Edward McKinley of the Houston Chronicle reports that the Texas State Board of Education is on track to approve Bible-based teaching in public schools. The Christian evangelicals are running the show in Texas, with help from Governor Gregg Abbot. They are knocking down the wall of separation between church and state with a sledgehammer. What about the rights of children whose parents are secular or not Christian?
He writes:
The Texas State Board of Education appeared on track to endorse a controversial set of new state-written lesson plans after narrowly defeating an effort to block it on Tuesday.
The lessons and textbooks, known collectively as Bluebonnet Learning, were drafted by the Texas Education Agency. The reading and language arts lessons integrate Biblical stories and characters and are viewed by many as connected to a national effort to return Christianity and prayer into public schools.
They would likely face a legal challenge if adopted. The SBOE will vote on the curriculum as one of more than 100 sets of lesson plans and textbooks later this week.
If approved, schools would have the option to use the plans and would receive extra funding if they do.
The lesson plans have faced criticism from Democrats and some Republicans. Academics have warned that they include teachings from the Bible without contextualizing them as religious beliefs and downplay the role of racism and slavery in American history, while some on the right have argued they teach material too advanced for younger children.
But proponents say the materials are based on a scientific understanding of the best way to teach reading and they believe it will lead to higher standardized test scores.
“There’s a line between indoctrination or evangelism and education. In my view, these stories are on the education side and are establishing cultural literacy,” said Will Hickman, a Houston-area Republican who supported the Bluebonnet curriculum. Hickman added that districts can still choose whether or not to use the lesson plans….
The Bluebonnet curriculum covers kindergarten through 5th grade mathematics and reading, as well as middle school math and algebra….
A report from religious scholar David Brockman and the Texas Freedom Network, which has been critical of the lesson plans, said they could effectively turn public schools to Sunday schools by introducing Christian stories and ideas to young kids without contextualizing them properly as religious beliefs. There’s far more focus on Christianity and Jesus Christ than on other world religions, the report says.
Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as U.S. Attorney General because he realized there were enough Republicans in the Senate against him to doom his nomination.
WASHINGTON—Matt Gaetz has withdrawn as Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, after it became clear Republican lawmakers were prepared to reject his nomination amid swirling sexual misconduct and drug allegations.
“It is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz said in a post on X. “There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General.”
The move marks the biggest political blow for Trump since his election to a second presidential term. His selection of Gaetz, a longtime ally and fierce Justice Department critic, startled lawmakers and members of the conservative legal community. It also sparked immediate objections from senators of both parties, raising doubts about whether he could be confirmed.
The good news is that some Republicans in the Senate resisted the arm-twisting and refused to confirm an unqualified nominee.
Gaetz is without a doubt the most unqualified person ever chosen to lead the Justice Department. Trump has already nominated his personal defense attorneys to top jobs in the Justice Department. He can now rest assured that he will never again be investigated. And Trump has introduced another product that he’s selling on the side. And, surprise, surprise, Trump does know the people who wrote Project 2025!
… Trump is reportedly set to appoint Ross Vought as his Budget Director. So his Border Czar wrote the section on Project 2025 on the border, his FCC nominee wrote the section on Project 2025 on the FCC, and his Budget Director wrote the section on Project 2025 about the budget. But Trump said in the campaign he has no connection to Project 2025 and doesn’t know any of the people involved.
… Surprising criticism from Rand Paul on Trump’s announced plan to declare a national emergency in order to use the military to round up and deport migrants. “I think it’s a terrible image. That’s not what we use our military for. We never have. I will not support an emergency to put the Army into our cities.”
… The updated popular vote count according to Cook Political is now Trump – 49.89%, Harris – 48.24%. Trump’s lead continues to shrink.
… JD Vance said today that the Senate just needs to confirm every Trump nominee with no questions asked since Trump “just won a major electoral victory.”
… Thom Tillis said that Republicans citing recess appointments of previous presidents like Obama is a much different situation than what Trump wants to do because none of those were Cabinet-level positions: “Not for a Cabinet-level position. That should be absolutely off the table. And quite honestly, any serious candidate .. I would have to really wonder if they would want it or be willing to accept that under a recess appointment…”
… Trump raged on Truth Social that his amazing nominees are being criticized: “This is what the Radical Left Lunatics do to people. They dirty them up, they destroy them, and then they spit them out.”
… ABC has obtained Venmo and PayPal records showing payments of $10,000 from Matt Gaetzto two women he allegedly paid for sex. One was a minor at the time. Maybe he was just donating to their tuition out of the kindness of his heart.
… Tim Burchett responded to the House Ethics report on Gaetz getting hacked: “Can someone hack the Epstein files for Americans to see?” Careful what you wish for.
… Lindsey Graham met with Gaetz today in his office. Lindsey told CNN: “I fear the process surrounding the Gaetz nomination is turning into an angry mob, and unverified allegations are being treated as if they are true. I urge my Senate colleagues not to join the lynch mob.”
… Meanwhile, the Senate made a formal request for the House Ethics report on Gaetz to be turned over to them so they can do their job properly.
… But the Ethics Committee voted along party lines with Republicans voting to keep the Gaetz report secret and Democrats voting to release it. After Republican Chair Michael Guest told the press that the full committee “agreed” not to release the report, Dem Rep Susan Wild flamed him, saying that was a complete lie, they all agreed not to discuss the vote, but since Guest lied about what happened she felt compelled to disclose it was a straight party-line vote…
… Trump rolled out a new product line today – Trump Guitars. He is selling an electric Trump Guitar on his website for $1,500 and an acoustic Trump Guitar for $1,250. They have an American flag with Trump’s face on them. He is also offering signed guitars for $10,000 and promises that they will arrive before Christmas if you order now.
… The website for the Trump guitars does NOT say where they are made, so you know what that means.
… Nikki Haley trashed Tulsi Gabbard today: “She said that Trump turned the US into Saudi Arabia’s prostitute. This is going to be the future head of our National Intelligence? She tried to cut our annual defense budget. Tulsi Gabbard defended Iran. She went to Syria for a photo op with Assad while he was massacring his own people. She said she was skeptical he was behind it. This is disgusting. Everything she said about it was Russian talking points. Every bit of it. That was Russian propaganda.”
… More from Haley: “After Russia invaded Ukraine, she blamed NATO. The Russians and the Chinese played her talking points on Russian and Chinese TV. She’s defended Russia, Syria, Iran and China. DNI is not a place for a Russian-Chinese-Iranian-Syrian sympathizer.”
Laura Helmuth recently resigned as Chief Editor of Scientific American after expressing her outrage online about Trump’s election. I can understand her anger because she knew that Trump would appoint completely unqualified people to take charge of federal agencies overseeing the health of the American people. But I wish she hadn’t expressed it online!
The measles vaccine has saved 94 million lives over the past 50 years, and it plus vaccines against 13 other pathogens have cut infant mortality by 40 percent and saved 154 million lives. 154 MILLION LIVES 🧪 Anti-vaxxer RFKJ is a menace to global health
If RFK Jr. has his way, vaccines will be voluntary. Among the unvaccinated, disease will run rampant. Even the vaccinated may be at risk. It will be dangerous to attend public events or go anywhere that is crowded.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited in Samoa in 2019. While there, he proselytized on the dangers of vaccines. After he left, the number of people getting vaccines declined. 83 people died of measles, many of them children. They were not vaccinated. RFK is not merely a “vaccine skeptic,” he’s an opponent of vaccines.
Health officials around the world are alarmed over the likely impact of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a longtime vaccine skeptic who was tapped for the health secretary role this week — on global health. Experts from Samoa have been particularly vocal in sounding the alarm, citing the destructive impact of Kennedy’s rhetoric on the tiny Polynesian island nation.
Warning that Kennedy will empower the global anti-vaccine movement and may advocate for reduced funding for international agencies, Aiono Prof Alec Ekeroma, the director general of health for Samoa’s Health Ministry told The Washington Post that Kennedy “will be directly responsible for killing thousands of children around the world by allowing preventable infectious diseases to run rampant.”
“I don’t think it’s a legacy that should be associated with the Kennedy name,” Ekeroma said in an email Friday.
Ekeroma recalled a disastrous epidemic in 2019, when measles spread rapidly across the small Pacific Ocean country. Of Samoa’s population of 200,000, more than 5,700 were infected and 83 died, many of them young children. Hospitals were overrun, and the nation declared a state of emergency. To stop the outbreak, Samoa launched a massive vaccination campaign, and unvaccinated families were asked to hang red flags outside their homes.
The island nation already had a lagging measles vaccination rate of only about a third of infants, plummeting from 90 percent in 2013. Health experts attributed that drop in part to a public health scandal in which two nurses improperly mixed the measles vaccine with the wrong liquid, resulting in the deaths of two infants. Both nurses were sentenced to five years in prison, and the vaccination program was temporarily suspended — but the accident also opened the door to a wave of vaccine misinformation, including from Kennedy and his anti-vaccine nonprofit.
Kennedy had visited Samoa only four months before the outbreak and met with anti-vaccine advocates. He later characterized the outbreak in Samoa as “mild.”
Delaware elected Sarah McBride to Congress. Representative McBride is transgender. Republican women are going nuts for fear that Rep. McBride might use the women’s bathroom. Or the women’s gym.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina has introduced a resolution to bar Rep. McBride from using the women’s facilities. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is aghast and insists on calling Rep. McBride “he” and “him.”
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say,” [Nancy Mace] told reporters on Monday night. “I mean, this is a biological man.” She said that Ms. McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms — period, full stop.”
The move by Ms. Mace, one of the more attention-seeking members of the House, was straight out of the political playbook Republicans have long employed on transgender issues, which they see as an effective wedge to divide Democrats….
…with Ms. McBride’s arrival in Washington, House Republicans for the first time have a transgender colleague to target in their own workplace…
House Majority Leader Mike Johnson was flummoxed. He said:
“A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. And a man cannot become a woman,” Mr. Johnson said. “That said, I also believe that we treat everyone with dignity. We can do and believe all of those things at the same time.”
McBride posted a comment on social media:
“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” she wrote. “This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing…”
Marjory Taylor Greene was outraged:
“He’s a man,” Ms. Greene told reporters bluntly on Monday night. “He’s a biological male. So he is not allowed to use our women’s restrooms, our women’s gym, our locker rooms. He’s a biological male. He has plenty of places he can go.”
Ms. Greene said she was “fed up with the left shoving their sick trans ideology down our throats and invading our spaces and women’s sports.”
The Democrats defended their new colleague.
Who will stop her from using the women’s bathroom?
Having used many women’s bathrooms myself, I would like to point out that there are no open stalls. No one is naked. Privacy is certain.
Andy Borowitz has words of wisdom for Democrats and Never Trumpers. Do not despair. Prepare. Big electoral wins breed hubris, overconfidence, overreach. Or, pride goeth before a fall.
1. “How could Donald Trump have won 51 percent of the popular vote?”
2. “How hard is it to immigrate to New Zealand?”
3. “What the actual f..k?”
Fair questions.
Let’s try a thought experiment. Could Tuesday’s election results have been any worse?
Well, what if, instead of 51 percent, the Republican nominee had won 59 percent? Or 61 percent? And what if he had won 49 states?
Those aren’t hypotheticals. Those were the results of the 1972 and 1984 landslides that reelected Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
With thumping victories like those, what could possibly go wrong for the winners?
If history’s any guide, some nasty surprises await Donald Trump.
In 1972, the Democratic presidential nominee, George McGovern, won just 37.5 percent of the vote, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia for a total of 17 Electoral College votes. He didn’t even win his home state, South Dakota.
In 1984, Democrat Walter Mondale did carry his native Minnesota, but that was as good as it got for him. In the Electoral College, he fared even worse than McGovern, with a whopping 13 votes.
In the aftermath of these thrashings, the Democratic Party lay in smoldering ruins, and Republicans looked like indestructible conquerors.
Now, some might argue that those GOP victories, though statistically more resounding than Trump’s, weren’t nearly as alarming, because he’s a criminal and wannabe autocrat.
But Trump’s heinousness shouldn’t make us nostalgic for Nixon and Reagan. They were also criminals—albeit unindicted ones. And they were up to all manner of autocratic shit—until they got caught.
The Watergate scandal was only one small part of the sprawling criminal enterprise that Nixon directed from the Oval Office in order to subvert democracy. For his part, Reagan’s contribution to the annals of presidential crime, Iran-Contra, broke myriad laws and violated Constitutional norms.
The hubris engendered by both men’s landslides propelled them to reckless behavior in their second terms—behavior that came back to haunt them. Nixon was forced to resign the presidency; Reagan was lucky to escape impeachment.
After the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon from office, this bumper sticker helped Massachusetts voters brag that they handed him his only Electoral College loss in 1972.
Of course, Trump would be justified in believing that no matter how reckless he becomes, he’ll never pay a price. He’s already been impeached—twice—only to be acquitted by his Republican toadies in the Senate. And now that the right-wing supermajority of the Supreme Court has adorned him with an immunity idol, he’ll likely feel free to commit crimes that Nixon and Reagan could only dream of. Who’ll stop him from using his vast power to persecute his voluminous list of enemies?
Well, the enemy most likely to thwart Trump in his second term might be one who isn’t on his list: himself. The seeds of Trump’s downfall may reside in two promises he made to win this election: the mass deportation of immigrants and the elimination of inflation.
Trump’s concept of a plan to deport 20 million immigrants is as destined for success as were two of his other brainchildren, Trump University and Trump Steaks. The US doesn’t have anything approaching the law-enforcement capacity to realize this xenophobic fever dream.
And as for Trump’s war on inflation, the skyrocketing prices caused by his proposed tariffs will make Americans nostalgic for pandemic-era price-gouging on Charmin.
It’s possible that Trump’s 24/7 disinformation machine, led by Batman villains Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk, will prevent his MAGA followers from ever discovering that 20 million immigrants didn’t go anywhere. And it’s possible that if inflation spikes, he’ll find a scapegoat for that. (Nancy Pelosi? Dr. Fauci? Taylor Swift?)
And, yes, it’s possible that Trump will somehow accomplish his goal of becoming America’s Kim Jong Un, and our democracy will go belly-up like the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.
But I wouldn’t bet on it. I tend to agree with the British politician Enoch Powell (1912-1998), who observed that all political careers end in failure. I doubt that Trump, with his signature blend of inattention, impulsiveness, and incompetence, will avoid that fate.
And when the ketchup hits the fan, the MAGA movement may suddenly appear far more fragmented and fractious than it does this week. You can already see the cracks. Two towering ignoramuses like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert should be BFFs, but they despise each other—the only policy of theirs I agree with.
If things really go south, expect MAGA Republicans to devour each other as hungrily as the worm who feasted on RFK Jr.’s brain—and that, my friends, will be worth binge-watching. I’m stocking up on popcorn now before Trumpflation makes it unaffordable.
Marjorie Taylor Greene (L), wishing a space laser would strike Lauren Boebert (R). (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
One parting thought. Post-election, the mainstream media’s hyperbolic reassessment of Trump—apparently, he’s now a political genius in a league with Talleyrand and Metternich—has been nauseating. It’s also insanely short-sighted. Again, a look at the not-so-distant past is instructive.
In 1984, after Reagan romped to victory with 59 percent of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes, Reaganism was universally declared an unstoppable juggernaut. But only two years later, in the 1986 midterms, Democrats proved the pundits wrong: they regained control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1980. Those majorities enabled them to slam the brakes on Ronnie’s right-wing agenda, block the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, and investigate Iran-Contra.
The lesson of the 1986 midterms is clear: the game’s far from over and there’s everything to play for. If we want to stem the tide of autocracy and kleptocracy, restore women’s rights and protect the most vulnerable, we don’t have the luxury of despair. The work starts now.
President-Elect Trump announced that he has chosen Linda McMahon as his Secretary of Education. McMahon, 76, was co-chair of Trump’s transition and served as head of the Small Business Administration in Trump’s previous term. She made a lot of money as a partner in World Wrestling Entertainment and helped turn it into a multi-billion company.
McMahon briefly served on the Connecticut State Board of Education before she quit to run for the Senate and lost. She is a graduate of East Carolina University with a degree in French.
She is board chair of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned “think tank.”
Her selection continues Trump’s pattern of selecting totally unqualified people for his cabinet. McMahon’s job is to destroy the U.S. Department of Education.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., vaccine opponent: appointed to run the Department of Health and Human Services. FOX commentator, Pete Hegseth, who has zero managerial experience, to run the massive Department of Defense; Tulsi Gabbard, Putin sycophant, as Director of National Intelligence. Matt Gaetz, allegations of drug use and sex with underage girls, as U.S. Attorney General. On and on with people who seem to be not only unqualified but at odds with the organization they are supposed to lead.
Trump’s choices are intended to destabilize the government.
Steve Bannon says the Trump team wants to destroy “the administrative state.” That’s our government. Trump is choosing people to destroy our government.
