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Carl A. Cohn: How to End the Culture Wars in Our Schools

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2024 //
14

Carl Cohn is one of my personal heroes of American education. He served as superintendent in Long Beach and in San Diego, also as a member of the state board of education. Currently he is Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University. I first met him when I was researching my book The Death and life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. At the time, I was studying the San Diego schools as the site where corporate reform had its first try-out. Carl was brought in by the school board to put the district back together after nearly a decade of disruptive and punitive reforms. What I remember most from our candid, off-the-record conversation was his advice: the most important connection between the superintendent and teachers is trust. He subsequently published an essay about trust for “Education Week,” and I quoted him in my book.

Carl Cohn wrote this essay for School Administrator magazine.

Last summer, I attended a raucous school board meeting in Orange County, Calif., where a conservative school board majority had fired a popular superintendent, started remov-
ing books from libraries, banning
LGBTQ+ symbols and considering a new parental notification policy that would, in effect, restrict the protected rights of certain students under both state and federal law.

After sitting in a crowded room with adult culture warriors going back and forth for several hours with heated exchanges, I was struck by the bravery of a young transgender high school student who had the courage to go to the podium to address her elected school board with the following request: “I just want to feel safe at school. Please make that happen!”

Fast forward to the March 5 Super Tuesday primary elections here in California, one that was characterized by historically low turnout, which usually gives prominence to the voting habits of older, whiter and more conservative voters.

A new progressive coalition of parents, teachers, organized labor and community members successfully recalled two of the conservative members of the school board majority there and recently appointed progressive replacements for them. The other two members of the previous conservative majority are up for re-election on the November ballot.


A Hopeful trend


This outcome caught the political pundits and experts by surprise. The 25,000-student Orange Unified School District in Orange, Calif., sits in the heart of historic Ronald Reagan country, which is trending purple rather than solidly red in high-turnout elections. It was not seen as a likely place to launch the progressive pushback against the culture wars that have dominated public school debates at the local level, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.


Evidence of this hopeful new trend is emerg- ing in school district elections around the country, including the critical battleground states that are the key to the upcoming November presidential election outcome.


The emerging evidence from Bucks County and Reading in Pennsylvania, Clarksville in Ten- nessee, Lexington in Kentucky, Middletown in Ohio, Plattsmouth in Nebraska, suburban New Jersey and other parts of the country suggests that new coalitions of parents and allies are say- ing emphatically that the interests of all K-12 school children should be the main agenda rather than this recent proxy for the adult culture wars. The latter often creates real-time chaos and dis- ruption in public school districts.

Most of these conservative school board agen- das in the past four years generally have flown under the seemingly common-sense banner of something called “parental rights,” which suggests that a majority of parents absolutely know what is best when it comes to policymaking at their local public schools. Who could possibly disagree with such a valid notion?


I would argue that anyone who has studied the legitimate history of the United States would disagree vehemently because the sad truth is that parental rights often have been used in America to take away the rights of certain children under the guise that parents know best under all circumstances.


Did those Louisiana parents know best when they tried to deny an education to six-year-old Ruby Bridges back in 1960? The mob that yelled at that innocent young black girl was argu-
ing absurdly that parents know best under all circumstances.


Or in liberal-learning California and Mas- sachusetts in the late 1970s when school board members declared that parents in Boston and Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley should control who attends the public schools there?
Consider the fact the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Education has logged a record number of complaints this past year, con- firming that the rights of vulnerable students are under systematic assault throughout our nation.

Communities push back


Writing for The Christian Science Monitor, reporter Courtney Martin describes the rust-belt community of Middletown, Ohio, made famous by Senator J.D. Vance’s 2016 best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” as an emerging success story in fighting back against the school culture wars that dominate so many communities in America.

The school district’s first Black superintendent, Marlon Styles, rather than getting defensive, decided to engage with the parents and commu- nity members who criticized his emphasis on cul- turally responsive approaches to school discipline, reducing inequality and full-on embrace of equity.


Styles sat down with the Middletown Area Ministerial Alliance and began a dialogue, listen- ing and learning tour that was critical to reas- suring the respected faith leaders that the school district he headed had not adopted policies inconsistent with the family values they all shared and supported.


Unlike Middletown’s rust-belt status, the Pennridge School District of Bucks County, Pa.,
is a suburban middle-class community just north of Philadelphia, where a progressive alliance suc- cessfully ousted a 5-4 Moms for Liberty school board majority last November 2023 that was determined to adopt a curriculum from conservative Hillsdale College along with banning policies on diversity, equity and inclusion, Pride flags and books with questionable content.


This is yet another example of a community of voters putting the brakes on efforts to adopt extremist policies at the local school board level. As in other communities, these progressive forces do not have the monetary resources that often give a huge advantage to their better-funded conservative opponents.


One of the more interesting progressive groups fighting back against the conservative parental rights groups has emerged in suburban New Jer- sey. It calls itself SWEEP, or Suburban Women Engaged, Empowered and Pissed. Its members often work with Districts for Democracy, the New Jersey Public Education Coalition and Action Together New Jersey to push back against well- funded conservative alliances.


While open discrimination against LBGTQ+ students through forced outing policies is often the galvanizing force in many of the emerging
progressive pushback efforts, book banning is another significant issue drawing the ire of voters in some communities.


The Omaha World-Herald reported on the suc- cessful recall earlier this year of a newly elected school board member in the small community
of Plattsmouth, Neb., about 20 miles south of Omaha, who argued that about 50 books needed
to be immediately removed from school libraries based on her objections to their adult content.
In addition, the board member argued, “People that voted for me should have been very well
informed on who I was and what I was going to do.” Her book removal campaign led to a grass- roots coalition of parents, students and commu- nity members who came together to recall her from the school board after she served on the board for only a single year.


PEN America, a free speech organization, is tracking a record number of book bans in U.S. school districts, encompassing 23 states and more than 4,000 books removed in the first five months of 2024. It’s no surprise Florida leads the nation in book bans with 3,135 removed in 11 school districts during the fall 2023 semester.


On a personal note, I volunteered in the same 1st-grade classroom for 20-plus years at Colin Powell School in the Long Beach Unified School District, which I headed for 10 years as super- intendent. In spring 2023, at the start of the baseball season, I read my 1st graders a book that is banned in Duval County, Florida’s fourth largest school system. It’s a delightful children’s book by author Jonah Winter titled Roberto Clemente, Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It captures the iconic story of the great Puerto Rican baseball player and humanitarian who died when his plane crashed while transporting relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve in 1972. My 1st graders loved the story of this Caribbean island hero.


Before reading it to my students, I searched for what the objectionable content might be. The only thing I could find was a single sentence that referenced the fact “White sports writers called him lazy when he first came up to the Pirates from the minor leagues.” As most sports fans know, sports writers of all colors are sometimes wrong about future Hall of Famers.


Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, with 19,000 students about 40 miles north of Anchorage, is the center of the most recent book banning controversy to come under federal court scrutiny with a lawsuit brought by
the ACLU and the Northern Justice Project last
fall, according to Alaska Public Media.

The plaintiffs, representing students and par-
ents, are arguing that the school district’s removal of 50-plus books that citizens had complained about is unconstitutional and violates the free speech rights of students. A ruling from a U.S. District Court judge is expected later this year on the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction halting the school district’s removal of the books in question.


A policy under consideration in Wyoming’s largest school district, Laramie County School District 1, would ban any book containing “sexu- ally explicit content” in elementary schools and discourage their use in junior high and high schools, according to news coverage in the Cow- boy State Daily.


The battle there is joined by the Cheyenne chapter of Moms for Liberty on one side and the Wyoming Family Alliance for Freedom on the other. Both sides are gearing up for battle as the school board considers final adoption of this strict policy.


Students First


This past spring, I moderated a panel discussion in Sacramento, Calif., on the embattled political landscape of public schools in California. The
speakers included the dynamic executive direc- tor of our statewide administrators association, a heroic new member of our state legislature and a 17-year-old high school senior who was about to graduate from Chaparral High School in the Temecula Valley Unified School District. The latter is a district whose board, endorsed by an evangelical church, has embraced the notion that the public schools are “the devil’s playground.”

The brilliance of the public school student leader, about to go off to college, stole the show as she confidently articulated what she had learned from outstanding teachers who had exposed her to an honest history of our country and diverse literature that inspires. Proudly sitting in the front row of this large hotel ballroom and cheering her on was her mother, who pointed out that caring and dedicated teachers presenting the truth was what she wanted and demanded from her local public school district. This student and her parent are part of the progressive One Temecula Valley PAC that recently recalled the church-sponsored school board president there.

As we examine the extraordinary stakes in
this fall’s election, school leaders would do well to remember that satisfied students and parents are the best allies and advocates that we could possibly have in the fight to defeat extremists and their blatantly false narratives about America’s public schools.


CARL COHN, a retired superintendent, is professor emeritus and senior research fellow at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif.


Marlon Styles, former superintendent in Middletown, Ohio, convened members of the faith community to recon- cile differing points of view.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Read

The Biggest Issue in 2024 Election: The U.S. Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2024 //
13

Jason Linkins of The New Republic writes that it doesn’t really matter what Kamala Harris’s policies are because the Supreme Court is poised to strike them down. its recent decision, overruling what is known as the Chevron doctrine, hamstrings any Democratic initiative.

If Trump should win, he will be able to appoint replacements for the two oldest justices, guaranteeing a rightwing majority for decades.

Linkins writes that “a dark shadow” blights every policy that a Harris administration might want to initiate. That dark shadow is the conservative majority’s decision in a case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. 

Linkins writes:

That ruling, which overturned a doctrine called “Chevron deference,” puts the future of any policy that Harris favors in grave doubt. If you want the Harris campaign to get more detailed on policy, I’m sorry to say that any conversation starts and ends with how they plan to confront a Supreme Court that has torched the separation of powers in the mad game of Calvinball they kicked off during the Trump era. 

The gutting of Chevron deference is not something that the smooth-brained masses of the political media adequately understood when it came down. Chevron deference is essentially the doctrine that allows government agencies to respond nimbly to their congressional mandates; hitherto, the judiciary stayed out of the way, allowing executive branch personnel to use their expertise to interpret ambiguous regulations. Imagine, for example, the technological advancements that have occurred since landmark environmental legislation was passed decades ago. The EPA, given free rein to adapt to this changing landscape, can move more fleetly to remediate pollution thanks to Chevron. The Roberts court, instead, imagines a world where they have to return to Congress each time there is an emergency, to get specific guidance.

The best way of describing what the conservative majority did is to say it gave six unelected right-wing politicians who all enjoy a lifetime appointment a line-item veto over anything a Democratic Congress—and by extension Harris—wants to do, unless they can muster the votes to confront each problem they want to solve with an inhuman amount of hyper-specificity. As Vox’s Ian Millhiser has explained, if the executive branch “can’t regulate without getting permission from a Republican judiciary … then conservatives no longer need to worry about Democratic presidents doing much of anything that doesn’t meet the GOP’s approval…” 

The Supreme Court really is the most critical policy issue in this election. The Trump-installed majority is central to what the right plans for a second Trump term. Beyond the fact that the Roberts court’s ruling in Trump v. United States imbues the chief executive with monarchic levels of unaccountability—a dangerous privilege for, frankly, any president to possess—Project 2025, which is best understood as a massive rollback of individual rights, is something that Republicans simply could never contemplate without their super-legislature in black robes. 

Here, vaporizing Chevron has an asymmetric impact on the ambitions of the two parties. The GOP, having retreated from any part of the policy realm besides Project 2025’s infernal schemes, the furnishing of tax cuts to plutocrats, and deregulating everything under the sun (also a form of wealth transfer to plutocrats), need not worry about Chevron being in effect anymore.
But what makes Chevron crucial to this campaign is that the sledding for Democrats remains rough even if they prevail in November.

Indeed, even if they blow the GOP out of the water electorally, the end of Chevron deference is a fail-safe against Democratic policy, constantly running in the background as long as five of the six conservatives on the Roberts court agree. In this way, Harris and her fellow Democrats are locked out of liberal governance. Since liberal governance will form the cornerstone of anything Harris and Democrats want to do during her time in office, a confrontation with a Supreme Court that’s holding the policymaking apparatus hostage is not a fight they can duck. 

All Democrats need to join in this fight, and constantly raise the salience of the Supreme Court and its attendant corruption. It would be a good idea for any policy discussion to note that the Roberts court is the primary antagonist to making things better, easier, safer, and fairer for ordinary Americans; they are despoilers of the land and pilferers of our wealth. Harris should continually remind voters that turning things around will require a Democratic president to be on hand to appoint any replacements that may be needed, and prevent the oldest conservative justices from escaping into retirement, which would allow Trump to replace them with young members of the right’s lunatic lower-court farm system.

Is it time to revisit court-packing? I think the institutionalist case against it completely collapsed by the end of the court’s last term, but I doubt Harris has the stomach to revive the idea over the next several weeks. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court will remain the rock in the road that Democrats must find a way around if they want to improve our lives. Anything you might want an ascendant Democratic administration to do faces the judicial veto of right-wingers who can’t be voted out of office. It’s true that Harris is probably not going to deliver, or even champion, the most ambitious policies that progressives favor. But whether you’re a progressive fan of Medicare for All, or a centrist dedicated to means-tested, watered-down bullshit, you’re all in the same boat, so grab an oar.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Justice, Republicans, Trump

Washington Post: Behind the Russian Effort to Sow Division in the U.S.

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2024 //
16

Ellen Nakashima wrote in the Washington Post about the Russian propaganda campaign to advance its interests in the U.S. Its goals are to weaken the U.S. by promoting discord, to undermine U.S. support for Ukraine, and to elect Trump. Some of its propaganda is meant to make Americans mad at their own government, by focusing on real problems, like inflation and the border.

Nakashima writes:

The Russian government’s covert efforts to sway the 2024 presidential election are more advanced than in recent years, and the most active foreign threat this political season, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday.

Russia’s activities “are more sophisticated than in prior election cycles,” said a senior official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in a briefing with reporters, noting the use of “authentic U.S. voices” to “launder” Russian government propaganda and spread socially divisive narratives through major social media, as well as on sham websites that pose as legitimate American media organizations.

Moscow is targeting U.S. swing states in particular, the official said, and using artificial intelligence to more quickly and convincingly create fake content to shape the outcome in favor of former president Donald Trump.

That is “consistent with Moscow’s broader foreign policy goals of weakening the United States and undermining Washington’s support for Ukraine,” the ODNI official said, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the agency….

This week, the U.S. government announced a sweeping set of actions to counter Russian influence campaigns, including an indictment of two Russian employees of the state-run news site RT for allegedly paying an American media company to spread English-language videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X.

Prosecutors also seized 32 Russian-controlled internet domains that were used in a state-led influence effort called “Doppelganger” to undermine international support for Ukraine. In addition, the Treasury and State departments announced sanctions on Russian individuals and entities that are accused of disseminating propaganda.

RT has cultivated networks to disseminate narratives friendly to Moscow, while trying to mask the content as authentic Americans’ free speech, ODNI said in an election security update Friday.

Two things place “Russia at the top of the list” of foreign governments seeking to influence the election, the ODNI official said. “They’re fairly robust and quite practiced at doing this type of activity. Also the scope and the scale of their activities are quite significant.”

“Russia is working up- and down-ballot races,” the official said. They are using artificial intelligence “to more quickly and convincingly create synthetic content” and influence-for-hire firms that leverage marketing, public relations and other expertise to complicate attribution.

“Americans are more likely to believe other Americans’ views compared to content with clear signs of foreign propaganda,” the official said. “So what we see them doing is relying on witting and unwitting Americans to seed, promote and add credibility to narratives that serve these foreign actors’ interests.”

Categories Corruption, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Fake News, International, Trump

Politico: Why the Kremlin Loves Social Media

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2024 //
20

Catherine Kim wrote a fascinating account in Politico of the Russian program to sow division in the United States and to influence the 2024 elections. Kim interviews a Finnish scholar of disinformation who says that Finnish children are taught media literacy in school to help them spot propaganda. His final advice: Turn off the computer; take a walk; play; live your life.

She writes:

A DOJ indictment on Wednesday alleged that content created and distributed by a conservative social media company called Tenet Media was actually funded by Russia. Two Russian government employees funneled nearly $10 million to Tenet Media, which hired high-profile conservative influencers such as Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin to produce videos and other content that stoked political divisions. The indictment alleges that the influencers — who say they were unaware of Tenet’s ties to Russia — were paid upward of $400,000 a month.

These “conservative influencers” were chosen because they have large and devoted fans who believe whatever content they create. They apparently didn’t know who was footing the bill, but were no doubt thrilled to be paid $100,000 for each video they produced, up to four per month. Why ask questions when the pay is so good?

Now that they know who their sugar daddy was, will they rethink any of their views?

Should we think about teaching our children to be discerning consumers of social media so they are not taken in by propaganda?

Categories Corruption, Dark Money, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, International, Media, Propaganda, Trump

Florida: Is DeSantis’s Star Declining?

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2024 //
8

Ron DeSantis is second only to Trump as the most toxic politician in the U.S. He is cruel. He is mean. He is anti-science. He is anti-intellectual. He is a prude. He signed one of the worst abortion bans in the nation. He banned accurate sex education. He demonized anything related to LGBT issues. He tried to suppress drag queens, but they are performers and are irrepressible.

DeSantis has exercised near-total control over the state because both houses of the legislature are Republican-dominated. Whatever DeSantis wanted, the legislature gave him, including a militia under his command. DeSantis personally drew the map to redistrict the state for Congressional seats; he managed to get rid of one of the state’s majority Black dustricts

Taking personal control of education in Florida has been one of his biggest goals. He has focused on redirecting the curriculum of public schools and colleges. He pushed through legislation that banned honest teaching about race and gender in the schools, including a law known as “Don’t say gay,” which restricted teaching about race, gender, and homosexuality. He demanded a revision of the AP course on African American history to delete ideas and authors he didn’t like. His state education department rejected textbooks that were too honest about climate change.

He encouraged book banning, although he publicly denied it; PEN America, however, identified Florida as the state that banned the most books. He has worked closely with the prudes at Moms for Liberty, aka Moms for Censorship. He packed the State Board of Education with his cronies. He eliminated tenure in higher education.

Friends of DeSantis were selected by the state board of education to be president of public colleges; the top job at the University of Florida was given to a retired politician, who lasted one year, gave hefty salaries to his former staff in DC to work remotely, and stepped down with a salary of $1 million yearly until 2028.

DeSantis destroyed the only progressive public college in the state, New Colmege. He packed the board with right wingers, who hired a politician to be its president, eliminated programs that offended them and recruited athletes to replace the free-thinkers who used to be drawn to the school. His aim: to turn progressive New College into the Hillsdale of the South.

In his zeal to redesign K-12 schooling, DeSantis expanded the state’s voucher programs so that every student in the state, regardless of need, was eligible for a public subsidy. This coming year the state will spend about $4 billion on vouchers for private schools, most of which are religious. Most of the students who use vouchers never attended public schools; sought voucher program is subsidizing the tuition of students who were already attending elite private schools or religious schools.

The voucher schools, by the way, are not required to take state tests. They have no accountability to the state taxpayers who fund them.

He appointed a doctor as the state’s “surgeon general” who was critical of vaccines and masking.

DeSantis was looking unstoppable. He seemed to be in line to inherit Trump’s mantle, as leader of the forces of bigotry, anti-science, and anti-intellectualism. But then Trump jumped into the 2024 race and crushed DeSantis in the primaries.

DeSantis is term-limited. He cannot run again in 2026. Competitors are already measuring the drapes in the Governors’ landing.

And DeSantis is starting to see rebuffs that would have been unimaginable before this year.

Two years ago, DeSantis endorsed school board candidates who shared his extreme rightwing views about race and gender. Of the 30 candidates he endorsed, more than 80% won their seat. DeSantis boasted that Florida was the state where “woke goes to die.” But in recent school board elections, only about half the candidates supported by DeSantis and his allies “Moms for Liberty” were elected.

DeSantis was also embarrassed by a sex scandal involving one of his favorite power couples, Bridget Ziegler–a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and a school board member in Sarasota–and Christian Ziegler–chair of the state Republican Party. The Zieglers got caught in a messy threesome, which led to Christian’s resignation from his position and Bridget’s refusal to resign from the school board. Read Bridget’s Wikipedia entry for the sordid details. Moms for Liberty, which crusades against gay sex, dropped Bridget’s name as a co-founder and pretended she didn’t exist.

Then came the latest fiasco: the DeSantis administration planned to put a major development into one of the state’s most important parks, the Jonathan Dickinson State Park. The proposed development included a 350-room hotel and a golf course. The park is near Hobe Sound. It consists of 11,500 acres. Development was planned for other state parks too.

The uproar from people of all political persuasions was instantaneous and loud. “Hands off our park!”

DeSantis dropped the plan.

On August 28, the Washington Post reported:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday pulled the plug on a proposal that would have paved over native habitats and protected beaches in state parks to build golf courses, pickleball courts and large hotels.

The Republican governor backed away from the controversial plan announced by his administration last week after even members of his own party protested. Hundreds demonstrated at the nine parks targeted for development.

“So this is something that was leaked,” DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday in Winter Haven when he was asked about the plan. “It was not approved by me. I never saw that. They’re going back to the drawing board.”

It was the first time DeSantis has spoken publicly about the issue. The “Great Outdoors Initiative” was announced last week by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and called for building three golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, a stretch of undeveloped land north of Palm Beach popular for its trails and birding.

The plan also proposed building new lodges with space for hundreds of guests at Anastasia State Park near St. Augustine and Topsail Hill Preserve in the Panhandle. The latter has sand dunes that the state park service describes as “especially remarkable because they are untouched by development.”

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel wondered who paid whom and who was profiting:

Plans by the Ron DeSantis administration to put golf courses and a hotel into one of Florida’s state parks appear to have suffered a fast and fatal blow.

It wasn’t just that Democrats objected. Virtually everyone did. In fact, Florida Republicans tripped over each other to trash the idea.

“Absolutely ridiculous” was how Rick Scott and Marco Rubio described the way DeSantis’ Department of Environmental Protection wanted to fast-track the controversial development. GOP Congressman Brian Mast called it “bullsh*t.”

It didn’t stop there. Everyone from the Florida Senate president to the state’s Republican CFO said it was nuts to allow a development company to plow 45 holes of golf and a hotel into South Florida’s Jonathan Dickinson State Park, a preserve known for its expansive scrub-jay habitat.

The outcry was so overwhelming that the out-of-state group planning the golf course announced Sunday it was pulling out.

But that only raised more questions. Chief among them: How on earth could one particular development group claim it was abandoning plans for a development opportunity that had never before been publicly advertised?

A key question I had all along: Who’s going to profit? In fact, last week I asked state environmental officials only one question: How will these development companies be chosen?

The answer should’ve been swift and simple: Of course we will open this up to a competitive bidding process. That’s how ethical government works.

Instead, a spokeswoman acknowledged my question, but then never answered it. That was supremely suspicious.

To put an even stinkier cherry on top of this stench sundae, the Palm Beach Post reported that the company had a former Florida secretary of the environment on its payroll as a lobbyist. Because what could be more Florida than one of the state’s top former environmental officials trying to literally pave the way to environmental destruction?

The whole plan reeks of secretive, inside dealing.

Still, inside dealing — specifically no-bid contracts where political pals and cronies cash in on public assets — isn’t new. In fact, it’s been a sordid hallmark of the DeSantis administration, whether it’s a  $100,000 campaign donor that scored $46 million worth of no-bid COVID contracts or no-bid deals at the state’s new Disney governmental services district.

Most Florida Republicans didn’t seem to mind these no-bid deals … until now.

So what changed? Well, two things:

1) This deal was exceptionally bad. Floridians tolerate a lot of rotten behavior. But plans to desecrate land that taxpayers spent millions to protect was just too much.

2) Also, DeSantis’ political clout is seriously diminished. For most of the past six years, Florida’s governor had total control over this state. His fellow Republicans would do anything he asked. But DeSantis’ star has dimmed. His presidential campaign collapsed. His local endorsements fell flat in last week’s primary elections. Once touted as the heir apparent to the MAGA throne, DeSantis has been shoved aside by the JD Vances and Matt Gaetzes of the world. He’s now a lame-duck governor with much glummer prospects.

It’s not clear whether development plans for the other state parks are dead, but it’s hard to believe they will go forward.

As we watch Ron DeSantis’ star fade away, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and hope there’s not a return appearance.

Categories Cruelty, DeSantis, Disruption, Extremism, Florida

Mary Trump: Why Isn’t the Army Prosecuting Convicted Felon Trump for Breaking the Law Again?

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2024 //
28

Mary Trump, Donald’s estranged niece, asks an important question: Why did the U.S. Army decide not to bring charges against Donald Trump for law-breaking? He knew that it was illegal to bring cameras into Arlington National Cemetery; he knew it was illegal to stage a campaign event there. When the aide on duty reminded his crew not to break the law, they shoved her aside and ridiculed her. I assume the Department of the Army is acting out of self-interest. Those who made the decision know that if Trump is re-elected, he will wreak vengeance on them.

Mary T. writes:

Donald Trump and his minions were warned against politicizing a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. They did it anyway, violating self-evident norms and the law: military cemeteries cannot be used to stage partisan political events. When it became clear that Donald’s staff was going to ignore this prohibition, an employee at the cemetery sought to restrict photography in accordance with federal regulations. 

Arlington is “the final resting place of more than 400,000 U.S. troops, veterans and family members. Donald was there to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops during the evacuation of Afghanistan,” an anniversary he did not see fit to commemorate in 2023 or 2022.

Cemetery staff had made it clear ahead of time that official photography was not allowed in Section 60, where veterans of recent wars are buried. When the employee sought to reinforce the guidelines, she was, according to a report released by the Army, “abruptly pushed aside” by people in Donald’s entourage. The last part should surprise no one. Donald is a foppish, chubby overlord who relies on the unquestioning thuggery of the conscienceless jackals who comprise his inner circle and staff who exist to make him look tough. For him, “toughness” means being an unrepentant asshole; people in his orbit simply follow his lead.

Arlington National Cemetery is run by the Army. The woman who tried to make sure the guidelines, and the law, were followed by Donald’s team, is employed by the Army. After the altercation with members of Donald’s staff, she filed a report. It’s understandable that she does not want to press charges—after all, she remains unidentified because of concerns for her safety—but why won’t the Army? What exactly is gained by allowing this act of desecration to go unpunished? And, by the way, engaging in the kind of behavior Donald and his campaign staff engaged in isn’t simply indecent, it’s illegal. So why is the convicted felon allowed to commit more crimes with impunity?

But let’s summon the will to be shocked, shall we? Let’s be shocked that the former Commander-in Chief is such a despicable narcissist that every interaction he has with service members is simply a means simultaneously to steal their honor while denigrating them. 

Is this the worst thing Donald’s ever done? Not by a long-shot. But the combination of selfishness, thuggery, menace, and his willingness to bring the entire weight of his power to bear on a private American citizen is a pretty good encapsulation of everything that is wrong with and disqualifying about him.

It’s time for corporate media to catch up and refuse to let this one go.

Categories Accountability, Character, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Trump

Thom Hartmann: Republicans Are the Party of Cruelty

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2024 //
74

Thom Hartmann is a keen observer of American politics. A prolific writer, he sees issues in historical perspective. He knows that your grandfather’s Republican Party was conservative and imbued with a sense of devotion to community and tradition. Conservatives conserve, not destroy. That party today is devoted to disruption, to destroying communities and their public schools, to protecting the billionaires, and to mocking the weak. It is not your grandfather’s Republican Party.

Thom Hartmann writes:

During the 1950s, Republicans were the party that promoted labor unions, Social Security, and a top 91% income tax bracket and 70% estate tax on the morbidly rich. Dwight Eisenhower successfully campaigned on what we’d call a progressive agenda for re-election in 1956.

During the Reagan years, Republicans embraced Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism with its free trade, opposition to unions, ending free college, and tax cuts for the fat cats. They called themselves “the party of new ideas.” They may have done more harm than good, but for most Republicans it was a good-faith effort. 

Today, they’ve pretty much given up on all of that.  All they have left is cruelty.

When Governor Tim Walz gave his heartwarming acceptance speech Wednesday night here at the DNC in Chicago, his son Gus was caught on camera proudly proclaiming, through tear-streaked eyes, “That’s my dad!” 

The response from Trumpy Republicans was immediate: Ann Coulter wrote, “Talk about weird.” Rightwing hate jock Jay Weber posted, “Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering bitch boy. His mother and I are very proud.” Trumpy podcaster Mike Crispi ridiculed Walz’s “stupid crying son,” adding, “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.” Another well-known podcaster on the right, Alec Lace, said, “Get that kid a tampon already.”

Compassion for a learning-disabled child is dead on the right: all they have left is cruelty.

Ronald Reagan helped shepherd through Congress the most consequential border bill in American history, and when it needed updating Oklahoma’s Republican Senator James Lankford worked with Democrats to update it in a meaningful way. Trump demanded Republicans kill the legislation, invoking the memory of his tearing over 5,500 babies away from their mothers and trafficking them into fly-by-night “adoption” schemes (around 1000 are still missing) and his demand that the border patrol shoot immigrants in the legs.

Trump’s acolytes in Congress don’t even pretend any more to have a border policy: all they have left is cruelty.

President George HW Bush worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to unwind the USSR in the hope of creating a democratic Russia. Neither expected Vladimir Putin to turn that nation into a virtual concentration camp where gays are routinely murdered, child pornography is legal (and they’ve kidnapped over 700,000 Ukrainian children), and dissenters are tortured, poisoned, and sent to brutal Siberian gulags. Donald Trump celebrates Putin, calling his invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “savvy,” handing Putin’s ambassador a western spy and top-secret information in his first month in office, and trying to abandon America’s traditional role as a moral leader in the world.

Trump’s GOP has abandoned our founding principles: all they have left is cruelty.

During the 2020 election, Trump followers tried to run a Biden/Harris campaign bus off the road in Texas, threatening to kill the occupants (which they believed included Kamala Harris). A crazed Trump supporter broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and attacked her 82-year-old husband with a hammer. Trump tweeted a picture of the bus being attacked, writing below it, “I LOVE TEXAS!” and repeatedly makes jokes about the attack on Pelosi, as if to encourage future attacks on the families of other Democratic politicians.

Not a single elected Republican (as best as I can find with a pretty thorough web search) has condemned either: all they have left is cruelty.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis turned down federal money that would have fed 2.1 million low-income children in his state; he was one of 13 Republican governors to do the same, in a nation where one in seven children — over 11 million every year — go to bed hungry.

We are literally the only developed country in the world with a massive child hunger problem because all Republicans have left is cruelty.

When President Obama succeeded in passing and signing the Affordable Care Act, it offered every state funds to expand Medicaid to give healthcare coverage to all their low-income citizens with the federal government covering 90% of the cost. To this day, ten states under Republican control have refused to accept the money, leading to millions of preventable illnesses and early deaths.

Republican states could have joined all the Blue states and every other developed country in the world by providing universal healthcare, but refuse to because all they have left is cruelty.

 When a 10-year-old girl was raped and impregnated, Republicans like Congressman Jim Jordan, Governor Kristi Noem, Fox’s Tucker Carlson and Jesse Waters, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost ridiculed the claim. When the rape and pregnancy were proven and the girl fled Ohio to a state where abortion was legal to terminate the pregnancy, Indiana’s Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita promised to launch an “investigation.”

Rokita didn’t investigate the rape, however: he instead went after the physician who performed the abortion. Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.

When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by seven million votes, he sent a violent mob against the US Capitol. As they tried to murder the vice president and speaker of the house, covered the walls of the building with feces and defaced priceless paintings, Trump gleefully watched on live television for over three hours while refusing to call in the national guard or take any other meaningful action.

Five civilians and three police officers died as the result of his sending that murderous mob because all he and his GOP have left is cruelty.

This week Americans saw Democrats display compassion, care, respect, and reverence for our democracy. We saw the best of this country, hope for the future, and actual plans to improve the lives of Americans.

Last month, in sharp contrast, we watched the Republican convention and saw, instead, a cavalcade of anger, bile, grievance, hate, and, of course, cruelty.

Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.

Note to Thom:

Some things you didn’t mention.

The red states that have repealed or loosened their child labor laws so that teens can work in hazardous jobs at younger ages.

The red states that overturned local laws requiring regular water breaks for laborers working outdoors in hot weather.

The red states that are defunding their public schools.

The red states that have abolished all gun laws and allow open carry of guns without a permit.

The red states oppose free lunches for children.

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Closing schools, Competition, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Republicans

Dan Rather: Trump Is Lying About Project 2025

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2024 //
78

When Project 2025, the definitive guide to Trump’s second term, began to generate negative reactions, Trump claimed he was taken by surprise. All of a sudden, he played dumb about Project 2025: He said he didn’t know who was behind it and had barely heard about it.

As Dan Rather and his team at “Steady” determined, he was lying again. Nothing new there, but he wanted to discourage the public from learning more about Project 2025.

Dan wrote:

Donald Trump and his campaign may have disavowed it, but don’t think for a moment that Project 2025 is going anywhere. A newly released hidden camera interview with one of the project’s authors, who also served in Trump’s Cabinet, reveals that the Republican nominee has “blessed it.” 

First, a little background.

Project 2025, the MAGA blueprint to completely overhaul the federal government, is being spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, the daddy of conservative think tanks, with input from more than 100 other right-wing organizations. “The Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise,” the official title, consists of four pillars:

  • A 900-page policy guide for a second Trump term
  • A playbook for the first 180 days, consisting of 350 executive orders and regulations that have already been written
  • A LinkedIn-style database of potential MAGA personnel 
  • A “Presidential Administration Academy,” a training guide for political appointees to be ready on day one

On July 24, Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, Project 2025 author and Republican National Convention policy director, met with two people he thought were potential donors to his conservative group, Center for Renewing America. They were actually working for a British nonprofit trying to expose information about Project 2025. The two secretly recorded the two-hour conversation.

In the video posted on CNN, Vought described the project as the “tip of the America First spear.” He said that after meeting with Trump in recent months, the former president “is very supportive of what we do.” The project would create “shadow agencies” that wouldn’t be subject to the same scrutiny as actual agencies of the federal government. Vought also told members of the British nonprofit that he was in charge of writing the second phase of Project 2025, consisting of the hundreds of executive orders ready to go on day one of a new administration. 

When asked how the information would be disseminated, his deputy said it would be distributed old-school, on paper. “You don’t actually, like, send them to their work emails,” he said, to avoid discovery under the Freedom of Information Act.

Last week, ProPublica, an investigative journalism nonprofit, obtained more than 14 hours of training videos, which are part of Project 2025’s effort to recruit and train tens of thousands of right-wing appointees to replace a wide and deep swath of current federal civil servants. 

“We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, who was in charge of Project 2025 until he was fired because it’s become such a headache for Trump. “This is a clarion call to come to Washington,” Dans said in 2023. 

Project 2025 is not a new plan; it has been in the works for decades. The first version was published just after Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. In 2015 the Heritage Foundation gave the incoming Trump administration the seventh iteration. Should you think that Trump and his cronies know nothing about any of this, the Heritage Foundation boasted that Trump instituted 64% of the policy recommendations in that document, including leaving the Paris Climate Accords.

Trump has tried and largely failed to distance himself from Project 2025. Perhaps because two high-ranking members of his administration were directors of the project. On Truth Social, Trump posted, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it….” As for those training videos, most of the speakers in them are former Trump administration officials.

Many of Project 2025’s recommendations are deeply unpopular with Americans. A survey conducted by YouGov found that almost 60% of respondents opposed several big tenets, including: eliminating the Department of Education, giving tax cuts to corporations, ending the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and changing the law to allow the president to fire civil servants.

It is difficult to convince voters that the project’s policy recommendations are real because they are so radical. Anat Shenker-Osorio, a political strategist, spoke about the challenges of discussing Project 2025 with focus groups on the podcast “The Wilderness.”

“When we actually cut and paste verbatim from the Heritage document, people are like, that’s a bunch of bull****. Like, why did you make that up? And what is wrong with you? And why are you lying to us?” she said. 

To that end, here are just a few of the most democracy-threatening suggestions, verbatim:

On child labor: “With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations.”

On education: “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the Federal Department of Education should be eliminated.“

On climate change: “Climate-change research should be disbanded … The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be broken up and downsized.”

On LGBTQ+ rights: “The next secretary should also reverse the Biden Administration’s focus on ‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage, replacing such policies with those encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families.”

On families: “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society … The male-female dyad is essential to human nature and … every child has a right to a mother and father.”

Not to mention several highly publicized recommendations on abortion and women’s rights that are an effort to return to America of the 1950s.

The architects of and adherents to Project 2025 want a white, heterosexual Christian nation. The ideals of our 250-year-old form of government, in which majority rules, are anathema to them. They want to inflict their beliefs on everyone, representative democracy be damned. 

I cannot state it strongly enough: Project 2025, with Donald Trump at the helm, is the greatest existential threat to American democracy in recent history. And make no mistake, should Trump win in November, he will usher in many if not most of the project’s recommendations. 

Perhaps Project 2025 should be referred to as Project 1925. In Trump’s mind, that was the time that America was “great,” and they want to go back to that era of low taxes, no abortions, white Christian male domination, no civil rights laws, low taxes, and a very limited federal government.

No thanks. We are not going back!

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Environment, Extremism, Freedom, Gender, Health, School Choice, Science, Trump, Vouchers

John Thompson: Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters Is in Hot Water!

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2024 //
15

John Thompson, historian and teacher, writes about the controversies swirling in Oklahoma, mostly around the MAGA State Superintendent of Schools Ryan Walters, who has mandated Bible lessons in every grade, among other things.

Thompson writes:

The Oklahoma press has been reporting on a seemingly endless number of battles between traditional Republican, conservative legislators, and rightwing extremists exemplified by State Superintendent Ryan Walters and Gov. Kevin Stitt. But this week this political civil war exploded. It culminated in Walters demanding that the Republican Speaker of the House, who almost certainly plans to run for governor against Walters, start impeachment hearings against him!

As KFOR News noted, that raises the question as to why Walters would call for an impeachment hearing against himself. It then quoted the former Attorney General Mike Turpen, who has a half-century of political experience, “Ryan Walters appears to be embracing what I call victim-hood,” Turpen said. “Ryan, what you’re doing right now, saying ‘come get me,’ is political suicide.” Turpen then concluded, “I have no idea who’s advising him, but it breaks my heart for his family,” he said. “This is a Republican Party like a firing squad of circle, and they’re all aimed at one person, Ryan Walters.” 

As Nondoc explains, this came at:

The end of a long week for Walters, which has included news about a legislative investigation into how his agency has and has not allocated appropriated funds, questions about his compliance with state transparency laws, and a new defamation lawsuit filed against him by Bixby’s superintendent (Rob Miller.)

This also was pivotal because Miller was the first superintendent to publicly call out Walters on his mismanagement of funds, even though the World spoke to “at least a dozen other superintendents [who] confirmed that Miller was accurate.” Walters then responded to Miller, a highly respected Gulf War veteran, by calling him a “clown” and a “liar,” and claiming that ‘the Department of Education was ‘dealing with all kinds of financial problems’ at Bixby schools.”

And Walters repeatedly continued to use his aggressive language, “I will not continue to stand here and listen to Speaker McCall and (Republican) Mark McBride lie about my office and lie about the work we are doing.”

As the Oklahoman reported:

On Monday, state Rep. Mark McBride sent a letter to McCall requesting a special investigation of Walters and the state Education Department. Initially, McCall told McBride “no” and said there would be no investigation until 51 Republican members of the House signed the letter.

By Thursday, however, “McBride had the support of 24 other Republican House members and the 20-member Democratic Caucus.” And as the Tulsa World reported, “McBride said he’s heard from other representatives who want to sign on or say they want Walters and the OSDE investigated but are afraid to go public.”

And, as the Oklahoman further explained, its stories this week looked “at Walters’ agency’s failure to turn over funds for life-saving asthma inhalers and why it took more than a year for “off the formula” school districts to be reimbursed for a state-mandated teacher pay raises.” 

Moreover, “other lawmakers criticized Walters for his recent online name-calling about Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller.” Vocal critics included “House Speaker Pro Tempore Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) [who] did not sign McBride’s letter, but on Tuesday he did call for an end to Walters’ “rhetoric toward educators.” 

Hilbert also said, “The same is to be said about allowing legislators access to meetings in which they are clearly authorized by statute to observe.” (He thus came out in support of Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s legal challenge to Walters’ refusal to obey that law. By the way, Drummond will likely be another opponent to Walters in the governor’s race.)

Even Gov. Stitt backed off from Walters’ “name-calling,” saying that, “‘hey, let’s focus on the policies.’ It’s a hateful game sometimes in politics, as people are taking shots at you.” For what It’s worth, Stitt is now calling for “discussions across party lines.”

Then, Rep. Kevin Wallace (R-Wellston), the chair of “the House Appropriations and Budget Committee became the “spearhead” of the call for the investigation of Walters and the Education Department by the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT). And then, McCall “softened his stance and approved an investigation by LOFT.” It “will focus on issues raised by both legislators and private citizens regarding alleged state Education Department funding disbursement issues.”

And by Friday, Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat said, “Numerous Senators and I have been raising questions about spending and money not being allocated to specific programs the legislature has authorized at the Department of Education.” The Senate’s leader further explained that he originally said, “investigations like the state Education Department/Walters investigation weren’t part of LOFT’s original mission or purpose, but he supported the review because the concerns were serious.” He now says, “the Senate will stand ready to respond to any of the (LOFT) findings.”

And that brings us back to the second series of internal conflicts between MAGA’s and “adult Republicans.” As the Oklahoma Voice had reported, months ago, Senator Treat had “warned Gov. Kevin Stitt against targeting Republican senators who are up for reelection.” Treat cited “strong rumors” that Stitt “is seeking to take out good members of the Republican caucus.” He said that Republicans had supported Stitt on school choice and outlawing abortion, but “some Republican senators have been at odds over tax cuts, gaming compacts and other issues.” Treat tactfully said, “I know he (Stitt) is fairly new to it, but all of us talk and so it is even a smaller group of people who fund these ventures.” And, “senators have heard from people who have been “hit up” by Stitt’s operation to go after some Republican senators.”

Who knows if the pushback against Walters and Stitt is a prelude to the inner conflict that the Washington Post reports is growing in the Trump campaign? It reports:

Some of the internet’s most influential far-right figures are turning against former president Donald Trump’s campaign, threatening a digital “war” against the Republican candidate’s aides and allies that could complicate the party’s calls for unity in the final weeks of the presidential race.

For instance, the rightwing extremist Nick Fuentes “said on X that Trump’s campaign was ‘blowing it’ by not positioning itself more to the right and was ‘headed for a catastrophic loss,’ in a post that by Wednesday had been viewed 2.6 million times.” And, “Candace Owens, a far-right influencer … described the conservative infighting in a podcast Tuesday as a ‘MAGA Civil War.’”

Whether we’re talking about Oklahoma’s or national MAGA-ism, they have grown, in large part, because it is easier to tear down a barn, than build one.  Now, that truth may be wrecking Trumpism.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Curriculum, Disruption, Extremism, Oklahoma, Religion

Elie Honig: What Will Happen to Jack Smith’s Case Against Trump Now?

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2024 //
2

Elie Honig is a former federal prosecutor who writes at a site called Cafe, where he and other legal experts follow and explain Trump’s legal entanglements. In this post, he speculates on how Jack Smith’s effort to hold Trump accountable for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election might fare in the months ahead.. Note that he points out that the investigation was hampered by the very late start of the U.S. Justice Department.

He writes:

Dear Reader,

I remember vividly the first time I lost a key piece of evidence. The NYPD had caught our defendant in Washington Heights with a fake police badge around his neck and a loaded gun in his waistband, and we charged him with federal firearms and armed robbery conspiracy crimes. Better yet (for us on the prosecution side), we flipped a cooperating witness who would testify that he and the defendant had committed two prior armed robberies together by posing as cops and ripping off drug dealers.

A week or so before trial began, the judge held a conference to handle routine pre-trial housekeeping. I confidently laid out the cooperator’s expected testimony. “That’s out,” the judge ruled, nonchalantly. “Too prejudicial.” For those who think that every judicial decision is rendered in scholarly prose, replete with probing analysis and citations to applicable precedent: welcome to the real world.

It was a kick in the gut. “That’s such bullshit. He can’t do that,” I whined afterwards. “Sure he can,” my supervisor responded. “He’s the judge.”

My experience is a tiny-potatoes version of what the U.S. Supreme Court has done to Special Counsel Jack Smith and his 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump. The Court declared, for the first time in our history, that a president is entitled to criminal immunity for official acts. That part was no surprise; the law has long recognized civil immunity, and the justices during oral argument seemed in no mood to affirm the lower courts’ outright rejection of Trump’s claim.

But the breadth of the Supreme Court’s decision was astonishing. The majority held, for example, that “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” (It remains unclear exactly how a judge is supposed to draw that vital distinction.) And the Court ruled that if conduct is immune, prosecutors can’t base a criminal charge on it – nor can they mention it at all during trial, even as necessary context or background.

Now the case has landed back in trial court, before Judge Tanya Chutkan. She originally wanted the parties back before her today, but Smith asked for a few more weeks to gather his thoughts; he clearly has accepted that there won’t be a pre-election trial, despite his prior dogged efforts. Trump’s counsel, ever intent on slowing things down, happily consented to the prosecution’s request for delay. When Court reconvenes on September 5, it’ll be up to the Judge to pick through the wreckage and figure out what can be salvaged.

On that question, the Supreme Court has offered pointed guidance, and it bodes poorly for the core of Smith’s indictment. Trump’s effort to coerce the Justice Department to gin up proof of non-existent election fraud? Almost certainly an “official act,” and therefore immune and out of the case altogether. Trump’s pressure campaign aimed at his vice president, Mike Pence? Probably out. And Trump’s public statements, including his tweets and January 6 Ellipse speech? Likely toast, too.

The Supreme Court conspicuously reminded Judge Chutkan that it’s unimpressed with her work so far and will be watching her closely. The justices in the majority blasted the lower courts for “the expedition of this case, the lack of factual analysis… and the absence of pertinent briefing by the parties.” Indeed, as we’ve noted here before, Smith, Chutkan, and the intermediate appeals court judges tried to shortcut ordinary process to get Trump tried before the election; the Supreme Court noticed and disapproved. Most importantly on the vital timing issue, the Court has specified that Trump can appeal Judge Chutkan’s decisions about what conduct is (and is not) immune, before trial starts. That means, as a practical matter, there’s a zero-point-zero percent chance this trial happens before the November 2024 election.

If you’ve been hoping that Trump faces accountability for trying to steal the 2020 election before voters head to the polls for the next one, don’t despair – not fully, anyway. (For the record, I’m with you. The real problem is that DOJ took over two-and-a-half years to charge the case.) Judge Chutkan still can – and I believe will – order an evidentiary hearing to enable Smith to air some of his most explosive evidence, before voters head to the polls.

The Judge now must sift through the prosecution’s evidence and determine how much of Trump’s alleged conduct was an official act (and therefore immune), and which conduct can remain in the case. She has some leeway here. The Judge could opt to take “proffers” from both sides – detailed statements by the lawyers about what they expect their evidence to show. That’s a little flat, but it’s also perfectly permissible and efficient. And then there’s the more sensational alternative: the Judge can permit Smith to call live witnesses to expound from the stand on what their trial testimony would be.

I expect Smith to push for door number two, and Judge Chutkan to agree. If that happens, brace for a series of dramatic in-court encounters. We could see Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, take the stand to give his first-ever public accounting of what his boss did (and didn’t do) before and on January 6. And Mike Pence could testify about how Trump begged and eventually threatened him in an effort to get him to throw the election – and how, on January 6, he had to run for his life to avoid the frothing mob.

No, an evidentiary hearing won’t hit nearly as hard as a jury trial and verdict. And we won’t actually see or hear any of it, because federal courts don’t permit cameras or live audio streaming. (Fair enough, given that it’s apparently the year 1892 right now.) We likely already know the most damaging information, as revealed in 2022 during the unforgettable January 6 Select Committee hearings in Congress, and the ensuing 800-plus page report. But, really, imagine: Trump’s own former chief of staff and VP taking the stand in, say, September of an election year, to describe firsthand how their former boss trampled on the Constitution to try to steal an election. Even if we all mostly know the story by now, that simply can’t be good for Trump at the polls, just weeks before voters cast their ballots.

It’s unclear how much of Smith’s case will ultimately survive the Supreme Court’s strafing. He might eventually go to trial on a tattered indictment focused on Trump’s effort to pressure state and local officials, without any of the damning evidence relating to DOJ and the VP and incitement of the rally crowd. Or the wounds inflicted by the Supreme Court might ultimately prove fatal.

But if Smith’s goal is to expose Trump’s conduct to the American public before the election – and let’s face it, that’s plainly been a driving force for the special counsel all along, despite his refusal to acknowledge it – he’ll still have a backdoor path to partial success.

Stay Informed,

Elie

Elie Honig served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York for 8.5 years and as the Director of the Division of Criminal Justice at the Office of Attorney General for the State of New Jersey for 5.5 years. He is currently a legal Analyst for CNN and Executive Director at Rutgers Institute for Secure Communities

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Justice, Scandals, Trump
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