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Rep. Steve Cohen Introduces Six Articles of Impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2026 //
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The U.S. Supreme Court was designed to be a separate branch of government, the one that monitored the adherence to the Constitution by the other two branches. The Court disappoints sometimes, but it has never been as nakedly partisan as it is under Chief Justice John Roberts. The far-right wing of the Republican Party has a reliable friend at the Court.

It’s hard to say which of their decisions is the worst.

Some might say it was their recent decision to overturn the Voting Rights Act, which will sharply reduce the number of Black members of Congress.

Some might say it was their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite promises by most of them not to do so.

Some would say it is their decisions that tear down the wall of separation between church and state.

I say it was their decision in Trump v. United States, in which the majority decided that the president was above the law and could not be charged for anything he did while in office as part of his official duties. We can be certain that the same court would claim that whatever he did was part of his official duties, including tearing down the East Wing of the White House without seeking anyone’s approval.

Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee has had enough. He introduced six articles of impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts. Good for him!

Scott Dworkin reported on his blog:

Rep. Steve Cohen

Rep. Steve Cohen has represented Memphis, Tennessee, for 19 years. Republicans cut his district into pieces, and he decided to retire—but not without a fight.

Cohen told The Dworkin Report in 2019: “[Trump’s] life has been one crime after another. One misdeed after another. One lie after another.” Now he’s applied that same standard to the man who put Trump above the law.

On May 21, Cohen introduced six articles of impeachment against Chief Justice John Roberts. Charges include allowing the Court to become a partisan weapon, placing the president above the law, endorsing a corrupt campaign finance system, and failing to recuse himself while his wife collected millions recruiting attorneys for law firms with cases before the Court.

Cohen was direct: “Under Chief Justice Roberts’ stewardship, [The Supreme Court] is now understood as biased: with decisions designed to benefit Republicans at the expense of representative government.”

They gerrymandered Cohen’s district to silence him. John Roberts now has six articles of impeachment to his name—an award no other Chief Justice has ever received in US history.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, History, Injustice, Justice, Trump

Colorado Parents and Educators Want an End to High-stakes Testing

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2026 //
5

A group of activists in Colorado speaks out against standardized tests. Angela Engels’ article was printed in the Colorado Times Recorder.


A Message from Judy Solano, Chair, A4PEP (Advocates for Public Education Policy).

“It takes courage to speak out about the injustices in the world, especially when policy-makers funded by wealthy education reform organizations hold the power.  May we all be warriors in the battle for truth.”

COLORADO TIMES RECORDER

Test-Based Accountability Is Failing Colorado’s Children

by Angela Engel                                                       May 15, 2026

As the Colorado General Assembly wraps up the 2026 session, lawmakers once again failed to confront one of the most costly and disruptive features of public education: high-stakes standardized testing.

Key legislative proposals that would have addressed the burden of high-stakes testing were defeated again. SB26-068would have reduced CMAS standardized tests to the minimum extent possible, and HB26-1291 would have reduced teacher evaluations for non-probationary teachers from annually to every three years. Both had bipartisan sponsorship and were supported by teachers, parents, and community members, but opposed by billionaire-backed education reform lobbyists.

A memorial backed by the Advocates for Public Education Policy (A4PEP), urging Congress to return authority to locally elected school boards, as provided in the eww hearing.

These decisions deserve more than a procedural explanation.

The issue of high-stakes testing is neither marginal nor new. Since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, policymakers have imposed lengthy and expensive criterion-referenced standardized tests on students, then incorrectly used that data to make high-stakes decisions about teacher pay and school closures. Because test scores are most closely correlated with income, policymakers have tolerated the practice of closing schools in low-income neighborhoods at the expense of our most vulnerable students.

A 2014 study showed that Colorado’s testing requirements cost up to $78 million annually in combined state and district expenditures. Adjusting for inflation, that would equal more than $100 million today. Approximately 450,000 students spend an average of 20 hours of classroom instruction each year on these assessments — more than 9 million hours diverted away from teaching and learning.

Meanwhile, the number of students identified as at-risk has increased by 118%, more than doubling since 2000. After more than two decades, the results of this approach are clear. Achievement gaps have not closed. Teacher attrition continues to rise. Families increasingly question a system that prioritizes testing over learning, with many choosing to opt out altogether.

This is not a policy in need of minor adjustment. It is an accountability structure that has failed to deliver on its core promises — and it deserves fundamental sreplacement. And yet, it remains firmly in place. Not because the evidence is unclear, but because the accountability system itself is protected.

Standardized testing is no longer just an educational tool. It is embedded in a network of contracts, compliance requirements, testing vendors, consulting firms, and political interests backed by well-funded lobbying efforts. There are real financial and political incentives to preserve it, regardless of outcomes.

Spending more than $100 million annually on a system that continues to produce the same disparities while costing students millions of hours of learning time reinforces a governance model that rewards compliance and discourages challenge.

This climate — where profits and political interests are prioritized before children — did not emerge on its own. It has been shaped over time by a campaign finance system that rewards candidates who support policies centered on test-based school accountability.

When you see something wrong, something inhumane, don’t just say something. Do something. It’s time policymakers stop protecting harmful practices and confront the consequences of policies that continue to waste taxpayer dollars, diminish learning opportunities, and drive many of our most talented and experienced teachers from the profession. After twenty-five years, the ramifications of inaction are impossible to ignore.

Public education should not revolve around protecting systems, contracts, corporate profits, or political interests. It should revolve around children. Colorado students deserve a well-rounded education that values critical thinking, creativity, and civic engagement over excessive testing and data collection. For too long, corporate education groups and privatizers have robbed students of a meaningful education and carefree childhood. This accountability model offers the illusion of control while costing Colorado a future of empowered, well-educated leaders.  

To view the planned Senate memorial, click here.  

Angela Engel is a mother, educator, and facilitator. Learn more on her website, www.angelaengel.com. Don Perl, Judy Solano, Mike DeGuire, and Manuel Solano contributed to this article.  https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2026/05/test-based-accountability-is-failing-colorados-children/79032/

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act, Evil, Extremism, Fake News, New York, Standardized Testing

New York Court Reverses DOGE Cancellation of $100 Million for NEH Grants

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2026 //
2

Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern Districy of New York issued a ruling restoring $100 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities that were canceled by Elon Musk’s DOGE team. The judge said the cancellations violated the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, and furthermore that DOGE lacked the statutory authority to act. Judge McMahon ordered the reinstatement of every grant to writers, scholars, and researchers. The DOGE censors did not actually review the grants but used ChatGPT to identify words that the Trump administration had banned, especially those associated with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion).

Perhaps the most gratifying aspect of the decision was the judge’s ruling that DOGE had no authority to cancel these grants. In fact, DOGE had no authority to fire thousands of civil servants or to terminate entire agencies, like USAID.

She wrote:

On the central ultra vires question, Judge McMahon was unequivocal: “It is not that DOGE misconstrued a statutory provision conferring authority on it; it is that Congress conferred no authority on DOGE at all with respect to the awarding, continuation, or termination of NEH grants.”  

The Authors Guild, one of the plaintiffs, reported on the decision;

May 7, 2026—A New York federal court in a 143-page decision today held for the Authors Guild plaintiffs on every count in its case on behalf of individual writers and scholars against DOGE and the NEH for DOGE’s April 2025 mass cancellation at the National Endowment for the Humanities. It ordered the reinstatement of every grant terminated, delivering a complete victory to the Authors Guild and more than 1,400 writers, scholars, and researchers whose awards were abruptly eliminated.  

Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs on all three of their claims, finding the terminations violated the First Amendment and the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment and were carried out by DOGE without any statutory authority to act.  

The court issued a permanent injunction enjoining the administration from giving effect to the mass terminations and requiring the government to rescind every termination notice and restore all affected grants and certified the Authors Guild’s lawsuit as a class action covering all approximately 1,400 affected grantees. 

“Today’s ruling makes clear that no administration—regardless of its priorities—is free to defy the statutory purposes of federal agencies and that or to cancel grants based on viewpoint discrimination,” said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild. “Not only did DOGE have no authority to cancel the grants, it used an AI chatbot to invent pretextual reasons to do it anyway. Writers and scholars had structured their lives around these awards—taking leaves of absence, giving up other income, making commitments—because the government had entered into a legally binding obligation. That obligation must be honored. We are gratified that justice was done, grateful to our amazing legal team at Fairmark Partners, and we will be watching closely to make sure every one of these grants is restored.”  

Background 

In early April 2025, DOGE officials terminated more than 1,400 NEH grants awarded to scholars, writers, research institutions, and other humanities organizations totaling over $100 million in congressionally appropriated funds—the largest mass cancellation of previously awarded grants in the agency’s nearly 60-year history—with no individualized review, no notice, and no opportunity to appeal.  

Discovery revealed that a DOGE official had used ChatGPT to generate “DEI rationales” for termination, submitting thousands of grant descriptions to the AI tool with a single standardized prompt, without defining the term or understanding how the tool interpreted it. They didn’t take any steps to ensure that the system wouldn’t discriminate on the basis of race, sex, or other protected categories. DOGE also searched for grants containing keywords like “gay,” “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), “indigenous,” “tribal,” “melting pot,” “equality,” and similar terms. It did not search for analogous terms like “white,” “heterosexual,” or “Caucasian.” 

The results were, in the court’s account, irrational: Studies of ancient Jewish texts, the persecution of Uyghurs in China, the plastics industry, and American women in Paris in the early 1900s were all flagged as DEI. The NEH’s own acting chair told DOGE many of the rationales “mischaracterized” the grants but was overruled. His own email to DOGE acknowledged: “Either way, as you’ve made clear, it’s your decision on whether to discontinue funding any of the projects.”

Two Consolidated Cases

The result of this landmark ruling was actually two separate lawsuits that were quickly consolidated into one. On May 1, 2025, the Modern Language Association, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Historical Association filed the initial suit, ACLS v. McDonald, challenging DOGE’s mass terminations. Eleven days later, the Authors Guild filed its own suit, The Authors Guild v. NEH, in the Southern District of New York — structured as a class action on behalf of all approximately 1,400 affected grantees. On May 14, Judge Colleen McMahon consolidated the two cases, noting they were “substantially identical,” and the litigation proceeded jointly from there.

Because the Authors Guild’s suit was structured as a class action, Judge McMahon’s order applies not just to named plaintiffs but to all 1,400-plus writers, scholars, and researchers whose awards were canceled, making yesterday’s ruling a victory for everyone DOGE targeted. 

Ruling 

On the central ultra vires question, Judge McMahon was unequivocal: “It is not that DOGE misconstrued a statutory provision conferring authority on it; it is that Congress conferred no authority on DOGE at all with respect to the awarding, continuation, or termination of NEH grants.”  

On the ChatGPT-driven process, she wrote that it “would hardly be surprising if ChatGPT inferred, from DOGE’s repeated requests, that Fox and Cavanaugh were looking for reasons why grants could be characterized as DEI—and therefore terminable—and supplied ‘rationales’ simply in order to satisfy the user’s perceived demand. The utter lack of reasoning behind so many of its ‘rationales’ certainly suggests as much.” 

“We are extremely pleased with Judge McMahon’s ruling reinstating the more than $100 million in NEH grants that were cancelled by DOGE last April.,” said Jamie Crooks, Managing Partner of Fairmark Partners, LLP  “While we are still evaluating her detailed, 143-page opinion, the bottom line is clear: Judge McMahon agreed with the Authors Guild and the other plaintiffs that these ‘DEI’-based cancellations violated the First Amendment and Equal Protection, and that DOGE did not have the authority to order these grants terminated.  The Court’s order that the grants be reinstated will allow our clients and the hundreds of other scholars and institutions in the class to continue performing their important scholarly work, and it’s also a vindication for the rule of law and basic principles of constitutional law.”  

NEH award recipient Bill Goldstein said, “I am—and all of the plaintiffs will be— forever grateful for your brilliant, tireless, and effective work on our behalf. And on behalf of the First Amendment and what remains and must endure of the rule of law. The stakes are that high, and you made our rights and that right clear. Congratulations on your victory, and thank you for ours.” 

Given that the administration has ignored other judicial orders, including the preliminary injunction in this case, we cannot say whether NEH will in fact reinstate the grants and pay out the money owed under those grants. The court emphasized that its decision addresses only “the legality of the Government’s decision to terminate” the grants and that it is requiring the government to “rescind the termination notices,” but clarified that it does not “require[] the immediate payment of grant funds” or “adjudicate[] any contractual entitlement to money.” The reason for that it that claims seeking payment of money owed by the federal government must be brought in a separate court—the Court of Federal Claims. Here, Judge McMahon noted that securing payment of the grant funds “might well require a separate suit in the Court of Federal Claims”—though she did not outline a specific process. For now, we are reviewing the decision with our attorneys to determine next steps, including any possible action in the Court of Federal Claims. As always, our goal is to ensure that grantees receive the payments they are owed as promptly as possible.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Justice

Jan Resseger: Reviving NCLB WILL NOT Improve Schools

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2026 //
7

Jan Resseger, social justice warrior, strongly dissents from those who want to bring back the test-based accountability of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

She writes:

Defining schools by their achievement test scores is reductive. Of course we want our children to learn to read, to enjoy and understand literature, to master math, and to study history and the sciences, but a fixation on comparing school districts’ test scores blinds us to the human relations that constitute a classroom, to the social formation of children that happens at school, and to myriad other ways of thinking about what students are accomplishing at school. The temptation then is to define schoolteachers as producers of test scores and forget about all the other ways they help our children learn and grow.

Because test scores provide a simple, universal measure, we grab onto it and give it more weight than all the other factors we can’t so easily measure. Kevin Welner, a professor of education policy at the University of Colorado and director of the National Education Policy Center identifies family income, a factor entirely outside of school, as the most significant variable affecting a school district’s aggregate test scores: “Those of us who work in or with schools never question the enormous impact that a teacher or school can have on a student. But this essential truth coexists with another truth: that differences between schools account for a relatively small portion of measured outcome differences. That is, opportunity gaps in the U.S arise primarily outside of schools. This should not be a surprise. Poverty, concentrated poverty, and racialized poverty are pervasive features of America.  School improvement efforts cannot directly help children and their families overcome decades of policies that perpetuate systemic racism and economical inequality.”

Last week, the NY Times’ Claire Cain Miller, Frencesca Paris and Sarah Mervosh reported on a major new demographic study documenting a widespread decline over the past decade in U.S. students’ standardized test scores: “Something troubling is happening in U.S. education. Almost everywhere in America, students are performing worse than their peers were 10 years ago… A report on the new data describes a decade-long ‘learning recession.’… Education experts say there is no single reason for the declines. But the timing provides some clues. Students’ test scores had been increasing since 1990—then abruptly stopped in the mid-2010s. That coincided with two events: an easing of federal school accountability under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which was replaced in 2015, and the rise of smartphones, social media and personalized school laptops. The pandemic then accelerated learning declines, especially for the poorest students. Some pandemic effects have lingered. Student absenteeism, for example, remains higher than pre-pandemic… Test scores in low-income districts fell furthest, but affluent districts—the types of places families move to for the schools—also lost ground.”

The reporters do acknowledge a number of factors that may correlate with dropping scores, but they seem to lean toward blaming a lot of the problem on the end of No Child Left Behind. They are mistaken when they declare that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA), NCLB’s replacement, ended test-based school accountability. In fact that 2015 law just made the states, not the federal government, agree to impose sanctions on the schools that had been unable significantly to raise test scores.  The reporters quote Brian A. Jacob, a professor at the University of Michigan, who believes NCLB’s fading influence has been one cause of test score decline: “It was not a cure-all, but I think it really did improve student achievement… There’s evidence that school accountability does change behaviors of teachers and administrators and probably parents and students.”

A prominent retired professor of education, Diane Ravitch pushed back immediately on what she understood as the bias of the recent NY Times article: “I reject the claim that scores have stagnated because of the easing of  No Child Left Behind-Race to the Top pressures. Sure, they increased the pressure on students, teachers, and principals, but their negative effects undermined the quality of education. Picking the right bubble on a standardized test became the goal of education.  Campbell’s Law says that when a measure becomes the goal, it loses its value as a measure. Social scientist Donald Campbell wrote that ‘the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.’ “

Ravitch names a number of experts who have evaluated the damage wrought by the No Child Left Behind Act’s strategy: to punish schools and teachers who, supposedly, weren’t working hard enough to make all students reach test-score proficiency by 2014.  The most prominent is Daniel Koretz, the Harvard University expert on standardized testing, who, in 2017, published The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better. Koretz not only explains Campbell’s Law, but he shows how the pressure of test-based accountability corrupted what happened public schools across the country when the federal government threatened mandatory closure, or mandatory privatization or charterization of so-called “failing schools.”

Koretz reminds us that in places where test scores did rise under No Child Left Behind, it may not have reflected students’ academic growth. Test score gains were in many places artificially produced through test prep, the narrowing of the school curriculum, and even cheating: “Cheating—by teachers and administrators, not by students—is one of the simplest ways to inflate scores, and if you aren’t caught, it’s the most dependable.” (The Testing Charade, p. 73)  His book covers the tragic Atlanta cheating scandal, and other examples when teachers read the tests in advance and prepared students to answer specific questions. Koretz describes various kinds of test prep coaching and drilling that were widespread in the NCLB era.  And, “(Teachers) reported that they reduced—sometimes very substantially—the amount of time devoted to teaching science, which was not tested, in order to make additional time for prepping kids in math and reading.” (The Testing Charade, pp. 95-96)

Last week’s NY Times report on the possible causes of an overall drop in test scores over the recent decade also names two other possible causes.  First, a decade ago, as schools began to provide laptops or electronic tablets to their students for online learning, students’ widespread dependence on their smartphones also became epidemic: “Something happened globally around the same time: the proliferation of devices, at home and in school.  Nearly half of American teenagers now say they are online ‘almost constantly,’ compared with just under a quarter who said that a decade ago, according to Pew Research Center.”  Due to the proliferation of devices, our classrooms operate differently, and our children are doing less reading of books for study and enjoyment.

Second, the reporters, explain, there was massive and well documented learning loss during the COVID pandemic: “Immediately after the pandemic, there was hope that students would recover quickly.  The new data shows that scores inched upwards in reading last year, and have climbed more steadily in math since 2022. But it has been nowhere near enough to make up for lost ground…. The biggest losses have been among the lowest-achieving students.”

I have never heard anyone who has been able to trace the extent of long term damage during COVID, when students’ schools were closed and many children were left while their parents were at work to learn remotely on computers. Chronic absence has been a greater problem since COVID, and something schools have struggled to overcome.  No one has been able to assess how long COVID will keep affecting children who were preschoolers and young elementary students back in 2019.

Finally there is one other big factor that could also be related to falling test scores over time: states have been perpetually reducing funding for public schools. According to the most recent research from the Albert Shanker Institute: “There are 42 states (including the District of Columbia) that devote a smaller share of their economies to their K-12 schools than they did before the 2007-2009 recession. This seems to be a permanent disinvestment in public education.” “(U)nequal opportunity is (also) universal in the U.S. In all states, higher-poverty districts are funded less adequately than lower-poverty districts… We find that 37 percent of white students attend districts with negative adequacy gaps, compared with 75 percent of African American students and 62 percent of Hispanic students. In other words, African American students are about twice as likely as their white peers to attend school in a district with below-adequate funding, while Hispanic students are almost 70 percent more likely to do so, and Native American… students are 50 percent more likely. Similarly, African American students are over 3 times more likely than white students to attend chronically underfunded districts….” These economic factors are likely to have affected students’ learning over time.

Our society will not be able to address our economic, social, and educational injustices through No Child Left Behind-style, test-based public school accountability.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Education Industry, Extremism, Failure, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing

Ann Telnaes on Presidential Vanity

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2026 //
1

Ann Telnaes is a Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist. She worked for The Washington Post for years but left when one of her cartoons was spiked (censored). The cartoon showed several billionaires bowing down to Trump; one of them was Jeff Bezos, owner of The Post. That cartoon won the Pulitzer Prize for 2026.

This one appears on her blog “Open Windows”:

Categories Censorship, Extremism, Trump

Trump Deal with Justice Department Prevents Auditing His Taxes

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2026 //
2

Trump made a real sweetheart deal with the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department. In return for him dropping his lawsuit demanding $10 billion, which may well have been dismissed by the federal judge hearing it, Trump won an incredible exemption for himself and his family.

Remember, when he first ran for president in 2015, he promised to release his tax returns after the IRS finished auditing them. Apparently, eleven years later, the Trump returns are still under audit. When his returns were leaked by an independent contractor who got a 5-year jail sentence, we learned that Trump didn’t pay any taxes some years, and in one year, paid only $750.

But part of the $1.776 billion deal relieves him of all worries about his tax returns.

Politico reported:

The Justice Department on Tuesday expanded the just-announced settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the leaking of his tax returns to include a pledge that the IRS will no longer pursue any claims it may have against Trump, his family members and his companies over unpaid taxes.

The nine-page settlement agreement DOJ released Monday, setting up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of alleged weaponization of law enforcement, did not mention any resolution of disputes over Trump’s tax returns, which he has repeatedly claimed were under protracted audits by the IRS.

However, a one-page document posted on the DOJ website early Tuesday includes a sweeping release under which the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “examinations” of Trump, “related or affiliated individuals,” and related trusts and businesses.

The waiver specifically encompasses “tax returns filed before the effective date” of the settlement, which was Monday.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed the addendum, dated Tuesday. It does not bear the signature of any representative of the IRS or any current Trump lawyers. Metadata attached to the document indicates it was prepared or scanned at 7:50 a.m. Tuesday.

Blanche did not sign the original settlement agreement, which was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, IRS CEO Frank Bisignano and Trump attorney Daniel Epstein.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on why the waiver wasn’t included in the agreement released Monday and why it isn’t signed by the same people.

John Koskinen, the former IRS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, said the expanded settlement set a “terrible precedent” that could effectively generate a windfall for Trump.“It makes you wonder what the President has to hide in those tax returns. He’s apparently been actively trading in the stock market and, since he knows a lot more about situations than the average investor, he’s probably generated significant taxable earnings,” he said in an emailed statement. “Not auditing his returns is the same as giving him an easy way to, in effect, receive money from the government.”

Danny Werfel, the former IRS commissioner from 2023 to 2025, said he was “unaware of a single precedent where the IRS has agreed in advance to permanently forgo examination of previously filed tax returns for a specific person or business.”

Press reports in advance of the settlement indicated that a potential deal might include an agreement by the government to drop all audits of Trump-related returns and perhaps even to refrain from future audits.

What a deal! No more audits!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Ethics, Extremism, Trump

The Sordid Details of Trump’s $1.776 Billion Slush Fund

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2026 //
8

Trump just pulled of his biggest heist of taxpayer money by settling a bogus lawsuit. He had sued the Treasury Department/IRS for the unauthorized release of his tax return, then agreed to settle if the Department of Justice created a fund to compensate anyone who had been injured by the “weaponization” of the law under President Biden.

Trump was projecting. Biden did not “weaponize” the Department of Justice. Trump did, directing his Attorney General to prosecute his political enemies, like Leticia James, James Comey, and John Brennan.

If anything, Merrick Garland was too timid in prosecuting the insurrectionists who tried to overturn the 2020 election and far too slow to appoint Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, whose investigation ran out of time.

Andrew Egger of The Bulwark describes the details of Trump’s political slush fund.

Basically, he has full control of the money. And he dies not have to disclose the recipients.

Egger wrote:

When I wrote Friday about the news that Donald Trump was about to drop his $10 billion IRS lawsuit in exchange for the creation of a $1.776 billion taxpayer-cash slush fund for his allies who claim the Biden administration “weaponized” the law against them, I noted that nothing was yet set in stone. At that moment, it still seemed possible that this obscene settlement—Trump’s biggest, most lawless, most brazen theft of taxpayer cash yet—might yet give them cold feet.

But no: Yesterday, they made the thing official. In fact, it’s somehow even worse than advertised.

It’s impossible to overstate this basic fact: Everything about the settlement fund, from the circumstances of its creation to the claims it makes about its own enforcement, is deliberately structured to short-circuit all outside accountability, government oversight, or judicial review. As I wrote Friday, there was a reason Trump’s guys (who happened to be both the plaintiffs and the defendants in the case) were hustling to reach the settlement quickly: The judge in the IRS case had been signaling her suspicion that Trump and his government were not actually on opposite sides of the claim, suggesting she was considering throwing out the case altogether. If they wanted to carry out the heist, time was of the essence.

The Justice Department’s enforcement order, released yesterday, and the settlement terms released last night carry on in this dubious fashion. According to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the United States loses custody and control of the $1.776 billion the minute it hits the settlement account created for the purpose: “Once the funds are deposited into the Designated Account,” he wrote in the order, “the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.”

Meanwhile, the terms of the settlement fund make clear that the money’s disbursement—which, again, Trump’s United States government is trying to wash its hands of any liability for—will be a complete black box. “The Anti-Weaponization Fund shall have the power to determine its own procedures for submitting, receiving, processing, and granting or denying claims,” the settlement reads. “The Anti-Weaponization Fund may make those procedures public in whole or in part, at its discretion.”

Not only can the fund’s members keep secret how they’re making disbursement decisions, they can also keep a lid on who’s getting paid. The requirements for this are astonishingly open-ended: “To be eligible for relief,” the settlement states, a claimant must merely “assert at least one legal claim stating that the claimant was a victim of Lawfare and/or Weaponization.” Meanwhile, the only person the fund’s administrations will be required to brief on who got how much money is the attorney general—in a “confidential written report,” and even then only quarterly.

The cherry on top of this shit settlement sundae is this claim: “Because the claims process is voluntary, there shall be no appeal, arbitration, or judicial review of claims, offers, or other determinations made by the Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which is stated to be “enforceable and challengeable solely by Plaintiffs, Defendants, and the United States”—in other words, by Trump, Trump, and Trump.

The first opportunity to head off this disaster seems already to have passed. Nearly a hundred Democratic lawmakers signed an amicus brief filed in court Monday urging the judge not to dismiss the case as the parties requested, but to insist on weighing in on the terms of the settlement. But Judge Kathleen Williams ruled in a brief order yesterday that she lacked the power to do this—the settlement agreement was never docketed in the case, she said, so she had no authority to adjudicate it.

Once again, then, Trump’s aptitude for unprecedented shamelessness seems to have exposed yet another piece of our government that ultimately runs on the honor system: If a corrupt president wants to dip into the Treasury for literally any purpose whatsoever, all he has to do is sue the government, then settle with himself outside of court to create a payout fund for whatever purpose he might desire.

“It is Congress who appropriates money and it is the executive who spends it,” Matt Platkin, the former attorney general of New Jersey who is representing the Democratic lawmakers in the suit, told The Bulwark yesterday. “Put aside all of the potential corruption with this case—if the president can just sue himself and then settle with himself . . . and then spend huge amounts of money outside of that appropriations process, why would any president ever go to Congress for money ever again?”

It’s a great point—and one that reminds us that, ultimately, the responsibility for reining in this rampaging president falls not with the courts, but with Congress. It is not just the courts but Congress as well that Trump is cutting out of the loop with his obscene and indefensible settlement. Even here, Trump requires at least the legislature’s tacit permission to spend this money: They could pass a bill today to block a penny of that money from going out the door. Because of the funhouse-mirror world we live in and the villainous, power-hungry president we have, that bill would need to have the supermajority support required to overcome a presidential veto, but they do still have the power, if only they were to choose to exercise it.

But that funhouse-mirror reality is enough to prove on its own that just blocking the money wouldn’t go far enough. Trump is not merely asserting the power to jailbreak $1.8 billion from the Treasury to parcel out to his fans and allies. He is trying to create an upside-down new status quo where his single say-so is enough to overturn the will of two thirds of Congress minus one on all spending matters that really, really matter to him. It’s utterly un-American. It’s emperor stuff. If they had a shred of dignity left, they’d impeach the son of a bitch today.

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

Karen Attiah: Trump’s Statue Is Not the Golden Calf; It is King Nebuchadnezzar

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2026 //
0

Karen Attiah was a writer, editor, and columnist for The Washington Post for more than a decade. She edited the work of Jamaal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was murdered by his government for his views about freedom. She was fired last October because, she said, of comments on social media she made about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. She now writes a blog called “The Golden Hour.”

She wrote recently that journalists were wrong to compare Trump’s golden statue to the golden calf of the Bible. The appropriate reference, she believes, is King Nebuchadnezzar and his fabulous empire of Babylon.

She writes:

It’s 8:16 pm EST. Welcome to the evening sunset edition of The Golden Hour. 

Today, as I watch the light of day literally run out, today’s Golden Hour essay is about golden statues. And how they can be the symbolic bearers of bad news about the light going out in dying empires. 

I love gold. It’s my favorite color. ‘The Golden Hour’ is Substack’s name, obviously. I typically only wear gold or gold colored jewelry. I mean, I can’t help it—gold is in my DNA—my family is from the “Gold Coast,” aka Ghana. I have written about gold swords before. 

I have been following the news reports about Trump’s colossal gold statue, aka ” Don Colossus,” which was unveiled last week at Trump National Doral Miami resort in Florida. It is 22 feet tall, and reportedly cost about $450,000 to erect. The statue was paid for by the $Patriot memecoin crypto investors. 

The statue has drawn immediate backlash, with critics likening it to idol worship. And, plenty in the news media and on social media say that this is like the story of the golden calf in the Bible…

The scrutiny got so bad that they trotted out a Black Republican pastor, Mark Burns, to defend the statue and say it’s not idol worship. Pastor Mark Burns@pastormarkburnsOne of the greatest honors of my life was leading the dedication of President Donald J. Trump’s statue to the world. What amazes me is how quickly some people have compared this beautiful statue, created and made possible by more than 6,000 patriots, to a golden calf or idol1:52 PM · May 8, 2026 · 749K Views5.05K Replies · 237 Reposts · 883 Likes

Yes, everyone is making the Golden Calf references. It’s perhaps one of the more recognizable stories and symbols even with non-Christians, so I understand why.

But, Pastor Burns is right, to an extent; my colleagues in the media are getting it wrong.Trump’s statue is not a ‘golden calf’. The golden calf story is the wrong narrative frame. There’s more in the well of Biblical symbols we can draw from to understand ‘Don Colossus’— and the trajectory of the American empire. 

Trump is more of a King Nebuchadnezzar figure than he is a golden calf. Which means that America is Babylon. And in both Biblical and historical terms, the Babylonian Empire came to a sad end.

So, the ‘Don Colossus’ statue is a golden warning of America’s fall. 

Gather around the fire, friends. Let’s talk about King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and what happened when he constructed his ill-fated golden statue of himself.

King Nebuchadnezzar’s Golden Statue

In the Book of Daniel in the Bible’s Old Testament, King Nebuchadnezzar ruled over Babylon from 605 BC to 562 BC. He led the conquest of Egypt and the eventual capture and destruction of Jerusalem. 

Nebchadnezzar dreams of a great statue of mixed materials, with a head of gold, a chest of silver, legs of bronze, and feet of clay. In the dream, the statue is destroyed by a meteor. Daniel interprets the dream as signifying that all empires live and die. 

King Nebuchadnezzar erected a 90-foot-tall gold statue of himself, going against the prophet Daniel’s warnings. He ordered that all the kingdom’s peoples, officials, and magistrates worship and bow down before the statue, lest they be thrown into a blazing hot furnace. 

The King got word that three Jews, Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego, refused to bow down and worship the statue. They told the king, “If we are thrown into the furnace, the God we serve will deliver us from it. But even if he does not, we will not serve your gods or the image of gold you have set up.” They are thrown into the furnace, but protected from the fire. Nebuchadnezzar is amazed and praises the God of the three men. This is usually how the story stops. 

But more is in store for the prideful, but ill-fated Nebuchadnezzar. 

A year later, he is walking by his palace, admiring its beauty. Per the Book of Daniel 4:27-33:

“Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” 

 Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox.

Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.” 

Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.

Given what happened to Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible, one would think that Trump’s spiritual advisors would have warned him against building a golden statue. 

Alas, they don’t make royal spiritual advisors like they used to. Maybe this is what happens when you order spiritual interpreters from Temu.

There is more, and it’s good reading. Open the link to finish the post.

Categories Extremism, Religion

Democracy Docket Denounces Colorado Governor Polis’ Decision to Release Tina Peters

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2026 //
8

Governor Jared Polis stunned defenders of democracy and fair elections by commuting the prison sentence of Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who was serving a nine-year sentence for her actions. She was sentenced in October 2024.

Peters first certified the 2020 elections as fair, then allowed fellow election deniers access to the voting machines in her county. She was tried by a jury of her peers in a Republican county by a Republican prosecutor and found guilty.

Trump pressured Polis to release Peters, even threatening to cut off federal funds to Colorado if Peters was not freed. Trump gave her a federal pardon, but it had no effect on her state conviction.

Last week, Governor Polis commuted Peters’ nine-year sentence. She will be free in a matter of days. He says he thought her sentence was too harsh.

Democracy Docket, a site established by attorney Marc Elias to monitor and report on voting rights and fair elections, denounced Polis’s decision to free Peters. His decision is a win for election deniers and Trump. It makes light of her dereliction of duty. She is likely to win a big reward from Trump’s slush fund of $1.7 billion for his allies, if that grift is approved by the Treasury Departnent and allowed to stand by the courts.

Democracy Docket released this statement:

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced Friday he is granting clemency to Tina Peters — the former election official convicted for her role in a voting system breach — cutting her sentence and making her eligible for parole as soon as next month.

The move marks a dramatic and controversial intervention in one of the most closely watched election interference cases to emerge after the 2020 election — and comes after months of sustained pressure from President Donald Trump and his far-right allies to secure Peters’ release.

“We condemn Governor Polis’ clemency grant. It is a gross injustice to our elections, election workers and democracy with far-reaching consequences,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said in a statement. “This is a dark day for democracy.”

According to local reports, Polis is reducing Peters’ nine-year prison sentence, saying her guilt was not in dispute but that the punishment itself was excessive.

“She got a sentence that was harsh. It was a 9 year sentence,” Polis said in March. “So we always look at people’s sentences. And when you have people that are elderly, and we’re looking at this across a number of many people — people in their 70s or 80s in our system — how much of a threat to society are they and how do we balance that in a way that makes sure they can spend their last year few years at home?”

The decision leaves intact Peters’ felony conviction — but significantly shortens the consequences for a case that election officials and democracy advocates have pointed to as a clear example of accountability for tampering with election systems.

“It’s unfortunate to see the Governor of Colorado succumbing to the bullying tactics of election conspiracy theorists. He has thrown state and county election officials, Republicans and Democrats, under the bus after they resisted the corruption Ms. Peters engaged in and withstood attacks for many years as a result,” David Becker, executive director of Center for Election Innovation & Research, said. “Ms. Peters continues to express no remorse about her crimes and will likely now be a featured performer on the election grift circuit. It is a sad day for the rule of law and accountability.”

Peters was convicted in 2024 after prosecutors showed she facilitated unauthorized access to Mesa County voting equipment and helped expose sensitive system data, actions driven by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. A jury found her guilty on multiple counts, and she was sentenced to nine years in prison.

“Tina Peters’ actions have made life harder, not only for election officials here in Colorado, but make no mistake, for election officials all across the country. Her conduct became a rallying point for election conspiracy movements that fueled hostility and distrust towards the very people responsible for administering free and fair elections,” Matt Crane, a former Republican clerk and executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said. “Rather than standing with public service servants and defending one of our nation’s most cherished rights, the right to vote, Governor Polis is bending the knee to the same political forces and conspiracy movements that are actively undermining confidence in our democratic institutions. That choice carries consequences far beyond this single case.”

Polis’ clemency order follows an April ruling from a Colorado appeals court that upheld Peters’ conviction but ordered her to be resentenced.

Polis said he agreed that her political beliefs — including her promotion of election conspiracy theories — should not factor into the length of her punishment.

“Clerks have been intimidated. We’ve had clerks have their lives threatened. We had a clerk who was pregnant in 2022 have her unborn child threatened. We had an office in Colorado fire bombed last year,” Crane added. “So whether it’s Tina or somebody else who’s spreading false rumors and inciting people to do violent things, unfortunately, we have to spend a lot of time preparing for that.”

After Colorado officials refused to release Peters, Trump escalated his campaign on her behalf, issuing a symbolic presidential pardon that carries no legal force over state convictions and repeatedly attacking Colorado leaders. The administration also took punitive actions against the state, including moves affecting federal funding and the relocation of key federal assets.

At the same time, far-right figures and election deniers have increasingly framed Peters as a political prisoner, with some escalating to threats of violence and calls for direct intervention to free her — rhetoric that alarmed state officials and democracy watchdogs.

Polis had previously rejected any suggestion that Peters’ case would be influenced by political pressure.

“Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and in a Republican county of Colorado and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws including criminal impersonation,” Polis said in December. “No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions. This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.”

Matt Cohen contributed to this reporting.

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

Robert Reich on America’s Madman-in-Chief

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2026 //
7

Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, posted a provocative column overnight.

Friends,

My first quote of the week comes from Trump on Air Force One, on his way back from Beijing on Friday — telling David Sanger of The New York Times:

“I had a total military victory. But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You’re a fake guy. We had a total military victory. I actually think it’s sort of treasonous what you write. You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it’s treason.”

Note Trump’s use of the pronoun “I.” He didn’t say “we” had a military victory. Trump’s malignant narcissism is worsening. 

Also take note of his blatant lie. His war in Iran has been anything but a victory. His delusions and deceptions about the war are escalating. 

Americans are far worse off today than we were before Trump started his war. We’re now paying $1.50 a gallon more for gas, on average. Paying even more, indirectly, for the diesel fuel powering trucks that transport much of what we buy. Food costs are also rising because the fertilizer used to grow much of the food we eat can’t move through the Strait of Hormuz. The soaring cost of jet fuel is also being passed on to those of us who fly. 

And none of these costs will come down soon, even if the war ends tomorrow, because the price for oil is largely set in a global market, and much of the oil infrastructure of the Middle East is in ruins. 

Trump has made it harder for us to switch from oil and gas to renewable sources of energy, in which China is excelling. Trump loves fossil fuels — he’s subsidizing oil and gas and has ended subsidies for renewables (remember his election deal with Big Oil?) — but the future lies with wind, solar, and biomass, and the batteries that store them. 

And note the not-so-subtle threat Trump directed at Sanger — that Sanger could be accused of treason if he continued to report that Trump’s war is failing. Trump’s dangerous accusations are intensifying. 

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That’s the only thing that motivates me.”

Which brings me to my other quote of the week — Trump’s comment just before leaving for China that:

I believe the first part, that Trump doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation; he never has and never will. But it can’t possibly be that the only thing motivating him is preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. 

I say this because we were much closer to achieving this goal when Iran was still observing the nuclear deal it struck with Barack Obama — in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities, including reducing its enriched uranium stockpile and modifying reactors to prevent the production of weapons-grade plutonium. (In exchange, the United States, United Nations, and European Union agreed to lift international economic and financial sanctions on Iran.)

But Trump pulled out of that deal. And Iran’s new leadership is hellbent on creating a nuclear weapon. Trump’s and Israel’s aggression apparently have proven to Iran’s new (and more extremist) leaders how much they need it. And the Trump regime has no idea where Iran is storing its near-weapons-grade plutonium. 

Friends, a madman is in charge of American foreign policy — but almost no Republican member of Congress, no major CEO or university president or head of a major foundation, and certainly no member of Trump’s regime is willing to sound the alarm. They are all cowards. 

I mentioned to you earlier this week that I had dinner with a group of political operatives who gave 30 percent odds that JD Vance and Marco Rubio would lead a coup within the next three to four months, invoking the 25th Amendment to get rid of the madman. Those odds may be higher now. 

But you and I are not powerless. We can achieve the next best outcome — limiting Trump’s power to do more damage — by getting out the vote on or before November 3 and throwing the cowardly Republican senators and representatives out on their assets. 

We have less than six months to get the largest midterm turnout in American history — a blue tsunami that will start the process of repair, reform, and return to sanity. 

I know how frightening and discouraging all of this has been. I know how daunting the forces of cruelty and corruption can sometimes feel. I also know how hard you’ve been fighting, while at the same time working to keep yourself, your family, and your community on an even keel. And I thank you for it. 

Despite Trump, please do not feel shame in America. Feel pride in the ideals we share. Feel honored that you are an activist warrior on the right side of history. Feel strength in our conviction. Feel power in our cause.

Have no doubt: We will prevail against the madman-in-chief and his lawless regime. 

Categories Accountability, Character, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Extremism, History, Trump
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