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Robert Reich: Plan to Resist Trump’s Tyranny on April 19

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2025 //
21

Robert Reich is a relentless fighter for our democracy. He served in the administrations of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, in whose administration he was secretary of Labor.

He wrote recently to urge people to organize against Trump’s violations of the law.

Friends,

Before I post my Sunday cartoon, I want to share with you some thoughts about the third hellish week of Trump II.

As of Friday, Trump has signed more than 50 executive orders, covering every aspect of American life and much foreign policy. 

It’s not just that this number of executive orders is unprecedented in modern American politics. Many are unlawful, unconstitutional, or both. 

In the age of monarchs, kings issued decrees. The tsars of imperial Russia proclaimed ukases. The dictators of the 20th century made diktats. 

Trump issues executive orders.

Average people in the age of monarchs, tsars, and dictators were largely powerless. Resistance meant almost certain death. 

Many people were resigned to vulnerability. They practiced passivity. They knew no life other than repression. But their deference entrenched and ensured the power of monarchs, tsars, and dictators.

Arbitrary power depends on the acquiescence of everyone subjected to it. 

Right now, after three weeks of Trump’s “flooding the zone” (as Trumpers like to say) some of you may be feeling powerless. 

Trump wants you to feel powerless. He depends on your passivity in the face of his takeover of American democracy. 

He wants to be a strongman who can act unilaterally and arbitrarily — who can issue orders about anything that pops into his head. Purging, firing, prosecuting, or deporting anyone he wants removed. Obliterating, freezing, and pummeling any institution he wants destroyed. Unleashing the richest man in the world to do whatever the hell he wants with the government of the United States. 

If you are dumbfounded into inaction, if you don’t even want to hear the news, if you feel as though you’re living through a nightmare over which you have no control, I get it. Every other day I feel the same.

But hear me out. 

You and I have no real choice but to stand up to Trump, Musk, and their lapdogs. To allow them to bully us into submission invites more bullying, more lawlessness, more gonzo executive orders.

Last week I suggested a number of actions we can take. It wasn’t an exhaustive list, of course, only some possibilities. 

Millions of Americans — including many who have been purged from their positions of responsibility — are standing up to Trump and Musk’s tyranny. 

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski says the Senate phone system has been receiving around 1,600 calls each minute, compared to the 40 calls per minute it usually gets — thus disrupting the system.

We are beginning to flood Trump and Musk’s zone. 

Let’s flood it out. 

This coming April 19 will mark the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolution and our war against monarchical power. 

Anti-royalist militia in Massachusetts refused to disperse when ordered to by British troops. A shot was fired, and the troops kept firing, killing eight of those American resisters. Later that day, the militiamen returned that fire, killing a number of British soldiers. The revolution had begun. 

Please don’t get me wrong. I do not advocate violence. I’m simply reminding you that this nation was founded on resistance to arbitrary authority. We built American democracy in the face of what seemed to be impossible odds. 

And we will never, ever give up that fight. 

My friend Harold Meyerson suggests that on April 19 we stage massive peaceful protests in every city and town — crowds of Americans celebrating the anti-monarchical uprising of 1775 and pledging their allegiance to that heritage by denouncing Trump’s increasingly autocratic rule: Thereby flooding Trump and Musk’s zone still further. 

Sounds like a good idea to me. You?

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Citizenship, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Racism, Trump

Why Elon Musk’s Family Moved from Canada to South Africa in 1950

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2025 //
9

This post appeared originally on October 10, 2023. It explains why Elon Musk’s grandfather Joshua Haldeman left a prosperous life in Canada and moved his family to apartheid South Africa in 1950. He was a successful chiropractor and aviator. He was also involved in politics, but was not successful at winning elections.

Wikipedia describes Haldeman’s racism and anti-Semitism:

Haldeman was a supporter of South Africa’s apartheid policies and the ruling National Party of South Africa, telling a reporter for the extremist Die Transvaler newspaper, a tool of the Nazis in South Africa during World War II: “Instead of the Government’s attitude keeping me out of South Africa, it had precisely the opposite effect—it encouraged me to come and settle here”.[2] In 1951, he wrote an article about South Africa for the Saskatchewan newspaper, the Regina Leader-Post, defending apartheid and writing of Black South Africans: “The natives are very primitive and must not be taken seriously… Some are quite clever in a routine job, but the best of them cannot assume responsibility and will abuse authority. The present government of South Africa knows how to handle the native question.”[2][20]

Weeks after the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960, Haldeman self-published The International Conspiracy to Establish a World Dictatorship and the Menace to South Africa, a 42-page response to the massacre. The United Nations passed Resolution 134, the body’s first official condemnation of apartheid and the beginning of decades of diplomatic isolation. Later Haldeman self-published a second book alleging again international conspiracies: The International Conspiracy in Health, which cast suspicion on fluoridation, vaccinations, and health insurance.[2][21]

Grandfather Haldeman was an energetic private pilot, who traveled the globe. He died in a plane accident in 1974, when Elon was only three years old. Maybe he had no influence on his grandchild.

Too bad Elon Musk didn’t stay there. He could have used his entrepreneurial brain to vitalize the economy of the African continent.

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Elections, Musk, Elon

Dana Milbank: When You Elect a Felon as President, You Get a Scofflaw

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2025 //
6

Trump has rolled out multiple executive orders that violate the law. He has installed submissive officials in key departments (like Justice) who will defend his law-breaking. The Republicans (who called Joe Biden a dictator) defend Trump’s reign of lawlessness. They have gleefully given Trump their Constitutional powers. Without a peep.

Dans Milbank advises Democrats: Don’t help him. He doesn’t need your vote.

He writes:

So, here’s a shocker: It turns out that, if you elect a felon as president of the United States, he will continue to break laws once he’s in office.

Who knew?

Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to determine which of President Donald Trump’s actions are illegal. But a case can be made — indeed, many cases already have been made in federal courts — that the new administration over the course of the last fortnight has violated each of the following laws. See if you can say them in one breath. In reverse chronological order of first enactment:

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act of 2024. The Administrative Leave Act of 2016. The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014. The Affordable Care Act of 2010. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. The Inspector General Act of 1978. The Privacy Act of 1974. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. The Public Health Service Act 1944. The Antideficiency Act of 1870.

That’s a century and a half of statutes shredded in just over two weeks. And those don’t include the ways in which Trump already appears to be in violation of the Constitution: The First Amendment’s protections of free speech and association; the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection and due process; the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; the 14th Amendment’s promise of birthright citizenship; Article I’s spending, presentment, appropriations and bicameralism clauses; Article II’s take-care clause; and the separation of powers generally.

“The Trump administration so far has been the Advent calendar of illegality,” says Norman Eisen, whose group, State Democracy Defenders Action, has been filing lawsuits against the administration. At least seven federal judges appointed by presidents of both political parties have already blocked Trump’s moves to freeze federal funding, end birthright citizenship, extend a dubious buyout offer to government employees and deny treatment to transgender inmates.

Benjamin Wittes, who runs the popular Lawfare publication, predicts that, of the dozens of instances in which Trump is in conflict with existing law, he will ultimately lose 80 percent of the cases when they eventually arrive at the Supreme Court after 18 months or so of litigation. But that’s a long time to wait while the president’s lawlessness causes chaos and suffering. And even if the pro-Trump majority on the Supreme Court hands him a victory only 20 percent of the time, that could still fundamentally reshape the U.S. government, reducing Congress to irrelevance.

Republicans in Congress have for years asserted their Article I authority, and they howled about encroaching dictatorship when President Joe Biden did nothing more nefarious than forgive student-loan debt. (The Supreme Court struck that down.) So what are they doing about Trump usurping the powers of Congress? They’re applauding.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, acknowledged that what Trump and Elon Musk are doing to cut off congressionally mandated funding “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, he told reporters this week, that’s “not uncommon” and “nobody should bellyache about that.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, at a news conference Wednesday, was asked by Fox News’s Chad Pergram about the “inconsistency” of Republicans who are now “ceding Article I powers to the executive branch under Elon Musk.”

“I think there’s a gross overreaction in the media,” Johnson replied, with a forced chuckle. He admitted that what Trump is doing “looks radical,” but went on: “This is not a usurpation of authority in any way. It’s not a power grab. I think they’re doing what we’ve all expected and hoped and asked that they would do.”

These are not the words of a constitutionally designated leader of the legislative branch. These are the words of a Donald Trump handmaiden. And it is time for Democrats to treat him as such.

Democrats have been negotiating in good faith on a deal to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025; the government shuts down in five weeks if funding isn’t extended. There’s no doubt that Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, are also negotiating in good faith.

But the whole thing is not on the level. Trump has shown that he will ignore the spending bills passed by Congress and fund only those programs he supports — the Constitution, and the law, be damned. And Johnson has made clear that this is “what we’ve all expected and hoped and asked that they would do.”

In a letter to his Democratic colleagues this week, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said he told House GOP leaders that Trump’s efforts to cut off programs funded by Congress “must be choked off in the upcoming government funding bill, if not sooner.” But even if Democrats extracted from Republicans language in the spending bill that the programs must be funded as Congress specifies, Trump has already made clear that such a law wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on. And Johnson made it clear he has no intention of obliging Democrats with such a guarantee anyway; he said at his Wednesday news conference that Jeffries’s letter “laid out the foundation for a government shutdown.”

Clearly, there is no hope of good-faith negotiation with Trump, or with Johnson. Republicans control the House, Senate and White House. Let them pass a 2025 spending bill on their own. Let them raise the debt ceiling on their own. Let them enact Trump’s entire agenda on their own. They have the votes. Democrats ought not give them a single one.

Good parenting uses the idea of “natural consequences”: If your child refuses to wear her coat, let her be cold for the day. Either way, the voters will provide the consequences: FAFO. Trump knows what this means: He posted a picture of himself next to a FAFO sign, to deliver the message to Colombia’s president during their recent deportation standoff.

Democrats, by withholding their votes, will be giving Trump and Johnson some good parenting. Republicans can shut the government down. Or they can enact the sort of devastating cuts to popular programs that they like to talk about. Either way, the voters will provide the natural consequences.


The third week of the Trump presidency has been just as chaotic as the first two. Trump, who won the 2024 election promising to end wars and to put “America First,” now proposes to take over Gaza and to spend American taxpayer dollars to dismantle bombs and make it a “Riviera” on the Mediterranean. (He later clarified that Israel would handle the forced resettlement of the 2 million Palestinians there — “people like Chuck Schumer” — and then cede the Palestinian land to the United States.) The Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is using his agency to assist Trump in his personal vendetta against CBS News, forcing the network to hand over unedited tapes of an interview with Kamala Harris that are the subject of a lawsuit Trump filed against CBS.

Funding was shut off to some Head Start programs for preschoolers. And the administration, though it isn’t deporting any more migrants than the Obama administration did, stepped up efforts to humiliate them and is now sending deportees to Guantánamo Bay.

Meantime, the world’s wealthiest man runs amok through the federal bureaucracy, and he appears to have access to private records of all Americans and highly classified information such as the identities of CIA operatives. He is reportedly doing this with a group of unvetted men in their early 20s — as well as a 19-year-old heir to a popcorn fortune who recently worked as a camp counselor. Musk, though he seems to be running much of the country, has exempted himself from all government disclosure and ethics requirements. But fear not: If Musk, whose companies get billions of dollars in federal contracts, “comes across a conflict of interest,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, he will — Scout’s honor — recuse himself. The administration’s attempt to induce federal employees to take a legally dubious buyout came in the form of an email with the same subject line — “fork in the road” — that Musk used to drive Twitter employees to quit.

The South Africa-born Musk, fresh from his encouragement of far-right extremists in Germany, replied “yes” this week to a post on X that said “we should allow more immigration of White South Africans.”

Musk moved to dismiss staff and shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Musk calls “evil.” Maybe that’s because USAID’s inspector general was investigating the activities of Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine. But the administration and its allies rushed to justify the decision — by fabricating propaganda. At the White House, Leavitt told reporters that she was “made aware that USAID has funded media outlets like Politico. I can confirm that more than $8 million … has gone to subsidizing subscriptions.” Trump inflated the fiction further, to suggest “BILLIONS” went to “THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS.” In reality, $44,000 of USAID money went to Politico over several years — not from “payoffs” or “subsidies” but from officials subscribing to Politico Pro, as they did throughout the government (hence the $8 million). On Capitol Hill, Johnson provided a different fabrication, crediting Trump and Musk for stopping USAID from funding “transgender operas in Colombia,” “drag shows in Ecuador” and “expanding atheism in Nepal.” But it appears USAID did not fund any of those things.

The willy-nilly cancellation of all foreign aid would end lifesaving programs and various counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts, dealing a lethal blow to U.S. soft power and driving countries into the arms of China and Russia, while hurting American farmers in the bargain. But it’s not just USAID. Trump and Musk, with their reckless and unfocused attack on federal workers, are raising the likelihood of any number of crises, at home and abroad. Their hollowing-out of the FBI and the Justice Department (with the notable exception of activities targeting Trump critics and migrants) raises the likelihood of a terrorist attack and foreign infiltration, not to mention more crime domestically. Their attempt to drive workers to quit at the CIA and NSA jeopardizes national security. Depleting the ranks of food-safety inspectors and bank regulators poses obvious dangers, as would Trump’s idea of abolishing FEMA. The administration tried to reduce personnel at the FAA — but last week’s plane crash in D.C. suddenly made it discover we need more air traffic controllers.

Yet Republican leaders on Capitol Hill either salute Trump or look the other way. They’re on their way to confirming all of Trump’s nominees, including vaccines opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the federal government’s health programs; Tulsi Gabbard, who has a bizarre fondness for Russia, to oversee intelligence; and Kash Patel, Trump’s agent of vengeance, to run the FBI.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said the sort of thing Trump and Musk are doing to USAID is “probably true of any administration when they come in.” Handmaiden Johnson even welcomed the proposed U.S. takeover of Gaza, saying, contrary to reality, that it was “cheered by, I think, people all around the world.”

A few Republicans are raising objections. Collins doesn’t think Musk’s upending of USAID “satisfies the requirements of the law,” and she pronounces herself “very concerned.” But what’s the senator from Maine going to do about it? Apparently, nothing.

That will have to be up to Democrats. The out-of-power party has been bashed in the news media and by progressives for doing too little to stand up to Trump. Then, when Democratic lawmakers protested outside USAID headquarters, they were criticized for doing too much. “You don’t fight every fight,” Rahm Emanuel told Politico.

In truth, Democrats have almost no ability to stop Trump, but they do have the power, and the obligation, to stand in lockstep opposition to what the president is doing. Some of them might argue that the only way to protect certain programs, and the vulnerable people who need them, is to cut a deal with Trump and Republicans. But Trump has demonstrated abundantly that he will try to use unconstitutional means to kill off those programs regardless of what Congress does.

But if Democrats can’t stop a reckless president from creating unnecessary crises and harming millions of Americans, they certainly don’t need to give a bipartisan veneer to the atrocity. Let Republicans own the consequences of breaking government. Don’t save Trump from himself.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Fraud, Injustice, Trump

MMA Fighter Praises Hitler, Denies Holocaust as Mass Stupidity Epidemic Spreads

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2025 //
28

Here is what Trump has wrought: He has made it acceptable for people to be as bigoted and stupid in public as they want, with no sense of shame attached to their bigotry or their stupidity. When Trump attacks DEI, he is openly avowing his racism and misogny. When he rants about immigrants, he doesn’t mean white immigrants, he means nonwhite immigrants.

Thanks to Trump’s malign influence, we get a story like the following, which appeared in the New York Daily News. Bryce Mitchell is a mixed martial arts “star” who flaunts his bigotry and ignorance and belittles the schools that tried to educate him and inculcate a sense of human decency.

MMA star Bryce Mitchell praised Adolf Hitler as a “good guy” and denied the Holocaust happened in a rant on his new podcast, “ArkanSanity.”

“I honestly think Hitler was a good guy, based upon my own research, not my public education and indoctrination,” the 30-year-old fighter said in the first episode.

“He fought for his country, he wanted to purify it by kicking the greedy Jews out who were destroying his country and turning them all into gays,” he added. “Was Hitler perfect? No, but he was fighting for his people. He wanted a pure nation.”

After co-host Roli Delgado countered that genocide was bad, Mitchell then denied the Holocaust.

“That’s what your public education will tell you Roli, because you believe your public education because you haven’t done your own research. When you realize there’s no possible way they could’ve burned and cremated 6 million bodies, you’re gonna realize the Holocaust ain’t real,” he said.

Mitchell, who competes in UFC’s featherweight division, was roundly denounced by others in the fighting community following his comments.

“Each and every day MMA finds a way to reach a new low,” broadcaster Ariel Helwani wrote on social mediaThursday. “A new way of embarrassing itself and those who are fans of it.”

“It just continues to baffle me at how unbelievably stupid — not to mention bigoted — some of the people in the sport or associated with the sport can be,” Helwani concluded.

Mitchell is no stranger to saying divisive things aloud. Last year, he said he planned to home school his children to prevent them from “turning gay.”

“That’s the reason I’m going to home-school Tucker, because I don’t want him to be a communist,” he said in an Instagram video while holding up his son. “I don’t want him to worship Satan. I don’t want him to be gay.”

Categories Bigotry, Evil, Fascism, History, Ignorance, Stupid, Trump

Musk Conducts a Poll on Whether to Rehire Staffer Who Made Racist Tweets

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2025 //
39

You may recall that the Wall Street Journal published an article about Marlo Elez, the 25-year-old whiz kid who made racist tweets, deleted them, then resigned after they went public. Elez is or was the senior member of the DOGE team that has been scooping up government records.

Musk conducted a poll on Twitter, asking whether the mildest member of his DOGE team should be rehired.

The original article is updated in the link.

The WSJ reported:

On Friday morning, Musk posted a poll to X, asking his followers if DOGE should rehire the “staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym.” Within hours, it had amassed more than 200,000 votes, almost 80% in favor of bringing Elez back.

Musk is likely to rehire Marko.

Some of Marlo’s tweets were extremely prejudicial towards Indians, because they get great jobs in Silicon Valley.

I wonder what JD Vance’s wife thinks of Elez. She is of Indian heritage. She is a graduate of Yale Law School, like Vance. I wonder if she likes the racist crowd he runs with.

Categories Bigotry, Character, Musk, Elon, Racism, Vance, J.D.

WSJ: Member of Elon Musk’s Elite Team Resigns After Racist Tweets Discovered

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2025 //
22

Katherine Long reported in the Wall Street Journal today that a member of Elon Musk’s elite tech squad resigned after some of his deleted tweets surfaced. The tweets portrayed their author as an enthusiast for racism and eugenics.

The 25-year-old employee, Marko Elez, resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal asked the White House about his connection to the account.

The deleted profile associated with Elez, who was embedded in the Treasury Department to carry out efficiency measures, advocated repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a “eugenic immigration policy” in the weeks before President Trump was inaugurated.  

“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September, according to a Wall Street Journal review of archived posts. “Normalize Indian hate,” the account wrote the same month, in reference to a post noting the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley.

Elez is a graduate of Rutgers, where he majored in computer science. After college, he worked for Musk at Space X, Starlink, and X.

Musk personally urged people to apply to DOGE on X in December, promising long hours and little pay in exchange for the chance to fundamentally remake the federal government. Some of those who answered the call appear to be young Musk loyalists, steeped in internet culture, who share his worldview.

The account, @nullllptr—a misspelling of a keyword in the C++ programming language—was deleted in December, but hundreds of brash, sometimes-sophomoric posts have been archived.  

The user appeared to have a special dislike for Indian software engineers. “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys,” the user posted in December. 

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” @nullllptr posted in July. 

In June, the user weighed in on the conflict in the Middle East, offering some sympathy for Israel but also posting, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”

We keep hearing how brilliant Musk’s team is, but this guy doesn’t sound brilliant. He sounds like a jerk.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Ethics, Extremism, Musk, Elon, Racism

Trump’s Shameless DEI Hoax

By dianeravitch
February 3, 2025 //
20

Trump would have us believe that the hiring of anyone other than white Christian men is the reason for everything that goes wrong. He has signed executive orders that ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the government and in schools and higher education institutions, as well as any institution that receives federal funding, such as scientific research.

When Trump heard about the horrific airplane-helicopter crash on the Potomac River last week, his reaction was to blame DEI, as well as Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. To him, diversity equals incompetence. That is, women, Blacks, Hispanics, and people with disabilities are incompetent.

Two points are clear:

First, DEI programs were funded and strengthened during Trump’s first term in office. How did it suddenly become the cause of all that is evil? Why must it be rooted out if every part of American life?

Second, let’s be clear about what DEI IS. It is a knowing effort to seek out and include women and nonwhite minorities and persons with disabilities in the workforce, on faculties, in student bodies.

In other words, those who oppose DEI are using the term to smear the beneficiaries of these policies as undeserving and unqualified, regardless of their experience and qualifications.

Plain English translation: Trump’s anti-DEI policy is RACISM, MISOGYNY, and XENOPHOBIA, and whatever the term is to discriminate against people with disabilities.

When he said the cause of the DC crash was DEI, it was immediately understood that he meant that a woman or a person of color was either the air traffic controller or a pilot. He knew this to be true, he said, not because he had evidence, but because (he said) he had “common sense.”

His instincts told him that a DEI hire did it. Someone, he guessed, was hired to direct the air traffic or to pilot one or both of the aircraft who was not a white Christian man. His “common sense” told him so.

But now we know more about the DEI policy in place. It started under Barack Obama. It was expanded under Trump.

Trump did not know who the air traffic controller was. Nor did he know who was piloting the airplane or the helicopter.

Glenn Kessler, the Fact-Checker for The Washington Post, wrote that Trump ridiculed the diversity policy that his administration put in place:

Reading from a 2024 Fox News report — which he incorrectly identified as being two weeks old — Trump listed conditions that he suggested disqualify people from being air traffic controllers: “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.”

“Can you imagine?” he asked. “Brilliant people have to be in those positions, and their lives are actually shortened, very substantially shortened because of the stress.” He suggested that it was wrong for anyone with those conditions to qualify “for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, a little runway.”

But here’s the rub: During Trump’s first term, the FAA began a program to hire air traffic controllers with the conditions that Trump decried.

The facts

In the news conference, Trump said Obama weakened standards and “I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best, to extraordinary. … Then they changed it back — that was Biden.”

Trump’s claim was repeated in an executive order Trump signed Thursday that ordered a review of aviation safety: “During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence.”
That’s false. In his first term, Trump left the standards unchanged.

For air traffic controllers, the Obama administration in 2013 instituted a new hiring system that introduced a biographical questionnaire to attract minorities, underrepresented in the controller corps. The program was criticized, such as in a Fox News report in 2015, as making it harder for more skilled applicants to get hired as controllers.

But Trump, in his first term, left the policy in place, leading to a class-action lawsuit filed in 2019 by Mountain States Legal Foundation. The case was due to go to trial this year.

Moreover, the FAA under Trump in 2019 launched a program to hire controllers using the very criteria he decried at his news conference.
“FAA Provides Aviation Careers to People with Disabilities,” the agency announced on April 11, 2019. The pilot program, the announcement said, would “identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce.”

The link under “targeted disabilities” is now dead, but the Wayback Machine retains links from June 2017 and January 2021 that show the page was unchanged during Trump’s tenure. The list included:

• Hearing (total deafness in both ears)
• Vision (Blind)
• Missing Extremities
• Partial Paralysis
• Complete Paralysis, Epilepsy
• Severe intellectual disability
• Psychiatric disability
• Dwarfism

The June 2019 webpage for the Aviation Development Program (ADP) — also now removed but still visible on the Wayback Machine — said the program “provides an opportunity for Persons with Targeted Disabilities (PWTD) to gain aviation knowledge and experience as an air traffic control student trainee.” Participants would get up to one year of experience in an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), with a possibility of getting a temporary appointment at the FAA Academy.
In August 2021, the FAA announced that one of the first three ADP candidates graduated from the FAA Academy and became an official air traffic control trainee. “Twelve candidates are in the pipeline for the ADP, pending completion of the clearance process,” the agency said. “Candidates must first pass the Air Traffic Skills Assessment (ATSA), followed by the security and medical clearance process.”

The announcement said the program was conceived when an air traffic manager met a quadriplegic student who had assumed he would never qualify to be a controller because of his condition. The FAA stressed that participants must meet the same qualifications as any other air traffic controller student.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

The Pinocchio Test

Trump claimed that he had changed Obama’s criteria for hiring air traffic controllers with greater diversity — when in fact he left it unchanged. Moreover, he decried the fact that FAA hired controllers with a range of disabilities that he listed at the news conference. But that program was launched during his first term.

Four Pinocchios [The biggest possible lie.]

Trump likes to say that “merit” is the only possible reason to hire someone. The person hired should be the best qualified for the job.

Is conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the best qualified person to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services? No.

Is Pete Hegseth, with his record as a drunk, a sexual predator, and failed management experience, the best qualified person to be Secretary of Defense? No.

Is Tulsi Gabbard–apologist for Putin and Assad, member of a weird cult–the best qualified person to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies? No.

Is Kash Patel, sycophant, FBI-hater, and election denier, the best qualified person to lead the FBI, especially after Trump’s sweeping purge of all agents who investigated him? No.

Other Trump choices are equally unqualified. The only one I consider qualified are Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. I was going to add Scott Bradenton, the new Secretary of the Teasury, but then I learned on Saturday that he gave Elon Musk permission to bring his team into the inner sanctum of the Department to copy the personal information of millions of Americans. As in the ransacking of Twitter, Musk’s team brought sofa beds so they could work long hours duplicating data that was supposed to be closely guarded.

Pete Hegseth stated the alleged credo of the Trump administration in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday:

“Color blind and merit based, the best leaders possible, whether it is flying Black Hawks, flying airplanes, leading platoons or in government, the era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department and we need the best and the brightest, whether it is in our air-traffic control, or whether it is in our generals, or whether it is throughout our government,” Hegseth said. 

Hegseth is living proof that Trump has not chosen “the best and the brightest” (nor does he know the origin of the term, which was the title of a book by David Halberstam about the “best and the brightest” whose arrogance ensnared us into the war in Vietnam).

If merit mattered to Trump, most of his cabinet would not have been chosen. If merit mattered in the election, Trump would not be president.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, Hoax, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Lies, Racism, Shame, Trump

Robert Hubbell: Call It What It Is: A Coup

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2025 //
23

Robert Hubbell is a level-headed guy who follows the news closely and calls things by their rightful name. He writes an immensely popular blog.

In this post, he says we are currently experiencing a coup, engineered by Trump and Musk. They are seizing control of every Department and agency, ousting loyal career officials and politicizing nonpolitical agencies, like the FBI. The news media reports the events as news stories. Hubbell puts it all together. It’s a coup.

He writes:

On Friday, January 31, 2025, Trump moved to complete the coup he began on January 6, 2021. Trump failed the first time, and he will fail again—because he has underestimated the American people. We must steel ourselves because things will get worse before they get better–but they will get better. It is a fool’s bet to assume that the American people will sit idly by as their freedoms are stolen by a corrupt oligarch and a convicted felon destroying the government to promote their selfish interests.

Speaking the truth about what is happening is difficult and unpleasant. Hearing the truth is also difficult and unpleasant. But the longer we fail to recognize the current situation for what it is—a slow-rolling coup attempt—the longer it will take for us to recover….

I am speaking more directly and using stronger words to describe the situation than many of the mainstream media outlets. CBS, CNN, and NYT are reporting on bits and pieces of Trump’s actions as if they are mere political stories. But those outlets are not addressing the obvious coordinated nature of the unprecedented attacks on the DOJ, FBI, Office of Personnel Management, Treasury Department, and dozens of other agencies.

Taken together, those actions amount to a hostile takeover of the US government by those who are loyal to Trump rather than to the US Constitution. The only word that accurately describes that situation is “coup.” Any other description is a sign of fear, submission, or surrender.

Usually, coups occur between political adversaries competing for control of the government. Here, the coup is an effort by Trump to overthrow the Constitution and establish himself as the unbounded dictator of the United States. The only word that accurately describes that situation is “coup.” Any other description is a sign of fear, submission, or surrender.

Fortunately, many independent political commentators are raising the alarm in ways the legacy media is not. BlueSky has become an indispensable source of resistance and information. Facebook is also emerging as a source of statements and leaks by government insiders. 

To the extent you can, amplify those voices and add your own to the swelling chorus of alarm and indignation that will eventually stop Trump’s unfolding coup. We stopped Trump’s initial attempt to “freeze” grants and loans, and we can do it again.

Here is a partial list of what is happening:

Elon Musk and a team of DOGE infiltrators have taken over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by connecting non-government computer servers to the US personnel mainframe computers. They have reportedly seized private information about millions of federal employees. They have locked the senior managers of the OPM out of their agency’s computers. They have moved “sofa beds” into the OPM offices and put the offices into a “lockdown mode.” See Reuters, Exclusive: Musk aides lock government workers out of computer systems at US agency, sources say.

The hostile takeover of OMP allowed Musk to send an unauthorized memo inviting millions of federal employees to resign in exchange for eight months of “non working paid employment.” [Two unions representing federal workers have filed a lawsuitchallenging Trump’s plan to reclassify and terminate hundreds of thousands of federal workers.]

Elon Musk and a team of DOGE infiltrators have attempted to seize control of the US Treasury payments system—the gateway through which ALL funds from the federal government flow. When a senior manager at the Treasury asked why Musk needed access to the highly sensitive system, the manager was immediately placed on leave. He chose to quit, instead. See The New Republic, Top Official to Quit as Musk Tries to Get Hands on Key Payment System

As of Friday evening, the Acting US Attorney for Washington, D.C., fired about 30 US Attorneys who prosecuted January 6 insurrectionists. See Politico, DOJ fires dozens of prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases. Think about that for a moment: The convicted felons who attacked the Capitol have been pardoned and the loyal servants of the Constitution who prosecuted them have been fired. That fact should outrage every American.

Also on Friday evening, the FBI told eight of its most senior leaders to resign or be fired on Monday. Those senior officials head divisions of the DOJ responsible for cybersecurity, national security, and criminal investigations. Senior FBI leaders ordered to retire, resign or be fired by Monday | CNN Politics

The FBI has fired dozens of agents who worked on investigations of January 6 insurrectionists and has asked for a list of every agent across the US who worked on the largest criminal investigation in the history of the FBI. That list will include hundreds—possibly thousands of FBI agents. The implication of the memo ordering the compilation of the list is that those agents may be fired. See Reuters, Trump’s DOJ launches purge of Jan. 6 prosecutors, FBI agents.

Also on Friday, the FBI told the senior agents in charge of field offices in Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles to resign or be fired on Monday. Reuters.

Readers alerted me to postings on Facebook and elsewhere (that I cannot authenticate) claiming to be from current government employees describing an atmosphere of chaos and fear as DOGE infiltrators ominously demand lists of employees who are apparently “next” to be fired.

Dozens of government websites were taken offline on Friday, ostensibly to be scrubbed for references to diversity, gender, or human attributes that are not white, male, and Christian. The effort was brutish, clumsy, and ignorant. The Census Bureau website was offline as DOGE infiltrators attempted to remove references to the fact that America includes people who are not white male Christians. Websites relating to LGBTQ equality, women’s health, transgender issues, and scientific knowledge in general were taken down.

The Pentagon has advised NBC, NYT, NPR, and other mainstream media outlets that they would be “rotated out of the building (i.e., the Pentagon)” to make room for NYPost, Breitbart, and OANN. See @DefenseBaron.bsky.social.

And as all of the above is happening, Republicans in the Senate will vote to confirm a Director of National Intelligence with suspiciously warm views toward Putin and an FBI Director who published an “enemies list” that included dozens of politicians, journalists, military officers, and career government officials.

Oh, and the Republican Party is facilitating the rolling coup. No, that’s not quite right. They are cheering it on.

As with the freeze on grants and loans, it will take a few days for the American public to understand the implications of what is happening. It is up to us to help spread the word.

What can we do? Here’s what we can do: Trump’s rolling coup is (mistakenly) predicated on his belief that the American people are sheep. He believes that we will sit still while he does whatever he wants. 

He is wrong. 

America is based on the consent of the governed, and its economic health requires the cooperation of the participants in the economy. If Americans withhold their political consent and economic cooperation, both the political and financial systems in America will grind to a halt.

What does withholding consent and cooperation look like? That is difficult to predict given the fluid situation, but the citizens of other nations that have grappled with similar challenges have used sustained and massive street protests, national work strikes, work slowdowns, taxpayer strikes, business boycotts, and transportation boycotts. To be clear, I am simply making an observation about how aspiring dictators in other countries have been brought to heel and held to account.

Soon, very soon, Americans will be called upon to leave the comfort of their homes and the anonymity of their computer screens to engage in massive, coordinated action to remind Trump and Musk that they are servants of the people, not vice-versa.

Coda: Trump announced 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada. As one Canadian official noted on Friday, the Canadian auto industry—which is a major parts supplier to the US auto industry—cannot survive for a week with 25% tariffs. The Canadian supply chain will shut down, the American car industry will be severely damaged, and tens of thousands of US autoworkers will be laid off. We aren’t talking about inflation increasing or the cost of eggs. We are talking about tens of thousands of job losses and an economic shock likely to lead to a recession.

The point is that Trump’s anti-democratic blitz is occurring in an environment in which he is making the stupidest economic moves made by any president since Herbert Hoover. That background will provide fertile soil for massive action by Americans who are fed up with Trump and Musk acting like dictators.

I believe in the strength and resiliency of the American people. It may take longer than some of us would like, but they will awaken, like the sleeping giant that German spies warned Hitler about on the eve of WWII. 

I understand those who are frustrated and angry over the seeming flat-footed response of Democratic leadership. But complaining is not a strategy. Issue spotting is not a strategy. Assigning blame is not a strategy. Taking action is a strategy. Spreading the truth is a strategy. Making the daily phone calls recommended by Jessica Craven is a strategy.

So, to the extent you can, direct all your anxious energy and anger toward action. The first time you learn of a protest march near you, show up. And the next time. And the time after that. In many nations, small protest marches gain momentum in a matter of weeks.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Economy, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Lies, Musk, Elon, Racism, Republicans, Resistance, Trump

Trump Signs Executive Order Threatening to Punish Schools that Teach About Racism and Gender

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2025 //
15

Trump signed an Executive Order threatening to cut off federal funding from schools that “indoctrinate” students on issues related to race and gender. The order is titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.”

Let’s start by acknowledging that this order is in direct violation of a law that was passed in 1970 to prevent the federal government from imposing any curriculum on the nation’s schools. This provision has been repeatedly renewed. Neither party wanted the other to impose its views on the schools, which is what Trump seeks to do.

The law says:

“No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, [or] administration…of any educational institution…or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials.” P.L. 103-33, General Education Provisions Act, Section 432.

What Trump ordered is illegal.

Trump is expressing the views of far-right extremist groups, like “Moms for Liberty,” who hate public schools for teaching honest accurate history about racism. They want teachers to say that there was racism long, long ago, but not any more. They vehemently oppose any discussion of systemic racism (they call such discussion “critical race theory,” which of course must never be mentioned).

Any discussion of the reality of racism is forbidden by this order.

Even more threatening to the extremists is what they call “radical gender ideology.” That would be any discussion that acknowledges that LGBT+ people exist. They believe that just talking about the existence of such people–widespread on television, movies, and the Internet–makes children turn gay or even transgender.

Trump’s executive order threatens to withhold federal funding from any school where yea gets “indoctrinate” their students to consider the existence of systemic racism or sexuality.

It is Trump’s hope that with the actions he take, non- binary people–that is, LGTB+–will cease to exist.

Trump’s friend Elon Musk posted yesterday a graphic showing that in the distant past, there were two genders; in the recent past there were “73 genders.” Starting in 2025, his post said, there will be only two genders. Musk is the father of a transgender daughter, who was originally named Xavier. With his gleeful tweet, he seems to be trying to erase his daughter.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Civics, Civil Rights, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Lies, Race, Racism, Republicans, Trump

Trump Appoints Vocal Critic of DEI to Lead Civil Rights Commission

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2025 //
9

Trump appointed Andrea Lucas, an outspoken critic of policies that acknowledge race or gender, to be chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC traditionally advocates for race-based and gender-based policies to monitor whether employers are trying to give all groups an equal chance. Lucas opposes the EEOC’s actions.

If the EEOC receives a complaint about racism in a workplace, it would collect data about the workforce. Its recommendations would be based on that data.

Lucas believes that hiring decisions must “colorblind,” so if the workforce is 100% white, there’s no problem.

Lucas opposes any enforcement that takes race or gender into account. She is also strenuously opposed to acknowledging that transgender people exist. She may think the same of gay people.

Lucas spoke at a Federalist Society meeting, where she made her views on gender clear:

“It’s important to say that biological sex is real and it matters, and it’s immutable and it’s binary. And from that premise we have, that’s the foundation on which we then proceed to have the various civil rights laws that have been enacted for the last 60 years.”

In short, don’t expect her to have any sympathy for discrimination against LGBT people.

There are five members on the EEOC, and she is the only Republican. Trump appointed her in 2020. There is a vacancy. Even with a 3-2 majority of Democrats, don’t expect much civil rights enforcement for the next four years.

Categories Bigotry, Equity, Ethics, Gender, Inequity, Race, Racism, Trump
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