Archives for category: Democracy

Donald Trump, for reasons of his own, has decided to join in alliance with Vladimir Putin. He has indicated that the U.S. may leave NATO, which has kept the peace in Europe since the end of World War II. There is a chance that NATO might expel the U.S. due to Trump’s partnership with Putin.

Since 1945, this is the most consequential development in U.S. relations with Europe.

Trump has a deferential relationship with Putin. He made certain to install a Putin-friendly person as director of all national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Trump has busied himself installing stooges at every important agency: Kash Patel at the FBI; Pete Hegseth at the Defense Department; Pam Bondi at the Justice Department; John Ratcliffe at the CIA. None of these people will complain or resign if Trump declares that the U.S. is leaving NATO and forging a partnership with Russia.

The New York Times reported today:

President Emmanuel Macron of France called a second emergency meeting of European allies on Wednesday seeking to recalibrate relations with the United States as President Trump upends international politics by rapidly changing American alliances.

Mr. Macron had already assembled a dozen European leaders in Paris on Monday after Mr. Trump and his new team angered and confused America’s traditional allies by suggesting that the United States would rapidly retreat from its security role in Europe and planned to proceed with peace talks with Russia — without Europe or Ukraine at the table.

Mr. Trump’s remarks late on Tuesday, when he sided fully with Russia’s narrative blaming Ukraine for the war, have now fortified the impression that the United States is prepared to abandon its role as a European ally and switch sides to embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

It was a complete reversal of historic alliances that left many in Europe stunned and fearful.

“What’s happening is very bad. It’s a reversal of the state of the world since 1945,” Jean- Yves Le Drian, a former French foreign minister, said on French radio Wednesday morning.

“It’s our security he’s putting at risk,” he said, referring to President Trump. “We must wake up.”

Fear that Mr. Trump is ready to abandon Ukraine and has accepted Russian talking points has been particularly acute in Eastern and Central Europe, where memories are long and bitter of the West’s efforts to appease Hitler in Munich in 1938 and its assent to Stalin’s demands at the Yalta Conference in 1945 for a Europe cleaved in two.

“Even Poland’s betrayal in Yalta lasted longer than Ukraine’s betrayal in Riyadh,” Jaroslaw Walesa, a Polish lawmaker and the son of Poland’s anti-Communist Solidarity trade union leader, Lech Walesa, said Wednesday on social media, referring to the American-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Rasa Jukneviciene, a former Lithuania defense minister who is now a member of the European Parliament, said it was “hard to understand” the sudden shifts in policy by the United States, the once reliable pillar of Europe’s security for decades. She said she was “wondering what historians will write about the events of this time, say, in five decades.”

“It is already clear that the Euro-Atlantic connection will not be the same as it used to be,” she said. “The stage when European security after World War II was basically guaranteed only by the U.S.A. is over….”

Meanwhile Secretary of State Marco Rubio was developing a new relationship with Russia at a bilateral meeting in Saudi Arabia, to which neither Ukraine nor NATO nations were invited.

Mr. Rubio said they hammered out a three-part plan, which would start by re-establishing bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow and end by exploring new partnerships — geopolitical and business — between Russia and the United States, while addressing the parameters of an end of the war with Ukraine in between.

Mr. Rubio said he would consult with Ukraine, the American “partners in Europe and others,” but in the end, “ultimately, the Russian side will be indispensable to this effort.”

Afterward, speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, President Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war, despite the fact that Russia had invaded.

“You could have made a deal,” he said, denigrating President Zelensky’s popularity and indicating he didn’t deserve a seat at the negotiating table.

“Well, they’ve had a seat for three years. And a long time before that,” Mr. Trump said. “This could have been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, I think, without the loss of much land, very little land. Without the loss of any lives. And without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides.”

Mr. Trump’s comments blaming Ukraine for the war stirred outrage in the Czech Republic, whose centrist government has been a stalwart supporter of Ukraine. “I’m afraid we’ve never been this close to Orwell’s ‘war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength’ before,” Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said on social media.

Mr. Le Drian called it a monstrous reversal of world alliances, as well as an “inversion of the truth.”

“The victim becomes the attacker,” he said, adding that the United States seemed to be retreating to a 19th-century view of itself, and telling an aggressive, expansionist Russia to do what it wants in Europe. “It’s the law of the strongest,” he said, adding “tomorrow, it could be Moldavia and after tomorrow, it could be Estonia because Putin won’t stop.”

Categories Democracy, Extremism, Fascism, Lies, Trump

Washington Post Kills Ad Calling on Trump to Fire Musk

By dianeravitch

February 17, 2025 //

Julie Creswell of The New York Times reported that The Washington Post killed an ad calling on Trump to fire his best buddy Elon Musk. The story was first reported in The Hill. Who could have given such an order?

Creswell writes:

An advertisement that was set to run in some editions of The Washington Post on Tuesday calling for Elon Musk to be fired from his role in government was abruptly canceled, according to one of the advocacy groups that had ordered the ad.

Common Cause said it was told by the newspaper on Friday that the ad was being pulled. The full-page ad, known as a wraparound, would have covered the front and back pages of editions delivered to the White House, the Pentagon and Congress, and was planned in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund.

A separate, full-page ad with the same themes would have been allowed to run inside the newspaper, but the two groups chose to cancel the internal ad as well. Both ads would have cost the groups $115,000.

“We asked why they wouldn’t run the wrap when we clearly met the guidelines if they were allowing the internal ad,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, the president and chief executive of Common Cause. “They said they were not at liberty to give us a reason.”

News of The Washington Post canceling the ad was earlier reported by The Hill.

Although it is unclear who made the decision to pull the ad or why, the move comes amid growing concern about the changing mission of the Washington Post newsroom under the ownership of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. The newspaper’s decision last fall to end its longstanding tradition of presidential endorsements and Mr. Bezos’ front-row seat at Mr. Trump’s inauguration have led some to wonder whether the news organization has been accommodating a Trump administration.

Last month, more than 400 employees sent a letter to Mr. Bezos requesting a meeting to discuss leadership decisions that they said “led readers to question the integrity of this institution.”

Mrs. Kase Solomón said that all the content for the ad — art and text — had been sent to The Post’s advertisement department last Tuesday and that “no alarm bells were rung” by anyone from the newspaper at that time. She said she did not know who inside the organization made the decision to pull the wrap.

The ad featured an image of Mr. Musk laughing over a picture of the White House with text that reads: “Who’s Running This Country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?” The ad called for readers to contact their senators and tell them it’s time for Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Musk…

Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man who controls six companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has been given far-reaching power by the president, who has allowed Mr. Musk to dismantle federal agencies and freeze funding for various grants and programs.

Margaret Huang, president and chief executive of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the disappearance of critical programs and grants would have a direct and negative effect mostly on lower-income individuals and people of color.

Categories Billionaires, Censorship, Corruption, Democracy, Ethics, Failure, Media, Musk, Elon, Trump

Sara Stevenson: Fully Fund Texas Public Schools Instead of Handouts for the Wealthiest

By dianeravitch

February 17, 2025 //

Sara Stevenson is a retired school librarian and Catholic school English teacher. She is a fearless advocate for public schools. Her article was published in The Austin American-Statesman. At this very time, the Texas Legislature is debating voucher legislation. It has already passed the State Senate. It is now being considered in the House.

She writes:

Many years ago at a school financing conference, I approached an East Texas House member from a rural district. I asked him, “Do y’all even have private schools for vouchers in your district?” He answered, “Hell, no. Private school vouchers are a tax break for families that already send their kids to private schools.” I thanked him for clearing that up.

Now most of those rural House Republicans opposing private school vouchers are gone. Jeffrey Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire investor in TikTok, gave Governor Greg Abbott $10 million to primary them out of office.

Texas has been trying to pass a school voucher or (ESA: Educational Savings Account) bill since 1995, but the bills keep failing session after session. In their earlier forms, these bills called for ESAs (using public tax dollars to pay for private school tuition) as a way to help poor children or those with disabilities trapped in Texas’s “failing public schools.”

Sidenote: If Texas schools are failing, the Republican party is responsible since it has dominated the Legislature for more than two decades and has controlled the governor’s office since 1994.

But over time, the proposed bills kept demanding more, not only in the amount of tuition money offered, but in the expanding pool of students qualified to receive them.

With this year’s version, Senate Bill 2, which passed the Senate, the GOP is saying the quiet part out loud. No longer are the ESAs solely for the families who can’t afford private school tuition or those with disabilities; now a family of four, making as much as $161,000 a year, five times the federal poverty level, can still receive up to $10,000 toward private school tuition or $11,500 for students with disabilities.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick then reassures us that 80% of the vouchers will go to special needs or “low-income” children. Since eligibility is universal, 20% will go to families making more than $161,000 per year.

I remember in 1976 when Ronald Reagan talked about people who abused the welfare system by getting government handouts they didn’t need. He called them “welfare queens.” In those days the GOP praised the working poor for their dignity in refusing a government handout.

Fast forward to 2025. Now families making over $161,000 per year are entitled to your tax dollars to send their children to private schools with little to no accountability. In fact, Sen. José Menendez’s Amendment 36, requiring the state to collect data to determine if the program is even successful, failed.

In earlier iterations, the student had to be enrolled in a failing public school before receiving a voucher. Now children already enrolled in private schools are eligible. Promoters argue this is only fair because private school families pay thousands each year in property taxes to schools their children don’t attend. Well, if they deserve a taxpayer refund, what about all the Texas property taxpayers, including seniors, who have NO children currently attending Texas schools?

No, because contributing to public education is a common good; an educated citizenry benefits all Texans and the Texas economy.

And speaking of children with disabilities, this bill clearly states that these students receiving vouchers must waive any rights for accommodations guaranteed by IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).

Although SB 2 boosters contend the bill promotes school choice for parents, the bill really means “schools’ choice” for private schools. While public schools must accept every child, private schools, including those receiving vouchers, are free to turn away or expel any child for any reason. For instance, they can continue to prefer legacies and the siblings of current students.

SB 2 earmarks $1 billion for this program in order to give vouchers to just 100,000 students. In contrast, 5.4 million Texas students currently attend public school, 10% of all U.S. school children.

Let’s first pass Senate Bill 1, the budget bill, and include increasing the basic student allotment to fully fund our public schools. Since Texas ranks 44th among the states in per pupil spending, let’s first invest in the school system we already have rather than spend a billion dollars to fund another one.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Hoax, Religion, Separation of church and state, Shame, Texas

Karen Attiah: Call the Attack on DEI What It Is: A Rollback of Racial Integration

By dianeravitch

February 17, 2025 //

Karen Attiah is Global Opinions Editor of The Washington Post and a columnist. She says in this column exactly what I have been thinking. The attack on DEI is intended to restore the days when women, Blacks, Latinos, and people with disabilities had little or no chance to rise in their field.

It’s ironic to hear Trump talk about the importance of merit when he has stocked his cabinet mostly with people who lack experience, knowledge, wisdom, or any genuine qualification for the position. His cabinet was not chosen based on merit. In what world would Pete Hegseth–no administrative experience, serial philander with an alcohol problem–be considered qualified to be Secretary of Defense? Or RFK Jr. qualified to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, having spent years fighting vaccines and having zero medical expertise? Or Tulsi Gabbard, Putin apologist, qualified to be Director of National Intelligence?

Attiah writes:

Across the United States, in government agencies and private corporations, leaders are scrambling to eliminate DEI programs. President Donald Trump is not only destroying any trace of diversity work within the government: He has ordered a review of federal contracts to identify any companies, nonprofits and foundations that do business with the government and keep their diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and he has warned that they could be the target of investigations.

Let’s call this what it really is: resegregation.
I don’t mean resegregation in the sense of separate water fountains. I mean it in the sense that a Black woman would never even be considered for a federal job or a management position at a big company — the way it was in, say, the 1960s. It is not “inclusion” the Republicans want to get rid of, it’s integration.

If you think I’m exaggerating, just look at a post made by Darren Beattie, who was just named an acting undersecretary of state: “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” he wrote on X — not 10 years ago but in October.

Trump’s GOP is also threatening private companies that are trying to level the playing fields for Black people, women and other groups. After Costco’s shareholders voted to keep its diversity programs in place, 19 Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to Costco asking it to explain why it was maintaining a policy of “unlawful discrimination.”

A number of other corporations have begun their cowardly capitulations. In a memo, Kiera Fernandez, chief equity officer for Target, said the company would be ending its diversity, equity and inclusion goals “in step with the evolving external landscape.” Amazon, Meta and Walmart have also announced rollbacks.

For anyone wondering why “inclusion” is still needed: Since the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in 2023, first-year Black enrollment at top universities has dropped by 17 percent. That’s the sharpest drop of any major racial group. (For comparison, White enrollment has fallen by 5 percent.)

Or look at the business world: Black people represent 13.7 percent of the population but Black-owned businesses generally get less than 2 percent of venture capital funding. Despite a smattering of promises from venture capital companies to do better after the murder of George Floyd, funding to Black companies dropped from $4.9 billion in 2021 to $705 million in 2023 — an astonishing 86 percent drop. Sounds like a segregated market to me.

These facts, taken together, point to the removal of Black people from academic, corporate and government spaces: resegregation.
People are vowing to push back with their wallets — to shop at Costco and boycott Target, for example. But I believe the fight starts with language. Journalists have a role and an obligation to be precise in naming what we are facing.

Frankly, I wish the media would stop using “DEI” and “diversity hiring” altogether. Any official, including the president, who chooses to blame everything from plane crashes to wildfires on non-White, non-male people should be asked whether they believe that desegregation is to blame. Whether they believe resegregation is the answer. We need to bring back the language that describes what is actually happening.

“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction,” Toni Morrison said. “It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do.”
Black people have spent nearly 70 years “proving” ourselves. And in a flash, with a new administration, the gains of those decades are being washed away.

While Attiah focuses on the expansion of opportunity for Black people, the biggest beneficiaries of DEI policies–that is, efforts to diversify student bodies, the workforce, and corporate leadership–have been white women.

Thanks to DEI, white women now serve on corporate boards, as corporate leaders, and in positions that would have been closed to them in the past.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, Economy, Ethics, Gender, Race, Trump

A Tribute to Two Black Pioneers in Brooklyn

By dianeravitch

February 16, 2025 //

It’s Black History Month. Ignore the fact that this annual tribute to the achievements and culture of African-Americans has been stripped of recognition by the federal government since the inauguration of the worst President in our history. Trump thinks that the nation was greatest when it was ruled by straight white men, and everyone else was submissive. I don’t work for him, so here is a tribute to two pioneering Black women. It was posted by CBS News, which is also not covered by Trump’s racist war on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

NEW YORK – A peaceful playground in Williamsburg bears the name of Sarah J. S. Tompkins Garnet. Two miles away in DUMBO is a park named after Susan Smith McKinney Steward. These are not the only places that bear their names — a school in Fort Greene and another in Prospect Heights are also named after them.

Dr. McKinney Steward specialized in childhood disease, co-founded a hospital and, later in life, ventured out West with her second husband, Theophilus Gould Steward, a U.S. Army Buffalo Soldier of the first all-Black Army regiment.

Her great-granddaughter is the late actress Ellen Holly, America’s first Black soap opera star who died in 2023.

“Its very special when someone recognizes your work,” Holly said in a 2004 interview recognizing her contribution to the history of TV.

Both sisters were also involved in the Women’s Suffrage movement and helped create the Equal Suffrage League, which worked to abolish race and gender discrimination in the late 1880s.

“Once abolition was achieved, a lot of those allies kind of went away. And you had women standing there asking, ‘well, what about us? ‘So women like Sarah and Susan took it upon themselves to take up the mantle for Women’s Suffrage,” Robbins explains.

Among the idyllic hills of Brooklyn’s historic Green-wood Cemetery are two graves, steps away from each other — the resting places of both sisters who desired to educate and heal their community.

Categories Character, Courage, Democracy, Ethics, Gender, Race

Trump Is Destroying Our Country, Putin Benefits

By dianeravitch

February 15, 2025 //

I am posting a large excerpt from Olga Lautman’s Tyranny Tracker. Christine Langhoff shares this link with us. I urge you to subscribe. I have given up trying to keep track of Trump’s destructive orders, but Olga Lautman has not. She is a patriot. Trump is not. He is Putin’s puppet. Hillary warned us.

Olga Lautman posted yesterday:

📆 Trump Tyranny Tracker: Feb 14

Welcome to today’s Trump Tyranny Tracker, where I’m breaking down the key news from the day alongside ongoing developments as Trump and his regime move swiftly to consolidate power, undermine democracy, and dismantle civil rights and freedoms.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!!

🔥 In Corruption News

Musk’s Treasury Appointee Retains CEO Role, Raising Conflict Concerns

What Happened: Elon Musk ally Tom Krause, newly appointed to oversee U.S. government payments, is still CEO of Cloud Software Group, a private tech company. Treasury’s ethics office approved the arrangement, which is a massive conflict of interest.

Why It Matters: A sitting CEO running federal payment operations raises ethical and security concerns over potential financial manipulation, insider deals, and corporate favoritism. With Treasury’s $5.45 trillion in annual transactions, watchdogs warn of unprecedented conflicts as Musk’s allies tighten their grip on government finances.

Source: WIRED

Trump DOJ Guts Public Corruption Investigations

What Happened: Trump has dismantled federal efforts to fight public corruption, pausing investigations into corporate bribery, weakening the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and considering eliminating the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section. Trump also fired inspectors general across multiple agencies. The move follows the DOJ’s controversial dismissal of charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, sparking mass resignations among prosecutors.

Why It Matters: The Justice Department is shielding Trump’s allies while curbing corruption investigations, signaling an unprecedented shift in enforcement priorities. The DOJ’s politicization raises concerns about legal accountability under Trump’s regime.

Source: CNN

Kash Patel’s Undisclosed LLCs Raise FBI Nomination Concerns

What Happened: Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, failed to disclose multiple LLCs tied to a $1.8 million Virginia land deal in his Senate financial disclosures. His filings contradict each other on the land’s value, and he delayed submitting records until after his Senate hearing, avoiding scrutiny.

Why It Matters: Patel’s lack of transparency and hidden financial dealings—including ties to Kremlin-linked payments—raise serious ethical concerns for a potential FBI director. His pattern of secrecy and conflicts of interest fuels fears about his ability to lead an impartial agency.

Source: Mother Jones

🛡️ In Power Consolidation News

Mass Layoffs Spark Chaos as Trump Purges Federal Workforce

What Happened: Trump and Elon ordered mass layoffs of probationary federal employees, impacting thousands. Over 1,000 VA workers, including cancer and opioid researchers, were fired. The CDC lost 1,300 employees, cutting 10% of its workforce, while the Education Department, USDA, and DOE also saw deep cuts. Many were terminated without warning, including some who had already accepted buyouts.

Why It Matters: This politically driven purge weakens veterans’ services, public health, and environmental protections, prioritizing loyalty over competence. The purge will cripple government operations and vital social services.

Source: Associated Press

IRS Prepares for Mass Layoffs Amid Tax Season

What Happened: The IRS is set to fire thousands of workers, including many probationary employees, just as tax season reaches its peak. The move follows Trump and Elon Musk’s federal purge, aimed at gutting the government. The IRS had 100,000 employees, including 16,000 probationary workers, many of whom are now at risk.

Why It Matters: The cuts threaten tax processing, refunds, and enforcement, gutting Biden-era efforts to audit corporations and wealthy taxpayers.

Source: Reuters

Elon Musk’s DOGE Arrives at Pentagon, Eyes Massive Cuts

What Happened: Elon Musk’s operatives arrived at the Pentagon as part of Trump’s push to gut government agencies and veterans’ services. This follows similar moves across Treasury, DOJ, DHS, and intelligence agencies, where Musk’s operatives have gained access to financial, security, and intelligence data.

Why It Matters: Musk’s Pentagon access raises major conflict of interest concerns, as SpaceX and Starlink hold billions in defense contracts. Unvetted DOGE operatives could gain access to classified military programs, including cyber defense, nuclear strategy, and global operations. The Trump regime’s prioritization of loyalty over security vetting risks espionage, military compromise, and insider financial manipulation.

Source: Reuters

Mass Firings Loom Over CDC and NIH as Trump Reshapes Public Health Agencies

What Happened: Senior officials at the CDC and NIH are bracing for mass layoffs, with up to 700 public health workers targeted, including members of the CDC’s elite “disease detectives” corps—the first responders to global infectious disease outbreaks. Some high-ranking officials could be forced to resign as the regime continues its efforts to gut agencies.

Why It Matters: Slashing frontline pandemic and disease response teams cripples America’s ability to contain deadly outbreaks. Experts warn this will devastate public health preparedness, drain critical expertise, and politicize key agencies—as the U.S. faces a bird flu outbreak, a resurging measles crisis, and the worst flu season in decades.

Source: The New York Times

DHS Cuts 405 Employees, FEMA Hit Hardest

What Happened: DHS laid off 405 employees, including 200+ at FEMA, 130 at CISA, and others at USCIS and Science & Technology. 12 Coast Guard DEI staff were reassigned to border security.

Why It Matters: This purge weakens disaster response, cybersecurity, and national preparedness.

Source: ABC News

Trump Purges Leadership at National Archives

What Happened: Trump purges senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration. Deputy Archivist William Bosanko resigned Friday, following the firing of Archivist Colleen Shogan last week. At least five other senior officials are expected to leave, as the White House moves to replace them with Trump loyalists.

Why It Matters: This purge comes after NARA’s role in referring Trump’s classified documents case to the DOJ, signaling an attempt to reshape the agency’s leadership for political control. The loss of experienced, nonpartisan officials threatens historical preservation and government transparency.

Source: CNN

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Trump

Trump Kisses Putin’s Ring and Betrays Ukraine

By dianeravitch

February 15, 2025 //

Phillips P. Obrien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew’s in the UK. The title of this article on his blog at Substack is “This is Not Appeasement, It’s Worse.”

He begins:

In the last few days, the US has made concession after concession to Russia before any formal negotiations have even started. Trump has said that Putin should be allowed back into the G7, Defense Secretary Hegseth has said Ukraine should be kept out of NATO and the US forces will not provide any security guarantees for Ukraine. The US has also made it clear that Russia will be allowed to keep most/all of the Ukrainian lands it has seized, while at the same time making no new promises of aid to Ukraine.

In other words—Trump is helping Putin—at exactly the time Putin needs it most. If you have not noticed (will write more about this in the weekend update), the Russian army is really struggling right now. Its advances are slowing and its losses are extremely high. In fact, what Trump seems to be doing is offering a hand of friendship and support to Putin, when the Russian dictator and war criminal most needs it.

Categories Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Evil, Failure, International, Trump

Another NY Prosecutor Refuses to Drop Case against Mayor Adams and Resigns

By dianeravitch

February 14, 2025 //

Yes, Virginia, there are men and women of integrity who defend the rule of law. Yesterday, it was Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern district of New York. She resigned rather than drop the case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Her devotion to the rule of law was greater than her allegiance to Trump, who appointed her only a month ago. Her resignation was followed by several resignations in the Public Integrity Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The New York Daily News today reported another principled resignation by a federal prosecutor.

One of the lead prosecutors handling the sweeping public corruption case against Mayor Adams resigned on Friday — in a searing letter to President Trump’s Department of Justice saying he wouldn’t be the “fool” who files a motion to dismiss the case based on support for the administration’s immigration objectives and not the law.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten, a highly regarded prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and decorated U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, in his resignation letter to Trump’s acting No. 2 at the DOJ Emil Bove, said he was “entirely in agreement” with the former acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who resigned Thursday.

Sassoon said she could not sign off on the request to drop the charges against Adams that stemmed from what’s effectively a “quid pro quo” between the mayor and the president that included the DOJ dropping the charges in exchange for Adams getting in line with the president’s immigration policies in the nation’s largest sanctuary city.

In the letter, which was first reported by The New York Times, Scotten — who has clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh — said some may view Bove’s “mistake” in light of their negative views of the Trump administration, which he said he did not share.

“I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way,” Scotten wrote.

“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me…

Scotten’s blistering resignation letter came the morning after what many have already dubbed the “Thursday night massacre” at the DOJ, echoing President Nixon’s infamous 1973 DOJ purge.

He marks the seventh DOJ staffer to resign after Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, managing the daily functioning of the federal government’s law enforcement arm in an interim capacity, ordered the dismissal of the bombshell case against Adams set to go on trial in April.

Following the mass resignations, Reuters reported Friday that Bove had threatened to fire every member of the DOJ’s public integrity section — where the case was transferred following Sassoon’s resignation — unless someone volunteered to file the dismissal motion in Manhattan federal court, where Judge Dale Ho must approve it. According to the report, Bove gave them an hour to decide, and one ultimately stepped up.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Courage, Democracy, Fraud, Justice, New York City, Trump

Governor Tim Walz Will Speak at the Annual Meeting of the Network for Public Education!

By dianeravitch

February 14, 2025 //

We are excited to announce that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will be a keynote speaker at our conference in Columbus, Ohio, on April 5 and 6.

A former high school social studies teacher and a coach, Governor Walz is one of our nation’s greatest public education advocates.

Don’t wait! Click on the website of the Network for Public Education website to register.

Categories Democracy, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund

Heather Cox Richardson: Which Matters More: Voting Rights or Gun Rights?

By dianeravitch

February 12, 2025 //

Heather Cox Richardson brilliantly identifies the signal flaw of the MAGA movement. Trump described the Second Amendment right to bear arms as “foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans.” (Of course, Trump’s lawyers–not Trump himself– wrote those words as raw meat for his base.)

Richardson replied that “it is the right to vote for the lawmakers who make up our government that is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans.”

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order “protecting Second Amendment rights.” The order calls for Attorney General Pam Bondi to examine all gun regulations in the U.S. to make sure they don’t infringe on any citizen’s right to bear arms. The executive order says that the Second Amendment “is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans.”

In fact, it is the right to vote for the lawmakers who make up our government that is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans.

The United States Constitution that establishes the framework for our democratic government sets out how the American people will write the laws that govern us. We elect members to a Congress, which consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. That congress of our representatives holds “all legislative powers”; that is, Congress alone has the right to make laws. It alone has the power to levy taxes on the American people, borrow money, regulate commerce, coin money, declare war, “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper.”

After Congress writes, debates, and passes a measure, the Constitution establishes that it goes to the president, who is also elected, through “electors,” by the people. The president can either sign a measure into law or veto it, returning it to Congress where members can either repass it over his veto or rewrite it. But once a law is on the books, the president must enforce it. The men who framed the Constitution wrote that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” When President Richard Nixon tried to alter laws passed by Congress by withholding the funding Congress had appropriated to put them into effect, Congress shut that down quickly, passing a law explicitly making such “The impoundment” illegal.

Since the Supreme Court’s 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision, the federal courts have taken on the duty of “judicial review,” the process of determining whether a law falls within the rules of the Constitution.

Right now, the Republicans hold control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court. They have the power to change any laws they want to change according to the formula Americans have used since 1789 when the Constitution went into effect.

But they are not doing that. Instead, officials in the Trump administration, as well as billionaire Elon Musk— who put $290 million into electing Trump and Republicans, and whose actual role in the governmentu remains unclear— are making unilateral changes to programs established by Congress. Through executive orders and announcements from Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” they have sidelined Congress, and Republicans are largely mum about the seizure of their power.

Now MAGA Republicans are trying to neuter the judiciary.

After yet another federal judge stopped the Musk/Trump onslaught by temporarily blocking Musk and his team from accessing Americans’ records from Treasury Department computers, MAGA Republicans attacked judges. “Outrageous,” Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) posted, spreading the lie that the judge barred the Secretary of the Treasury from accessing the information, although in fact he temporarily barred Treasury Secretary Bessent from granting access to others. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) said the decision had “the feel of…a judicial” coup. Right-wing legal scholar Adrian Vermeule called it “[j]udicial interference with legitimate acts of state.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, who would take over the office of the presidency if the 78-year-old Trump can no longer perform the duties of the office, posted: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

As legal scholar Steve Vladeck noted: “Just to say the quiet part out loud, the point of having unelected judges in a democracy is so that *whether* acts of state are ‘legitimate’ can be decided by someone other than the people who are undertaking them. Vermeule knows this, of course. So does Vance.” Of Vance’s statement, Aaron Rupar of Public Notice added: “this is the sort of thing you post when you’re ramping up to defying lawful court orders.”

The Republicans have the power to make the changes they want through the exercise of their constitutional power, but they are not doing so. This seems in part because Trump and his MAGA supporters want to establish the idea that the president cannot be checked. And this dovetails with the fact they are fully aware that most Americans oppose their plans. Voters were so opposed to the plan outlined in Project 2025—the plan now in operation—that Trump ran from it during the campaign. Popular support for Musk’s participation in the government has plummeted as well. A poll from The Economist/YouGov released February 5 says that only 13% of adult Americans want him to have “a lot” of influence, while 96% of respondents said that jobs and the economy were important to them and 41% said they thought the economy was getting worse.

Trump’s MAGA Republicans know they cannot get the extreme changes they wanted through Congress, so they are, instead, dictating them. And Musk began his focus at the Treasury, establishing control over the payment system that manages the money American taxpayers pay to our government.

Musk and MAGA officials claim they are combating waste and fraud, but in fact, when Judge Carl Nichols stopped Trump from shutting down USAID, he specifically said that government lawyers had offered no support for that argument in court. Indeed, the U.S. government already has the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, nonpartisan agency that audits, evaluates and investigates government programs for Congress. In 2023 the GAO returned about $84 for every $1 invested in it, in addition to suggesting improvements across the government.

According to Musk’s own Grok artificial intelligence tool on X, the investigative departments of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as well as USAID, have all launched investigations into the practices and violations of Elon Musk’s companies.

The vision they are enacting rips predictability, as well as economic security, away from farmers, who are already protesting the loss of their markets with the attempted destruction of USAID. It hurts the states—especially Republican-dominated states—that depend on funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Education. Their vision excludes consumers, who are set to lose the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as protections put in place by President Joe Biden. Their vision takes away protections for racial, ethnic, religious, and gender minorities, as well as from women, and kills funding for the programs that protect all of us, such as cancer research and hospitals.

Musk and Trump appear to be concentrating the extraordinary wealth of the American people, along with the power that wealth brings, into their own hands, for their own ends. Trump has championed further tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, while Musk seems to want to make sure his companies, especially SpaceX, win as many government contracts as possible to fund his plan to colonize Mars.

But the mission of the United States of America is not, and has never been, to return huge profits to a few leaders.

The mission of the United States of America is stated in the Constitution. It is a government designed by “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Far from being designed to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a single man, it was formed to do the opposite: spread wealth and power throughout the country’s citizenry and enable them to protect their rights by voting for those who would represent them in Congress and the presidency, then holding them accountable at the ballot box.

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