading? Sometimes it is 90%; sometimes it is 95%—and then there are state goals, for example, in Florida, as reported by Aldeman:

A 10-part video series produced by the Children’s Literacy Project tells what happened. It makes a compelling case that these results are attributable to a distinctive public-private partnership between the district and a nonprofit called The Learning Alliance. The story starts with two moms, Liz Woody-Remington and Barbara Hammond, whose children were struggling to read. In 2010, they asked themselves: What would it take to get 90% of the district’s children reading on grade level by the end of third grade?

I find these statistics troubling, similar to concerns raised by Hansford:

Over the years, I have on numerous occasions seen the claim that 95% of students can learn how to read proficiently, so long as they are provided adequate tier 1/2 instruction. Truthfully, it has always stuck out to me as a strange figure, for three reasons. First, most academic research does not typically use percentages in this sort of manner. Second, I often see this figure unaccompanied by a citation. And third, it seems low; I find it hard to believe that 5% of students just cannot learn how to read. …For this figure to have scientific validity, it would need experimental research demonstrating it to be true. Ideally, I would want to see multiple large scale studies, due to the universality of the claim. Intrigued by the discussion, I put out a public call on twitter asking if anyone had a citation for the figure.

Hansford walks us through the research (thin at best) and reaches an interesting conclusion:

This all said, it does seem there is some level of support for 96% being a benchmark goal, for reading proficiency rates. While some might argue, this is too high, I worry it’s too low, as it is clearly possible to achieve better than 96%. For example, in the Torgesen 2003 paper, 98.4% of students were able to read at grade level. When I asked for research on this topic, I was given an anecdote about a school using EBLI that went from 87% proficiency rates to 100%, within a matter of years. Well this is just an anecdote. I do think 100% proficiency is—in many cases—possible and should always be the goal.

I think the points here that must not be missed are the role of “anecdote” in claims about reading proficiency as well as claims about surprising gains and outlier “miracle” evidence, such as, again, Aldeman highlights:

Even more impressively, low-income third graders at Indian River schools scored better than the statewide average for all students. And, perhaps not surprisingly, when we went looking for high-poverty schools that were nevertheless getting good outcomes in reading, we identified three of the district’s schools — Rosewood Magnet, Fellsmere Elementary and Pelican Island Elementary — for our “Bright Spots” list. Fellsmere in particular stood out: Based on its 99% poverty rate, our calculations predicted that it would have a third grade reading rate of just 29%. But its actual rate was much higher, at 53%.

Indian River County was never exactly a failing district, but a decade ago it was performing a bit worse than the state as a whole. It has since begun to pull away, especially in third grade. Coming out of the pandemic, 60% of district third graders scored proficient in reading in 2023. That figure rose to 63% in 2024 and then jumped again, to 69%, in 2025.

This reporting fits into a “beating the odds”approach that frames outlier evidence as the normfor an entire population.

The evidence [1] is overwhelming in education that outlier “miracle” evidence is usually misleading or false, and even more problematic, outlier success, when valid, is rarely scalable.

In short, “beating the odds” stories make for compelling journalism and politics but not for effective or reasonable education reform.

These stories from Florida also raise some red flags.

The organization promoting this reform, Children’s Literacy Project, is faith-based.

Like other Republican states such as Oklahoma and Texas, Florida is seeking ways to erode the separation of church and state, specifically in public schools.

Schools partnering with organizations to promote and support reform is not necessarily a problem, but the outside help does create tensions about ideology as well as erodes the likelihood reforms are scalable.

Another few aspects of Florida are not highlighted in the reporting but deserve attention.

Returning to measurements of reading proficiency, Florida is in the bottom quartile of states in terms of the standard for “proficient”:

Florida, like Mississippi, is also a state where relative success in grade 4 reading quickly evaporates by grade 8:

Again like Mississippi, Florida is in the top of states for grade 4 reading on NAEP, but drops to the bottom quartile in grade 8:

https://radicalscholarship.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-6.png

Finally, the media and political story most often focuses on reforms in reading programs, teacher training, school leadership, and school expectations; however, outlier and surprising gains in grade 4 reading are likely driven by grade retention (a harmful punishment) and not the celebrated reforms.

Notably, high-grade retention states like Florida and Mississippi are also the states with significant decreases from grade 4 to grade 8.

Florida has a long history of aligning itself with “miracle” education reform that proves to be a mirage.

Beware the current numbers game about reading proficiency—a measurement that changes with the political wind.

[1] Thomas, P.L. (2016). Miracle schools or political scam? In W.J. Mathis & T.M. Trujillo, Learning from the Federal Market-Based Reforms: Lessons for ESSA. Charlotte, NC: IAP.

Categories Accountability, Data, Florida, Gender, Literacy, NAEP

Musk Insisted that No Child Died Because of His Cuts to USAID. Kristof Proves He Is Wrong.

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2026 //
8

When Elon Musk started his Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), one of his first targets was USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the agency that sent food, medicine and health workers to the world’s neediest nations.

Musk and his DOGE shut down USAID. On February 3, 2025, Musk boasted on Twitter:

We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead.

Clearly, Musk was very proud of what he did. American farmers complained that they lost $2 billion in sales that had previously been purchased by USAID to ship abroad to needy people.

Immediately, there were dire predictions that people would die without the food and medicine provided by the U.S.

Musk at first ignored the critics, but eventually insisted that no child had died as a result of closing down USAID.

Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times responded:

Elon Musk is newly minted as humanity’s first trillionaire, but the world’s richest man seems grumpy. And he definitely is not a fan of mine.

“Kristof is lying through his teeth,” he announced on social media this week.

I got on his nerves for pushing back at his claims that his demolition of the United States Agency for International Development last year did not cost lives. The fracas began after Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said that Musk had “possibly sentenced to death” a large number of children, and Musk retorted that it was “time to sue this liar.”

“There is not even a single dead child!” Musk protested on social media. I noted that I had met many families of children who had died — and that’s when he concluded that I was lying.

Musk’s assertion that not a single child died is absurd, yet he doubled down: “They cannot cite a single name of someone who died out of the ‘millions’ they falsely claim have died. Not a single name!”

On X, I began to give Musk some names. Let me elaborate:

Jibia was a 10-year-old girl, ranking third out of 58 students in her fourth-grade class in Rwamwanja, Uganda. Aid cuts meant that the local clinic ran out of $2 bed nets to protect from mosquitoes, as well as anti-malaria medicines. Jibia died of malaria last July, her mother told me outside the family home. Medical records confirmed that, and health workers told me that she would have been fine without the aid cuts: Replacing her tattered bed net with a new one could have prevented malaria, and in any case drugs would have helped her to recover promptly.

Yamah Freeman hemorrhaged while pregnant with her third child in her village in Liberia. The United States had provided ambulances to the local hospital, but the aid cuts under Musk and President Trump meant that the ambulances had no fuel. The strongest young men in the village placed her on their shoulders and raced down the path toward town, shouting encouragement to her as they ran, but she bled to death along the way. Her parents and sister told me about this, and I visited her grave.

Achol Deng, 8, had been infected with H.I.V. at birth in South Sudan but had been kept alive by American-provided medicines costing just 12 cents a day. The dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. and the resulting chaos meant that she lost her caseworker and access to medicines, and soon died of an opportunistic infection, health workers told me.

I could keep going. A Boston University researcher estimated that the aid cuts have cost more than 750,000 lives worldwide. A study published in The Lancet, the British medical journal, forecast that at present rates, the aid defunding will cost 9.4 million lives by 2030.

These figures may not be accurate; we just don’t have solid mortality data, and the aid cuts have also reduced data collection. What I can say after visiting numerous impoverished villages is that aid cuts are unquestionably costing the lives of many children.

Some prominent conservatives leaped to the defense of Musk, saying in effect: Why is it our job to save the lives of children in South Sudan? Why don’t rich liberals write checks? Why don’t other countries do more?

Those are fair questions. But if any of us came across an ambulance that had run out of gas with a hemorrhaging woman inside, surely we would happily hand over a $10 bill to save her life.

Until Trump’s second term, American aid cost just 23 cents for every $100 of gross national income and saved a life approximately once every 10 seconds. Seems like a bargain to me. Certainly it appears wiser than spending billions of dollars on a war with Iran.

I say “wiser” because all this is not just about compassion but also about self-interest. Aid money serves national security and protects us from diseases. I’ve noted that the current Ebola outbreak in Africa may have gotten out of control precisely because we cut aid spending in the region.

Yes, other countries should do more, impoverished countries should be less corrupt, and our own aid can be allocated more wisely. But note that some countries in Europe are significantly more generous than America, spending up to 10 times as much on aid as a share of national income as we do.

Should liberals donate more to humanitarian causes? Sure. But compassion isn’t a liberal impulse — it’s a human one. It was evangelicals and Republicans who in 2003 started the single best aid program ever, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR; it has saved more than 26 million lives so far. Some of the most heroic aid workers I’ve met in dangerous locations have been Christian missionaries, from nuns to doctors; they would dispute the idea that empathy is woke.

It’s reasonable to ask how much we should spend or how we should reform the system. But why would anyone begrudge $2 bed nets or $4 malaria vaccines to save children’s lives?

So let me offer a challenge to Musk: Come with me on a reporting trip to South Sudan or Somalia or Mozambique. Meet starving children whose lives can be easily saved. Hold them. Look into their eyes. Talk to their terrified moms.

You’ll understand that these kids are just like ours, except that they didn’t do as well in the lottery of birth — and that just because we can’t save every child’s life doesn’t mean we should save none of them.

Back in the late 1960s, opponents of the war in Vietnam used to torment President Lyndon B. Johnson by shouting at him,

Hey, hey, LBJ,

How many kids did you kill today?

I can’t think of a word that rhymes with “Musk.” Can you?

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Health, International, Poverty

Andy Borowitz on the Passing of Lindsey Graham

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2026 //
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Andy Borowitz is one of the nation’s most notable humorists. For years, he wrote for The New Yorker. Now, he writes on Substack, where this commentary was posted.

I remember when Senator Graham was Senator John McCain’s best friend. John McCain was a true war hero. He was shot down over Hanoi, and he spent five years as a prisoner of war. He was offered the chance to get an early release, but he said he wouldn’t leave until the other POWs were freed. Graham adored him until he was dead, then attached himself to Trump. Trump mocked McCain, and said McCain was not a hero because he got captured. This from a man who dodged the draft because of “bone spurs.” And Graham forgot his friend.

A Fact-based Lindsey Graham Obituary

Like many Americans, I mourn the sudden passing of Lindsey Graham. I had hoped he would live long enough to be tried for treason.

Let me define my terms. A true traitor collaborates with the enemy despite knowing better. For that reason, someone like Sen. Tommy Tuberville could never be considered a traitor, because he knows nothing.

And then there’s Lindsey.

For the better part of a decade, the senior senator from South Carolina was enmeshed in an on-again, off-again—but mainly on-again—bromance with Donald J. Trump.

It began when both men were running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. At the time, Graham had some pretty harsh words for his GOP rival.

“There’s only one way to make America great again,” he said. “Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

Snap! But Lindsey was just warming up. He’d go on to call Trump “crazy,” “a jackass,” and “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” who “shouldn’t be commander-in-chief.”

“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed,” he said, “and we will deserve it.” Why was he so sure that Trump would lose? “Donald Trump is the most unelectable Republican I’ve seen in my lifetime,” he said.

As for Trump’s mental health, Lindsey offered this succinct diagnosis: “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy.”

Just one year later, when the crazy xenophobic jackass was chain-slurping Diet Cokes in the Oval Office, Graham decided to revise that assessment somewhat.

“What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy as some kind of kook not fit to be president,” he told CNN.

This sort of flip-flop worked so much better before the invention of Google. But Lindsey seemed to hope that by piling praise on the man he once wished would go to hell, we’d forget about all that mean stuff he’d said before. By 2018, Graham was bizarrely claiming that Trump “deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and then some.”

In his quest to suck up to Trump as strenuously as possible, Graham hurled himself into self-abasement as if it were an extreme sport. When Trump relentlessly insulted the memory of John McCain—purportedly Graham’s best friend when they were Senate colleagues—Lindsey responded with astonishing nonchalance.

“I don’t like what he says about John McCain,” Graham told Bloomberg. “But when we play golf, it’s fun.”

Yes, Lindsey apparently lost his moral compass somewhere in the sand trap of the Trump National Golf Club. That’s why it was so striking when he seemed to express genuine outrage on the floor of the Senate after Trump incited the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

“Trump and I… we’ve had a hell of a journey,” he said. “I hate it to end this way. Oh my god, I hate it… but today, all I can say is ‘Count me out. Enough is enough.’”

Alas, Lindsey’s appearance on the right side of history turned out to be a head-fake, as his hell of a journey with the insurrectionist-in-chief was far from over. Like his fellow quisling, Mitch McConnell, Graham voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial. And once it became clear that launching a coup against the US government wasn’t a deal-breaker for 99 percent of the GOP, Lindsey was hitting the links with the wannabe junta leader once more.

“I’m trying to keep a relationship with him after the riot,” he told Axios two months after January 6. “I still consider him a friend. What happened was a dark day in American history. And we’re going to move forward.”

Lindsey just couldn’t quit him.

All of the events I’ve recounted thus far are sufficient to qualify Graham as a traitor. His defenders, though, might raise a mitigating factor: his hawkish stance against the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.

In this regard, Graham was always on the same page as his Senate pal McCain. Responding to George W. Bush’s gullible assessment of the murderous Russian (”I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.”), McCain quipped, “I looked in Mr. Putin’s eyes and I saw three letters—a K, a G and B.”

But Graham might have topped McCain in his detestation of Putin. Calling him a “war criminal” and “not a legitimate leader,” in 2022 he proposed assassination as the swiftest way to end the war in Ukraine: “I just want him to go…I wish somebody had taken Hitler out in the ‘30s.”

When the International Criminal Court, in a somewhat less draconian measure, issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023, Lindsey hailed the decision: “To forgive and forget Putin’s war crimes—that are occurring on an industrial scale—would irrevocably damage the Rule of Law-based world order established at the end World War II.”

That “Rule of Law-based world order” was shredded in the Oval Office last year when Trump and JD Vance disgracefully ganged up on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for having the audacity to suggest that Putin might not be a trustworthy fellow. Aware of Graham’s longstanding hatred of the man he called a war criminal, I eagerly awaited his rousing statement of support for Zelenskyy.

Instead, Lindsey told reporters, “What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t know if we could ever do business with Zelensky again… I have never been more proud of the president. I was very proud of JD Vance standing up for our country.”

That kind of statement made many people wish Lindsey would go to hell. Done.

Categories Accountability, Character, Democracy, Elections, Ethics

Federal Judge Drops Case Against Leaders of the Proud Boys

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2026 //
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Trump pardoned the convicted criminals who were sentenced because of their actions on January 6, 2021. Those who committed the most serious crimes were accused of seditious conspiracy and did not receive a pardon. They are leaders of the Proud Boys, a group of right wing extremists. They were later pardoned by Todd Blanche.

CNN reported:

(CNN) — A federal judge on Friday dismissed the seditious conspiracy case against several Proud Boys members — granting a request from Trump’s Justice Department and undoing one of the Biden administration’s most celebrated victories against those who it said inspired the January 6, 2021, attack on American democracy.

US District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, begrudgingly agreed to drop the case against the four members, saying he “lacks the authority to compel the Executive to pursue a prosecution, full stop.”

“President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6—whether those views are based on fact or fiction—are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them through the Executive Order,” Judge Kelly said, referring to Trump on his first day back in office signing an order commuting their sentences.

Trump’s order granted pardons to over 1,000 people convicted in the attack but left in place the convictions of the four Proud Boys members — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.

In April, the Justice Department under Todd Blanche moved to vacate their convictions.

Dismissing the case against the Proud Boys associates erases some of the most serious convictions from the sprawling investigation of the US Capitol riot, one of the largest federal investigations in US history. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl were found guilty in 2023 of seditious conspiracy and a range of other charges. Pezzola was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other charges related to January 6.

The US district judge who sits in Washington, DC, said in his order that the Trump administration sought to “treat this case essentially the same way it has all January 6 cases, without regard for the seriousness of the conduct at issue or even whether the case was initiated after President Biden took office or, like this one, while President Trump was still in power.”

“The decisions to issue the Executive Order and to abandon this prosecution—even after the Government secured convictions for serious crimes relating to the attack on the Capitol on January 6—are solely the Executive’s,” Kelly continued. “No one should mistake the Court’s granting of the Government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions.”

Rehl, one of the Proud Boys members, celebrated the dismissal in a post on X, saying, “Finally, it’s all over! January 6th can now be a thing of the past for me!”

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the group who had also been pardoned by Trump, was also quick to boast on X Friday night: “Justice is served! Proud Boys don’t lose. We win. This is our victory.”

Trump has long lambasted the January 6 prosecutions as an injustice against his supporters, even referring to those in jail as “hostages.”

The president has repeatedly called January 6, 2021, “a day of love and peace” and claimed his supporters posed “zero threat.” His comments are contradicted by hundreds of video clips of Trump supporters beating police with flagpoles, batons, wooden clubs and baseball bats; deploying stun guns and chemical sprays; and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police officers.

The judge, calling the insurrection “a perilous event,” said it was “an attack on people, including police officers, many of whom were injured. It was an attack on a coordinate branch of government—Congress—that the Founders saw fit to give a place of primacy in Article I of the Constitution. And it was an attack on the Constitution’s mechanism to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next, what President Reagan called ‘nothing less than a miracle.’”

Closing his order with a somber warning, Kelly said, “Moving forward, if this Nation’s experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people—no matter their partisan preferences—will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework.”

Categories Accountability, Character, Disruption, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

Texas Vouchers Subsidize Students Already Attending Private Schools

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2026 //
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When Governor Greg Abbott sold his voucher program, he talked about helping the poorest kids escape public schools and choose better private schools; he talked about enabling those with disabilities go to private schools. He talked about spreading opportunity through school choice.

Some moderate Republicans and rural Republicans supported their community public schools, and they repeatedly voted down Abbott’s vouchers. So Abbott used the millions of dollars contributed by Pennsylvania billionaire to replace them with conservatives who backed vouchers.

But now the data are in on which students are getting vouchers. Three-quarters of them are private school students. This is similar to what happened in other states. Vouchers are not about helping public school students; the reality is that they subsidize kids who never attended public schools.

Maryam Ahmed of The Dallas Morning News reported:

As Texas’ $1 billion school choice program approaches rollout this fall, preliminary data shows most of the program’s applicants were already enrolled in private schools, fewer applications came from families in poorer districts, and less that 30 students with special needs got the top award amount of $30,000.

The Dallas Morning News analyzed data from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which runs the Texas Education Freedom Account program.

The first year of TEFA has exposed key challenges voucher programs have faced nationwide: insufficient funding for some families to make the move to expensive private schools, difficulties for special education students finding private schools that can support their needs, and minimal benefits for lower-income and rural families.

Since similar data are reported in every state that has no income limits, it’s reasonable to conclude that the transfer of public money to kids in religious and private schools is a feature of school choice, not a bug.

Out of 5.4 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, 275,000 applied for vouchers. The legislation, passed last year, offers students $10,474 while disabled students can receive up to $30,000. Homeschooled students can get $2,000. Median private school tuition is about $9,400, not including books and transportation. Elite private schools charge much more.

Now we learn that the purpose of the voucher program was to “ease the burden” on families already paying for private school, not to help kids in public school:

TEFA spokesperson Travis Pillow said the program’s goal is not to “lure away” public school students but make private school affordable across the board. Many families with children in private school make major sacrifices to keep them there, Pillow said, and TEFA eases that burden….

Out of 5.45 million public school students in Texas, only about 68,000 even applied for TEFA — barely one percent. Half of those students were awarded funds, as of June 16 records provided to The Dallas Morning News, but more could drop out of the program if they can’t find a school to fit their needs.

But even a small drop in public school enrollment leads to budget cuts.

Florida’s voucher program has ballooned to more than $4 billion dollars since it was implemented in 2023, taking up nearly a quarter of the state’s public school fund.  In Arizona, which has the country’s oldest universal school choice program, vouchers contributed to a $1.4 billion budget shortfall in 2024…

In Texas, public school districts receive a $6,215 allotment per student from the state, meaning fewer public school students directly translates to less funding…

About one in four of the voucher awards went to students with disabilities but only 20 in the entire state received the top award of $25,000-$30,000. However, private schools are not bound by federal law and may deny admission to students with disabilities. It is anticipated that many who received vouchers may return to their public school, where they are guaranteed admission and services.

If the state’s public education budget becomes strained, said Daniel DeMatthews, an educational policy professor at the University of Texas at Austin, lower-income and rural districts would likely be hit hardest.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Lies, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

Trump is Killing the Civil Service and Reviving the Spoils System

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2026 //
9

Trump boasted about the U.S. Supreme Court decision Trump v. Slaughter gave him more power than any other President. That decision removes protection from members of independent commissions. With the exception of the Federal Reserve Board (which regulates the banking system and whose stability is crucial to the economy), Trump now has the power to fire any member of any independent commission without cause. He can stack those commissions with his cronies, with people who have no expertise but will do whatever he wants.

What’s the point of having “independent” commissions if they are not independent of political influence?

Thom Hartmann wrote that the Court majority just rolled back the Pendleton Act of 1883, which created the Civil Service:

The six unscrupulous Republicans on the Supreme Court — over the loud objections of the three true constitutionalists on the Court — are aggressively dragging America back not just to the 1950s but, as of yesterday, to the 1830s.

Arguably the most depraved president in American history, Andrew Jackson (aka “The Indian Killer” a title he gave himself), Trump’s favorite, whose picture he hung in the Oval Office, invented what came to be called the “Spoils System.” 

If you wanted a job in the federal government, or a favorable ruling from one of the then-few federal agencies, all you had to do was give a big enough gift to President Jackson, or pledge your loyalty to him instead of the Constitution and the people, and your wish would be granted…

The Federal Reserve protects the nations’ banking system and thus ensures stability and prosperity for America’s billionaires and the companies that made them that way. By blowing up Trump’s attempt to remove the Fed’s one Black governor (presumably as part of his and Hegseth’s Make America White Again campaign), the Republicans on the Court defended America’s oligarchs.

The other federal agencies, like the FTC, mostly protect you and me. They oversee our environment, consumer product safety, the purity of our food and drugs, and so on. If anything, America’s oligarchs consider them a pain in the ass.

If Democrats win the Presidency and control of both houses of Congress in 2028, they can write new laws reviving limits on Presidential power, protecting merit-based appointments, and strengthening the federal civil service.

Until that happens, Trump can fire any member of the Federal Trade Commission,

Categories Accountability, Character, Corruption, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Trump

Florida Scores Dead Last in Supporting Its Public Schools

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2026 //
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When it comes to supporting its public schools, Florida ranks dead last in the nation. Not only was it dead last of all states, it was at the very bottom in 2024 and 2025.

Florida betrays its state constitution, which contains a clear mandate to create and protect strong public schools.

Article IX, Section 1(a) states:

“The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education…”

Under the misleadership of Republican politicians like Jeb Bush and Ron DeSantis, Florida has diverted billions of dollars to privately governed charter schools and unaccountable vouchers for private and religious schools and home schooling. Bush and DeSantis have ignored and abandoned Florida’s state constitution.

And among all the states, Florida’s school rank dead last.

Based on the NPE report Public Schooling in America 2026, Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for public Education, wrote:

This is the third consecutive year that Florida’s statehouse has earned last place when it comes to supporting public schools. Florida’s lawmakers don’t merely encourage privatization through charters, vouchers, and homeschools; they actively engineer conditions that undermine public schools and worsen the environment for teaching and learning.

The damage from Florida’s universal voucher program is staggering. Close to four billion dollars in state education funding now flows annually to voucher programs — nearly one in four state education dollars diverted away from public schools, including to families whose children never set foot in a public school. And the funding mechanism puts the burden directly on school districts, which must absorb the loss.

Meanwhile, Florida continuously revises its school rating standards to ensure more public schools are labeled as failing, while simultaneously incentivizing and subsidizing charter expansion. Its Schools of Hope program even allows charters to colonize unused space inside public school buildings. Success Academy’s Eva Moskowitz teamed up with a Florida billionaire to help draft the enabling legislation, then used it to muscle her chain into the Miami charter market with generous public funding in tow.

Fifty percent of Florida’s charter sector is run by for-profit operators — one of the highest shares in the nation. Only Michigan has more. Florida is home to Academica, the largest for-profit charter chain in the country, and to Charter Schools USA. Both profit from the real estate they build and lease back to their own branded schools.

Charter schools claim to be equally open to all students. That is not the case in Florida, which lost points for the numerous enrollment privileges its laws permit. Florida is one of a small number of states that allow company-based charter schools. The Villages, the largest retirement community in the country, has its own charter school, and it functions less like a school of choice than a company store. The school was created by the community’s developer, and at least one parent must be employed by The Villages or a company that services it. If that parent quits or is fired, the child must leave immediately. For a low-wage service worker who might want to change jobs, the school becomes a trap — a reason to stay put rather than pursue something better.

Florida sinks to the bottom not only because of its weak charter and voucher laws and the financial incentives it offers to expand privatization, but because it actively undermines its public schools through policy and funding decisions at every turn. Florida lost every possible point on school funding — whether measured by cost-of-living-adjusted teacher salaries, equitable funding distribution, or funding based on capacity to pay. It has low teacher satisfaction, high student-to-teacher and student-to-counselor ratios, weak anti-bullying laws, and it still permits corporal punishment.

Of 102 possible points, Florida disgracefully earned only 14. You can read our full NPE 2026 report card here.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Censorship, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Federal Waiver, Florida, For-Profit, History

Scott Dworkin: Trump Sons Cash in, DOGE Strikes Out

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2026 //
5

Scott Dworkin runs a Democratic activist’s blog, raising money for candidates and exposing Trump scandals and grifts. I subscribe and encourage you to do the same.

He writes:

A NEW TRUMP BUSINESS: THE PENTAGON

A paper trail of federal money keeps showing up right behind the Trump name. Don Jr. joined drone maker Unusual Machines’ advisory board in November 2024—and within a year, one of the company’s largest orders ever was placed by the US Army.

Last August, Don Jr.’s firm, 1789 Capital, bought into a startup called Vulcan Elements; three months later it landed a $620 million loan, the biggest in the Pentagon’s lending office history. ProPublica found the loan was initiated by senior White House official Peter Navarro—a friend of Don Jr.’s—and pushed through in a matter of weeks, sending Vulcan’s value skyrocketing from $200 million toward $2 billion.

The sons swear their names have nothing to do with it, but the record says otherwise: roughly $3.7 billion in federal money went to at least ten companies tied to the brothers since the regime took power. That’s your April taxes, meant to defend the country, rerouted to whoever hired the right last name.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is now demanding the Pentagon’s inspector general investigate: “his sons are cashing in on defense contracts funded by hardworking taxpayers.”

They built this in the dark to work in secret, betting nobody would ever turn on the lights. The investigation just started, the receipts are already public, and every dollar gets traced. This fight is only beginning.

DOGE IS DEAD. THE DAMAGE ISN’T.

DOGE’s mandate expired July 4, the end date written into Trump’s own executive order. Elon Musk swore he’d cut $2 trillion. DOGE’s website claims $215 billion—a number they haven’t updated since January and that budget experts don’t buy. Even taking their figure at face value, that’s a dime in cuts for every dollar promised.

Molly Hardy was the National Endowment for the Humanities’ 2024 employee of the year. DOGE laid her off anyway. Then in March, the agency came crawling back, emailing to ask if she’d return. She turned them down—not bitter, just clear-eyed: “It didn’t feel good. It just felt really sad.”

She’s not alone, and that’s the part they didn’t see coming. All over the government, the wreckage is being reversed: HHS fired 10,000 workers and is now scrambling to hire 12,000. Agencies that bragged about the chainsaw are begging people to come back. Asked if shrinking the workforce was even still the goal, OPM chief Scott Kupor admitted: “I’m not hearing that.”

And when Congress asked what DOGE actually accomplished, budget director Russell Vought had nothing to show: “We have no plans to do kind of a closing DOGE report.”

The people who took a chainsaw to our government don’t get to slink off without a full accounting. We’ll see to that.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Ethics, Failure, For-Profit, Musk, Elon, Trump
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