One of the most important jobs in the federal government is that of the DC federal prosecutor. He or she handles important cases related to national security, among other things. Trump has chosen Ed Martin, a MAGA lawyer who has defended the J6 insurrectionists and insisted that the 2020 election was rigged. Now, The Washington Post reports that Ed Martin has been a loyal defender of Russia and Putin and has repeatedly spouted Putin’s propaganda on Russian state media.
Spencer S. Hsu and Aaron Schaffer of the Washington Post report:
Hours before President Donald Trump announced U.S. missile strikes on Syria in response to a chemical attack that killed 90 civilians in April 2017, Ed Martin said on the Russian state television network RT America that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might not be to blame. Instead, Martin told viewers, the situation was “engineered” in Washington “by the people that want war in Syria.”
In early 2022, Martin told an interviewer on the same arm of RT’s global network that “there’s no evidence” of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, criticizing U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia’s security concerns. Russia invaded nine days later, igniting a war that continues today.
Martin is now interim U.S. attorney for D.C. and Trump’s pick to serve full time in the role. But as a conservative activist and former Missouri Republican official, he appeared more than 150 times on RT and Sputnik — networks funded and directed by the Russian government — as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024, according to a search of their websites and the Internet Archive’s database of television broadcasts.
Martin did not disclose the appearances last month on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, which asks nominees to list all media interviews. Analysis of television archives suggests he went on RT and Sputnik more often than on any major cable network during that span.
Martin’s frequent appearances, reviewed by The Washington Post, drew rebukes from some national security analysts, who accused him of amplifying anti-American propaganda on Russian outlets that the State Department last year said had moved beyond disinformation to engage in covert influence activities aimed at undermining democracies worldwide for President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Martin’s brief tenure as top federal prosecutor in Washington has stoked controversy. Democrats accuse Martin — a Trump “Stop the Steal” organizer who has called the 2020 election and the 2016 Russian election interference investigation “hoaxes” — of violating the law and legal ethics in threatening to investigate or prosecute lawmakers, protesters, journalists and others whom he perceives as undermining Trump’s agenda.
Former U.S. national security officials and analysts said Martin’s RT and Sputnik appearances, and his failure to disclose them, raise questions about his judgment and candor.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington is the largest in the country and has wide jurisdiction to prosecute important national security offenses, former officials said. Its leader should be alert to the threats and risks posed by Russia and other influence operations from overseas, such as the ones the office has prosecuted in recent years involving Russia and other foreign actors, they argued.
Open the link to finish the article.
Based on his views, we can be sure that Mr. Martin will not “be alert to the threats and risks posed by Russia.” Based on his past history, we can expect that he will do what’s best for Russia.
Denis Smith retired from his position at the Ohio Department of Education, where he oversaw charter schools (which are called “community schools” in Ohio). In this post, he describes what he saw at the Network for Public Education Conference in Columbus, Ohio, in early April.
He wrote:
When It’s About Hands Off! That Also Applies to Public Schools
The Hands Off! demonstrations at the Ohio Statehouse that drew thousands of protestors wasn’t the only gathering of activists last weekend in downtown Columbus. Just a short distance away at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, a smaller but equally passionate gathering of concerned citizens from across the nation came to Ohio’s capital city to attend the Network for Public Education’s National Conference and affirm their support for the common school, the very symbol of democracy in this increasingly divided nation.
That disunion is driven in part by the rapid growth of universal educational vouchers and charter schools, where public funds flow to private and religious schools as well as privately operated charter schools and where public accountability and oversight of taxpayer funds is limited or even absent. In many states, including Ohio, those public funds in the form of vouchers are drawn from the very state budget line item that is earmarked for public schools.
Of particular concern to the conference attendees is the division in communities fueled by vouchers, which have been shown in some states to subsidize private and religious school tuition exceeding 80% of those enrolled. In Ohio, according to research conducted by former Ohio legislator Stephen Dyer, the figure is 91%.Several speakers referred to this situation as “welfare for the rich” and “an entitlement for the wealthy.”
The research shared at the conference also confirmed the findings of the National Coalition for Public Education that “most recipients of private school vouchers in universal programs are wealthy families whose children never attended public schools in the first place.” So much for the tired Republican rhetoric of vouchers being a lifeline of escape from “failing schools” for poor inner-city children.
Another strong area of concern shared at the NPE event was the growing intrusion of religious organizations like Life Wise Academy which recruit students for release time Bible study during the school day. While attendees were told that school guidelines direct that such activities are to be scheduled during electives and lunch, the programs still conflict with the normal school routine and put a burden on school resources, where time is needed for separating release time students and adjusting the instructional routine because of the arrival and departure of a group within the classroom.
One presenter, concerned about students receiving conflicting information, said that his experience as a science teacher found situations where there was a disconnect between what he termed “Biblical stories and objective facts.” In addition, he shared that a group of LifeWise students missed a solar eclipse because of their time in religious instruction.
Some Ohio school districts, including Westerville and Worthington in Franklin County, had to amend their policies in the wake of HB 8, which mandated that districts have religious instruction release time policies in place. The district policies had been written as an attempt to lessen the possibility of other religious programs wanting access to students and the further disruption that would cause to the school routine.
The recent legislative activity about accommodating religious groups like Life Wise is at variance with history, as conference chair and Network for Public Education founder Dr. Diane Ravitch pointed out in her remarks about the founding of Ohio. As part of the Northwest Territory, she noted that Ohio was originally divided into 32 plots, with plot 16, being reserved for a public school. No plot was set aside for a religious school.
Ohio became the first state to be formed from the Northwest Territory, and its provision for public education would become a prototype for the young republic. The common school, an idea central to the founders of the state, would be located such “that local schools would have an income and that the community schoolhouses would be centrally located for all children.”
Unfortunately, the idea of the common school being centrally located in every community is an idea not centrally located within the minds of right-wing Republican legislators. From the information exchanged at the conference, that is the case in the great majority of statehouses, and a matter of great concern for continuing national cohesiveness.
The theme of the NPE National Conference, Public Schools – Where All Students Are Welcome, stands in marked contrast with the exclusionary practices of private and religious schools where, unlike public schools, there are no requirements to accept and enroll every student interested in attending. While these schools are reluctant to accept students who may need additional instructional support, they show no reluctance in accepting state voucher payments.
Texas Rep. Gina Hinojosa. Photo: Texas House of Representatives
Texas State Representative Gina Hinojosa, one of the keynote speakers, told the audience about her experience in fighting Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher scheme and the double meaning of the term school choice. “School choice is also the school’s choice,” she told the audience, as she estimated that 80% or more of state funds will go to kids who are already enrolled in private and religious schools.
Her battle with the Texas governor, who has defined the passage of voucher legislation in the Lone Star State as his “urgent priority,” is a tale of his alliance with Jeff Yass, a pro-voucher Pennsylvania billionaire who has donated $12 million so far to Abbott’s voucher crusade.
Hinojosa was scathing in her criticism of Abbott and his fellow Republicans and of a party that once “worshipped at the altar of accountability.” Now, she told the attendees, “they want free cash money, with no strings attached.”
“Grift, graft, and greed” is the narrative of appropriating public funds for private purposes, Hinojosa believes, a tale of supporting “free taxpayer money with no accountability.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Photo: Denis Smith
The NPE conference ended with an address by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee. With his background as a former teacher and coach, Walz had a strong connect with an audience comprised mostly of educators and public school advocates. His folksy language and sense of humor further endeared him to the conference attendees.
Based on the continuing bad behavior of Jeff Yass and other affluent actors in the voucher and charter wars, greedy bastards is a better descriptor than oligarchs, he observed. From the reaction of the audience and what they heard previously from Gina Hinojosa and other presenters, the language offered by Walz was a more accurate definition of welfare for the wealthy.
At the end of his remarks, Walz encouraged educators not to despair but to accept their key place in society. “There is a sense that servant leadership comes out of serving in public education.”
Attendees at the NPE conference included educators, school board members, attorneys, legislators, clergy, and policy makers – a cross-section of America. Their presence affirmed a core belief that the public school, open to all, represents the very essence of a democratic society. And there is no debate about whether or notthose schools are under attack by right-wing legislatures intent on rewarding higher-income constituents with tuition support to schools that choose their students as they exercise the “school’s choice.”(As a devotee of the Apostrophe Protection Society, I applaud this distinction.)
So what are we going to do about this? Attendees left the conference with some strong themes.
The choir needs to sing louder.
Hope over fear. Aspiration over despair.
The road to totalitarianism is littered with people who say you’re overreacting.
Who are the leaders of the Democratic Party? They’re out there. On the streets.
It’s not just don’t give up. Be an activist.
As the loudness about the subject of what is more aptly described as “the school’s choice” gets louder,” you can bet that servant leaders like Diane Ravitch, Gina Hinojosa, Tim Walz and others are making a difference in responding to the challenge of servant leadership to ensure that the common school, so central to 19th century communities in the Northwest Territory and beyond, continues to be the choice of every community for defining America and the democracy it represents.
Nancy Flanagan is a retired veteran teacher. Her blogs are always insightful because she sees the issues from the perspective of her long career in the classroom. In this post, she explains why some conferences work and some don’t. She wrote it after returning home from the Network for Public Education conference.
She writes:
I am just back from the Network for Public Education conference, held this year in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus is an eight-hour drive from my house, and we arrived at the same time as ongoing flood warnings. But—as usual—it was well worth the time and effort expended.
For most of my career—35 years—I was a classroom teacher. Garden-variety teachers are lucky to get out of Dodge and attend a conference with their peers maybe once a year. Teachers don’t get airfare for conferences in other states and often end up sharing rides and rooms, splitting pizzas for dinner. They go with the intention of getting many new ideas for their practice toolboxes—lesson plans, subject discipline trends and tips, cool new materials—and to connect with people who do what they do. Be inspired, maybe, or just to commiserate with others who totally get it.
In the real world (meaning: not schools), this is called networking. Also in the real world—there’s comp time for days missed at a weekend conference, and an expense form for reimbursements. Conversely, in schools, lucky teachers get a flat grant to partially compensate for registration, mileage, hotel and meals. In many other schools, nobody goes to a conference, because there’s just not enough money, period.
When you hear teachers complaining about meaningless professional development, it’s often because of that very reason—there’s not enough money to custom-tailor professional learning, so everyone ends up in the auditorium watching a PowerPoint and wishing they were back in their classrooms.
Back in 1993, when Richard Riley was Secretary of Education, his special assistant, Terry Dozier, a former National Teacher of the Year, established the first National Teacher Forum. (In case you’re wondering, the Forums lasted just as long as the Clinton administration, and Riley, were in the WH.) Teachers of the Year from all 50 states attended. The purpose of the conference was to engage these recognized teachers in the decision-making that impacted their practice. In other words, policy.
It was probably the most memorable conference I ever attended. I took nothing home to use in my band classroom, but left with an imaginary soapbox and new ideas about how I could speak out on education issues, engage policymakers, and assign value to my experience as a successful teacher. The National Teacher Forum literally changed my life, over the following decades.
But—the idea that teachers would start speaking out, having their ideas get as much traction as novice legislators’ or Gates-funded researchers, was a hard sell. Education thinkers aren’t in the habit of recognizing teacher wisdom, except on a semi-insulting surface level. In the hierarchy of public education workers, teachers are at the lowest level of the pyramid, subject to legislative whims, accrued data and faulty analyses, and malign forces of privatization.
Which is why it was heartening to see so many teachers (most from Ohio) at the NPE conference. The vibe was big-picture: Saving public education. Debunking current myths about things like AI and silver-bullet reading programs. Discussing how churches are now part of the push to destabilize public schools. New organizations and elected leaders popping up to defend democracy, school by school and state by state. An accurate history of how public education has been re-shaped by politics. The resurgence of unions as defenders of public education.
Saving public education. A phrase that has taken on new and urgent meaning, in the last three months. Every single one of the keynote speakers was somewhere between on-point and flat-out inspirational.
Here’s the phrase that kept ringing in my head: We’re in this together.
The last two speakers were AFT President Randi Weingarten and MN Governor Tim Walz. I’ve heard Weingarten speak a dozen times or more, and she’s always articulate and fired-up. But it was Walz, speaking to his people, who made us laugh and cry, and believe that there’s hope in these dark times.
He remarked that his HS government teacher—class of 24 students, very rural school—would never have believed that Tim Walz would one day be a congressman, a successful governor and candidate for Vice-President. It was funny—but also another reason to believe that public schools are pumping out leaders every day, even in dark times.
In an age where we can hear a speaker or transmit handouts digitally—we still need real-time conferences. We need motivation and personal connections. Places where true-blue believers in the power of public education can gather, have a conversation over coffee, hear some provocative ideas and exchange business cards. Network.
Trump administration officials have described the men deported to El Salvador prisons last month as “the worst of the worst,” suggesting they were gang members involved in murder, rape and kidnapping.
The reality is that of 238 migrants — mostly Venezuelan — that officials accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang and expelled to the Central American country in mid-March, just a small fraction had ever been charged with serious crimes in the US.
Hundreds of pages of US legal records and American government statements reviewed by Bloomberg News found five men charged with or convicted of felony assault or firearms violations. Three men were charged with misdemeanors including harassment and petty theft. Two others were charged with human smuggling.
For the rest of the men, there was no available information showing they committed any crime other than traffic or immigration violations in the US.
The findings raise questions about how the Trump administration determined that the migrants sent to El Salvador were violent criminals. The US maintains that all of the Venezuelans on the flights had committed a crime because they were in the country illegally, a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security said in an interview.
There is more to the story. When I read it, it was not behind a paywall. No guarantees.
Only yesterday, I posted a notice about the planned lecture by Dr. Azar Nafisi at Wellesley College on April 15.
Overnight, we agreed that the lecture would be postponed because of a non-tenure track faculty strike on campus. I fervently hoped the strike would be finished before the lecture, but the two sides are currently not close to a settlement.
Non-tenure track faculty voted to unionize as the Wellesley Organized Academic Workers, or WOAW with the United Auto Workers. The strike began March 27.
Dr. Nafisi will not cross a picket line, and neither will I.
Last weekend, the Network for Public Education hosted its conference in Columbus, Ohio. Since our first conference in 2013 in Austin, everyone has said “this is the best ever,” and they said it again on April 7.
The attendees included the newly re-elected State Superintendent of Schools in Minnesota, Jill Underly. The Democratic leader of the Texas House Education Committee, Gina Hinojosa. Numerous teachers of the year from many states. Parent leaders from across the nation.
The Phyllis Bush Award for grassroots organizing was won by the Wisconsin Public Education Network, a parent-led group, who have stood firm for their public schools.
The David Award for the individual or group who courageously stands up to powerful forces on behalf of public schools and their students was won by Pastor Charles Johnson of Pastors for Texas Children, whose organization has fought against Governor Greg Abbott and the billionaires who want to impose vouchers, despite their failure everywhere else and the harm they will wreak on rural schools.
The last speaker was Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota and former Democratic candidate for Vice President in 2024. He was warm, funny, and inspiring.
Nearly 400 educators attended the conference from all across the nation, and everyone stayed to hear Governor Walz, who was wonderful. In time, I will post videos of the main presentations, including his. April 7 was his birthday, and it was too late to get a birthday cake. But two veteran educators left the hotel to find a bakery and returned with a cake.
I introduced Randi Weingarten and reminded the audience that Mike Pompeo had called her “the most dangerous person in the world,” which she should wear as a badge of honor.
Randi gave a rip-roaring speech that brought the audience to its feet. She presented Governor Walz with his birthday cake and everything sang “Happy birthday.”
He was fabulous. He was supposed to slip away at the end of his speech, through a private back door but someone caught up with him and asked for a selfie. Of course, he obliged. Within minutes, it appeared that at least 250 or more people were standing in line for a selfie. He did not leave. He signed autographs and posed for selfies with everyone who wanted one.
He is humble, self-effacing, has a crackling dry wit, and is most definitely a people person.
In the opening session on Friday night, I engaged in a Q & A with Josh Cowen about his recent book: The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers. Again, the room was overflowing. Josh was excellent at explaining the terrible results of vouchers and how they turned into a subsidy for wealthy families. Why do politicians continue to promote them. The billionaire money is irresistible.
The panels were fabulous. I participated in one about the close link between public schools and democracy. The room was packed, and we had people lining the walls. A panel led by Derek Black, law professor at the university of South Carolina, and Yohuru Williams, dean of the University of Saint Thomas in St. Paul, talked about the history of Black education, inspired by Derek’s new book Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy.
Public schools are in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration. The fact that they have failed matters not at all to religious zealots and libertarians. The fact that they bust state budgets doesn’t matter. The fact that they are a subsidy for rich families doesn’t matter. Those rich families will vote for the politicians who gave them a gift.
The urgency of standing up for public schools, defending their teachers, protecting their students, and fighting censorship of books and curriculum has never been more important than now.
The Network for Public Education is committed to stand up for kids, teachers, public schools, and communities. .
Michael R. Bloomberg is a billionaire who made his fortune in technology. He produced a computer with a double screen that is called “the Bloomberg,” with each screen focused on different topics. I don’t know enough about technology to explain why this machine was a big success but it was. Bloomberg is now the most generous of the billionaire set, with the likely exception of McKenzie Scott, who has dedicated her time to giving away the fortune she got when she divorced Jeff Bezos.
Bloomberg was mayor of New York City for 12 years. When he was first elected, I was very enthusiastic about his prospects for reforming the city’s sclerotic school system but became disenchanted when I saw him adopt the “move fast and break things” mode of the tech industry and disrupt the system.
Although I was critical of his disruptive changes, I always liked the man, with whom I had several delightful conversations.
Thus it was a great surprise and delight to encounter the following article, in which he warns about the overuse of technology in the classroom:
Over the past two decades, school districts have spent billions of taxpayer dollars equipping classrooms with laptops and other devices in hopes of preparing kids for a digital future. The result? Students have fallen further behind on the skills they most need to succeed in careers: the three R’s plus a fourth — relationships.
Today, about 90% of schools provide laptops or tablets to their students. Yet as students spend more time than ever on screens, social skills are deteriorating and test scores are near historic lows.
Just 28% of eighth graders are proficient in math and 30% in reading. For 12th graders, the numbers are similarly dismal (24% in math and 37% in reading, according to the most recently available scores). And US students have also fallen further behind their peers in other countries.
The push for laptops in classrooms came from technologists, think tanks and government officials, who imagined that the devices would allow for curricula to be tailored around student needs, empowering them to learn at their own pace and raising achievement levels. It hasn’t worked.
The push also came from another source: computer manufacturers. However well-intentioned they may be, they have a financial interest in promoting laptops in classrooms and have profited handsomely from it.
When Google released its inexpensive, utilitarian Chromebook in 2011, the company quickly capitalized on schools’ new emphasis on computer use. Why should children learn the quadratic equation, a Google executive asked, when they can just Google the answer? Today, the same executive might ask: Why should children learn to write an essay — or even a sentence — when they can ask a chatbot to do it for them?
The answer to both questions is that mastering the three R’s is the first step toward the true goal of education: critical thinking and problem-solving.
As someone who built a company by developing a computer at the dawn of the digital age, I never believed that computers in the classroom were the cure to what ails schools. Some of the most powerful educational interactions occur when a caring, well-trained teacher can look into a student’s eyes and help them see and understand new ideas. Machines often don’t have that power.
Think back on your own education. Most of us can remember teachers who challenged and inspired us. Now imagine that you had spent less time listening to those teachers and more time staring at a screen. Would you be better or worse off today?
While moderate use of computer devices can have academic benefits, especially when they are used at home, intensive use is often correlated with diminishing performance.
For example: A post-pandemic survey found that more than a quarter of students spend five hours of class time daily on screens, often practicing skills on games that rarely lead to mastery. At the same time, some traditionally interactive classes — art, music, foreign languages — have moved increasingly online.
Studies have found that time-tested methods of learning — such as reading and writing on a page— are superior to screen-based approaches. One reason is simply a matter of time management. As a review of two decades of academic research concluded, children using laptops are easily distracted — and distracting to their peers. As kids might say: Well, duh.
One study found it can take students up to 20 minutes to refocus after engaging in a nonacademic activity. Put another way: Playing one video game three times a day costs an hour of learning.
Some of the online diversions that students find involve disturbing and inappropriate content that slips through schools’ filters, warping developing minds. Making matters worse: Downtime in classrooms — which might have been spent reading, drawing, imagining or playing with classmates, thereby building crucial social skills — is now frittered away on screens.
By reorienting so much class time around screens, schools have unwittingly been promoting an increasingly isolated childhood experience, which has been correlated with rising anxiety and depression — and can come with tragic and even deadly consequences.
As some school districts finally awake to the benefits of banning smartphones during school hours, they should also reconsider their policies around in-class computers, which can be as problematic as phones. For instance: Storing laptops in locked classroom carts would enable more limited, purposeful use. Schools should also provide parents more transparency about the amount of time their children are spending on devices.
The soaring promise of technology in the classroom has failed to deliver results while imposing great costs on children and taxpayers. Superintendents, principals and teachers ought to lead the way in adopting what has become a radical idea: having students spend more classroom time picking up books and pens than powering up laptops and tablets.
Thomas Mills writes a blog called PoliticsNC. In this post, he explains how a Democrat won the Governor’s race in North Carolina, which is now a red state. North Carolina used to be considered the most progressive state in the south, electing Democrats to state level offices and the General Assembly with regularity.
But in 2010, the Tea Party Republicans swept the state legislature. They gerrymandered the state so adeptly that Democrats had no chance to win control of the legislature again.
While the legislature has a Republican supermajority, the governorship has been captured by a Democrat in the last three elections: by Dr. Roy Cooper in 2016 and 2020, and by Josh Stein in 2024.
Governor Josh Stein
Political observers have long wondered about North Carolina’s split ticket voting. The state routinely elects Democrats to top statewide jobs like governor and attorney general while voting for Republicans for president and US Senate in the same election cycle. Josh Stein has won three elections, two for attorney general and one for governor, while Trump carried the state. His State of the State address offers insight into how Democrats win here. National Democrats should take notice.
Stein delivered his address to the legislature on Wednesday night. At its core, the speech was people-oriented. He put the struggles of the state in human terms instead of political ones. He downplayed political divisions and his swipes at Republicans were muted.
He led off with the recovery from Hurricane Helene, recognizing several families and business owners who are recovering from the disaster. He praised their resilience and the commitment of both individuals and community organizations like Baptists on Mission. He declared, “[T]he people who have been aiding folks out west don’t care a whit about the politics of the people they are helping.”
Stein never mentioned FEMA. His only reference to the federal response to the disaster was his declaration that he’s working with the Trump administration and Congress to get more money into the state. He kept the focus on the people who were most affected by the storm. His only political shot was urging the GOP led legislature to pass a bill giving $500 million more to disaster recovery.
He moved from disaster recovery to job development. He leaned heavily into apprentice programs and community colleges. The focus was inherently working class. Stein said, “Folks should not have to get a bachelor’s degree to get a good-paying job and provide for their family.” He never mentioned the university system.
Stein next shifted to child care and education. He highlighted the shortage and expense of child care in the state, calling for a task force to find “innovative solutions.” He called for family friendly tax cuts instead of reducing the corporate income tax. He called for raising teacher pay and pointed out that North Carolina is 48th in the nation in per pupil spending. He proposed a $4 billion bond to build more schools and fix existing ones.
He challenged the Republicans on their voucher program. While he didn’t focus on the vouchers themselves, he called out the tax breaks offered to wealthy families who receive voucher money and the unregulated schools that tax dollars support. He framed the debate in terms favorable to Democrats, looking for wins on accountability and shifting resources to working families instead of wealthy ones.
Stein also built on one of his priorities as attorney general, combatting fentanyl. He highlighted the death of a young man and asked the legislature to fund a Fentanyl Control Unit. He’s getting on the right side of an issue that concerns much of rural North Carolina and setting up a challenge for Republicans if they rebuke his request.
Stein stayed away from divisive cultural issues. He was inclusive in the broadest sense of the word. He focused on shared priorities that cross ethnic, racial, and gender lines.
Stein’s overall tone was bipartisan or nonpartisan. He laid out priorities that are widely shared—Helene recovery efforts, creating jobs and developing our workforce, increasing access to child care, improving public education, combatting fentanyl deaths—while acknowledging we might differ in how to achieve these goals. He offered hope instead of pointing fingers.
When Stein did pick fights, they were subtle and put Democrats on the side of working people —child care tax breaks for working families instead of the corporate tax cuts, raising teacher pay instead of subsidizing tuition of wealthy families. He brought a populist tone to his education and tax arguments. He made direct appeals to the working class voters that Democrats need to attract.
Democrats across the country should take notice. Stein turned down the heat instead of inviting divisions. He gave very little red meat to the base, but stayed true to core Democratic values, like supporting public education and helping working families. While he set up subtle contrasts with Republicans in the legislature, he also celebrated bipartisan victories like Medicaid expansion.
Stein gave a unifying speech, one that was hard for Republicans to attack. He laid down the foundation for working across party lines. He focused on solutions instead of problems. He set priorities that were largely noncontroversial. He made clear that he would be governor of the whole state, not just the leader of a party. He offered a sharp contrast to the divisive politics of Washington. That’s how Democrats win in a state like North Carolina.
Since today is April Fools Day, I had to dig to find something humorous. It wouldn’t be about education, because there’s nothing funny about a billionaire wrestling entrepreneur leading the charge to close the U.S. Department of Education. It wouldn’t be about politics, because there’s nothing funny about a befuddled, doddering old man pretending to be Mussolini.
The article was written by Jay Horowitz, the media director for the New York Mets.
He wrote:
I have been honored to be part of the Mets organization for 46 years now. Over that time, I have been associated with some pretty great events. One thing I am extremely proud of is to have played a small role in perhaps the greatest sports hoax in the history of baseball, or for that matter in the history of all sports.
The hoax, prank or joke, whatever you want to call it came to life 40 years ago in the April 1, 1985 Sports Illustrated cover story. The story was titled “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch” written by the renowned sportswriter, George Plimpton. According to the article, Sidd was a rookie pitcher training with us in St. Petersburg after being discovered in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. He also wore one shoe, a heavy hiker’s boot, when pitching.
Sidd was raised in an English orphanage, learned yoga in Tibet, and by the way could throw a fastball 168 mph. As an aside, he also played the French horn.
It was like a bombshell when the story hit. For a period of three or four days, the entire baseball world brought our subplot. It had to be true because it was in SI and it had to be true because the great George Plimpton wrote it. George was also the co-founder of the Paris Review and he would never lie.
In fact the entire story was completely made up by George. It was right there in front of everybody but no one picked it up right away. The subhead of the article read:
“He’s a pitcher, part yogi, and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd’s deciding about yoga and his future in baseball.”
The first letters of these words spell out “Happy April Fools Day — a(h) fib.”
Joe Berton, who posed as Sidd Finch in a 1985 Sports Illustrated hoax, reenacts his famous shot outside Oak Park High School in Illinois on Friday, March 25, 2011. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
Let me take you back to how this all started. It was late February 1985 and I had just settled in to my spring training office in St Petersburg. I got a call from our general manager, the late Frank Cashen, who asked me to come see him.
I walked over to meet him and was joined by Jean Coen, Frank’s administrative assistant. Frank asked me if I had a sense of humor and I laughed yes. Frank told me he had just gotten a call from his friend Mark Mulvoy, who was the managing editor of SI. Mark had asked Plimpton to come up with an April 1 story and when he couldn’t find something to his liking he made up one of his own, our buddy Sidd.
Frank wanted to know if I could help sell it. I said by all means. Working with human interest stories was in my bones. For eight years at Fairleigh Dickinson University as the SID, I sold story ideas on a one-armed soccer player, a priest who played hockey, a 43-year-old freshman football player and a 5-4 second baseman who was hit by a pitch 128 times in his career.
This was right up my alley
We didn’t let too many Mets people know what the plan was. Of course, Davey Johnson was in the loop and Mel Stottlemyre was my go-to guy. In mid March, I met Lane Stewart, the photographer for SI at our Huggins Stengel Fieldhouse. We sent up photo ops for the story. We gave Sidd a locker, his number was 21, between Darryl Strawberry and George Foster. Sidd went down to the beach to play his French horn.
I spoke to Straw the other day and he remembered Sidd with a smile. “I remember thinking how could a guy who looked like that throw that hard.”
Kevin Mitchell, a rookie back then recalled interacting with Sidd and found him to be a fun guy with a great sense of humor.
Dwight Gooden, who was the rookie of the year in 1984, thought the hoax was real at first.
”I knew a little, but not too much,” said Gooden, “and it wasn’t until the third day I found out it was a prank.”
Jay Horwitz
Lane took photos of Sidd with all the guys I went to some of our younger players — Dave Cohcrane, Ronn Reynolds, John Christensen and Lenny Dykstra — and asked for their help. I told them we had this young phenom coming in that we needed their help.
I didn’t spill all the beans, I just told them we had this youngster who you wouldn’t believe.
We erected a huge closed tarp on the field where Sidd was to throw BP. All the kids bought in and were great in the photos.
April 1 was a Sunday and the story started to surface a few days before. We held a mock press conference with Reynolds, a catcher. We burnt a hole in his glove and said this was from Sidd’s 104-mph curve. Christensen and Cochrane said they never saw somebody throw as hard. Dykstra was in awe.
The one who sold it the best was Mel. He had such credibility because of his great Yankee career. There is no doubt in my mind people believed it because Mel was involved.
The writers would ask how would Sidd fit into the rotation. Mel said we will just have to wait and see. We have to find a place for him because he is such a talent.
Plimpton kept it going, too. He made himself unavailable to the media which added to the mystique.
When the story hit the newsstand, my phone rang off the hook. I had a nasty conversation with a sports editor of a New York paper and he asked how could I have given the story to SI when his paper was there every day. I remained calm and asked how would he feel if he got the scoop and I gave it to SI. He was not amused.
My beat guys were not too happy with me either. They felt I had played favorites.
Two baseball owners called the editor of SI wanting to know if the story was true. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan also called Sports Illustrated and wanted to know the truth. The sports editor of Life Magazine was really upset, too!
One of our coaches who moved on to another team called me in disbelief and said no one from his new club had ever heard of Sidd. I just laughed again.
I have to give a shout out to Bobby Schaeffer, who was the manger of our Triple-A team at Tidewater. He made a scouting report on Sidd and called him a great prospect.
Slowly but surely the truth began to seep out. On April 7 at Al Lang Stadium we held a press conference that Sidd had moved on from baseball and was moving on to golf. Sidd, who was really Joe Berton, a junior high school teacher from Chicago, came back for the occasion. Joe was recruited by Lane and they were close friends.
Joe was a big Cubs fan at the time and he has remained tight with Lane. He never thought this would be as big as it turned out. He asked me to give him his name plate so so he could remember his time as a Met.
I have kept in touch with Lane, too. He said the people at SI never expected it to be this big that we would be still be talking about Sidd 40 years later. He said the magazine was never trying to fool anybody, just have fun.
The New York Mets’ bobblehead of Sidd Finch. (New York Mets)
Its been 40 years and Ron Darling still remembers with fondness the spring he spent with Sidd (I mean Joe in St. Petersburg).
“That was my first introduction to a New York media experience,” said Ron. “It was wonderful. I loved when Joe walked around talking to the guys. I am a big reader and I was thrilled to be a part of something that George Plimpton was associated with in some capacity. I didn’t know everything that was going on but I knew the premise was a hoax.
“When I got back to NYC that year all my friends wanted to talk about Sidd. It was an experience I never will forget.”
Jay Horwitz started his Mets PR career 45 years ago on April Fools’ Day, 1980. One of his major accomplishments is helping spread the Sidd Finch story, perhaps the No. 1 hoax in sports history.
Germany’s DER SPIEGEL reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials,” the news site reported Wednesday. The top officials include National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Some are “linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data. There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s data was “particularly easy for DER SPIEGEL reporters to discover,” including his cell phone number and email address.”
The reporters “turned to a commercial provider of contact information that is primarily used by companies for sales, marketing and recruitment,” and then they “sent the provider a link to Hegseth’s LinkedIn profile and received a Gmail address and a mobile phone number in return, in addition to other information.”
“A search of leaked user data revealed that the email address and, in some cases, even the password associated with it, could be found in over 20 publicly accessible leaks. Using publicly available information, it was possible to verify that the email address was used just a few days ago.”
Private contact details of the most important security advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump can be found on the internet. DER SPIEGEL reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials…
As such, the reporting has revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices. It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike.
This event demonstrates the utter incompetence and stupidity of Trump’s choices for his Cabinet. Clearly, he chose people based on their personal loyalty to him, their TV presence, and whether they “looked the part” in his eyes. What did not matter at all was their knowledge and experience.
Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a book about Lincoln’s Cabinet called Team of Rivals.
Diane Ravitch's blog 