Jan Resseger summarizes the judicial counterattack to the Trump administration’s efforts to criminalize DEI policies. It’s obvious that the Trump goal is to censor common practices that teach history, warts and all, as well as to kill programs that try to help Black and Hispanic students to succeed.

But the lower federal courts are getting their way. It remains to be seen whether the Trump-dominated U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the lower courts and allow Trump to restore his vision of a white-male dominated society.

Resseger writes:

Earlier this month, the Associated Press’s Collin Binkley broke a story that brought relief and satisfaction to the school superintendents and members of elected school boards across the nation’s 13,000 public school districts: “A federal judge… struck down two Trump administration actions aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the nation’s schools and universities.”

When she reported the story a few minutes later, the NY Times‘ Dana Goldstein highlighted its importance: “A federal judge dealt a sweeping setback on Thursday to President Trump’s education agenda, declaring that the administration cannot move forward with its plans to cut off federal funding from schools and colleges with diversity and equity programs.” But Goldstein cautions: “The legal back and forth is not likely to end any time soon… Eventually, it may be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the president can interpret civil rights law to end racial equity efforts in schools.”

The new ruling is so important, however, that we must all pay attention. Binkley explains: “U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland found that the Education Department violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with DEI initiatives. The guidance has been on hold since April when three federal judges blocked various portions of the Education Department’s anti-DEI measures.” Judge Gallagher’s decision followed a motion for summary judgment from two of the challengers to federal policy—the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association.  Judge Gallagher is a Trump appointee.

Judge Gallagher’s decision will block the implementation of the February 14 “Dear Colleague” letter that Craig Trainor, assistant secretary in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, sent to public school, colleges, and universities, in which he tried to expand the meaning of a narrow 2023 U.S. Supreme Court affirmative action decision, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, as also banning any public school programs or policies designed to achieve diversity, equity and inclusion.

Thursday’s decision will also block the enforcement of the Trump administration’s April 3, 2025 demand that state education agencies and every one of the nation’s 13,000 public school districts sign a certificate promising they had eliminated all programs and policies aimed at achieving DEI.  On April 3rd, the Department of Education threatened to halt federal funding, including Title I funding for public schools serving concentrations of poor children, for schools that refused to follow its order to eliminate DEI.

Goldstein adds that the new decision, “will not lead to immediate changes for schools or colleges, because the administration’s anti-D.E.I. efforts had already been temporarily paused by Judge Gallagher and two other federal judges in April.”  The new decision will, however, ease fear among thousands of public school leaders who have been wrestling with what has seemed a looming threat from the federal government.  Some school districts have already submitted to the federal government’s threats by cancelling programs aimed at reaching students who have historically been left out or left behind.

Binkley and Goldstein both do an excellent job of exploring what the Trump administration seems to mean but never explicitly defines when it condemns its own twisted redefinition of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” While most educators and citizens would like public schools to welcome all students inclusively, to treat students equitably, and to ensure that no children are excluded, the Trump administration has instead tried to turn programs based on these principles into crimes.

Binkley explains that the federal guidance, “amounted to a full-scale reframing of the government’s approach to civil rights in education. It took aim at policies that were created to address longstanding racial disparities, saying those practices were their own form of discrimination.”

Goldstein writes: “While there is no single definition of D.E.I., the Trump administration has indicated that it considers many common K-12 racial equity efforts to fall under the category and to be illegal. Those include directing tutoring toward struggling students of specific races, such as Black boys; teaching lessons on concepts such as white privilege; and trying to recruit a more racially diverse set of teachers. The administration has also warned colleges that they may not establish scholarship programs or prizes that are intended for students of specific races, or require students to participate in ‘racially charged’ orientation programs… The administration had also argued that because the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in college admissions in 2023, all racially conscious education programs are illegal.”  Goldstein concludes: “But those legal interpretations were novel and untested. Judge Gallagher rejected them, writing that the (2023) anti-affirmative action ruling ‘certainly does not proscribe any particular classroom speech or relate at all to curricular choices.’ ”

In her decision on Thursday, Judge Gallagher declared the Trump administration’s ban on “diversity, equity and inclusion” an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment’s protection of  free speech.  Goldstein reports: “In a strongly worded ruling, Judge Stephanie Gallagher… wrote that the administration had not followed proper administrative procedure, and said that its plan was unconstitutional, in part because it risked constraining educators’ free speech rights in the classroom.”

Soon after the Trump administration’s April 3rd letter threatening public school funding including Title I dollars, constitutional law professor Derek Black explained that the April 3rd letter clearly violates the First Amendment protection of free speech, as decided in a landmark, 1943 decision, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. The case involved a widespread requirement in the 1940s that public schools punish or expel students who refused to say “The Pledge of Allegiance.”

Here is how Yale Law School Professor Justin Driver describes the significance of that case in his book, The School-House Gate: Public Education, The Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind:

“Barnette stands out for making three primary substantive innovations that appear at the intersection of constitutional law and education law. First, as a matter of constitutional doctrine, Justice (Robert) Jackson dramatically reconceptualized the requirement (that all students recite the “Pledge”) as raising a question not about the First Amendment’s freedom of religion but about the First Amendment’s freedom of speech… whether people of all backgrounds have an interest in avoiding government-compelled speech…. Jackson suggested that tolerating nonconformity, and even dissidence, was essential to enabling this unusually diverse nation to function.”

Driver quotes Justice Robert Jackson’s decision in the Barnette case: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” (Justin Driver, The School-House Gate, pp. 65-66)

Amos Schocken is the publisher of Haaretz, an Israeli publication founded by his grandfather, who was a publisher and founder of a chain of department stores in Germany who left for Palestine in 1934. His father edited Haaretz for 50 years and served in the Knesset.

He wrote the following editorial, which was titled “A Palestinian State Would Rescue Israel. It Would Not Be a Reward for Hamas.”

He began:

The Netanyahu government is already perpetrating a Nakba against the Palestinians of the West Bank, and is planning to inflict another on the Palestinians of Gaza. It’s time to end the disaster that the settlement movement has inflicted on Israel, end the war and establish a Palestinian state.

It’s now clear what plan Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are following: A Nakba for all the Gaza Strip’s Palestinian residents. The Netanyahu government seeks to throw all the Palestinians out of their homes and pack them into a section of southern Gaza in inhumane conditions. It’s also looking for countries willing to take them in.

The government is already perpetrating a Nakba against the Palestinian residents of the occupied territory in the West Bank, via the settlers and the army. They’re throwing Palestinians out of their homes, perhaps with the goal of concentrating them all in Area A, the part of the West Bank that the Oslo Accords assigned to full Palestinian control.

The flip side of these Nakbas is annexing the territory and building Israeli settlements in all the areas cleared of Palestinians. This violates international law and the United Nations Charter, which states that territory may not be acquired through war, even a victorious war. It’s hard to see how, once the government’s plan is implemented, it will be possible to live in Israel.

Normal life in Israel can only exist if the 100-year war with the Palestinians ends. And today, it’s accepted around the world, including in the Arab world, that this war should end with the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The New York Declaration – the concluding statement of last month’s conference at UN headquarters in New York, led by France and Saudi Arabia with many other countries taking part – is the basis for ending the conflict.

The declaration states that the participants “agreed to take collective action to end the war in Gaza, to achieve a just, peaceful and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the effective implementation of the two-state solution, and to build a better future for Palestinians, Israelis and all peoples of the region.

It adds: “Recent developments have highlighted, once again, and more than ever, the terrifying human toll and the grave implications for regional and international peace and security of the persistence of the Middle East conflict. Absent decisive measures towards the two-state solution and robust international guarantees, the conflict will deepen and regional peace will remain elusive.”

Turkey’s representative at the conference said that given Israel’s conduct over decades, Palestinian militant organizations will not give up their arms without the establishment of an independent, sovereign, contiguous Palestinian state in the 1967 boundaries with East Jerusalem as its capital, or pursuant to the provisions of a peace treaty.

The final statement was approved by France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Norway, Qatar, Senegal, Spain, Britain, the European Union and the Arab League.

The declaration calls for an immediate end to Israel’s war in Gaza and backs the efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to mediate a cease-fire deal between the parties. It stresses the need for a cease-fire, the return of all the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. After the cease-fire, a temporary committee will be set up to run Gaza under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority.

The declaration says Gaza is an integral part of the Palestinian state and must be united with the West Bank. It adds that governance, law enforcement and security throughout this state will rest exclusively with the Palestinian Authority, backed by international support. It welcomes the PA’s call for “one state, one government, one law, one gun” and pledges to support this.

The declaration also adopts the conference participants’ proposals for full cooperation with the cases against Israel being conducted at international courts.

Israel’s leaders claim that recognizing a Palestinian state would reward Hamas for its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. But this wouldn’t be a reward for Hamas, because Hamas is like Smotrich but in reverse: It opposes the existence of a Jewish state in the region.

If anything, a Palestinian state would be a reward for Israel, which would be freed of the brutal apartheid regime over the Palestinians that Israeli governments, always serving the interests of the Gush Emunim settlement movement, have carried out in the occupied territories for 58 years now. Palestinian terror is the result of the situation that Israeli settlements created in the territories. And despite an occupying power’s obligation to enable residents of occupied territory to live normal lives, Israel has done the opposite, heaping abuse on the Palestinians.

Fourteen years ago, in November 2011, I published an op-ed in Haaretz, “The Necessary Elimination of Israeli Democracy.” I quoted a speech to the Knesset by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in January 1993.

“Our assessment is that Iran today has the appropriate manpower and sufficient resources to acquire nuclear arms within 10 years,” Rabin said. “Together with others in the international community, we are monitoring Iran’s nuclear activity. They are not concealing the fact that the possibility that Iran will possess nuclear weapons is worrisome, and this is one of the reasons that we must take advantage of the window of opportunity and advance toward peace.”

With a state, security cooperation with the PA will only grow stronger, and there will be no reason for terrorism. 

I said that Israel had adopted a political strategy whose implementation began with the Oslo Accords. This included ending the preferences given the settlement movement and improving the treatment of Israel’s Arab citizens. And if things had developed differently, I wrote, the Iran situation might look different today. But this strategy clashed with a stronger ideology – that of Gush Emunim.

That ideology saw the Six-Day War as a continuation of the War of Independence. It held that the borders acquired in the 1967 war are the right ones for Israel, and it imposed a hard-line policy on the Palestinians in the occupied territories based on depriving them of rights, installing apartheid and encouraging them to leave.

This is an ideology driven by religious rather than political concerns, and it assumes that the Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jews. Because of this, Israel’s Arab citizens are also exposed to discrimination and the risk of being stripped of their citizenship. This ideology has no problem with criminal acts because it rests on what it deems a higher law that lacks a connection to either Israeli or international law. That’s how it led to Rabin’s murder.

I said in that piece that since 1967, no group in Israel has had as much ideological power as Gush Emunim, which has also gained American support and influenced the legislation aimed at undermining the Supreme Court and human rights groups. I warned that this unstable, dangerous situation prevents Israel from realizing its full potential and could lead to the collapse of the peace agreement with Egypt, a third intifada and Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, just as Rabin warned.

Today, the time has come to finally end the disaster that Gush Emunim and the settlement movement have brought down on Israel by denying it the possibility of agreeing to a Palestinian state and requiring it to fight the Palestinians, who, just like the Jews, still want sovereignty, independence and responsibility for their own fate and national honor.

One argument made against establishing a Palestinian state is that it will threaten Israel’s security. For instance, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s previous UN ambassador, considers such a state an immediate existential threat to Israel. “Any area in the hills of Judea and Samaria that is handed over could be used tomorrow morning as a zero-distance base for launching missiles and ground invasions that would threaten the heart of the country,” he wrote in the Israel Hayom daily on June 29. 

But this is a ludicrous claim. The Palestinian state will be demilitarized, the existing security cooperation between the PA and Israel will only grow stronger, and when the Palestinians become citizens of their own country – and we have to assume that the connection with Israel will give them certain advantages – there will be no reason for terrorism, only for good relations.

If Netanyahu understood the blow that October 7 was to his policy, he would opt for a state led by the PA, which Hamas hates. 

Netanyahu has consistently opposed any involvement by the PA in resolving the situation in Gaza, contrary to the New York Declaration, which views such involvement favorably. He has two arguments. One is that the PA supports terror – a false claim, since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said explicitly at his inauguration that he opposes violence and will pursue diplomacy only. The second argument is that the PA education system promotes hostility to Israel.

The PA is convenient for Israel’s government because if Israel were responsible for the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, it would need an enormous budget. And Netanyahu’s complaints about the PA education system are utterly hypocritical.

First, he never sought a meeting with Abbas in an effort to fix the things he doesn’t like about the PA. And have you ever heard Netanyahu talk about the education of the “hilltop youth” or other settlers who abuse Palestinians in the service of the government’s interests? Haaretz has reported on their violent actions nonstop, but that doesn’t interest Netanyahu.

Or have you ever heard him urge his Knesset colleagues to do what should be obvious in any democracy? That is, leave prominent Arab Israeli lawmaker Ayman Odeh alone, because his presence in the Knesset is important to Israel. No, Netanyahu hasn’t done that either. So he has no grounds to complain about the Palestinians’ education.

How did we get here? The answer is clear: Netanyahu is spearheading a policy that is dangerous to Israel’s future and to its citizens, who are the victims of the ongoing Palestinian terror and are now loathed by many people around the world. His policy is also dangerous to the Jewish people, who are suffering from rising antisemitism due to the death and destruction in Gaza. The policy he has implemented throughout his terms as prime minister completely ignores the Palestinians’ aspirations for self-determination and political independence.

Netanyahu has supported the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers, who continue to do as they please with the country. No decent person would dare form a government with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, extremist settlers who hate Arabs. But Netanyahu’s government guidelines with them say that only Jews have rights throughout the Land of Israel. In this way, too, he invited the October 7 attack. Nor would any decent person facing charges in court dare assault the legal system the way he has.

Netanyahu shamelessly continues to postpone any discussion of postwar arrangements. If he were smart and understood that October 7 was a decisive blow to his policy of ignoring Palestinian interests, he would have decided on his own to establish a Palestinian state led by the PA – which Hamas hates – enshrined in suitable agreements. If he had decided on this quickly, it would have spared the lives of many Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

In January 2024, I published an op-ed in Haaretz saying that Israel would win if it got all the hostages back – even in exchange for Palestinian prisoners – and agreed to then-U.S. President Joe Biden’s stance favoring the establishment of a Palestinian state. A month later, I reiterated this in an op-ed whose headline called for a return of the hostages and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In response to Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations in September 2024, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi held a press conference at the UN with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. Safadi said that “all of us in the Arab world here, we want a peace in which Israel lives in peace and security … in the context of ending the occupation, withdrawing from Arab territory, allowing for the emergence of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 lines. … That’s our narrative.”

He continued: “After 30 years of efforts to convince people that peace is possible, this Israeli government killed it. … We want peace, and we have laid out a plan for peace. Ask any Israeli official, what is their plan for peace? You will get nothing because they are only thinking of the first step – we are going to go and destroy Gaza, inflame the West Bank, destroy Lebanon. … We have no partner for peace in Israel.”

The past 30 years have largely been Netanyahu’s watch. And he has brought disaster down on Israel.

Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill codified a budget that included devastating cuts to the National Institutes of Health. Chalkbeat Colorado recounted the damage that cuts to the National Institutes of Health will do to the local economy and medical research in Colorado.

Chalkbeat reported:

Federally funded research grants have paved the way to life-saving treatments and contribute millions to local economies.

But, according to a new study, the 2026 Trump administration budget cuts could halt that research, result in job losses, and hurt the economy in every U.S. congressional district.

These estimates from the Science and Community Impacts Mapping Project say slashing National Institutes of Health grants, which are just 1% of the federal budget, by $18 billion within Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would result in $46 billion in lost economic revenue and over 200,000 jobs lost nationwide.

The mapping project researchers compared active grants within the 2020-24 budget years to the projected 2026 budget changes.

In Colorado, budget cuts are estimated to amount to $657 million in economic losses and 2,800 jobs in the state’s eight congressional districts. Much of this research is conducted by universities across the state, with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus expected to lose the most funding.

Advocates for the grants have said that federally funded scientific and medical research improves public health, helps spur innovation, creates jobs, and boosts the economy.

The report says the White House budget cuts research to life-saving diagnostics, therapeutics, and potential cures. That includes a 39% cut to the National Cancer Institute, a 38% cut to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and a 42% cut to the National Institute on Aging.

The report adds that NIH grants “contributed to more than 99% of the 300-plus drugs approved by the FDA from 2010-2019, including drugs to treat metastatic breast cancer, reduce birth defects caused by viruses, and novel antibiotics to treat multidrug resistant ‘superbugs.’”

This is a sickening video of Trump’s last Cabinet meeting. The members of the Cabinet competed to see who could be the most obsequious to Dear Leader.

This is a new twist on the voucher scam. In South Carolina, a state audit revealed that about one-third of the vouchers awarded by the state went to students who returned to their local public school or never left it.

Zack Koeske of The State reported:

More than a third of the nearly 3,000 South Carolina students awarded taxpayer-funded school vouchers last year later withdrew or were removed from the program due to eligibility concerns, S.C. Department of Education data shows.

The department suspended the accounts of 1,229 voucher recipients last school year after they were flagged during enrollment checks conducted to verify that participants had left their zoned school districts, an education department spokesman said.

To be eligible for a voucher last year, a student could not be enrolled full-time in their local district.

About 1 in 5 of the suspended accounts were reinstated after further review confirmed their eligibility. The remaining 1,005 suspended participants, all of whom had already received at least one $1,500 scholarship payment, left the program.

All of the recipients who were removed from the program due to enrollment verification had been enrolled at their zoned public schools, S.C. Department of Education spokesman Jason Raven wrote in an emailed statement.

The department recovered all unused funds that remained in the scholarship accounts of former participants, but did not attempt to recover any scholarship money those participants had already spent…

Launched last year, South Carolina’s school voucher program publicly subsidizes low- and middle-income families that send their K-12 children to private schools or public schools outside their residence area.

Families making no more than twice the federal poverty level, or $62,400 for a family of four, were eligible for $6,000 vouchers last school year.

A horrible school shooting, this time at a Catholic school in Minnesota. A deranged and hate-filled killer, carrying three weapons.

Nothing will change until the GOP abandons its love of guns. Nothing will change unless Democrats regain control of the House and Senate and pass sensible gun control laws.

There will be no safety for anyone until deadly weapons are locked away.

When the party in control of government loves guns more than innocent human life, there will be no change. The carnage continues, abetted by our elected officials. They have no shame.

Marc Elias of Democratic Docket writes about Trump’s brazen indifference to the Constitution and the law, and the mainstream media’s tendency to normalize his statements and behavior. Yesterday, he said, was a day of tyranny in the nation.

Elias, a lawyer for democratic resistance, writes:

Sitting in the Oval Office, flanked by adoring aides standing stiffly at attention, Donald Trump yesterday announced: “A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator.”

The remark, delivered with his trademark mixture of menace and showmanship, might have been dismissed as yet another provocation — except that Trump immediately reinforced the point by declaring his intention to disregard Congress and federal law.

After musing about renaming the Department of Defense as the “Department of War,” a reporter noted that such a change would require congressional approval. Trump brushed aside the objection: “We are just going to do it,”before adding, “I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that.”

Here, in a single exchange, Trump revealed both his contempt for the rule of law and his calculation that the Republican-controlled Congress will not restrain him. Sadly, on both counts, he is correct.

His administration has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to trample legal and constitutional limits without hesitation. Meanwhile, the Republican Congress has reduced itself to a doormat — incapable or unwilling to challenge him even when its own power is at stake.

What is perhaps most troubling is the muted response from the broader political and media ecosystem. Scanning today’s headlines, I saw only fleeting references to Trump’s brazen comments. No major outlet gave the story front-page treatment. Even more telling, no prominent Republican leaders were pressed to respond. The silence was deafening — and dangerous.

Instead, the political news cycle became consumed with two of Trump’s other announcements: his pledge to expand the deployment of National Guard troops and federal military forces into major U.S. cities, and his unilateral decision to fire a sitting member of the Federal Reserve Board.

On the first, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker mounted a powerful rebuttal. Holding a press event in Chicago, Pritzker effectively demonstrated that Trump’s threats against blue cities were not only politically motivated but also a violation of federalism — the principle of state sovereignty enshrined in the Constitution.

On the second, last night, Trump announced that he had fired Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board. The move was shocking. Presidents lack the legal authority to remove federal governors except under the most extreme circumstances, and Trump had been explicitly warned by the Supreme Court that firing a Fed member would be a step too far. Yet Trump pressed ahead, disregarding both law and the risk that undermining the Fed could destabilize the U.S. economy.

In a single day, Trump managed to promote dictatorship, disregard Congress, trample federalism and defy the Supreme Court. It would almost be impressive if it weren’t so horrifying. This is the cold bleak reality of American democracy just seven months into his new term.

However, don’t lose sight of hope quite yet. There were still bright spots in the opposition movement. Pritzker’s speech was a tour de force of how to stand up to Trump. It was smart, forceful and powerfully delivered. 

The speech was all the better because Trump is clearly intimidated by Pritzker. Pritzker is everything Trump is not. His and his family’s wealth is the result of building great businesses and smart investments, not grifts and crypto schemes. Pritzker has used his advantages in life to benefit the people he serves, while Trump preys on his supporters — bilking them for money while cutting their government services. Most importantly, Pritzker is at ease with himself and others. He is admired as someone who is articulate, warm and kind. Trump is always performing an act that makes him the object of scorn and mockery.

One passage of Pritzker’s speech really stood out as both factually correct and important for everyone in the pro-democracy movement to absorb:

“This is about the President of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections.”

This statement is not hyperbole. It is an unvarnished description of the authoritarian project unfolding before our eyes.

Pritzker also offered important words of caution for the media.

“To the members of the press who are assembled here today, and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see, where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president’s actions.”

The governor correctly points out that the danger is not just Trump himself but the normalization of his behavior. Each time he disregards the law and faces little pushback, the boundaries of what is tolerated shift. Each time the press downplays his authoritarian statements as “just rhetoric,” or Republican leaders remain silent, the line between democracy and strongman rule erodes further.

It is tempting to hope that institutions — the courts, Congress, the press — will act as guardrails. Yet institutions are only as strong as the people who inhabit them. If lawmakers cower, if journalists flinch, if judges equivocate, then the institutions collapse under the weight of cowardice.

Trump’s declaration that America might “like a dictator” should have been headline news across the country. Instead, it was met with shrugs and silence — a chilling sign of how desensitized we have become.

The danger is real. A president who flouts Congress, defies the Supreme Court and threatens states with military force is not joking. He is testing the limits of our democracy, probing for weakness.

History teaches that democracies rarely fall in a single dramatic moment; they decay gradually, through a series of small surrenders. Each time we excuse, ignore or minimize authoritarian behavior, we make the next step easier. The path back from that erosion is long and uncertain.

The question now is whether enough Americans will recognize the peril in time. Will Congress find its backbone? Will the press rediscover its watchdog role? Will citizens demand accountability? The future of our republic depends on the answer.

For a change, good news from Texas. Needless to say, the good news comes a judge, not the odious legislature, which is firmly controlled by Governor Greg Abbott. Judge Fred Biery blocked a law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. State Attorney General Ken Paxton urged schools to ignore Judge Biery’s decision. The Appeals Court for the Fifth Circuit has already knocked down a similar law from Louisiana.

A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking a Texas law that would have mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom across the state.

In his ruling on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio temporarily prohibited 11 Texas school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments. 

The Clinton appointee said a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Dallas-area families, faith leaders and civil liberties advocates raised questions about the constitutionality of Senate Bill 10, which would have required the displays in schools statewide starting September 1.

The decision marks the third time a federal court has struck down such a state-level requirement, following similar rulings in Louisiana and Kentucky.

Biery’s 55-page ruling emphasized the potential impact on students and teachers, noting that “even though the Ten Commandments would not be affirmatively taught, the captive audience of students likely would have questions, which teachers would feel compelled to answer. That is what they do.”

He maintained that such displays could lead to unintended religious discussions, placing educators in the difficult position of navigating complex theological issues in a public school setting, potentially infringing on students’ rights to a secular education.

As an example, the judge offered a fictional account of a similar law in Hamtramck, Michigan, where the majority Muslim community “decreed” that the Quran should be taught in public schools. As part of the example, Biery quoted directly from the Quran.

“While ‘We the people’ rule by a majority, the Bill of Rights protects the minority Christians in Hamtramck and those 33 percent of Texans who do not adhere to any of the Christian denominations,” the judge wrote. 

He also cited the biblical accounts of Abraham leaving the land of Ur to proclaim, as the judge wrote in quotations, “the one true God.” Naming Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as the “triad of the ‘desert religions,'” the judge said elsewhere other belief systems were formed, including “those which have come to exist in the American experience.”

Claiming that humans “evolved over several million years to be the only species which knows it will die,” Biery attributed the rise of human religion to people “not wanting their existence to end.”

Quoting everything from Stephen Hawking to Sonny and Cher, the judge also quoted from John 11:35, saying Jesus — who he called the “cousin” of Moses and Mohammed — would have wept if he saw the “blood spilled by their followers against each other.” 

Writing that SB 10 “officially favors Christian dominations over others” and “crosses the line from exposure to coercion,” Biery expressed concern that public displays of the Ten Commandments “are likely to send an exclusionary and spiritually burdensome message” that would identify the plaintiff families as “the other.”

“The displays are likely to pressure the child-Plaintiffs into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the State’s favored religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious backgrounds and beliefs while at school,” the judge wrote.

In his closing statement, Biery — a 77-year-old known for using puns and colorful language in his rulings — appeared to suggest Christians might resort to violence in response to his ruling. He offered a “prayer” using the New Testament phrase “grace and peace” and concluding with “Amen.”

“For those who disagree with the Court’s decision and who would do so with threats, vulgarities, and violence, Grace and Peace unto you,” he wrote. “May humankind of all faiths, beliefs and non-beliefs be reconciled one to another. Amen.”

The suit names 11 of some of the state’s biggest school districts, including Houston ISD, Austin ISD, and Plano ISD, but notably excludes Dallas ISD. The plaintiffs contend that the law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2024 violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which ensures the separation of church and state, and the Free Exercise Clause, which protects individuals’ rights to practice their religion freely.

The case is expected to move to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against a similar Louisiana law in June, before potentially advancing to the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 conservative majority could redefine the boundaries of church-state separation. 

Two important local elections produced great news for the Democratic Party.

In Iowa, a special election was held for a state Senate seat in a solidly Republican district that Trump won by 11.5 points in 2024. Democrat Caitlin Drey won, overturning a Republican supermajority in the state senate. Drey won by more than 10%. There was a 20-point swing to the Democrats.

In a ruby red district in Georgia, seven candidates vied for a state Senate seat. Democrat Debra Shirley came in first with 39% of the vote. There will be a runoff on September 23 and she will oppose the top-scoring Republican, who won 17% of the vote.