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How Republicans Preserve White Supremacy

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2025 //
0

Michelle H. Davis writes a thoughtful blog on Substack called “Lone Star Left,” where she reports incisively on politics in Texas. This column explains how white supremacists keep Blacks and Hispanic unrepresented and disenfranchised: gerrymandering voting district. What’s happening in Texas is happening in other states, especially the South.

It’s hard to remember that Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Davis writes:

In the early 1960s, Black residents in Leflore County, Mississippi, comprised two-thirds of the population. Despite that, they had no political representation. In 1962, when voter registration of Black voters increased, the all-white Board of Supervisors (similar to a Commissioners’ Court in Texas) cut off federal surplus food aid, a lifeline for over 20,000 poor Black sharecroppers and farmworkers. This move came to be known as the Greenwood Food Blockade.

This move by the white Board of Supervisors exacerbated widespread poverty-induced hunger and malnutrition among Mississippi Delta sharecroppers. This laid the groundwork for long-term food insecurity, economic marginalization, and ongoing inequality in Mississippi that persists to this day.

This pattern is not new. Every time Black Americans have taken even a step toward political power, white supremacy has moved to snatch it back. In Greenwood, it meant starving families to stop them from voting. In Tarrant County today, it means redrawing district lines to erase Black representation, again, by a white-majority governing body.

What happened in Mississippi in 1962 wasn’t just about food. It was about control. And what happened in Tarrant County today isn’t just about maps. It’s about the same thing.

Today, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court voted to approve a redistricting map that effectively eliminates the seat of Commissioner Alisa Simmons, the only Black woman on the court.

It’s not a coincidence. It’s not neutral. It’s not “routine.” It is the calculated removal of a voice that dared to speak up for all of us.

Commissioner Simmons has stood firmly against the racist agenda pushed by Judge Tim O’Hare and the Republican Commissioners on the court. She spoke out against the rise in jail deaths under their watch. She called out the cruelty of defunding Girls Inc., a nonprofit that empowers young women of color. She opposed the elimination of free rides to the polls, which made it harder for working-class people, especially Black and brown voters, to cast a ballot.

And now, she’s being punished for it.

Commissioner Simmons wasn’t just a name on a ballot. She is my commissioner. I voted for her. I campaigned for her. And like thousands of others in Precinct 2, I saw her as a voice for the voiceless, a woman unafraid to shine a light on white supremacy, even when it came dressed in a suit and tie.

That light scared them. So they tried to snuff it out.

What we witnessed today was retaliation. It was white supremacy striking back at a Black woman who told the truth. And just like in Greenwood in 1962, they’re using the tools of power, maps, votes, and bureaucratic language, to do what they couldn’t do in public: silence her.

But we see it. We name it. And we will fight it.

The new map that the County Commissioners voted on today.

The Republican Commissioners and their defenders kept repeating the same excuse over and over again, “This wasn’t about race. It was just about politics.”

They said the map was designed to secure a Republican majority, not to silence Black voters. As if those two things aren’t deeply intertwined.

It’s the same argument Greg Abbott’s lawyers made in Shannon Perez v. Abbott, when Texas was caught racially gerrymandering districts. Their defense?

A direct quote from Greg Abbott: 

“It is not our intent to discriminate against minorities. It is our intent to discriminate against Democrats. If minorities happen to vote Democrat, that is their fault, not ours.”

That’s not a denial. That’s a confession….

Let’s stop pretending this distinction between race and party means anything in Texas. In Tarrant County, in Harris County, across the South, voter suppression by “party” is voter suppression by race. When you target the communities who dare to elect Black women, working-class progressives, young organizers, and civil rights leaders, you are targeting those communities on purpose.

They can say it’s about partisanship all they want. But we know what it’s really about.

Because when Conservatives talk about “conserving” something, they mean it.

They want to conserve white supremacy.

They want to conserve inequality, corporate power, and police brutality.

They want to conserve a system where jails are full, books are banned, teachers are silenced, and women don’t have autonomy.

They want to conserve a Texas where your zip code decides your worth, and where Black and brown voices are only welcome if they stay quiet.

And when people like Alisa Simmons refuse to stay quiet, they get erased.

But erasing her seat won’t erase her power, or ours….

And just when we thought we might get a win, it vanished as quickly as it came.

Yesterday, far-right extremist Tony Tinderholt (R-HD94) announced he would not seek reelection to the Texas House. For a brief moment, there was celebration across Arlington. A man who built his career on cruelty, censorship, and conspiracy was finally stepping aside. But the celebration didn’t last.

Because today, just minutes after the Tarrant County Commissioners voted to dismantle Precinct 2, Tinderholt announced he would run for that very seat, Alisa Simmons’ newly gutted district.

And he didn’t come alone.

Cheryl Bean, another far-right extremist and ally of Tinderholt, announced her run for the now-open HD94 seat. A seat that was, conveniently, made safer for someone like her under the new maps.

Bean doesn’t even live in the district. She changed her voter registration to a new address inside it—an address she doesn’t own, according to the Tarrant Appraisal District. Her real home? Still outside the district lines. But facts don’t matter when the plan is to bulldoze through communities with precision and arrogance.

This wasn’t a coincidence. It was a coordinated political hit job, plain and simple.

A rigged map. A choreographed retirement. A handoff. A handpicked replacement. All timed to disempower the voices of Black and brown voters in Tarrant County. All orchestrated by Tim O’Hare and the extremist wing of the Republican Party.

They knew Simmons couldn’t be beaten fairly.

So they changed the lines.

They cleared the field.

And then they tried to rewrite the future.

But we see them.

We know the playbook.

And we’re not going to let this go unanswered.

This is part of a broader, coordinated strategy across Texas to suppress the political power of Black and brown communities under the guise of partisan politics…..

To read the post in full, open the link.

Categories Bigotry, Character, Cheating, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Fraud, History, Racism, Republicans, Texas

The Philosopher Crackpot Who Hates Democracy and Influences Powerful Tech Bros

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2025 //
6

If you haven’t heard of Curtis Yarvin, you should learn about him now. Yarvin does not believe in democracy. He believes in a society commanded by a king or autocrat. He was a prodigy as a child and now considers himself to be a political genius. Powerful men in the tech industry and politics pay him court and admire him, men like the billionaires Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, and Vice-President JD Vance.

Curtis Yarvin, advisor to Peter Thiel, Donald Trump

This article in The New Yorker by Ava Kolman paints a biographical portrait of Yarvin, summarizes his major ideas and describes his international standing as a philosopher of far-right leaders of the tech industry.

Kolman writes about Yarvin’s extensive range of contacts among the Trump administration and his influence on them, as well as his contact with royalists in other countries..

Kolman begins:

In the spring and summer of 2008, when Donald Trump was still a registered Democrat, an anonymous blogger known as Mencius Moldbug posted a serial manifesto under the heading “An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives.” Written with the sneering disaffection of an ex-believer, the hundred-and-twenty-thousand-word letter argued that egalitarianism, far from improving the world, was actually responsible for most of its ills. That his bien-pensant readers thought otherwise, Moldbug contended, was due to the influence of the media and the academy, which worked together, however unwittingly, to perpetuate a left-liberal consensus. To this nefarious alliance he gave the name the Cathedral. Moldbug called for nothing less than its destruction and a total “reboot” of the social order. He proposed “the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law,” and the eventual transfer of power to a C.E.O.-in-chief (someone like Steve Jobs or Marc Andreessen, he suggested), who would transform the government into “a heavily-armed, ultra-profitable corporation.” This new regime would sell off public schools, destroy universities, abolish the press, and imprison “decivilized populations.” It would also fire civil servants en masse (a policy Moldbug later called rage—Retire All Government Employees) and discontinue international relations, including “security guarantees, foreign aid, and mass immigration.”

Does anything on his wish-list sound familiar to you?

It should. Trump has loaded up his administration with people who imbibe Yarvin.

A decade on, with the Trumpian right embracing strongman rule, Yarvin’s links to élites in Silicon Valley and Washington are no longer a secret. In a 2021 appearance on a far-right podcast, Vice-President J. D. Vance, a former employee of one of Thiel’s venture-capital firms, cited Yarvin when suggesting that a future Trump Administration “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people,” and ignore the courts if they objected. Marc Andreessen, one of the heads of Andreessen Horowitz and an informal adviser to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (doge), has started quoting his “good friend” Yarvin about the need for a founder-like figure to take charge of our “out of control” bureaucracy. Andrew Kloster, the new general counsel at the government’s Office of Personnel Management, has said that replacing civil servants with loyalists could help Trump defeat “the Cathedral.”

“There are figures who channel a Zeitgeist—Nietzsche calls them timely men—and Curtis is definitely a timely man,” a State Department official who has been reading Yarvin since the Moldbug era told me. Back in 2011, Yarvin said that Trump was one of two figures who seemed “biologically suited” to be an American monarch. (The other was Chris Christie.) In 2022, he recommended that Trump, if reëlected, appoint Elon Musk to run the executive branch. On a podcast with his friend Michael Anton, now the director of policy planning at the State Department, Yarvin argued that the institutions of civil society, such as Harvard, would need to be shut down. “The idea that you’re going to be a Caesar . . . with someone else’s Department of Reality in operation is just manifestly absurd,” he said.

Yatvin’s ideas are quirky, inhumane, and extreme, to say the least:

On his blog, he once joked about converting San Francisco’s underclasses into biodiesel to power the city’s buses. Then he suggested another idea: putting them in solitary confinement, hooked up to a virtual-reality interface. Whatever the exact solution, he has written, it is crucial to find “a humane alternative to genocide,” an outcome that “achieves the same result as mass murder (the removal of undesirable elements from society) but without any of the moral stigma.”

Yarvin’s call for an American strongman is often treated as an eccentric provocation. In fact, he considers it the only answer to a world in which most people are unfit for democracy….

Yarvin’s influence on Trump’s inner circle is noticeable:

Last month, an anonymous doge adviser told the Washington Post that it was “an open secret that everyone in policymaking roles has read Yarvin.” Stephen Miller, the President’s deputy chief of staff, recently quote-tweeted him. Vance has called for the U.S. to retrench from Europe, a longtime Yarvin desideratum. Last spring, Yarvin proposed expelling all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and turning it into a luxury resort. “Did I hear someone say ‘beachfront?’ ” he wrote on Substack. “The new Gaza—developed, of course, by Jared Kushner—is the LA of the Mediterranean, an entirely new charter city on humanity’s oldest ocean, sublime real estate with an absolutely perfect, Apple-quality government.” This February, during a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, Trump surprised his advisers when he made a nearly identical proposal, describing his redeveloped Gaza as “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump, who doesn’t like to read, is unlikely to have read Yarvin’s philosophical treatises about the proper functioning of a modern society–without benefit of a popular vote–but certainly Trump’s view of the unlimited, imperial powers of the Presidency are similar to those of Yarvin.

Read the article if you can access it. Make yourself aware of the man who wields an outsize influence on Trump right now.

To learn more about Yarvin’s influence among rightwing billionaires, read:

https://theconversation.com/an-antidemocratic-philosophy-called-neoreaction-is-creeping-into-gop-politics-182581

Categories Billionaires, Corruption, Cruelty, Data and Data Mining, Democracy, Disruption, Economy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Gender, History, Politics, Racism, Trump, Tyranny

Heather Cox Richardson: Under Our Mafia Boss, Everything Is For Sale

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2025 //
2

Heather Cox Richardson describes the legal corruption that is now out in the open.

Yesterday at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), a forum of democracies with advanced economies, President Donald Trump told reporters: “The UK is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them, that’s why. That’s the ultimate protection.”

Commenters often note that Trump talks like a mob boss, but rarely has his organized-crime style of governance been clearer than in yesterday’s statement.

Also yesterday, Ana Swanson and Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times reported that Trump has taken unprecedented control over U.S. Steel. Japan’s Nippon Steel has been trying to take over U.S. Steel since 2023, but the Biden administration blocked the deal for security reasons. In order to move it forward, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick demanded an agreement that gives to the president and his successors, or a person the president designates, a single share of preferred stock, known as class G, or “gold.” The deal gives the president permanent veto power over nearly a dozen actions the company might want to take, as well as power over its board of directors.

Swanson and Hirsch note that the U.S. government historically takes a stake in companies only when they are in financial trouble or when they play a significant role in the economy. “We have a golden share, which I control, or the president controls,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Thursday. “Now I’m a little concerned whoever the president might be, but that gives you total control.”

This kind of deal echoes those of the authoritarians Trump appears to admire. His ongoing support for Russian president Vladimir Putin was on display at the G7, when he echoed Russian talking points that blamed European countries and the United States for Putin’s war against Ukraine, rather than acknowledging that it was Russia that attacked Ukraine after giving assurances that it would respect Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine’s giving up the Soviet nuclear weapons stored there.

Also yesterday, Rene Marsh and Ella Nilsen of CNN reported that officials from the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump have been telling staff in the Midwest—which the authors note has a legacy of industrial pollution—to “stop enforcing violations against fossil fuel companies.” At the same time, the Department of Justice has cut its environmental division significantly, leaving “no one to do the work.”

Trump vowed that if he were reelected he would slash the oil and gas regulations he claims are “burdensome.” Now, one EPA enforcement staffer told Marsh and Nilsen, “The companies are scoffing at the cops. EPA enforcement doesn’t have the leverage they once had.”

Also yesterday, outdoor journalist Wes Siler reported in Wes Siler’s Newsletter that while language inserted in the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill requires the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of publicly owned land, an amendment authorizes the sale of 258 million acres more over the next five years. The amendment comes from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and was written by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Steve Daines (R-MT).

It includes Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands in 11 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. As Siler notes, while the measure does not currently include national monument lands, the Department of Justice under Trump is arguing that the president can revoke national monument protections. If it did so, that would make another 13.5 million acres available for purchase.

Siler notes the process for selling those lands calls for an enormous rush on sales, “all without hearings, debate, or public input opportunities.”

Today, Eliot Brown of the Wall Street Journal reported that Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India, is now one of the many wealthy foreign real estate developers “pouring money” into the Trump Organization. Brown noted that the Trump family is aggressively developing its businesses while Trump is in the White House, reaching past real estate into cryptocurrency and other sectors.

The growing power of international oligarchs to use the resources of the government for their own benefit recalls a speech Robert Mueller, then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gave in New York City in 2011. In it, he explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. No longer regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, and sophisticated, with multibillion-dollar stakes. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.

These criminals “may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military,” he said. “They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.”

These criminal enterprises, he noted, were working to corner the market on oil, gas, and precious metals. And to do so, Mueller explained, they “may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called ‘iron triangles’ of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat.”

The FBI’s increasing focus on organized crime and national security is what prompted its interest in the connections between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016.

The willingness of Republicans to enable Trump’s behavior is especially striking today, since June 17 is the anniversary of the 1972 Watergate break-in. On that day, operatives associated with President Richard M. Nixon’s team tried to tap the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington’s Watergate complex. Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a 24-year-old security guard, noticed that a door lock had been taped open. He ripped off the tape and closed the door, but on his next round, he found the door taped open again. He called the police, who found five burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the building.

The story played out over the next two years with Nixon insisting he was not involved in the affair, but in early August 1974 a tape recorded just days after the break-in revealed Nixon and an aide plotting to invoke national security to protect the president. Republican senators who had not wanted to convict their president of the charges of impeachment being considered in the House knew the game was over. A delegation of them went to the White House to tell Nixon they would vote to convict him.

On August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign.

Chris Geidner of LawDork notes that despite the lawmakers in our own era who are unwilling to stop Trump, “the pushback…is very real.” Geidner notes not just the No Kings Day protests of the weekend, but also a lawsuit by the American Bar Association (ABA) suing Trump for his attacks on law firms and lawyers, calling Trump’s actions “unprecedented and uniquely dangerous to the rule of law.”

Geidner also notes that lower court judges are upholding the Constitution, and he points especially to U.S. District Judge William Young, an appointee of Republican president Ronald Reagan. In a hearing yesterday, Young insisted on holding the government accountable “for both Trump’s actions and the follow-up actions from those Trump has empowered to act.”

Young called cuts to funding for National Institutes of Health research grants “illegal” and “void” and ordered the NIH to restore the funds immediately. “I am hesitant to draw this conclusion—but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it—that this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.”

“I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable,” Young said during the hearing. “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.” He added: “You are bearing down on people of color because of their color. The Constitution will not permit that.… Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Character, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Economy, Environment, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, Trump

John Thompson: MAGA Republicans in Oklahoma Are Hurting the People Who Elected Them

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2025 //
13

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, probes the divide in the state Republican Party, which is currently in the hands of MAGA extremists.

He writes:

Oklahoma seems to be a case study in MAGA-ism and, now, it may be foreshadowing the chaos that President Donald Trump is creating with his fights with allies.

As the Oklahoma Observer’s Arnold Hamilton explained, the massive Republican majority in the Oklahoma legislature had been “bullied by Gov. Kevin Stitt all session long, until they became “chihuahuas [who] abruptly morphed into pit bulls.” Hamilton then asked, “Was this a one-off, final-hours temper tantrum by legislators fed up with the governor? Or a sign they are embracing their constitutional authority as a co-equal branch of government?”

On the other hand, the Oklahoma Voice’s Janelle Steckleinwrote that the “Stitt Show” shouldn’t distract from the fact that most of his agenda became law, and the people were the big losers. 

I suspect that this is another case of Democrats and adult Republicans minimizing the damage that would be done by the passage of the DOGE/Ok agenda. And that is necessary before real progress can be made. I also suspect that the answers as to who won the 2025 session will mostly depend on the courts.

Oklahoma ranks in the bottom five of the nation in child-welfare, and 48th in education. Also, Oklahoma’s poverty rate increased from 38th to 45th in the nation since Stitt took office, and we are 45th in bridge infrastructure. We are in the nation’s top five in men killing women; in the worst women’s health care access; in teen pregnancy; and in the world’s incarceration rates; as one Oklahoman commits suicide every 19 hours.

As the Oklahoma Policy Institute explains, “Oklahoma’s housing crisis is worsening. Moreover, the Trump administration’s “deep cuts to housing programs” are “leaving states to fill the gap in funding.” State lawmakers “punted” on nearly all of their “multiple opportunities to reduce evictions, update the Landlord-Tenant Act, and increase Oklahoma’s supply of housing stock.” And, Stitt “vetoed the only bill to combat the housing crisis the legislature managed to pass, a measure that would have extended the eviction timeline and given families a better shot at staying housed.” 

And, as early as 2017, there were warnings that the failure to increase funding for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHSAA) would “decimate” the system. It was nearly $750 million of federal funds since 2020 that rescued it, but by March 2025, the state only received $13,362,703 of the allocated funds for 2025.  

After the legislature gave the governor unprecedented power to control state agencies and Stitt appointed Commissioner Allie Friesen as the head of the ODMHSAA, the legislature had to pass a nearly $30 million emergency bill to keep the agency open until July, and it fired Friesen. 

Stitt responded by making personal attacks on fellow Republicans. Senate Pro-Tem Lonnie Paxton the “called Friesen’s appointment by Stitt part of a “pattern” of failure.” Moreover: 

“The executive branch continues to produce multimillion-dollar disasters that are routinely dumped in the Legislature’s lap to clean up,” Paxton wrote. “The legislature entrusted this governor with more control of this agency, and he has wrecked it in record time.”

Oklahoma’s extreme mental health crisis isn’t the only extreme challenge, as the Trump administration is ramping up major cuts to health-care funding. As the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (O.I.C.A.) reports, 59% of the state’s medical facilities are at risk for closing. And the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 174,000 Oklahomans are likely to lose benefits from SoonerCare, Oklahoma’s version of Medicaid. The Urban Institute estimates that “Oklahoma would have to raise taxes or cut other parts of its budget by $2 billion over ten years to maintain SoonerCare” due to federal Medicaid cuts. 

This comes at a time when the legislature will likely have $300 million less to appropriate next year. And it will happen as state agencies say they’ll need $921 million more in funding.

But Stitt, who brags about previously cutting taxes by a billion dollars, then cut income taxes by about $350 million a year, on his “path to zero,” meaning he would eliminate this progressive tax. 

And that gets us to what I consider the other most destructive, anti-democracy victory achieved by Stitt and his fellow Republicans, SB 1027. Over the last nine years, voters in our populist state have used the initiative petition to pass state questions on criminal justice reform, medical marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion. Also, a vote to raise the minimum wage is scheduled. And an effort to end legislative gerrymandering may be coming. Apparently, the biggest reason why the Republicans set out to remove our constitutional right is to prevent SQ 836, a petition for open primaries.” 

So, the Republicans have passed SB 1027 which “caps the number of petition signatures that can be gathered in each county and imposes several procedural changes.” By capping the number of votes that can be counted in Oklahoma and Tulsa Counties, they “would effectively end initiative petitions in Oklahoma.”

SB 1027 will be challenged in court. 

Rep. Jay Steagall, R-Yukon defended his vote by suggesting “direct democracy as exemplified by initiative petitions invites mob rule.” And, Republican House Speaker Kyle Hilbert defended their refusal to take a stand for democracy, saying, “The founding fathers did have concerns about the tyranny of democracy.” 

And that gets back to the question as to whether the integrity of Oklahoma’s judicial system will be maintained. 

Until the early 1960s, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court was completely corrupt. In a bipartisan response, our state created an exemplary, honest judicial system. However, Gov. Stitt has repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, tried to turn back the clock to the decades when Oklahoma was one of the most corrupt places in America by repealing the Justice Nominating Commission. 

This year, however, he achieved a major goal by creating a Business Court, which could be a tool for enhancing corporate powers. Stitt sees it a tool for building a “more business-friendly state.” 

And that brings us to the Oklahoma American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) review of the 2025 session. It listed more than 50 attempts to reverse legal reforms; 15 attempts to attack immigrant rights; 25+ attempts to reverse LGBTQ+ rights; 10+ bills attacking free speech; and 20+ bills attacking voting rights. 

Most of these bills were so extreme that they were defeated. For instance, this week, a federal judge  issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Oklahoma’s HB 4156, known as the “impermissible occupation” bill, which “criminalizes certain behaviors of undocumented immigrants, allowing state law enforcement to detain and prosecute them.”  

But, there remains work to be done to prevent implementing the Education Department’s (OSDE) demand that immigration data regarding schools be turned over to the state.  Also, the ban, aimed at trans-gender persons, on “obscene” performance in public property and certain public places must be challenged, as well as the banning DEI in Higher Education. 

So, I conclude that Gov. Stitt has been humiliating himself, but he succeeded in passing the laws that inflict the worst harm on Oklahomans. The civil war between Republican extremists gives more hope that more of the silliest bills can be stopped, giving more power to adults Republicans and Democrats. However, it will take years to build the foundations that are necessary before we can create meaningful pathways to a state with a 21st century political and social systems that serve the people. 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Oklahoma

Timothy Snyder: Trump’s Fascist Speech to the Troops at Fort Bragg

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2025 //
1

Tomorrow is “No Kings” Day. Join a group and protest Trump’s attempt to make himself our king, our permanent dictator.

Timothy Snyder, noted historian, analyzed Trump’s speech to the troops at Fort Bragg and determined that it was not only self-aggrandizing but also an appeal to disunity, division, and hatred. He honored traitors and oath-breakers, like those who participated in an actual insurrection on January 6, 2021, and leaders of the Confederacy.

Please read and take action to oppose Trump’s tyranny:

Earlier this week Donald Trump called for a second civil war at a US military base. This scenario can be resisted and prevented, if we have the courage to listen, interpret, and act. And this Saturday we will have the occasion to act.

The listening is important. The speech was given at the base now known again as Ft. Bragg. The fort was named for a confederate general. It was renamed Ft. Liberty. Under this administration, it was renamed Fort Bragg, now ostensibly to honor another American serviceman, not the confederate general. It is a dishonest pretense that dishonors everyone. The fort is now named again after a confederate general, as Trump made clear. The tradition that is now in fact being honored, that of oathbreakers and traitors.

In Trump’s speech, the existence of the United States is placed in doubt. We are not a country but a divided society in which some of us deserve punishment by others. He made no mention of the world today, nor of any common American interest that might necessitate national defense. There was no concern about threats from China or Russia. Middle Eastern dictatorships, the only countries that Trump singled out, garnered great praise because their leaders gave Trump money. There was no mention of any wars that are actually underway, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Trump invoked battlefields across the decades to create a sense of individual heroism, in which of course the history the the US Army is very rich. But that individual heroism is usually cited by commanders in chief as evidence of a nation that is worthy of defense. No such America figured in Trump’s speech. America did not exist Trump’s speech, except as a cult to him personally.

In the actual history of the United States, one war is central: the Civil War. Trump, who has never seen the point of the Union Army defending the republic, now seems now to have moved on to the position that the Confederacy should have won. He promised to rename Fort Gregg-Adams, the first base named for African-Americans, to Fort Robert E. Lee. The base in question hasn’t been known by the full name of the confederate commander since 1950. Lee was a traitor, an oathbreaker, a defender of slavery and the commander of a force whose mission was to break up the United States of America.

In his speech, Trump claimed that seizing undocumented migrants in 2025 shows the same courage as fighting in the Revolutionary War, or the First World War, or the Second World War, or Korea or Vietnam. It would have been news to the soldiers at the time that charging a trench or jumping from a plane is no different than ganging up on a graduate student or bullying a middle-aged seamstress.

But here we see the magic of Trump’s rhetoric: he seeks to transform the courage of the past into the cowardice of the future. He is preparing American soldiers to see themselves as heroes when they undertake operations inside the United States against unarmed people, including their fellow citizens.

All of this, of course, trivializes actual US military achievements. The actual battles of our history just become a “show,” to use one of Trump’s keywords. They are deeds performed for the pleasure of a Leader who then invokes them to justify his own permanent power. Denuded of all context, military glory becomes a spectacle into which any meaning can be injected. And he who injects the meaning is he who rules. That is the fascist principle that Trump understands. There is no politics except struggle, and he who can define the enemy in the struggle can stay in power. But whereas historical fascists had an enemy without and an enemy within, Trump only has an enemy within. The world is too much for him. The army is just for dominating Americans.

Abraham Lincoln statue

In his speech, Trump was trying to transform a legacy of battlefield victory around the world into a future willingness to take illegal orders regarding his own policy on the territory of the United States. The defiance of the law was clear. Trump cannot, for example, legally just rename those bases. The forts were named by an act of Congress. And he cannot legally deploy the Marines to Los Angeles. He has no authority to do so. The president is expressly forbidden by law from using the armed forces to implement domestic policies.

Trump defined himself not as a president but as a permanent Leader. In repeatedly mocking his predecessor, he was summoning soldiers to defy the fundamental idea that their service is to the Constitution and not to a given person. “You think this crowd would have showed up for Biden?” Whether or not it is unprecedented, as I believe it is, such mockery certainly dangerous. It suggests that something besides an election, something like individual charisma, some personal right to rule, is what matters. That soldiers should follow Trump because he is Trump, and not for any other reason.

In general, we imagine that the US Army is here to defend us, not to attack us. But summoning soldiers to heckle their fellow Americans is a sign of something quite different. Trump seized the occasion to summon soldiers to join him in mocking the press. Reporters, of course, as the Founders understood, are a critical check on tyranny. They, like protestors, are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Trump was teaching soldiers that society does not matter, and that law does not matter. He “loves” soldiers. He is personally responsible for the pay raises: “I gave you so much money for four years it was crazy.” “We’re giving you an across-the-board raise” This is the way a dictator speaks to a palace guard, or a fascist to a paramilitary.

Trump is putting himself above the army and the army above the country: “we only have a country because we first had an army, the army was first.” That ridiculous: the Continental Army was formed in 1775 from the people, for the very specific and time-limited purpose of ending colonial oppression. Trump wants the armed force to be the end in itself, and freedom to be its enemy. Generally, presidents who speak to soldiers of military glory have had in mind the defense of American freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, including the freedom of the press and the freedom to assemble. Trump said nothing about freedom, except as a “flame” or a “shield.” He said nothing about rights. There was not a word about democracy.

We are witnessing an attempt at regime change, rife in perversities. It has a historical component: we are to celebrate the oathbreakers and the traitors. It has a fascist component: we are to embrace the present moment as an exception, in which all things are permitted to the Leader. And of course it has an institutional component: soldiers are meant to be the avant-garde of the end of democracy. Instead of treating the army as defenders or freedom, Trump presented soldiers as his personal armed servants, whose job it was to oppress his chosen enemies — inside the United States. Trump was trying to instruct soldiers that their mission was to crush fellow Americans who dared to exercise their rights, such as the right to protest.

Referring to migration as an “invasion,” as Trump did during the speech, is meant to blur the distinction between his immigration policy and a foreign war. But it is also meant to transform the mission of the US Army. The meaningful border here is that between reality and fantasy. If soldiers and others are willing to accept that migration is an “invasion,” then they enter into an alternative reality. Inside that alternative reality, they will see those who do not accept the invasion fantasy as enemies. And this is exactly what Trump called for when he portrayed elected officials in California as collaborators in “an occupation of the city by criminal invaders.”

The US Army, like other American institutions, includes people of various backgrounds. It depends heavily on African-Americans and non-citizens. One can try to transform the army into a cult of the Confederacy and a tool to persecute migrants, but this will cause, at a minimum, great friction. Beyond this, using the Army to enforce domestic policy risks ruining its reputation. Deploying the armed forces in cities risks US soldiers killing US civilians. It also risks that provocateurs, including foreign ones, including allies of Trump, will try to kill an American soldier to provoke a disaster. (Trump’s birthday parade seems practically designed for such an incident, by the way.) 

Trump will welcome and exploit such situations, of course. He doesn’t have the courage to say things clearly or start conflict directly, but instead sets up others for situations in which they suffer and he profits. The question is whether civil war is the future Army officers and soldiers want. When Trump promises to celebrate Robert E. Lee, he is telling the Army that oath-breakers and traitors will be celebrated in the future. This is not in his gift. Officers who bring the US armed forces to battle American civilians will be remembered by the heirs of a broken republic and as the people who started a second American civil war.

It is clear what Trump is trying to do. He wants to turn everything around. He wants an army that is not a legal institution but a personal paramilitary. He wants it not to defend Americans but to oppress them. He wishes the shame of our national history to become our pride. He wants to transform a republic into a fascist regime by transforming a history of courage into a future of cowardice.

This can only succeed if it goes unchallenged. All of us can think about his words and their implications. Officers and soldiers can remember that not all orders are legal orders. Those in the media can interpret Trump’s speeches clearly rather than just repeating them or seeing them as one side in a partisan dispute. Our courts can name the limits of his authority. And even a Republican Congress can recognize when its powers are being usurped in a way that risks the end of our country.

Though he did not mention the Civil War, Trump did refer to “the sacred soil of Gettysburg.” It is worth recalling Lincoln’s very different sense of the sacrifice of American soldiers in his Gettysburg Address:

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

In the end, and in the beginning, and at all moments of strife, a government of the people, by the people, for the people depends upon the awareness and the actions of all of us. A democracy only exists if a people exist, and a people only exists in individuals’ awareness of one another of itself and of their need to act together. This weekend Trump plans a celebration of American military power as a celebration of himself on his birthday — military dictatorship nonsense. This is a further step towards a different kind of regime. It can be called out, and it can be overwhelmed.

Thousands of Americans across the land, many veterans among them, have worked hard to organize protests this Saturday — against tyranny, for freedom, for government of the people, by the people, for the people. Join them if you can. No Kings Day is June 14th.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, History, Inequity, Injustice, Lies, Racism, Trump, Tyranny

Governor Gavin Newsom: Do Not Give In to a Lawless President

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2025 //
16

Governor Gavin Newsom spoke to the situation in Los Angeles, which Trump is using as a target in his campaign to distract the public from his incompetence. In his hateful way, Trump always refers to Governor Newsom as “Newscum.”

Governor Newsom said, as transcribed by The New York Times:

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California delivered a speech on Tuesday, titled “Democracy at a Crossroads.” The following is a transcript of his remarks as broadcast online and on television channels:

I want to say a few words about the events of the last few days.

This past weekend, federal agents conducted large-scale workplace raids in and around Los Angeles. Those raids continue as I speak.

California is no stranger to immigration enforcement. But instead of focusing on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records and people with final deportation orders, a strategy both parties have long supported, this administration is pushing mass deportations, indiscriminately targeting hardworking immigrant families, regardless of their roots or risk.

What’s happening right now is very different than anything we’ve seen before. On Saturday morning, when federal agents jumped out of an unmarked van near a Home Depot parking lot, they began grabbing people. A deliberate targeting of a heavily Latino suburb. A similar scene also played out when a clothing company was raided downtown.

In other actions, a U.S. citizen, nine months pregnant, was arrested; a 4-year-old girl, taken; families separated; friends, quite literally, disappearing.

In response, everyday Angelinos came out to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly, to protest their government’s actions. In turn, the State of California and the City and County of Los Angeles sent our police officers to help keep the peace and, with some exceptions, they were successful.

Like many states, California is no stranger to this sort of unrest. We manage it regularly, and with our own law enforcement. But this, again, was different.

What then ensued was the use of tear gas, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, federal agents detaining people and undermining their due process rights.

Donald Trump, without consulting California law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets, illegally and for no reason.

This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk.

That’s when the downward spiral began. He doubled down on his dangerous National Guard deployment by fanning the flames even harder. And the president, he did it on purpose. As the news spread throughout L.A., anxiety for family and friends ramped up. Protests started again.

By night, several dozen lawbreakers became violent and destructive. They vandalized property. They tried to assault police officers. Many of you have seen video clips of cars burning on cable news.

If you incite violence — I want to be clear about this — if you incite violence or destroy our communities, you are going to be held to account. That kind of criminal behavior will not be tolerated. Full stop.

Already, more than 220 people have been arrested. And we’re reviewing tapes to build additional cases and people will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Again, thanks to our law enforcement officers and the majority of Angelenos who protested peacefully, this situation was winding down and was concentrated in just a few square blocks downtown.

But that, that’s not what Donald Trump wanted. He again chose escalation, he chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety. He federalized another 2,000 Guard members.

He deployed more than 700 active U.S. Marines. These are men and women trained in foreign combat, not domestic law enforcement. We honor their service. We honor their bravery. But we do not want our streets militarized by our own armed forces. Not in L.A. Not in California. Not anywhere.

We’re seeing unmarked cars, unmarked cars in school parking lots. Kids afraid of attending their own graduation. Trump is pulling a military dragnet all across Los Angeles, well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals. His agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses.

That’s just weakness, weakness masquerading as strength. Donald Trump’s government isn’t protecting our communities. They are traumatizing our communities. And that seems to be the entire point.

California will keep fighting. We’ll keep fighting on behalf of our people, all of our people, including in the courts.

Yesterday, we filed a legal challenge to President Trump’s reckless deployment of American troops to a major American city. Today, we sought an emergency court order to stop the use of the American military to engage in law enforcement activities across Los Angeles.

If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.

Trump and his loyalists, they thrive on division because it allows them to take more power and exert even more control.

And by the way, Trump, he’s not opposed to lawlessness and violence as long as it serves him. What more evidence do we need than January 6th.

I ask everyone: Take time, reflect on this perilous moment. A president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American traditions.

This is a president who, in just over 140 days, has fired government watchdogs that could hold him accountable, accountable for corruption and fraud. He’s declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases quite literally are vanishing.

He’s delegitimizing news organizations and he’s assaulting the First Amendment. And the threat of defunding them. At threat, he’s dictating what universities themselves can teach. He’s targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundations of an orderly and civil society. He’s calling for a sitting governor to be arrested for no other reason than to, in his own words, “for getting elected.”

And we all know, this Saturday, he’s ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.

Look, this isn’t just about protests here in Los Angeles. When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard. he made that order apply to every state in this nation.

This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next.

Democracy is next.

Democracy is under assault right before our eyes, this moment we have feared has arrived. He’s taking a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball to our founding fathers’ historic project: three coequal branches of independent government.

There are no longer any checks and balances. Congress is nowhere to be found. Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility.

The rule of law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don.

The founding fathers didn’t live and die to see this kind of moment. It’s time for all of us to stand up. Justice Brandeis, he said it best. In a democracy, the most important office — with all due respect, Mr. President — is not the presidency, and it’s certainly not governor. The most important office is office of citizen.

At this moment, at this moment, we all need to stand up and be held to account, a higher level of accountability. If you exercise your First Amendment rights, please, please do it peacefully.

I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear. But I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment.

Do not give into him.

Categories Bigotry, California, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Immigration, Justice, Trump

Brookings Analysis: Trump’s “School Choice” Plan Enables Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2025 //
3

Jon Valant is doing a great job as Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D. C. He keeps close tabs on federal legislation. What follows is an excellent analysis of Trump’s legislation to use federal funds to underwrite the privatization of federal education funding. The potential for fraud, waste, and abuse is huge, he writes.

He writes:

  • The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) would create a $5 billion federal tax-credit scholarship program through a tax shelter for wealthy individuals.
  • The bill would provide minimally regulated scholarship-granting organizations with a great deal of discretion over how federal education funds are spent.
  • A hypothetical scenario illustrates the possibility of waste, fraud, and discriminatory behaviors.

The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) continues to move, quietly, towards becoming one of America’s costliest, most significant federal education programs. Now part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ECCA would create a federal tax-credit scholarship program that’s unprecedented in scope and scale. It has flown under the radar, though, and remains confusing to many observers.

Recently, a colleague and I showed how ECCA is poised to redistribute funds from poor and rural communities to wealthy and non-rural communities. A study from the Urban Institute drew similar conclusions. Since those pieces were published, ECCA—then a standalone bill—has passed through the House of Representatives and now moves to the Senate. ECCA’s fate remains uncertain, which makes this as good a time as any to examine its potential implications.

How would ECCA work?

ECCA’s stealthiness is partly due to the confusing nature of tax-credit scholarship programs. These programs move money in circuitous ways to avoid the legal and political hurdles that confront vouchers. Tax-credit scholarship programs like ECCA aren’t quite private school voucher programs, but they’re first cousins.  

In a voucher program, a government gives money (a voucher) to a family, which the family can use to pay for private school tuition or other approved expenses. With a tax-credit scholarship, it’s not that simple. Governments offer tax credits to individuals and/or corporations that donate to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). These SGOs then distribute funds (“scholarships”) to families.

The U.S. already has 22 tax-credit scholarship programs, but they’re relatively modest, state-level programs. ECCA is different. ECCA would create a massive, federal tax-credit scholarship program, operating across all 50 states, with a current price tag of about $5 billion in the first year (down from $10 billion in the bill’s earlier draft). It offers an extremely generous tax credit. Individuals get a full, 1:1 tax credit (not just a deduction) for their contributions, which fully offsets their contributions. In other words, these “donors” don’t actually give up any money—hence the quotation marks. On top of that, ECCA allows individuals to donate marketable securities (e.g., stocks) rather than cash. This provides an avenue to treat ECCA as a tax shelter and avoid paying capital gains taxes. More on that in a moment.

Most students would be eligible for a scholarship, with the exception of those from households that earn more than three times their area’s median gross income. (More on that in a moment, too.) The list of qualified expenses covers everything from private school tuition to online educational materials.

Rather than go through all of the bill’s details, let’s take a look at a scenario that illuminates what this program could do. Remarkably, this scenario appears—to my eye, at least—fully compliant with the House bill (even if the characters are a bit overstated).

A hypothetical scenario to illustrate some of ECCA’s risks

A ‘donor’ who benefits from ECCA’s tax shelter

Let’s imagine a billionaire, Billy, who couldn’t care less about K-12 education but cares a whole lot about his own wealth. Billy hears about ECCA from an acquaintance who tells him about how much money Billy could save by “donating” to an SGO. Billy’s adjusted gross income (AGI) was $20 million last year. That means, according to ECCA, that he’s eligible to donate $2 million to an SGO this year (10% of his AGI).

Let’s walk through the math for Billy’s donation. Billy is looking to give $2 million in stock shares to an SGO. He bought these shares a few years ago for $1 million and then they doubled in value. That means that Billy’s earnings are subject to long-term capital gains tax if he sells the stock. With his AGI, that would be 23.8% in federal taxes plus another 4.7% or so in state taxes (depending on where he lives). In other words, if Billy sold the stocks today and kept the funds for himself, he’d owe about $285,000 in combined federal and state taxes on his $1 million in earnings (28.5% of $1 million).

By donating the $2 million in stock to an SGO, not only does Billy get his entire $2 million back as a tax credit; he also dodges those capital gains taxes. He’s a billionaire who is $285,000 wealthier for having made this supposed donation. (For a detailed illustration of how this works—and some nice figures—I’d recommend this piece from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.)

A scholarship-granting organization with extraordinary leeway in how to direct ECCA funds

Now, let’s get back to that SGO. Billy’s acquaintance, Fred, lives in the same town as Billy, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the United States. In fact, Fred set up the SGO, looking to capture ECCA funds within their shared community—and, just maybe, for himself. Like Billy, Fred doesn’t particularly care about K-12 education. He does have a penchant for fraud, though, along with a strong distaste for Republicans.

It might seem that Fred’s SGO couldn’t distribute funds to families in their ultra-wealthy area, since ECCA has income restrictions for scholarship recipients. That’s not the case. ECCA restricts eligibility to households with an income not greater than 300% of their area’s median income. In Fred and Billy’s town, with its soaring household incomes, even multimillionaire families with $500,000 in annual income are eligible. In more modest (and rural) areas, the cutoffs aren’t nearlyso high.

So, Fred is looking to give scholarship money to some wealthy families in his hometown. Notably, ECCA doesn’t limit the amount of money that he can give to any one recipient. ECCA just requires that he provide scholarships to at least two students—who, between them, attend at least two different schools—and that he not earmark the funds for any particular student. Fred offers students $100,000 apiece for supplemental tutoring. That might seem like a lot, but, hey, this is high-end tutoring.

A vendor with little oversight or accountability

In fact, Fred stipulates that the funds must be spent at a new tutoring shop, High-End Tutoring, just created by his buddy, a former teacher. ECCA seems to allow that. ECCA also allows Fred to take a nice cut for himself for running the SGO: 10% of the SGO’s total receipts.

No one really knows the arrangement that Fred and his tutoring friend have, if they have one, because there are hardly any transparency or accountability provisions in ECCA (aside from a requirement to obtain annual financial and compliance audits). We also won’t know if High-End Tutoring provides any educational value, because that’s not part of ECCA either. ECCA’s proponents have claimed there’s accountability to the SGO donors, who want to see their generous donations being put to good use. Billy, though, is enjoying his $285,000 money grab and content to leave Fred alone until it’s time for next year’s donation.

An invitation to discriminate—and an attempt to keep local and state governments from intervening

Fred does have one requirement of his own for High-End Tutoring that he doesn’t need to hide. High-End Tutoring isn’t going to serve any children of Republican parents. All students must complete an attestation form—stating that they and their parents are progressive—before receiving any tutoring services from this publicly funded vendor. Across town, another SGO leader is formally excluding LGBTQ+ children and children of LGBTQ+ parents from their pool of scholarship recipients.

ECCA, in its current form, seems to allow all of this, as objectionable as it may seem. And it’s not just an issue with SGOs funding tutoring companies or other supplemental services. Similar issues could arise with private schools, especially in states without strong anti-discrimination protections.

From hypotheticals to reality

The scenario above might seem ridiculous or caricatured, and to some extent it probably is. But the point is, it’s allowable under the proposed legislation, and we should be realistic about how much fraud, waste, and bad behavior a program like ECCA would invite.

Should we not expect wealthy stockowners to jump at the opportunity to exploit ECCA’s tax shelter? Is it unreasonable to think that many of these wealthy donors will look to benefit their own communities through their donations? Have we not seen bad actors creep in when governments offer large checks with hardly any accountability or strings attached?

This isn’t some tiny, insignificant program either. This is a $5 billion federal program that, because of a “high-use calendar year” provision in ECCA, is almost certain to grow 5% annually. In fact, the cost is likely to be considerably higher than thatdue to the foregone capital gains tax revenue. That’s not quite the size of the behemoth federal K-12 programs—Title I ($18.4 billion in FY 2024) and IDEA ($15.5 billion)—but it’s not all that far off.

And let’s be clear about cost, because ECCA certainly isn’t paid for by the contributions of generous donors. Tax credits are would-be revenue that the IRS is no longer collecting. That money is coming from somewhere else in the budget, whether it’s cuts in education spending, cuts to Medicaid or other social services, tax hikes, or increased debt.

This bill would introduce the most significant and costliest new federal education program in decades. It has virtually no quality-control measures, transparency provisions, protections against discrimination, or evidence to suggest that it’s likely to improve educational outcomes. It’s very likely to redirect funds from poor (and rural) areas to wealthy areas.

And, in its current form, ECCA leaves a whole lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Fraud, Funding, Privatization, Propaganda, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Florida: College Presidencies Go to Grifters and GOP Cronies. Merit Doesn’t Count.

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2025 //
2

Scott Maxwell is an opinion columnist for The Orlando Sentinel. He tells the truth about the state’s sordid politics and backs it up with facts. Learn here how the state chooses college and university presidents.

He writes:

You probably know that Florida’s GOP politicians have taken a wrecking ball to the state’s university system. And the narrative is that they’re on a noble crusade to exorcise evil, “woke” ideology from college campuses.

But if you believe that’s the only goal here, you’ve been duped. This isn’t about politicians going after liberal doctrines nearly as much as it’s about them going after tax dollars.

They’ve turned the university system into a political spoils system where politicians with no higher-ed experience can score lucrative higher-ed jobs for themselves.

It’s been going on for a while now, but the grift was fully exposed this past week. That’s when it was revealed that one of the political has-beens fuming about diversity — as a supposed reason to deny the University of Florida presidency to a qualified applicant — had secretly made a play to try to get the $3 million-a-year job for himself.

See, you have to separate the theater from the grift. The theater was a bunch of privileged guys griping about the concept of diversity and inclusion. The grift was one of those same guys making a secretive play for the very job he was griping about.

More about that in a moment, but first, let’s remember where this all started — at New College of Florida with Richard Corcoran. Two years ago, the former House Speaker craved a fat, higher-ed paycheck. The problem was that Corcoran had as much higher-ed experience as my dead cat, Furball.

So to distract from his lack of qualifications, Corcoran fumed — about DEI, CRT and other scary-sounding acronyms. It was red meat for the trolls. And Corcoran laughed all the way to the bank. He got a $1 million deal to run a tiny college with 698 students. Elementary school principals oversee more pupils.

Then Corcoran and Co. invited other political has-beens to feed at the New College trough. They gave a former Senate president a $500-an-hour legal contract, the governor’s former spokesman a $15,000-a-month PR contract and the wife of the former Republican Party of Florida chairman $175,000 to run the school’s foundation.

With the chow bell rung, the politicians came running. Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska scored a $10 million deal for a short-lived and disastrous tenure at UF where the student newspaper discovered he’d quickly blown through $17 million in public money, including $38,000 he spent on a sushi bar.

Lieutenant Gov. Jeanette Nunez snagged the top spot at Florida International University. A cable-company lobbyist friendly with the administration is in line to lead FAMU.
At one college, they had to actually remove the requirement that the president have an advanced degree so that they could give the job to Fred Hawkins, a GOP legislator who lacked one.

But then this past week, the scheme was fully exposed in cringe-worthy fashion.

The scene was the Board of Governors meeting in Orlando where appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis were once again fuming about the alleged evils of diversity and inclusion. Their reason this time was to try to deny the UF presidency to former University of Michigan President Santa J. Ono.

Somehow, a qualified candidate had actually advanced through the secretive application process — and that would not be tolerated.

So the political appointees accused Ono of all kinds of terrible things like embracing equality and believing in science. Former House Speaker Paul Renner led the anti-woke war.

But then one board member who’d apparently heard enough posturing went off-script.
Eric Silagy, the former CEO of Florida Power and Light, asked if any of his fellow board members — the ones savaging Ono for being too woke — had applied for the very job Ono was seeking.
Yes, responded board chairman Mori Hosseini. “Paul Renner.”

It turned out the very guy claiming Florida needed an anti-woke warrior in this $3 million-a-year position had been salivating over the post.
Renner became visibly enraged when exposed. He indignantly responded that he’d only inquired about the job because other people suggested he do so and that he’d since decided not to accept the high-paying job even if it was offered to him. Sure, Mr. Speaker. Your nobility is noted.

Most of the time, qualified candidates like Ono don’t even get a shot. But occasionally, well-intentioned leaders at individual schools try to give them one — as trustees at Florida Atlantic University did two years ago when they nominated Vice Admiral Sean Buck, the superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, to be FAU’s president.

That’s how these folks treat these positions.

DeSantis would later admit in a moment of surprising candor that he only supported Fine because other GOP legislators disliked Fine and wanted him gone. “They wanted to get him out of the Legislature,” DeSantis said. “So they asked me to put him up for Florida Atlantic president, and I did.”

But Buck didn’t stand a chance in this environment. DeSantis allies savaged the respected admiral’s reputation so that yet another GOP legislator, Randy Fine, could have a shot at the job.

Fine and DeSantis later had a falling out, and Fine didn’t get the gig. But the rules of the game were clear: Qualified applicants need not apply.
An irony is that former politicians actually can become impressive university leaders. Florida State University President John Thrasher, a former GOP house speaker, was one of them. I respected him. So did many others.

But Thrasher, who sadly passed away last week, was a different kind of man than the Florida politicians of today. He was a statesman — not someone willing to savage others’ reputation simply to enrich himself.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Higher Education

U.S. Supreme Court Allows DOGE to Access Your Most Sensitive Personal Data

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2025 //
23

DOGE (or DOGS, as I prefer to call them) just won the authority to see your most important personal data, thanks to the rightwing bloc of six on the SupremeCourt.,

It’s really unbelievable. There is legislation protecting our personal data. But the Court split 6-3 to allow these mostly very young, very inexperienced kids to review and gather our personal data. The Court also shielded members of the DOGE group from public scrutiny.

The six Republicans on the Court claim to be conservatives. They are not. Some of the six claim to be “originalists,” ruling in accord with the wishes of the Founding Fathers. Nonsense.

Who are these people that Elon Musk left behind? No one knows for sure. Were they confirmed by the U.S. Senate? No. What are their credentials? No one knows for certain. What right do these shadowy people have to know our personal data? They are not a government agency. They are friends of Elon.

This decision gives open access to our records by shadowy figures whose purposes are hidden.

Are they building a data base for the next election? Will the data be used to blackmail people?

These are frightening decisions.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Data and Data Mining, Discipline, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fake, Musk, Elon, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Republicans, Scandal

Florida: DeSantis Degraded Education at Every Level

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2025 //
4

Governor Ron DeSantis has done everything possible to destroy education in Florida. He apparently hates public schools. He pushed through an expansion of vouchers that provides a subsidy to every student in the state, no matter if the family is rich or poor. Of course, most of those using the voucher never attended public schools. Most vouchers go to students in religious schools. Florida currently spends $4 billion annually on vouchers, a sum sure to increase.

Bad as public K-12 education is, the state’s public higher education system is in worse shape. DeSantis has placed political cronies in charge of every state university. He took charge of tiny New College (700 students) because he was offended that Florida had one progressive institution of higher education where students were encouraged not to conform. DeSantis replaced the board with conservatives who put a political extremist in President. What was once a haven for free-thinking students was transformed into a school for jocks and business majors.

The editorial board of the Sun-Sentinel summarized DeSantis’s record of using higher education as patronage for political cronies:

When Gov. Ron DeSantis won his landslide re-election in 2022, a half-fawning and half-fearful Florida Legislature gave him whatever he wanted.

The Harvard graduate could have used that power to burnish Florida’s celebrated universities. He could have chosen the best and brightest to lead schools already among the nation’s best. He could have been the education governor.

That — not a bellyflopping bid for the White House — could have cemented his legacy.

Instead, DeSantis has earned a doctorate in cronyism. He’ll be remembered as the governor who did everything in his power to erode higher education and independent thought. He puts politics above merit and qualifications, with sham “searches” and secret deals.

College and university campuses are now soft-landing patronage pads for Republican allies, at sky-high salaries.

Former House Speaker Richard Corcoran was installed as president of New College in Sarasota. Another politician, former House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, was handed the FAU presidency. A run-of-the-mill former legislator, Fred Hawkins, won the presidency of a state college in Avon Park despite lacking academic qualifications.

Former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez is now president of Florida International University. Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska was given the prestigious UF presidency, then flamed out amid reports of over-the-top spending.

It’s no surprise, then, that Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, a former Republican legislator from Hialeah who oversees state colleges and K-12 education, will slide into the presidency of the University of West Florida in Pensacola.

For DeSantis and Diaz, no university is too big and no kindergarten picture book is too small to escape being recast in the governor’s philosophy.

Step 1: Stack the board

First, DeSantis stacked UWF’s board of trustees. Then, newly appointed trustee Zach Smith quickly made clear that UWF president Martha Saunders was unwelcome.

Smith, a Heritage Foundation fellow, had to reach back to six years ago to find even a speck of mud to throw: Two student-organized drag shows in 2019; social media messaging about a Black Lives Matter co-founder and a book, “How to be an Antiracist,” once recommended by university librarians.

It’s true that best-seller is full of provocative opinions. But so is Smith’s book, “Rogue Prosecutors,” which pushes dark conspiracies about prosecutors corrupted by a wealthy Jew.

That did not stop his nomination to the UWF board by DeSantis, who only last year declared war on campus antisemitism amid great fanfare.

The widely popular Saunders saw the writing on the wall, and she resigned.

A farcical scene

That board meeting was an ambush, said trustee Alonzie Scott. The next one was a farce.

Without a job posting or a search, Diaz’s name alone surfaced as a replacement. Just as quickly, a special meeting was called by UWF trustees. There would be no search for a temporary president and no effort to pick an interim leader from the university.

There was only a perfunctory vote to install Diaz. Then, farce upon farce, the board voted with a straight face to begin looking for a permanent replacement for Diaz.

Barring a political earthquake, that will be Diaz. As former Pensacola mayor and UWF alum Jerry Maygarden said at the meeting, what serious candidate would apply for a job that smacks of a done deal?

Even Diaz’s roots defy all logic.

UWF’s strength is its strong community support among residents and businesses, including Republican leaders. Diaz’s Miami-Dade home is a 10-hour drive, 700 miles and culturally worlds apart from Escambia County in “Lower Alabama.”

None of this is about rescuing students who feel intimidated and indoctrinated.

After all, a state-mandated 2022 Intellectual Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity report found that a majority of UWF students surveyed felt the school provided them the freedom to express their own opinions. Half said they had no idea if their professors were liberal or conservative.

New College 2.0

Never mind. In April, DeSantis told UWF to “buckle up,” announcing he would do for them what he did for New College.

It’s hard to see the success story in New College since the governor declared war on it. DeSantis’ hostile takeover of the tiny liberal arts college has devolved into a money pit: The state’s cost for each New College student shot to more than $90,000. Other state universities average roughly $8,000.

Last month, New College and the University of South Florida were found to be secretly working on a deal to “transfer” USF’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College. It’s dead for the moment. Community leaders, kept in the dark as usual, demand answers.

Meanwhile, USF has become the latest fertile field for DeSantis to reward his friends. USF’s president said she will resign, creating yet another job opportunity for a like-minded crony.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

Categories Corruption, Curriculum, DeSantis, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Florida, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Higher Education, Vouchers
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