Archives for category: Extremism
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House Ethics Committee Releases Damning Ethics Report on Matt Gaetz, Trump’s Pick for AG

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2024 //
16

Right after the election, Trump announced that he had chosen Matt Gaetz, Congressman from Florida, as his choice to be Attorney General of the United States. The AG is the highest ranking officer of the law in the nation.

Faced with strong opposition, including enough Republican votes to stop him, Gaetz withdrew from the nomination.

Today the House Ethics committee released its long-awaited report.

(CNN) — The House Ethics Committee found evidence that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex or drugs on at least 20 occasions, including paying a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017, according to a final draft of the panel’s report on the Florida Republican, obtained by CNN.

The committee concluded in its bombshell document that Gaetz violated Florida state laws, including the state’s statutory rape law, as the GOP-led panel chose to take the rare step of releasing a report about a former member who resigned from Congress.

“The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” panel investigators wrote.

The panel investigated transactions Gaetz personally made, often using PayPal or Venmo, to more than a dozen women during his time in Congress, according to the report. Investigators also focused on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas – which they said “violated the House gift rule” – during which he “engaged in sexual activity” with multiple women, including one who described the trip itself as “the payment” for sex on the trip. On the same trip, he also took ecstasy, one woman on the trip told the committee.

What does this say about Trump’s judgment?

Categories Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Justice, Trump

WSJ: Trump Threatens to Take Control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, Maybe Canada Too

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2024 //
16

May you live in interesting times! We do, and the times will grow even more interesting as Trump directs threats at other world leaders, reminding us that his “art of the deal” consists of bullying, bluster, blather and lying

The Wall Street Journal reported today:

President-elect Donald Trump is openly discussing provocative aspirations for U.S. territorial expansion as he prepares to return to the White House, warning about taking over the Panama Canal and wresting control of Greenland from Denmark.

His comments, delivered in public remarks and social-media posts on Sunday, come after he recently trolled Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by suggesting that Canada should become the 51st state and referring to Trudeau as a governor. During the recent presidential campaign, Trump said he would deploy the U.S. military to impose a naval embargo on Mexican cartels and order the Pentagon to use American special forces to take down cartel leaders.

Taken together, the president-elect’s broadsides signal that he will pursue a confrontational foreign-policy agenda, leveraging unconventional threats and pointed demands in an attempt to gain advantage over allies and adversaries alike. Trump is often prone to provocation, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he would try to follow through on his demands. But if he does, he is likely to face stiff resistance from world leaders, who would object to any effort to undermine their sovereignty.

“We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else,” Trump said at a conservative conference in Phoenix on Sunday, demanding the return of the state-run canal to the U.S. “We will never, never let it fall into the wrong hands….”

Later Sunday, in a statement announcing his pick for U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Trump signaled his continued interest in taking control of Greenland. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump said. Denmark controls the self-governing island.

Categories Ethics, Extremism, International, Lies, Trump

Andru Volinsky: The New Danger to Children of Immigrants

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2024 //
31

Andru Volinsky lives in New Hampshire, where he has been active in politics and protecting public schools. He served on the state’s Executive Council, he successfully litigated a challenge to the state’s system for funding public schoools. He ran for Governor in 2020 and unfortunately was not elected. He writes here about the risks that America’s immigrant children face today.

His article was posted on the blog of the Network for Public Education.

Andru Volinsky: The Threat to Public School Access for Children of Immigrants

Andru Volinsky alerts us to one of the other threats to education that may be coming for immigrant children. 

School children who cannot prove they are legally in the US may soon be threatened with exclusion from public schools.  Since 1982, when the Supreme Court decided the case of Plyler v. Doe, public schools have been required to accept children who immigrate to the US, regardless of their legal status. The Plyer opinion, however, was issued by a deeply divided court (five different justices wrote opinions) with only a bare majority deciding in favor of the school children. And now, much like the Roe v. Wade abortion decision, the Plyler decision is under attack by right-wing extremists. Texas governor Gregg Abbott has publicly challenged the decision and it appears there is an organized effort to overturn the right of immigrant children to attend public schools.

Earlier this year, the Saugus, MA School Committee adopted stringent proof of legal residency requirements for its school children shortly after Massachusetts governor Maura Healey announced a state of emergency concerning Massachusetts’ over 5000 recent immigrants, many of whom were from Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Saugus is a town of about 30,000 residents located just outside of Boston. The immigrants from these three nations were legally admitted to the US under a Biden administration special humanitarian parole program adopted in 2023.

Legislators in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas recently also considered legislation to either explicitly bar children from attending public school if they cannot prove they are legally in the US or to require extensive proof of legal residency that can then give local officials excuse not to admit students. The Saugus School Committee is reported to have deployed this tactic to delay admission of a six-year-old girl from Nicaragua for six months.

According to a Pew study released in July 2024, the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States was 11.0 million in 2022, the most recent year available. About 850,000 of these immigrants were children under 18.

About 4.4 million U.S.-born children under 18 live with an unauthorized immigrant parent.  More than eight million workers in the US are unauthorized immigrants. Only 5 percent of these unauthorized workers are single persons without children. The remainder are heads of families most of which are of mixed legality of their immigration status.

If we exclude children from public schools because of their immigration status, how can we expect them to become “good citizens?”

Read the full post here. You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/andru-volinsky-the-threat-to-public-school-access-for-children-of-immigrants/

Categories Childhood, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Immigration

Jamelle Bouie: Trump Got a Rude Awakening

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2024 //
29

Over the past week, the nation was treated to the return of Trump chaos. Congress needed to pass a “continuing resolution” to fund the federal government or it would shut down at midnight last Friday. Because of the process that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson used, the CR required a vote of two-thirds of the House. The House is almost evenly divided between the two parties, with a slight Republican majority. Mike Johnson had to get a bipartisan deal that satisfied both parties, and he did. On the day of the vote, Elon Musk unleashed a flurry of tweets ridiculing the deal, warning that he would fund primary challengers for any Republican who supported it and lying about the contents of the bill.

Several hours after Musk attacked the bill, Trump chimed in and warned Republicans to vote against it. He too said that any Republican who voted for it would be challenged by another Republican in the next election. Trump demanded that any CR raise the debt limit, so he could renew a big tax cut for the rich and corporations in the spring. The new round of tax cuts is expected to cost $1-2 trillion. The onus for raising the debt limit would be Biden’s, not his, he hoped.

Musk tweeted that the government should be shut down until Trump was inaugurated. Only 33 days, he tweeted. He didn’t care that government employees and members of the military would go without a paycheck for 33 days. Or that many would not have enough to get by. How would he–the world’s richest man–know?

Under pressure from Musk and Trump, the bipartisan deal failed. Speaker Johnson then cobbled together a new budget to please Trump and Musk. It raised the debt limit and deleted items that Democrats wanted. All but two Democrats and 38 Republicans voted against it, and it too failed.

Then Speaker Johnson tried again, forging a deal that members of both parties supported. It passed 366-34.

Here are the 34 Republicans who voted against the bill.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)  

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)

Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.)

Sen.-elect and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) 

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.)

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas)

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)

Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)

Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah)

Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)

Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas)

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.)

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)

Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas)

Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.)

Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.)

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.)

Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.)

Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.)

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.)

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.)

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas)

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.)

Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas)

Jamelle Bouie wrote that we should all take heart. Trump does not control every Republican in the House. We will find out in February and March whether every Senate Tepublican is willing to confirm Trump’s totally unqualified choices for major roles: Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth.

Bouie wrote:

The recurring theme of my writing the past few weeks is that Donald Trump is not invulnerable. His win did not upend the rules of American politics or render him immune to political misfortune. Like everything we experience, his victory was contingent — a function of specific people in specific circumstances making specific choices. To change any of these variables is to change the ultimate destination.

To put this a little differently, whatever you think of the nature of his win, Donald Trump is still Donald Trump. He is overwhelmingly strong in some areas and ruinously deficient in others. He holds so much sway over his supporters that, as he famously put it nearly 10 years ago, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose “any voters.” He’s almost incapable of managing himself or the people around him. His White House was notoriously chaotic and he remains as impulsive, dysfunctional and undisciplined as he was during his first term.

There was, in the first weeks after the election, some notion that this had changed, that we were looking at a new Trump, ready to lead a united Republican Party. But as we’ve seen over the past few days, this was premature. First, the Republican Party is far from unified, as their struggle to pass a bill to continue to fund the government showed. It took days. What’s more, Trump is not alone as a figure of influence among congressional Republicans; Elon Musk has imposed himself onto the president-elect as a consigliere of sorts and is trying to build a political empire for himself via X, the social media platform he essentially bought for this purpose.

It was from X, in fact, that Musk urged Republicans to kill the continuing resolution, throwing the House into chaos and prompting Trump to escalate the confrontation to save face, demanding a new resolution that suspended or raised the debt limit. On Thursday evening, Speaker Mike Johnson tried to pass that bill. But a number of Republicans broke ranks, and unified Democratic opposition meant it was dead on arrival.

Together, Trump and Musk have not only walked the Republican Party into an otherwise needless defeat; they also have given Democrats the jump start they apparently needed to behave like a real opposition. According to Axios, House Democrats even broke into chants of “Hell no” when confronted with proposed Republican spending cuts.

That’s more like it.

The absurd battle over the continuing resolution should stand as a vivid reminder that Trump is in a much more precarious position than he may have appeared to be in immediately after the election. With a 41 percent favorability rating, he remains unpopular. He cannot count on a functional majority in the House. He has no plan to deliver the main thing, lower prices, that voters want. And one of his most important allies, Musk, is an agent of chaos he can’t seem to control.

There have been enough presidents that there are a few models for what a well-run administration might look like. This is not one of them.

Other bad news:

There are so many memes on Twitter about “President Musk” that Trump responded, whining that he is the President-elect, not Musk. One meme shows Musk pushing a baby carriage, with Trump in it. Another shows them mouth-kissing.

The one thing Trump can’t tolerate is being laughed at. The term #PresidentMusk was trending on Twitter.

We mostly assume that Trump will not be able to sustain his bromance with Musk because Musk is richer, smarter, and younger than Trump. But Never-Trumper George Conway said in a bulwark podcast that it won’t be easy for Trump to shed Musk. Musk owns the world’s biggest social media platform. Trump can’t afford to alienate him. He also loves Musk’s money. He may be stuck with the one guy who overshadows him and makes him an object of ridicule.

Categories Accountability, Democrats, Extremism, Failure, Funding, Musk, Elon, Politics, Republicans, Trump

Journalist: “Farewell, Twitter! I’m Off to Bluer Skies!”

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2024 //
8

Ashton Pittman is the news editor of the Mississippi Free Press and a fine writer. I get my news about Mississippi by reading MFT, reported by people who live there. Pittman describes in this article why he debated whether to leave Twitter. When Musk bought Twitter, he knew it was going to be bad. He had spent years building up a following there and didn’t want to give it up. He investigated other social media platforms, but they weren’t right.

Then came the 2024 election, and Twitter turned into a political platform that favored Trump, where nasty trolls and bots created a toxic atmosphere.

Ashton joined BlueSky and very quickly gained a large number of followers close to what he (and the Mississippi Free Press) had had on Twitter.

He writes:

For a long time, it seemed like nothing was going to replace Twitter, even as it further devolved into a hellscape that seemed as if it were overrun by the trolls of 4chan, the neo-Nazis of Stormfront and the dullest AI bots Chat GPT ever powered. Twitter transformed into X, a place where racism, misogyny, homophobia and especially transphobia run rampant under the guise of “free speech,” but where using the word “cisgender” can get your account restrictedbecause Musk (who has described his very-much-alive transgender daughter as “dead”) considers it a slur.

I had really wanted one of the Twitter alternatives to take off, but one of the biggest impediments was the lack of buy-in from major journalists, publications, celebrities and other figures who could draw audiences away. A familiar pattern developed: People would leave X in hopes of joining another platform, then come back. 

Then came the election. Twitter turned into a Trump propaganda site. And Ashton was done.

But you know what I really enjoy about BlueSky? It doesn’t pigeonhole me. On other platforms, particularly X, you choose one facet of yourself and that’s the following you get, and the algorithm recommends you based on that. On BlueSky, I get to be a Mississippi journalist whose news stories draw engagement from people who care about news, but I also get to be a film photographer whose posts about my black-and-white film adventures spark conversations, too. None of us is just one thing, no matter what some lousy algorithm thinks, and it’s affirming to be able to build communities around shared interests beyond just news and politics. Social media should be social, not anti-social….

My experience as a journalist on BlueSky has reminded me that my job is to provide good information to those who want it, not to argue with trolls and validate attention-seeking behavior from the worst people on the internet. My desire to reach a diverse audience does not have to entail subjecting myself to constant abuse. I am not obligated to stay on a platform where Nazi trolls with 1488 in their usernames and cartoon frogs as their profile images regularly hurl the word “fagg-t” at me and issue veiled threats. I do not have to entertain the endless stream of incels who think “soy boy” is some sort of profound insult. I do not have to accept being under the thumb of an algorithm that prioritizes crypto scams, AI bots and conspiracy theorists over my voice.

And you know what? You don’t either.

Some of the smarter people among us have said that BlueSky is an echo chamber. Well, right now, it’s a place where I hear the echoes of artists, writers, cinephiles, scientists and neighbors caring about their neighbors. And that’s a hell of a lot better than being trapped in a chamber that’s increasingly filled with the echoes of Adolf Hitler.

So farewell, Twitter. I’m off to bluer skies.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Reform, Extremism, Media, Mississippi, Musk, Elon

Gary Legum: Musk Bought the Power He Wants

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2024 //
10

Writing at Wonkette, Gary Legum describes what Elon Musk will get for the $250 million he invested in Trump’s campaign. He may seek waivers from regulations, he may seek contracts. Trump is very grateful. No one, to our knowledge, has ever given so much money to a Presidential campaign. What will he get in return?

Legum writes:

Compare and contrast if you will the two senators from the great state of Connecticut.

The first senator, Richard Blumenthal, spent time this week rallying support for his Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) by verbally fellating sentient staph infection Elon Musk, calling him “the foremost champion of free speech in the tech industry.” This was a naked attempt to get Musk to try and influence the other tech bros infesting the incoming administration to support the bill even though any sort of regulation of the Internet goes against their core beliefs. Unless the regulations somehow bother liberals, in which case they get a thumbs-up.

Thus did Blumenthal violate yr Wonkette’s rule about lending any legitimacy to the right-wing billionaire who just spent a quarter of a billion dollars to buy the election for the other party and has been rewarded with the highest of high-level access to the incoming president. We don’t particularly care about the cause one is fellating in support of, although KOSA is a problematic bill that no one should want passed. But that’s a whole other post.

Now consider Connecticut’s other senator, Chris Murphy. Thursday night on MSNBC, Murphy told Alex Wagner in no uncertain terms that America is about to become the sort of oligarchy represented by Musk’s ascent to Trump’s inner circle that we used to be able to at least pretend was beneath us:

“What it means is a handful of really rich people run the government, and they steal from ordinary people using their access to government in order to make themselves and their families even richer.”

Whoa, that’s no way to get invited to the DOGE Christmas party, Senator.

Murphy’s description really applies to how our government has been for some decades, the difference being that now we have an incoming president and administration that are not bothering to pretend otherwise. But okay, we won’t split hairs with Murphy. We are where we are, so any tiny voices in opposition to the coming nightmare are appreciated.

Anyway, Murphy got us thinking that you really have to hand it to the sentient staph infection. Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars buying himself a president who will roll over at the soft snap of the billionaire’s doughy fingers, and it has paid off again and again and again. And Sweet Potato Suharto’s coronation isn’t even for another five weeks.

A quarter of a billion dollars. Thanks a pantsload, Anthony Kennedy and the Supreme(ly Stupid) Court.

The latest atrocity to benefit Musk is a report on Friday that the incoming administration may drop the federal government’s car crash reporting rules. See, Tesla has a minor problem, in that it has had to report over 1,500 crashes to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, partly because the automated-driving systems that are supposed to set the cars apart from normie vehicles don’t work very well, turning them into fiery mobile deathtraps and causing untold misery and suffering to not just crash victims but their families as well.

Musk probably doesn’t believe this, but pain and suffering by humans is in fact bad. It’s true! Just ask us!

Please open the link to finish reading.

Categories Billionaires, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Musk, Elon, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Republicans Play Politics with Jan 6 and the Budget

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2024 //
1

Heather Cox Richardson ably sums up the Republicans’ irresponsibility yesterday, as they tried to rewrite the events of January 6 and cowered at the feet of Elon Musk.

Loudermilk was himself involved in the story of that day after video turned up of him giving a tour of the Capitol on January 5 despite its being closed because of Covid. During his tour, participants took photos of things that are not usually of interest to visitors: stairwells, for example. Since then, he has been eager to turn the tables against those investigating the events of January 6.

Yesterday, Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) released an “Interim Report on the Failures and Politicization of the January 6th Select Committee.” As the title suggests, the report seeks to rewrite what happened on January 6, 2021, when rioters encouraged by former president Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol. Loudermilk chairs a subcommittee on oversight that sits within the Committee on House Administration. The larger committee—House Administration—oversees the daily operations of the House of Representatives, including the Capitol Police. Under that charge, former House speaker Kevin McCarthy permitted MAGA Republicans to investigate security failures at the Capitol on January 6.

Loudermilk turned the committee’s investigation of security failures into an attack on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, more commonly known as the January 6th Committee. Yesterday’s report singled out former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has taken a strong stand against Trump’s fitness for office after his behavior that day, as the primary villain of the select committee. In his press release concerning the interim report, Loudermilk said that Cheney “should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering,” and the report itself claimed that “numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney” and that the FBI should investigate that alleged criminality.

The report seeks to exonerate Trump and those who participated in the events of January 6 while demonizing those who are standing against him, rewriting the reality of what happened on January 6 with a version that portrays Trump as a persecuted victim.

Trump’s team picked up the story and turned it even darker. At 2:11 this morning, Trump’s social media account posted: “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that ‘numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.’ Thank you to Congressman Barry Loudermilk on a job well done.”

To this, conservative writer David Frum responded: “After his successful consolidation of power, the Leader prepares show trials for those who resisted his failed first [violent attempt to overthrow the government].”

Liz Cheney also responded. “January 6th showed Donald Trump for who [he] really is—a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave.” She pointed out that the January 6th committee’s report was based on evidence that came primarily from Republican witnesses, “including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration,” and that the Department of Justice reached the similar conclusions after its own investigation.

Loudermilk’s report “intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did,” Cheney wrote. “Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth. No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”

CNN aired clips today of Republican lawmakers blaming Trump for the events of January 6.

Last night, Trump also filed a civil lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett over Selzer’s November 2 poll showing Harris in the lead for the election. Calling it “brazen election interference,” the suit alleges that the poll violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Brian Stelter, Katelyn Polantz, Hadas Gold, and Paula Reid of CNN: “This absurd lawsuit is a direct assault on the First Amendment. Newspapers and polling firms are not engaged in ‘deceptive practices’ just because they publish stories and poll results President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t like. Getting a poll wrong is not election interference or fraud.”

Conservative former representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) wrote: “Trump is suing a pollster and calling for an investigation of [Liz Cheney]. Don’t you dare tell me he’s not an authoritarian. And don’t you dare look the other way. Donald Trump is un-American. The resistance to him from Americans must be steadfast & fierce.”

This afternoon, Trump’s authoritarian aspirations smashed against reality.

The determination of the MAGA extremists in the House to put poison pills in appropriations measures over the past year meant that the Republicans have been unable to pass the necessary appropriations bills for 2024 (not a typo), forcing the government to operate with continuing resolutions. On September 25, Congress passed a continuing resolution that would fund the government through December 20, this Friday. Without funding, the government will begin to shut down…right before the holidays.

At the same time, a farm bill, which Congress usually passes every five years and which outlines the country’s agriculture and food policies including supplemental nutrition (formerly known as food stamps), expired in 2023 and has been continued through temporary extensions.

Last night, news broke that congressional leaders had struck a bipartisan deal to keep the government from shutting down. The proposed 1,500-page measure extended the farm bill for a year and provided about $100 billion in disaster relief as well as about $10 billion in assistance for farmers. It also raised congressional salaries and kicked the government funding deadline through March 14. It seemed like a last-minute reprieve from a holiday government shutdown.

But MAGA Republicans immediately opposed the measure. “It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s garbage,” said Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO). They are talking publicly about ditching Johnson and voting for someone else for House speaker.

Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk also opposed the bill. Chad Pergram of the Fox News Channel reported that House speaker Mike Johnson explained on the Fox News Channel that he is on a text chain with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are unelected appointees to Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” charged with cutting the U.S. budget.

Johnson said he explained to Musk that the measure would need Democratic votes to pass, and then they could bring Trump in roaring back with the America First agenda. Apparently, Musk was unconvinced: shortly after noon, he posted, “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Later, he added: “No bills should be passed Congress [sic] until Jan 20, when [Trump] takes office.”

This blueprint would shut down the United States government for a month, but Musk—who, again, does not answer to any constituents—seems untroubled. ″‘Shutting down’ the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” he tweeted.

Pergram reported that Musk’s threats sent Republicans scrambling, and Musk tweeted: “Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is dead. The voice of the people has triumphed! VOX POPULI VOX DEI.”

But Trump and Vice President–elect J.D. Vance seem to recognize that shutting down the government before the holidays is likely to be unpopular. They issued their own statement against the measure, calling instead for “a streamlined bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.”

Then Trump and Vance went on to bring up something not currently on the table: the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is a holdover from World War I, when Congress stopped trying to micromanage the Treasury and instead simply gave it a ceiling for borrowing money. In the last decades, Congress has appropriated more money than the country brings in, thus banging up against the debt ceiling. If it is not raised, the United States will default on its debt, and so Congress routinely raises the ceiling…as long as a Republican president is in office. If a Democrat is in office, Republicans fight bitterly against what they say is profligate spending.

The debt ceiling is not currently an issue, but Trump and Vance made it central to their statement, perhaps hoping people would confuse the appropriations bill with the debt ceiling. ”Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch. If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now”—again, it is the Republicans who threaten to force the country into default—“what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration. Let’s have this debate now.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) explained: “Remember what this is all about: Trump wants Democrats to agree to raise the debt ceiling so he can pass his massive corporate and billionaire tax cut without a problem. Shorter version: tax cut for billionaires or the government shuts down for Christmas.”

President and Dr. Biden are in Delaware today, honoring the memory of Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and his one-year-old daughter Naomi, who were killed in a car accident 52 years ago today, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement saying:

“Republicans need to stop playing politics with this bipartisan agreement or they will hurt hardworking Americans and create instability across the country. President-elect Trump and Vice President–elect Vance ordered Republicans to shut down the government and they are threatening to do just that—while undermining communities recovering from disasters, farmers and ranchers, and community health centers. Triggering a damaging government shutdown would hurt families who are gathering to meet with their loved ones and endanger the basic services Americans from veterans to Social Security recipients rely on. A deal is a deal. Republicans should keep their word.”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out the relationship between Trump’s authoritarianism and today’s chaos on Capitol Hill. Trump elevated Musk to the center of power, Marshall observes, and now is following in his wake. Musk, Marshall writes, “is erratic, volatile, impulsive, mercurial,” and he “introduces a huge source of unpredictability and chaos into the presidency that for once Trump doesn’t control.”

Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews captured the day’s jockeying among Trump’s budding authoritarians and warring Republican factions over whether elected officials should fund the United States government. He posted: “The owner of a car company is controlling the House of Representatives from a social media app.”

Richardson refers to Musk as “Trump’s sidekick.” It might be more accurate to refer to Trump as “Musk’s sidekick.” Musk is setting the agenda, Trump is obeying. The only other time in our history when a President ceded his authority was when Woodrow Wilson had a massive stroke and his wife filled in.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Funding, Musk, Elon, Republicans, Trump

Carol Burris: West Virginia Starves Its Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2024 //
2

Carol Burris, executive director of the Betwork for Public Education, describes the devastating advance of privatization in West Virginia. In 2019, the teachers of West Virginia banded together and went on strike, closing down every school in the state.

Burris writes:

West Virginia is closing its public schools. Seven schools will close in the next few years due to declining enrollment. These schools will join the 53 that closed in the past five years, and there are an additional 25 that counties have proposed or approved to close.

These numbers are not small in the context of West Virginia. The National Center for Education Statistics reported only 643 public schools with enrollment in the state in 2023-2024.

West Virginia’s population and student enrollment were in decline. In 2015, there were 277,452 students in West Virginia public schools. By 2020, enrollment was down to 253,930. In 2021, however, the drop seemed to level off—the public schools lost only 1,100 students the next year.

And then school privatization began.

In 2019, the legislature passed a charter law. It was cautious. Three charter schools were allowed to open as pilot schools under the control of districts, but none opened.

And then greed kicked in. The for-profit operators wanted to open schools in the state. In 2021, the legislature expanded the number of charters to ten a year, not including online schools, which they then approved. The authority to approve them was given to a politically appointed state board.

Six charter schools were rapidly approved, five of which are open.

Three of those five are run by for-profit corporations. In 2023-2024, those three for-profit-run charters enrolled 87% of the charter school students in the state. 

Charter schools in West Virginia operate on the “money follows the child” system, depleting school district budgets. That money accounts for a whopping 99% of state per-pupil funding, even though most charter students (70%) attend low-cost, low-quality online schools run by for-profits.

To add insult to injury to the state’s public schools, the U.S. Department of Education, under Secretary Cardona, awarded $12.2 million to the state’s charter board to open new charter schools or expand existing ones in West Virginia.

Over $905,000 was given to open a “classical” academy run by the notorious for-profit ACCEL. ACCEL already operates two of the state’s five charter schools. The new school will be operated on a sweeps contract, violating 2022 CSP regulations. Three of the existing five charter schools would be given funds to expand.

I registered a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education regarding West Virginia’s violation of its own regulations. I have not received a response. 

If that were not enough, this fall, the West Virginia legislature passed a law allowing charter schools to access the state building fund—giving them their own privileged funding stream.

In 2022, the same year that the law to expand charter schools was enacted, the state passed a voucher law called the Hope Scholarship, heralded by Ed Choice as one of the most expansive voucher laws in the country. That law gives vouchers to fund homeschooling, private schooling, tutoring, and “enrichment” activities for students who do not attend a public or charter school.

The scholarship is worth 100% of the average per-pupil state funding. There are no income limits. Beginning in 2026, any student, including a private school student or home-schooled student who has never attended public school, can apply.

In 2023-2024, West Virginians used a voucher. In 2024-2025, the number jumped to 10,000.

Let’s do the math.

During the 2021-2022 school year, there were 252,830 students in public schools. That was the year before charters and the voucher law. In 2023-2024, that number dropped to 243,560. 

Just when West Virginia enrollment had begun to stabilize, 2,277 students were siphoned off along with funding to charter schools, and 6,000 students received vouchers. In West Virginia, privatization through charter schools and vouchers is now the primary source of public school enrollment and funding decline.

As charter schools continue to expand, thanks in part to the federal Charter School Program, and vouchers become accessible to 100% of students in the state, school closings will accelerate. 

For the right-wing Libertarians who run education policy for the Republican Party, this is not a bug; this is the main feature. 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, Privatization, Republicans, School Choice, Teachers, Vouchers, West Virginia

Texas: Dan Patrick Wants to Replace Public Schools with Christian Schools

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2024 //
8

Dan Patrick is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, a powerful position in the state. He used to be a rightwing radio talk show host, a little Rush Limbaugh. Now he’s in a position to do real damage, not just blow off steam. He recently told the superintendents of rural schools that the state couldn’t afford to give them any new money, although not long ago Governor Greg Abbott bragged about a $30 billion surplus and about cutting property taxes.

Chris Tomlinson, opinion writer for The Houston Chronicle, eviscerated Dan Patrick’s homegrown bull in this article.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has laid out his plan for dismantling public schools, even if it means failing to produce a workforce that will keep Texas’ economy going.

The man who calls himself a Christian first, a conservative second and a Republican third exercises an iron fist over the Texas Senate. He recently told the Texas Association of Rural Schools & Texas Association of Midsize Schools not to expect a significant increase in state funding, which has been unchanged since 2019 despite rampant inflation.

Instead, Patrick has promised to divert taxpayer money to private, mostly Christian schools backed by his billionaire benefactors.

Texas Republicans are heading into the 89thLegislature in honey-badger mode, heedlessly pursuing ideological goals regardless of public opinion. Because just like the honey badger that has become an Internet meme, Patrick “don’t care.”

“We’re not underfunding you in our view,” Patrick told school superintendents on Dec. 6, my colleague Jeremy Wallace reported in his newsletter. “We are funding you the most we can.”

Correction: it’s the most he’s willing to do.

The state provides a basic allotment of $6,160 per student, which is $4,000 less than the national average. School districts are slashing budgets and laying off staff due to inflation. Advocates have asked for another $1,000 per student to keep providing essential services.

“I’m just being honest with you; there is no way we can increase the student allotment by $1,000,” Patrick said.

That’s a lie. The state left $30 billion unspent in 2023 when Patrick refused to increase school funding until lawmakers approved taxpayer funding for religious private schools. An extra $1,000 per student would cost $14 billion, well within the budget.

Patrick frequently claims he supports public schools, but actions speak louder than words. He criticizes teachers, prioritizes tax cuts and praises religious education, falling back on a clichéd conservative playbook.

Step One: Underfund and hamstring a government service, in this case, public schools, until it starts falling apart. Step Two: Blame underpaid, under-resourced public servants for the failure and proclaim only the private sector can help. Step Three: Send taxpayer money to your cronies to provide the service, with a significant markup, and make the public pay more for it.

The biggest campaign donors to Texas’s Republican leaders in recent years have loudly demanded an end to public education as we know it. They believe government-run schools indoctrinate students with the wrong ideas about justice, equality and tolerance. They want private schools to teach their values with taxpayer subsidies.

Oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilks have spent tens of millions backing Christian nationalist activists and candidates to pass a school voucher bill. Patrick is one of the largest beneficiaries of their largesse and has backed taxpayer money for Christian schools since he was a senator.

A Pennsylvania billionaire who hates public schools, Jeff Yass, gave Gov. Greg Abbott $6 million, the largest campaign donation in state history, to punish rural Republican lawmakers who opposed school vouchers in 2023. Most of those lawmakers either retired or lost their seats in the GOP primary.

Abbott and Patrick say they have the votes necessary to pass a school voucher bill next year. Past promises to boost funding for public schools now appear off the table.

Public schools are much more than a benefit for parents; they create Texas’s workforce. Future success at work is directly tied to quality pre-kindergarten and good schools.

Private schools do not face the same regulation or scrutiny as public schools. Private schools are free to teach whatever the sponsoring group wants outside of a few minimum requirements. Private school students are not required to take the state’s standardized STAAR Test.

Polls show most Texans support public schools and want the state to spend more. But with a handful of donors writing multimillion-dollar checks, Patrick has entered the honey-badger stage of one-party rule.

Most Texans and major corporations think women should have more reproductive rights. Patrick don’t care.

Most Texans support legalized gambling to boost local economies. Patrick don’t care.

Most Texans support legalizing marijuana. Patrick don’t care; he wants to ban the $4 billion-a-year hemp industry.

Republicans have controlled every statewide office for 30 years. At the state and national level, conservatives control every branch of government. The GOP is feeling strong, like they honey badger.

Patrick wants Texas and the United States to be a Christian nation and Texas laws to reflect his interpretation of the Bible. Sabotaging public schools is a key step to fulfilling that dream.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

Ohio: Laws Advance to Protect Voucher Schools While Punishing Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2024 //
3

David Pepper blasts the Republican legislators in Ohio for relieving private voucher schools of any burdens associated with transparency and accountability, while simultaneously threatening to close the public schools with the lowest test scores every year.

He writes about the dangerous shenanigans of the gang in the Legislature that hates public schools:

So the bill that impressed me was an attempt to do something about this growing black hole. 

Specifically, the bill would have:

2) required that private schools receiving vouchers administer the same standardized tests that public school students take, allowing an apples to apples comparison of the private school’s performance;

1) required that private schools receiving vouchers provide an annual report on how they are spending the public dollars they receive (and post that report on-line);

3) required that schools provide data on the income of students/families that receive vouchers along with other scholarships. (In states like Ohio, where they have removed all income limitations on vouchers recipients, the vast majority of voucher recipients were already attending, and could already afford, the private school they now use the voucher to pay for).

Again, these would be the bare minimum of safeguards for this out-of-control approach.

Which is, of course, exactly why the provisions were ultimately stripped out of the bill that ultimately passed the House Education Committee (where the original bill had been submitted).

Note: One of the points made by private school advocates was that the tests used to measure public school outcomes were not a good measure of the work they did.

So as the billions flow to private schools through vouchers, we taxpayers still don’t know how the funds are actually being spent. And we still don’t have an apples-to-apples comparison to see if all this unaccountable money is actually leading to improved or worse education results. (Other data show the answer is “worse”).

But for Public Schools…Shut them Down

So that’s the treatment of private schools receiving public dollars via vouchers. 

But wouldn’t you know it? For Ohio’s publicschools, constantly the target of attack and criticism, we see the exact opposite approach.

Rushing through the current “lame duck” Ohio legislative session is a brand new bill that takes seriously the same standardized tests the voucher-funded private schools convinced lawmakers they need not take (remember, they testified it’s not a good measure of their work). So seriously, the new bill proposes that all Ohio public school buildings that fall in the bottom five and 10 percent of two measures (both determined by standardized tests) for three years be shut down. 

Under the bill, local school boards would be forced either “to fire its principal and majority of staff or turn over operations to a private entity, charter, or another district.”

Public school advocates have pointed out many of the flaws of this approach, including that many of the entities that would “take over” these schools have no experience providing K-12 education at all. They’ve also pointed out that this approach bears similarities to the failed top-down approach from a 2015 bill which created Academic Distress Commissions for struggling districts. After stripping away local control, the Commissions did not generate improvements, and the approach was ultimately repealed.

But bigger picture, of course, is the differential treatment of the two systems: One type of publicly funded Ohio schools doesn’t have to provide even the bare minimum of accountability and transparency, while the other set would face turmoil and even shutdowns for failing to meet certain criteria not applied to the first group. 

It’s yet another blatant tipping of the scales towards privatizing public education.

Take Action

They are trying to rush this bill through the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee tomorrow. Here are steps you can take to stop it:

  • Contact your State Rep. Tell them the Ohio Senate is trying to pass a massive new school closure bill (SB 295) without any input from the House. Ask them, “Shouldn’t the House get a say on this issue??”
  • WHAT TO SAY:
    • SB 295 would remove local control from elected school board members and parents
    • The state should not be making big, closed-door decisions with little to no community involvement.
    • Our students deserve safe, equitable, fully-resourced, engaging schools in their own area! In most cases, closing local schools is bad for our communities and bad for Ohio. In ALL cases, parents and students should be heavily involved in the decision-making processes!
  • FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Categories Accountability, Corruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Inequity, Ohio, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Standardized Testing, Vouchers
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