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Joyce Vance: Good News! It’s Working!

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2025 //
5

Veteran prosecutor Joyce Vance shared some good news: the nomination of Ed Martin to be U.S. Attorney in DC is hanging by a thread and may be dead. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina interviewed Martin and said he would vote no in the Senate Judiciary Committee because Martin supported the January 6 insurrectionists, even those who assaulted police officers. Since the split on the committee is 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats, Martin’s nomination would not get to the Senate floor. If you live in North Carolina, please call Senator Tillis and thank him.

Vance writes:

Last night, I wrote to you about Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee to be the United States Attorney in Washington, D.C.. Martin, until quite recently, used the handle “Eagle Ed Martin” on Twitter, a reference to his days working for Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. Apparently, someone mentioned to him during the last month that the handle wasn’t appropriate for a U.S. Attorney hopeful.

But no whisper in the ear could fix Martin’s other flaws, from utter lack of qualifications and knowledge about how to do the job to flagrant ties to people known for their open antisemitism. Last night, I suggested we all needed to be in touch with our senators on the Martin nomination. Although we still need to do that, the message is different now. That’s because North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, made it known that he won’t support Martin. 

Before Martin goes to the floor of the Senate for a confirmation vote, he has to make it out of committee. And that’s unlikely to happen now. The Senate Judiciary Committee is made up of 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats. All of the Democrats oppose Martin. With Tillis abandoning him, the best Martin could do is 11-11, and a nominee who receives a tie vote doesn’t advance. For all practical purposes, the outcome of that vote will be a death knell for his nomination.

Martin may end up rewarded for his loyal service to Trump and Musk with another plum job, one that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate the moment and the fact that it looks like he won’t be the top law enforcement officer in the District of Columbia. Defeating Martin’s nomination wasn’t a foregone conclusion—far from it. It took lots of research, lots of conversation, and lots of hard work by a lot of people. You never know which issue, or even which call or letter, is going to be the last straw. What matters is that Trump and his plans are not inevitable, and it makes a difference when all of us push back against the horrible as hard as we can.

Tillis told reporters this morning that he is unable to support Martin because of Martin’s support for defendants convicted of committing crimes in connection with January 6. He is certain to face a sustained backlash from MAGA’s inner circle, so if he’s your senator, make sure you thank him, and if your senator is on the Judiciary Committee (that’s Grassley, Graham, Cornyn, Lee, Cruz, Hawley, Tillis, Kennedy, Blackburn, Schmitt, Britt, and Moody on the Republican side and Durbin, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Coons, Blumenthal, Hirono, Booker, Padilla, Welch, and Schiff for the Democrats) this is a good time to reach out and either thank them for opposing or encourage them to show a little backbone and follow Tillis’ lead. Martin, after all, supports the people who overran the Capitol, threatening these folks and their staff. He is the least qualified selection I can recall seeing to lead a U.S. Attorney’s office, even edging out Trump’s former attorney Alina Habba, the New Jersey nominee, who should be rejected as well. This is a very big win for pro-democracy forces.

There was also a win on a very different front, one that didn’t get a lot of national attention. Trump’s efforts to cut staff and funding at national parks have garnered a lot of attention in the protests that have cropped up across the country. Many protests have taken place at the parks themselves, notably at Yosemite, where staff unfurled an upside-down American flag atop El Capitan to signal distress. On March 1, people protested at all 433 sites in the national park system—the 63 national parks and additional sites like monuments and historic places. Americans, it turns out, love their national parks.

Despite that, the Trump administration continues to keep them on the chopping block. Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration had suspended all air-quality monitoring at national parks, stating that “The Interior Department, which includes the National Park Service, issued stop-work orders last week to the two contractors running the program, the email shows.”

The reporting provided detail that makes it clear this is a serious matter:

  • Data was being collected on ozone and particulate matter and being used in connection with requests to grant permits to industrial facilities like power plants and oil refineries in close proximity to the parks.
  • The pollutants data was being collected on are “linked to a range of adverse health effects,” including “heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks and premature death.”
  • One goal of the program is “to curb regional haze,” which has “reduced visibility at scenic viewpoints in parks nationwide” over the past few decades.

Park Service employees pushed back and demanded that monitoring continue. They pointed out that states lack the equipment and resources to monitor and that without federal monitoring, they would be flying blind. It’s part and parcel of discontinuing environmental justice work at the Justice Department. Data makes it possible to protect the environment and the people who live in it. Trump is creating a permissive environment for business—when you can’t document the consequences of a new plant permit, for instance, it’s hard to oppose it.

But today, Washington Post reporter Teddy Amenabar posted on social media that “After The Post’s article was published, a Park Service spokesperson said the stop-work orders would be reversed and that ‘contractors will be notified immediately.’” Whether it’s traditional media, new media, protests, or our communications with our elected officials, it’s clear that none of what Trump wants to do is inevitable. Sunlight continues to act as a disinfectant. Government employees need public support right now, especially as many of them continue to bravely do the right thing, whether it’s federal prosecutors or park rangers. They richly deserve our support.

So if you’ve been questioning whether what you’re doing matters, it does. The signs you make, the protests you go to, the letters and calls you make to elected officials, your efforts to share information (like this newsletter) with people—all of these efforts matter. It all adds up, small victories and large ones.

Speaking of big ones, Donald Trump appears to have knowingly lied when he invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) in order to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. In his proclamation, he said, “TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking. TdA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.”

Not so fast. An intelligence community memo was partially declassified yesterday, two weeks after a FOIA request was made for it—that’s lightning speed in the world of FOIA, where requests can drag on for years. The memo contradicts Trump’s claimed basis for invoking the AEA. Hat tip to my friend Ryan Goodman, whose new Substack is great if you haven’t seen it already, for highlighting the parts of the memo that contradict Trump’s claim that TdA is mounting an invasion of the U.S. on behalf of Venezuela’s government.

Someone involved in responding to FOIA requestsseems to have been highly motivated to make sure the American people have access to the truth. Win.

It’s not clear how or whether this will impact ongoing litigation. Judges largely defer to presidential assessments of this nature under the political questions doctrine. We don’t know if this revelation will have any impact in court, although there should be some ambit, even if it’s small, for courts to reject presidential assessments that run entirely contrary to the facts. But in the court of public opinion, where facts still matter, here are some facts, from the people who know the subject best.

Finally for tonight, the North Carolina Supreme Court race that we’ve been following so carefully since last November seems to finally be over, and Allison Riggs, the Democrat who won the race, will now be declared the winner per an order issued by a federal judge who is a Trump appointee. Two recounts confirmed Riggs’ victory, but the disgruntled loser challenged it nonetheless. He tried to convince courts to disallow ballots cast by North Carolina voters who complied with all of the rules for voting by changing the rules about what ballots could be counted after the fact. He could still appeal this ruling, but it is a solid decision and unlikely to be reversed on appeal. The bottom line democratic principle is that you don’t get to move the goal posts to secure a victory. Didn’t work for Trump, and it didn’t work in North Carolina. Chalk another one up for the rule of law.

Whether it’s lawsuits or your letters, engaged citizens get results. We have a long way to go, but take heart; we are making progress. We can get there. Every little step forward adds to the tally in favor of democracy.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Justice, Lies, Trump

Thom Hartmann: Trump and the Death of Our Ideals

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2025 //
2

Thom Hartmann sums up what Trump is: a malignant narcissist intent on destroying every shred of our democracy and our ideals. we knew from his first term that he was a liar and a fraud. Yet here he is, acting with even more rage, vengeance, and destruction than before.

Let us not forget that Trump is enabled by the Republican Party. By their slim majorities in Congress. They have meekly watched as he terminated departments and agencies authorized by Congress. They have quietly given the power of the purse to Trump and Musk. They have watched as he turned himself into an emperor and made them useless. They could stop him. But they haven and they won’t.

He writes:

The Trump administration just gutted Meals on Wheels.

Seriously. Meals on Wheels!

Donald Trump didn’t just “disrupt” America; he detonated it. Like a political Chernobyl, he poisoned the very soil of our democratic republic, leaving behind a toxic cloud of cruelty, corruption, and chaos that will radiate through generations if we don’t contain it now.

He didn’t merely bring darkness; he cultivated it. He made it fashionable. He turned cruelty into currency and made ignorance a political virtue.

This man, a grotesque cocktail of malignant narcissism and petty vengeance, ripped the mask off American decency and showed the world our ugliest face. He caged children. Caged. Children. He laughed off their cries while his ghoulish acolytes used “Where are the children?” as a punchline for their next QAnon rally.

He welcomed white supremacists with winks and dog whistles, calling them “very fine people,” while spitting venom at Black athletes who dared kneel in peaceful protest.

He invited fascism to dinner and served it on gold-plated Trump steaks. He made lying the lingua franca of the right, burning truth to the ground like a carnival barker selling snake oil from a flaming soapbox.

And let’s not forget the blood on his hands: 1,193,165 dead from COVID by the time he left office, 400,000 of them unnecessarily, dismissed as nothing more than “a flu,” while he admitted — on tape — that he knew it was airborne and knew it was lethal. His apathy was homicidal, his incompetence catastrophic.

He tried to overthrow a fair election. He summoned a violent mob. He watched them beat cops with American flags and screamed “Fight like hell!” while cowering in the White House, delighting in the destruction like Nero fiddling as Rome burned.

And now, like some grotesque twist on historical fascism, Trump’s regime is quietly disappearing even legal U.S. residents — snatched off the streets by ICE and dumped into El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, a dystopian nightmare of concrete and cruelty.

One such man, Kilmar Ábrego García, had legal status and a home in Maryland. But Trump’s agents defied a federal court order and deported him anyway, vanishing him into a foreign hellhole so brutal it defies comprehension.

This isn’t policy: it’s a purge. A test run for authoritarian exile. And if Trump’s not stopped by Congress, the courts, or We The People in the streets, it won’t end there.

But somehow, he’s still here, waddling across the political stage like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man of authoritarianism, bloated with power, empty of soul, and reeking of spray tan and sulfur.

Donald Trump didn’t just bring darkness: he’s a goddamn black hole, a gravity-well of cruelty sucking the light out of everything he touches.
This is a man who desecrates everything good.
Empathy? He mocks it. Truth? He slanders it. Democracy? He’d bulldoze it for a golf course.
And if we let him continue, he won’t just end democracy — he’ll make damn sure it never rises again.

So the question is: are we awake yet?

Or will we let this orange-faced death-cult leader finish the job he started, grinning over the corpse of the America we once believed in?

Now is not the time to kneel: it’s the time to rise. Stay loud, stay vigilant, and show up. Every protest, every march, every call to DC, every raised voice chips away at the darkness.

Democracy isn’t a spectator sport: it’s a fight, and we damn well better show up for it.

Categories Bigotry, Budget Cuts, Censorship, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Fraud, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Ignorance, Immigration, Injustice, Lies, Racism, Shame, Stupid, Trump

Trump’s Unprecedented Threat to Take Away Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2025 //
5

Trump’s war on higher education is similar to his war on every other major institution. He wants everyone to be afraid of him. He wants no critics to escape his wrath. He wants dissident voices silenced. He wants to be our king, our emperor, our dictator.

He has threatened to punish law firms that have represented his opponents, such as his 2016 challenger Hillary Clinton and Special Counsel Jack Smith, who gathered evidence of Trump’s crimes but was ultimately defeated by Trump’s delaying tactics.

He has threatened the news media, hitting CBS News “60 Minutes” with a $10 billion lawsuit for editing its interview with Kamala Harris (which is standard practice) and suing ABC News for a remark by George Stephanopoulos that he didn’t like. Both of these are frivolous lawsuits, but CBS is negotiating a settlement and ABC paid out $15 million to end the lawsuit. In a pre-emptive conciliatory move, Amazon (Jeff Bezos) bought the rights to a documentary about Melania Trump for $40 million, which will be produced by Melania. Bezos owns The Washington Post, where he has told the editorial board to go easy on Trump. The Post lost some of its best journalists after Bezos groveled to Trump.

He has threatened to cut off federal funding to universities if they don’t meet his demands. The ostensible reason for targeting universities is to compel them to combat anti-Semitism on their campuses, but it’s hard to credit Trump’s sincerity. He has defended anti-Semites, dined with them, and received their support. His best friend Elon Musk supported Germany’s far-right AfD party in the recent elections. A man who cares so little about civil rights, who attacks academic freedom, who defunds education and social services, who belittles minorities, who threatens democracy, and who is so utterly lacking in compassion–is no friend of Jews.

Last Friday, Trump said on his “Truth Social” account:

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “It’s what they deserve!”

The President of the United States cannot take away the tax-exempt status of any individual or organization. That is a decision made by the IRS, and it is illegal for the President or Vice-President or any other government official to interfere in that decision. Such a decision is made by the IRS, must be made for cause, and the institution has the right to defend itself. The process can take years.

If the President could order the IRS to audit or investigate his enemies, it would be a very dangerous policy. He can’t. With Trump, the law is a minor inconvenience, so who knows what he will do. The Supreme Court told him he has absolute immunity so maybe he can disregard the law.

The Trump administration is blasting away at Harvard on multiple fronts. The Department of Homeland Security has threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, who are 27 percent of Harvard’s enrollments.

The Education Department has demanded that Harvard supply the names and email addresses of all foreign students who were expelled since 2016. The Department also wants the names of all scholars, researchers, students and faculty associated with any foreign government. Just a few days ago, Secretary McMahon informed Harvard that it is no longer eligible for new funding so long as it continues to oppose the president’s agenda. That would mean allowing Trump’s agents to take control of admissions, hiring, and curriculum. The nation’s most prestigious university would have to abandon its independence to Trump.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation have suspended over $2 billion in grants to Harvard for medical and scientific research. Studies that are focused on causes and cures for tuberculosis and ALS, for example, have come to a halt. Another $7 billion in research funding could be suspended. This could damage the research and work of hospitals across the Boston metro area, and the economy of Massachusetts as well. Since Massachusetts is a blue state, Trump doesn’t care.

If this looks like harassment, that’s because it is.

Trump is certainly no libertarian. He is using every federal source of funding to compel universities, colleges, schools, cities, and states to follow his commands.

That’s not democracy. That’s dictatorship.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Higher Education, Trump

Pastors for Texas Children on the Signing of the Voucher Bill

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2025 //
2

One of the most determined opponents of vouchers in Texas was the Pastors for Texas Children. While some faith leaders celebrated the opportunity to get public money for their religious schools, the PTC stood firm for separation of church and state. They believe it is the state’s responsibility to provide good public schools, and it is the duty of religious groups to support their own faith.

They know the research. They know that most of the $1 billion in vouchers will be used to subsidize students already enrolled in private schools. They know that many private schools will raise their tuition in response to the state subsidy. They know that the public schools, which serve the vast majority of students, will continue to be underfunded.

PTC sent out the following message:

The Signing of HB 3

An old preacher once said that God’s Justice was figuring out what belongs to whom and giving it to them.

Universal education for ALL children is God’s Justice. A $1 billion voucher subsidy program for children already in private schools— mostly religious schools that use Caesar to support their religion— is not.

Texans know that. They have rejected voucher programs for 30 years.

Gov. Greg Abbott had to rely on a Philadelphia billionaire to give him over $12 million dollars to defeat conservative, rural Republican state representatives who opposed vouchers on deep conviction and moral principle.

We take no pleasure in calling out our governor’s lies and bullying against these decent public servants. God is not mocked by Gov. Abbott’s corruption.

The voucher bill was signed on Saturday. Also on Saturday Texans all over the state overwhelmingly approved public school bond programs and elected pro-public ed trustees as a direct response to Abbott’s voucher scam.

We will have another opportunity to express our will on public education and against the privatization of it:

The 2026 primary and general elections.

DONATE TO PTC

PO Box 471155, Fort Worth, Texas, 76147

***************************************

What Happened After Passage of HB 3.

A statewide rejection of extremism.

In the aftermath of the passage of the voucher bill, voters in several districts responded by ousting hard-line conservative school board members. Texan Michelle H. Davis described the devastating losses of MAGA school board members across the state.

It was a tough night for MAGA-aligned candidates in Texas. In the May 3, 2025, local elections, voters across the state decisively rejected far-right candidates, particularly in school board and city council races. From Tarrant County to Collin County, and from San Antonio to Dallas, communities chose leaders who prioritize public education, inclusivity, and pragmatic governance over culture wars and partisan agendas. This widespread shift signals a growing resistance to extremist politics at the local level. 

Last night, voters across Texas sent a message loud enough to rattle the far-right out of their echo chambers: we’re done with your culture wars, your book bans, and your crusade against public schools. Voters chose community over chaos, educators over agitators, and progress over extremism.

The local elections weren’t just a series of wins but a sweep. MAGA-backed candidates got absolutely trounced across the state. This was the result of deep organizing, years of work by local Democrats, and voters who are fed up with the far-right hijacking of school boards and city councils to push their agenda.

Texas isn’t turning blue overnight, but make no mistake: the MAGA movement had a very bad night, and the momentum is shifting.

Tarrant County. 

The Republican Party poured money, endorsements, and out-of-state personalities into these Tarrant County races, and they got wiped. Every single candidate backed by Patriot Mobile, the far-right Christian nationalist group trying to take over school boards, lost. That’s losses in Mansfield ISD, Keller ISD, and Grapevine-Colleyville ISD. A clean sweep.

The Tarrant County GOP went 0-for-11 in the county’s three largest cities: Fort Worth, Arlington, and Mansfield. Let that sink in. They didn’t just lose a few races. They got shut out entirely. In Mansfield, Republican Rep. David Cook’s backyard, where Allen West himself came out to rally the troops, the GOP lost all five races they backed.

Meanwhile, Democrats made real gains on the Fort Worth City Council. One of the biggest victories was Debrah Peoples’s victory in her race. A longtime activist and former Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair, Peoples gave progressive voters a reason to celebrate in a city that’s often overlooked on the statewide map.

Huge, huge shout out to the Tarrant County Young Democrats. They didn’t just show up, they organized, knocked on doors, made calls, and fought for every single school board seat they were targeting. And guess what? They swept them all. That’s the kind of ground game that wins elections. That’s the kind of energy we need to keep building.

Open the link to continue reading about the pushback in Texas against bookbanning rightwing MAGA culture warriors.

Categories Billionaires, Ethics, Religion, Research, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

ProPublica: Trump’s Choice for US Attorney in D.C. is Ethically Challenged–and a MAGA Extremist

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2025 //
4

ProPublica revealed that Ed Martin, Trump’s choice, for the high-powered job of U.S. Attorney in D.C. is ethically challenged. We already knew that Martin was a strident defender of the January 6 insurrectionists and represented some of them as their attorney. We also knew that Ed Martin has a long history of promoting conspiracy theories.

We learned only a couple of weeks ago that Mr. Martin has appeared on Russian state media more than 150 times between 2016 and 2024, a detail he initially forgot to share with the Senate Judiciary Committee vetting him. The Washington Post reported, “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.”

What we didn’t know is that in one important case, he was coaching someone else to attack the judge hearing the case.

Trump has chosen many unqualified people for high positions. Ed Martin is one of his worst choices.

ProPublica wrote:

The attacks on Judge John Barberis in the fall of 2016 appeared on his personal Facebook page. They impugned his ethics, criticized a recent ruling and branded him as a “politician” with the “LOWEST rating for a judge in Illinois.”

Barberis, a state court judge in an Illinois county across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, was presiding over a nasty legal battle for control over the Eagle Forum, the vaunted grassroots group founded by Phyllis Schlafly, matriarch of the anti-feminist movement. The case pitted Schlafly’s youngest daughter against three of her sons, almost like a Midwest version of the HBO program “Succession” (without the obscenities).

At the heart of the dispute — and the lead defendant in the case — was Ed Martin, a lawyer by training and a political operative by trade. In Missouri, where he was based, Martin was widely known as an irrepressible gadfly who trafficked in incendiary claims and trailed controversy wherever he went. Today, he’s the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and one of the most prominent members of the Trump Justice Department.

In early 2015, Schlafly had selected Martin to succeed her as head of the Eagle Forum, a crowning moment in Martin’s career. Yet after just a year in charge, the group’s board fired Martin. Schlafly’s youngest daughter, Anne Schlafly Cori, and a majority of the Eagle Forum board filed a lawsuit to bar Martin from any association with the organization.

After Barberis dealt Martin a major setback in the case in October 2016, the attacks began. The Facebook user who posted them, Priscilla Gray, had worked in several roles for Schlafly but was not a party to the case, and her comments read like those of an aggrieved outsider.

Almost two years later, the truth emerged as Cori’s lawyers gathered evidence for her lawsuit: Behind the posts about the judge was none other than Martin.

ProPublica obtained previously unreported documents filed in the case that show Martin had bought a laptop for Gray and that she subsequently offered to “happily write something to attack this judge.” And when she did, Martin ghostwrote more posts for her to use and coached her on how to make her comments look more “organic.”

Ed Martin exchanged emails with Priscilla Gray, who had worked in various roles for Phyllis Schlafly, about how to attack Judge John Barberis. (Documents obtained, formatted and highlighted by ProPublica)

“That is not justice but a rigged system,” he urged her to write. “Shame on you and this broken legal system.”

“Call what he did unfair and rigged over and over,” Martin continued.

Martin even urged Gray to message the judge privately. “Go slow and steady,” he advised. “Make it organic.”

Gray appeared to take Martin’s advice. “Private messaging him that sweet line,” she wrote. It was not clear from the court record what, if anything, she wrote at that juncture.

Gray told Martin she would direct message Barberis after she was blocked from commenting on his Facebook page. (Documents obtained, formatted and highlighted by ProPublica)

Legal experts told ProPublica that Martin’s conduct in the Eagle Forum case was a clear violation of ethical norms and professional rules. Martin’s behavior, they said, was especially egregious because he was both a defendant in the case and a licensed attorney. 

Martin appeared to be “deliberately interfering with a judicial proceeding with the intent to undermine the integrity of the outcome,” said Scott Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at UCLA School of Law. “That’s not OK.”

Martin did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Martin’s legal and political career is dotted with questions about his professional and ethical conduct. But for all his years in the spotlight, some of the most serious concerns about his conduct have remained in the shadows — buried in court filings, overlooked by the press or never reported at all.

His actions have led to more than $600,000 in legal settlements or judgments against Martin or his employers in a handful of cases. In the Eagle Forum lawsuit, another judge found him in civil contempt, citing his “willful disregard” of a court order, and a jury found him liable for defamation and false light against Cori.

Cori also tried to have Martin charged with criminal contempt for his role in orchestrating the posts about Barberis, but a judge declined to take up the request and said she could take the case to the county prosecutor. Cori said her attorney met with a detective; Martin was never charged.

Nonetheless, the emails unearthed by ProPublica were evidence that he had violated Missouri rules for lawyers, according to Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. She said lawyers are prohibited from trying to contact a judge outside of court in a case they are involved in, and they are barred from using a proxy to do something they are barred from doing themselves….

As one of its first personnel picks, the Trump administration chose Martin to be interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, one of the premier jobs for a federal prosecutor.

A wide array of former prosecutors, legal observers and others have raised questions about his qualifications for an office known for handling high-profile cases. Martin has no experience as a prosecutor. He has never taken a case to trial, according to his public disclosures. As the acting leader of the largest U.S. attorney’s office in the country, he directs the work of hundreds of lawyers who appear in court on a vast array of subjects, including legal disputes arising out of Congress, national security matters, public corruption and civil rights, as well as homicides, drug trafficking and many other local crimes.

Over the last four years, the office prosecuted more than 1,500 people as part of the massive investigation into the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. While Trump has pardoned the Jan. 6 defendants, Martin has taken action against the prosecutors who brought those cases. In just three months, he has overseen the dismissal of outstanding Jan. 6-related cases, fired more than a dozen prosecutors and opened an investigation into the charging decisions made in those riot cases.

Martin has also investigated Democratic lawmakers and members of the Biden family; forced out the chief of the criminal division after she refused to initiate an investigation desired by Trump appointees citing a lack of evidence, according to her resignation letter; threatened Georgetown University’s law school over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies; and vowed to investigate threats against Department of Government Efficiency employees or “chase” people in the federal government “discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically.”

Martin “has butchered the position, effectively destroying it as a vehicle by which to pursue justice and turning it into a political arm of the current administration,” says an open letter signed by more than 100 former prosecutors who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia under Democratic and Republican presidents.

Categories Accountability, District of Columbia, Ethics, Extremism, Justice, Trump

New York: Orthodox Jewish Schools Hope to Evade the Law and Collect Public Money

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2025 //
4

New York State law requires private and religious schools to offer an education that is substantially equivalent to what is offered at secular public schools. Some Orthodox Jewish schools refuse to comply. Repeated inspections have found that the recalcitrant Yeshivas do not teach English and do not teach math and science in English.

Dr. Betty Rosa, an experienced educator and New York State Commissioner of Education, has insisted that Yeshivas comply with the law. She fears that their students are graduating from high school without the language skills required for higher education and the workplace.

The Hasidim are a tight-knit group that often votes as a bloc to enhance their political power. They vote for whoever promises to support their interests. Both parties compete for their endorsement.

Eliza Shapiro and Benjamin Oreskes reported the story in the New York Times:

New York lawmakers are considering a measure that would dramatically weaken their oversight over religious schools, potentially a major victory for the state’s Hasidic Jewish community.

The proposal, which could become part of a state budget deal, has raised profound concern among education experts, including the state education commissioner, Betty Rosa, who said in an interview that such changes amount to a “travesty” for children who attend religious schools that do not offer a basic secular education.

“We would be truly compromising the future of these young people,” by weakening the law, Ms. Rosa said. “As the architect of education in this system, how could I possibly support that decision,” she added.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday announced a $254 billion budget agreement but acknowledged many of the particulars are still being hashed out.

Behind the scenes, a major sticking point appears to be whether the governor and the Legislature will agree to the changes on private school oversight, according to several people with direct knowledge of the negotiations, which may include a delay in any potential consequences for private schools that receive enormous sums of taxpayer dollars but sometimes flout state education law by not offering basic education in English or math.

The state is also considering lowering the standards that a school would have to meet in order to demonstrate that it is following the law.

Though the potential changes in state education law would technically apply to all private schools, they are chiefly relevant to Hasidic schools, which largely conduct religious lessons in Yiddish and Hebrew in their all-boys schools, known as yeshivas.

The potential deal is the result of years of lobbying by Hasidic leaders and their political representatives…

The Hasidic community has long seen government oversight of their schools as an existential threat, and it has emerged as their top political issue in recent years.

It has taken on fresh urgency in recent months, as the state education department, led by Ms. Rosa, has moved for the first time to enforce the law, after years of deliberation and delay….

There is little dispute, even among Hasidic leaders, that many yeshivas across the lower Hudson Valley and parts of Brooklyn are failing to provide an adequate secular education. Some religious leaders have boasted about their refusal to comply with the law and have barred families from having English books in their homes.

Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, which has been closely aligned with the Hasidic community, found in 2023 that 18 Brooklyn yeshivas were not complying with state law, a finding that was backed up by state education officials.

A 2022 New York Times investigation found that scores of all-boys yeshivas collected about $1 billion in government funding over a four-year period but failed to provide a basic education, and that teachers in some of the schools used corporal punishment.

It is clear why Hasidic leaders, who are deeply skeptical of any government oversight, would want to weaken and delay consequences for the schools they help run.

It is less obvious why elected officials would concede to those demands during this particular budget season. There is widespread speculation in Albany that Ms. Hochul, facing what may be a tough re-election fight next year, is hoping to curry favor from Hasidic officials, who could improve her chances with an endorsement….

Hasidic voters are increasingly conservative and tend to favor Republicans in general election contests.…

New York’s state education law related to private schools, which is known as the substantial equivalency law, has been on the books for more than a century.

It was an obscure, uncontroversial rule up until a few years ago, when graduates of Hasidic yeshivas who said they were denied a basic education filed a complaint with the state, claiming that their education left them unprepared to navigate the secular world and find decent jobs.

 

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, Discipline, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state

The Atlantic: The Inside Story of How Trump Regained Power: “I Run the Country and the World”

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2025 //
1

The Atlantic published a fascinating story about Donald Trump’s surprising return from what seemed to be the disastrous end of his political career in 2021 to regain the presidency in 2024.

In 2021, he left the White House in disgrace: twice impeached, leader of a failed and violent effort to overturn the election, so bitter that he skipped Joe Biden’s inauguration. For four years, with the exception of an occasional slip of the tongue, he nourished the fantasy that he was the rightful winner in 2020.

Surely there were Republicans who thought he was finished, as did all Democrats. I remember how thrilled I was to think that I would never again have to see his face or hear his voice.

His redemption began when Congressman Kevin McCarthy flew to Mar-a-Lago to pay homage to Trump. Trump spent most of the last four years plotting and planning for his return.

The article was written by Atlantic staffers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer.

It begins with the story of how they won an interview with Trump. They filled out forms describing the reason for the interview and thought their request might be approved. But Trump personally rejected them, denouncing the reporters and the magazine as part of the leftist effort to embarrass him. Trump called Ashley Parker a “radical left lunatic.”

The reporters had spent many hours preparing for the interview, and they were determined to land it.

Soon after they were turned away, they decided to try another route. They obtained Trump’s private cell number, and they called him. He answered his phone, and they had a long conversation. During the conversation, he said matter-of-factly, “I run the country and I run the world.”

Humility was never his strong suit.

Trump eventually agreed to sit with them for an interview in the Oval Office with them and the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally invited to be part of Defense Secretary’s Signal conversation about bonbing Yemen.

This is a must-read.

Categories Character, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Politics, Trump

Texas: Governor Abbott Celebrates His Big Voucher Win and Lies About It

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2025 //
5

Governor Gregg Abbott signed his big voucher bill into law yesterday, repeating promises he has made that are most certainly false. He claimed that vouchers will put Texas on a path to being the number one school system in the nation. Several other states have large voucher programs–e.g., Florida, Arizona, and Ohio–and none of them is the number one rated school system in the nation.

If anything, vouchers and charter schools break up the common school system that states pledge in their constitutions to support. Public schools are one system, regulated by the state, subject to elected local school boards. Charter schools are another, lightly regulated by the state, some for-profit, some as corporate chains, managed by private boards. Voucher schools are a third system, almost entirely deregulated, not required to accept all students, as public schools are. Voucher schools are not required to have certified teachers, as public schools are. Voucher schools are exempt from state testing. Most voucher schools are religious schools, managed by their religious leader. Private and religious schools choose their students.

Vouchers have been a big issue since the early 1990s. The first voucher program was launched in Milwaukee in 1990. The second started in Cleveland in 1996, ostensibly to save poor kids from failing public schools. Neither Cleveland nor Milwaukee is a high-performing district.

What we have learned in the past 30-35 years about vouchers is this:

  1. Most students who use vouchers were already enrolled in nonpublic schools.
  2. The students who transfer from public to private schools are likely to fall behind their peers in public schools. Many return to public schools.
  3. The public does not want their taxes to be spent on religious schools or on the children of affluent families. In nearly two dozen state referenda, voters defeated vouchers every time.
  4. The academic performance of students who leave public schools to attend nonpublic schools is either the same or much worse than students in public schools.
  5. Vouchers drain funding from public schools, where the vast majority of students are enrolled. This, the majority of students will have larger classes and fewer electives to subsidize vouchers.
  6. Vouchers are expensive. Arizona is projecting a cost of $1 billion annually. Florida currently is paying $4 billion annually.

To learn more about the research, read Joshua Cowen’s book The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (Harvard Educatuon Press).

Governor Abbott surely knows these facts, but he determined that vouchers were his highest priority. Certainly they make him the champion of parents who send their children to private and religious school. All will be eligible for a subsidy from the state. And Abbott delivered for the billionaires who funded his voucher campaign.

Edward McKinley of the Houston Chronicle wrote:

Gov. Greg Abbott signed a $1 billion school voucher program into law Saturday, cementing the biggest legislative victory of his decade in office before a huge crowd including families, legislators and GOP donors.

Abbott framed the ceremony as the climax of a multiyear effort by himself and advocates around the state, and touted the state’s new program as the largest to ever launch in the nation. 

“Today is the culmination of a movement that has swept across our state and across our country,” he said, using the speech to call out parents in the crowd who had already pulled their students from “low-performing” public schools to put them into private ones. “It’s time we put our children on a pathway to have the number one-ranked education system in the United States of America.”

He put pen to paper at a wooden desk in front of the Governor’s Mansion, as a gaggle of children stood around him wearing their private school colors and logos. Someone shouted, “Thank you, governor!” before the crowd of nearly 1,400 people erupted in applause. Abbott pumped his fist in the air. 

The ceremony marked a major moment for the third-term Republican, who threw his full political weight and millions of campaign dollars into a push for private school vouchers, overcoming a legislative blockade that had lasted for decades. The bill he signed into law will give Texas students roughly $10,000 a year that they can put toward private school tuition, tutoring, textbooks and other expenses…

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass mingled in the crowd. Yass contributed more than $12 million to Abbott’s campaign last cycle, as the governor sought to unseat anti-voucher Republicans in the 2024 primary election.

Abbott was joined on stage by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dustin Burrows and the House and Senate authors of the bill. Also in attendance were private school leaders, including Joel Enge, director of Kingdom Life Academy. 

After Abbott’s address, Enge told the crowd he founded his Christian school after working in public schools in a low-income area of Tyler and watching children fall behind. His speech had the feel of a sermon.

“Children who have been beaten down by the struggles in the academic system that did not fit the system will now be empowered as they begin to find the right school setting that’s going to support them and to allow them to grow in confidence in who God created them to be,” he yelled, to raucous cheers. “Amen!…”

Hours earlier, Democratic legislators, union leaders and public educators gathered in the parking lot of the AFL-CIO building across the street from the governor’s mansion, where they had a much different message. 

Echoing lines used throughout committee hearings and legislative debates for the past few years, they warned that vouchers would hurt already struggling neighborhood public schools by stripping away their funding. About two dozen people swayed under the direct sun, waving signs that said “public dollars belong in public schools” and “students over billionaires.” 

“Today, big money won and the students of Texas lost,” said state Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat. “Remember this day next time a school closes in your neighborhood. Remember this day next time a beloved teacher quits because they can’t support their family on their salary.”

Several speakers pointed out that while Republicans fast-tracked the voucher bill, they have yet to agree on a package to increase funding to public schools and raise teacher pay.

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat, said she hoped this defeat could sow the seeds of future victories. Abbott and most legislators are up for reelection next year.

“He may have won this battle, but the war is not over,” she said. “There will be a vote on vouchers and he can’t stop it, and it will be in November 2026.”

What’s in the bill

The new law stands to remake education in Texas, granting parents access to more than $10,000 in state funds to pay for private school tuition and expenses, or $2,000 for homeschoolers. The first year of operation will begin in 2027, and in the run-up, the state will choose nonprofits to run the program, develop the application process and pick which families will have access.

All students will be eligible, although families making more than 500% of the federal poverty line, about $160,750 in income for a family of four, cannot take up more than 20% of the funds. The funds will be tied roughly to the amount of money the students would have received in public schools, meaning students with disabilities will receive extra.

School vouchers have become a signature of Abbott’s three terms in office. 

After the COVID-19 pandemic, other Republican-controlled states such as Florida, Arizona, Iowa and Indiana created or expanded their own voucher programs. But school choice advocates repeatedly fell short in Texas thanks to an alliance between Democrats and rural Republicans. Bills passed the Senate but failed to gain traction in the House. 

Then, in May 2022, Abbott announced in a speech at San Antonio’s Southside that he’d be throwing his full weight behind the policy. Even as public schools struggled to keep teachers in the classroom and balance their budgets, the governor told lawmakers he wouldn’t approve extra funds until a voucher bill made it to his desk. When it didn’t happen, even in special sessions, he took to the campaign trail, spending millions to unseat about a dozen key GOP lawmakers who stood in his way.

This session, he enlisted President Donald Trump’s help at the last minute to rally Republican House members, some of whom said they felt forced to back the policy.

Critics warn the state’s voucher program lacks safeguards to ensure it reaches the children it was designed to help and say they expect many of the slots to go to students already in private schools, which can pick and choose who they educate. The majority of private schools in Texas are religiously affiliated, and the average tuition costs upwards of $10,900, according to Private School Review.

Though $1 billion is set aside for the program in the first biennium, the nonpartisan Legislative Budget Board projects it could grow exponentially in the next decade amid huge demand from students currently in private or home schools.

It remains to be seen how many private schools will accept the vouchers, but many advocated their passage, including Catholic, Jewish and Muslim schools.

Although Abbott has said repeatedly that the program won’t pull funds from public schools, because schools are funded based on attendance, the LBB analysis showed that the program would reduce state payments to public schools by more than $1 billion by 2030. 

Categories Billionaires, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

John Thompson: Oklahoma Has Its Own DOGE, Just as Destructive as Elon’s

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2025 //
17

After Trump introduced Elon Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” several Republican-controlled states created their own DOGE operations. Like the one Musk launched, these were non-governmental, unelected, unaccountable cost-cutters, set loose to apply a chainsaw to state government.

John Thompson reports on what happened in Oklahoma.

CBS’s Sixty Minutes recently reported on the danger of H5N1 bird flu spinning out of control. It cited Dr. Kamran Khan who explained why “We are really at risk of this virus evolving into one that has pandemic potential.” Another expert agreed that “this flu could make Covid look like a walk in the park.”

This frightening reporting comes as the DOGE–OK seeks to cut nearly $150 million for programs that provide immunization services, pathogens surveillance, and emerging infectious diseases prevention, and provide Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Prevention of Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

And this is only one reason for looking into the DOGE–OK process.

Anyone paying attention to Elon Musk’s leadership of the Trump administration’s DOGE campaign to cut federal programs has reason the fear the DOGE campaigns launched in 26 states. After all, as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) explains, when Governor Kevin Stitt opened Oklahoma’s DOGE-OK, he called for a reduction in our personal income and corporate tax rates, thus making the state’s tax code even more regressive.

The EPI further explained that Stitt selected Marc Nuttle, “who was the ‘chief strategist’ behind Oklahoma’s 2001 so-called right-to-work referendum—a policy designed to disempower workers and lower wages (and contrary to proponents’ claims, it did not bolster job growth in the state).” The executive order empowered Nuttle to lead efforts of a newly formed agency to study the state budget.

Moreover, the EPI explains:

DOGE-OK is itself duplicative since the Office of the State Auditor and Inspector is constitutionally mandated to “examine the state and all county treasurers’ books, accounts, and cash on hand, stipulating that [the office] shall perform other duties as may be prescribed by law.” Similar to DOGE-OK, the auditor reviews staffing levels, assesses state spending, and issues public reports to promote transparency.

The DOGE-OK report now explains:

Once DOGE-OK ideas are received, they are analyzed and vetted with the appropriate group. If validated, ideas are added to the DOGE-OK website. 

But, when I studied the report, I found no sign of hard evidence to back its claims. For instance, they didn’t explain their methodology, and offered no cost/benefit analyses. DOGE didn’t explain what “groups” it considered to be “appropriate,” and what data was used to analyze and vet, and validate their ideas.  

Since the first DOGE headlines focused on $157 million in supposedly “wasteful health grants” by the federal government, I focused on Medicaid and Department of Health cuts.

These proposed cuts are especially disturbing because, as Shiloh Kantz, the executive director of the nonpartisan Oklahoma Policy Institute, explained, “Oklahoma already ranks among the worst in health outcomes.”

First, DOGE-OK claimed that $60 million per year would be saved if the state, not the federal government, performed eligibility checks on children. And, they cited two drugs that received accelerated approval without working, costing $42 million. But, they did not mention the number and the benefits of the other drugs, like the Covid vaccine, that received accelerated approval.

Also, DOGE-OK inexplicably said that easing the prescription drug cost cap would improve prices. And they recommended repeal of staffing requirements for Long-Term Care facilities in order to save $76 million annually, without mentioning harm to elderly patients due to under-staffing.

DOGE-OK also said that three Oklahoma State Department of Health programs should be cut by almost $150 million because their funding exceeded the amount necessary.  As already mentioned, in the wake of Covid pandemic, and as measles and bird flu spread, these programs provide immunization services, pathogens surveillance, and emerging infectious diseases prevention, etc. So, how did DOGE reach the conclusion that the full funding of those programs is no longer necessary?  

Then, DOGE-OK said that 7 programs should have cuts because of “duplication,” with partners doing the same or similar work. They said $2.2 million would be saved by getting rid of the team efforts necessary to improve health.

And Sex Education should be cut by $236,000 because of its low Return on Investment.

Again, I saw no evidence behind their recommendations for $157,606,300 in overall health care reductions. Neither did they address financial costs of implementing their ideas. And, there is no evidence that DOGE seriously considered the costs in terms of the lives that would be damaged or lost.

Given the history of the Trump/Musk DOGE, none of the DOGE–OK should be a surprise. When Gov. Stitt selected Nuttle, a true-believer in Milton Friedman, to run the project, Stitt said, “With his help, we’ll leave state government leaner than we found it.”

Is that the proper way to launch a supposedly balanced and evidence-driven investigation of such complex and crucial policy approaches?

Stitt’s news release previewed Nuttle’s methodology: “use his knowledge of the inner workings of government to comb through agency budgets, legislative appropriations, and contracts.”

So, to paraphrase the DOGE-OK report’s description of its methodology, its proposals would be “analyzed and vetted” by what they see as the “appropriate group.”

In other words, Oklahomans were never promised an open, balanced, evidence-based DOGE process for making our state better. But the same is also true for Musk’s federal DOGE chainsaw.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Economy, Ethics, Extremism, Health, Oklahoma

Catherine Rampell: Why Does Trump’s Regime Have Your Data and How Will They Use It?

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2025 //
3

Catherine Rampell is an opinion writer for The Washington Post who writes often about economics. She focuses here on the expansion of data collection by the Trump administration, even as it ceases to collect anonymous data about health trends. What worries me is the invasion of privacy by the DOGE team, who scooped up personally identifiable data from the IRS and Social Security about everyone, including you and me. Why did they want it? What will they do to it?

She writes:

It’s rarely comforting to appear on a government “list,” even (or perhaps especially) when compiled in the name of public safety.

It was alarming in the 1940s, when the U.S. government collected the names of Japanese Americans for internment. Likewise in the 1950s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee catalogued communists. And it’s just as troubling now, as the Trump administration assembles registries of Jewish academics and Americans with developmental disabilities.

Yes, these are real things that happened this past week, the latest examples of the White House’s abuse of confidential data.

Last week, faculty and staff at Barnard College received unsolicited texts asking them whether they were Jewish. Employees were stunned by the messages, which many initially dismissed as spam.

Turns out the messages came from the Trump administration. Barnard, which is affiliated with Columbia University, had agreed to share faculty members’ private contact info to aid in President Donald Trump’s pseudo-crusade against antisemitism.

Ah, yes, a far-right president asking Jews to register as Jewish, in the name of protecting the Jews, after he has repeatedly accused Jews of being “disloyal.” What could go wrong?

The same day, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya announced a “disease registry” of people with autism, to be compiled from confidential private and government health records, apparently without its subjects’ awareness or consent. This is part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vendetta against vaccines, which he has said cause autism despite abundant research concluding otherwise.

This, too, is disturbing given authoritarian governments’ history of compiling lists of citizens branded mentally or physically deficient. If that historical analogue seems excessive, note that Bhattacharya’s announcement came just a week after Kennedy delivered inflammatory remarks lamenting that kids with autism will never lead productive lives. They “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job,” he said, adding they’ll never play baseball or go on a date, either.

This all happened during Autism Acceptance Month, established to counter exactly these kinds of stigmatizing stereotypes. Kennedy’s comments and the subsequent “registry” set off a wave of fear in the autism advocacy community and earned condemnation from scientists.

Obviously, advocates want more research and support for those with autism. They have been asking for more help at least since 1965 (when what is now called the Autism Society of America was founded in my grandparents’ living room). But few in this community trust political appointees hostile to scientific research — or a president who has publicly mocked people with disabilities — to use an autism “registry” responsibly.

(An unnamed HHS official later walked back Bhattacharya’s comments, saying the department was not creating a “registry,” per se, just a “real-world data platform” that “will link existing datasets to support research into causes of autism and insights into improved treatment strategies.” Okay.)

These are hardly the administration’s only abuses of federal data. It has been deleting reams of statistical records, including demographic data on transgender Americans. It has also been exploiting other private administrative records for political purposes.

For example, the Internal Revenue Service — in an effort to persuade people to pay their taxes — spent decades assuring people that their records are confidential, regardless of immigration status. The agency is in fact legally prohibited from sharing tax records, even with other government agencies, except under very limited circumstances specified by Congress. Lawmakers set these limits in response to Richard M. Nixon’s abuse of private tax data to target personal enemies.

Trump torched these precedents and promises. After a series of top IRS officials resigned, the agency has now agreed to turn over confidential records to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement locate and deport some 7 million undocumented immigrants.

The move, which also has troubling historical echoes, is being challenged in court. But, in the meantime, tax collections will likely fall. Undocumented immigrant workers had been paying an estimated $66 billion in federal taxes annually, but they now have even more reason to stay off the books.

This and other DOGE infiltrations of confidential records are likely to discourage public cooperation on other sensitive government data collection efforts. Think research on mental health issues or public safety assessments on domestic violence.

But that might be a feature, not a bug, for this administration. Chilling federal survey participation and degrading data quality were arguably deliberate objectives in Trump’s first term, when he tried to cram a question about citizenship into the 2020 Census. The question was expected to depress response rates and help Republicans game the congressional redistricting process.

Courts ultimately blocked Trump’s plans. That’s what it will take to stop ongoing White House abuses, too: not scrapping critical government records, but championing the rule of law.

Ultimately, the government must be able to collect and integrate high-quality data — to administer social programs efficiently, help the economy function and understand the reality we live in so voters can hold public officials accountable. None of this is possible if Americans fear ending up on some vindictive commissar’s “list.”

Categories Data, Ethics, Trump
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