Archives for category: Extremism

This is one of the saddest stories I have read in a long time. Georgia has one of the most draconian abortion laws in the nation. Because of that law, a woman who is brain-dead will be kept “alive” until she gives birth. She is nine weeks pregnant. The baby will be removed when it reaches 32 weeks. One of those Bible-thumpers should offer to adopt the baby. Lots of Bible-thumpers or the State Legislature should pay the outrageous bills that will pile up.

Robyn Pennacchia of the Wonkette wrote about this horrendous case:

Adriana Smith of Atlanta, Georgia, has been brain dead for more than 90 days.

Back in February, Smith — a registered nurse at Emory University Hospital — started experiencing intense headaches and went to get checked out at a local hospital, because she knew “enough to know something was wrong.”

“They gave her some medication, but they didn’t do any tests. No CT scan,” Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, told 11Alive news. “If they had done that or kept her overnight, they would have caught it. It could have been prevented.”

The next morning, Smith’s boyfriend discovered her gasping for air and gurgling on what he believed was blood. She went back to the hospital, where they finally did a CT scan and discovered multiple blood clots in her brain. Unfortunately, they were too late and Smith was declared brain dead as they prepared to go into surgery.

This would have been a horrific enough scenario under normal circumstances, but Smith was also nine weeks pregnant … and in Georgia. Georgia has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation, 33.9 deaths per 100,000 live births — 48.6 per 100,000 for Black women and 22.7 for white and Hispanic women. Part of that is because women like Adriana Smith are ignored when they tell doctors that something is wrong.

Georgia also has a “Heartbeat Law” that bans abortion after fetal pole cardiac activity is detected (but before there is even an actual heart).

Because of Georgia’s garbage abortion ban, Smith now has to be kept on life support until the fetus is 32 weeks along and can be removed. Like, they are literally using her dead body as an incubator for a fetus.

Please, take a moment to scream into a nearby throw pillow, if you need it.

Via 11Alive:

Under Georgia’s heartbeat law, abortion is banned once cardiac activity is detected — typically around six weeks into pregnancy. The law includes limited exceptions for rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger. But in Adriana’s case, the law created a legal gray area.

Because she is brain dead — no longer considered at risk herself — her medical team is legally required to maintain life support until the fetus reaches viability.

The family said doctors told them they are not legally allowed to consider other options. […]

Now, due to the state abortion ban, Smith is being kept on life support.

“She’s been breathing through machines for more than 90 days,” Newkirk said. “It’s torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there. And her son — I bring him to see her.”

Newkirk said it’s been heartbreaking seeing her grandson believe his mother is “just sleeping.”

It would be bad enough if the state were just forcing the family to keep Smith “alive” on life support in order to be an incubator for the fetus, but they’re also requiring them to pay for it. While it’s not exactly easy to track down exact costs, an ICU bed in a Georgia non-profit hospital costs, on average, $2,402 a day on its own, without any additional treatment. According to a report from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, mechanical ventilation costs, on average, “$3,900 per day after the fourth day.” So that’s $6302 a day just for the basics. Then there’s everything else on top of that.

And health insurance doesn’t cover life support when there’s no chance of survival or improvement.

So we’re already at $1.6 million before even getting into the cost of the baby’s care. The average stay in the NICU for a baby born at 32 weeks is 36 days, and a NICU stay can cost $3,000 to $20,000 a day. That is more likely to be covered by health insurance — though it is not actually clear if the baby would be covered by Smith’s health insurance if she’s dead, or for how long. And that’s just in the beginning. It is hard to imagine that a kid born in those circumstances would not have some pretty serious health issues down the road.

This family is fucked.

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I am going to need to point out, for the 80 bajillionth time, that the people who love the idea of forcing a woman to give birth against their will (or while braindead) are almost universally against universal health care. Especially the ones who are going around crying about “birth rates.”

I’m not saying it would make anything okay, it wouldn’t, but the very fact that these absolute pieces of shit want to force people to give birth against their will and pay for the privilege as well is galling. In this case, the state wants to force this family to pay possibly $1.6 million or more to keep a brain dead woman alive so that she can give birth to a fetus that was only nine weeks along when she died.

Perhaps it’s crass to think of money, given the fact that keeping a woman on life support just to incubate a fetus is appalling enough on its own. And it is. But a nearly two million dollar surcharge is a hell of an added insult to injury.

Categories Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, Georgia, Health

Bruce Springsteen’s “Message to America” and Trump’s Reply

By dianeravitch

May 17, 2025 //

The superstar Bruce Springsteen was giving a concert in Manchester, England, and he stopped to talk about what was happening in the country he loves.

Watch it here.

He was about to sing “My City in Ruins.”

Watching is better but if you prefer to read:

There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.

In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.

In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.

They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society.

They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.

They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.

A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.

The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, “In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.” Let’s pray.

President Trump was very angry when he heard that the very popular Bruce Springsteen spoke out in dissent about the darkness across our land.

Trump posted this:

Was that last sentence a warning? What a petty, thin-skinned, vengeful man he is.

Categories Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, History, Injustice, Shame, Trump

RFK Jr.’s Doublespeak About Vaccines

By dianeravitch

May 16, 2025 //

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was the nation’s most prominent critic of vaccines until Trump nominated him to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, the nation’s leading public health official. During his Senate confirmation hearings, he pretended that he was not anti-vaccine anymore and that he would not express anti-vaccine views anymore.

But old habits and antiquated views are hard to shake.

RFK Jr. has been consistently pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine since he took charge of HHS. The nation’s top vaccine expert resigned when he realized that his boss continues to be anti-vaccine. RFK, with no experience running any large organization, has fired thousands of scientists, driven away leading scientists, closed down important research, and inflicted massive demoralization on what was once the greatly respected HHS.

Lauren Weber wrote in the Washington Post about RFK Jr.’s hypocritical stance on vaccines. The Kennedy family must be deeply ashamed of him.

Weber wrote:

Early last month, after two Texas children had died of measles, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acknowledged that the MMR vaccine prevents the spread of that virus. But later that day, he posted photos of himself with anti-vaccine doctors, calling them “extraordinary healers” and promoting unproven treatments.

In a television interview three days later, Kennedy, the nation’s top health official, encouraged vaccination for measles. In the same conversation, he cast doubt on whether one of the children had actually died of measles-related complications.

And in an interview with Phil McGraw at the end of April, Kennedy said of the measles vaccine: “HHS continues to recommend that vaccine. But there are problems with the vaccine.”

With the nation in the grip of the deadliest measles outbreak in decades, Kennedy is equivocating with a worried U.S. public, health experts said. His mixed message appeals to vaccine believers and skeptics, muddying public health instructions at a time when clarity is essential.

Elevated from longtime anti-vaccine activist to guardian of the nation’s health, Kennedy is trying to appeal to both sides: the public, which largely supports vaccination, and the anti-vaccine hard-liners who helped propel his rise. His “doublespeak,” as public health experts and academics who follow the anti-vaccine movementcall it, gives him cover with both groups, allowing him to court public opinion while still assuaging his anti-vaccine base.

At least half of adults are uncertain whether to believe false claims about measles, its vaccine and its treatment, according to an April poll by the health-care think tank KFF.

“It’s confusing, and maybe that’s part of the strategy,” said Bruce Gellin, who oversaw HHS’s vaccine program in the Bush and Obama administrations. Gellin noted that confusion could lead parents to opt out of vaccination — exactly what health officials don’t want in an outbreak.

Stephen Miller Wants to Abolish Habeas Corpus. This Is Why He Is Wrong.

By dianeravitch

May 16, 2025 //

Stephen Miller is the evil genius of the Trump administration. He has built his reputation as the person with the least heart or soul. He has been the loudest advocate for kicking out immigrants, as many and as quickly as possible. Miller recently proposed that the Trump administration might need to suspend habeas corpus so as to speed up the expulsion of millions of undocumented immigrants.

Habeas corpus means literally “you should have the body.” It means that a prisoner must be brought before a court so a judge can decide if the detention is lawful.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to habeas corpus in Article I, Section 9,states that the right to habeas corpus, which is a legal procedure to ensure a person isn’t unjustly imprisoned, “shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it“

Miller said: “The writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at.”

Legal scholar Steve Vladeck wrote that “Miller made some of the most remarkable (and remarkably scary) comments about federal courts that I think we’ve ever heard from a senior White House official.” In this post, he explains why Miller is wrong.

He begins with Miller’s words:

Well, the Constitution is clear. And that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So … that’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act which stripped Article III courts, that’s the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases. So Congress actually passed what’s called jurisdiction stripping legislation. It passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren’t even allowed to be involved in immigration cases.

Vladeck writes that Miller’s view is just plain wrong:

I know there’s a lot going on, and that Miller says lots of incendiary (and blatantly false) stuff. But this strikes me as raising the temperature to a whole new level—and thus meriting a brief explanation of all of the ways in which this statement is both (1) wrong; and (2) profoundly dangerous. Specifically, it seems worth making five basic points:

First, the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, which is in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 is meant to limit the circumstances in which habeas can be foreclosed (Article I, Section 9 includes limits on Congress’s powers)—thereby ensuring that judicial review of detentions are otherwise available. (Note that it’s in the original Constitution—adopted before even the Bill of Rights.) I spent a good chunk of the first half of my career writing about habeas and its history, but the short version is that the Founders were hell-bent on limiting, to the most egregious emergencies, the circumstances in which courts could be cut out of the loop. To casually suggest that habeas might be suspended because courts have ruled against the executive branch in a handful of immigration cases is to turn the Suspension Clause entirely on its head.

Second, Miller is being slippery about the actual text of the Constitution (notwithstanding his claim that it is “clear”). The Suspension Clause does not say habeas can be suspended during any invasion; it says “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” This last part, with my emphasis, is not just window-dressing; again, the whole point is that the default is for judicial review except when there is a specific national security emergency in which judicial review could itself exacerbate the emergency. The emergency itself isn’t enough. Releasing someone like Rümeysa Öztürk from immigration detention poses no threat to public safety—all the more so when the release is predicated on a judicial determination that Öztürk … poses no threat to public safety.

Third, even if the textual triggers for suspending habeas corpus were satisfied, Miller also doesn’t deign to mention that the near-universal consensus is that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus—and that unilateral suspensions by the President are per se unconstitutional. I’ve written before about the Merryman case at the outset of the Civil War, which provides perhaps the strongest possible counterexample: that the President might be able to claim a unilateral suspension power if Congress is out of session (as it was from the outset of the Civil War in 1861 until July 4). Whatever the merits of that argument, it clearly has no applicability at this moment.

Fourth, Miller is wrong, as a matter of fact,about the relationship between Article III courts (our usual federal courts) and immigration cases. It’s true that the Immigration and Nationality Act (especially as amended in 1996 and 2005) includes a series of “jurisdiction-stripping” provisions. But most of those provisions simply channel judicial review in immigration cases into immigration courts (which are part of the executive branch) in the first instance, with appeals to Article III courts. And as the district courts (and Second Circuit) have explained in cases like Khalil and Öztürk, even those provisions don’t categorically preclude any review by Article III courts prior to those appeals.

Toward the end of the video, Miller tries to make a specific point about whether revocations of “TPS” (temporary protected status) are subject to judicial review. Here, he appears to be talking about a California district court ruling in the TPS Alliance case, in which the Trump administration is currently asking the Supreme Court for a stay of the district court’s injunction (the appropriate remedy in case the district court erred). And as the plaintiffs’ response brief in the Supreme Court explains in detail, the district court had very good reasons for holding that it had the power to hear their case.

I don’t mean to overstate things; some of the questions raised by the INA’s (notoriously unclear) jurisdiction-stripping provisions can get very messy. But there’s a big difference, in my view, between reasonable disagreements over the language of complex jurisdictional statutes and Miller’s insinuation that Congress has categorically precluded judicial review in these cases. It just hasn’t.

Fifth, and finally, Miller gives away the game when he says “a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.” It’s not just the mafia-esque threat implicit in this statement (“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”); it’s that he’s telling on himself: He’s suggesting that the administration would (unlawfully) suspend habeas corpus if (but apparently only if) it disagrees with how courts rule in these cases. In other words, it’s not the judicial review itself that’s imperiling national security; it’s the possibility that the government might lose. That’s not, and has never been, a viable argument for suspending habeas corpus. Were it otherwise, there’d be no point to having the writ in the first place—let alone to enshrining it in the Constitution.

If the goal is just to try to bully and intimidate federal judges into acquiescing in more unlawful activity by the Trump administration, that’s shameful enough. But suggesting that the President can unilaterally cut courts out of the loop solely because they’re disagreeing with him is suggesting that judicial review—indeed, that the Constitution itself—is just a convenience. Something tells me that even federal judges and justices who might otherwise be sympathetic to the government’s arguments on the merits in some of these cases will be troubled by the implication that their authority depends entirely upon the President’s beneficence.

***

It’s certainly possible that this doesn’t go anywhere. Indeed, I hope that turns out to be true. But Miller’s comments strike me as a rather serious ratcheting up of the anti-court rhetoric coming out of this administration—and an ill-conceived one at that.

Categories Democracy, Extremism, Fascism, Justice

White House Explodes Over Story Critical of Don Jr.

By dianeravitch

May 15, 2025 //

Oliver Darcy writes a blog about the media called Status that is ahead of the news. This story is a doozy. Business Insider wrote an article that was critical of Don Jr., and MAGA world went berserk. Typically, people in politics understand that being criticized comes with the job. Harry S Truman famously said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

The Trumps, however, do not accept any criticism. Anyone who dares to question their actions becomes a target, not only for anger, but for threats of legal action by the U.S. government. The tactic is clear: censorship by intimidation. This is Fascism 1.0. No one dare criticize the leader or his family.

Darcy writes:

An unflattering story about Donald Trump Jr. triggered a White House assault on Business Insider and parent company Axel Springer—and signaled just how far Trumpworld is willing to go to silence critical coverage.

When Business Insider published a story this week headlined “Don Jr. Is the New Hunter Biden,” it was, on its face, a fairly standard piece of political reporting. Written by Bethany McLean, a well-regarded veteran of Vanity Fair, Reuters, and Fortune, the article carried a simple premise: Just as Republicans had long accused Hunter Biden of profiting off his father’s position, Trump’s eldest son now appeared to be dabbling in ethically dubious behavior in search of profit. It was the kind of story that Donald Trump Jr. was certain not to like, but not one that seemed destined to generate much fallout.

Instead, the story has resulted in a coordinated campaign by the White House and its allies not just to discredit the reporting, but to threaten the company behind it. Breitbart, the weaponized MAGA outlet, published a lengthy broadside on Tuesday attacking the piece and accusing McLean of journalistic malpractice. The piece, written by Matthew Boyle, who frequently acts as the unofficial press arm for Trumpworld, was quite a bit in itself. But buried in the bluster and long-winded statements from Trump allies that Boyle quoted was something more serious.

A White House official used the opportunity to deliver an extraordinary statement accusing Axel Springer, the Mathias Döpfner-led German media conglomerate that owns Business Insider, of engaging in a foreign influence operation. The unnamed official suggested the company’s journalism might not just be biased (which it wasn’t), but illegal (which it also wasn’t). It was a not-so-subtle warning to the company to fall in line or it might seek to pull government levers that would be damaging to its business.

“Donald Trump Jr. is an innovator and visionary who is successfully reimagining the conservative media ecosystem—and the left is truly petrified,” the White House told Breitbart. “Axel Springer, a foreign-based media organization, is brazenly weaponizing its platforms to sow political division and spread disinformation in a manner that may well stretch beyond journalism, into illegal foreign political meddling.”

It sounded like a line you’d expect from a right-wing troll online. But such trolls now occupy actual seats of power. And their incendiary rhetoric is being delivered not from the fringes, but from inside the White House. It’s not just Trump Jr. lashing out, though he has also been amplifying every attack he can find as he rages on social media and—in a twist of irony—appearing deeply triggered, to borrow one of his favorite terms for mocking the left. That fury has been further echoed by Republican lawmakers. Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana and Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana have both railed against the story, rushing to the defense of Trump Jr. In any event, the threat from the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment from Status,upped the ante.

Inside Business Insider, however, the episode has naturally consumed the attention of its leadership. I’m told there was a brief internal discussion about whether the framing of the piece needed to be revised after publication, though ultimately, the story remained untouched. Still, the unease inside the organization is real, given the volume of blowback, where it is coming from, and the fact that it is aimed squarely at the publication’s parent company.

Indeed, executives at both Business Insider and Axel Springer are haunted by the memory of the Bill Ackman debacle last year, which drew intense right-wing blowback. Then, earlier this year, Elon Musk falsely accused POLITICO—another Axel Springer property—of accepting money from USAID, painting it as a government-funded propaganda outlet. The claim was nonsense, but it worked. It clouded the public narrative with conspiratorial nonsense and created precisely the kind of reputational headache Axel Springer executives have tried to dodge. It also led to every federal agency canceling their subscriptions to the outlet’s “pro” tier.

Behind the scenes, Axel Springer has worked hard to avoid becoming a partisan punching bag. At Business Insider specifically, the company last year brought in seasoned editor Jamie Heller from The Wall Street Journal to raise editorial standards and minimize reputational risks. But none of that matters when the people in power aren’t playing by the rules. Axel Springer might not want another high-profile feud dragging the company into controversy. But now they have one—this time again involving the federal government.

In a statement, an Axel Springer spokesperson told Status, “Axel Springer is a global media company committed to press freedom. Our U.S. newsrooms operate independently without editorial interference, and we stand firmly behind their right to report freely and without intimidation.” A Business Insider spokesperson separately told Status, “Our newsroom operates with full editorial independence, and we stand by our reporting.”

The larger concern is the chilling effect these kinds of attacks can have—not just on one story, but on the broader environment in which journalists operate. Notably, the White House did not dispute any of the facts reported by Business Insider. Instead, it equated unflattering reporting with foreign subversion and deployed the weight of the executive branch in an effort to silence it. The message wasn’t just aimed at Business Insider. It was aimed at every newsroom under the Axel Springer umbrella—and, more broadly, at any journalist thinking about covering the Trump family with rigor.

For Trump, the playbook is clear: Any outlet that scrutinizes him or his family becomes an enemy. And while that has long been his modus operandi, the stakes are higher now that he’s more willing than ever to blur the lines between his personal grievances and the instruments of state.

Categories Censorship, Extremism, Freedom of the Press, Trump

RFK Jr. Takes the Family Swimming on Mother’s Day—in a Toxic Creek

By dianeravitch

May 14, 2025 //

The New York Daily News reported on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unusual Mother’s Day outing.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. celebrated Mother’s Day with his family by swimming in a contaminated Washington, D.C. creekused for sewer runoff.

“Mother’s Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius in Rock Creek,” Kennedy captioned an online photo putting him at the scene of the grime.

The National Park Service explicitly warns that Rock Creek is not safe for humans or animals.

“Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading and other contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) health,” the park’s department states on its website.

Swimming in D.C.’s rivers and streams has been banned since 1971 due to “high amounts of fecal bacteria from combined sewer overflows.” Signs at Rock Creek Park specifically tell visitors to stay out of the water to prevent illness.

Kennedy’s decision-making skills have been called into question, even by members of his own family.

“When RFK Jr decided to run [for president in 2024], he didn’t call me to ask for help because he knew I would oppose his candidacy due to his misguided stands on issues, his poor judgement and tenuous relationship with the truth,” said his nephew Stephen Kennedy Smith, according to NBC News.

RFK Jr. quickly dropped out of the race and teamed up with Trump, who then tapped him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in November.

Dozens of Nobel Prize winners and thousands of medical professionals warned that the political scion, who has no medical training, wasn’t fit to run the nation’s health programs. His conspiracy theory-based skepticism on vaccines has repeatedly raised red flags.

Kennedy’s own health has also raised concerns.

In April 2024, the New York Times reported that he once testified a parasitic worm ate part of his brainand died inside his head. He also said he’s been diagnosed with mercury poisoning, likely caused by eating fish carrying the dangerous metal.

Doctors with experience treating such ailments reportedly said patients can suffer permanent damage from those afflictions. Kennedy told the Times that wasn’t his experience.

He has not addressed his decision to swim in Rock Creek.

This guy is in charge of public health?

Categories Extremism, Insane

Chief Justice Roberts Blames “Lack of Civics Education” for Breakdown in Respect for Law

By dianeravitch

May 14, 2025 //

If this weren’t so pathetic, it would be funny.

Chief Justice John Roberts spoke at the Georgetown University Law School about the loss of respect for the rule of law.

Did he point his finger at the President who encouraged an insurrection on January 6, 2021?

No.

Did he blame the loser of the 2020 election who spent four years claiming that the election was rigged and that he didn’t lose?

No.

Did he blame the political party that spent four years asserting not only that the election of 2020 was rigged but that the rightful winner was “crooked” and every member of his family was part of a “crime family”?

No.

Did he blame the President who has openly ignored federal court orders?

No.

Did he blame the President who proposes to abolish due process of law even though it is written into the Constitution?

No.

Did he blame the President who said publicly that he didn’t know whether he is required to support the Constitution?

No.

Chief Justice Roberts is right to be concerned about the shrinkage of civics education, but he is wrong to ignore the reason for that shrinkage: No Child Left Behind made test scores the central goal of education, which diminished everything in the curriculum other than reading and math.

Because so many young people have not received civics education, they are likely to be misled by a charlatan whose actions model contempt for the rule of law and the Constitutuon.

And, worse, it was the Roberts Court that proclaimed that the President while carrying out his duties has absolute immunity and is above the law.

The Supreme Court, in short, overturned the deep-seated principle taught in civics classes that “no man is above the law.”

Mr. Chief Justice, if you want to know who encouraged disrespect for the rule of law, look in the mirror.

Categories Civics, Civil Rights, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, History, Justice, Trump

The Atlantic: Trump Declares War on the Rule of Law

By dianeravitch

May 14, 2025 //

During Biden’s term in office, Republicans continually complained that Biden was “weaponizing” the Justice Department because it prosecuted Trump for inciting the insurrection of January 6, 2021, and for taking classified documents to his Mar-A-Lago estate.

Days ago, the Trump administration announced that it had reached a settlement with the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a police officer as she attempted to be first to break into the House of Representatives’ chamber, where members of Congress were fleeing. The family is suing for $30 million. The police officer who shot her was defending the lives of our elected representatives, both Democrats and Republicans. It’s hard to imagine any other administration, whatever the party in power, paying off the family of a woman leading a mob into the House chambers to stop the electoral vote count.

Now that Trump is president again, he has turned the Departnent of Justice into his personal law office and assigned it the mission of prosecuting anyone whoever dared to cross Trump.

Trump is gleefully using his powers to weaponize the Department of Justice and to punish his political enemies. Not a peep from the Republicans, who unjustly accused Biden of doing what Trump is literally doing.

Trump has issued executive orders targeting law firms who had the nerve to represent Democrats or other Trump critics. His orders barred lawyers from those firms from federal buildings and directed the heads of all federal agencies to terminate contracts with the firms he designated. Several major law firms, fearful of being blocked from any federal cases, immediately capitulated. Trump exacted a price for releasing them from his attack: they had to agree to perform pro bono work on behalf of causes chosen by Trump. He currently has close a billion dollars of legal time pledged to him by those law firms that feared his wrath.

Individuals targeted by Trump must either find a lawyer who will represent them pro bono or face personal bankruptcy, that is, if they can find a lawyer willing to take on the Trump administration.

A few law firms have resisted Trump’s tyranny, and one of them–Perkins Coie–won a permanent injunction to block the enforcement of Trump’s ban. Perkins Coie represented Hillary Clinton in 2016, as well as George Soros. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said that Trump’s attacks on specific law firms, based on the clients they represented, were unprecedented and unconstitutional.

Judge Howell cited the example of John Adams, who represented the British soldiers accused of killing five colonists in the Boston Massacre of 1770. In two separate trials, Adams prevailed. He believed that everyone deserved a good lawyer and that they had been provoked into firing. Adams was a patriot and a man who defended the law. He was not stigmatized for defending the British soldiers.

An issue that Judge Howell raised but set aside for another time was whether Trump’s orders, which single out specific groups or individuals for punishment without trial are bills of attainder, which the Constitution forbids. They surely look like it, and this issue will come up again in the future.

As law professor James Huffman wrote in The Wall Street journal about Trump’s targeting of law firms:

A presidential bill of attainder places the powers of all three governmental branches in the hands of one man. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Paul Rosenzweig, who worked in the George W. Bush administration, wrote in The Atlantic about Trump’s destruction of the rule of law, which he has twisted into an instrument of retribution for his personal grudges.

He writes:

When Thomas Paine asked what made America different from England, he had a ready answer: “In America, the law is king.” America has not always upheld that ideal, but, taking the long view, it has made great progress toward that principle. In recent decades, the Department of Justice has become an institutional embodiment of these aspirations—the locus in the federal government for professional, apolitical enforcement of the law, which is in itself a rejection of the kingly prerogative. That is why Donald Trump’s debasement of the DOJ is far more than the mere degradation of a governmental agency; it is an assault on the rule of law.

His attack on the institution is threefold: He is using the mechanisms of justice to go after political opponents; he is using those same mechanisms to reward allies; and he is eliminating internal opposition within the department. Each incident making up this pattern is appalling; together, they amount to the decimation of a crucial institution.

Investigations should be based on facts and the law, not politics. Yet Trump has made punishing political opposition the hallmark of his investigative efforts. The DOJ’s independence from political influence, long a symbol of its probity (remember how scandalous it was that Bill Clinton had a brief meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch?), is now nonexistent.

This development should frighten all citizens, no matter what their political persuasion. As Attorney General Robert Jackson warned in 1940, the ability of a prosecutor to pick “some person whom he dislikes and desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, [is where] the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies.” Choosing targets in this way flies in the face of the DOJ’s rules and traditions—to say nothing of the actual, grave harm it can inflict on people.

Far from eschewing the possibility of abuse, Trump and his allies at the Department of Justice positively revel in it. The most egregious example was Trump’s recent issuance of an executive order directing the government to investigate the activities of two of his own employees in the first administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, who later came to be political opponents of his. (Both men are friends and colleagues of mine.)

Their offense of perceived disloyalty is perhaps the gravest sin in Trump world, and as a result, they will now be individually targeted for investigation. The personal impact on each of them is no doubt immediate and severe. Krebs, who is a well-respected cybersecurity leader, has quit his job at SentinelOne and plans to focus on his defense. If Trump’s DOJ pursues this investigation to the limit, the two men could face imprisonment.

The cases of Krebs and Taylor do not stand in isolation. Recently, the U.S. attorney in New Jersey (Trump’s former personal attorney Alina Habba) launched an investigation into the state of New Jersey for its alleged “obstruction” of Trump’s deportation agenda. In other words, because New Jersey won’t let its own employees be drafted as servants of Trump’s policy, the state becomes a pariah in Trump’s mind, one that must be coerced into obedience.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced that the U.S. government is suing Maine because of the state’s refusal to ban transgender athletes from playing on girls’ high-school sports teams. Not content with threatening Maine, Bondi has also announced an investigation of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office because of its alleged opposition to the Second Amendment and its “lengthy” process for approval of gun permits. And she recently announced that she would target leakers of classified information by going after journalists, rescinding a policy that protected journalists from being subpoenaed to assist government-leak investigations.

But the most aggressive abuser of the criminal-justice system has to be the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin. Martin has asked the FBI to investigate several of President Joe Biden’s EPA grantees for alleged fraud—a claim so weak that one of Martin’s senior subordinates resigned rather than have to advance it in court. He has also begun to investigate, or threatened investigations of, Georgetown University, Senator Charles Schumer, and Representatives Eugene Vindman and Robert Garcia, among others. More recently, in mid-April, Martin sent a series of inquiry letters to at least three medical and scientific journals, asking them how they ensured “competing viewpoints,” with the evident intention of suggesting that the failure to include certain minority opinions was, in some way, content discrimination.

A less-well-known example of Martin’s excess is his use of threats of criminal prosecution to empower DOGE. When DOGE was first denied entry into the U.S. Institute of Peace, one of the lawyers for USIP got a call from the head of the U.S. attorney’s criminal division, threatening criminal investigation if they didn’t allow DOGE into the building. Magnifying that power of criminal law, Martin sent D.C. police officers to the agency, telling the police that there was “an ongoing incident at the United States Institute of Peace” and that there was “at least one person who was refusing to leave the property at the direction of the acting USIP president, who was lawfully in charge of the facility,” according to the journalist Steve Chapman.

A final example of DOJ overreach is, perhaps, the most chilling of all. In a recently issued presidential memorandum, Trump directed the attorney general to “investigate and take appropriate action concerning allegations regarding the use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions and to make foreign contributions to U.S. political candidates and committees, all of which break the law.” Were the investigation neutral in nature, this might be understandable. But it isn’t.

In fact, there are two major fundraising platforms in use—WinRed (the Republican platform) and ActBlue (the Democratic one). Even though WinRed has been the subject of seven times as many FTC complaints as ActBlue, the Trump memorandum involves only the latter. By targeting his opponents’ fundraising, Trump is overtly marshaling the powers of federal law enforcement in his effort to shut down political opposition.

In essence, Trump is using the department to try to ensure future Republican electoral victories. One can hardly imagine a more horrifying variation on Lavrentiy Beria’s infamous boast: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”

There is more to the article. I encourage you to read it in full.

Categories Accountability, Bias, Biden, Corruption, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, History, Justice, Lies, Trump

NEA: The Purpose of Block Grants is to Diminish Federal Responsibility for Education

By dianeravitch

May 13, 2025 //

Project 2025’s section on education proposes that the U.S. Department of Education’s largest funding streams for K-12 schools be turned into block grants to the states with minimal oversight. The two big programs are Title 1 for poor kids and the funding for students with disabilities (IDEA).

The states would be free to convert these funds into vouchers, instead of spending them on low-income students or students with disabilities.

The National Education Association explains here:

Block Grant Overview

Typically, the deal between the federal government and states when specific program funds are block-granted is that the federal government will provide less funding in return for less regulation and requirements. With less regulation, the assumption is that states should be able to do as much or more with less money. While it may be appealing initially to those who administer federal grants at the state and local level, in reality, fewer dollars mean fewer programs and services. States and school districts may have more flexibility in using federal funds but it comes at the expense of the students the federal grant program was designed to help in the first place.

Many states already underfund their commitment to public education. If states and districts don’t cover the shortfall, students receiving Title I and IDEA services will suffer. Furthermore, both Title I and IDEA have maintenance of effort and supplement, not supplant requirements to ensure states and districts hold up their levels of spending when receiving federal funds. Those requirements will fall away, too, and, most likely, so will the funding commitments by states and districts.

Title I of the ESEA and IDEA were created to ensure all students have equal access to an education, regardless of family income or disability. Many states were failing to adequately educate students in these populations, if at all. The federal role here was clear: where a student lived or their circumstances should not determine the quality of their education. ESEA and IDEA enshrined this principle and attached specific conditions and requirements that states must follow, in return for federal financial assistance, to ensure that students from lower-income families and communities and those with disabilities have the same opportunity to learn as any other student. “No-strings-attached” block grant funding turns the clock back 60 years on education policy and progress, and turns its back on our nation’s commitment to educating all students. While one would like to think that we can trust states to do the right thing on behalf of all students, history tells us differently.

Providing states with federal aid and fewer requirements leaves the door open for states to do as they wish. Title I of ESEA and IDEA include important requirements and protections for students and families precisely because they were lacking previously. At its core, the Department of Education is a civil rights agency, providing dollars, regulations, requirements, guidance, technical assistance, research, monitoring, and compliance enforcement to preserve and protect students’ access to a free and appropriate education. Strip it away, and you strip away the rights of certain students to a meaningful education.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Home Schooling, Inequity, Poverty, Privatization, Special Education, Trump, Vouchers

NEA: Trump Slashes Education Budget, Encourages Privatization of Public Schools

By dianeravitch

May 13, 2025 //

The National Education Association analyzed Trump ‘s proposed budget and finds that it contains deep cuts and massive support for privatization by promoting vouchers and charter schools. The proposal mirrors Project 2025 by turning Titl 1 for low-income students and IDEA funding into block grants that can be converted to vouchers. The overall goal is to undermine public schools and cut funding.

FY2026 Budget Request Slashes Education Funding, Shortchanges Students

…………………………………………………………………….……….

President Trump’s FY2026 “skinny” budget request to Congress, released on May 2, cuts non-defense domestic spending by 22.6%. The Department of Education sustains a $12 billion reduction, a cut of approximately 15.3%.

! Since the President’s budget does not list specific funding requests for every federal program, the 46-page document is a “skinny” budget. Congress ultimately has the power of the purse, but the proposal is a clear signal of the White House’s priorities: a massive 24 percent cut to U.S. domestic spending, and, privitazing our nation’s public education system.

 The narrative says the budget “maintains full funding for Title I,” but the numbers tell a different story. Title I and 18 unidentified programs are combined to create a single block grant, dubbed the “K-12 Simplified Funding Program,” then that block fund is cut by $4.535 billion cut.

 All seven Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) programs are combined to create a single block grant called the “Special Education Simplified Funding Program.” The approach perpetuates the current shortfall—the federal government now covers 13% of special education costs, far short of the 40% Congress promised when the law was passed.

 Programs slated for elimination include English Language Acquisition (Title III) and the Teacher Quality Partnership, which addresses the teacher shortage through deep clinical practice.

 The budget shifts costs to states and institutions of higher education to reduce the federal investment in today’s students—our nation’s future leaders and workforce—as much as possible.

 Regrouping specific, separate programs into block grants, in theory gives states more flexibility on how the money is spent. In reality, block grants usually lead to less funding and less accountability for our most vulnerable students. As the strings attached to the funding are cut, many states could maneuver block grant funds over to private school voucher programs.

 Amidst these cuts, the proposal calls for investing $500 million, an increase of $60 million, to expand the number of charter schools across the country. Charter schools, along with private school vouchers, drain scarce resources for traditional public schools.

May 2025

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, U.S. Department of Education, Unions, Vouchers

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NEA: The Purpose of Block Grants is to Diminish Federal Responsibility for Education

NEA: Trump Slashes Education Budget, Encourages Privatization of Public Schools

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