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Hegseth Wants All Troops over the Age of 30 to be Tested for Testosterone

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2026 //
7

The blogger “Liberty Beats News” reported the following disturbing story. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is obsessed with the idea of “lethality” and “masculinity” that leads to stories like this one, as well as bias against women, who don’t have the same levels of testosterone as men. Even without the testosterone that Hegseth demands, women seem to be capable of exemplary leadership. Hegseth, however, continues to block most women from leadership roles in the military.

Blogger Liberty Brats News reports:

Pentagon Announces Mandatory Testosterone Testing for Troops Over 30 — And the Science Behind It Is Shakier Than Hegseth Is Selling It

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is framing declining testosterone as a fixable threat to military “lethality,” but the medicine tells a messier story: most people prescribed testosterone therapy never get properly diagnosed first, and the FDA has flagged real cardiovascular risk

WASHINGTON — July 15, 2026

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that all active-duty service members age 30 and older will be required to undergo annual testosterone deficiency screening as part of their existing periodic health assessment — branding the effort “The High-T Department of War” in a video posted to social media.

What Was Announced

Under the new policy, troops 30 and up will be tested annually; those under 30 can opt in voluntarily. If a service member is found to have a deficiency, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is offered, not mandated — the choice to actually take it remains with the individual. Hegseth framed it as a health and performance initiative: “It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.” The Pentagon has not clarified whether the requirement or the treatment option extends to women in the military, whose testosterone levels also decline with age.

The Marketing Language vs. the Actual Medicine

Hegseth’s own phrase, “High-T,” isn’t a medical term — it’s borrowed directly from a social media fitness and masculinity trend, where influencers encourage men to chase higher testosterone numbers as a marker of strength and virility. That distinction matters, because the FDA has never approved testosterone therapy on that basis. 

The only FDA-approved use for TRT is treating clinical hypogonadism — a specific, diagnosable medical condition involving genuine testicular or pituitary dysfunction, confirmed through repeated blood tests and documented symptoms. Simply having a number that’s lower than it used to be isn’t the same thing as having a treatable deficiency, and the FDA has never approved TRT as a tool for boosting combat performance, aggression, or “lethality” in men with normal age-related hormone decline.

What “Low Testosterone” Actually Means — And Doesn’t

Testosterone drops by roughly 1% a year after age 30, according to the Mayo Clinic — a completely normal, expected part of aging, not a malfunction. True testosterone deficiency, called hypogonadism, affects an estimated 5.6% of men between 30 and 79. That means the overwhelming majority of the men this policy will test every year have testosterone levels that are simply aging normally, not failing. 

Testosterone Levels By Age: Normal Ranges 2026 Guide

A 2026 Endocrine Society study presented at its annual meeting found that most men who are already being prescribed testosterone therapy in civilian medicine never received proper, guideline-based diagnostic testing beforehand — meaning a huge share of current TRT patients may not actually meet the medical bar for needing it in the first place. One of the study’s independent reviewers, a reproductive endocrinologist at Imperial College London, called overprescribing “a problem of our time,” driven in part by corporate telehealth providers with minimal clinical oversight — a dynamic a mandatory military-wide testing program risks reproducing at scale.

The Risks Nobody’s Talking About in the Announcement

Testosterone therapy isn’t risk-free. The FDA issued a formal safety communication requiring TRT products to carry warning labels about a possible increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The research since then has been genuinely mixed — some large studies have found elevated cardiovascular risk in men on TRT, while others, including a comprehensive Harvard-affiliated review of 72 studies, found no compelling evidence of increased heart disease or cancer risk. What that actually means is that the cardiovascular safety of giving testosterone therapy to a large, mostly healthy population has not been settled science — which makes rolling it out across the entire U.S. military, framed as a performance and readiness initiative, a real-world experiment on hundreds of thousands of people rather than a proven intervention.

A Broader Pattern

This isn’t happening in isolation. The FDA moved in April to expand access to TRT more broadly, and Hegseth has spent his tenure building what he calls a “warrior ethos” around hyper-masculine physical standards — requiring all combat roles to meet a single “highest male standard,” warning against “fat generals and admirals,” and mocking transgender troops in public remarks. 

Notably, Health and Human Services official Dr. Mehmet Oz has already publicly praised Trump’s own testosterone levels, according to RFK Jr., calling them the highest he’s seen in a man over 70 — a strange data point to have entered the public discourse days before this policy, and a reminder that “optimizing testosterone” has become as much a cultural signal in this administration as a medical one.

Bottom Line

Nothing about this policy is inherently sinister — screening for a real, underdiagnosed medical condition isn’t unreasonable on its face. What doesn’t hold up is the marketing: testosterone testing doesn’t measure “lethality,” normal aging isn’t a deficiency, and the treatment itself carries cardiovascular questions that haven’t been fully answered even in civilian medicine, where prescribing already outpaces proper diagnosis. Framing a hormone panel as the key to combat readiness sells better on social media than it does in a peer-reviewed journal.

Sources

• Forbes — “Hegseth Announces ‘Testosterone Deficiency’ Screening For Soldiers 30 And Over,” July 15, 2026. forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2026/07/15/hegseth-announces-testosterone-deficiency-screening-for-soldiers-30-and-over/

• Newsweek — “Hegseth’s New Military Testosterone Rules: Who Is On The Hook?” July 15, 2026. newsweek.com/hegseth-announces-new-required-pentagon-testosterone-tests-who-it-impacts-12200211

• NOTUS — “Testosterone-Fueled Troops? Hegseth Says Military to Begin Testing Hormones,” July 15, 2026. notus.org/defense/testosterone-troops-hegseth-testing

• Stars and Stripes — “‘High-T Department of War’: Hegseth announces annual testosterone screenings for service members age 30 or older,” July 15, 2026. stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-07-15/hegseth-approve-testosterone-testing-troops-22274442.html

• The Hill — “Pentagon to screen troops over 30 for testosterone,” July 15, 2026. thehill.com/policy/defense/5969935-hegseth-testosterone-testing-dod/

• Endocrine Society — “Testosterone therapy in men may be overprescribed, inconsistent with clinical guidelines,” June 13, 2026. endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2026/papaleontiou-press-release-endo-2026

• U.S. FDA Drug Safety Communication — “FDA cautions about using testosterone products for low testosterone due to aging,” fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm436259.htm

• Harvard Gazette — “Study finds no direct links between testosterone therapy, diseases,” Harvard Medical School review of 72 studies. news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2004/01/study-finds-no-direct-links-between-testosterone-therapy-diseases

Categories Bigotry, Gender, Health, Injustice

Texas Tech Professors’ Group Sues to Overturn Restrictions on Academic Freedom

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2026 //
1

Federal courts are overturning bans that tell college professors what they are not allowed to teach. And more campuses are taking a stand.

At the Texas Tech University system, the American Association of University Professors and its Texas affiliate are the latest to do so.

The Dallas Morning News reported:

Two faculty groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to block the Texas Tech University System from implementing its policies on how professors can discuss race, gender and sexual orientation in the classroom.

The suit, which marks a major legal challenge against a Texas university system over increased restrictions on what can be taught, focuses on two memos issued by Texas Tech Chancellor Brandon Creighton in the last academic year.

One memo, sent in December, banned content that advocates for one race or sex as “inherently superior to another” and prohibited faculty from teaching that there are more than two sexes. The second memo, sent in April, ordered universities to cut all academic degrees “centered on” sexual orientation and gender identity.

The two groups, the national American Association of University Professors and its Texas chapter, argue Creighton’s policies violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Who is named 

The lawsuit names Creighton, a former Republican lawmaker, as a defendant, as well as the nine members of the system’s Board of Regents. Representatives from the Texas Tech University System did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This case presents an extraordinary system of censorship in higher education,” the suit reads, “in which professors in the Texas Tech University System are prohibited from teaching the most basic scholarship, while at the same time not fully comprehending the contours of prohibitions that place them under threat of losing their employment and livelihood.”

The groups in the lawsuit say the system’s policies “suppress” professors’ constitutionally protected speech and “obscure documented history, facts and theories.”

In one instance, a law professor was blocked from teaching information about race related to the landmark Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford, which ruled that Black people were not U.S. citizens, according to the filing. The lawsuit against Texas Tech also says that medical faculty have been instructed to remove content about treating transgender patients and racial minorities. Professors are not named in the filing.

Allegations 

The lawsuit argues that Creighton’s policies violate professors’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process because its language is “so vague and ambiguous” that they are “unable to discern what is, and is not, permissible.” That ambiguity, the filing says, has led to a chilling of speech.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Ethics, Extremism, Higher Education, Texas

Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down Florida’s “Stop WOKE” Law

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2026 //
3

In a stunning victory for the First Amendent’s guarantee of free speech, a federal appeals court overturned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Stop WOKE” act. A district court judge had previously issued a preliminary injunction on the law, calling it “positively dystopian.”

The state contended that it paid the professors’ salaries and had the authority to tell them what to teach. The appeals court decision disagreed, by a 2-1 vote. The dissenting judge–Barbara Lagoa– was appointed by Trump.

The opinion said:

“Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the state’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth,”

The dissenting judge wrote:

“We need not agree or disagree with Florida that the viewpoints at issue here constitute racial discrimination,” Lagoa wrote. “We need only acknowledge that the state is allowed to decide what is endorsed by its professors in its own classrooms.”

The American Civil Liberties Union announced:

TALLAHASSEE, FL – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit today struck down the higher education provisions of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, a classroom censorship law in Florida that severely restricted educators from teaching about race and gender in schools and workplaces. The court ruled the higher education provision of the law was unconstitutional, saying: “Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry—classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”

The court goes on to say it does not matter if the State of Florida agrees or disagrees with the ideas. “Either way, in this context the First Amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves.”

“This ruling sets a strong precedent that higher education cannot be limited to the whims of politicians,” said Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “All students and educators deserve to have a free and open exchange about ideas without government control. Students can’t fight racial discrimination that they don’t see; training and instruction is key to empowering future leaders to pursue racial justice.”

The decision comes in Pernell v. Lamb, a 2022 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and the law firm Ballard Spahr on behalf of a group of Florida professors at public universities whose teaching has been impacted by this law.

“We are thrilled the court has stopped the erasure of topics that have real implications for our students, allowing them to learn, discuss, and develop tools for combatting the complex issue of racism in our country without being gagged by those who would dictate that only state-approved thought may be promoted,” said LeRoy Pernell, a Florida A&M University College of Law professor and the named plaintiff in this lawsuit.

Championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, this overreaching law specifically targeted and placed vague restrictions on educators’ ability to teach concepts such as racism, sexism, privilege, and unconscious bias. It also imposed harsh penalties, including ineligibility for millions of dollars in performance funding from the state for colleges and universities and termination for educators who had been found to violate the law.

The court concluded, “[i]f the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.”

“The Stop W.O.K.E Act is an egregious example of widespread efforts across the country, most notably in Florida, to force the public higher education system to adopt the viewpoints of those in power. Thankfully, we have a judicial system to protect First Amendment rights and ensure that professors have the academic freedom to foster the type of learning environment where all students can learn and thrive,” said Jin Hee Lee, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Legal Defense Fund. “It is no coincidence that this state law aimed to censor the perspectives of Black people and LGBTQ+ people, the very same people who are currently under attack. With this decision, the federal appeals court has made clear that Florida cannot actively erase their history of discrimination or their lived experiences without running afoul of our Constitution.”

This decision marked the first time an appellate court has considered the constitutionality of this censorship movement, and it will have implications for students and educators across the country who are subject to related laws. Since the Stop W.O.K.E Act went into effect, more than 30 states have moved to introduce and pass higher education classroom censorship bills. In May 2024, a federal court struck down a law in another ACLU lawsuit in New Hampshire, holding that the law’s vagueness violated the 14th Amendment. A similar higher education classroom censorship law was struck down in an ACLU lawsuit in Oklahoma, ruling that many of its provisions were so vague that it was difficult for teachers to know what they could and could not teach in the classroom.

“By upholding the district court’s ruling, the Eleventh Circuit ensured that our system of higher education is guided by the principle of free speech, not government censorship,” said Carrie McNamara, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida. “Our classrooms are meant to be rooms of curiosity, creativity, and learning. When we stifle this kind of critical thinking, we risk losing our education system as we know it.”

“The recent legislative efforts to undermine academic freedom and limit the rights of marginalized communities are incredibly harmful,” said Emmy Parsons, a litigator at Ballard Spahr who was a member of the legal team. “We are proud to be part of this historic case and will keep fighting to protect the First Amendment rights of those teaching the next generation of leaders.” 

The opinion can be viewed below.

Documents

Jul 7, 2026

Pernell v. Lamb – Court Order

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, Race

William Kristol: For the People Born on Third Base

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2026 //
3

William Kristol had a storied career as a conservative and neoconservative. His father Irving Kristol (a friend of mine) was considered “the father of neoconservativism,” that is, disillusioned liberals. Bill Kristol was chief of staff to Vice-President Dan Quayle. He founded The Weekly Standard, a magazine of cutting-edge neoconservative commentary.

But he couldn’t tolerate Trump. When Trump was elected in 2020, Bill changed his party registration from Republican to Independent. In 2026, he registered as a Democrat. He is now an editor and writer at The Bulwark. What a transformation! As you will read in this article, his change of mind is more than skin-deep.

He wrote, in the same post that carried Jim Swift’s piece, the following about the indifference and arrogance of the elites:

America today has lots of hard-working immigrants, and plenty of native-born citizens who accept and respect them. But there are also plenty of Americans these days who were born on third base and think they hit a triple.

I hasten to say there’s no fault in being born on third base. Indeed, all of us, whether rich or poor, who were born in today’s America might be said, in the grand historical scheme of things, to have been born on third base. A healthy American patriotism begins with acknowledgment of our good fortune, and with gratitude for what our forebears—most of whom were not born on third base—did to make our privileged lives today possible.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with also taking pride in what we and our contemporaries have accomplished. And if we sometimes overestimate our own achievements and underrate those of our predecessors—and therefore underrate our simple good fortune in being born here—well, that’s human nature, and it’s probably not worth getting all worked up about.

But what is worth getting worked up about is those who have no sympathy for others who didn’t happen to enjoy good fortune. What’s worth getting worked up about is those who have contempt for and who revel in cruelty toward the less fortunate.

There are lots of those people in America today. They include our president. They include many in his administration. They include many in the world of MAGA.

And they include Megyn Kelly, who was so proud of what she said on her show yesterday after the Supreme Court’s TPS decision that she then posted the clip on X:

Megyn sends a message to the Haitians who lost their TPS today:

“Go home! Get out! We know our country is better than yours. That’s because we filled it with our work ethic, culture, and values. You being here only dilutes it for us . . . GO BACK TO FUCKING HAITI!”

Kelly thinks that “we” made America great with “our work ethic, culture, and values.” But most Americans of Kelly’s generation—and, to be clear, of mine—have had to do little in the way of heavy lifting to make America great. And is it clear that today’s culture and values are so exceptionally wonderful?

It was our forebears who made America great. Many of them were immigrants and refugees, whom earlier generations of nativists treated with hostility, bigotry, and cruelty.

The rhetoric of yesterday’s Court ruling is not itself bigoted or cruel. But the policies it permits are bigoted and cruel. They are the policies of people who found themselves, mostly by good fortune, standing on third base. Many of them aren’t particularly good hitters or fast runners. But they’ve decided to protect their status by making sure no one else—especially no one else of a different skin color or background—will have a chance to get up to bat.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Character, Citizenship, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Immigration, Inequality

Texas: The Nuttiest State Party in the Nation?

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
3

Michelle H. Davis, writer of “Lone Star Left,” poses a challenge for her readers: who is the biggest nutter in the Texas Republican Party? Believe me, this is not an easy choice. Imagine being locked in a room with some of these people and trying to contest their peculiar fixations and conspiracy theories. I include this post because it will help you understand the governing party in one our most consequential states. Don’t expect normal.

Davis’s writing is so delightful, in a sardonic Texas way, that I thought you would enjoy reading her insights, maybe sending a contribution to the folks who are running against nutters. If you open the article, it contains links to candidates.

She writes:

I say nutter, you might say loon, or crank. A nutter is basically a Republican in our government who has confused a Facebook meme with a legislative agenda. Seriously, the State Legislature is full of them.


For example, last year, Wes Virdell filed a bill to make it a felony to control the weather. Virdell’s bill was aimed at chemtrails, the conspiracy theory that the government is poisoning the sky with jet contrails to manipulate the climate, the sunlight, and your mood. Virdell told the House Licensing Procedures Committee that he hadn’t planned on bringing this one, but “I had several constituents in my district ask me to file a bill related to this.” Seventeen of his House colleagues signed on as co-authors.


Or take Stan “Confederate Stan” Gerdes, who introduced the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act, that’s the Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education Act, because he’d heard a rumor that kids were using litter boxes in his local school district. The superintendent of his own district had already told him there were no litter boxes. He filed the bill anyway.


These aren’t outliers. Every session now produces its own crop of bills built on something somebody saw on Facebook, and Texas Republicans keep handing them committee hearings, co-authors, and gubernatorial endorsements.


That’s what a nutter is. A true believer who legislates from conspiracy theory, who can’t or won’t distinguish between a hoax and a constituent complaint worth taking seriously, and who gets rewarded for it instead of being laughed out of the building.


And when you think you’ve found the looniest one in the building, Texas hands you a bigger nutter.


Montgomery County gave Cecil Bell the ax.
This is why we’re talking about nutters today. Cecil Bell was a dumb redneck and a nutter out of Montgomery County, who held his seat for 14 years. Yesterday, when I wrote about his Democratic opponent, Nicole King, in the Meet the Candidate series, I honestly didn’t check whether he lost his primary this year. I can actually do this cool party trick and recite all the Texas House members by memory. Well, not anymore.


So, Cecil Bell, after 14 years of being a QAnon nutter in Montgomery County, is out, and Kristen Plaisance (R-HD03) is in. And from what I’m hearing, she’s about three tacos short of a combo plate.

On her website, she argues that government overspending is causing skyrocketing property taxes. And she promises to end property taxes. Which really shows that she doesn’t understand ANYTHING about Texas’ state spending or how property taxes work.


And then there’s a whole bunch of deranged priorities that make no sense at all:

*Protecting and educating our children with Texas values, not federal agendas.

*Ending the weaponization of government against citizens and people of faith.

*Standing up to federal overreach and protecting Texas sovereignty.

Makes you wonder what’s going on in rural (checks notes) Montgomery County, Texas, where the white Republicans are so fearful of the feds a.k.a. Donald Trump, who they love and worship.

So, now that the primaries and the runoffs are over and done with, we’ve avoided it as long as we can; it’s time to talk about the Republicans who are no more, and their shiny new cuckoo replacements.


Congress.


These are the Republican districts only. Maybe we can flip some of them. We’ll talk about Democratic challengers in blue districts another day.


TX02: Dan Crenshaw ➡️ Steve Toth. This was a genuine litmus test for Texas Republicans, way before their convention hit. Dan Crenshaw was not a centrist or a moderate by any means. Yet, the Republican base started calling him a “RINO,” and that became the slow death of his political career.


You see, in the Republican world, they accept those among them who are criminals and pedophiles, but if you are a traitor to their cult-think, you become a RINO, a liberal, and shunned forever from Republican functions, Evangelical churches, and weekly cross burnings. It’s a recurring thing that happens in the Republican Party, sometimes for a bad vote, sometimes for aligning yourself with the wrong person, but most often it’s from internet rumors by the social media armies of the right. In Crenshaw’s particular case, I don’t know the origins of his downfall, but Toth won by being more committed to “the cause.”


New York native Steve Toth doesn’t even live in this district. Before becoming a government official, he was a pool guy. And he really hates Black people and American history.

Shaun Finnie is the Democrat running for TX02.

TX08: Morgan Lutrell ➡️ Jessica Steinmann. Morgan Lutrell decided not to seek re-election. The Republican who won the primary in this district is Jessica Steinmann, who describes herself as an “America First conservative, President Trump and Ted Cruz alum, Christian, proud wife, mother of two, and proven fighter for the America First agenda.” 🤮


On her website, she says “Trump” about roughly every five words, and her priorities seem to be to get Black people out of higher education, non-Christians out of the military, kill the planet, make sure AI isn’t regulated, and to inspect every athlete’s genitals before they can engage in sports.


Laura Jones is the Democrat running for TX08.


TX09: 🫨 ➡️ Alex Mealer. So, Republicans drew this district to be red in their racial gerrymandering last year. This seat was Al Green’s, so I don’t know whether we still call it a blue or red district. But I’ll add this caveat. I think this seat could be blue in November, and it’s not as safe as Republicans think.


California native Alex Mealer is this wacky Republican who has been wreaking havoc in Harris County for the last several years. She ran against Lina Hidalgo for County Chair in 2022 and lost. She has a history of spreading election conspiracy theories online, and now she’s running for Congress.


According to Mealer’s website, she wants to protect the petrochemical complex, bar AI regulations, and reduce flooding. It’s so stupid, it hurts. She wants to take severe actions that will lead to increased flooding and reduce flooding.


Leticia Gutiérrez is the Democrat running for TX09.


TX10: Michael McCaul ➡️ Chris Gober. After 23 years in office, McCaul, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, finally retired. Good riddance. Gober, pronounced “goo-ber,” proudly proclaims himself to be the only Trump-endorsed candidate in TX10.

Not one of these Republicans has a priority, a care, or a personality beyond, “Trump is my daddy.” Gober’s issues are the same as the rest, “stop weaponization of the fed, beat China, AI dominance.” Yet, like the rest of them, he has no policy ideas on how to do any of that, or any proof that it’s happening now or needed.


Caitlin Rourk is the Democrat running for TX10.

TX19: Jodey Arrington ➡️ Tom Sell. The only thing I’m going to miss about Jodey Arrington is calling him Frodo Baggins on his social media every time he makes a post. Seriously, you won’t be able to unsee it.

But there’s always a bigger nutter, and the Republican running for this district, Tom Sell, is absolutely one. For one, on his website, he says he wants to “Stop Sharia Law,” which is a dog whistle for bigotry for people who can’t even define Sharia Law. He also says he wants to “Stop Leftwing radicals from injecting woke politics into the US military.” Wtf does that even mean? No gay people in the military? No women? No Black people? Who knows with these fuckers.


Kyle Rable is the Democrat running for TX19.


TX21: Chip Roy ➡️ Mark Teixeira. Virginia native Chip Roy is another Republican who fell to the RINO bug. Which is pretty funny, considering he’s also a screwball who spent the last six months trying to convince Texans there was an invasion of “Marxists and Muslims.”


Teixeira is a Maryland native and a former Texas Rangers baseball player who is now retired from sports, during which he earned roughly $213 million over his 14-year playing career. He wants to get into Republican politics and stick it to the little guy. According to his website, he loves Trump, fossil fuels, and incarcerating marginalized communities. He also believes in superstitions, the boogie man, and “Cultural Marxism.” Another out-of-touch, rich, white guy from some other state than Texas, looking to continue to make sure that Texas remains the state with the highest poverty, most uninsured, and most children living with hunger.


Dr. Kristin Hook is the Democrat running for TX21.


TX22: Troy Nehls ➡️ Trever Nehls. Twin Wisconsin natives, Troy and Trever Nehls, are two peas in a pod. Corruption? They like it. Women? They hate them. Trump’s boots? They kiss it. Talk like they’re lost in the woods without a flashlight? Both of them do it.


Honestly, the Nehls brothers’ politics are as identical as their hatred for liberty and freedom for Texans. We think we’re switching them out, but they may have been playing the swicharoo on us this whole time, and continue to plan on doing so. 🤷🏻‍♀️


Marquette Greene-Scott is the Democrat running for TX22.


TX23: Tony Gonzalez ➡️ Brandon Herrera. While this story was going on, I didn’t talk about it much because it’s sad as hell, and there were plenty of other outlets who were glad to drop all the juicy details. Gonzalez had an affair with a staffer, whose husband discovered the affair, and this led to the staffer’s suicide by self-immolation.
But there’s always a bigger nutter.


North Carolina native Brandon Herrera also goes by the moniker “The AK Guy,” as in “armalite rifles.” He’s a gun manufacturer who only moved to Texas in 2023 with the specific intent to run for Congress. He’s also a popular YouTuber who makes shooting videos, including the recreation of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. On his YouTube channel, he has also joked about veteran suicide, glorified Nazis, and mocked the Holocaust.


The Congressional district he’s running for is where the massacre in Uvalde happened. One time, at a campaign event, he left an unexploded grenade at a restaurant, and the restaurant had to call the bomb squad. He wasn’t charged, as it was chalked up to an “accident,” and some Texas police are right-wing dipshits, too.


Katy Padilla Stout is the Democrat running for TX23.


TX38: Wesley Hunt ➡️ Jon Bonck. Wesley Hunt ran for Senate and lost. Oh well. Goodbye. Hopefully, we don’t hear from him again. The Republican looking to replace him is Jon Bonck, short for “bonkers,” because he put out a whole ad saying that “we need Christians like Trump and Ted Cruz in Congress.”


Trump, the pedophile rapist, is the Christian values he looks up to. And this is from his website:

Faith belongs in public life? What? These people have legit never read the Constitution, never read the Federalist papers, and the only people they listen to are their pastor and Trump. This bonkers guy is very, very weird.


Melissa McDonough is the Democrat running for TX38.


We’re going to have to do a Part Two.


This was longer than I expected, and we still have the Legislative races to go through. So, we’ll do part two. I’m not exactly sure when.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Ignorance, Republicans, Texas

Trump Wants to Turn Back the Clock on Disability Rights

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
4

Catherine Rampell of The Bulwark warns that the Trump administration hopes to roll back the rights of people with disabilities. The administration wants to promote institutionalization, rather than home care or community-based care.

He and those around him have no sympathy for the struggles of people with disabilities to be treated with dignity. She recalls that in one of his first press conferences as a candidate, he mocked a reporter with disabilities, fluttering his arms and hands in the air. For others, that would have ended their campaign, but Trump lacks any sense of shame.

Rampell writes:

Last week the Department of Justice published a memo authorizing states to institutionalize more people with disabilities. This basically means plucking more people out of society and shutting them into nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, segregated schools, and sheltered workshops, rather than funding community- or home-based care where they have more autonomy.

“This is at its core about the belonging and inclusion of people with disabilities in our communities,” says Alison Barkoff, a health law professor at George Washington University who worked on disability policy under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. “This is about moving forward from a very shameful part of our history when we locked people with disabilities away from society.”

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS MADE clear that it wishes to purge America of some of its undesirables. That includes, for instance, deporting 100 million people (a third of the population). But for those he can’t expel, he hopes to simply hide away.

The DOJ policy would turn back the clock on decades of law and Supreme Court precedent. Since Olmstead v. L.C.,¹ in 1999, states have been required to support disabled people in the most integrated setting possible that is appropriate to their needs. Institutionalization is supposed to be the last resort.

The consequences of this change could be enormous. Community- and home-based care services involve having a home health aide visit a person for, say, a few hours a week at home, rather than sealing them off in a closed facility. They help disabled people achieve both personal and financial independence. This kind of support empowers people to care for themselves, maintain relationships with friends and family, and hold jobs. And there has generally been bipartisan political backing for policies that, for example, enable children with disabilities to live with their parents whenever possible.

The actual legal enforceability of this memo is still unclear. Perhaps because it may not have originated with actual lawyers. Stephen Miller was reportedly behind it, Bloomberg reported, though the White House has officially denied his involvement.²

Even before this memo, states have been slashing disability services for some time as a result of the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. The law’s advocates professed that the cuts would safeguard safety-net programs for the “most vulnerable Americans,” but so far children and people with disabilities are among the biggest victims. More than half of states have already cut home- and community-based services that support elderly people with disabilities living in their homes.

The irony is that, in the long run, these changes may be more costly, since institutionalization tends to be much more expensive than letting people stay in their homes with supportive care.

“The states are a little bit playing Russian roulette,” says Barkoff. “They’re saying: ‘Is this a person who is going to find some way to navigate these cuts, and find family or friends to fill in? Or is it someone who’s going to end up costing me three times as much because they end up in a nursing home or in the emergency room?’”

The DOJ memo is part of a sweeping series of changes from this administration that affect how disabled people learn, live, work, and otherwise interact with society.

The administration also announced last week that it was reassigning the Education Department’s responsibilities for special education and civil rightsto the Department of Health and Human Services, raising concerns about whether children will continue to have access to free, appropriate public education.

HHS, after all, is run by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spoken in degrading and even vaguely eliminationist terms about people with intellectual disabilities and neurodevelopmental conditions. Last summer, for instance, Kennedy lamented that autistic people would never lead productive lives: “And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”³

Shortly after those remarks, another HHS official, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, announced plans to create a compulsory “registry” of people with autism, using confidential private and government health records without consent—purportedly for the purpose of better studying the condition. These kinds of government lists, when compiled in authoritarian regimes, have not always worked out well for those appearing on them. After public outcry from the disability rights community, the agency eventually walked back the plans.

Elsewhere the administration has ended or suppressed programs intended to help people with disabilities. For example, the government canceled surveys tracking factors that can help disabled people find employment. It has tried to prevent Head Start providers from using the word “disability” when describing their programs, which forced at least one provider to cancel staff training on working with kids with autism spectrum disorder.⁴ And it withdrew guidance for businesses about their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Not all of this can be laid at the feet of Miller, odious though he may be. After all, his boss launched his political career by appearing to mock a New York Times reporter with a physical disability; and both Trump and his top civil rights appointee regularly use a slur for people with mental disabilities.

Long ago Trump promised Americans a new “Golden Age.” And he’s been clear from the get-go who he believes belongs in it, and who does not.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Special Education, Trump

The Lunatic Fringe of the Texas GOP Won!

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2026 //
1

Michelle H. Davis of “Lone Star Left” closes out her coverage of the Texas Republican convention. Her incisive reporting demonstrates the lunacy and cruelty that now dominate Texas Republicans. Well, at least they didn’t adopt a resolution to give the death penalty to any woman who dared to have an abortion. That’s something.

She writes:

The Republican Party of Texas is a party of hate and a party of cruelty. They were built in smoky back offices and pulpits in the early 1970s on the Moral Majority and the New Right. Then, they conquered Texas through the shady legal maneuverings of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. The men at the top built an empire of corruption and theft. Theft of our water, theft of our clean air, theft of our labor. 

Texas Republicans have long had everything they’ve wanted. For decades, the rich have gotten richer, and the poor have gotten poorer. But it’s not enough. They have to keep people voting for them somehow. Dumb down education. Appeal to the most extreme elements. That’s all they have left. 

In 1964, the John Birch Society found its moment at the Republican National Convention. Barry Goldwater didn’t fully embrace them. But he didn’t reject them either. When Nelson Rockefeller stood at that podium and named the John Birch Society alongside the Ku Klux Klan as examples of extremism that the party should refuse, the crowd booed him off the stage. Goldwater then declared, “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

Goldwater was a total shit.

The Birchers never went away. And over the next sixty years, what was once considered the lunatic fringe became the Republican mainstream. The “deep state.” The “new world order.” Conspiracies about globalists, infiltrators, and enemies within. It’s the same playbook.

Which brings us to the 2026 Republican Party of Texas Convention.

The “Abolish Abortion” plank failed the final vote in the platform. That’s the one that would have handed the death penalty to any woman who received abortion care. Any woman. A minor. A rape survivor. Doesn’t matter. But don’t mistake that for a victory, because the men who stood on that convention floor and pushed for it are still on the ballot. Including: 

  • Rep. Bret Money (R-HD02). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Fatima Muse, HERE. 
  • Rep. David Lowe (R-HD91). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Yisak Worku, HERE. 

But what did pass on the platform? 

Banning IVF. Banning Sharia Law. 

In 2026, the Birchers write the Republican Party platform. 

Why IVF? Well, because they say this is a person:

But, actually, that ⬆️ is a mouse embryo I found on Google. But if women who are struggling with fertility are not allowed to have IVF in Texas anymore. 1- It will eventually spread to other states, and 2- what kind of repercussions will come from this? 

America already has a history of this. 

  • The Indian Adoption Project, beginning in the early 1950s, adopted Native children out primarily to non-Indian families to reduce reservation populations. By the time Congress finally acted, approximately one-third of all American Indian children had been removed from their homes. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 was the legislative response, and the right has been trying to gut it ever since.
  • Between 1998 and 2008, nearly 30,000 Guatemalan-born children were adopted by US parents. The US Embassy in Guatemala knew as far back as 1995 that birth mothers’ lives were threatened if they tried to reclaim their children. Guatemala shut it down in 2008.

The Evangelical Christian adoption movement has a documented history of manufacturing an “orphan crisis” to justify removing children from living parents in developing countries. Even Erika Kirk had an orphanage in Romania, which she was later accused of sex trafficking children out of. 

Banning Sharia Law? 

First of all, they already tried this in the 2015 Legislative session during the last time Muslim panic swept the state of Texas. During that time, Beth Van Duyne, the then-mayor of Irving, was directly responsible for the statewide outrage and upset. This was simialar to the Muslim panic after 9/11. Maybe, not that bad. But the Republicans go back and forth between which marginalized group they hate most each year. This year, it happens to be Muslims. 

When you Google “What is Sharia Law,” you get a lot of different answers, so hear it directly from Rep. Salman Bhojani (D-HD92): 

From the Republicans’ perspective, it really boils down to ignorance and bigotry. Just like the “Show Me Your Papers” bill. Just like the DEI bans. Same rhyme, different verse. 

All the Texas transplants, pretending to be Texans. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, we love our transplants. They add to the vibrant culture that makes our state so unique. But nothing chaps my hide more than a bunch of dudes that moved here in their 40s rambling on about how THEY represent Texas values more than ME. Like, sirs, I have a grandfather and a great-uncle in the square the day JFK got shot, and they were both born in Dallas.

And all of these Republicans, the wealthy ones, who came here to get into politics or nepo-baby their way into their daddy’s corporation that came to Texas for the low taxes, they think the Texas spirit is all about taking as much as you can for yourself, while screwing everyone else at the bottom, and hurting anyone different from you. 

Senate Majority Leader Tan Parker, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stood at that podium and invoked the Alamo. He talked about faith, family, liberty, and the God-given right of free people to govern themselves. He said Texas is proof that freedom works. 

Parker has been rated as one of the most dangerous anti-choice legislators in Texas. He’s endorsed by both Texas Right to Life and Texas Alliance for Life. His legislative priorities in 2025 centered on capital markets packages and making Texas a hub for financial services, because when women are dying from abortion ban complications, and Texas has a maternal mortality rate that rivals that of developing nations, but Parker’s focus is on helping rich people move their money here faster. 

The man flew in from Pennsylvania, wrapped himself in the Texas flag, invoked the memory of the men who died at the Alamo, and has spent nearly two decades making life harder for the working Texans he claims to represent.

Same thing with Dannie Goober yesterday. 

The rest of the planks we covered mostly passed. 

The full platform will be posted on the Republican Party of Texas website in the coming weeks. Read it. Share it. Make sure every voter in your life knows exactly what these people are planning.

Because we already know what’s coming in the 90th Legislative Session. They’ve written it down for us. Frozen embryos have more rights than the mothers who made them. Muslims are the designated enemy of the cycle. A Texas that looks less like the state we love and more like the fever dream of a John Birch Society pamphlet from 1962.

They are telling us exactly who they are.

The question is whether we’re going to let them keep doing it.

We can stop them by flipping the Texas House. Democrats need a net gain of just 14 seats to break Republican control, and the candidates to do it are on the ballot right now. 

The line in the sand is at the ballot box.

Categories Texas, Republicans, Ethics, Bigotry, Ignorance, History, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Gender

The GOP in Texas: Pissing on Texans Since 1998

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2026 //
3

The greatest mystery in Texas is why people who aren’t rich continue to elect Republicans, who do nothing for them other than to whip up culture war issues.

Michelle H. Davis reports on the latest state convention of the Texas Republican Party. You should read this to understand their thinking, or lack thereof. One candidate promises to investigate George Soros. Another asks the audience how they feel about Texas becoming a Muslim state. The big event was that hard-right Governor Greg Abbott brought an elephant to parade around, and the elephant pissed before he left the convention. Davis thought the act was symbolic of what Republicans do to ordinary Texans.

She is very witty writer. You will enjoy reading her account of the very unserious swindlers who run the state.

She writes:

Undoubtedly, by now, you’ve seen the biggest news of the Republicans’ Convention. Governor Abbott closed his speech by bringing out an elephant, which promptly peed all over the floor. It was performance art. A perfect representation of what the Republican government in Texas has been doing to the people for years. 

It’s rumored that some of the people in the front rows could hear Abbott cackle, “Ha! It’s raining,” as the incident occurred. 

Attendance for the Republican Party of Texas’ (RPT) Convention was way down. Notably, at one point yesterday, only 38 people were watching the live stream. (And one of them was me, lol.)

Then, if you follow the Texas Democratic Party on social media, you may have seen this meme they shared of Senator Bettencourt’s quote on the polling environment. 

The Convention has thus far been a disaster. Today is the final day. I’ll have the report on that tomorrow, which means we’ll be pushing out our Meet the Candidate article this week to Monday (stay tuned). Yesterday, they elected the new Chair of the Republican Party of Texas. 

D’Rinda Randall, new Republican Party of Texas Chair. 

So, this is really interesting. And it’s also a lot to unpack. First, you have to understand that the RPT elects a new Chair every two years. And by the time their cycle is up, they always have some faction against them, and they get pushed out. Abraham George is out. Before him, it was Allen West. Before him, it was James Dickey. And so on. Typically, Republicans break their own bylaws to elect their favored chair. I’m not sure if that happened this time. My emails are open. 

Randall was the Vice Chair under Abraham George. Like with the Democratic Party, the Chair and Vice Chair must be of opposite genders. Randall is the first Republican woman to chair in Texas since 2003. Stick a pin in that, we’ll circle back around. 

The Vice Chair who was elected to serve under Randall is David Covey. You may remember that Covey ran a multi-million dollar campaign against Dade Phelan (R-HD21) in 2024, had Trump’s endorsement, and still lost. He was a loser. 

Now, it’s important to understand where the Republican Party is with women’s rights in 2026. Not just women’s rights, but with women being seen as people. 

Check out this report from CBC News earlier this week at the Erika Kirk Christian National Convention in San Antonio, where a bunch of women said they were willing to give up their right to vote:

Dumb-dumbs. Who even puts that garbage in their head in the first place? The same people who add to the Legislative priorities:

  • To impose the death penalty on any woman who receives abortion care, even minors and rape survivors.
  • To ban IVF.
  • To ban all egg and sperm donation clinics.

It’s all connected. 

Don’t you find it strange that at the same time, Republican women are talking about freely giving up their right to vote, the willingness to sacrifice their lives for an ectopic pregnancy, and that all of a sudden, the Republican Party of Texas would elect its first woman in over 20 years? 

Of course, the Republican rumor mill is going wild with conspiracies. Before we jump on that bandwagon, we’ll have to see how they can cannibalize each other in the coming months. 

The keynote speakers woke up, showed up, and said nothing.

One of yesterday’s keynote speakers was Ken Paxton, and he looked awful. He might have been hungover. He shuffled out on stage, slouching, looking like he just woke up, no excitement, no energy, just, “I’m here.”

The speech itself was a masterclass in saying nothing for eight and a half minutes. Trans panic. Biden. Chuck Schumer. Open borders. The radical left. You’ve heard it. You’ve heard it a thousand times. He called James Telerico “Low T-arico,” “Sixgender Jimmy,” and “Talifreako.” He was like a middle schooler who thinks he’s the funniest kid on the bus.

He didn’t talk about the cost of living. He didn’t talk about gas prices. He didn’t talk about the rising unemployment rate. Or the increasingly difficult access to healthcare. 

Paxton, who hails from North Dakota, said the words “Texas values,” then he talked about culture war garbage. It’s hard to believe that anyone takes this man seriously. 

Or Dan Patrick, who, besides, said on stage, Talarico was going to hell, came out wearing a black pleather jacket and matching boots. 

Of course, it will never beat this jacket ⬇️, but it was a close second.

Black pleather turtleneck and matching boots, in June, in Houston, and explained, unprompted, that it was his “time travel suit.”

Sir, it is 95 degrees outside, and you look like a community theater villain.

He ran two campaign ads on the convention floor. The first one was Paul Revere warning colonists that the British were coming, except the British were James Talarico, an 8th-generation Texan, unlike Danny, who is from Maryland. The second one was the Alamo. Because nothing says “I’m in touch with modern Texas voters” like reaching back to 1836.

Then he recited the Alamo, the lyrics to a Johnny Cash song from 1960. He just said them, without rhythm, not singing them. He stood on that stage in his time-travel turtleneck, performed a Johnny Cash song, and presented it to the delegates of the Republican Party of Texas as a history lesson. It was really weird. 

He called Democrats “socialist, leftist, communist, and idiots,” in that order. He declared that the entire transgender rights movement is just a plot to make Republicans argue with each other. 

This is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. This is a man who is one heartbeat from the governorship. This is who shows up in a pleather turtleneck and recites Johnny Cash and condemns his political opponents to eternal damnation in front of a live audience.

Texas values, from the mouth of a Marylander.

But peel back the costume and the lyrics, and you find a frightened man. He spent a big chunk of that speech begging Republicans not to stay home and doing the math out loud. Talarico starts at 45%. He only needs six more points. If Republicans aren’t unified, if rural turnout softens, if the sore losers stay home. Dan Patrick knows exactly what happens.

The man in the time travel suit is scared.

Good.

And speaking of weird. 

Mayes Middleton, for those keeping score at home, is a billionaire from Galveston who has purchased every office he has ever held. State rep. State senator. And now, Republican nominee for Attorney General of Texas, because when you have that kind of money, the next rung on the ladder is just another check to write.

You may remember Mayes from my piece on where that money actually came from.

At the Convention, Middleton took the stage and delivered what can only be described as a greatest hits collection of things that are not real problems in Texas. I don’t know what else to expect from nepobaby billionaires who have only ever harmed their own lives. He announced he will investigate George Soros on day one. He announced he will “attack Sharia law” as organized crime.

He compared Nathan Johnson and James Talarico to Santa Anna. Somehow, the Democrats are to the left of Santa Anna. He said that. Out loud. Into a microphone.

And then, because he apparently needed you to know he is a relatable family man, he told a story about his four-year-old daughter calling him “MAGA Mayes” after watching too much TV. He thought that was charming. 

His opponent, Nathan Johnson, is a Dallas state senator with a long legislative record. Middleton’s record is a checkbook. But in the Republican Party of Texas in 2026, that’s apparently enough.

The only nepo-baby more out of touch than Mayes Middleton is Bo French. Yes, also a nepo-baby. Republicans love electing men with soft hands. 

Bo French is the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, which, if you don’t know, regulates the oil and gas industry. It does not regulate Muslims. It does not regulate DEI. It does not regulate the Green New Deal. It regulates oil and gas.

Bo French does not appear to know this.

He asked the crowd (and this is a direct quote), “Do you want Texas to become a Muslim state?” At a Railroad Commissioner speech. He just needed you to know that was on the table. That was a concern he had about the Railroad Commission.

He cited Genesis. He cited Proverbs 14:34. He explained that God’s command to exercise dominion over the earth is actually a mandate for responsible oil and gas extraction. The Bible, Bo French has determined, is pro-drilling.

The bar was on the floor, right next to the elephant puddle.

Low attendance. A new party chair elected amid swirling conspiracies. A hungover Senate candidate workshopping middle school nicknames. A Lieutenant Governor in a pleather time travel suit who performed Johnny Cash and sent a man to hell. A billionaire who has never earned anything listing things that aren’t real problems. A Railroad Commissioner candidate who is very concerned about the Muslim takeover of oil and gas regulation. And an elephant that peed on the floor while the Governor of Texas watched.

This is a party that is performing. And the performance is getting sloppier, louder, and more desperate by the year, because underneath all of it, Dan Patrick’s math is right. They know how close this is. They know what’s coming. And they have nothing to offer the people of Texas except fear, nicknames, and Johnny Cash lyrics they didn’t write.

Meanwhile, Texans are losing farms and losing access to healthcare. Paying more for everything. And the people responsible for that spent three days in Houston talking about George Soros and Sharia law and what gender God is.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 2026 Republican Party of Texas.

They’ve been pissing on you for years and calling it rain. The elephant just finally did it in front of everyone.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Gender, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Lies, Republicans, Texas

John Oliver on the Failure of the Rightwing Takeover of New College in Florida

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2026 //
11

John Oliver took a piercing look at Ron DeSantis’s takeover of New College in Sarasota.

When DeSantis first became governor of Florida, a legislator told him about this little bed of radicalism, and DeSantis admitted that he had never heard of it. But then he realized that attacking it and remodeling it would help build his resume for his bid for the Presidency.

New College was, like Hampshire College, a progressive institution where there were no grades and students could design their own courses. It attracted free-thinking students and professors, and this was intolerable to people like DeSantis. The fact that it was funded by the state made it vulnerable to political interference.

DeSantis decided that New College’s inclusion of gender studies and its welcoming of LGBT students was, in fact, a pretext for indoctrinating students into a Communist, socialist, anti-American way of thinking.

New College was woke, and the governor had to take control. He ousted the president and the board of trustees and replaced them with rightwing allies and political buddies. The new president of New College had no experience in higher education but had been Republican Speaker of the House in Florida.

One new board member, Chris Rufo, was an anti-woke crusader who wanted to turn New College into a model for how to take control of progressive colleges and turn them into rightwing colleges.

It’s a harrowing story. Set aside some time and watch it. The best part might be the new Dean at comedy night telling a story about exposing himself to a 7-year-old girl. He thought it was funny.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, DeSantis, Education Reform, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Florida, Fraud, Higher Education

Federal Judges Block Trump Censorship at National Parks

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2026 //
3

Early on in Trump’s second term, he rolled out executive orders demanding censorship of exhibits and signage at museums and national parks, as well as other institutions that received federal funds. He complained that federal funds should not support anything that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion, anything that he deemed “woke,” and anything that reflected badly in our history. On Friday two federal judges ruled against his administration’s censorship of historically accurate accounts.

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the National Park Service from removing or revising signs, films and other materials at national parks across the country to comply with a directive from President Trump.

The ruling pauses enforcement of an executive order that called for removing or covering up materials at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans” or cast the United States “in a negative light.”

The judge, Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, also ordered the Park Service to restore within three weeks any exhibits that it had dismantled or altered.

The ruling provides a temporary reprieve for the plaintiffs, a coalition of advocacy groups that sued over the executive order in February, while the litigation continues to unfold.

To comply with the president’s directive, the Park Service has taken down plaques about slavery at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, a sign about climate change at Fort Sumter in South Carolina and a sign about Indigenous people at Acadia National Park in Maine.

Another federal judge has already ordered the Park Service not to make further changes to the slavery exhibit at the President’s House Site at Independence National Historical Park, as she considers a separate lawsuit filed by Philadelphia.

Judge Kelley, who was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., sharply rebuked the Trump administration for taking down materials. “Not only does this undermine the integrity of the national parks; it sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization,” she wrote.

Judge Kelley began her 63-page ruling by listing examples of national parks that help educate visitors about difficult periods of American history, as well as contributions made by people of color, gay and transgender figures, women and other marginalized groups.

“From the echoes of abolition in John Brown’s Fort in Harpers Ferry, to the genesis of the modern L.G.B.T.Q.+ civil rights movement at the Stonewall National Monument, to the retreating ice of Glacier National Park in Alaska, the national parks preserve the multifaceted and multilayered history of our nation, including the good, the bad and the ugly,” she wrote.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that removing the materials was “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. They also accused the Park Service of exceeding its legal authority.

Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, the parent agency of the Park Service, suggested that the administration would appeal the ruling.

“This ruling is from a liberal activist judge,” Ms. Martin said in an email. “The department will look at our appeal options while we celebrate U.F.C. Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House this weekend in honor of our nation’s 250th with the greatest president in the history of our country — President Donald J. Trump.”

Emily Thompson, the executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, one of the advocacy groups that brought the lawsuit, applauded the ruling.

“National parks are not propaganda tools, nor should they be used for partisan purposes,” Ms. Thompson said in a statement. “They exist to preserve and interpret the full American story, not just the parts that make some politicians comfortable. This ruling is an important step to help ensure that remains the case.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Extremism, Fascism, Racism, Trump
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