Archives for category: Extremism
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Justice Department Pursues Personal Data on Trans Individuals

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2025 //
2

Forget the economy. Forget inflation. Forget the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. What really animates the sick and sorry Trump administration is medical care for transgender youth. Now, there is an issue that involves the peace and prosperity of the nation–NOT!

My view: it’s none of my business. Issues like abortion and trans rights should be decided among patients, families, and doctors. Not by politicians. Not by me.

The Justice Department is harassing providers of care for young people who are transgender and demanding their personal data.

The Washington Post reported:

The Justice Department is demanding that hospitals turn over a wide range of sensitive information related to medical care for young transgender patients, including billing documents, communication with drug manufacturers and data such as patient dates of birth, Social Security numbers and addresses, according to a copy of a subpoena made public in a court filing this week.

The June subpoena to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia requests emails, Zoom recordings, “every writing or record of whatever type” doctors have made, voicemails and text messages on encrypted platforms dating to January 2020 — before hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender transition surgery had been banned anywhere in the United States.

About half of states have since passed laws prohibiting all or most gender treatment of minors. The Supreme Court ruled in June that a Tennessee ban did not violate the Constitution.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said last month that the Justice Department had issued more than 20 subpoenas seeking to hold “medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology” accountable. It is highly unusual for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer to announce such legal activity. Bondi did not identify who received the subpoenas, what information the government sought or what potential law violations it is investigating.

According to seven people familiar with the subpoenas, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, the subpoenas targeted care for patients younger than 19 and went to providers in states that still allow gender care for minors, as well as states where it has been banned. The subpoena, as well as public statements by Bondi’s chief of staff, indicate the federal government is attempting to build cases against medical providers that allege they may have violated civil and criminal statutes while providing care that was legal in their states.

Jacob T. Elberg, a former federal prosecutor specializing in health care fraud, said Bondi’s statement suggests the government “is using its investigative powers to target medical providers based on a disagreement about medical treatment rather than violations of the law.”

Elberg, now a law professor at the Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law at Seton Hall University, said that the subpoena itself is not wildly broad for a health-care-fraud case. But he noted that under a federal privacy law, the Justice Department must show that any information it demands on patient identities is relevant to a legitimate law enforcement probe.

Categories Bigotry, Evil, Extremism, Gender, Health, Justice, Science, Trump

A Letter to the Career Public Servants Tossed Out by DOGE

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2025 //
3

This article was written by William Burns, who retired after serving as CIA Director. It was addressed to other career officers who were abruptly fired by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

The article is titled: “A Letter to America’s Discarded Public Servants: You all deserved better.”

Burns likened the mass dismissals to the McCarthy era when China experts were falsely accused of being Communists and ousted, leaving the U.S. without their years of knowledge and experience. He warned of the dangers of suppressing dissent.

The article appeared in The Atlantic. It is a gift article, meaning you can read it without a paywall.

Dear colleagues,

For three and a half decades as a career diplomat, I walked across the lobby of the State Department countless times—inspired by the Stars and Stripes and humbled by the names of patriots etched into our memorial wall. It was heartbreaking to see so many of you crossing that same lobby in tears following the reduction in force in July, carrying cardboard boxes with family photos and the everyday remains of proud careers in public service. After years of hard jobs in hard places—defusing crises, tending alliances, opening markets, and helping Americans in distress—­you deserved better.

The same is true for so many other public servants who have been fired or pushed out in recent months: the remarkable intelligence officers I was proud to lead as CIA director, the senior military officers I worked with every day, the development specialists I served alongside overseas, and too many others with whom we’ve served at home and abroad.

The work you all did was unknown to many Americans, rarely well understood or well appreciated. And under the guise of reform, you all got caught in the crossfire of a retribution campaign—of a war on public service and expertise.

Those of us who have served in public institutions understand that serious reforms are overdue. Of course we should remove bureaucratic hurdles that prevent agencies like the State Department from operating efficiently. But there is a smart way and a dumb way to tackle reform, a humane way and an intentionally traumatizing way.

If today’s process were truly about sensible reform, career officers—who typically rotate roles every few years—wouldn’t have been fired simply because their positions have fallen out of political favor…

And if this process were truly about sensible reform, you and your families wouldn’t have been treated with gleeful indignity. One of your colleagues, a career diplomat, was given just six hours to clear out his office. “When I was expelled from Russia,” he said, “at least Putin gave me six days to leave.”

No, this is not about reform. It is about retribution. It is about breaking people and breaking institutions by sowing fear and mistrust throughout our government. It is about paralyzing public servants—making them apprehensive about what they say, how it might be interpreted, and who might report on them. It is about deterring anyone from daring to speak truth to power.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Musk, Elon, Trump

Trump Regime Begins to Cancel Bilingual Education

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2025 //
17

The far-right has always hated bilingual education. They think everyone should speak English, and those who don’t should be deported.

The Trump administration is setting the stage to eliminate bilingual education. This move is of a piece with their plan to deport millions of hard-working, honest immigrants who strengthen the economy.

Their goal is to restore a nation that is dominated by white straight Christian men, with a few white Christian women like Pam Bondi in leadership roles, and to banish any programs that help people improve their lot. That’s what MAGA means: a return to the “good old days” when power was in the hands of people like Trump.

The Washington Post reported:

The Trump administration has quietly rescinded long-standing guidance that directed schools to accommodate students who are learning English, alarming advocates who fear that schools will stop offering assistance if the federal government quits enforcing the laws that require it.

The rescission, confirmed by the Education Department on Tuesday, is one of several moves by the administration to scale back support for approximately 5 million schoolchildren not fluent in English, many of them born in the United States. It is also among the first steps in a broader push by the Trump administration to remove multilingual services from federal agencies across the board, an effort the Justice Department has ramped up in recent weeks.

The moves are an acceleration of President Donald Trump’s March 1 order declaring English the country’s “official language,” and they come as the administration is broadly targeting immigrants through its deportation campaign and other policy changes. The Justice Department sent a memorandum to all federal agencies last month directing them to follow Trump’s executive order, including by rescinding guidance related to rules about English-language learners.

Since March, the Education Department has also laid off nearly all workers in its Office of English Language Acquisition and has asked Congress to terminate funding for the federal program that helps pay for educating English-language learners. Last week, education advocates noticed that the guidance document related to English learning had a new label indicating it was rescinded and remains online “for historical purposes only.”

On Tuesday, Education Department spokeswoman Madi Biedermann said that the guidance for teaching English learners, which was originally set forth in 2015, was rescinded because it “is not in line with Administration policy.” A Justice Department spokesman responded to questions by sending a link to the July memorandum and said he had no comment when asked whether the guidance would be replaced.

For decades, the federal government has held that failing to provide resources for people not proficient in English constitutes discrimination based on national origin under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

In rescinding the guidance, the Trump administration is signaling that it may stop enforcing the law under that long-standing interpretation. The Education and Justice departments have been responsible for enforcing the law….

“The Department of Education and the Department of Justice are walking away from 55 years of legal understanding and enforcement. I don’t think we can understate how important that is,” said Michael Pillera, an attorney who worked at the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights for 10 years and now directs the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

Without pressure from the federal government to comply with the law, it is possible that some school districts will drop services, Pillera said, particularly as many districts struggle with financial pressures.

Categories Bigotry, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Immigration, Language, Literacy, Trump

Florida Federal Judge Orders “Alligator Alcatraz” to Close for Environmental Reasons

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2025 //
7

Trump, Kristi Noem, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have had a good time opening up and celebrating an immigrant detention facility that they call “Alligator Alcatraz.” They boast that immigrants who try to escape will be killed by alligators or snakes in the Everglades.

But the New York Times reported late Thursday that a federal judge ordered that the prison be shut down within the next 60 days because it endangers the environment. Judge Kathleen M. Williams was appointed by President Obama.

A federal judge in Miami gave the state of Florida 60 days to clear out the immigrant detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz, handing environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians a win after they clashed with Gov. Ron DeSantis over the environmental impacts the makeshift site was having in the federally protected Everglades.

The ruling late Thursday from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, which forbids state officials from moving any other migrants there, deals a blow to what had become a marquee symbol of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
The environmentalists who sued called it “a huge relief for millions of people who love the Everglades.”

“This brutal detention center was burning a hole in the fabric of life that supports our most iconic wetland and a whole host of endangered species, from majestic Florida panthers to wizened wood storks,” attorney Elise Bennett of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement. “The judge’s order came just in time to stop it all from unraveling.”

The state filed a notice of appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals less than an hour after the judge issued her order. DeSantis did not immediately comment.

Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Federal District Court in Miami found that the state and federal governments had violated a federal law that requires an environmental review before any major federal construction project. Judge Williams partly granted a preliminary injunction sought by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose members live in the area. The detention center is surrounded by protected lands that form part of the sensitive Everglades ecological system.

The detention center presents risks to wetlands and to communities that depend on the Everglades for their water supply, including the Miccosukee, Judge Williams found.

“The project creates irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area,” she wrote.

Her ruling is preliminary, as the case will continue to be litigated. The state is expected to ask that the ruling be stayed, or kept from taking effect, as it pursues its appeal.

The Trump administration had argued that a review under the National Environmental Policy Act did not apply because while the center houses federal immigration detainees, it is run by the state. At the same time, the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis argued that its authority to operate the detention center came from an agreement with the federal government delegating some immigration enforcement powers to Florida.

In her ruling, Judge Williams said federal immigration enforcement is the “key driver” of the detention center’s construction. Because it is subject to federal funding, standards and direction, it is also subject to federal environmental laws, she concluded. 

In making that determination, the judge wrote, the court will “‘adhere to the time-tested adage: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck.’”

Categories Cruelty, DeSantis, Environment, Extremism, Florida, Trump

Supreme Court by 5-4 Approves Cuts to NIH Research

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2025 //
9

The U.S. Supreme Court voted by 5-4 to approve the Trump administration’s cuts to federal research grants on health, due to their possible connection to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to “radical gender ideology.” Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the Court’s three liberal justices to stop the cuts to research funding.

The Associated Press reported:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration can slash hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of research funding in its push to cut federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, the Supreme Court decided Thursday.

The high court majority lifted a judge’s order blocking $783 million worth of cuts made by the National Institutes of Health to align with Republican President Donald Trump’s priorities. The high court did keep Trump administration guidance on future funding blocked, however.

The court split 5-4 on the decision. Chief Justice John Roberts was along those who would have kept the cuts blocked, along with the court’s three liberals.

The order marks the latest Supreme Court win for Trump and allows the administration to forge ahead with canceling hundreds of grants while the lawsuit continues to unfold. The plaintiffs, including states and public-health advocacy groups, have argued that the cuts will inflict “incalculable losses in public health and human life.”

The Justice Department, meanwhile, has said funding decisions should not be “subject to judicial second-guessing” and efforts to promote policies referred to as DEI can “conceal insidious racial discrimination.”

The lawsuit addresses only part of the estimated $12 billion of NIH research projects that have been cut, but in its emergency appeal, the Trump administration also took aim at nearly two dozen other times judges have stood in the way of its funding cuts.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer said judges shouldn’t be considering those cases under an earlier Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for teacher-training program cuts. He says they should go to federal claims court instead.

But the plaintiffs, 16 Democratic state attorneys general and public-health advocacy groups, argued that research grants are fundamentally different from the teacher-training contracts and couldn’t be sent to claims court. Halting studies midway can also ruin the data already collected and ultimately harm the country’s potential for scientific breakthroughs by disrupting scientists’ work in the middle of their careers, they argued.

U.S. District Judge William Young judge in Massachusetts agreed, finding the abrupt cancellations were arbitrary and discriminatory. “I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” Young, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, said at a hearing in June. He later added: “Have we no shame.”

An appeals court left Young’s ruling in place.

Categories Extremism, Funding, Gender, Health, Research, Science, Trump

Trump Wants Smithsonian to Downplay or Eliminate Dark Portrayal of Slavery

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2025 //
9

Trump warned that he was prepared to take an active role in reviewing exhibits in the Smithsonian museums, especially the African-American Museum. Too many show bad portrayals of their nation, he complained. Think about it: is it possible to show slavery in a positive light?

Trump’s insistence on purging the Smithsonian of the accurate portrayal of Black history is yet another example of his efforts to minimize and sanitize that history.

The New York Times wrote that Trump is hostile to an honest confrontation with the past:

Since taking office, Mr. Trump has led an effort to purge diversity, equity and inclusion policies from the federal government and threatened to investigate companies and schools that adopt such policies. He has tried to reframe the country’s past involving racism and discrimination by de-emphasizing that history, preferring to instead spotlight a sanitized, rosy depiction of America.

The administration has worked to scrub or minimize government references to the contributions of Black heroes, from the Tuskegee Airmen, who fought in World War II, to Harriet Tubman, who guided enslaved people along the Underground Railroad. Mr. Trump commemorated Juneteenth, the celebration of the end of slavery in the United States that became a federal holiday in 2021, by complaining that there were too many non-working holidays in America. He has called for the return of Confederate insignia and statues honoring those who fought to preserve slavery.

And he has previously attacked the exhibits on race at the Smithsonian, which has traditionally operated as an independent institution that regards itself as outside the purview of the executive branch, as “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

CNN described Trump’s determination to compel museums to remove exhibitions of events that show shameful behavior by whites and the government:

President Donald Trump escalated his campaign to purge cultural institutions of materials that conflict with his political directives on Tuesday, alleging museums were too focused on highlighting negative aspects of American history, including “how bad slavery was.”

In a Truth Social post, Trump directed his attorneys to conduct a review of museums, comparing the effort to his crackdown on universities across the country.

“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump wrote.

Trump’s comments come days after the White House announced an unprecedented, sweeping review of the Smithsonian Institution, which runs the nation’s major public museums. The initiative, a trio of top Trump aides wrote in a letter to Smithsonian Institution secretary Lonnie Bunch III last week, “aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

The letter said the review would focus on public-facing content, the curatorial process to understand how work is selected for exhibits, current and future exhibition planning, the use of existing materials and collections and guidelines for narrative standards.

Bunch — who has served as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution since 2019 and is the first African American to hold the position — has made multiple comments about the importance of educating people about slavery through the National Museum of African American History and Culture specifically. He told Smithsonian Magazine that part of the purpose of that museum “was to help a nation understand itself — an impossible task without the full recognition of the horrors of slavery.”

Exhibits at the Smithsonian take years of planning and are heavily evaluated by teams of scholars and curatorial experts before they make their debut. Janet Marstine, a museum ethics expert, said that the demands laid out by the Trump administration “set the Smithsonian up for failure.”

“Nobody could provide those kinds of materials in such a comprehensive way, in that short amount of time, and so it’s just an impossible task,” she said. The White House has asked the Smithsonian to provide a wide array of materials, from internal emails and memos to digital copies of all placards and gallery labels currently on display.

The Smithsonian declined to comment on Trump’s latest remarks. A White House official, asked about the attorney review process Trump described, said the president “will explore all options and avenues to get the Woke out of the Smithsonian and hold them accountable.”

Still, Trump’s efforts to target colleges and universities — which he is now comparing to his focus on Smithsonian museums — has been even more aggressive. His administration has moved to strip federal funding from higher education institutions for a variety of reasons, including allegations of antisemitism and failure to comply with certain policy changes. Columbia University recently settled with the Trump administration for more than $220 million dollars and Trump has also been in a protracted battle with Harvard University after his administration froze $2 billion in federal funding.

The Trump administration’s push to align federal support with his cultural agenda has extended beyond the nation’s capital. The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities canceled tens of millions of dollars in federal grants earlier this year, affecting small museums, library initiatives, arts programs and academic research projects across the country.

Trump has previously praised the Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which he toured during his first term as president.

“I’m deeply proud that we now have a museum that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage, especially when it comes to faith, culture and the unbreakable American spirit,” Trump said during remarks at the museum in February 2017. Later that month, Trump said the museum “tells of the great struggle for freedom and equality that prevailed against the sins of slavery and the injustice of discrimination.”

Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order that put Vice President JD Vance, who serves on the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, in charge of stopping government spending on exhibits that don’t align with the administration’s agenda. He also tasked a former member of his legal team, attorney Lindsey Halligan, with helping to root out “improper ideology” at the Smithsonian.

“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to divisive narratives,” the executive order said.

The Smithsonian began a review of its own in June, and has repeatedly stressed its commitment to being nonpartisan. The institution told CNN in July that it was committed to an “unbiased presentation of facts and history” and that it would “make any necessary changes to ensure our content meets our standards.”

The Smithsonian was established in the 1840s by the US with funds from the estate of James Smithson, a British scientist. As a unique trust instrumentality that is supported by federal funds, it is not an executive branch agency, which makes it a complex question whether the Trump administration has the ability to control its exhibits. It is governed by a 17-member Board of Regents led by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The fact that the Smithsonian is not an “executive branch agency” won’t deter Trump. He has ignored laws and the Constitution when they don’t support his agenda. Neither the Library of Congress nor the National Portrait Gallery is an executive agency. Yet Congress sat silently as Trump forced out their leaders.

Trump is rapidly assuming control of every federal agency that was designed to be independent.

No other President has attempted to do that.

Categories Censorship, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Freedom to Learn, History, Lies, Racism, Trump

A Day in the White House: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2025 //
10

Jeff Tiedrich, graphic designer, writes a blog called “Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion.” It’s hilarious, it’s filled with obscenities that I never post, and it captures the essence of whatever he’s writing about.

Please consider subscribing.

I disclaim all of Jeff Tiedrich’s four-letter words and urge you to read this post.

Jeff Tiedrich writes:

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, flanked by European leaders, visited the White House yesterday. they did Statesmanship Kabuki, where everyone tiptoes around and pretends that Donny Convict’s hand is firmly guiding his ship of state — when in reality, America’s Mad King is a semi-sentient drool-bucket who’s only a handful of frayed synapses away from wearing his diaper on his head.

can we just talk about how totally fucking insane Dear Leader is?

I mean, who in the hallowed name of Mentally Unbalanced Jesus does this?

Donny has a huge-ass painting of his Miracle Ear Nicking hanging in the White House — and he makes sure everyone sees it by pointing and whining “this was not a good day.”

if it wasn’t a good day, then why are you forever reminding yourself of it by commissioning a wall-size painting so you can relive it daily?

normal people don’t act like this.

let’s gif that shit, because you would never believe it if you didn’t see it with your own eyes.

everyone in attendance — Zelenskyy, Mark Rutte, Ursula von der Leyen, Keir Starmer, Alexander Stubb, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, and Giorgia Meloni — these are serious people who run countries, and this is what they have to endure when they come to Donny’s White House: a lunatic wants them to admire his assassination painting. 

what must be going through their minds?

Donny has literally devolved into the insane dictator General Garcia from the film The In-Laws, proudly showing off his crazypants art collection.

but Donny’s outdone General Garcia — because not even the general thought to sell merch at his presidential palace.

that’s right, the White House Gift Shop has now become your one-stop destination for all merchandise MAGA. I’ll bet Zelenskyy was thrilled with his new hat. I’ll bet it’s sitting in a treasured wastebin in Ukraine right now.

tell me, does Dear Leader’s inability to read simple words — or even recognize someone sitting right across from him — make his ass seem demented?

Donny: “President Stubb of… Finland and he’s… uh… he’s somebody that where are we here, huh? where? where?”
Stubb: “I’m right here.”
Donny: “oh.”

Stubb was, in fact, sitting directly across from Donny.

hey Jake Tapper, are you watching this?

again, these are serious people dealing with serious issues — and Donny reacts to them like a bored child who can’t wait for the other person to stop talking, so he can start.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: “every single child has to go back to its family. this should be one of our main priorities in negotiations is to make sure that the children come back to Ukraine, to their families.”

Donny: “thank you, and we did. I was just thinking, we’re hear for a different reason, but we uh just a couple of weeks ago made the largest trade deal in history. that’s a big, that’s a big thing, and congratulations, that’s great. thank you very much.”

shut the fuck up with your children, lady, whoever you are. Donny wants to brag about his trade deals.

everyone was there to talk about ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but Donny was more interested in playing ever-more-outlandish rounds of Things That Never Happened The Most.

“we’re gonna stop mail-in ballots because it’s corrupt. you know, when you go to a voting booth and you do it the right way, you go to a state that runs it properly, you go in, they even ask me, they ask me for my license plate for identify, I said ‘I don’t know if I have it,’ they said ‘sir, you have to have it.’ I was very impressed, actually. but it’s very hard to cheat.”

what the fuck? okay, let’s just give Sundowning President Chucklefuck the benefit of the doubt here, and presume he meant to say drivers license, not license plate. Donny has lived in two states: Florida and New York. granted, Donny also lives in a Perpetual State of Confusion, but you can’t vote there. so let’s talk about New York and Florida. neither of those states require a drivers license to vote, so what the fuck is Donny talking about? oh wait, it’s a sir story. big strong election workers, their faces wet with tears of gratitude, were going ‘sir! sir! we need your license plate, sir! go pry that sucker off the presidential limousine, sir, and fork it over.’

so Donny’s just making shit up, but wait a minute. that clip is from Donny’s one-on-one morning meeting with Zelenskyy, ostensibly about bringing an end to the war in Ukraine — so why is Donny prattling on about whatever nonsensical ‘sir story’ pops into his empty head?

it’s because Donny has lost his fucking marbles — and we’ve all become numb to it. presidents aren’t supposed to act this way. Joe Biden didn’t wander into the tall weeds in the middle of a meeting and start blithering incoherently about whatever he’d seen on TV that morning. neither did Obama. neither did the Bushes.

Reagan did, but he was almost as demented as Donny is — so what does that tell you?

by the way, my What The Fuck Is Wrong With You Challenge is now in its 1,967th day.

would any of the worthless scribblers of the corporate-controlled media care to take me up on it?

oh wait, I think President Scramblebrains wants to talk about some more shit that never happened the most. lay it on us, hotshot.

“we have a thing going on right now in DC. we went from the most unsafe place anywhere to a place that now, people, friends are calling me up, Democrats are calling me up and they’re saying, ‘sir, I want to thank you. my wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years, and Washington, DC is safe, and you did that in four days.’ I’ll tell you it’s safe. I had another friend of mine, he has a son who’s a great golfer, he’s on tour, and he came in fourth yesterday in the big tournament where Scott Scheffler made the great shot and uh he said his son is going to dinner in Washington DC tonight. I said would you have allowed that to happen a year ago? he said no way, no way. he said ‘what you’ve done is incredible’ and I think the people realize it. but the press says ‘he’s a dictator, he’s trying to take over.’ no, all I want is security for our people. but people that haven’t gone out to dinner in Washington DC in two years are going out to dinner, and the restaurants in the last two days were busier than they’ve been in a long time.”

oh. Donny’s bragging that the police state he’s inflicted on the nation’s capitol has brought untold prosperity to its nightspots. 

fact check: fuck straight off.

Research by Open Table found that restaurant attendance was down every day last week compared with 2024, with the number of diners dipping by 31% on Wednesday, two days after Trump ordered the national guard to patrol Washington.

people would rather stay home in DC than risk being hassled by Donny’s gestapo thugs — yet here’s Donny spinning farcical nonsense about Democrats and golfer-dads phoning him with the tears in their eyes. poor Zelenkyy has to sit there and try keep a straight face while this complete fucking insanity happens right next to him.

Categories Elections, Ethics, Extremism, For-Profit, Humor, Ignorance, Insane, Stupid, Trump

Michael Bloomberg: Will Trump Let RFK Jr. Destroy His Greatest Achievement?

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2025 //
3

During his first term in office, Trump had one major achievement: he responded to the pandemic by authorizing the rapid funding of a vaccine for COVID. His project was called operation Warp Speed. It was the domestic and peaceful equivalent of the Manhattan Project. It was a resounding success. Millions of lives were saved.

Unfortunately, Trump’s Health Secretary is opposed to vaccines. He has spent years encouraging people not to trust vaccines. He recently cancelled $500 million in vaccine research, cancelling research on exactly the kinds of mRNA vaccines that protected people from COVID.

Michael R. Bloomberg is a billionaire who has funded medical research at his Alma mater, John’s Hopkins University, and elsewhere. He is as devoted to promoting public health as RFK Jr. is to undermining it. Mr. Bloomberg was mayor of NYC for 12 years. In this post, he cleverly pits Trump’s ego against one of his worst Cabinet choices.

He writes:

For leaders in business, failing to learn the lessons of a crisis can be disastrous. For leaders in government, when millions of lives are at risk, such disasters can be catastrophic. Unfortunately, that’s where the US is heading, thanks to the disagreement that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has with his boss, President Donald Trump.

A little history: On Jan. 10, 2020, a Chinese scientist posted the genetic sequence of a “mystery virus” that had sickened dozens and caused at least one death. Forty-two days later, as Covid-19 spread across the globe, researchers near Boston sent the first shipment of an experimental vaccine to US regulators. Three months after that, Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, an $18 billion effort to accelerate the development, approval and distribution of vaccines.

Within a year, billions of vaccine doses had been administered worldwide — saving millions of lives, including those of many Americans. As Trump said: “Operation Warp Speed, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, was one of the most incredible things ever done in this country.” He was absolutely correct — but his health secretary disagrees. The question is: Will Trump allow Kennedy to destroy his legacy?

Kennedy recently canceled $500 million in contracts for the research and development of so-called messenger RNA vaccines. His defense — that mRNA technology is ineffective against respiratory infections — is wrong. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, must know that, so he subsequently offered a different defense: There is insufficient public confidence in it.

Bhattacharya didn’t mention, of course, that Kennedy has fueled that public distrust. Regardless, the correct response to misperceptions about lifesaving medicine is not to throw up one’s hands, cancel funding for it and walk away. It’s to use the power of the bully pulpit to bring people together — community, faith, civic and other leaders — to spread facts and overcome hesitations. That’s leadership.

Not content to peddle misinformation and halt existing projects, Kennedy also effectively terminated additional federal funding for research on mRNA vaccines. The two edicts put countless American lives at risk.

To see the scale of the danger Kennedy is creating, it helps to understand how revolutionary mRNA vaccines are. For many decades, traditional vaccines have injected a small part of a dead or weakened virus into a healthy person. This stimulates the immune system to create antibodies, which protect people from serious infection when they encounter the real thing. In some cases, millions of chicken eggs are used to develop and produce these traditional vaccines, by incubating the viruses. In other cases, cell cultures are grown in bioreactors. Both processes are complex and time-consuming.

New mRNA vaccines are faster to develop. Messenger RNA is a strand of genetic code that gives cells instructions. For decades, scientists worked to design a synthetic form of mRNA, which would then tell the body to fight specific infections. Such a discovery, in theory, would also enable drugmakers to manufacture a vaccine without using a virus, cutting months off development. Yet despite significant advances, an mRNA vaccine had never been produced or tested at scale.

Operation Warp Speed helped overcome the obstacles and produce vaccines in record time. The speed of this breakthrough led to fantastical theories, including that the shots change one’s DNA, insert microchips into the body and cause infertility. It was all nonsense — the ultimate fake news. But it spread nonetheless, amplified by skeptics like Kennedy. Countless studies proved the vaccines safe, and the two scientists behind their development won the Nobel Prize.

The misinformation couldn’t be contained, but Kennedy can be. All that’s needed is a call from the White House directing him to reverse his recent decisions. Otherwise, when the next pandemic strikes, other countries — including China — will be equipped to distribute a shot within weeks, while scientists in the US will be left to fiddle with outdated technology as Americans wait in line.

Senator Bill Cassidy, whose vote was critical for Kennedy’s confirmation, lamented last week that the secretary has “conceded to China an important technology” and is imperiling the administration’s goals. He’s right — yet Cassidy and his colleagues in Congress have stood aside while Kennedy puts American lives at risk.

Without government leadership, the private sector is unlikely to fill the funding gap. Research on treatments for a hypothetical pandemic is financially risky, so public funding is essential to saving lives.

Kennedy’s actions will also have a chilling effect on other potential mRNA developments, including work on Type 1 diabetes, HIV, genetic diseases and myriad other illnesses, especially cancer. That bears repeating: mRNA research could lead to a cure for cancer. How many Americans who have family members suffering from cancer are ready to sacrifice them to Kennedy’s dunderheaded paranoias?

The White House should remember and celebrate its extraordinary first-term success — and build on it by reining in Kennedy. If it does that, the president who sped the development of the Covid vaccine might go down in history as doing the same for a cure for cancer and other diseases.

Categories Extremism, Funding, Health, Trump

Peter Greene: Why Is it Controversial to Welcome Everyone in a Public School Classroom?

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2025 //
10

In this post, Peter Greene continues his coverage of a teacher in West Ada, Idaho, who got into trouble for putting up a poster that showed different colored hands in the air and said “Everyone is Welcome Here.” District leaders said the poster was unwelcome because it violated federal guidelines that banished DEI, and had to be removed. Some didn’t object to the sentiment but objected to the portrayal of nonwhite hands.

Greene wrote:

Sarah Inama has put her poster up in a new classroom.

Inama, you may recall, is the 6th grade world history teacher told by her district bosses at West Ada School District that her “Everyone Is Welcome Here” poster, complete with hands of many human shades, would not be tolerated in the district.  (I’ve been following this here, here, and here). West Ada is the largest district in Idaho, but their treatment of Inama has been spectacularly awful, both from an Awful Display of Racism standpoint, a Grotesque Mistreatment of Staff standpoint, and a Boneheaded PR Management standpoint. 

Inama went to local news and the story blew up, delivering the shame that West Ada so richly deserved. We know a lot more thanks to some stellar reporting by Carly Flandro and the folks at Idaho Ed News, who FOIAed 1200 emails surrounding this and showcasing the board’s stumbling response. You should read the resulting stories (here and here). 

The day after Inama was on the Today show, the district issued a memo entitled “Ensuring a Consistent and Supportive Learning Environment.” They decided to go with sports analogies. The Chief Academic Officer is a like a referee who enforces rules “to ensure a fair and level playing field.” And there’s this howler–

If one player decided to wear a different uniform, use a different-sized ball, or ignore the rules, the game would lose its structure, creating confusion and imbalance.

Then a report from BoiseDev that the Board of Trustees is considering making every teacher put up an “Everyone is welcome” poster– just without those multi-colored hands. Responding to BoiseDev, a district spokesperson explained:

Regarding the Everyone is Welcome Here posters, the district determined that while the phrase itself is broadly positive, certain design elements have been associated over time with political entities and initiatives that are now subject to federal restriction.

Inama told Idaho EdNews, “That’s appeasing not a political view, but a bigoted view that shouldn’t even be considered by a public school district.”

Inama was told the poster was divisive, that it was “not neutral,” that the problem was not the message, but the hands of v arious skin tones. Teachers shouldn’t have political stuff in the classroom. Inama nails the issue here

“I really still don’t understand how it’s a political statement,” she said. “I don’t think the classroom is a place for anyone to push a personal agenda or political agenda of any kind, but we are responsible for first making sure that our students are able to learn in our classroom.”

Some parents and students showed up at school to make chalk drawings in support. And yet many folks within and outside the district saw this as a divisive issue. How could anyone do that? Meet district parent Brittany Bieghler, who was dropping her kids off the day that parents were chalking the “Everyone is welcome here” message on the sidewalks.

“The ‘Everyone is Welcome’ slogan is one filled with marxism and DEI, there is no need for those statements because anyone with a brain knows that everyone is welcome to attend school, so there is no need to have it posted, written or worn on school grounds,” she wrote. “My family and I relocated here from a state that did not align with our beliefs and we expected it to be different here, but it seems as time goes by, its becoming more like our former state, which is extremely disheartening.”

“Anyone with a brain” might begin to suspect that everyone is not welcome here under these circumstances. And the school board itself couldn’t decide what to respond, drafting an assortment of emails that tried to show conciliation to those that were defiant and defensive, including one complaining in MAGA-esque tones that Inama was naughty for going to “new media.”

Imana resigned from her position, and by June the word was out that she was a new hire at Boise Schools. She told Idaho Ed News, 

I’m so grateful to be able to work within a district that knows the beauty of inclusion and diversity and doesn’t for a second consider it an opinion but embraces it. As an educator, it’s an amazing feeling to know your (district’s) officials, board, and administrators fully uphold the fundamentals of public education and (have) the dignity to proudly support them. I really feel at home knowing we are truly all on the same team … and that’s a team that is rooting on all of our students.

Damned straight. And just last week, as reported by KTVB news, Inama posted video of herself putting up an “Everyone is welcome here” poster in her new classroom.

(To see the video, open the link.)

So the story ends well for Inama, and that’s a great thing. This is the sort of boneheaded administrative foolishness that can drive teachers out of the profession. The unfortunate part of the story is that up the road in West Ada schools, the administration, board and a non-zero number of parents think that challenging racism is bad and saying that students of all races are welcome in school is just one person’s opinion that shouldn’t be expressed openly in a school. Shame on West Ada.

Categories Bigotry, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Idaho, Ignorance, Racism

Trump Wants to Ban Mail-In Voting Because Putin Told Him So

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2025 //
5

Thom Hartmann is outraged. Trump proclaimed that he would issue an executive order banning mail-in voting. Why? Because Putin told him that mail-in voting caused him to lose the 2020 election. Republicans know that they will lose control of the House and possibly the Senate unless they can suppress the vote or redistrict, as they are in Texas, drawing lines that squeeze out Democrats.

Hartmann wrote:

Yesterday, Donald Trump crossed another line that no president in our history has ever dared p to touch. With the echo of Vladimir Putin’s whisper in his ear, in front of President Zelenskyy and seven other European leaders, Trump announced he’s preparing an executive order to ban mail-in ballots and even outlaw voting machines across America ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. 

Sitting in front of the Chancellor of Germany and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, — both nations that allow and even encourage mail-in voting — Trump said:

“Mail-in ballots are corrupt mail-in ballots. You can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots, and we as a Republican Party are gonna do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. We’re gonna start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt. And, you know that we’re the only country in the world, I believe, I may be wrong, but just about the only country in the world that uses it because of what’s happened.”

This is not just a partisan maneuver. It’s an open assault on the Constitution, a grotesque power grab, and a direct threat to the foundation of democracy itself. And it’s happening in real time, in broad daylight, with a criminally compliant Republican Party cheering him on. 

Republicans hate mail-in voting for multiple reasons.

First, for people who’re paid by the hour, mail-in voting increases participation because they can fill out their ballots at the kitchen table after work. Republicans don’t want people to vote, and have introduced over 400 pieces of legislation in the past three years nationwide to make voting more difficult. 

Second, mail-in voting makes voters better informed and less vulnerable to sound-byte TV ads because, while perusing that ballot at the kitchen table, they can look up candidates on their laptops and get more detail and information. Republicans hate informed voters and rely heavily on often-dishonest advertisements to swing voters. 

Third, mail-in ballots — because they arrive in the mail weeks before the election — give voters an early chance to discover if they’ve been the victim of Republican voter-roll purges, one of their favorite tactics to pre-rig elections. 

Fourth, mail-in ballots end the GOP trick of understaffing and underresourcing polling places in minority neighborhoods, leading to hours-long lines. Hispanic voters generally wait 150% longer than white voters, and Black voters must endure a 200% longer wait; mail-in ballots put an end to this favorite of the GOP’s voter suppression efforts. 

Trump, knowing all this, couldn’t help himself yesterday, finally blurting out his real reason for wanting to end mail-in voting in America:

“We got to stop mail-in voting, and the Republicans have to lead the charge. The Democrats want it because they have horrible policy,” Trump proclaimed. “If you [don’t] have mail-in voting, you’re not gonna have many Democrats get elected. That’s bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me.”

Once again, Trump is ignoring the law and the Constitution, which explicitly delegates the administration of elections to the states and Congress, not presidential executive orders.

That’s not some vague norm or debatable tradition: it’s written into the very DNA of our system of government. States set the rules, unless Congress — not the president — overrides them. States decide how their citizens vote, as the Constitution’s Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 dictates:

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

Yet here we have a president declaring that he alone will dictate the terms of elections nationwide, in direct violation of two centuries of law and precedent. This is not only unconstitutional, it’s tyrannical. 

When a president asserts powers he does not have, with the full knowledge that they aren’t his to wield, he’s announcing to the country that the rule of law no longer constrains him. That’s the definition of dictatorship.

And what makes this even more obscene is the source of Trump’s inspiration. According to multiple reports, Trump’s sudden rant on mail-in ballots followed a private conversation with Vladimir Putin, who reportedly told him that mail-in voting was the reason he lost in 2020.

The man occupying the Oval Office is now taking advice about how to rig American elections from the very dictator who has spent his career poisoning journalists, jailing opponents, and staging sham referendums to annex entire countries. 

It’s bad enough that Trump has always been Putin’s toady, but now we see the Kremlin effectively writing U.S. election law. If Jefferson, Madison, or Lincoln were alive to hear this, they would spit.

Mail-in voting is not a scam. It’s not a trick. It’s how tens of millions of Americans — Republicans, Democrats, independents — exercise their right to vote. 

Seniors rely on it. People with disabilities rely on it. Military service members overseas rely on it. Hourly workers who can’t take a day off rely on it. Parents with young children rely on it. Rural voters, who often live miles from polling places, rely on it. 

And every study, every audit, every bipartisan commission has found mail-in voting to be secure, safe, and reliable. Five states do it exclusively; we’ve had it more than two decades here in Oregon with nary a single scandal or problem. To call it fraudulent is a lie. To ban it is voter suppression on a scale this country has never seen.

And voting machines? Trump is openly declaring that he’ll return us to mind-numbingly slow hand-counting of ballots, a tactic straight from the authoritarian playbook designed to create chaos, delays, and endless opportunities to dispute the results in 2026 and 2028. 

I’ve had concerns about voting machines and Windows-based tabulators for decades, but my solution isn’t to end them. Instead, we should use machines owned by the government itself, generating paper ballots and operating transparently on open-source software with every election subject to sample audits. 

Instead of trying to make elections more secure, Trump’s laying the groundwork for election theft in plain sight. This isn’t subtle: it’s the loud declaration of a man preparing to overturn the will of the voters, with the blessing of a foreign adversary, and with a Republican Party too craven to object.

If Trump succeeds in outlawing mail-in ballots and voting machines, millions of Americans will simply not be able to vote. Seniors in nursing homes, service members abroad, people with disabilities, single parents, rural citizens: they will all be disenfranchised overnight. And make no mistake: that’s the point. 

This is not about integrity. This is not about security. This is about shrinking the electorate to a size that Republicans believe will guarantee them victory forever.

Republicans know they can’t win free and fair elections in much of America. They know their policies are unpopular. They know their agenda is toxic. 

So they cheat. They gerrymander districts into grotesque shapes that make a mockery of representative government. They purge voters from the rolls. They criminalize voter registration drives. They intimidate voters at the polls. 

And now, at Trump’s command and Putin’s urging, they want to ban the very methods by which millions of Americans vote. This is not politics as usual. This is the slow-motion strangulation of democracy.

Every American who believes in self-government must rise up against this. Governors must prepare to defy such an executive order in court and in practice. State legislatures must assert their constitutional authority. 

Attorneys general must be ready to sue. And ordinary citizens must take to the streets, the phones, the ballot box, and every civic space available to declare that this will not stand. Because if it does, we’ll have surrendered the very essence of the American experiment.

We’ve been here before in spirit if not in form.

Reagan’s campaign cut a deal with the Iranian Ayatollahs to hang onto the hostages until after the election. Richard Nixon tried to sabotage our democracy by killing LBJ’s peace negotiations with Vietnam and followed-up with burglaries and cover-ups when he thought Democrats were onto him. He was forced to resign. George W. Bush and the GOP stopped the counting of votes in Florida and handed the presidency to themselves. That assault has scarred our politics for decades. 

But never — not once in 250 years — has a president openly declared that he will strip states of their constitutional right to run elections, end mail-in voting, and ban voting machines altogether. This is unprecedented, authoritarian, and it must be stopped.

It’s also just one in a broad spectrum of attacks Republicans have launched against your right to vote, with the SAVE Act — which will prevent women from voting if their birth certificate and drivers’ license have different names on them and they’ve never had an official change-of-name in the courts — teed up in the US Senate. All while millions are being purged from the voting rolls as you read these words.

This is the moment when the American people must decide whether they still believe in democracy. If we shrug, if we accept this as just more noise from a corrupt and broken con man, we will lose it. If we wait for someone else to act, we will lose it. If we tell ourselves the courts will save us, we may be bitterly disappointed. 

The survival of democracy has never been guaranteed. It has always required vigilance, courage, and action. Now it requires all three from each of us.

Trump’s promised executive order is not just a legal maneuver. It’s a declaration of war against the American people. It’s the dream of every tyrant: to control who votes and who does not, to dictate the rules of elections so that the outcome is predetermined. 

What Putin and Trump are proposing is not democracy. It’s not freedom. It’s not America.

And the Republicans who are enabling this treachery are as guilty as Trump himself. They’re betraying their oaths, their constituents, and our country. History will remember them not as conservatives or patriots, but as the gravediggers of our Republic.

This is the line. This is the moment. We cannot let Trump and his cronies bulldoze democracy into the ground at Putin’s command. Every patriot, every progressive, every independent, every honest conservative who still believes in the Constitution must join together and say no. 

No to dictatorship. No to disenfranchisement. No to treason.

If we fail now, there may not be another chance.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Trump
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