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Vermont: Court Upholds Dubious Appointment of Underqualified State Chief

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2024 //
17

In Vermont, Republican Governor Phil Scott nominated a candidate for State Commissioner of Education who had spent seven years as a leader of Charter Schools, USA, a for-profit charter chain in Florida. However, the Vermont State Senate rejected the nomination. Governor Scott then named his nominee Acting Secretary of Education. Two members of the legislature sued to block her appointment.

Peter Greene writes about what happened in Vermont.

First, a recap of how the state arrived at this point.

Vermont had been short an education secretary for about a year when Governor Phil Scott got his heart set on Zoie Saunders, despite Saunders having a less-than-spectacular resume.

Zoie Saunders has barely any background in public education. She attended the Dana Hall School, a private girls’ school in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Her first jobs were in the pediatric health care field, then she went to work in strategy for Charter Schools USA, a Florida for-profit charter chain, in particular profiting from taxpayer-funded real estate business. CSUSA was founded by Jonathan Hage, a former Green Beret who previously worked for the Heritage Foundation and Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future. Here’s League Education Chair Patricia Hall talking about how CSUSA rakes in the bucks:

Our shining local examples in Hillsborough County are owned by Charter Schools USA. My first glimpse of Winthrop Charter School in Riverview in November of 2011 was during a scheduled visit with then Rep. Rachel Burgin. When told the two story brick building was a charter school, I was mystified. The site on which it was built was purchased from John Sullivan by Ryan Construction Company, Minneapolis, MN. From research done by the League of Women Voters of Florida all school building purchases ultimately owned and managed by for-profit Charter Schools USA are initiated by Ryan Construction. The Winthrop site was sold to Ryan Co. in March, 2011 for $2,206,700. In September, 2011 the completed 50,000 square foot building was sold to Red Apple Development Company, LLC for $9,300,000 titled as are all schools managed by Charter Schools USA. Red Apple Development is the school development arm of Charter Schools USA. We, tax payers of Hillsborough County, have paid $969,000 and $988,380 for the last two years to Charter Schools USA in lease fees!

After six and a half years with CSUSA, Saunders moved into the job of Chief Education Officer for the city of Fort Lauderdale, a job that involved expanding education opportunities, including nonpublic schools.

 
Saunders took her first job in public education, chief strategy and innovation officer got Broward County Public Schools, in January 2024; her job there was the lead the district’s work to “close and repurpose schools,” a source of controversy in the community, according to the Sun-Sentinel. But her time as a school-killer for a public system was short, because Vermont was calling.

Once Scott announced his hiring choice (on a Friday), pushback was swift and strong. John Walters at the Vermont Political Observer, a progressive blog that has been all over this, noted that the lack of qualifications for the job was not the bad part:

The bad part is that her experience as a school killer and her years in the charter school industry are in perfect alignment with the governor’s clear education agenda: spread the money around, tighten the screws on public education, watch performance indicators fall, claim that the public schools are failing, spread the money around some more, lather, rinse, repeat. Saunders may not qualify as an educational leader, but her experience is directly relevant to Scott’s policy.

Objections to Saunders in the job were many, including her lack of any apparent vision for job. Add to the list the fact that she’d never run any organization remotely as large or complicated as a state’s education department.

Saunders moved into the office April 15, but the Senate still got to have a say, and what they said was, “Nope.” They voted her down 19-9, a thing which pretty much never happens.

And Scott went ahead and put her in office anyway.

Roughly fifteen minutes (okay–one whole day) after the Senate rejected her, Scott appointed Saundersthe interim Secretary of Education, a thing that does not require any Senate approval and which he presumably doesn’t have to move on from any time soon, particularly given she has announced her 100 day plan. Scott did not appear moved to appoint an interim during the year since Dan French resigned the post.

Scott characterized the vote as a “partisan political hit job,” even though three Democrats voted with the GOP senators to approve. He characterized attacks on Saunders as “unfair,” “hurtful,” and “false.”

Scott kept spinning in the aftermath, claiming that it was false to say that she only had three months experience in public education, even though she clearly only has three months of experience in the public education sector. As John Walters reported,Scott also tried to pin the defeat on “outside groups.” Walters pointed out that Scott has previously said he favors “CEO experience more than public school experience,” though Saunders doesn’t have that, either.

In June, two state senators (Tanya Vyhovsky and Dick McCormack) sued the governor and Saunders for “purposefully circumventing” the Senate’ authority to confirm or deny appointments. As reported by Sarah Mearhoff at VTDigger, another news site that has stayed on stop of the story:

“This is now no longer even about the secretary of education,” Vyhovsky told VTDigger in an interview. “It’s about separation of powers and the right of the Senate to do the job that it is constitutionally and statutorily given.”

So now…

Yesterday, the two sides got to speak their piece in Vermont Superior Court in front of Judge Robert Mello. Mello was appointed by Republican Governor Jim Douglas in 2010. 

Mello promised a quick decision on Thursday, and sure enough– he issued his ruling today (Friday).

Judge Mello dismissed the lawsuit:

To the extent that the Senators argue that the Senate’s decision to not confirm Ms. Saunders prevents the Governor from reappointing her, whether on an interim or permanent basis, the court disagrees…When the legislature has wanted to so limit the Governor’s appointment power, it has simply said so.

The reference is to legislative action that specifically forbid the governor reappointing someone to the Green Mountain Care Board after the Senate rejected them. Apparently since the legislature didn’t specifically list another time that the governor is not allowed to overrule them, well, too bad. 

What comes next? We’ll have to wait and see, but in the meantime Saunders can keep treating the job as hers, “interim” notwithstanding, because there’s no sign that the interim is going to conclude any time soon. 

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Industry, Republicans, Vermont

Peter Greene: Will Colorado Voters Be Wise Enough to Oppose This Ballot Measure?

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2024 //
6

Peter Greene examines a proposed amendment to the state constitution in Colorado and its whacko implications. He urges voters to say NO.

He writes:

While other states are stumbling over constitutional language that aims public dollars at public schools (e.g. South Carolina and Kentucky), voucher fans in Colorado have proposed a constitutional amendment that comes up for a vote soon. And it is a ridiculously ill-conceived and hastily crafted mess.

The language is simple enough– here’s the whole text, originally known as Initiative 138 and now as Amendment 40. 

SECTION 1. In the constitution of the state of Colorado, add section, 18 to article IX as follows: Section 18. Education – School Choice

(1) PURPOSE AND FINDINGS. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF COLORADO HEREBY FIND AND DECLARE THAT ALL CHILDREN HAVE THE RIGHT TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO ACCESS A QUALITY EDUCATION; THAT PARENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DIRECT THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN; AND THAT SCHOOL CHOICE INCLUDES NEIGHBORHOOD, CHARTER, PRIVATE, AND HOME SCHOOLS, OPEN ENROLLMENT OPTIONS, AND FUTURE INNOVATIONS IN EDUCATION.

(2) EACH K-12 CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO SCHOOL CHOICE.

The proposal comes from Advance Colorado, a right wing anti-tax, let’s shrink government until we can drown it in the kitchen sink, kind of outfit. They’re headed up by Michael Fields, who previously headed up the Colorado chapter of the right wing Koch brothers astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, then became AFP’s national education policy leader. Then on to Colorado Rising Action where he kept his interest in education. Back in 2012-14 he spent two whole years as a Teacher For America product in a charter school. 

Advance Colorado was founded in 2020. Their leadership team also includes former state GOP chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown.

The amendment has also drawn support from House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, who is also a “fellow” with Advance Colorado. The actual filing came from Fields and Suzanne Taheri, a former official with the Secretary of State’s Office, a former candidate, and former Arapahoe County GOP chair.

Why does Colorado, a state that has long offered many forms of school choice, even need this? Supporters of the amendment are arguing that they are trying to enshrine and protect choice, just in case those naughty Democrats tried to roll it back some day (Colorado’s Dems once tossed out the pro-choice, not-really-Democrats Democrats for Education Reform). And though they aren’t saying this part out loud, the amendment would be a great set-up for school vouchers.

The language proposed is, however, strictly bananapants. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the people who would most regret passing this amendment would be those who support it.

Let’s say I want to send my low-achieving, non-Christian child to a top-level Christian school. Let’s further presume that I can’t afford even a fraction of the tuition cost. Does this amendment mean that the school has to accept them, and that the state has to foot the entire tuition bill? Wouldn’t any answer other than yes be denying my constitutional to equal opportunity to access a quality education and my constitutional right to direct my child’s education? Does this mean that to have full access the state must also transport my child anywhere I want them to go to school?

What if East Egg Academy has far more applicants than it has capacity? Must it scratch its entire admissions policy and use a lottery instead? 

The major obstacles to school choice are not state policies. The major obstacles are, and have always been, cost, location, and the school’s own discriminatory policies. Virtually all voucher policies are set up to protect those discriminatory policies. Wouldn’t an amendment like this require those to be wiped out? 

Wouldn’t this language amount to a state takeover of all charter and private schools? 

And that’s not all. Wouldn’t this amendment also allow parents to intrude into every classroom. If I have a constitutional right to direct my child’s education, does that not mean that I can tell my child’s science teacher to stop teaching evolution? Or start teaching evolution? Can I demand a different approach to teaching American history? How about prepositions? And how will a classroom teacher even function if every child in the classroom comes with a parent who has a constitutional right to direct their education?

You can say that’s silly, that “obviously” that’s not what the amendment means. But that’s what it says, at least until some series of bureaucrats and courts decide what exactly “direct the education of their children” means.

Kevin Welner (National Education Policy Center)has it exactly right— “It’s really a ‘full employment for lawyers’ act.”

Supporters say this doesn’t establish a right to public funding of private schools, and I suppose they’re sort of correct in the sense that this does not so much establish a right to public funding of private schools so much as it establishes an obligation for public funding of private schools as well as obliterating private school autonomy. Unless, of course, some judge steps in to find that the language doesn’t mean what it says, which is, I suppose, not impossible.

Nobody on any side of the school choice debate should be voting for this amendment. It’s exactly the kind of lawmaking you get from people who have wrapped meaning in particular rhetoric for so long that they have forgotten that the words of their rhetoric have actual meanings outside the meanings that they have habitually assigned them. Here’s hoping the people of Colorado avoid this really bad idea. 

Categories Colorado, Education Industry, Elections, Parents, Privatization, Propaganda, Republicans, Vouchers

Robert Reich: The GOP Voted Against Protecting IVF

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2024 //
2

You may recall that Trump said during his debate with VP Harris that he would be a champion for IVF. He said he would not only protect I F but require insurance companies to cover the cost.

He forgot to tell his Senate allies.

They voted down a bill to protect IVF.

The vote on Tuesday was 51 in favor and 44 opposed, with Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine joining with Democrats in support. Sen. JD Vance didn’t vote.  Without 60 votes to break a filibuster, the bill was dead.

IVF is In Vitro Fertilization, which enables many families to have children. It’s miraculous and there’s no reason to ban it.

Robert Reich tweeted a list of some of the GOP senators who voted NO:

All nine Republican senators running for reelection just voted against the Right to IVF Act:

John Barrasso
Marsha Blackburn
Kevin Cramer
Ted Cruz
Deb Fischer
Josh Hawley
Pete Ricketts
Rick Scott
Roger Wicker

(JD Vance missed today’s vote)

So much for the party of “freedom.”

Categories Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Parents, Republicans

South Carolina: State Supreme Court Overturns Vouchers

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2024 //
8

Republican-controlled states have been on a crusade to enact vouchers, with the alone stimulus of billionaire lobbying dollars. We know from Michigan State University scholar Josh Cowen that most students who use vouchers were already enrolled in private schools. Thus, vouchers are a subsidy for people who can afford private schools, not for low-income students. Cowen also has demonstrated that the academic outcomes of vouchers are disastrous for kids who transfer from public schools (the evidence is contained in Cowen’s excellent new book: The Privateers).

The South Carolina State Supreme Court just overturned the state’s voucher program. Three judges recognized that the program violated the state constitution. Courts in other Republican-controlled states have decoded that the state constitution does not mean what it says.

Peter Greene writes in Forbes:

In many states, the challenge of creating a school voucher program is a constitutional requirement that public tax dollar are designated only for public schools. South Carolina’s legislature thought they had found a workaround; today the State Supreme Court said no.

The 3-2 decision came as a surprise. But the basis for the “relief granted in part” was straightforward.

The petitioners in the case make the claim that the voucher program violates Article XI, Section 4 of the South Carolina Constitution:

“No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

The language is exceptionally direct and clear, but legislators thought they had created a workaround in the form of the Education Scholarship Trust Fund. The premise, seen in many taxpayer funded voucher programs in other states, is that once the money passes into the hands of a third party, it somehow sheds its public nature.

As the ruling puts it:

Respondents’ primary argument is that the funds start out as public funds but lose their public character once the Treasurer places the funds in the ESTF.

The court is unconvinced that the ESTF is a true trust. And the court points out that even if it is a trust, the nature of a trust is that the trustee holds legal title to the estate, and in this case, the trustee is the state. The court notes that “this is not the first time we have encountered an attempt to deploy a trust to avoid constitutional limits on the use of public funds” and cites O’Brien v. S. C. ORBIT.

The other argument by the state is that ESTF funds benefit the families, and do not provide “direct benefit” to the private schools. “[T]hey read our Constitution as allowing public funds to be directly paid to private schools as tuition as long as the funds are nudged along their path by the student.”

The state argues that this is not like the last time vouchers were struck down (Adams v. McMaster) because this time the vouchers can be used for private or public schools. Therefor the program does not provide direct benefits for private schools. However, responds the court, “just because the benefit is diffuse does not mean it is not direct.”

State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver responded to the ruling.

“Families cried tears of joy when the scholarship funds became available for their children, and today’s Supreme Court ruling brings those same families tears of devastation. The late timing of the initial filing and subsequent ruling on this case midway through the first quarter of the new school year wreaks havoc on the participating students and their families.”

The ruling is certainly inconveniently timed for those students who have already used the vouchers to start their new school year. It’s not clear what will happen to them.

Previously, Kentucky’s Supreme Court also struck down their state’s voucher program, arguing that the twists and turns built into the program did not conceal it’s fundamental nature—the use of public taxpayer dollars to fund private and religious schools in violation of the state constitution. In Kentucky, that has led to an attempt to rewrite the constitution. We’ll see what the South Carolina legislature tries next.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Religion, Republicans, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state, South Carolina

John Merrow: Education and the 2024 Election

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2024 //
9

John Merrow spent many years as PBS’s education reporter. Now retired, he continues to be a well-informed and well-respected observer of education issues.

Merrow writes:

If Kamala Harris wins the Presidency, public education isn’t likely to be shaken up as much as it needs to be. If Donald Trump is elected and has his way, public education will be turned upside down. But no matter who wins, American higher education is in big trouble….although, as you will see, every crisis is also an opportunity.

If Trump wins in November, the world of education faces rough seas.  His “Project 2025” pledges to abolish the federal Department of Education, without specifying what agencies would be responsible for what the Department now does, such as enforcing civil rights laws in education.  “Project 2025” pledges to abolish Head Start, the preschool program that now serves about 833,000 low income children, send Title One money directly to states (while phasing it out over a 10-year period), and turn over Pell Grant administration to the Treasury Department.   While many in education want the Pell Grant cap of $7,395 per year to be raised (given the cost of a college education), “Project 2025” does not address this.

President Biden has made forgiving student debt a goal, but most of his efforts have been stymied by the courts. “Project 2025” would end the practice completely.

Trump and his team promise to advance “education freedom” by vigorously promoting “school choice.”  In practice, this would provide parents with cash vouchers that can be spent at private and religious schools, as well as federal tax credits for money spent on private school tuition. In simplest terms, Trump and his team want as much of the money that now goes to public schools to go to parents instead, and they want it to be tax-deductible, as it now is in Arizona. 

“Project 2025” calls for restricting free breakfast and lunch to low income students. Doing that would probably bring back separate lines and separate entrances for those paying and those eating ‘for free.’  That practice led some poor kids to skip meals entirely, to avoid humiliation, which is why many school districts have opted to feed all kids. (There’s some evidence that feeding everyone is actually cheaper, because it eliminates the need for special passes, separate accounting, and so forth. Ask Tim Walz about it.)

A significant change that I experienced as a reporter was the treatment of children with handicapping conditions.  Prior to 1975, many of those children were institutionalized or kept at home. “The Education of All Handicapped Children Act” (PL 94-142) moved the revolution that had begun in Massachusetts and Minnesota to the national level. While it’s not perfect today, the federal government contributes more than $14 Billion to pay for services for those youngsters.  “Project 2025” would distribute the money to states directly with few if any strings attached and would ask Congress to rewrite the law so that some money could go directly to parents. That doesn’t seem to me to be a step in the right direction.

All of these provisos and directives seem likely to do major damage to public education, as well as to the life chances of low income students.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run schools, seem unlikely to fare well no matter who wins. They aren’t private enough for most Republicans, and they are too private for most Democrats.

What lies in store for education if Harris wins in November?  The Biden-Harris Administration promised far more than it delivered, particularly in higher education, and its Secretary of Education has been largely missing in action, as far as I could tell. The party’s platform calls for free pre-school, free public college for families earning under $125,000 per year, making college tuition tax-deductible, smaller classes, and more ‘character education,’ whatever that is.

My own wish list would be for an energetic Secretary of Education who would encourage and lead conversations about the purposes of education, and the roles that schools play.  Too often today public schools are merely rubber-stamping the status children arrive with; but schools are supposed to be ladders of opportunity, there to be climbed by anyone and everyone with ambition.

The federal government cannot change how schools operate, but its leadership could and should shine a bright light on what schools could be….and how they could get there.

If I am allowed one wish, it’s that President Harris and Vice President Walz propose National Service, a 2-year commitment for all, in return for two years of tuition/training.  It’s long past time to put the ‘me-me-me’ self-absorption of the Ronald Reagan era in our rear view mirror. Our young people need to be reminded that they live in a great country and ought to show our appreciation by serving it in some capacity.

Whoever wins, Harris or Trump, American higher education’s rough years will continue, because a growing number of young people are questioning the value of, and necessity for, a college education.  This is a genuine crisis, and American higher education is in the fight of its life: Last year nearly 100 colleges shut down, roughly two per week.  While we still have more than 4,000 higher education institutions, many of those may not make it to 2030.  The rising cost of college defies common sense, the rise of Artificial Intelligence threatens some professions that now require a college degree, and many young people seem inclined to opt out of the high-speed, high stakes chase for a credential.  How many of the 31,000,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 will continue to enroll in college this year and next is an open question.  

Of course, colleges aren’t standing pat. For example,  Community Colleges are reaching down into high schools to keep their enrollment up; about one-fifth of all current Community College students are also enrolled in high school. Those institutions also enroll lots of older students–the average age of a Community College student is 28.

Four-year colleges and universities are fighting to enroll the 40,000,000 Americans who have some college credits but not enough for a degree.  They are also doing their best to attract on-line learners of all ages, and the most ambitious institutions are working hard to enroll (full paying) students from all over the world.  

If Trump wins, his immigration policies might shut the door on foreign students, a cash cow for a large number of institutions.  If Harris wins, federal aid probably won’t be slashed, but that won’t stop the questioning.

Questioning is long overdue. For too long elitists in the Democratic and Republican parties have looked down their noses at those not going to college, ignoring the wisdom of the great John Gardner:  “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

Every crisis is also an opportunity:Some of those shuttered college campuses might be repurposed for housing for senior citizens, or veterans.  Some of those facilities could become Head Start centers, hubs for small businesses, community hospitals, and so forth. I’d like to see a Harris-Walz Administration embrace the possiblities, with energy and imagination.

So please pay attention. Vote intelligently, and urge your friends and neighbors to vote.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Democracy, Democrats, Deregulation, Education Reform, Elections, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Funding, Harris, Kamala, Higher Education, Republicans, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. education

The Biggest Issue in 2024 Election: The U.S. Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2024 //
13

Jason Linkins of The New Republic writes that it doesn’t really matter what Kamala Harris’s policies are because the Supreme Court is poised to strike them down. its recent decision, overruling what is known as the Chevron doctrine, hamstrings any Democratic initiative.

If Trump should win, he will be able to appoint replacements for the two oldest justices, guaranteeing a rightwing majority for decades.

Linkins writes that “a dark shadow” blights every policy that a Harris administration might want to initiate. That dark shadow is the conservative majority’s decision in a case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. 

Linkins writes:

That ruling, which overturned a doctrine called “Chevron deference,” puts the future of any policy that Harris favors in grave doubt. If you want the Harris campaign to get more detailed on policy, I’m sorry to say that any conversation starts and ends with how they plan to confront a Supreme Court that has torched the separation of powers in the mad game of Calvinball they kicked off during the Trump era. 

The gutting of Chevron deference is not something that the smooth-brained masses of the political media adequately understood when it came down. Chevron deference is essentially the doctrine that allows government agencies to respond nimbly to their congressional mandates; hitherto, the judiciary stayed out of the way, allowing executive branch personnel to use their expertise to interpret ambiguous regulations. Imagine, for example, the technological advancements that have occurred since landmark environmental legislation was passed decades ago. The EPA, given free rein to adapt to this changing landscape, can move more fleetly to remediate pollution thanks to Chevron. The Roberts court, instead, imagines a world where they have to return to Congress each time there is an emergency, to get specific guidance.

The best way of describing what the conservative majority did is to say it gave six unelected right-wing politicians who all enjoy a lifetime appointment a line-item veto over anything a Democratic Congress—and by extension Harris—wants to do, unless they can muster the votes to confront each problem they want to solve with an inhuman amount of hyper-specificity. As Vox’s Ian Millhiser has explained, if the executive branch “can’t regulate without getting permission from a Republican judiciary … then conservatives no longer need to worry about Democratic presidents doing much of anything that doesn’t meet the GOP’s approval…” 

The Supreme Court really is the most critical policy issue in this election. The Trump-installed majority is central to what the right plans for a second Trump term. Beyond the fact that the Roberts court’s ruling in Trump v. United States imbues the chief executive with monarchic levels of unaccountability—a dangerous privilege for, frankly, any president to possess—Project 2025, which is best understood as a massive rollback of individual rights, is something that Republicans simply could never contemplate without their super-legislature in black robes. 

Here, vaporizing Chevron has an asymmetric impact on the ambitions of the two parties. The GOP, having retreated from any part of the policy realm besides Project 2025’s infernal schemes, the furnishing of tax cuts to plutocrats, and deregulating everything under the sun (also a form of wealth transfer to plutocrats), need not worry about Chevron being in effect anymore.
But what makes Chevron crucial to this campaign is that the sledding for Democrats remains rough even if they prevail in November.

Indeed, even if they blow the GOP out of the water electorally, the end of Chevron deference is a fail-safe against Democratic policy, constantly running in the background as long as five of the six conservatives on the Roberts court agree. In this way, Harris and her fellow Democrats are locked out of liberal governance. Since liberal governance will form the cornerstone of anything Harris and Democrats want to do during her time in office, a confrontation with a Supreme Court that’s holding the policymaking apparatus hostage is not a fight they can duck. 

All Democrats need to join in this fight, and constantly raise the salience of the Supreme Court and its attendant corruption. It would be a good idea for any policy discussion to note that the Roberts court is the primary antagonist to making things better, easier, safer, and fairer for ordinary Americans; they are despoilers of the land and pilferers of our wealth. Harris should continually remind voters that turning things around will require a Democratic president to be on hand to appoint any replacements that may be needed, and prevent the oldest conservative justices from escaping into retirement, which would allow Trump to replace them with young members of the right’s lunatic lower-court farm system.

Is it time to revisit court-packing? I think the institutionalist case against it completely collapsed by the end of the court’s last term, but I doubt Harris has the stomach to revive the idea over the next several weeks. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court will remain the rock in the road that Democrats must find a way around if they want to improve our lives. Anything you might want an ascendant Democratic administration to do faces the judicial veto of right-wingers who can’t be voted out of office. It’s true that Harris is probably not going to deliver, or even champion, the most ambitious policies that progressives favor. But whether you’re a progressive fan of Medicare for All, or a centrist dedicated to means-tested, watered-down bullshit, you’re all in the same boat, so grab an oar.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Justice, Republicans, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: The Russian Campaign to Destroy Our Democracy

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2024 //
9

In this post, historian Heather Cox Richardson writes about the Russian effort to buy the voices of rightwing “influencers,” as well as the right’s apologetics for Nazism.

She writes:

One of the things that came to light on Wednesday, in the paperwork the Justice Department unveiled to explain its seizure of 32 internet domains being used by Russian agents in foreign malign influence campaigns, was that the six right-wing U.S. influencers mentioned in the indictments of the Russian operatives are only the tip of the iceberg. 

Since at least 2022, three Russian companies working with the Kremlin have been trying to change foreign politics in a campaign they called “Doppelganger,” covertly spreading Russian government propaganda. “[F]irst and foremost,” notes from a meeting with Russian officials about targeting Germany read, “we need to discredit the USA, Great Britain, and NATO.” Through fake social media profiles, their operatives posed as Americans or other non-Russians, seeding public conversations with Russian propaganda.

In August 2023 they launched the “Good Old USA Project” to target swing-state residents, online gamers, American Jews, and “US citizens of Hispanic descent” to reelect Donald Trump. ​​”They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” one of the propagandists wrote. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.” Using targeted ads on Facebook, they could see how their material was landing and use bots and trolls to push their narrative in comment sections. 

“In order for this work to be effective, you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information,” the propagandists told their staff. “At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”

According to the documents, one of the three companies, Social Design Agency (SDA), monitors and collects information about media organizations and social media influencers. It collected a list of 1,900 “anti-influencers,” whose accounts posted material SDA workers thought operated against Russian interests. About 26% of those accounts were based in the U.S. 

SDA also identified as pro-Russian influencers more than 2,800 people in 81 countries operating on various social media platforms like X, Facebook, and Telegram. Those influencers included “television and radio hosts, politicians, bloggers, journalists, businessmen, professors, think-tank analysts, veterans, professors, and comedians.” About 21% of those influencers were in the U.S. 

YouTube took down the Tenet Media Channels associated with the Justice Department’s indictments, and last night, Tenet Media abruptly shut down. In The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last noted that the Tenet influencers maintain they were dupes, although they must have been aware that their paychecks were crazy high for the numbers of viewers they had. He asks if, knowing now that their gains are ill-gotten, they are going to give them to charity. 

Earlier this week, former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson hosted Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper on his X show, where Cooper not only suggested that the death of more than six million Jews was an accidental result of poor planning, but also argued that British prime minister Winston Churchill, who stood firm against the expansion of fascist Germany in World War II, was the true villain of the war.

Cooper’s argument puts him squarely on the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who insist that democracy undermines society. During the recent summer Olympics, Cooper posted on social media an image of Hitler in Paris alongside another of drag queens representing Greek gods at the Olympic opening ceremonies, an image some on the right thought made fun of the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples. “This may be putting it too crudely for some,” Cooper wrote, “but the picture [of Hitler in Paris] was infinitely preferable in virtually every way than the one on the right.” 

The idea that Churchill, not Hitler, is the villain of World War II means denying the fact of the Holocaust and defending the Nazis. It lands Carlson and Cooper in the same camp as those autocrats journalist Anne Applebaum notes are “making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world.” Elon Musk promoted the interview, saying it was “very interesting,” and “worth watching,” before the backlash made him delete his post. The video has been viewed nearly 30 million times. 

Carlson told Lauren Irwin of The Hill that the Biden administration is made up of “warmonger freaks” who have “used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history.” Carlson is on a 16-day speaking tour, on which he will interview Trump allies, including Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr. 

Trump today continued his effort to undermine the democratic American legal system in a “news conference” of more than 45 minutes, in which he took no questions. Although Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts, decided today to delay sentencing until November 26 to avoid any appearance that the court was trying to affect the 2024 election, Trump nonetheless launched an attack on the U.S. legal system and suggested the lawsuits against him were election interference. 

He spoke after he and his legal team were in court today to try to overturn a jury’s conclusion that he had sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll, a decision that brought his judgments in the two cases she brought to around $90 million. He began with an attack on what he said was a new “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax, and promised he had not “spoken to anybody from Russia in years.”

Aaron Rupar of Public Notice recorded what amounted to close to an hour of attacks on the American Justice Department and the laws of the country, and also on American women (he not only attacked Carroll, he brought up others of the roughly two dozen women who have accused him of sexual assault). He attempted to retry the Carroll case in the media, refuting the evidence the jury considered and suggesting that the photo of him and Carroll together was generated by AI, although it was published in 2019.

Attacking women was an interesting decision in light of the fact that he will need the votes of suburban women if he is to make up the ground he has lost to Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.

For her part, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) appears to see this moment for what it is. Although a staunch Republican herself, she is urging conservative women to admit they’ve had enough. Referring to both Trump and Vance in a conversation sponsored by the Texas Tribune, she said: “This is my diplomatic way of saying it: They’re misogynistic pigs.” She assured listeners, quite accurately, that Trump “is not a conservative.” “Women around this country…we’ve had enough.” “These are not people that we can entrust with power again.” 

Her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, agreed that Trump “can never be trusted with power again” and announced today that he will be voting for Harris. “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” he said. Eighty-eight business leaders also endorsed Harris today, including James Murdoch, an heir to the Murdoch family media empire. Citing Harris’s “policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment,” they said in a public letter, “the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy” is by electing Harris president.​​

Meanwhile, at his event with Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel yesterday, Trump embraced the key element of Project 2025 that calls for a dictatorial leader to take over the U.S. That document maintains that “personnel is policy” and that the way to achieve all that the Christian nationalists want is to fire the nonpartisan civil servants currently in place and put their own people into office. Trump has tried hard to distance himself from Project 2025, but last night he said the way to run the government is to “get the right people. You put the right person and the right group of people at the heads of these massive agencies, you’re going to have tremendous success, and I know now the people, and I know them better than anybody would know them.”       

One of those people appears to be X owner Elon Musk, whom Trump has promised to put at the head of an “efficiency” commission to audit the U.S. government. 

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, then a candidate for the Senate, warned that the arguments against democracy and in favor of a few people dominating the rest were always the same. In his era, it was enslavers saying some people were better than others. But, he said, those were the same arguments “that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.” 

In our era, Indiana Jones said it best in The Last Crusade: “Nazis. I hate these guys.” 

Categories Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Fascism, Fraud, Funding, International, Media, Republicans

Jennifer Rubin: Brave Republicans and Those Who Are M.I.A.

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2024 //
10

Jennifer Rubin was a solid conservative journalist and lawyer who was hired by the Washington Post to express the conservative view on politics in a column called “Right Turn.” After Trump’s election, she became increasingly critical of him and eventually reversed her ideology. She is today one of the most incisive critics of the MAGA movement. In this column, she chastises Prominent Republicans for remaining silent in this election.

She writes:

One of the most uplifting parts of last week’s Democratic convention was the presence of so many Republicans, such as former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger and former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan. Both decided to put country over party and self.

“I know Kamala Harris shares my allegiance to the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy, and she is dedicated to upholding all three in service to our country,” Kinzinger said. “Whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison with those fundamental matters of principle, of decency and of fidelity to this nation.” Likewise, Duncan said, “Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching: If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat. You’re a patriot.”

The day after the convention, a dozen former lawyers from the three Republican administrations before Donald Trump’s published a letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. They wrote, “Trump’s attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after losing the election proved beyond any reasonable doubt his willingness to place his personal interests above the law and values of our constitutional democracy.” They argued that returning Trump to office “would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country.” Then, a four-star general who served under President George W. Bush and hundreds of former Republican staffers endorsed Harris.

So, the question remains: Where are the rest of the Republicans who understand Trump is an existential threat to democracy? Most of the big names still refuse to follow Kinzinger and Duncan’s lead.

Former president George W. Bush must be in a witness protection program; he has virtually disappeared. Former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney courageously stood up to Trump when he tried to stage a coup. But, sorry — if you pledge to do everything possible to prevent Trump’s return to power, you have an obligation to endorse Harris, the only person who can beat him.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who shredded Trump in the primaries, previously objected to endorsing President Joe Biden because of Biden’s age. (“President Biden, in my view, is past the sell-by date.”) What is his excuse now for refusing to endorse the new, 59-year-old Democratic nominee?

Paul Ryan, a Fox board member and former speaker of the House, was quoted in May as saying, “Character is too important for me. … [The presidency] is a job that requires the kind of character [Trump] doesn’t have.” But Ryan too lacks the nerve to support the only viable alternative. When he rationalizes his refusal to endorse a Democrat on the grounds that he differs on “policy,” he is telling us that preserving democracy is not a high policy priority for him.

The list goes on: H.R. McMaster (actually commending Trump’s foreign policy in the Atlantic!), Jim Mattis, Condoleezza Rice. Moral cowardice, or craving for access in future Republican administrations, seems to have silenced even those most vocal on America’s defense of Ukraine and other allies. History will not treat them kindly.

Certainly, getting some Republicans to refrain from voting for Trump is helpful. But if they are as devoted to democracy and as committed to the international world order as they say, there is no moral argument for refraining from going the rest of the way to endorse Harris, especially after such a robust affirmation of her foreign policy views.

Biden gave up the presidency for the sake of our democracy. Can’t these Republicans give Harris their votes?

Categories Accountability, Citizenship, Courage, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Freedom, Harris, Kamala, Republicans, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Has Remade the GOP in His Image

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2024 //
31

Historian Heather Cox Richardson weaves together the events of the past few days and demonstrates the submission of the Republican Party to one angry man. At the Republican National Convention, the party’s elders were notably absent. No Bush or Cheney; no Romney. Trump put his daughter-in-law, Lara, in charge of the Republican National Committee. It’s the Trump party now, and he controls all its levers of power. Note below that he hasn’t stopped hawking merchandise, even in the middle of his campaign. If you can open a tweet, this is an example of Trump turning his campaign into a money-maker for himself.

She writes:

…Trump began the day by posting an advertisement for the fourth “series of Trump digital trading cards,” or NFTs (which are unique digital tokens) featuring heroic images of Trump. People who buy 15 or more of them—at $99 apiece—get a physical trading card as well. Trump said that the physical card has a piece of the suit he wore at the presidential debate, and Trump promises to sign five of them, randomly. Up to 25 people who buy $25,750 worth of the cards with cryptocurrency will be invited to a gala next month at his Jupiter, Florida, golf club.

In the ad, Trump made it a point to emphasize his enthusiasm for cryptocurrency, an emphasis that dovetails with Trump’s recent promotion of an “official” cryptocurrency project. He linked to a Telegram channel run by his sons Don Jr. and Eric that, at the time, was called “The DeFiant Ones” but has been renamed “World Liberty Financial.” While there is little public information about the project, the channel has almost 50,000 subscribers.  

Hawking merchandise was an odd move for a presidential candidate, and it suggested his focus is elsewhere than on the election. Also today, Trump announced that he plans to make former Democrats Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom have endorsed him, honorary members of his transition team. Kennedy told right-wing personality Tucker Carlson that he would “help pick the people who will be running the government…” 

And then, this evening, Quil Lawrence and Tom Bowman of NPR explained the story behind the surprising photos of Trump on Monday giving a thumbs-up over a grave in Arlington National Cemetery. The reporters wrote that “[t]wo members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official” at the cemetery, where “[f]ederal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities.” When a cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering the section where the grave was located, “campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside.” A Trump campaign spokesperson said the official who tried to prevent the staff from holding a political event in the cemetery was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” 

The elephant in the room these days is that most Republicans, along with many pundits, are pretending that Trump is a normal presidential candidate. They are ignoring his mental lapses, calls for authoritarianism, grifting, lack of grasp on any sort of policy, and criminality, even as he has hollowed out the once grand Republican Party and threatens American democracy itself.

It’s hard to look away from the reality that the Republican senators could have stopped this catastrophe at many points in Trump’s term, at the very least by voting to convict Trump at his first impeachment trial. At the time, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “Out of one hundred senators, you have zero who believe you that there was no quid pro quo. None. There’s not a single one.” Republican senators nonetheless stood behind Trump. “This is not about this president. It’s not about anything he’s been accused of doing,” then–majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told his colleagues. “It has always been about November 3, 2020. It’s about flipping the Senate.”

When the Framers wrote the Constitution, they did not foresee senators abandoning the principles of the country in order to support a president they thought would enhance their own careers. Assuming that lawmakers would jealously guard their own power, the Framers gave to the members of the House of Representatives the power to impeach a president. To the members of the Senate they gave the sole power to try impeachments. They assumed that lawmakers, who had just fought a war to break free of a monarch, would understand that their own interests would always require stopping the rise of an authoritarian leader. 

But the Framers did not foresee the rise of political partisanship. 

In the modern era, extreme partisanship has led to voter suppression to keep Republicans in power, the weaponization of the filibuster to stop Democratic legislation, and gerrymandering to enable Republicans to take far more legislative seats than they have earned. The demands of this extreme partisanship also mean that members of one of the nation’s major political parties have lined up behind a man whom, were he running this sort of a campaign even ten years ago, they would have dismissed with derision. 

Finally, devastatingly, the partisanship that made senators keep Trump in office enabled him to name to the Supreme Court three justices. Those three justices were key to making up the majority that overturned the nation’s fundamental principle that all people must be equal before the law. In July 2024 they ruled that unlike anyone else, a president is above it.  

In May 2016, South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham famously observed: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, For-Profit, Republicans, Scandals, Trump

Thom Hartmann: Republicans Are the Party of Cruelty

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2024 //
74

Thom Hartmann is a keen observer of American politics. A prolific writer, he sees issues in historical perspective. He knows that your grandfather’s Republican Party was conservative and imbued with a sense of devotion to community and tradition. Conservatives conserve, not destroy. That party today is devoted to disruption, to destroying communities and their public schools, to protecting the billionaires, and to mocking the weak. It is not your grandfather’s Republican Party.

Thom Hartmann writes:

During the 1950s, Republicans were the party that promoted labor unions, Social Security, and a top 91% income tax bracket and 70% estate tax on the morbidly rich. Dwight Eisenhower successfully campaigned on what we’d call a progressive agenda for re-election in 1956.

During the Reagan years, Republicans embraced Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism with its free trade, opposition to unions, ending free college, and tax cuts for the fat cats. They called themselves “the party of new ideas.” They may have done more harm than good, but for most Republicans it was a good-faith effort. 

Today, they’ve pretty much given up on all of that.  All they have left is cruelty.

When Governor Tim Walz gave his heartwarming acceptance speech Wednesday night here at the DNC in Chicago, his son Gus was caught on camera proudly proclaiming, through tear-streaked eyes, “That’s my dad!” 

The response from Trumpy Republicans was immediate: Ann Coulter wrote, “Talk about weird.” Rightwing hate jock Jay Weber posted, “Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering bitch boy. His mother and I are very proud.” Trumpy podcaster Mike Crispi ridiculed Walz’s “stupid crying son,” adding, “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.” Another well-known podcaster on the right, Alec Lace, said, “Get that kid a tampon already.”

Compassion for a learning-disabled child is dead on the right: all they have left is cruelty.

Ronald Reagan helped shepherd through Congress the most consequential border bill in American history, and when it needed updating Oklahoma’s Republican Senator James Lankford worked with Democrats to update it in a meaningful way. Trump demanded Republicans kill the legislation, invoking the memory of his tearing over 5,500 babies away from their mothers and trafficking them into fly-by-night “adoption” schemes (around 1000 are still missing) and his demand that the border patrol shoot immigrants in the legs.

Trump’s acolytes in Congress don’t even pretend any more to have a border policy: all they have left is cruelty.

President George HW Bush worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to unwind the USSR in the hope of creating a democratic Russia. Neither expected Vladimir Putin to turn that nation into a virtual concentration camp where gays are routinely murdered, child pornography is legal (and they’ve kidnapped over 700,000 Ukrainian children), and dissenters are tortured, poisoned, and sent to brutal Siberian gulags. Donald Trump celebrates Putin, calling his invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “savvy,” handing Putin’s ambassador a western spy and top-secret information in his first month in office, and trying to abandon America’s traditional role as a moral leader in the world.

Trump’s GOP has abandoned our founding principles: all they have left is cruelty.

During the 2020 election, Trump followers tried to run a Biden/Harris campaign bus off the road in Texas, threatening to kill the occupants (which they believed included Kamala Harris). A crazed Trump supporter broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and attacked her 82-year-old husband with a hammer. Trump tweeted a picture of the bus being attacked, writing below it, “I LOVE TEXAS!” and repeatedly makes jokes about the attack on Pelosi, as if to encourage future attacks on the families of other Democratic politicians.

Not a single elected Republican (as best as I can find with a pretty thorough web search) has condemned either: all they have left is cruelty.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis turned down federal money that would have fed 2.1 million low-income children in his state; he was one of 13 Republican governors to do the same, in a nation where one in seven children — over 11 million every year — go to bed hungry.

We are literally the only developed country in the world with a massive child hunger problem because all Republicans have left is cruelty.

When President Obama succeeded in passing and signing the Affordable Care Act, it offered every state funds to expand Medicaid to give healthcare coverage to all their low-income citizens with the federal government covering 90% of the cost. To this day, ten states under Republican control have refused to accept the money, leading to millions of preventable illnesses and early deaths.

Republican states could have joined all the Blue states and every other developed country in the world by providing universal healthcare, but refuse to because all they have left is cruelty.

 When a 10-year-old girl was raped and impregnated, Republicans like Congressman Jim Jordan, Governor Kristi Noem, Fox’s Tucker Carlson and Jesse Waters, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost ridiculed the claim. When the rape and pregnancy were proven and the girl fled Ohio to a state where abortion was legal to terminate the pregnancy, Indiana’s Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita promised to launch an “investigation.”

Rokita didn’t investigate the rape, however: he instead went after the physician who performed the abortion. Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.

When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by seven million votes, he sent a violent mob against the US Capitol. As they tried to murder the vice president and speaker of the house, covered the walls of the building with feces and defaced priceless paintings, Trump gleefully watched on live television for over three hours while refusing to call in the national guard or take any other meaningful action.

Five civilians and three police officers died as the result of his sending that murderous mob because all he and his GOP have left is cruelty.

This week Americans saw Democrats display compassion, care, respect, and reverence for our democracy. We saw the best of this country, hope for the future, and actual plans to improve the lives of Americans.

Last month, in sharp contrast, we watched the Republican convention and saw, instead, a cavalcade of anger, bile, grievance, hate, and, of course, cruelty.

Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.

Note to Thom:

Some things you didn’t mention.

The red states that have repealed or loosened their child labor laws so that teens can work in hazardous jobs at younger ages.

The red states that overturned local laws requiring regular water breaks for laborers working outdoors in hot weather.

The red states that are defunding their public schools.

The red states that have abolished all gun laws and allow open carry of guns without a permit.

The red states oppose free lunches for children.

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Closing schools, Competition, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Republicans
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