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Florida: GOP Legislator Seeks to Weaken Child Labor Laws

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2023 //
7

Child labor laws have been in place for more than a century. Republican-controlled states are weakening so that children are “free” to earn some money. Florida is the latest state to entertain the idea that children need “freedom” to work, not protection from dangerous working conditions. This is not progress. This is turning back the clock.

The Orlando Sentinel reported:

A proposed Republican bill to loosen child labor laws in Florida is part of a national trend aimed at repealing or weakening workplace protections for young people that have been in place for more than 100 years.

The bill could worsen graduation rates and hurt lower-income families, experts said, and could also be a way to replace some immigrant labor as Florida and other GOP-led states continue to crack down on undocumented workers.

“Are we willing to return to a world where we accept that children of the poorest families are working more than full-time jobs under hazardous conditions?” said Jennifer Sherer, director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute.

State Rep. Linda Chaney, though, said in a statement that her bill “intends to provide teenagers with the flexibility to work whatever hours they deem fits best with their schedule and financial goals.”

“Families are struggling in the worst economy in decades and I want to do what I can to help by providing opportunity,” said Chaney, R-St. Petersburg. “Government should not be in the way of people wanting to learn skills and make a living.”

The bill (HB 49) would remove all work guidelines for 16- and 17-year-olds, including the current requirements that they can’t work more than eight hours on school nights and more than 30 hours a week during the school year.

It also prevents local governments from passing ordinances stricter than state law.

In addition, the measure includes what Sherer called a “confusing” change to the language about 14- and 15-year-olds.

Where the current law states 14- and 15-year-olds “shall not” work before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m. for more than 15 hours a week during the school year, or more than three hours per day on school days, the bill would replace “shall not” with “may not.”

Sherer said it was unclear whether the proposed language revision was meant to make work standards for younger teens “optional” rather than mandated.

Terri Gerstein, a fellow at the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School who testified before Congress earlier this year about child labor, said she couldn’t see any other reason to change it.

“To me, as a normal human being, ‘shall not’ and ‘may not’ sound like the same thing, right?” Gerstein said. But, she added, “‘shall’ is obligatory and ‘may’ is optional. … I can only infer that there’s something nefarious [going on], because otherwise, why would you change the language? It makes no sense…”

Child labor laws were one of the premier achievements of the Progressive Era of the early 1900s, when presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson helped usher in major changes to social and public policy at the state and national levels.

Florida passed laws at the time to protect children working in cigar factories and in agriculture. But now, it’s the 16th state in the past few years to have legislation filed to roll back those protections, Sherer said.

“Those are state laws that have often been in place for over a century,” Sherer said. “States began regulating child labor before the federal government did. And they play a really important role in regulating certain aspects of child labor protections that the federal government doesn’t cover.”

The most notable rollback was in Arkansas, where Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee signed the Youth Hiring Act that repealed a Progressive Era law requiring employers to verify a child’s age, acquire a permit and get parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to work.

“The Governor believes protecting kids is most important, but this permit was an arbitrary burden on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job,” Sanders’ communications director Alexa Henning told NPR.

Iowa also passed “what is probably the most extreme bill on child labor,” Sherer said, weakening guidelines on which work is considered too dangerous for minors.

“We know that certain jobs have proven dangerous and even fatal more often for youth and teens,” Sherer said. “That’s why those restrictions were put in place decades ago. So it’s a real slippery slope.”

The changes came as the Federal Labor Department has reported a significant increase in child labor violations over the past five years, Gerstein said, including minors working the night shift or being employed at places such as poultry processing plants and construction sites.

A meat-processing plant in Minnesota paid $300,000 in penalties after an investigation showed it employed children as young as 13, while a Michigan meat plant owner pleaded guilty to employing a 17-year-old in a dangerous job. The boy’s hand was severed by a meat grinder.

Categories Childhood, Cruelty, Deregulation, Economy, Evil, Extremism, Florida

PEN Celebrates Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Freedom Fighter Narges Mohammadi

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2023 //
6

As I travel through Germany, I am often reminded of the courage of those who stood up against an oppressive regime. Would you have the same courage? Would I? The Nobel Committee awarded its most prestigious honor to an Iranian woman who has demonstrated that she has that courage, that determination to speak out for freedom and human rights, regardless of the danger that faces her. In honoring her, the Nobel Committee also honors the hundreds and thousands of Iranian women who have publicly opposed a repressive, woman-hating regime, some at the cost of their lives. PEN issued the following press release to celebrate the award. To see videos of Narges Mohammadi, please open the link.

Nobel Committee recognizes the immense courage and dedication of PEN America Honoree Narges Mohammadi and all the writers and cultural workers like her in Iran 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 6, 2023

(NEW YORK)— The Nobel Peace Prize awarded today to imprisoned Iranian writer, human rights activist, and 2023 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award honoree Narges Mohammadi recognizes her singular courage in standing against government repression of women, writers, activists, intellectuals, and cultural figures who face unspeakable consequences for daring to speak out or write, PEN America said.

Commenting on the award, PEN America CEOSuzanne Nossel said, “The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Iranian writer and activist Narges Mohammadi is a tribute to her courage and that of countless women and girls who have poured out into the streets of Iran and faced down one of the world’s most brutal and stubborn regimes, risking their lives to demand their rights. For those of us at PEN America, Narges is an inspiration and also a personal friend, a woman whose story of unyielding defiance at crushing personal costs awakens the righteous indignation within each of us. We applaud the Nobel Committee for putting the weight of its Prize behind the struggle of Narges and all Iranian women for their freedom to dress, behave, think, and write as they wish.”

“Narges’ indefatigable will to be heard, even from the darkest, coldest, and most isolated corners of an Iranian prison, is astounding. Shechampioned change in Iran from her jail cell with a passion and bravery that can truly be described as heroic. As a witness to decades of atrocities, she has used her voice as a catalyst to awaken a new generation to understand that their words are one of humanity’s greatest tools. PEN America enthusiastically congratulates Narges Mohammadi and calls for her immediate release.”

PEN America honored Narges Mohammadi with the 2023 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, which her husband, Taghi Rahmani, accepted on her behalf at the PEN America Literary Gala in New York City in May. Conferred annually, the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award recognizes writers who have been jailed for their expression. PEN America galvanized celebrities including John Mullaney, Colin Jost, Candice Bergen, Diane Sawyer, Alec Baldwin, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and others to rally to Mohammadi’s cause, drawing international media coverage and global recognition of her plight. Of the 53 jailed writers who have been honored with the PEN America Freedom to Write Award since its establishment in 1987, 46 have been released from prison within an average of about 18 months due in part to the global attention and pressure generated by PEN America’s recognition. This is not the first time PEN America’s Award has led directly to the conferral of a Nobel Peace Prize. PEN’s 2009 Freedom to Write honoree Liu Xiaobo, the President of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, the culmination of a campaign set in motion by PEN America.

Narges Mohammadi has been forced to make unimaginable sacrifices for her work, including currently serving multiple sentences totaling more than 10 years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, where she has been threatened, beaten, and kept in periods of solitary confinement, a practice she has termed ‘white torture’ in her books and writings. Additionally, it has been almost nine years since Mohammadi last saw her husband and two children, who are now in exile in France. And yet, despite these arduous circumstances, Mohammadi continues to defend human rights and speak out against authoritarianism from within prison, drawing attention both to ongoing political events and to abuses against her fellow prisoners. “They will put me in jail again,” she wrote in her book, White Torture. “But I will not stop campaigning until human rights and justice prevail in my country.”

Mohammadi’s case is among dozens of cases of writers and activists who have faced political repression in Iran in the last year alone. Starting in September 2022, the country was swept by a widespread protest movement in favor of democracy and women’s rights following the state’s killing of Mahsa (Jina) Amini. In response, the Iranian regime further cracked down on free speech and arrested thousands for their participation in, or support of, the demonstrations. Iran’s literary and creative communities continue to use writing, art, and music as vehicles to express political dissent, even in the face of the brutal government crackdown.

About PEN America

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. To learn more, visit PEN.org.

Categories Corruption, Courage, Cruelty, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Gender, International

Passau, Germany: The Worst Floods Ever

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2023 //
11

We are in Passau. The water level on the Danube River is so low that we exited our ship from the top deck, which is not customary. The water level is so low that the ship can’t go to Nuremberg. Passau has experienced dramatic floods and droughts this year. A month ago, the lower part of the town was flooded. Not an unusual occurrence in this town. But only a month later, there is a drought and water levels are very low.

Passau is a beautifully preserved model of a 15th century town. The houses are low-rise. Only the churches rise above the skyline. The streets are paved with cobblestones.

What you see in this photo is the high-water marks of historic floods. The marks are recorded on the City Hall, which fronts the Danube. You can see the marks in comparison to a lofty front door, about 10-12 feet high. The worst flood, it is believed, occurred in 1501. The second worst flood was in 2013, when the water level reached about 15′.

Our guide, a law student, said that all higher education in Germany is tuition-free. But you can’t be admitted without passing an exam. You pass more exams to check your progress. If you don’t pass the exam, you get booted out. Students who are committed to their education are likely to retain their places. Those who are not keeping up are at risk of being kicked out.

I learned that Germans put a high value on education. Parents can send their children to religious and private schools, but such schools must follow the same standards and curriculum as public schools. Home schooling is not permitted.

I asked about Jews in Passau, and our guide–a law student–said the Jews left Passau 500 years ago. Later, I googled and learned that in the fifteenth century, a petty thief confessed that he stole the Host and sold it to Jews. Ten Jews were accused of stabbing the Host until it bled. The Jews were tortured until they confessed, and they were put to death along with their accuser. In the aftermath, the synagogue and Jewish homes were burned. A few dozen Jews converted to Christianity, and the rest of the small Jewish community packed up and left Passau. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/passau

We visited the main church in town. It was stunning, a magnificent combination of gothic and baroque styles.

In the evening, back on our ship, an oompah band played, and it was delightful. I feel a keen sense of double identity, first, as an American enjoying their performance and singing along with familiar songs and polkas. (“I love to go a wandering, along the mountain track, and as I go, I love to sing, my knapsack on my back.”)

Yet as a Jew, I can’t help looking at these friendly, jovial faces and wondering whose grandfather was a Nazi. None of them? Maybe.

Mary says I’m obsessed with the Holocaust. I don’t think so. But to be in Germany and Austria is to be constantly reminded of the horrors that befell people whose only crime was to be Jewish.

Friday we visit the infamous Treblinka concentration camp in the Czech Republic. I will go there to honor the dead and to pray, “Never again.”

These are measures of how high the flood rose and the year in which it happened. The worst flood occurred in 1501. The second worst was 2013.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Personal, Religion

Michael Hiltzik: The House GOP Demands Cuts to Programs for the Neediest

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2023 //
3

Michael Hiltzik, my favorite columnist in the Los Angeles Times, writes about the demands of the House GOP to avert a government shutdown. Their draconian cuts would protect their wealthy donors (by cutting IRS agents) but savage the programs that are essential for the neediest families, adults, and children.

He writes:

It’s all well and good to treat the House Republicans’ careening toward a government shutdown as a cabaret farce staged for our amusement

However, the threat to ordinary Americans, especially those dependent on government programs, is no joke.

As outlined by the Center for American Progress and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, two progressive think tanks working from official communications including the budget resolution released Sept. 20 by House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington, they would involve these cuts in the social safety net:

Even if the Republicans don’t provoke the shutdown currently likely to begin at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, the budget cuts House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) has said he would support to meet the demands of his caucus’ far-right wing would devastate government assistance to the most vulnerable Americans.

  • A cut of $14.7 billion, or 77%, in Title I education grants to school districts with high levels of poverty, which fund services and supports for students from low-income or disadvantaged backgrounds. The CBPP calls this funding “a core federal support for K-12 education.”
  • Reduction of the fruit and vegetable benefit in the Agriculture Department’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)by 56% to 70%, affecting about 5 million participants.
  • Unsustainable reductions in low-income assistance programs for housing and heating.
  • $1.9 trillion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years.

These cuts go well beyond those agreed upon in the debt-ceiling negotiations last May, which McCarthy accepted.

As a sop to the Republicans’ rich patrons, the House caucus would rescind all of the $88 billion in additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service that was enacted as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The absurd truth of all this “negotiating” is that it won’t help Speaker McCarthy, America’s most outstanding political invertebrate, get a funding proposal through his chamber that would be even remotely acceptable to the Senate. That includes Senate Republicans, who have signed on to a bipartisan spending scheme.

There are doubts that McCarthy can get any proposal through his caucus, which is effectively controlled by extremists who keep moving the goalposts by insisting on ever more draconian spending cuts. They show every sign of determination to shut the government down this weekend, even though it’s a political article of faith that the public always blames the GOP for shutdowns (as it should), leading to disaster at the ballot box.

The lack of character among congressional Republicans, not excepting those aligned with McCarthy, is truly amazing. These are people who have no compunctions about slandering working Americans while taking every opportunity themselves for slacking off.

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), one of McCarthy’s lieutenants, remarked during the debt-ceiling negotiations that Democrats were “willing to default on the debt so they can continue making welfare payments for people that are refusing to work.”

The serene nerviness of this slander was truly impressive, given that the House of Representatives had taken 12 of 20 workdays off in April and 10 of 22 workdays (not counting Memorial Day) off in May. Overall, the House has been scheduled to be in session only 117 days in 2023, fewer than half the 240 days most of the rest of us are at work.

The House took off the entire month of Augustand didn’t return to session until Sept. 12, all while the possible shutdown was looming. The rest were officially designated “district work days,” to which we can only respond, “Oh, sure.”

Graves has resurfaced during the shutdown negotiations, telling the Washington Post that the Republicans’ “bottom line is we’re singularly focused right now on achieving our conservative objectives,” which include “huge savings.”

As the Post toted up the numbers, those savings involved “taking more than $150 billion per year out of the part of the budget that funds child care, education subsidies, medical research and hundreds of additional federal operations.”

If there’s a silver lining in the House GOP’s performative horseplay, it’s that it has cured the political press of treating the standoff as a symptom of congressional dysfunction. It’s not; as is being reported more accurately and sensibly in recent days, it’s a symptom of Republican dysfunction and, more than that, McCarthy’s dysfunction.

McCarthy sold his soul to the Republican extremist in order to win the job of speaker. Now what will he do?

The extremists have made their priorities clear. Protect their rich donors, while slamming the door shut on those who rely on government aid to survive. They are a cruel and shameless lot.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Disruption, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Injustice, Republicans

Houston: The Canary in the Coal Mine

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2023 //
14

Nick Covington and Chris McNutt of the Human Restoration Project warn that everyone should pay attention to what is happening in Houston. The state takeover of a B-rated majority black-and-brown district demonstrates how far a rightwing governor will go to crush democracy and dissent.

They write:

Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas, is at the center of a controversial state takeover by the Texas Education Agency. After working its way through the legal system for several years, last winter the Texas Supreme Court greenlit the replacement of district superintendent and the locally elected board of trustees by the head of the TEA, appointed directly by the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. And last month, school was back in session under the newly appointed superintendent, Mike Miles – former US State Department ambassador, charter school CEO, and scandal-ridden Dallas ISD superintendent – amid dozens of pedagogical and policy changes that left teachers, parents, and students confused, frustrated, and afraid.

In an effort to return “back to basics” and reinforce content knowledge to bolster test scores, the district has fundamentally transformed how educators can operate their classrooms in many schools across the district. Despite receiving an acceptable “B” score on the Texas School Report Card, New superintendent Miles stated in a recent district meeting, “We have a proficiency problem, we in HISD have not been able to close [the reading] gap for over 20 years.”

Among the most troubling changes is a strict “multiple-response strategy” where teachers must adhere to a four-minute timer to pause instruction and assess students for understanding – an intervention with seemingly no pedagogical justification. These strategies are paired with heavily scripted activities that are centered on drill and kill: repeat information over and over to memorize content. There has also been an increase in invasive admin walkthroughs to check for compliance with the scripted methods, which teachers and students have described as a distraction from learning. Teachers are required to keep a webcam on in their classroom at all times and their door must remain open. Defending these changes, Miles stated:

“Every classroom has a webcam and a Zoom link, and it’s on 24/7, if a kid is disruptive, we pull that student out of class. We put them in what we call a team center, and they’re being monitored by a learning coach, and they Zoom right back into the class they get pulled from.”

‍Libraries in many schools have been transformed into disciplinary spaces where students are housed for infractions and receive instruction over Zoom. As a result, classrooms are recorded and broadcast at all times. The Houston Education Association and Houston Community Voices for Public Ed have done incredible work documenting dissenting voices. These policies mirror those found in “no excuses” charter schools that police, monitor, and dehumanize students to raise test scores at any cost.

A veteran Houston ISD teacher, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of administrative backlash, reached out to back up these claims, describing the impact these reforms have had on teachers and students:

‍…I left to teach at a Title 1 Houston ISD campus, so I’m getting the luxury to watch this mess unfold, and I assure you, there’s definitely ‘something rotten in Denmark” with what’s happening to us.

My school is not NES nor NES-aligned, but Miles has carved his path in such a way that we’re being evaluated multiple times a day, being forced to follow this horrible curriculum in a lesson cycle that as far as my research has found–has no pedagogical roots. It’s literally drill and kill. Apparently this is a trend or something. Miles is something else and when you Google him or any of the administrations around him calling the shots, you’ll not see any pedigree of education, but multi-millionaire board members whose backgrounds are in gentrification projects and such.

I’m exhausted by the end of the day. Texas teachers are evaluated all the same, using the T-Tess system–well except us now. Their move to push through that District of Innovation leads me to believe they simply want to weed anyone who was part of the old system out. It absolutely feels like he’s pushing to make us all quit. We were notified that although we’re given 10 sick days for the year, if we’ve taken 4 days leave by November or so, we will be terminated. We had an impromptu faculty meeting and had to sign that we’d gotten notification of this. Plus that we’ll be evaluated different.

Before the takeover, HISD was told to shape up or that’s the end of the line. We scored a “B” as a district in the last ratings and still are being taken over. The Abbot/Morath/Miles steamroller is moving right along.

Being a District of Innovation will be the coup de gras for us, really. He wants to add weeks to the school year, he’s already firing any teachers who simply ask questions, and he’s even gaming the system in many ways to ensure that he’ll have “results.” Special Education? Accommodations? Support structures for at-risk students? All gutted. It’s hard to believe this stuff is legal.

I’m stressed and miserable. It’s hard to believe some of the insane stories about his demands–but I assure you they are true. Teaching with doors open, such a security risk. Stuff like no snack time in elementary if it’s not tied to a Texas standard. I at least teach…But we all were forced to watch an hour or so musical he put on that would rival anything out of North Korea.

At this pace and the way things are going, I just can’t sustain it. I can’t stand seeing such a grift ruin education as it’s doing. We definitely had issues as a district but this can’t be the best solution. I’ll try to make it this year, but I’m beginning to apply elsewhere. My students were often successful at the state test, but it’s a crazy world when I teach…and am afraid to ask to take a class day to show my students the library and have them check out books. It’s nuts.

Of course please don’t use my name or anything that might come back to bite me… As Miles promised in his introduction to us that “he’d find out whose spreading dissent and act” and by most accounts that’s exactly what’s been occurring.

‍Parents and community members have flooded school board meetings with accounts from teachers who are similarly afraid to speak out, for fear of losing their jobs, as teachers who question the changes have been labeled “insubordinate” and had their jobs threatened. Parents have also spoken publicly about how the changes have affected their own children, as one mother recounted to the board before having her mic cut-off:

“For the last week, I’ve had a kid that cries every morning and every evening. Crying not to go to school, and beginning not to go in the morning. She says school’s boring, she’s not learning, and she’d rather be homeschooled at this point…She’s miserable. Her confidence is plummeting, and she’s starting to lose her joy for learning.”

‍At a board meeting on September 14th, a 12-year-old HISD student delivered prepared remarks about the disruptive timers, distracting admin walkthroughs, and palpable teacher stress. The board cut her mic, too:

“Due to the new open door policy, I and many other students have a hard time concentrating due to the many distractions in the hallways. Isn’t it your first priority to have kids in HISD like me learn? Students should be in a place they want to go to inst- (mic is cut off)”

Please open the link and finish reading. Miles apparently wants to turn HISD into a “no-excuses” district.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, Discipline, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Failure, Houston, State Takeover, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Texas

Was Your Dinner Produced by Child Labor?

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2023 //
10

Mother Jones published an alarming report about the revival of child labor, based on the work of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Promoted by Republican governors despite federal law, child labor has become increasingly dangerous. Children are hired to replace adult immigrants and to keep costs low.

If you’ve eaten a burger and fries recently, there’s a chance that the potatoes were picked by middle schoolers, working through the school day in a field in Idaho. The steer that became the beef patty may well have been killed at a slaughterhouse where teenagers work, and the bone saws used to process the meat could easily have been cleaned by a 13-year-old, wearing a bulky hard hat and oversized gloves. It’s also quite possible that the burger was grilled, flipped and assembled by a child working at McDonald’s on a school night, far later than federal law allows.

This sort of child labor—culled from thousands of examples in U.S. Department of Labor investigations—has been mostly illegal in the U.S. since the 1930s, but that hasn’t stopped a surprising number of companies from engaging in it. In February, the department announced that the nation is experiencing a sharp rise in child labor violations across all industries; since 2018, the agency has documented a 69-percent increase in children who were employed illegally.

A FERN analysis of investigation data released by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD)—which is tasked with enforcing federal child labor laws—found that more than 75 percent of recent violations were committed by employers in the food industry. The agency uncovered more than 12,000 child labor violations in the nation’s food system—out of 16,000 total violations across all industries—between Jan. 1, 2018 and Nov. 23, 2022, the most recent date for which data were publicly available. Investigators found minors working illegally at vegetable farms in Texas and Florida, at dairy farms in Minnesota and New Hampshire and at poultry plants in Alabama and Mississippi. Children are involved in every step of the food supply chain, working illegally from farm to table…

Supermarkets and other food and beverage stores were well represented, too, responsible for 7.7 percent of the violations. In one particularly egregious example, from 2021, a 16-year-old supermarket worker in Clarksburg, Tennessee, was tasked with cleaning out a meat grinder, even though federal law prohibits employers from having minors clean or operate them. As the boy reached into the machine, the grinder switched on and ripped off half of his arm.

Who could have imagined that states and employers today would be rolling back protections for children enacted in the 1930s?

Categories Childhood, Cruelty

Rightwing Zealots Plan for Trump’s Second Term, Politicizing Civil Service, Establishing Authoritarianism

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2023 //
20

Hundreds of radical rightwingers are working on something called Project 2025, a detailed plan to dismantle the federal government and establish an Imperial Presidency if Trump wins the 2024 election. If Republicans win, they will fire tens of thousands of federal employees, turn thousands more into political appointments instead of apolitical civil servants, and centralize authoritarian power in the White House.

The planning is led by the Heritage Foundation. Its plan echoes what Trump advisor Steve Bannon called “destroying the administrative state.” What they really want is to diminish all checks and balances, destroy norms, and place all power in the President’s hands. Their plan sounds like what has happened in several red states, where Republicans have gerrymandered districts to exercise complete control, and if Democrats win a statewide election, the legislature reduces the Democrat’s powers before he or she takes office.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

WASHINGTON — With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own.


Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s return — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Biden in 2024.


With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers.


“We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official who speaks with historical flourish about the undertaking….

The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending.

Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.

The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when the Republican president’s team was ill-prepared, his Cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation and policies were met with resistance — by lawmakers, government workers and even Trump’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol, or in some cases violate laws, to achieve his goals.

While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans.
And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business.

“The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America.


Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired.


Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it.
“It frightens me,” said Mary Guy, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, who warns the idea would bring a return to a political spoils system.

Experts argue Schedule F would create chaos in the civil service, which was overhauled during President Carter’s administration in an attempt to ensure a professional workforce and end political bias dating from 19th century patronage.


As it now stands, just 4,000 members of the federal workforce are considered political appointees who typically change with each administration. But Schedule F could put tens of thousands of career professional jobs at risk.

“We have a democracy that is at risk of suicide,” Guy said. “Schedule F is just one more bullet in the gun.”


The ideas contained in Heritage’s coffee-table-ready book are both ambitious and parochial, a mix of long-standing conservative policies and stark, head-turning proposals that gained prominence in the Trump era.


There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail.

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Deregulation, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

Raymond F. Tirana: The Libertarian Goal for K-12 Schooling

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2023 //
27

Reader Raymond F. Tirana posted a comment in which he described the end goal of the libertarian overhaul of school funding. In Kansas, Florida, and other red states, he says, they are trying to shift responsibility for funding and providing schools from the state to parents. This will not only exacerbate segregate but increase inequity. Of course, they will do this under false pretenses, claiming to “widen opportunities” and to “save poor children from failing schools.” Don’t believe them.

He wrote in a comment:

What will really happen once the state offloads all responsibility for educating children: Inevitably, the budget will be slashed each year (Kansas is already enacting a flat tax that will decimate the State’s ability to raise revenue – people remember Koch Industries is based in Kansas, right?) until the public schools are forced to fold and Kansas parents will be lucky to get any crumbs from their masters to be used toward the education of their kids. This was Milton Freidman’s fantasy, and we are close to seeing it realized in Kansas, Florida and other states, as parents sit by and let their children’s future be stolen from them.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Deregulation, Disruption, Economy, Education Industry, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Florida, Funding, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Republicans, School Choice, Vouchers

Do Parents Always Know Best? YouTube Parenting “Expert” Arrested for Child Abuse

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2023 //
21

GOP politicians have become cynically obsessed with “parental rights,” insisting that parents always know best. Parents, the politicians assert, should control what their children learn, how they are taught, what books they should read, etc. Their judgment must take precedence over that of teachers, who are professionals. No one has explained how teachers can respond to the differing views of multiple parents, or why teachers should disregard their professional knowledge and experience and defer to parents.

Hardly a day passes without a news story about parents who abused their children or even murdered them. There are good parents and bad parents. There are well-educated parents who homeschool their children, and there are ignorant parents who pass along their ignorance to their children.

Here is a story that captures some of these points.

Ruby Franke developed a reputation as a child-rearing expert who advises parents to be ultra-strict with their children. She was recently arrested for child abuse after one of her children escaped to a neighbor’s house and asked for food and water. His ankles and wrists were secured with duct tape, and there were lacerations on his legs caused by ropes.

A Utah mother who chronicled her strict parenting style on YouTube and other social media channels was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse this week after one of her children climbed out a window and ran to a nearby house seeking help, officials said.

Ruby Franke, 41, was arrested on Wednesday in Ivins, a city in southern Utah, at the home of Jodi Hildebrandt, her business partner, who was also arrested. Ms. Franke hosted the now-defunct YouTube channel “8 Passengers,” where she posted videos about her parenting approach with her six children, including refusing them food as a form of punishment.

Ms. Franke and Ms. Hildebrandt were each charged on Friday with six counts of aggravated child abuse, according to the Washington County attorney’s office. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, the attorney’s office said.

According to an affidavit, Ms. Franke’s 12-year-old son, identified as R.F. in the document, climbed out a window at Ms. Hildebrandt’s home and went to a neighbor’s house on Wednesday morning, asking for food and water. The child had duct tape on his ankles and wrists, as well as open wounds. He appeared to be emaciated and malnourished….

At one point, Ms. Franke had nearly 2.5 million subscribers to her channel, following the lives of her six children: Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve. In 2020, Chad Franke, then 15, told YouTube viewers in one family video that he had been sleeping on a beanbag for months and that he had lost his bedroom after playing a prank on his little brother, according to Insider.

In one video recorded by Ms. Franke and reposted to TikTok, she said her daughter Eve’s teacher had called her to say Eve had come to school without a lunch. Ms. Franke said the teacher was “uncomfortable with her being hungry” but that Eve was responsible for making her own lunch, and that “the natural outcome is she is just going to be hungry.”

“Hopefully nobody gives her food, and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch, because then she’s not going to learn from it,” Ms. Franke said.

Categories Cruelty, Parents

Jamelle Bouie: How States Rights Affected Slavery and Now Affect Abortion

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2023 //
14

Jamelle Bouie is an amazing columnist for the New York Times. if you sign up for his extended column, you get fascinating insights, plus a list of what he’s reading now and even a recipe. This column caught my eye because I was thinking about writing a post about how some counties in Texas are criminalizing travel on roads that lead to the airport or out of state if the traveler intends to get an abortion. They are planning to suspend freedom to travel in order to block abortions. But then I saw that Jamelle Bouie wrote about the same subject, noting that it extended beyond Texas, and drew a parallel with slavery, where different states had different laws regulating human bondage.

Bouie wrote:

One of the ironies of the American slave system was that it depended for its survival on a federal structure that left it vulnerable and unstable.

Within the federal union, the slave-dependent states had access to a national market in which they could sell the products of slave labor to merchants and manufacturers throughout the country. They could also buy and sell enslaved people, as part of a lucrative internal trade in human beings. Entitled to representation under the supreme charter of the federal union, slave owners could accumulate political power that they could deploy to defend and extend their interests. They could use their considerable influence to shape foreign and domestic policy.

And because the states had considerable latitude over their internal affairs, the leaders of slave-dependent states could shape their communities to their own satisfaction, especially with regard to slavery. They could, without any objection from the federal government, declare all Black people within their borders to be presumptively enslaved — and that is, in fact, what they did.

But the federal union wasn’t perfect for slaveholders. There were problems. Complications. Free-state leaders also had considerable latitude over their internal affairs. They could, for example, declare enslaved Black people free once they entered. And while leaders in many free states were unhappy about the extent of their free Black populations — in 1807, as the historian Kate Masur tells us in “Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, From the Revolution to Reconstruction,” Ohio lawmakers passed a law requiring free Black migrants to register with the county clerk and have at least two white property owners vouch for their ability to support themselves — they ultimately could not stop the significant growth of free Black communities within their borders, whose members could (and would) agitate against slavery.

The upshot of all of this was that, until the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford settled the matter in favor of slaveholders, the status of an enslaved Black person outside a slave state was uncertain. It was unclear whether property in man extended beyond the borders of states where it was authorized by law.

It was also unclear whether a slave state’s authority over an enslaved Black person persisted beyond its borders. And on those occasions when a free Black person was within the reach of slave-state law — as was true when free Black sailors arrived in Southern ports — it was unclear if they were subject primarily to the laws of their home states or the laws of the slave states. South Carolina assumed the latter, for example, when it passed a law in 1822 requiring that all “free Negroes or persons of color” arriving in the state by water be placed in jail until their scheduled departure.

One would have to conclude, surveying the legal landscape of slavery before Dred Scott, that federalism could not handle a question as fundamental as human bondage. The tensions, contradictions and conflicts between states were simply too great. As Abraham Lincoln would eventually conclude, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

I want you to keep all this in mind while you read about the latest developments in state and local laws regarding abortion. On Monday, Steve Marshall, Alabama’s Republican attorney general, announced in a court filing that the state has the right to prosecute people who make travel arrangements for women to have out-of-state abortions. Those arrangements, he argued, amount to a “criminal conspiracy.”

“The conspiracy is what is being punished, even if the final conduct never occurs,” Marshall’s filing states. “That conduct is Alabama-based and is within Alabama’s power to prohibit.”

In Texas, anti-abortion activists and lawmakers are using local ordinances to try to make it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion on roads within city or county limits. Abortion opponents behind one such measure “are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports,” Caroline Kitchener reports in The Washington Post, “with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their anti-abortion state.”

Alabama and Texas join Idaho in targeting the right to travel. And they aren’t alone; lawmakers in other states, like Missouri, have also contemplated measures that would limit the ability of women to leave their states to obtain an abortion or even hold them criminally liable for abortion services received out of state.

The reason to compare these proposed limits on travel within and between states to antebellum efforts to limit the movement of free or enslaved Black people is that both demonstrate the limits of federalism when it comes to fundamental questions of bodily autonomy.

It is not tenable to vary the extent of bodily rights from state to state, border to border. It raises legal and political questions that have to be settled in one direction or another. Are women who are residents of anti-abortion states free to travel to states where abortion is legal to obtain the procedure? Do anti-abortion states have the right to hold residents criminally liable for abortions that occur elsewhere? Should women leaving anti-abortion states be considered presumptively pregnant and subject to criminal investigation, lest they obtain the procedure?

Laws of this sort may not be on the immediate horizon, but the questions are still legitimate. By ending the constitutional guarantee of bodily autonomy, the Supreme Court has fully unsettled the rights of countless Americans in ways that must be resolved. Once again, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Extremism, Gender, Health, History, Racism
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