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A Message to Journalists: Don’t Be Fooled! Follow the Money!

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2025 //
3

Every once in a while, I read an article that is so important and so powerful that I want to give it as much attention as possible. This is such an article. Please read it and share it. Post the link on every social media site. Send it to school board members and journalists.

The article was written by Dr. Maurice Cunningham, a retired Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts. Cunningham has been studying “dark money” in education for years. It was published by “Our Schools” and “Independent Media Institute.”

If you want to understand the attacks on public schools, on teachers, and on teachers’ unions, read this article. If you want to understand how the organized groups that smear public schools got started, read this article. If you read a story about two or three “moms” sitting around their kitchen table and worrying whether the teachers at the local public school are indoctrinating their children, read this article. If those “moms” raised over $1 million in their first year, read this article.

They have fooled many journalists. Don’t let them fool you!

Cunningham warns:

“These groups are the creation of deep-pocketed conservative networks, not “grassroots” advocates.“

By Maurice Cunningham

“If your mother says she loves you, check it out” is a bromide drilled into every journalist. So it is baffling why, if an interest group includes the words “moms” or “parents,” it is just taken at its word, especially when a little digging can reveal that many of these groups are the creations of billionaires out to destroy public education.

As the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, I have been following billionaire-backed education interest groups for more than a decade. Since big money lacks public credibility, it often masquerades as organizations claiming to represent the interests of “parents,” “moms,” “educators,” and “families.” The concocted stories about how these groups were created are often repeated by an incurious press, which misses the opportunity to tell its readers a more interesting story: how billionaires and right-wing activists pour money into upbeat-sounding organizations to further their aim of privateering our public school system.

These astroturf operations have been proliferating resulting in serious negative impacts. Consider the havoc wreaked on some school boards by Moms for Liberty (M4L). M4L even got into presidential politics in 2024, boosting Donald Trump, at the behest of the donors, who co-founder Tina Descovich termed as M4L’s “investors.”

Consider a November 2024 Washington Post story on Linda McMahon’s nomination to be secretary of education. The article contrasted remarks from National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle with an alternative view from Keri Rodrigues, founding president of the National Parents Union (NPU), which the reporter Laura Meckler called “a grassroots group,” thus giving the impression that NEA and NPU are similar organizations.

They are not. NEA is a well-established teachers’ union that credibly claims 3 million members and is governed by a democratic structure. NPU appeared on the scene in 2020, surfing in on millions of dollars from the foundations of American oligarchs, including the Walton family, Mark Zuckerberg, and Charles Koch.

In 2024, Rodrigues, a fixture at education privateering groups, told the Boston Globe that NPU could get its message to “250,000 families to vote against” a ballot question sponsored by the teachers’ union and would “put that network to work.”

There is zero evidence that this extensive network exists or that it did anything on the ballot question. There is also no proof to validate Rodrigues’s claimthat the organization has 1.7 million members nationally.

A 2021 Washington Post article introducing Moms for Liberty chronicled its claimed rapid rise without raising questions about how it grew so fast. The story simply provided the M4L narrative of its creation story, centered around former Florida school board members Descovich and Tiffany Justice. It omitted M4L’s third co-founder Bridget Ziegler, though it did quote her husband, Christian Ziegler, about the group’s political potency.

Bridget Ziegler served briefly on the M4L board and was replaced by GOP campaign consultant Marie Rogerson. Christian Ziegler was then the powerful vice-chair of the Florida Republican Party and a key Trump supporter. (In 2023, the Zieglers became famous for a threesome scandal. She quickly resigned from her executive position with the Leadership Institute, an established training institution for right-wing activists. Christian was removed from his perch as chair of the Florida Republican Party.)

The Post October 2021 story featured a photo of Descovich pulling aside, Superman style, a white jacket to reveal the group’s logo t-shirt while posing next to an American flag. The questions about the group’s ties to the Republican Party and suspicious financing were laughed off by the founders of M4L. The Post followed up a month later by printing an op-ed by Descovich and Justice.

NPU, M4L, and similar groups organize as nonprofit corporations under sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. As nonprofits, their Form 990 tax returns are made public but only in November, following the tax year. The information is skimpy but valuable. Journalists can access the Form 990s by requesting them directly from the nonprofits or from the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, which helps trace donors as well.

These groups leave clues that no reporter can miss:

  1. Don’t buy the phony origin stories: These organizations all claim to be about moms joining together to improve education. But in no time, they have access to millions of dollars in donations and have the services of elite law firms, pollsters, media consultants, and often, ties to the Republican Party.
  2. Follow the money: It isn’t easy in the first two years of a nonprofit’s existence, but there are signs: easy access to right-wing media, hiring expensive consultants, and big-budget conferences.
  3. Watch how these groups work: The founding leadership usually consists of veteran right-wing operatives or communications professionals with years of experience in privateering organizations.
  4. Get the big picture: Right from the beginning, M4L had obvious ties to Republican and right-wing organizations that often went unreported.
  5. Keep following the money: When nonprofit tax forms finally become public, they’ll reveal how much was donated and can help identify the top contractors and how much they were paid.

Let us expand on these insights to show how these secretive operations can be exposed right from the beginning by using Form 990.

Don’t Buy the Phony Origin Stories

The typical “moms” or “parents” creation story goes something like this: outraged by some aspect of their children’s public school education, two or three “moms” band together to attract other like-minded parents to cure the deficiencies of the system, which are always the fault of the teachers’ unions. In truth, the “moms” are agents of far-right billionaires often tied—like M4L and Parents Defending Education (PDE)—to the secretive Council for National Policy, which seeksto privateer K-12 for profit, expand Christian education, and promote homeschooling.

According to the billionaire-funded online publication the 74, NPU “is the brainchild of two Latina mothers,” Keri Rodrigues and Alma Marquez, who “had disappointing experiences with education, both as parents and students, and with advocacy groups.”

To its credit, the 74 was candid about the funding of NPU: the foundations of billionaires, including Bill Gates, the Walton family, the late Eli Broad, and Michael and Susan Dell, and organizations like the City Fund, which gets its money from Reed Hastings, John Arnold, and Walton family members, inheritors of the Walmart fortune.

Nonetheless, the tenor of the story was of a grassroots moms’ start-up. Other news outlets ignored the 74’s detailing of billionaire funding. An online search through the New York Times website supplemented with a library search through Gale OneFile showed 13 NYT stories or columns that mention the National Parents Union since the group’s public launch on January 1, 2021. Only one column by Michelle Goldberg noted that “The National Parents Union is funded by the pro-privatization Walton Family Foundation.” The Waltons are, however, the only funders Goldberg mentioned.

The New Yorker came closest to the truth in a June 2021 piece: “The Walton foundation set up the National Parents Union in January 2020, with Rodrigues as the founding president.” A review of Form 990s for NPU and the Walton Family Foundation from 2020 through 2023 that I reviewed shows that NPU accepted more than $11 million in contributions. The Walton Family Foundation donated around $3 million of that amount.

The media is failing to cover the single most important fact the public needs to know about “parents” and “moms” groups: who is supplying them with millions of dollars in funding.

As for M4L, although a few media outlets wrote it had three founders, most followed the practice of CNN, which in December 2021 omitted Bridget Ziegler and described “the two women behind Moms for Liberty, a group of conservatives that came together in January,” downplaying the fact that at that time, the state GOP vice-chair’s wife was also one of the co-founders. By January 9, 2021, soon after its incorporation, M4L’s online store was offering magnets, t-shirts, and hats, and a “Madison Meetup” package of right-wing materials.

While mainstream media was valorizing M4L’s origin story, right-wing outlets produced a steady stream of propaganda about the organization. Later in January 2021, Descovich appeared on the Rush Limbaugh Show (guest-hosted by Todd Herman). Media Matters for America found that, by July 2022, M4L “representatives have been regulars on right-wing media, appearing on Fox News at least 16 times and Steve Bannon’s “War Room” at least 14 times.”

Another supposedly grassroots parents’ group that has an origin story grounded in deception is PDE. In lodging a civil rights complaint against the Columbus, Ohio, public schools in May 2021, PDE President Nicole Neily told the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, “We just all work from home… We’re all working moms.”

In fact, Neily is a well-compensated political operativein the Koch network. According to the Koch-connected Speech First’s Form 990 for 2019, which was available after November 2020 and thus before PDE was founded in 2021, Neily was paid $150,000 in 2019.

Follow the Money

Due to the barriers to tracing the funding of such groups, it can be hard to follow the money, especially in the first two years of operation. But in 2021, an article in the New Yorker described how the VELA Education Fund, a partnership of the Walton Family Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute, had given NPU $700,000 in 2020 to “help people with fewer resources,” including promoting homeschooling during COVID-19. This is despite the fact that NPU was not familiar with homeschooling.

Press outlets have also overlooked funding sources of M4L. In 2021, co-founder Descovich told CNN that M4L had raised more than $300,000 through t-shirt sales, small donors, and fundraising events. However, one such event was a gala featuring former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly in June 2021, six months into M4L’s first year. The top tickets went for $20,000. The Celebrity Speakers Bureau pegged Kelly’s speaking fee as between $50,000 and $100,000. The event raised at least $57,000.

In July 2021, Descovich appeared at a Heritage Foundation virtual town hall on “Preserving American History in Schools.” By October 29, 2021, M4L was referring members to the Leadership Institute for training and sending members to the Heritage Foundation for events and other resources. Both these organizations have been part of the right-wing political firmament since the 1970s. A bit of digging showedthat M4L was deeply embedded in far-right politics. But most press accounts ignored that evidence and the public remained largely in the dark.

In April 2021, PDE headed by Neily, brought on Elizabeth Schultz as a “senior fellow,” who had worked under Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during his first term and was a vocal anti-LGBTQ activist.

Watch How These Groups Work

These groups can be intertwined. PDE, M4L, and another faux-grassroots group, No Left Turn in Education (NLTE), all came on the scene around the same time, with NLTE being founded in 2020. PDE’s website includes a map called “IndoctriNation” with lists of affiliates across the nation. The April 15, 2021, listings (the website appears to have gone live only in March 2021) showed that most of its allies were chapters of M4L and NLTE with few actual members, according to my research in 2021.

Media reports seemed content to accept the “moms working from home” creation story despite the obvious early support from well-resourced groups.

NPU held its organizing meeting, which it claims drew representatives from all 50 states, in New Orleans in January 2020. To promote the event, NPU employedMercury Public Affairs, an international public relations firm. To draw press attention, NPU also commissioned polling from Echelon Insights, a Republican pollster that has also worked for the Walton family.

In the same year of its founding, in 2021, PDE published detailed plans, such as “How to Create ‘Woke At’ Pages,” that instruct parents on how to use secrecy to attack “woke activists” in the education system. PDE also began initiating lawsuits against local school boards, represented by the Republican law firm of Consovoy McCarthy.

William Consovoy, who passed in 2023, was in the Federalist Society, the nationwide network of conservative lawyers that helped form Trump’s picks for the U.S. Supreme Court. Consovoy had been a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and represented Donald Trump during a congressional investigation. The firm also represented Trump in 2020 as he tried to intervene before the Supreme Court to stop the vote count in Pennsylvania. When PDE’s 2021 Form 990became available, it showed PDE paid Consovoy McCarthy $800,000 in legal fees.

Get the Big Picture

The clues kept coming, only to be ignored by the press.

In 2022, M4L held its first national summit in Tampa, Florida. In its reporting of the event, NBC portrayedthe group as a political powerhouse, reporting that attendees “browsed booths set up by conservative groups, including Turning Point USA, the Leadership Institute and Heritage Action, and the evangelical Liberty University” without describing these organizations for what they are—the critical infrastructure of Christian nationalism.

Media reports on the event generally ignored who the sponsors of the summit were or the amounts of their donations. The Leadership Institute donated $50,000. The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America provided $10,000 each. And PDE chipped in $10,000. Meanwhile, Descovich was still peddling the story that M4L was getting by on t-shirt sales, even though an aide to Leadership Institute’s Morton Blackwell bragged about how the institute had provided the relevant training to help the group “become a national force.”

When there were questions raised about how M4L could fund such a lavish event with t-shirt sales, M4L denied any connections to deep-pocketed right-wing groups, and most news reporters presented a simple “he said, she said” account and moved on. Reporters generally missed the bigger story that the institutional right was creating and passing off phony “moms” and “parents” operations.

Keep Following the Money

Once Form 990s were filed, the deception became obvious, but that didn’t mean it got covered by big media outlets.

The 2022 Form 990 for NPU showed that Keri Rodrigues was paid $410,000 from NPU and a sister organization. She paid her husband, the chief operating officer of both organizations, $278,529. Yet, in August 2024, CBS Morning News presented Rodrigues as a typical parent worried about back-to-school shopping.

PDE’s Form 990 for 2021 was even more revealing, as exposed by True North Research’s Lisa Graves and Alyssa Bowen for Truthout in 2023. Graves and Bowen showed that PDE is deeply tied with far-right Supreme Court fixer Leonard Leo, even paying $106,938 to his for-profit consulting firm.

PDE, a brand-new operation, raised $3,178,272 in its first year in 2021. It paid Neily, who is also on the board, a total compensation of $195,688 for her 40-hour work week.

According to Speech First’s Form 990 for 2021, Neily put in an additional 20-hour week for Speech First, earning another $86,117 and a total of $281,805 from both Koch- and Leo-funded operations combined. In 2023, PDE pushed Neily’s base salary and other compensation up to $341,400. This is quite an income for a stay-at-home working mom.

The trail from NPU leads back to the Walton family and billionaire allies who have been working to undermine teachers’ unions and siphon public money to charter schools for years.

Scratch the surface of groups like M4L and PDE, and you find the Heritage Foundation, the Leadership Institute, and Leonard Leo—the elite of far-right politics who work to replace public schools with for-profit schools, religious schools, and homeschooling. These details make for a very important story that most journalists have overlooked.

Stop Being Fooled

Reporters should not be fooled by the techniques used by these fake “mom” and “parent” groups on behalf of their extremist overseers. As Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway show in Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, these techniques have been used by “scientific” nonprofits created by the same conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, to contest climate change.

Many have tracked the origin of these techniques back to the tobacco industry’s fight to protect their profits from the growing body of research linking their products to cancer and other health problems.

In 1994, tobacco giant RJ Reynolds created the industry front group Get Government Off Our Back to advance a “smokers’ rights” campaign to fight against the tsunami of scientific evidence exposing the health risks of tobacco. Reynolds kept its backing a secret while promoting it as a movement of “grassroots” smokers.

Meanwhile, in his farewell address, former President Joseph R. Biden warned about how the wealthy are a big threat to democracy:

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

For years, the same oligarchy that threatens basic rights has been threatening our freedom to have access to a high-quality system of public education. There is no reason they should be aided by credulous reporters from trusted news sources. If we can question our moms on whether they really love us, we can question the authenticity of these moms and parent groups.

Maurice Cunningham PhD, JD, retired in 2021 as an associate professor of political science at the College of Liberal Arts, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and is the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corruption, Dark Money, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Fake News, For-Profit, Fraud, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Hoax, Parent Groups, Privatization, Propaganda, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, School Choice, Shame, Unions, Vouchers

Trump is Terminating the U.S. Department of Education Without Congressional Authorization

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2025 //
31

During his campaign, Trump pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Public opinion was overwhelmingly opposed. Trump didn’t care. He claims that the Department is filled with “radical Marxists” and “left wing lunatics” who are intent on indoctrinating children and promoting “gender ideology” that is sure to turn them gay or transgender.

This is absurd. About 99% of the employees of the Department process grants and contracts, oversee programs, and review submissions from the public and requests from Congress. They are not radical or Marxist. They have no influence on what is taught in the schools. None. A friend once quipped that the Department is a check-writing machine. It sends money appropriated by Congress to schools with large numbers of low-income students, it sends money to fund extra care for students with disabilities, it processes applications for college student aid. Its Office for Civil Rights investigates and acts on claims that students’ rights were violated.

I, along with many others, assumed that Trump would never be able to shut down the Department because he couldn’t do it without 60 votes in the Senate. He would never get 60 votes. There are only 53 Republicans in the Senate, and no Democrat would join them. Some Republicans might defect.

So Trump has taken an alternate route. Yesterday he fired about half the Department’s staff. Tomorrow he might fire more, maybe everyone but Secretary McMahon and her personal staff. The Department will be unable to function. It will be an empty shell.

And that’s how Trump gets what he wants. Not by following the law but by subverting it.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Extremism, Propaganda, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Thom Hartmann: The GOP Plan to Cut Social Security

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2025 //
13

Despite the multiple pledges by Trump and Republicans that they would never custodial Security, don’t believe them. Republicans opposed Social Security when it was created by FDR, and many still thinks it’s socialism, even though it’s not a handout. People have paid for it throughout their working like.

Thom Hartmann says they are looking for ways to cut Social Security but to do it quietly, so you hardly notice. Trump’s Chief budget-cutter Elon Musk doesn’t understand why anyone needs Social Security. He was recently interviewed by Joe Rogan and said that Social Security is “a Ponzi scheme.” It certainly is not. It’s not a grifter’s scheme to take people’s money. It pays out to everyone. Without it, very large numbers of older people would be impoverished.

Why would the world’s richest man know or care?

Hartmann warned:

The plan to “demolish” Social Security is underway right before our eyes: who will stop them? 

The GOP’s plan to make Americans hate Social Security is well along in its execution. Their scheme — which they’ve been advancing in small increments for 44 years — is brilliantly simple: break the agency’s ability to respond to taxpayers, causing people to have to wait on the phone or travel for hours to stand in line for hours.

As complaints mount, Republicans will then point to the “broken Social Security Administration” and pitch a Medicare Advantage-like alternative: privatized “Social Security Advantage,” run by the big New York banks who are reliable GOP donors. Once a critical mass of seniors have moved from SS to the new privatized program, they’ll then just shut down legacy Social Security, arguing that “the free marketplace has spoken.”

The key to accelerating the process (Social Security’s administrative staff has been far too small for decades since Reagan first started cutting it) is a new demand from Trump’s acting Social Security Commissioner that the agency cut its workforce by fully fifty percent. Once that happens, all bets are off; the agency may not even be able to get checks out in a timely manner or process applications for new benefits, much less help SS recipients sign up or solve problems they may encounter.

As Congressman John Larson noted: “This is nothing more than a backdoor benefit cut and an insult to Americans who have paid into the system and earned their Social Security—all to pay for trillions in new tax cuts for the wealthy.” 

Social Security Works president Nancy Altman was blunt: “Field offices around the country will close. Wait times for the 1-800 number will soar.” Larson added: “Let me be clear—laying off half of the workforce at the Social Security Administration and shuttering field offices will mean the delay, disruption, and denial of benefits.”

Meanwhile, Idaho’s Republican Senator Mike Crapo blocked Bernie Sanders’ attempt this week to give all seniors on Social Security a $2400 annual raise. Noting that the raise would be paid for by having people earning more than $250,000 a year start paying Social Security taxes on all their income above that amount (which is currently exempt from Social Security taxes), Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (a co-sponsor of the legislation) said, “The Social Security Expansion Act will protect the national treasure that is Social Security by extending the trust fund’s solvency for 75 years and expanding benefits by $2,400 a year so that everyone in America can retire with the security and dignity they deserve after a lifetime of hard work.”

But big banks and the morbidly rich object, and they own the GOP…

Categories Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Disruption, Economy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Musk, Elon, Poverty, Propaganda, Republicans, Trump

Washington Post Fact-Checker: Trump’s Lexicon of Lies

By dianeravitch
March 7, 2025 //
2

Jeff Bezos, the multibillionaire owner of The Washington Post, has driven away great reporters and many readers because of his groveling before the Great Trumputin, but the Post still has Glenn Kessler, perhaps the best fact-checker in the business. It was Kessler who counted the public lies of Trumputin in his first term. He had the exact number but I recall only the round number of 30,000. Loyalist KellyAnne Conway called them “alternative facts.” Yes, indeed, Trump’s outright lies were “facts” in an alternative universe, not this one.

Glenn Kessler wrote recently about Trumputin’s latest attack on facts and truth:

The Trump administration is sweeping through the U.S. government, terminating dozens of programs, laying off tens of thousands of workers, even dismantling entire agencies. At the same time, the White House has adopted a unique lexicon to describe its agenda — in some cases, using words that in ordinary contexts mean the opposite.

Here’s a guide to the verbiage, drawn from remarks made by President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
‘Transparency’

Traditionally, transparency in the federal government has meant access to data, federal contracts and government reports, even if they shed light on problems.

But Trump has fired nearly a score of inspectors general, who root out fraud and malfeasance in federal agencies. (Eight have filed suit, saying they were fired illegally.) One IG, for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was booted as soon as he issued a critical report on the aid stoppage ordered by the president. When reports emerged that a State Department website revealed that Tesla, a company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest financial backer, received a $400 million contract, the contract document was scrubbed to remove any reference to Tesla. Moreover, websites across the government were deleted — including every page for USAID.

Meanwhile, the Musk-led U.S. DOGE Service — which is targeting agencies for contract terminations and personnel cuts — operates in secret and the people on his team have not been revealed, though reporters have figured out the identity of some key players.

But the White House says the administration is transparent because Trump often answers questions from reporters. (His predecessor, Joe Biden, rarely did so and usually in controlled settings.)

“President Trump has led by example on this front as the leader of the free world, the president of the United States, with his show of access and transparency on a daily basis,” Leavitt told reporters. “The president takes questions from all of you almost every single day and really reveals what he’s thinking and feeling.”

Unfortunately, as we’ve documented, much of what Trump says is inaccurate or misleading. So he’s not an especially accurate source, compared to rigorously vetted reports and databases.


‘Free speech’

The First Amendment enshrines a right to “free speech” — the right to articulate opinions and ideas without interference, retaliation or punishment from the government. There’s always been some tension in this notion — does this give someone the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire?

Conservatives objected to social media platforms such as Twitter (before Musk bought it and turned it into X) and Facebook downgrading or removing posts that contained inaccurate or false information, especially during the covid pandemic. Trump himself was removed from many platforms after he instigated a riot at the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory in 2020. But he’s been reinstated and many social media companies have scaled back efforts to police false information circulating on their platforms.

“I stopped government censorship once and for all and we brought back free speech to America,” Trump told House GOP members after taking office.

But the White House in recent days has barred Associated Press reporters from news events because the agency still refers to the Gulf of Mexico, the internationally recognized name for the body of water that has been in use since the mid-17th century. In an executive order, Trump directed federal agencies to change the name to “Gulf of America.” The AP is an international news organization, and the rest of the world does not recognize Trump’s name change. Taylor Budowich, White House deputy chief of staff, said in a statement that the AP’s stance “is not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press’ commitment to misinformation.” He said that as a result of “irresponsible and dishonest reporting” — citing the name used by the rest of the world — the AP could not expect the “privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One.”

Similarly, Leavitt told reporters: “I was very up front in my briefing on Day 1, that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable. And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America, and I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that, but that is what it is.”

‘Fraud and abuse’

Fraud generally means deception, often criminal, in pursuit of financial and personal gain. But the Trump administration has upended that definition — broadening it to include programs and policies it disagrees with — while at the same time making it harder to detect fraud.

“We’re finding tremendous fraud and tremendous abuse,” Trump said as Musk stood by his side in Oval Office. But a Fact Checker accounting of the announcements from DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency, of terminated programs found that most concern diversity, transgender and climate change programs. Musk has also led an assault on USAID, the agency that long had bipartisan support to distribute billions of dollars in development aid around the world.

“It’s a scam,” Trump said of USAID. “It’s a fraud. A lot of it, most of it, but it’s a fraud.” Asked for evidence, the White House provided a list that was often wrong or misleading — and in any case amounted only to a pittance of the agency’s $25 billion budget.

In addition to firing IGs, Trump fired top ethics officers and neutered offices that protect workers from retribution. He also suspended enforcement of a nearly half-century-old law that investigates corporate corruption in foreign countries, while his Justice Department ordered the dismissal of bribery charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) for political reasons (Adams supports Trump’s immigration policies).

A Feb. 13 White House news release berated states and localities pushing back against Trump’s executives orders on diversity and immigration. “President Donald J. Trump and his administration have a simple message: follow the law,” the news release was titled.


‘Deficit’

In Washington, the deficit usually means the federal budget deficit. But for Trump, the deficit that matters is the trade deficit. He imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, threatened tariffs against Canada and Mexico and proposed to upend the current trading system by imposing reciprocal tariffs.

“We have a tremendous deficit with Mexico,” Trump said last week. “We have a tremendous deficit with Canada. We have a tremendous deficit with Europe, the E.U., with China, I don’t even want to tell you what Biden is allowed to happen with China.”

(Actually, under Biden, the trade deficit with China fell to its lowest level in 10 years, according to the Census Bureau.)

In an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News, Trump said: “Why are we paying $200 billion a year essentially in subsidy to Canada? Now, if they’re our 51st state, I don’t mind doing it.”

According to the website of the U.S. Trade Representative, the goods deficit with Canada was $63 billion in 2024. The United States has a services surplus of about $30 billion with Canada, which brings down the overall deficit even more. But since Trump took office, the website does not display trade-in-services numbers.

Unlike a budget deficit — which depends on whether the government spends more than it raises in revenue — a trade deficit is shaped by underlying factors, such as an imbalance between a country’s savings and investment rates. A bigger federal budget deficit — caused by, say, a large tax cut contemplated by Trump — can boost the trade deficit because the country saves less and borrows more from abroad. A booming economy can also be at fault — the more money people have, the more they can spend on goods from overseas. And a strong currency means those foreign goods are cheaper for a particular country and its goods are more expensive for foreign consumers.

In other words, trade deficits may be beyond Trump’s ability to control.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Ethics, Fake News, Lies, Media, Propaganda, Trump

Paul Cobaugh: Patriots Don’t Support Coups!

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2025 //
3

Paul Cobaugh is a military veteran who spent many years in intelligence operations, decoding propaganda. This post is straight talk from a patriot and a vet. His blog is “Truth Against Threats.”

TAT readers,

This is a quick update. For the next week or so, I have an erratic schedule that will keep me from the longer essays, but will intermittently bring you shorter, very succinct thoughts regarding our ongoing coup by a now, fully fascist Republican Party. There is simply no longer a Conservative Party. Today’s GOP has an exclusively MAGA agenda and has either stood by and cowardly watched the ongoing coup, or offered tacit support. 

Speaker Mike Johnson meekly or rather sneakily, trolls the halls of our Capital Building, cheerleading and garnering votes for the Trump/ Musk/ Putin coup. The business of the US is being shoved aside in order to allow Trump/ Musk, dictatorial powers that allow them to overthrow our republic and replace it with profit and power-driven tyranny. VP Vance, antagonizing our allies in Europe while concurrently backing the AfD, Germany’s extreme, right-wing party, that Musk supports.

Trump’s statements claiming that, “nothing is illegal when saving your country,” which he began claiming, when our court system started throwing legitimate legal roadblocks into his and DOGE’s coup machinery. My friends and fellow citizens, Trump’s chaos is intentional and is a diversion from his intended goal, to place all relevant power under the auspices of the Oval Office. Yes, for those that have been reading TAT for a while now, know that this is exactly the 180-day Transition Playbook from Project 2025.Why won’t the media call it a coup?

Why won't the media call it a coup?

As indicated in my ongoing explanations about the coup, time is critical now, if we are to stop or slow this coup’s steamrolling of our constitutional republic. This is Trump’s second attempt, with January 6th, 2021 being his first try. Apparently, our hand-picked SCOTUS decided to forgive and forget that attempt and gave him a second opportunity. Now, we have no Congress, no SCOTUS and an Executive Branch, bursting at the seams with the tyrannical power that our founding fathers decided to limit with a system of “checks and balances.” Today’s GOP, has devolved that system incrementally now for years. 2025, is the year that it came all together for them and resulting in the only major challenge to our republic, other than the Civil War.

Trump’s pre negotiation concessions to Putin, before talking with him about Ukraine, is a shared, power-play between Trump and Putin. His Gaza plan, a recipe for a much larger war in the Middle East and theirs and Modi’s plan to isolate China, while carving up the rest of the world into serfdom imposing fiefdoms for the three of them. 

Considering my extensive background in the USSOCOM, Special Operations community, I’m on solid ground calling Trump, Putin’s and Modi’s efforts radical, globally dangerous actions, a power play unseen on the world stage, since Hitler, Mussolini and Japan’s maneuvering just prior to and throughout WW II. Americans during that time period were also slow to acknowledge and understand the threat that FDR and Churchill understood. Then like now, it was the GOP and American oligarchy that were the obstacles to preparing for war and fighting global fascism. There is no excuse now for Americans, regardless of party affiliation, to deny this coup and hostile takeover. 

Deep inside all Americans that respect and honor our constitution and true American values, lies a gene of resistance. It appears whenever tyranny raises its ugly head and threatens democracy, ours or the world’s. Trump, Putin and Musk, don’t understand patriotic Americans dedication to our actual values and guaranteed constitutional rights. They will find out soon enough if they persist. As I always say, this is not about party, this is quite plainly, about being a true patriot. Real Americans do not worship God, guns and Trump as American values. Real Americans don’t respect or tolerate what I call the Four Horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse, Autocracy, Oligarchy, White Christian Nationalism and Political Violence. 

True principled conservatives have now already left the party or vote against it. Those who voted for Trump, have been brainwashed and no longer have the ability to see truth. Stop trying to convince them. When I write, I write for honest citizens, never a party. This is America for heaven’s sake, not Russia, China, Iran or otherwise. We all get a say and freedom to think as we wish, worship or not, and we all have a citizen’s obligation, to defend our nation and its real values. 

Trump and Musk both are schoolyard bullies. This means that at heart, they are both cowards that will fold in the face of overwhelming resistance. It is up to all Americans to participate and stop allowing the MAGA crowd to misinterpret our history, our values and especially our constitution, simply to support their charismatic Pied Piper. My intentions are to put every legal roadblock in front of the coup-crowd publicly. If this is dangerous in the face of intimidation, then I say as did Admiral Farragut during the Civil War, “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.” 

I aim to continue writing the truth about this coup and its leaders and followers. All of you that are exploding my follower statistics are doing the same. It is what we do as Americans. I’m beyond proud of all of you and am humbly honored, to be among such patriots. 

My warmest regards to all,

Paul

© 2025 Paul Cobaugh
San Antonio, TX 

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Injustice, International, Propaganda, Republicans, Trump, Tyranny

Alaska: Ignore the Lies and Boasts: Charter Schools Are No Better Than Public Schools

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2025 //
6

The Walton Family Foundation, which is the second largest funder of privately-run charter schools (first is the U.S. Department of Education, which dispenses $400 million a year to charters), wanted to create positive press about charter schools in Alaska. So they commissioned a study by two charter advocates, who produced the positive results Walton wanted.

Beth Zirbes teaches math and statistics in a high school in Fairbanks, Alaska. With her friend Mike Bronson, she reviewed the data in the state records and reached a different conclusion: charter schools are no better than neighborhood public schools, even though the charter students are more advantaged. Their article, with a link to their study, was published by the Anchorage Daily News.

What’s impressive about this study is that a high school math teacher bested a Harvard professor of political science. It just goes to show: Don’t be overly impressed by the author’s academic credentials. And, never believe any charter or voucher research funded by foundations that fund charters and vouchers.

Would you believe a study claiming that cigarettes do not cause cancer if the study was funded by Philip Morris or some other tobacco vendor?

Zirbes and Bronson wrote:

The governor has claimed in several newspaper pieces that Alaska charter schools are more effective than neighborhood schools, and that the charters should be modeled more widely. He’d seen reports by Paul E. Peterson and M. Danish Shakeel, sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation, showing that Alaska charter schools held top rank academically among other states on a federal test.

We value the good performance of many charter school students, but we were skeptical that charter schools were necessarily more effective at lifting students up. So we looked at state data to find out how much of the charter schools’ better scores might be attributed to the schools themselves versus what the students bring to the schools. Read our full report here.

The state’s data showed the governor’s takeaway was incorrect. He was wrong that Peterson’s study showed the superior effectiveness of Alaskan charter schools over neighborhood schools. First, Peterson’s study did not even look at neighborhood schools. Second, after we accounted for numbers of students poor enough to be eligible for reduced-price or free lunches, we found that charter schools and neighborhood schools did not statistically differ in their English language proficiency scores. Instead, the percentage of proficient students in both charter and neighborhood schools was closely related to family income.

Alaska charter schools, on average, are distinguished by high proportions of white students, higher family income and fewer English language learners. Alaska charter school student bodies, in general, don’t even resemble Lower 48 charter schools, let alone Alaskan neighborhood schools. Unfortunately, Alaskan charter students do resemble other Alaskan public schools in that a majority of them score below the state standards in reading and math.

The graph shows a decline in percentages of third to ninth-grade participating students who scored proficient or better on the state’s 2019 PEAKS assessment of English language arts with increasing school percentages of students poor enough to be eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch, in other words economically disadvantaged. Each point shows a public school in Alaska school districts having charter schools. Neighborhood schools are considered non-charter, brick-and-mortar schools including alternative and lottery schools managed by a school district. Data are from the Department of Education and Early Development.

Categories Alaska, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Disruption, Education Industry, Propaganda, Research, Walton Foundation

Today is the Last Day for Federal Employees to Accept Musk’s “Buyout” Offer

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2025 //
7

As part of the radical overhaul of the federal government, some 2 million employees were asked to resign and accept a leave with pay if they did. But there is no money appropriated to pay for the offer, and there are multiple lawsuits opposing it. Nor was there any consideration of the value of the employee’s work.

When Elon Musk took charge of Twitter, he made a similar offer and fired 80% of the workforce. He got rid of content moderation teams and opened the platform to Nazis and misinformation. The downside was that he lost every major advertiser, and he’s now suing them for conspiring to hurt Twitter.

The New York Times reported on the final day of the offer:

Some federal employees have a new symbol for their resistance to President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s radical overhaul of the U.S. government: a spoon.

Last week, in an email with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” the administration urged federal workers to consider resigning from their posts and said they would be paid through September — a bid to rapidly shrink the size of the work force.

Union leaders have urged employees not to accept the offer, questioning its legality and legitimacy. And on Wednesday, workers at the Technology Transformation Services, the tech-focused arm of the General Services Administration, made their displeasure with the offer known during an organization-wide meeting with their new leader, a former employee at Mr. Musk’s automaker Tesla, by sharing spoon emojis in an online chat, according to people familiar with the response.

In the meeting, Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who was appointed to lead technology efforts at the G.S.A., attempted to assuage worries about the deferred resignation plan and told workers to “read as much as you can” about the offer, according to an audio recording provided to The New York Times. He also urged federal workers to review information posted on the website of the Office of Personnel Management.

“Have that context in mind as you think through the decision you have to make in the next 24 to 30 hours,” Mr. Shedd added. “The deferred resignation is the first step in streamlining the federal work force. In-person work will be the next step.”

His assurances did not appear to work. Employees in the tech division rained down spoon emojis in the chat that accompanied the video meeting, which was watched by more than 600 people, according to photos of the chat screen provided to The Times and three people familiar with the reaction. Some employees also added spoon emojis to their statuses on Slack, a workplace communication app.

“Thomas: Whether you mean to or not, you’re playing a role in destroying TTS,” one worker wrote in the chat.

“The culture is the people,” another employee wrote. “Without the people, TTS is NOTHING.”

After Mr. Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, he sent an email with the same subject line — “Fork in the Road” — to the company’s employees, offering them a buyout to leave the company if they didn’t want to participate in his “extremely hardcore” vision.

During the Twitter takeover, employees used the salute emoji as a sign of solidarity with their co-workers and as a goodbye during mass layoffs.

After renaming the social media service as X, Mr. Musk has pushed for severe cuts to the federal government. He shared a post that estimated 5 to 10 percent of the federal work force would take the deferred resignation offer, potentially saving the government $100 billion.

The last date to accept the offer is Feb. 6, according to the email to government workers.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Ignorance, Musk, Elon, Propaganda, Trump

Will New Hampshire Undermine Its Public Schools by Expanding Vouchers?

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2025 //
5

Gary Rayno, veteran journalist in New Hampshire, reports on the Legislature’s pending decision on expanding vouchers. It is astonishing that any state is still considering universal vouchers, in light of what we have learned from the experience of every state that has done so.

We know now that the overwhelming majority of vouchers are used by students already enrolled in private and religious schools. In other words, they are for the most part a subsidy for families already able to pay tuition.

We know now that universal vouchers bust the state budget by offering to pay private school tuition.

We know now (see Josh Cowen’s recent book The Privateers) that when poor kids leave public schools for voucher schools, their academic performance declines, often dramatically.

We know now, based on state referenda, that the public opposes vouchers.

Gary Rayno writes about what’s happening in New Hampshire:

The advocates for opening the state’s school voucher program, Education Freedom Accounts, to all students in the state regardless of their parents’ income did a massive public relations and organization effort before the public hearing last week on House 115, which would remove the salary cap from the four-year old program.

While many parents with their children turned out for the public hearing that needed three rooms in the Legislative Office Building to hold the attendees, the people responding electronically —many posting testimony — on the bill were opposed by a more than four-to-one margin, 3,414-791.

Groups like the Koch Foundation funded by Americans for Prosperity sent out at least three email “urgent” messages to its followers encouraging supporters to attend the public hearing.

Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut sent out a press release the day before the public hearing with the headline “New Hampshire’s cost per pupil continues upward trend,” indicating the state’s average per-pupil cost increased from $20,323 last school year to $21,545 this school year and noting the enrollment has been trending down.

In his press release he also noted the average national cost per pupil at $15,591, while noting that New Hampshire’s largest school districts were the cheapest with Manchester at $17,734, Nashua at $18,270, Bedford at $18,498 and Concord at $23,159, while rural Pittsburg, at the very top of the state, has the highest cost at $44,484.

“The taxpayers of New Hampshire have worked hard to support students, families and our public schools, increasing funding by more than $400 million since 2021, resulting in a record high cost per pupil,” Edelblut said. “New Hampshire remains dedicated to continuing efforts to expand educational opportunities and pathways to help every child succeed in a fiscally responsible approach. The persistent trend of declining student enrollment combined with rising costs creates substantial financial strain on school districts, taxpayers and communities, necessitating new and creative approaches to educating our children in a system that can be sustained over the long term.”

In other words these skyrocketing public education costs cannot be sustained, and efforts like the EFA program is the wave of the future for taxpayers and students, although the program offers no guarantees the state money flowing into the program is being used for what it was intended or wisely by parents.

He does not mention that New Hampshire is either 49th or 50th in financial support for K to 12th grade public education, while cities and towns are picking up over 70 percent of the costs of public education and yet their residents are the ones approving the budgets that increased per-pupil spending.

Edelblut also doesn’t mention that the state downshifted the obligation of hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 15 years to school districts, municipalities and counties when it stopped paying 35 percent of the retirement costs for employees, or that he has failed over the last five years to request additional money for the special education catastrophic aid program although costs have been rising substantially further downshifting millions more in costs to local school districts.

And the public hearing on the bill was held on one of the earliest days in the session, which says the Republican leadership wants to separate this bill from the state budget as much as possible.

A trend of declining revenues, the drying up of the federal pandemic aid and past surpluses, along with the elimination of the interest and dividends tax, which is a huge benefit to the state’s wealthiest residents, and business tax rate cuts will make difficult work for lawmakers and new Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who gives her first budget address next month.

The GOP leadership doesn’t want to discuss the $100 million in new expenses in HB 115 when budget discussions hit snags over what to fund.

During the public hearing, a number of parents brought their children with them to talk about the wonderful things they have been able to accomplish by using the state taxpayer money for alternative education settings.

Many also trashed public schools saying they failed their children although the public schools continue to serve about 90 percent of the state’s students.

Some of the parents noted public schools don’t align with their beliefs or political philosophies, which really says they do not want their children to be exposed to different beliefs or cultures.

David Trumble of Weare noted that some of the private and religious schools don’t take LGBTQ+, special education or English-as-a-second language students.

“There is nothing universal about universal vouchers. The only universal option is the public schools because they accept every single child and give every one of them a good education. That is why you have a constitutional duty to fund them. You have no obligation to fund the private schools,” Trumble told the House Education Funding Committee.

“Our first obligation is to fund the public schools.”

Under the EFA program, 75 percent of the students did not attend public schools when they joined the program, meaning that neither the school districts nor the state was paying for their education, their parents were.

In other states where universal vouchers have been approved almost all of the new money goes to families currently sending their children to private or religious schools or being homeschooled, which is a new expense to those states just as it would be in New Hampshire, where the potential for additional costs is over $100 million annually.

The money for New Hampshire EFA program comes from the Education Trust Fund which also provides almost all of the state education aid to public schools including charter schools.

The trust fund once had over a $200 million surplus, but ended the last fiscal year June 30, 2024 at $159 million, and is projected to drop to $125 million at the end of this fiscal year.

If the bill passes, it won’t be long before money is drained and the squeeze is on public education because of the new education system set up by the legislature that many told the committee last week lacks accountability and transparency.

Many of the people in opposition to the bill said the state first needs to meet its constitutional obligation to pay for an adequate education for the state’s children before setting up any new program costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

But universal vouchers are not only a priority for New Hampshire Republicans, it is a priority at the national level as well.

It continues a movement begun in the late 1950s and 1960s advised by James Buchanan, an economist from the University of Chicago, who was influenced by Frank Knight as was Milton Friedman.

The plan was to both develop more conservative Republicans through the education system and through state legislatures.

One of the targets was public education and reforming it into a private system where if you have the money you can receive a good education, but if you don’t, well too bad.

While the EFA program was touted as helping lower income parents find an alternative education setting for their children who did not fare well in a public education environment, it has essentially been a subsidy program for parents whose children were already in private and religious schools or homeschooled.

Many of the parents speaking in favor of expanding the EFA program said they wanted every child to experience what they experienced.

Rep. Ross Berry, R-Weare, told the committee why should the EFA program be means tested, when public schools don’t require wealthy parents to pay for their children to attend.

That was one of the catch phrases uttered several times during the hearing along with “support for the student not the system.”

Someone had distributed the talking points.

But several opponents noted the program would not help eliminate educational inequity, it would exacerbate it, because a lower-income parent would not be able to afford to send their child to one of the private schools where the average tuition is over $20,000 with a $5,200 voucher, while those already able to send their child to a private school will be able to cut their costs by the same amount.

Once again New Hampshire is a great place to live if you have money, if you don’t, not so much.

The EFA program is part of the push for individual rights over the common good. You see it in education where parents want to remove their child from those who do not have the same beliefs or philosophies, you also see in health care with the establishment of specialty and boutique practices where if you have the money you receive the best care, and in the judicial system where if you have enough money you never have to be accountable for your crimes.

If HB 115 passes, and it probably will, the legislature will have created a situation where the public schools including charter schools will face operating with less state aid, not more as the courts said the state needs, and that will impact many sectors including businesses who will not know if the state has a sufficiently educated workforce or not.

The state should not want businesses asking that question.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Funding, Koch Brothers, Lies, New Hampshire, Privatization, Propaganda, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

As L.A. Fires Destroy Thousands of Homes, Climate Change Deniers Unleash Conspiracy Theories

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2025 //
9

On Tuesday January 9, a fire broke out in The Pacific Palisades, a beautiful, lush, historic neighborhood in Los Angeles. It contains the homes of celebrities, as well as the modest homes of people who bought there decades ago.

The fire started in the Palisades but soon exploded in other neighborhoods. Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed, and many people are homeless.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Palisades was a haven for people who were refugees from Hitler. Thomas Mann had a home there, which is now a retreat for German artists, writers, and scholars. The German government bought both the Mann house and Villa Aurora in the Palisades, which are administered by a foundation and funded by the German government. Villa Aurora sheltered Bertolt Brecht, Charlie Chaplin, and others who escaped the war in Europe. So far, neither has been consumed by the fires. But the fires are close.

Scientists say that the Los Angeles conflagration is the result of climate change.

Ian James wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

The devastating wildfires that have ravaged Southern California erupted following a stark shift from wet weather to extremely dry weather — a phenomenon scientists describe as “hydroclimate whiplash.”

New research shows these abrupt wet-to-dry and dry-to-wet swings, which can worsen wildfires, flooding and other hazards, are growing more frequent and intense because of human-caused climate change.

Altadena, CA - January 09: A view of burned down homes and cars along W. Manor Street after the Eaton fire destroyed both sides of the street and thousands of others in Altadena Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“We’re in a whiplash event now, wet to dry, in Southern California,” said Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist who led the research. “The evidence shows that hydroclimate whiplash has already increased due to global warming, and further warming will bring about even larger increases.”

The extreme weather shift over the last two years in Southern California is one of many such dramatic swings that scientists have documented worldwide in recent years.

NPR also reported on “hydroclimate whiplash.”

But no matter what scientists say, there is a determined group of people who are certain that the cause of the fires was nefarious and had nothing to do with climate change.

I scanned the Twitter feed of Governor Gavin Newsom and read scores of tweets that insisted on the following claims:

1. The state of California recently changed the zoning laws to make it easier to convert single-family lots to apartments for multiple families.

@HustleBitch wrote:

GAVIN NEWSOM WORKING WITH DEVELOPERS TO CHANGE ZONING IN BURN AREAS TO ALLOW MASS APARTMENTS

Newsom is allegedly working with developers to convert zoning in Pacific Palisades from R1 (single family) to R3 (apartments)

CONNECT THE DOTS.

Newsom commented: This is not true.

Dozens of other tweets insisted that the fire was deliberately set to enable the development of massive apartment buildings.

2. The fires got out of control not because of climate change or the Santa Ana winds of 80-100 mph, but because the Fire Department embraced DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies. Too many gays, Blacks, Hispanics, and women in the leadership of the Fire Department.

3. The fires were so bad because the state and city diverted money from the Fire Department to buy supplies and housing for illegal immigrants. Or to buy needles and drugs for drug addicts.

4. The green agenda is a plot.

@ptmoon tweeted a video of Rosa Koire explaining that the UN green agenda is a dangerous conspiracy.

Rosa Koire Agenda 21 (aka Agenda for the 21st Century) is: “The inventory and control plan for all land, water, minerals, plants, animals, construction, means of production, food, energy, information — and all human beings in the world.”

Another tweet said that Oregon sent 60 fire trucks to fight the blazes, but the trucks and firefighters were detained in Sacramento for emissions testing. Governor Newsom said this was untrue, that Oregon firefighters have been on site battling the fires for days.

Another tweet said:

LOOTING: Newsom and California Democrats literally decriminalized looting baring [sic] police from arresting looters and prosecutors from prosecuting them. Now he’s opposed to looting.

This was retweeted approvingly by Elon Musk as an example of disastrous WOKE policies.

There were scores of tweets attacking Newsom and his WOKE agenda.

Many of the conspiracy theories originated with Trump’s wild claims blaming Newsom for the fires.

This is all so sad. A tragedy of this scale should be a time when Americans unite to offer help, not nitpick and criticize those on the front lines.

Categories Environment, Los Angeles, Propaganda

Scott Dworkin: Trump’s Unhinged “Press Conference”

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2025 //
26

Scott Dworkin, a prominent leader in the resistance to the Orange Menace, watched Trump’s self-glorifying rant and reports on it here. I subscribe to his Substack commentary, where this appeared. Just think: we will have to listen to this self-obsessed know-nothing for the next four years. I’m glad to let someone else do it for me.

He wrote:

Yesterday, unhinged madman Donald Trump held what he calls a “press conference.” They’re actually dangerous propaganda sessions.

In order to fight back, we have to stay aware and engaged at a constant. But I don’t want you to have to watch or listen to this bozo, so I summed up what happened for you here.

Donald spent some time pointlessly attacking President Biden. He once again admitted to lying about bringing down grocery prices, and mused that Facebook is likely doing away with fact-checking due to his threats.

He lied about Jack Smith executing people, whined like a baby for being prosecuted for his crimes, and railed against judges who are just doing their jobs. Trump complained about electricity itching—or something—and said he was going to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America.” Very original.

“The windmills are driving the whales crazy,” Donald said at one point, for no reason whatsoever.

He even went on some bizarre tirade about water pressure. “It’s called rain,” he blabbed. “It comes down from heaven. And they want to do no water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip. So what happens? You’re in the shower 10 times as long.” There are so many things wrong with that word salad.

Trump lied and said Hezbollah was responsible for the violence on Jan 6th—when we all know Donald and his rabid cult followers are to blame. He also nonchalantly promised “major pardons” for the rioters who attacked the Capitol—possibly even for those who assaulted police officers. What a disgrace.

Donny “Cheap Suit” then rambled incoherent threats about using military force to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal, and economic attacks to absorb Canada.

The orange ogre replied to a question about his plans for Gaza negotiations saying, “all hell will break out in the Middle East,” if hostages aren’t released before January 20th. Are you kidding me? That’s not even a “concept of a plan.”

And one of the looniest things that came out of his blubbering mouth was: “We did nothing wrong on anything,” related to the crimes he committed. Remember that every Trump denial is an admission.

This is the sort of unhinged nonsense we will be dealing with as long as Trump is around. And I’ll be right here keeping an eye on him, so you don’t have to.

We’ll be sharing this article with millions of people on 10 social media networks, so we aren’t just singing to the choir.

Categories Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fake News, Fraud, Ignorance, Propaganda, Stupid, Trump
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