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Jim Hightower: The Real Purpose of Project 2025

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2024 //
14

Jim Hightower is a Texas Democrat who spent some time in state government, back in the days when Democrats had a shot at winning statewide offices in Texas. He warns here about the real purpose of Project 2025: to turn our country into a white Christian nation. The Founders never said that. In fact, the only things they said in the Constiturion was that there should be no religious test for office. And the First Amendment barred any establishment of any religion and guaranteed freedom of religion. So what these extremists are doing is a blatant violation of the Constitution.

Hightower writes:

We’ve seen a ton of social media posts and emails in the last week or so about Project 2025, and although we’re still working on a fuller analysis to give you the lowdown on what it means to you, as well as tools to fight it, we felt it was urgent to get some solid info into Lowdowner’s hands as soon as we could. Y’all are quite the army of activists (we see the results when you take action!) and we know that if we offer up the goods, you can take them and run with them.

Here’s our brief primer on what this mess is, what’s at stake, and what you can start to do.

What is it?

If you don’t know what Project 2025 is, or would like a brief summary to use to alert others about it, here you go:

It’s a painstakingly detailed, 922-page step-by-step plan to impose an American dictatorship of moneyed authoritarians and Christian nationalists, removing your and my democratic rights. Yes, this is an actual coup.

It sounds insane, yet there it is—a document written and being loudly promoted by a power-mad cluster of Trump bosses, Putin-esque despots, Reagan-loving economists and Ayn Rand-ian academics, moneyed corporate donors, and general far-right quacks and media blowhards. It’s innocuously coded “Project 2025” because the intent is to launch their full assault on the democratic fabric and structure of our national government next January, on Day 1 of another Trump presidency.

This scheme has been devised by The Heritage Foundation, a DC think tank set up in 1973 to promote the elitist economic and cultural doctrines of its über-rich founding funders, Joseph Coors (yes, that Coors) and Richard Mellon Scaife (yes, that Mellon). In recent years, Heritage has gone from merely being right-wing zealots to off-the-charts Trumpists… and now they’re going deep into the distant extremist cosmos. Thus, the head cosmonaut, Kevin Roberts, has megalomaniacally exulted that Project 2025 is “the second American revolution.” Unfortunately, it’s a dangerous devolution, with little tin-hat Kevin acting out what he pretends is a heroic coup.

This would be silly and inconsequential, except the Trump Party has become alarmingly treacherous. Ominously referencing the January 6th violent assault on democratic rule, Kevin said that his coup “will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Of course, “the left”—i.e., sane democracy fighters like you and me—do not acquiesce to tyrannical wannabes.

But his ace is that The Donald, despite his denials, has hailed Heritage’s authoritarian agenda as his own and has cheered its plan to fire thousands of public employees on Day 1, replacing them with a lockstep army of enforcers that Heritage and others say they’ve already recruited to seize and Trump-ize every federal agency. This, combined with Trump’s own pledge to use the US military to enforce his political will, is where Project 2025’s subversive coup gets real. 

Here are just a few of the steps we’ve learned so far that Heritage autocrats intend to implement: 

  • Nearly eliminating abortion access altogether at the national level.
  • Cutting Social Security benefits.
  • Giving ever-more tax breaks to corporations and gabillionaires. 
  • Selling off national parklands, wetlands, wildlife sanctuaries and other public properties
  • Eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (NPR, PBS).
  • Imposing a “biblically-based” definition of marriage and families.
  • Eliminating the Department of Education.
  • Preventing LGBTQ+ couples from adopting children.
  • Eliminating the food stamp program (SNAP) and the free school lunch program.
  • Putting the Department of Justice and other independent agencies under the direct political control of the President.
  • Eliminating organic food promotion, conservation programs, and most climate policies of the Agriculture Department

For more in depth reading, check out this series from the Center for American Progress.

Why is this different from previous right-wing agendas?

One, they were piecemeal proposals, like Bush the Second’s failed attack on Social Security, or they were just sloganeering war whoops, like Grover Norquist’s empty call to make government small enough to drown it in a bathtub. 

Two, Project 2025 is a comprehensive, all-in-one blueprint for a radical plutocratic and theocratic takeover of our government, surreptitiously advanced by many of the same anti-democracy corporate supremacists and billionaires who’ve already seized control of the judicial branch.

Three, the Republican Party is perfectly willing to submit to and grovel at the feet of moneyed extremists, media demagoguery, and political thuggery—even in support of stupid, poisonous policies the American people overwhelmingly reject.

Four: Donald.

What can I do?

Right now, the most important thing you can do is to tell your friends and family about this terrifying agenda. Right-wingers are currently attacking the media reporting on this, calling progressives and even moderates who oppose the coup “Chicken Little”-types, trying to minimize this elitist assault on America itself. We cannot let them.

The most important people to share it with are not your super conservative relatives that drive you nuts, but rather people who may be feeling ambiguous about voting for a Democrat (whoever that is ends up being) for President. You’re not going to change the people who’ve already gone over to the crazies, but you have a chance at inspiring more undecided voters to at least vote against an explicitly un-American, Christian Nationalist, fascist ideology.

Categories Citizenship, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Republicans, Trump

Biden Administration Negotiates Historic Prisoner Swap with Russia

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2024 //
15

Good news for the families of Americans wrongfully detained in Russia: their loved ones have been released in a multi-nation deal. The deal confirmed that the U.S. was trying to include Andrei Navalny in the swap but he was killed in a Russian prison camp before the deal could be finalized. Trump, as customary, claimed that he could have gotten the prisoners released in a day, undoubtedly by a phone call to his pal Putin. But Whelan’s family complained that Trump did nothing to get him out of Russian prisons.

MSNBC News reports:

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan are among the Americans released on Thursday in a prisoner swap between the U.S., Russia and other countries.

Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmashev, U.S. permanent resident Vladimir Kara-Murza and 12 German nationals held in Russia have also been released in exchange for eight Russian nationals who were being held in the U.S., Slovenia, Germany, Norway and Poland.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called the swap, one of the largest since the Cold War, “historic.” 

“It’s the culmination of many rounds of complex, painstaking negotiations over many, many months,” Sullivan said on a call with reporters Thursday morning.

Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while he was on assignment in Moscow. He was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security prison last month. Both the U.S. government and Gershkovich’s employer, The Wall Street Journal, called his trial a “sham.”

Whelan, 54, had been serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian penal colony after being convicted of espionage in 2020. He was arrested in December 2018 while in Russia for a friend’s wedding. 

Both men and the U.S. government have vehemently denied allegations of espionage.

Negotiations in prisoner swaps between the U.S. and Russia have often been colored by political tensions. Sources told NBC News earlier this year that a deal to release Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as well as Whelan and Gershkovich, had been in the works before Navalny died in a penal colony in February. At the time, President Joe Biden blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for Navalny’s death.

In 2022, while criticizing the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, former President Donald Trump said he had turned down a deal to secure Whelan’s release in exchange for Bout. Whelan’s family has said that Trump did little to move negotiations forward when he was president. 

Trump has also repeatedly claimed that he would free Gershkovich from Russian detention if he wins the November election, boasting that Putin would “do that for me, but not for anyone else.” His remarks were widely criticized, including for potentially scuttling the possibility of Gershkovich’s release prior to the U.S. election.

Categories Biden, Cruelty, International, Trump

ProPublica: J.D. Vance Says Trust Alex Jones, Not Rachel Maddow

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2024 //
89

ProPublica reported on a speech by J.D. Vance in which he praised the notorious Alex Jones, who has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the parents of children murdered in the Sandy Hook school massacre. Jones claimed that the massacre was staged by “crisis actors” to build support for gun control. The parents of the dead children were harassed by Jones’ followers for years.

Now we learn, in a report by Andy Kroll of ProPublica and Nick Sugrey of Documented, that Vance’s views are more extreme than we knew.

They wrote:

Sen. J.D. Vance, whom Donald Trump named as his vice presidential running mate Monday, told a group of influential young conservatives in a closed-door speech in 2021 that they should stand up for “nonconventional people” who speak truth, such as Infowars founder Alex Jones.

“If you listen to Rachel Maddow every night, the basic worldview that you have is that MAGA grandmas who have family dinners on Sunday and bake apple pies for their family are about to start a violent insurrection against this country,” Vance said. “But if you listen to Alex Jones every day, you would believe that a transnational financial elite controls things in our country, that they hate our society, and oh, by the way, a lot of them are probably sex perverts too.”

Vance went on, “Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, that’s actually a hell of a lot more true than Rachel Maddow’s view of society.”

He said that every person in attendance for his speech believed “something that’s a little crazy.” In his case, he said, “I believe the devil is real and that he works terrible things in our society. That’s a crazy conspiracy theory to a lot of very well-educated people in this country right now.”

Vance made these remarks at a September 2021 gathering of the Teneo Network, an invitation-only group of young conservatives that counts elected officials, pro athletes, financial executives and media figures among its members. Vance joined Teneo six years ago. ProPublica and Documented obtained a video recording of his 30-minute speech and question-and-answer session, which has not been previously reported.

Vance’s remarks at the conference — which you can read a transcript of or watch in full below — give a rare unvarnished look at his thinking and illustrate how aligned he is with various factions within the conservative and MAGA movements. “I’ll throw out the standard campaign speech,” he began his Teneo talk. “[I’ll] actually just try to level with you guys about what I do see is the big — a few big problems that are in our country right now.”

Watch J.D. Vance’s Speech at a Private Teneo Network Event

Vance’s 2021 speech lays out what he sees as the “big problems” facing the United States and what the conservative movement should do to address them. (Obtained by ProPublica and Documented)

According to tax records, the Teneo Network’s chairman is Leonard Leo, the legal activist who built a pipeline of lawyers who interpret the Constitution based on the “original intent” of the framers or the meaning of the words in the text when they were written. One of the most influential conservatives of the past three decades, Leo helped confirm all six conservative justices currently serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Leo-aligned judges have pushed to restrict abortion rights and rein in the government’s power to regulate corporations.

Leo has said he views the Teneo Network as a way to extend his influence beyond the judiciary to industries including finance, media, government and Silicon Valley. The network identifies and cultivates conservative leaders in “other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now,” as Leo put it in a Teneo video.

According to internal Teneo documents, Vance joined Teneo in 2018, several years before he ran for Senate in his home state of Ohio. His book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” had already become a bestseller, and Vance was a commentator for CNN while running his own nonprofit and investment fund backing startup companies outside of Silicon Valley.

“JD Vance has been part of the organization for at least five years and his appearance at the 2021 Teneo Retreat was well received by many young professional leaders in attendance,” Leo said. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

By the time Vance spoke at Teneo’s 2021 conference, he had joined the race to fill outgoing Sen. Rob Portman’s seat. Despite his past criticisms of Trump, which included calling the former president an “idiot” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, Vance won Trump’s endorsement in 2022 and cruised to a comfortable victory.

Vance’s connection to Teneo could form a bridge between different factions of the Republican Party that seem to be at odds. Previous news stories have reported that Trump and Leo, who advised the former president on judicial nominees during his administration, are no longer as close as they once were. Russ Vought, a Trump ally, publicly denigrated the Federalist Society, the legal networking group Leo and others built into a juggernaut.

Adding Vance to the ticket bolsters the connections between Leo’s network and the Trump 2024 campaign. It also strengthens ties between Trump’s reelection bid and the Project 2025 blueprint, which outlines plans for a second Trump administration, including firing thousands of career civil servants, shuttering the Department of Education and replacing ambitious goals to combat climate change with ramped-up fossil fuel production. In a recent TV interview, Vance said the document contained “some good ideas” but claimed that “most Americans couldn’t care less about Project 2025” and that the Trump campaign wasn’t affiliated with it.

In his Teneo remarks, he bemoaned that decades ago major corporate CEOs reliably donated money to Republicans but now they give heavily to Democrats. He lamented that conservatives had “very few oligarchs on our side,” had “lost every institution in American society” and needed to make corporations “taking the side of the left in the culture wars feel real economic pain.”

“So we’ve not just lost the academy,” meaning universities, “which we’ve lost for a long time; we haven’t just lost the media, which has been on the side of the left for a long time; we now find ourselves in a situation where our biggest multinational corporations are active participants in the culture war on the other side,” he said. “It’s really been a few of us over the past few years who have recognized that the big corporations have really turned against conservatives in a very big and powerful way.”

He argued that conservatives needed to take action against corporations that, say, defended abortion rights or punished employees who spoke out against abortion access. “If we’re unwilling to make companies that are taking the side of the left in the culture wars feel real economic pain, then we’re not serious about winning the culture war,” he said.

He said that Americans were “terrified to tell the truth” and “point out the obvious,” including that “there are real biological, cultural, religious, spiritual distinctions between men and women.” He added, “I think that’s what the whole transgender thing is about, is like fundamentally denying basic reality.”

Shortly before he spoke at the Teneo conference, Vance drew criticism when he tweeted that “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow.” Jones, founder of the online show Infowars, gained a following with his promotion of conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. More recently, judges in several states ordered him to pay $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, which Jones had called a hoax.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Guns, Lies

Project 2025: A Recipe for Disaster!

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2024 //
41

Former President Trump recently discovered that members of his administration had produced a set of plans for his next term. They did this under the guidance of the Heritage Foundation, the Republican Party’s ideological center. If you believed that Trump knew nothing about this 900-page guidebook, I know of a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Project 2025 is a handbook of extremism. It represents the far-right Republicans’ desire to eliminate many federal programs and, as right winger Grover Norquist one memorably said, “Shrink it so it can be drowned in a bathtub.”

North Carolina public school advocates Patty Williams and David Zonderman are public school graduates and parents. They wrote the following about Project 2025:

In the Spring of 2023, the Heritage Foundation released Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, aka Project 2025. Now, more than a year later, it is finally getting the serious attention that it demands. In its early pages, the Foundation claims to “have gone back to the future—and then some.” We are warned that, “The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before.” To fight this supposed incubus sucking the life out of the republic, a growing number of conservative organizations have joined the Heritage Foundation in supporting this project and intend to assemble an army to march on Washington to “deconstruct the Administrative State.”

 

Project 2025 is both breathtaking and scary in its scope. It envisions a far-right rewriting of government missions, policies, and procedures, ranging from the White House, through all Cabinet-level departments, to the Federal Reserve and other independent regulatory agencies.  Tens of thousands of federal employees could be fired or subject to politically-inspired loyalty tests, gutting almost 150 years of civil service reform, and erasing institutional memory, knowledge, and expertise. Whole federal departments—including the Department of Education—and the funding that goes with them could be left on the cutting room floor, with disastrous consequences for the least among us.

 

This far-right “Playbook” is a frontal assault on honest and competent government, and the underpinnings of our 248-year-old democracy. Project 2025 flips the script on our nation’s foundation of liberty, prosperity, and the rule of law by inverting and perverting fact and data about how government actually functions to protect the environment, ensure safe workplaces, and provide some safety net for those in poverty. 

 

Project 2025 may appear to come from the right-wing fever swamp, which conjures up something out of science fiction. Indeed, it does remind us of a legendary Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode, first televised in March of 1962. In “To Serve Man,” earth is visited by the Kanamits. Enormously tall aliens, they appear frightening at first, but are eventually welcomed by humans. The Kanamits help end famine, eliminate war, and provide unlimited energy supplies for the betterment of the planet. 

 

Seemingly altruistic in their efforts, the Kanamits leave a book behind at the United Nations, which a decoding expert, Hero Chambers and his able assistant, Pat, begin to translate. Meanwhile, the Kanamits invite enthusiastic Earthlings to visit their planet, and flight reservations fill up quickly. Only when Pat races up to a space ship about to lift off does she reveal to Chambers that the title of the book—To Serve Man—is a cookbook. A recipe for disaster.

 

Project 2025 also proclaims to serve man, perhaps not literally on a silver platter like the Kanamits; but it may also cannibalize our government, our nation, and our democracy. Unlike the hapless denizens of earth in the Twilight Zone, we don’t need a decoding expert to see through the myths and deceptions that seek to dismantle our enduring republic and its Constitutional rights.

 

Let’s not wait until it’s too late and our collective goose is cooked. It’s time to stir the pot. Encourage your friends and family to vote as though their democracy depends on it—because it does.

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Censorship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Deregulation, Disruption, Early Childhood Education, Education Industry, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization, Propaganda, Republicans, Vouchers

Louisiana Criminalizes Abortion Pills

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2024 //
21

The Governor and Legislature want to make sure that women in their state cannot obtain an abortion so they passed a law reclassifying abortion drugs as controlled dangerous substances. Most abortions occur by use of the pills, which the Federal Drug Administration has declared to be safe and effective. Currently they are available by mail, but obtaining them without a prescription will soon be illegal. The new law takes effect October 1.

Louisiana lawmakers have added two drugs commonly used in pregnancy and reproductive health care to the state’s list of controlled dangerous substances, a move that has alarmed doctors in the state.

Mifepristone and misoprostol have many clinical uses, and one use approved by the FDA is to take the pills to induce an abortion at up to 10 weeks of gestation.

The bill that moved through the Louisiana Legislature this spring lists both medications as Schedule IV drugs under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law, creating penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught with the drugs without a valid prescription. Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed the bill into law in May. It takes effect Oct. 1.

The new law is the latest move by anti-abortion advocates trying to control access to abortion medications in states with near-total abortion bans, such as Louisiana. The law is the first of its kind, opening a new front in the state-by-state battle over reproductive medicine.

Categories Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Freedom, Gender, Louisiana

Mary Trump: Is America in Cognitive Decline?

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2024 //
81

Mary Trump, daughter of Donald’s older brother, thinks that the nation might be suffering cognitive decline. How, she wonders, could anyone think longingly of the days when her uncle Donald was President, when chaos was a daily phenomenon?

She writes on her blog:

Since so many people are acting as if they’re certified neurologists, I’d thought I’d join in and discuss the one patient I actually am VERY worried about.

The United States of America appears to be experiencing cognitive decline. That’s the only way I can explain the short memories that have erased the horrors of my uncle’s catastrophic four years in the Oval Office. It’s the only way I can explain a poll that shows Donald with a 51 percent approval rating in Wisconsin. It’s the only way I can explain why this race is so close and Donald—the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist and fraud—remains a significant threat to our democracy. 

On Monday, the Huffington Post published a story about how next week’s Republican convention will cash in on the nation’s “collective amnesia” with a program that seeks to remind us about all of the “good times” we had during the Trump administration. Since those good times are purely fictional—unless, of course, you’re like Stephen Miller and enjoy kidnapping and incarcerating small children—it’s going to be fascinating to see how they go about it, and whether or not the corporate media fall for it.

As writer S.V. Date noted, “Donald Trump left the White House with violent crime spiking, thousands of Americans dying each day from a disease he claimed was no worse than the common cold and having attempted a coup to remain in office despite having lost reelection.”

“The former and would-be future president and the Republican National Committee on Monday released a schedule of convention themes that counts on Americans forgetting all that and instead waxing nostalgic for his years in office.” 

Waxing nostalgic? For a time when over 5,000 Americans were dying every day; basic supplies, like toilet paper and hand sanitizer, were impossible to find; and Donald showed his concern for the American people by playing golf every day?

Yes, I’m worried about us.

Don’t get me wrong—I wish I could forget, too. I wish I could forget the refrigerated morgue vans that idled in the streets of New York City while Donald threatened to withhold vital PPE from our frontline medical workers unless Gov. Cuomo kissed his ass.

I wish I could forget the way Donald ordered peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square to be tear-gassed so he could go do a photo-op in front of a church.

I wish I could forget the way he talked about the ratings of his COVID briefings while people were on lockdown and hospital emergency rooms were overflowing.

I wish I could forget the way he tormented non-MAGA Americans with his incessant tweeting.

I wish I could forget his telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

I wish I could forget the anguished screams of police officers as they were beaten and tortured by Donald’s followers on Jan. 6, 2021.

And I wish I could forget how he stacked the Supreme Court with Christian Nationalists who just stole basic human rights from tens of millions of women and then rewarded him by making him—him—king.

But I can’t forget any of that. And I’m determined not to let the rest of the country forget it either. One of our goals has to be to remind this as many people as possible just how bad things were and warn them that things will be so much worse—if we keep forgetting.

Americans have short memories. And after the massive traumas we’ve experienced over the last eight years, it’s completely understandable that people are inclined to forget. That’s how trauma works. The reason things in this country continue to seem bad now despite much evidence to the contrary is because we’ve never recovered from the horrors of the Trump administration. Ironically, forgetting how bad things were is leading to nostalgia for the worst four years of my lifetime.

The fact that it’s explicable doesn’t make it any less horrifying.

At next week’s Republican convention, the opening night’s theme is “Make America Wealthy Once Again.” 

Really? 

Donald left office with the economy cratering and the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover. Under Joe Biden, the stock market is breaking records daily, unemployment has been at impressive lows, wages are up, and manufacturing is back. America is much wealthier than it was when my uncle was in the White House.

On Tuesday, the theme is “Make America Safe Once Again.” 

Really? 

We would ask Officer Brian Sicknick if Donald made America safer, but we can’t because he died after being brutally beaten during Donald’s attack on the Capitol. We could ask former Vice President Pence, but Donald tried to get him hanged.

And on Wednesday, they’re going with “Make America Strong Once Again.” 

That is just beyond the pale. 

Donald is the weakest man I’ve ever known. He kisses up to dictators like Putin and Kim Jong Un and Saudi Arabia’s MBS and Hungary’s Orban because he craves their power and hopes his groveling will convince them to lend him some of theirs. He thinks he can tell our allies to go to hell because, with a huge assist from the Republican Party, he’s banking on American’s forgetting who our enemies really are.

Either way, we have just a few short months to remind Americans what it was really like when Donald was in office and help them see—by talking about the Republican platform and the fascist agenda laid out in Project 2025—what the future will look like if Donald and his brown shirts get back into office.

He’s betting that we’ve forgotten a lot of things. And maybe we have. Maybe we aren’t just democracy in decline—maybe we’re a nation experiencing cognitive decline.

If we fail, I fear he will do things to this country and its people that we will never be able to forget. 

Or forgive. 

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Trump

J.D. Vance is Worse Than and as Dangerous as Trump!

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2024 //
47

Dean Obeidallah is a lawyer, journalist, blogger, and comedian. In this insightful post, he explains why J.D.Vance represents the worst of MAGA. I have included only one of his many links, so open his article if you want to see them all.

He writes:

Convicted felon Donald Trump made it official Monday that his 2024 vice-presidential running mate is Ohio GOP Senator JD Vance.  Before we talk Vance’s alarming record, let’s take a step back to examine how we got here. The reason Trump needed to pick a new running mate was because his former Vice President Mike Pence had rebuffed joining Trump’s attempted coup in 2020. As Pence—who  refused to endorse Trump in this election– stated in 2023, “the American people deserve to know that President Trump” asked him to not just reject votes but “essentially to overturn the election.”

In response to Pence’s refusal, Trump tweeted during the Jan 6 attack at 2:24PM that, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” From there the crowd surged—as documented during the Jan 6 hearings—and chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” could be loudly heard.  As former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the Jan 6 committee, Trump’s chief of staff at the time Mark Meadows said in response to those chants on Jan 6 that Trump “thinks Mike deserves it.”

That is why Trump needed to pick a new VP. His last refused to put Trump over the Constitution –as Pence has said–and in response Trump almost had his supporters kill him.


Trump won’t have that problem with the soulless Vance whose North Star is saying and doing whatever it takes to secure power.  This is the same Vance in 2016 who literally wrote a warning that Trump could be “America’s Hitler,” called Trump “reprehensible” and “a total fraud” for exploiting his supporters  as he declared himself a “Never Trumper.”  Vance even refused to vote for Trump in 2016, instead casting a ballot for third party candidate Even McMullin.  

But that all changed when Vance decided to go into politics and seek the 2022 GOP nomination for Senate in Ohio. Vance scrubbed his documented criticism of Trump and in 2021 apologized for offending the man who had waged a coup attack and incited the Jan 6 terrorist attack just months before. With Trump’s backing, the Yale law school graduate and author of “Hillbilly Elegy” won the GOP Senate nomination and made it to the Senate.


We now have a clear picture of Vance–who is far more dangerous than many are aware. Let’s go through some of the key concerns:

  1. Vance is an election liar who will 100% support Trump’s next coup attempt. Vance—who claimed the 2020 election was “stolen from Trump”–declared in February that if he were in Pence’s place on Jan 6, he would have done exactly what Trump had asked. Vance stated he would’ve allowed the “multiple slates of electors” adding, “and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.” That means despite no court rulings justifying tossing out votes, Vance would have supported throwing out 81 million votes because Trump asked him to do that.
  2. Vance has despicably downplayed the Jan 6 attack—even as to the threat posed to Mike Pence. In May, Vance ridiculed the idea that Pence was in danger on Jan 6, saying, “I’m truly skeptical that Mike Pence’s life was ever in danger. I think politics and politics people like to really exaggerate things from time to time.”  The reality is the opposite, but Vance needed to show Trump his loyalty.  Vance has also spread lies that the Jan 6 attackers are political prisoners who have been held without being charged and—like Trump–has raised money to help the Jan 6 attackers.  That is akin to raising money for Al Qaeda operatives after 9/11.
  3. Vance has called for the criminal prosecution of a journalist—and his wife—for criticizing Trump: In December, Vance wrote a letter (you can read here) to the DOJ that demanded a criminal investigation into journalist Robert Kagan. What was Kagan alleged crime in Vance’s mind? He had written an op-ed for The Washington Post that warned the United States faces the possibility of a “dictatorship” if Trump is returned to the White House. Vance specifically asked, “Will the Department of Justice open an investigation into Robert Kagan for potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 241, 18 U.S.C. § 2383, or any other federal criminal statute?” Those are the crimes for conspiracy to incite a rebellion.

Vance also targeted Kagan’s wife writing, “It is my understanding Robert Kagan’s wife, Victoria Nuland, is a senior administration official charged with reviewing our nation’s most sensitive national security information…I am curious to know whether, in the view of the State Department, Victoria Nuland’s close relationship with her husband might compromise her judgment about the best interests of the United States.”


Here, Vance is making it clear he will support Trump’s efforts to target media outlets critical of Trump–and even their families—with criminal prosecutions and other consequences. There is zero doubt Vance would support Trump using the FCC to investigate media outlets not sufficiently supportive.

Vance supports Trump’s pledge to use DOJ to punish his political enemies: Vance has not only lied that Biden has weaponized the DOJ to target Trump, just weeks ago he endorsed Trump’s vow to appoint a special prosecutor to target Trump’s political opponents.  Vance stated on Meet The Press, “I think what Donald Trump is simply saying is we ought to investigate the prior administration,” adding, “All he’s suggesting is that we should investigate credible arguments of wrongdoing.”  

Vance has made it clear that he would join in Trump’s efforts to make himself the king he dreams of becoming. I can predict with great certainty that if Trump wins and seeks a third term in violation of the 22nd Amendment, Vance will 100% be on board.   

Beyond Vance’s commitment to be a co-conspirator in Trump’s authoritarian dreams, there’s also Vance’s far right and bigoted views on a range of issues. He has peddled the racist “Great Replacement Theory” that Democrats want immigrants to “replace” white Americas.  And recently he claimed that DEI programs that foster diversity are actually about “pushing racial hatred,” meaning in his view they are anti-white.

On reproductive rights for women, Vance has referred to abortion as “murder” and campaigned against the Ohio ballot measure to enshrine reproductive freedom in his state.  As a Senate candidate, he rejected exceptions even for rape, saying, “I think two wrongs don’t make a right.”  Vance added, showing his disdain for woman: “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term; it’s whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.” Actually, it is about women being forced to carry a fetus to term against their will because Vance wants to impose his religious beliefs as law.

On LGBTQ issues, The Advocate’s new article says it all, “J.D. Vance’s horrendous record of homophobia and transphobia.” Vance has opposed marriage equality being codified as law, opposes laws that bar discrimination against the LGBTQ community, and targeted the transgender community. He has even called people supporting LGBTQ rights “groomers,” tweeting in 2022, “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.

The more you read about Vance, his words and record, the more you understand how dangerous he is. JD Vance is one more glaring reason why we must defeat Trump this November!

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Trump

George Conway Sets Up “Anti-Psychopath PAC”

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2024 //
45

George Conway, ex-husband of Trump senior advisor KellyAnne, has created a website and group to call out Trump. It’s called “Anti-Psychopath PAC.”

Its first action was to create billboards on a mobile truck that circled the GOP convention in Milwaukee with a sign that said “Thanks for nominating a felon.”

It takes an insider to tell the truth. Conway is one of my personal heroes. He despises Trump, he loves Corgis.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Insane, Trump

Project 2025, in Brief

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2024 //
14

Drew Goins, assistant editor of The Washington Post, summarized key points in Project 2025:

On Tuesday, President Biden tweeted three words: “Google Project 2025.” Google Trends saw search interest surpass even that of Taylor Swift this week.

Unfortunately for the Biden campaign, searching the term first yields the project’s own shiny homepage, complete with fireworks and flags and soaring language. So what is Project 2025 really?

In short, it’s a playbook for dramatically overhauling the federal government should Republicans win control. Technically, it comes from the Heritage Foundation and not the GOP presidential campaign, which allows Trump to claim he knows no more than the average confused Googler. “Don’t fall for it,” Catherine Rampell writes. Project 2025 and the MAGA machine are inextricable, with hundreds of Trump officials taking part in the planning.

The planning of what? Let’s take a look:

  • Project 2025 would steeply reduce Medicaid funding and remove medication abortion drugs from the market.
  • It would shutter LGBTQ+ health programs and have the government declare that heterosexual couples are the superior family structure. The term “sexual orientation” would be forbidden from federal legislation.
  • It would terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allows “dreamers” to stay in the United States and would lower legal immigration limits, as well.
  • It would bring the FBI under direct control of the president and eliminate the Education Department.
  • It would stop expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy.
  • It would make pornography illegal and imprison people who make it.
  • It would officially recognize the Sabbath and infuse Judeo-Christian values throughout government.
  • And it lays out how the president could purge nonpartisan civil servants and install loyalists who would accomplish all of this.

But don’t worry: Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts has promised that this revolution will be “bloodless” if the left acquiesces.

It is no wonder, the Editorial Board writes, that Trump wants the official GOP platform “to be as anodyne and vague as possible.” It is anything but.

Catherine allows that Trump might not know some of the particulars of Project 2025 — “few would mistake the man for a policy wonk.” Even if so, that’s just as dangerous; Trump delegated major decisions to his underlings last time and would do so again.

The underlings who are writing Project 2025.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Elections, Funding, Republicans, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Jay Kuo: Vance is More MAGA than Trump

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2024 //
33

They say that converts are even more zealous than those who have been born into a religion. Jay Kuo thinks that’s the case with JD Vance. Having started as a harsh critic of Trump, he is now an extreme MAGAt. He is more Catholic than the Pope. A bad analogy, since Trump has no religion.

Kuo writes that Vance is so polarizing that he won’t attract independents, moderates, or women.

JD Vance represents the extremes of the MAGA GOP. On nearly every issue, Vance is about as wretched and radical as he could be without morphing into Marjorie Taylor Greene. How’s that for an image?

On the nifty side, this same extremism means the GOP ticket will create greater unease among moderate and independent voters looking for a cooling off of our politics and an end to chaos, fear and rising violence. Indeed, JD Vance is likely to turn up the national heat further at a moment when most voters want it turned down. And that spells trouble for the ticket.

As nasty as they come

It’s difficult to imagine a more radical VP choice than JD Vance when it comes to the most divisive issues facing America and already splintering the GOP. In earlier pieces, I discussed how the GOP is currently wedged on several major issues, with stakes driven deep into its side over abortion, January 6th, and traitorous support for Putin. 

I would now add to that list the poisonous effect of Project 2025, which could peel off moderates and independents afraid of a fascist takeover.

On each of these wedges, Vance not only stands on the wrong side, but himself is a chief driver of the wedges.

Vance is an anti-abortion zealot who supports a national ban. Even on the question of exceptions, Vance is unyielding. For example, when asked in an interview whether people should have a right to get an abortion if they were victims of rape or incest, he belittled the trauma, said that society shouldn’t view a pregnancy or birth resulting from rape or incest as an “inconvenience.” He argued that when it came to such exceptions, “two wrongs don’t make a right”—meaning that while it was “wrong” to inflict rape or incest upon a girl or woman, it would be a second “wrong” to permit the abortion. 

Over January 6 and the 2020 election, Vance is also a staunch election denier and has refused to unequivocally state that he will accept the results of the 2024 election. Instead, in an interview on CNN, he qualified his acceptance, saying that the results must be “free and fair”—suggesting ahead of time and without basis that they will not be. Further, in an interview with ABC News in February, Vance maintained that he would have halted the certification of the election on January 6. “If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Vance said. Former Rep. Liz Cheney blasted Vance for this, tweeting, “JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t – overturn an election and illegally seize power.”

Vance is also a Putin apologist of the most extreme kind. If given power, Vance would grant Putin a free hand in Europe and leave allies like Ukraine without critical U.S. aid. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Vance amazingly treated it with a shrug. “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other,” Vance said. Since his election, he has become one of the most vocal critics of U.S. aid to Ukraine and led a campaign in the Senate to block a $60 billion aid package. He has urged Ukraine to stop all offensive maneuvers against Russia and negotiate a settlement quickly (thereby ceding much territory) because, in his view, victory isn’t feasible.

Finally, Vance would implement Project 2025 and replace thousands of career civil servants with Trump loyalists. In a podcast interview, Vance said that an incoming Trump administration should “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat” in the government and “replace them with our people.” If the courts attempt to stop Trump, Vance said, he should simply ignore the law. “You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it,” Vance declared. This worldview and plan aligns squarely with Project 2025, which calls for the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with MAGA loyalists, as well as its theory of the unfettered power of the unitary executive.

The nifty silver lining

These positions held by Vance—and there are many other radical ones—are admittedly extreme and terrifying. But the good news is that extreme and terrifying positions have led to electoral losses by the GOP. Voters, including all-important swing state moderates, have been consistently unwilling to support them since 2022….

Finally, at age 39, Vance is inexperienced, with just two years in the Senate. Measured against Kamala Harris, Vance is green and untested. That could be on full display in their debate next month, the terms of which are still being negotiated. As a vocal champion of women’s reproductive rights and an experienced prosecutor, Harris will have an opportunity to paint Vance into a corner over his extremism. 

Indeed, the contrast between an under-qualified white male MAGA radical and a seasoned minority woman defender of democracy and liberty could hardly be clearer. Trump may have thought he was making a smart bet, hoping to pull in more of his base voters in the midwestern swing states. But those people aren’t going to show up in greater numbers just because Vance is on the ticket. Trump already had those voters.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Character, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Trump
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