Archives for category: Extremism

Now Will They Leave Joe Biden Alone?

May 19, 2025 //

As I was scrolling through Twitter on Sunday, I read a bunch of anti-Biden tweets, so I added my two cents.

I tweeted:

Maybe it’s just me, but I would rather have Joe Biden (surrounded by highly competent people) asleep than Donald Trump at his best (surrounded by Fascists, haters, and law-breakers) on his best day. @jaketapper @AlexThomp

I once wrote on this blog that I would never criticize Joe Biden because he was running against a man who was totally unfit for the job. Several Trumpers has since written to complain about that statement, saying that it demonstrated my bias, but time has confirmed my view.

Regardless of his mental state, Biden would never have appointed a crackpot to run the National Institutes of Health. He would never have defunded USAID, NPR, PBS, FEMA, the Voice of America, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Department of Education. Nor would he have let loose Elon Musk’s DOGS to ransack federal agencies, fire thousands of expert career officers, mess with the Social Security Administration, and hoover up all our personal data, for whatever nefarious purposes he chooses. Unlike Trump, Biden would not have terrorized institutions of higher education and threatened academic freedom and freedom of speech. Unlike Trump, Biden respected the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI and did not put political lackeys in charge of them or treat them as his personal attack dogs.

Frankly, I can’t keep track of the many federal programs and agencies that Trump has recklessly destroyed. If anyone knows of such a compilation, please share it. Trump and Musk have vandalized our government, and despite the thousands of injudicious, capricious firings, have not saved any money at all.

Then I came across this post by Julie Roginsky, which appeared shortly after the nation learned that former President Biden has prostate cancer, which has metasticized to his bones. She is writing about the new book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that aims to prove that President Biden was experiencing severe mental and physical decline while he was in office and that his family and staff collaborated to conceal that decline from the public.

She wrote:

Maybe now they’ll leave Joe Biden alone — or, better yet, spend some time assessing his actual presidency, both in isolation and in comparison with what has followed.

Stick it to legacy media, which has consistently beaten up on a decent man.

Was Biden operating at half-capacity throughout his term? Was he operating at 10%? Here are some facts, regardless of the opinions rendered by amateur neurologists all over media these days.

“Biden inherited an economy that was flat on its back because of the pandemic, and he’s bequeathing an economy that’s flying high,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s, which just lowered the credit rating of the United States for the first time in history under Donald Trump.

Biden’s economic tenure was marred by the inflation that was a hangover of the Covid pandemic. But the numbers don’t lie about the rest of it. On his watch, the Dow Jones rose by over 40%, while the Nasdaq rose by almost 50%. The economy expanded by 11% during his four years in office (compared with under 9% during Donald Trump’s first term). Despite inflation, retail sales grew by more than 20%. Household net worth was 28% higher when Biden left office than when he took over from Trump. Unemployment was 2% lower at the end of Biden’s tenure than when he entered the White House.

Most importantly, no one was predicting the demise of our 250 year American experiment while Biden was in charge.

Now, Biden is diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones. You don’t need to be an oncologist to know that the prognosis is not great.

So maybe now is a good time to reflect not just on Biden’s tenure but on what this obsession with his mental health means for the future of this country. Reporters who have spent the past several weeks on the fainting couch about “the cover up” of his mental condition in the Oval Office have consistently failed to acknowledge the successes of his tenure. They have failed to compare that tenure, both in economic and in governance terms, to what has followed. They have never stopped beating up a man who is no longer in the White House to take stock of the mental health of the current occupant of the White House.

Trump’s mental decline (which is apparent to anyone who has lived in the New York media market for the past four decades) is not happening, you see — because he does not stutter, because he shouts with vigor, because he “truths” at all hours of the night, unlike a septuagenarian who might require more rest.

In short, all this is just “Trump being Trump.” It cannot be that he is stark raving mad.

And Trump’s economic record, the one that is driving inflation ever higher, the one that is destroying consumer sentiment, the one that has driven both the stock and bond markets crazy? Never mind all that. Have you listened to Biden’s conversation with Robert Hur? Now that’s a scandal.

Look, I really don’t care if Biden was confined to a gurney for four years. The facts speak for themselves. The country was more prosperous, the democracy was more stable, the nation was more respected, the people were less terrified, when he was in charge.

Yes, Biden’s staff may have covered up his medical condition while he was in the Oval Office. But the real scandal is the cover up happening now. The media so obsessed with kicking Biden now that’s gone that it is ignoring the very real danger that his successor poses to us all.

I am not a religious person but I hope that whatever higher power exists will look out for Joe Biden. He is a good man, who did well on behalf of the people who entrusted him with the presidency. That is a hell of a lot more than could be said about his successor.

I repeat:

Categories Biden, Democracy, Extremism, Fascism, Health, Trump

Why Does the Trump Administration Want to Deport or Imprison This Cancer Researcher?

By dianeravitch

May 19, 2025 //

I have been following the case of Kseniia Petrova, a cancer researcher at Harvard, with a sense of outrage and helplessness. She attended a conference in France and returned last February with samples of frog embryos for her laboratory. She was detained by Customs for failing to declare them and has been incarcerated ever since. The other day, the charge of bringing in an undeclared item was upgraded to a felony, and this young woman faces a possible 20 years in prison.

Is she the kind of dangerous, violent criminal that Trump promised to deport? No.

Jay Kuo is both a lawyer and a playwright, whose blog is called The Status Kuo. He writes about the case today in hopes of rallying support for her. Petrova left Russia to protest the invasion of Ukraine. If she is deported there, she will be immediately jailed.

He writes:

We need to pay close attention to the case of Kseniia Petrova. She’s a Russian-born researcher who was detained by Customs and Border Protection back in February when traveling back from a conference in France.

Like others caught up in the “immigration crackdown” by the Trump administration, Petrova has been held in ICE detention ever since. In her case, a custom agent alleged she had failed to declare frog embryo samples that she’d picked up from a colleague to bring back to the U.S.

For this, the government canceled Petrova’s visa and threatened to deport her. But her case is about far more than frog embryos.

For starters, her home country is Russia, where she was outspoken against the war in Ukraine and was part of the exodus of Russians opposed to Putin’s invasion. She now faces persecution or worse for her anti-war activism should she be sent home, even while the Trump administration bends over backwards for Putin and the Kremlin.

She’s also a researcher and valued member of the Harvard medical sciences community, which has been the constant target of the Trump White House. Being deliberately cruel to Petrova means Trump gets to traumatize Harvard in yet another way.

Petrova has been languishing in a detention facility in Louisiana, but things had begun to move her way. This week, Judge Christina Reiss, a federal judge in Vermont hearing Petrova’s habeas petition, questioned government lawyers over whether Customs and Border Protection actually had the authority to cancel Petrova’s visa. Judge Reiss had set a bail hearing for next Friday, and many viewed it as a hopeful signal that she was set to release Petrova from custody.

Not so fast, said the government. What they did next was frankly shocking, even in this corrosive and highly politicized environment.

The government charges Petrova criminally

Apparently out of sheer spite, and faced with the prospect of losing another case where they had egregiously overreached and overreacted, the government charged Petrova with felony smuggling. That’s a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison.

Felony smuggling laws are intended to deter profiteers from deliberately carrying in endangered species, not to punish researchers who fail to declare frog embryo samples.

Normally when you fail to declare something that should have been itemized at customs, you could face a fine. It’s considered a minor infraction. And in this case, it isn’t even clear that frog embryos count. According to Petrova’s lawyer, customs experts conveyed that that she “did not need a permit to bring in her non-living scientific samples that are not considered biological material under U.S. Customs law.”

The criminal complaint itself is a just single page attaching an affidavit from a Homeland Security agent. In that affidavit, the agent makes much of the fact that, after checking her text messages on her phone (!!), he learned that Petrova apparently had been told by a colleague that she should declare the samples. But she had joked about not having a plan to carry them in, saying, “I won’t be able to swallow them.”

When asked, Petrova told the agent that she was not sure she needed to declare anything. (I should add here that advice from a colleague is not the same as legal advice from a customs lawyer.) Per the Customs and Border Protection website, U.S. government agencies “regulate the importation of biological materials that can pose a threat to agriculture, public health, and natural resources” (emphasis added). But frog embryo samples don’t pose any threat. So it’s hardly clear that Petrova knew these had to be declared.

“Yesterday’s hearing in federal district court in Vermont confirmed that Customs and Border [Protection] officials had no legal basis for cancelling Kseniia’s visa and detaining her,” wrote Petrova’s attorney. The judge in Vermont seemed prepared to agree and to rule that canceling her visa over this was excessive.

Filing criminal charges now? Really?!

When someone is taken into custody by immigration officials, it is customary to charge them first with any crimes they have committed. This makes sense because criminal charges, which are far more serious, should always take priority over any immigration violations, which are normally just civil violations.

Once the individual has been prosecuted, explained Ingrid Eagly, co-director of the Criminal Justice Program at the UCLA School of Law, to the New York Times, the authorities can begin the process of removing them from the country. In Petrova’s case, “they put her in removal proceedings, and now are saying it is a criminal case.” Dr. Eagly explained that this was a “ratcheting up of the charges,” an atypical move that “seems retaliatory, designed for a particular end.”

Prof. Marisol Orihuela of Yale Law School told the Times that this was the first time she had seen a case where criminal charges were brought against someone who had already been in removal proceedings for so long. “The question it raises in my mind is why would it take three months” to decide to charge Petrova, remarked Prof. Orihuela. “It doesn’t really quite add up,” she added, wondering why the government would “need this amount of time if you thought this was a crime worth charging.”

Nor does it make any sense that after three whole months, there is still no further evidence beyond what one lone agent said Petrova did and said under questioning just before she was taken in. There are no interviews of Petrova’s colleagues. There is no showing, beyond a text thread with a colleague, that Petrova knew such samples must be declared. They’ve had three months, but the case has not advanced beyond what was known at the time.

On top of this, the timing of the charge is highly suspicious. Judge Reiss had only this week questioned whether Petrova’s visa revocation was proper, and from all accounts she would have likely ordered Petrova’s release on bail next Friday.

Here’s what I want to know. Who in the administration ordered Petrova to be criminally charged? Was there coordination between an overzealous Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Justice? When was the charging decision made? Did anyone object to it? Why was there apparently no investigation to obtain further evidence to support the charge?

Playing dangerous politics, holding political prisoners

Petrova’s case has been prominent in the headlines. She has received support from all across the country and the world. A feature on her plight was published in the New York Times. Her work as a scientist studying images for cancer diagnostics has been widely lauded, while her detention has been condemned as a pointless harm, not just to her but for medical science and the world.

It would not surprise me if orders to do everything possible to continue to punish and hold Petrova came from the very top of the Trump administration. After all, moving to criminally charge Petrova, three months after she was first detained, makes zero sense unless your point is to make an example of her and thumb your nose at customary prosecutorial practices.

The administration has basically said, “Oh, so you think you can get her out? We’ll stop you, just to show that we can. To hell with your ‘due process’ and ‘civil rights.’ We’re in charge, and she’s not going anywhere.”

This is of course the same position the government has taken with Kilmar Abrego García and all the other political prisoners in El Salvador’s CECOT facility.

I say “political prisoners” because that is precisely what they’ve now become. Petrova, Abrego García, and others are being held for purely political reasons, by or at the request of the U.S. government. It’s not because they’ve committed any actual crimes or are in any way deserving of the treatment they are receiving. Rather, it’s because the administration wants to telegraph strength and cruelty, just like any other fascist regime.

It’s also why the White House is so desperate to cast them as “criminals” and stretch the laws and the truth, even to absurd degrees, to fit its narrative. That makes this fight not just about achieving justice for those wrongly arrested and held, but also about rejecting the raw politicization of their cases and of our immigration and criminal justice systems.

Indeed, fighting for justice for Petrova and others now means no less than fighting for the rule of law, democracy and the very soul of our nation, now put at serious risk by the tyranny of the Trump regime.

Petrova is not a dangerous criminal. She has not raped or murdered anyone. She is a researcher trying to find a cure for cancer.

Categories Extremism, Fascism, Research, Science, Trump

Drag Show Owners Beat DeSantis in Court

By dianeravitch

May 18, 2025 //

Anyone who has ever seen a drag show knows that they are performances. I remember seeing “Dame Edna” on Broadway, and she was hilarious. There was nothing sexual about her show. And by the way, Dame Edna was played by a straight man who created an original character. Last year, I went to play “Drag Bingo” at a local restaurant, and the performers were funny. Their goal was to entertain.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, America’s number one prude, decided that drag shows had to be banned because they “sexualized” children. In addition to drag shows performed in bistros, there are also Drag Queen Story Hours at local libraries, where drag queens read children’s books out loud. Parents bring their children to these events; the little ones do not come alone.

To heck with parental rights, DeSantis wanted to close down all the drag shows.

Hamburger Mary’s, one of the leading venues for drag queens, sued.

They won.

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sebtinel tells the story:

In recent years, Florida Republicans have been on a crusade to censor books, speech, theatrical performances and even thoughts expressed in private workplaces.

Their actions have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional — often by conservative judges who have more respect for the Constitution than these petty politicians with their phony patriotism.

Still, it takes courage to stand up to political bullies willing to spend unlimited amounts of tax dollars, paying lawyers as much as $725 an hour, even when they know they’ll lose.

DeSantis spends millions on legal bills at $725 an hour. And he just lost again | Commentary

That’s why John Paonessa and Mike Rogier deserve credit.

The Clermont couple and Hamburger Mary’s franchise owners are the victors in the latest court fight against Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP lawmakers’ attempts to silence speech they dislike.

This time it was Florida’s war on drag queens, which was pretty clearly unconstitutional from the day it debuted, mainly because it was so poorly written.

Authors of the so-called “Protection of Children” act claimed to want to protect kids from “shameful” and “lewd” performances, but couldn’t even explain what that meant.

When bill sponsor Randy Fine was asked on the House floor to define “shameful” — so that venue owners could know what kind of performances would be illegal — he responded:

“Um … um … [eight seconds of silence] … I think that it … again, that is things that are … I dunno … I mean, again, you can look these things up in the dictionary.”

Quite the legislative brain trust.

The reality is that Florida already has laws on the books that protect children from sexually explicit performances. Did you know that? A lot of these tinpot politicians sure hoped you didn’t. But two rounds of federal judges did. And they concluded that this law wasn’t written to target obscenity in general, but rather drag in particular. That’s selective censorship. And if you’re a fan of government doing it, you might prefer living in Russia.

Patriotic Americans don’t support government censorship of speech. Dictators in North Korea do.

So after Paonessa and Rogier saw lawmakers repeatedly target drag performers — and even nonprofit organizations like the Orlando Philharmonic rented out their venues for such shows — Paonessa said the two men decided: “If we just let them do this, what is next?”

Both a federal judge in Orlando and appellate judges in Atlanta ruled they were right to do so.

Appeals court sides with Hamburger Mary’s in suit challenging drag show law

The 81-page appellate ruling from the majority made several key points: One was that the state already has laws to protect minors and that out-of-court comments from guys like Fine and DeSantis made it clear that the politicians were trying to specifically — and unconstitutionally — target drag.

Another was that the state’s own inability to define the kind of behavior it was trying to outlaw proved it was overly broad. “The Constitution demands specificity when the state restricts speech” to shield citizens “from the whims of government censors,” the ruling stated.

The case also laid bare a lie: These chest-thumping politicians don’t actually believe in “parental rights” or “freedom.” Because this law attempted to make it illegal for teens to attend certain performances even when accompanied by their parents.

Keep in mind: These politicians are fine with parents taking their kids to see R-rated movies with hard-core sex and graphic violence. They kept that legal. It was only when drag queens got on stage that these politicians lost their minds.

Drag queens? Evil. Cinematic depictions of bestiality? That’s OK. Those are some strange family values.

I can’t recall ever taking my own kids to a drag performance. But that was my choice — not the government’s. And Paonessa said many of his restaurant’s offerings, including the Sunday drag brunch, were family-friendly affairs that some teens enjoyed so much, they would return with their own kids when they were older.

Of course some drag performances are vulgar — just like some movies are. But trying to use a snippet of one sexed-up drag show to represent all drag performances is about as honest and accurate as using a movie like “Eyes Wide Shut” or the “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to represent all movies. It’s a tactic of misrepresentation known as “tyranny of the anecdote” that’s particularly effective with the intellectually incurious

For the record, a dissent was authored by a 95-year-old judge appointed by Gerald Ford who invoked states’-rights-themed arguments and said censorship laws needn’t be that specific.

While the judges who shot down the drag law last week were appointed by Democratic presidents, the judges who shot down DeSantis’ other unconstitutional attempts to silence speech have been hard-core, Federalist Society conservatives.

GOP judges: DeSantis violated the Constitution again. Lawyers made $725/hr | Commentary

Like the ones who blocked the “Stop Woke Act” that tried to ban private businesses from holding employee-training sessions on topics like sexism and racism that GOP lawmakers found too “woke.”

And the Trump-appointed judge who invalidated the GOP law that called for arresting citizens who donated more than $3,000 to citizen-led campaigns for constitutional amendments.

If you think government should be able to imprison citizens for donating to campaigns that politicians dislike or silence private speech within the walls of private companies, don’t you dare call yourself a constitutionalist. Or even a patriot.

Scott Maxwell: First Target. Now Florida budgets $20 million to sue other companies | Commentary

In response to the latest judicial smackdown, a DeSantis spokesman whined about judicial “overreach” and said: “No one has a constitutional right to perform sexual routines in front of little kids.”

Once again, he was banking on your ignorance, hoping you don’t know Florida already has laws that protect minors — just not ones created specifically to target drag.

The appellate judges referred the case back to Orlando Judge Gregory Presnell, who issued the original injunction in a ruling that was maybe even more damning in effectively detailing the law’s many flaws. But there’s certainly a chance the state will continue trying to litigate the case, since it has unlimited access to your money.

Frankly, Paonessa and Rogier, who shut down their Hamburger Mary’s location in downtown Orlando last year in the middle of this court battle and are currently looking for a new home, probably couldn’t have afforded to fight back in this two-year court battle if they hadn’t had pro bono help. It came from a Tennessee attorney, Melissa J. Stewart, who fought a similarly unconstitutional attack on drag in that state.

But Paonessa said they decided to fight for their rights — and yours — because they concluded: “If not us, then who?”

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Creativity, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Freedom, Gender

Georgia: Brain-Dead Woman Kept Alive Because She Was Nine Weeks Pregnant

By dianeravitch

May 18, 2025 //

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

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

White House Explodes Over Story Critical of Don Jr.

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

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

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