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Jan Resseger: Will the Trump Gang Succeed in Demonizing the Words “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”?

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2025 //
12

Jan Resseger reflects on the Trump administration’s determination to eliminate not only to eliminate programs based on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” but the words themselves. Those three words must be expunged from our vocabularity. We must not recognize that there is diversity of people, even within the same religion or race. We must not strive for equity, which means that everyone has an equal chance to thrive. When they don’t thrive, we ask why. But we mustn’t care anymore.

Inclusion is the third “dirty” word that must be extirpated, inclusion means “all.” Remember when you recited the Pledge of Allegiance in school? I do. We said, “with liberty and justice for all.” I suppose it will be changed now to “with liberty and justice for some.”

Read Jan’s post. As always, it is thoughtful, incisive and well researched.

Have faith. This madness and meanness will come to an end.

Categories Censorship, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Gender, Language, Lies, Stupid, Trump

CNN: Trump Wasted Billions of Gallons of Water in PR Stunt in California

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2025 //
5

CNN reported on one of Trump’s absurd stunts: He insisted on releasing billions of gallons of water from two dams in California as a show of his genius in sending water to douse the fires in Los Angeles. But the water flowed far away from Los Angeles and wasted water that local farmers needed in the summer.

Representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency repeatedly pressured the head of a United States water management agency to open a major California pump system in late January, intending to release a huge amount of water south toward Los Angeles — even though the water would have never made it to the fire-scarred metropolis.

When the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation did not relent, the DOGE agents flew to California with the goal of turning the pumps on themselves, in what people familiar with the incident characterized as a stunt for a “photo op.”

The account comes from six people with knowledge of the events that took place as President Donald Trump falsely claimed the LA fires were a result of the state’s water policies, and demanded more water be sent south. The people who spoke with CNN were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the events. They also feared retaliation from the Trump administration.

The new details serve as a peek into the inner workings of the chaotic second Trump administration in its first weeks as it sparred with California Gov. Gavin Newsom over the response to the Los Angeles fires.

A power outage — and the fact that at least one of the DOGE representatives was not yet an employee of the federal government and therefore was not allowed near the pump controls — ultimately threw a wrench in the plan to engage the pumps in late January.

But a few days later, in a show of authority that superseded California’s own water policy, Trump ordered the US Army Corps to open two dams in central California, which ultimately flooded farmland in the San Joaquin Valley with 2.2 billion gallons of fresh water. State water experts previously told CNN it was a regrettable waste as farmers look anxiously toward the state’s dry season….

Water experts told CNN after the incident the water release was wasteful and put farmers at risk of running out of water this summer and fall. The water flowed into the dry Tulare lakebed and soaked into the ground.

Trump celebrated the water release on January 31 by posting a photo of what looked like a river near a dam. He said 1.6 billion gallons was initially being released but more would come.

“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California,” Trump said. “Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory!”

Categories Disruption, Failure, Stupid, Trump

ProPublica: DOGE Cuts to the IRS Will Cost the Government Money, Not Save It

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2025 //
3

ProPublica is an amazing investigative organization. They report on abuses of power, without fear or favor. This story explains why the DOGE cuts of personnel at the IRS will be very costly. People with complex tax returns like Elon Musk and Donald Trump are unlikely to be audited, as if anyone would dare to do so.

Andy Kroll of ProPublica reports:

Dave Nershi was finalizing a report he’d worked on for months when an ominous email appeared in his inbox.

Nershi had worked as a general engineer for the Internal Revenue Service for about nine months. He was one of hundreds of specialists inside the IRS who used their technical expertise — Nershi’s background is in chemical and nuclear engineering — to audit byzantine tax returns filed by large corporations and wealthy individuals. Until recently, the IRS had a shortage of these experts, and many complex tax returns went unscrutinized. With the help of people like Nershi, the IRS could recoup millions and sometimes more than a billion dollars on a single tax return.

But on Feb. 20, three months shy of finishing his probationary period and becoming a full-time employee, the IRS fired him. As a Navy veteran, Nershi loved working in public service and had hoped he might be spared from any mass firings. The unsigned email said he’d been fired for performance, even though he had received high marks from his manager.

As for the report he was finalizing, it would have probably recouped many times more than the low-six-figure salary he earned. The report would now go unfinished.

Nershi agreed that the federal government could be more lean and efficient, but he was befuddled by the decision to fire scores of highly skilled IRS specialists like him who, even by the logic of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, were an asset to the government. “By firing us, you’re going to cut down on how much revenue the country brings in,” Nershi said in an interview. “This was not about saving money.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his billionaire top adviser Musk have launched an all-out blitz to cut costs and shrink the federal government. Trump, Musk and other administration leaders not only say the U.S. government is bloated and inefficient, but they also see it as a bastion of political opposition, calling it the “deep state.”

The strategy used by the Trump administration to reduce the size of government has been indiscriminate and far-reaching, meant to oust civil servants as fast as possible in as many agencies as possible while demoralizing the workers that remain on the job. As Russell Vought, director of the Trump White House’s Office of Management and Budget and an architect of Project 2025, put it in a speech first reported by ProPublica and Documented: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”

One tactic used by the administration is to target probationary workers who are easier to fire because they have fewer civil service protections. Probationary, in this context, means only that the employees are new to their roles, not that they’re newbies or underperformers. ProPublica found that the latest IRS firings swept up highly skilled and experienced probationary workers who had recently joined the government or had moved to a new position from a different agency.

In late February, the Trump administration began firing more than 6,000 IRS employees. The agency has been hit especially hard, current and former employees said, because it spent 2023 preparing to hire thousands of new enforcement and customer service personnel and had only started hiring and training those workers at any scale in 2024, meaning many of those new employees were still in their probationary period. Nershi was hired as part of this wave, in the spring of last year. The boost came after Congress had underfunded the agency for much of the past decade, which led to chronic staffing shortages, dismal customer service and plummeting audit rates, especially for taxpayers who earned $500,000 or more a year.

The administration doesn’t appear to want to stop there. It is drafting plans to cut its entire workforce in half, according to reports.

Unlike with other federal agencies, cutting the IRS means the government collects less money and finds fewer tax abuses. Economic studies have shown that for every dollar spent by the IRS, the agency returns between $5 and $12, depending on how much income the taxpayer declared. A 2024 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that the IRS found savings of $13,000 for every additional hour spent auditing the tax returns of very wealthy taxpayers — a return on investment that “would leave Wall Street hedge fund managers drooling,” in the words of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

John Koskinen, who led the IRS from 2013 to 2017, said in an interview that the widespread cuts to the IRS make no sense if Trump and Musk genuinely care about fiscal responsibility and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. “What I’ve never understood is if you’re interested in the deficit and curbing it, why would you cut back on the revenue side?” Koskinen said.

Neither the IRS nor the White House responded to requests for comment. Last month, Musk asked his followers on X, the platform he owns, whether they would “like @DOGE to audit the IRS,” referring to the U.S. DOGE Service team of lawyers and engineers led by him. DOGE employees have sought to gain access to IRS taxpayer data in an attempt to “shine a light on the fraud,” according to a White House spokesman.

For this story, ProPublica interviewed more than a dozen current and former IRS employees. Most of those people worked in the agency’s Large Business and International (LB&I) division, which audits companies with more than $10 million in assets and high-income individuals. Within the IRS, the LB&I division has the highest return on investment, and the widespread cuts there put in stark relief the human and financial cost of the Trump administration’s approach to slashing government functions in the name of saving money and combating waste and fraud.

According to current and former LB&I employees, the taxpayers they audited included pharmaceutical companies, oil and gas companies, construction firms and major technology corporations, as well as more obscure private corporations and high-net-worth individuals. None of the IRS employees who spoke to ProPublica would disclose specific taxpayer information, citing privacy laws.

With the recent influx in funding, employees said, the leadership of LB&I had pushed to hire not only more revenue agents and appraisers but also specialized employees such as petroleum engineers, computer scientists and experts in corporate partnerships. These employees, usually known internally as general engineers, consulted on complicated tax returns and helped determine whether taxpayers properly claimed certain credits or other tax breaks.

This work happened in cases where major companies claimed a hefty research tax credit, which is a legitimate avenue for seeking tax relief but can also be improperly used. Highly skilled appraisers have also recouped huge savings in cases involving notorious tax schemes, such as what’s known as a syndicated conservation easement — a break abused so often that both congressional Democrats and Republicans have criticized it, while the IRS has included it on its list of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams.

“These are cases where revenue agents don’t have the technical expertise,” said one IRS engineer who is still employed at the agency and who, like other IRS employees, wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. “That’s what we do. We are working on things where expertise is absolutely necessary.”

Current and former IRS employees told ProPublica that the agency had expended a huge amount of resources to recruit and train new specialists in recent years. Vanessa Rollins, an engineer in the IRS’ Chicago office who was recently fired, said probationary employees in LB&I outnumbered full-time staffers in her office. Much of her team’s work centered on training and mentorship for the waves of new employees — most of whom were recently fired. “The entire office had been oriented around bringing us in and getting us trained,” Rollins said.

These specialists said they earned higher salaries compared with many other IRS employees. But the money these specialists recouped as a result of their work was orders of magnitude greater than what they cost. The current engineer told ProPublica that they estimated their team of less than 10 people had brought in $5 billion in adjusted tax returns over the past four years. (By contrast, a Wall Street Journal analysispublished on Feb. 22 found that DOGE had found savings of $2.6 billion over the next year, far less than the $55 billion claimed by DOGE itself.)

A former LB&I revenue agent added that their work didn’t always lead to the IRS recouping money from a taxpayer; sometimes, they audited a return only to find that the taxpayer was owed more money than they had expected.

“The IRS’ mission is to treat taxpayers fairly so they pay the tax they legally owe, including making sure they’re not paying any more than legally required,” the former revenue agent said.

Notwithstanding its return on investment and the sense of duty espoused by its employees, LB&I was hit especially hard by the most recent wave of firings, employees said. According to the current IRS engineer, the Trump administration appears to have eliminated the jobs of about 120 LB&I engineers out of a total of roughly 260. The person said they had heard more terminations were expected soon. The acting IRS chief and a longtime agency leader, Doug O’Donnell, announced his retirement amid the firings.

Several LB&I employees told ProPublica that the mass layoffs had been ordered from a very high level and that several layers of managers had no idea they were coming or what to expect. The cuts, employees said, did not appear to distinguish between employees with certain specialties or performance levels, but instead focused solely on whether they were on probationary status. “It didn’t matter the skill set. If they were under a year, they got cut,” another current LB&I employee told ProPublica.

The current and former IRS employees said the firings and the administration’s deferred resignation offer led to situations that have wiped out decades of experience and institutional knowledge that can’t easily be replaced. Jack McCumber was an LB&I senior appraiser in Seattle who got fired about six weeks before the end of his probationary status. He said not only did he lose his job, but the veteran appraiser who was his mentor took early retirement. McCumber and his mentor often worked on syndicated conservative easement cases that could recoup tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. “They’re pushing out the experienced people, and they’re pushing out people like me,” McCumber said. “It’s a double whammy.”

The result, employees and experts said, will mean corporations and wealthy individuals face far less scrutiny when they file their tax returns, leading to more risk-taking and less money flowing into the U.S. treasury.

“Large businesses and higher-wealth individuals are where you have the most sophisticated taxpayers and the most sophisticated tax preparers and lawyers who are attuned to pushing the envelope as much as they can,” said Koskinen, the former IRS commissioner. “When those audits stop because there isn’t anybody to do them, people will say, ‘Hey, I did that last year, I’ll do it again this year.’”

“When you hamstring the IRS,” Koskinen added. “it’s just a tax cut for tax cheats.”

Categories Billionaires, Corruption, Economy, Ethics, Evil, Failure, Injustice, Musk, Elon, Stupid, Trump

Trump Team Sows Disruption, Fear at NIH

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2025 //
5

In Trump’s chaotic effort to weaken and shred the federal government, no agency is immune, not even the National Institutes of Health, a world-class scientific research institution.

The Washington Post published an overview of the dizzying changes there. The #2 person in the agency was expected to be chosen as Acting Director, but he was passed over for a little-known staff member, who was known for opposing the views of Dr. Fauci during the pandemic. And that was just the start.

The NIH has 6,200 scientists on staff. It is a huge biomedical grant-making machine that dispenses funding to some 2,500 research organizations across the nation.

Science writers Carolyn Y. Johnson and Joel Achenbach reported:

In just six weeks, the Trump administration overturned NIH’s leadership, slowed its main mission of identifying the best new science to fund and silenced personnel at the biggest sponsor of biomedical research in the world — a nearly $48 billion enterprise that supports the work of some 300,000 external scientists.
“It’s terrible. It’s awful. People are afraid to open their emails,” one NIH senior scientist said….

Even in a climate of fear, NIH employees say they want to protect their institution. They worry this winter of disruption may be causing lasting damage to the way science is conducted in the United States.

“The whole thing could just disappear,” said Phil Murphy, senior investigator and chief of the laboratory of molecular immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “The biomedical research enterprise in the United States depends largely on NIH dollars. You take the dollars away, the labs go away, and you lose the next generation of scientists.”

I wonder if Dr. Phil Murphy might soon be replaced by a graduate student in political science for his remarks. Or a college dropout on the DOGE team.

In normal times, thousands of scientists on the 320-acre campus conduct basic research on problems such as ALS and heart disease. Clinicians at the research hospital care for patients in cutting-edge clinical trials. Much of this work continued.

But then came a hiring freeze, a travel ban, a communications pause and cancellations of routine grant-review meetings. Scientists were even told they could not purchase the basic lab supplies needed to keep experiments going…

Trump’s executive orders to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as programs that support “gender ideology,” forced officials to scan the agency for activities, websites, grants and programs that might need to be modified or pulled down..

In the second week, NIH staff members were told by their new director that they could resume work on clinical trials for new drugs.

But senior officials were grappling with a jaw-dropping memo from Trump’s Office of Management and Budget that called for a pause on federal grant activity — one of NIH’s main reasons to exist.

This order seemed to encompass most activities that spread NIH grants across the country, including making research awards, evaluating the most meritorious scientific proposals and even just continuing the funding of existing projects that needed renewal.

Lawsuits were filed, and NIH employees found themselves whipsawed between administration policies and court orders.

On Jan. 29, Tabak wrote a note to colleagues asking them to prepare a summary of activities related to the executive orders on diversity and on sex as a biological variable, as well as efforts to bring them into compliance.

Did this mean a ban on trials that compared how different groups reacted to experimental drugs?

Meanwhile a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze NIH funding. But they didn’t.

Then came the biggest blow yet: Late that afternoon, NIH officials were caught off guard by a request from HHS chief of staff Heather Flick Melanson and principal deputy chief of staff Stefanie Spear to post a document immediately.

HHS declared that henceforth NIH would cap at 15 percent the indirect cost rates, or “overhead,” in funding it sends to research institutions. As NIH officials read the notice, they realized it was a seismic shift in policy that would threaten the foundation of biomedical research in the United States.

Reforms to the indirect-costs policy had been debated over the years. There had long been an argument that the cost of helping universities and medical centers pay for “facilities and administrative costs” had gotten out of hand. Indirect rates were sometimes 50 percent or higher, meaning that a research grant supporting a $100,000 scientific project would come with another $50,000 in indirect funding.

The notice made several references to an analysis from a Heritage Foundation white paper, titled “Indirect Costs: How Taxpayers Subsidize University Nonsense.”

As NIH officials worked to post the notice, HHS officials grew impatient with every passing minute. Hurry up, they demanded, according to multiple officials familiar with the events. The conflict was first reported by the Atlantic.

“We [NIH] had nothing to do with it, and this was a really totally inappropriate thing that was foisted upon us with no warning,” one official with knowledge of the notice said. A change like this typically would have been carefully reviewed for weeks before it was posted.

It went live on the NIH website in about an hour.

Many universities responded that they would not be able to cover the cost of hosting major scientific research or experiments with only 15% of the overhead covered.

The cap of 15 percent on indirect costs was temporarily halted by a court as well.

An internal memo that same day from the office of general counsel… stated, in bold font: “All payments that are due under existing grants and contracts should be un-paused immediately.”

But a day later, nothing had changed.
“We have (like you all) been struggling with specific issues that would benefit from discussion on Thursday — even if we don’t have firm guidance,” NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo wrote in an email to other leaders on Feb. 11. Among the issues: “When can we anticipate being able to issue awards?”

In a leadership meeting that week, officials discussed an alarming new legal concern: The indirect-costs cap NIH had posted on Friday could put staff at risk of violating the Antideficiency Act, according to multiple people present for the discussion. The law prohibits federal agencies from spending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation.

Leaders were concerned that individual grant managers could face criminal charges for doing their jobs…

With veteran leaders… gone, NIH scientists braced for mass firings as the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Agency implemented a plan to terminate probationary employees across the government. On Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, more than a thousand such employees at NIH awaited their fates. Some received a chilling email:
“You have been identified as an employee on a probationary period and may receive a letter today from HHS informing you that you will be terminated and/or placed on admin leave.”

The wait proved excruciating. The termination notices didn’t arrive until the weekend.

The agency reeled from losing nearly 1,200 NIH staff in the government-wide firing of probationary workers. So rattled were employees that many believed a rumor that all the institute’s leaders were about to be fired, a total decapitation of NIH bosses. That didn’t happen….

Thousands of grant proposals from outside scientists, often representing months of work, were stuck in the pipeline — essentially freezing the future of American science. Through an arcane bureaucratic pause, dozens of meetings that are key parts of the review process were canceled that week.

Then came the Musk email, asking people to list five things they did last week. Then came the email telling people to ignore the previous email. Then came the same Musk email: respond or quit.

Dr. Francis S. Collins, the eminent former director of NIH, announced that he was resigning from the laboratory where he had worked for almost four years.

The Boston Globe reported that NIH had abruptly terminated grants at mid-point in Massachusetts and across the country.

In an unprecedented move, the National Institutes of Health is abruptly terminating millions of dollars in research awards to scientists in Massachusetts and around the country, citing the Trump administration’s new restrictions on funding anything related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, transgender issues, or research that could potentially benefit universities in China.

The sweeping actions would appear to violate court rulings from federal judges in Rhode Islandand Washington, D.C., that block the Trump administration from freezing or ending billions of dollars in government spending, said David Super, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown Law, who reviewed some of the termination letters at the Globe’s request.

In a related case brought by an association of higher education officials that specifically challenged Trump’s various DEI executive orders, a federal judge in Maryland twice over the past month blocked the administration from terminating funding, saying in his most recent decision the restrictions “punish, or threaten to punish, individuals and institutions based on the content of their speech, and in doing so they specifically target viewpoints the government seems to disfavor.”

Super added that the termination letters are also “unlawful” because the NIH is imposing conditions on funding that did not exist at the time the grants were awarded.

Chaos? Disruption?

It’s fair to say that the masterminds behind this fiasco are either stupid or malevolent or both.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Disruption, Health, Ignorance, Science, Stupid

Defense Department Begins Purge of DEI Images, Including Airplane That Dropped First Atomic Bomb

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2025 //
6

Under the direct command of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Defense Department is purging thousands of images that violate Trump’s order to remove any reference to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Trump wants to eliminate anything that references LGBT issues, as well as images that call attention to women or African Americans.

Why ban any images if the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? It’s not because of moral revulsion or shame but because of the airplane’s offensive name: Ebola Gay. Can’t say “gay,” even it refers to an airplane. Open the link to see the censored images. Deleting them is the height of stupidity.

The AP reported:

WASHINGTON (AP) — References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.

The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.

The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, armorers and other ground personnel undergo training at Chanute Field, Ill., during World War II (U.S. Air Force via AP)

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, armorers and other ground personnel undergo training at Chanute Field, Ill., during World War II (U.S. Air Force via AP)

But a review of the database also underscores the confusion that has swirled among agencies about what to remove following Trump’s order.

Aircraft and fish projects are flagged

In some cases, photos seemed to be flagged for removal simply because their file included the word ”gay,” including service members with that last name and an image of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. 

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Krysteena Scales, a 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron Flying Crew Chief, performs pre-flight checks before departing on a mission in a C-17 Globemaster III, March 19, 2009, at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia. (Senior Airman Andrew Satran/U.S. Air Force via AP)

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Krysteena Scales, a 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron Flying Crew Chief, performs pre-flight checks before departing on a mission in a C-17 Globemaster III, March 19, 2009, at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia. (Senior Airman Andrew Satran/U.S. Air Force via AP)Read More

Several photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in California were marked for deletion, apparently because a local engineer in the photo had the last name Gay. And a photo of Army Corps biologists was on the list, seemingly because it mentioned they were recording data about fish — including their weight, size, hatchery and gender.

In addition, some photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit, were listed on the database, but those may likely be protected due to historical content.

The Air Force briefly removed new recruit training courses that included videos of the Tuskegee Airmen soon after Trump’s order. That drew the White House’s ire over “malicious compliance,” and the Air Force quickly reversed the removal.

Many of the images listed in the database already have been removed. Others were still visible Thursday, and it’s not clear if they will be taken down at some point or be allowed to stay, including images with historical significance such as those of the Tuskegee Airmen.

This image provided by the U.S. Marine Corps shows World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves during World War II. (U.S. Marine Corps via AP)

This image provided by the U.S. Marine Corps shows World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves during World War II. (U.S. Marine Corps via AP)

Asked about the database, Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot said in a statement, “We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”

He noted that Hegseth has declared that “DEI is dead” and that efforts to put one group ahead of another through DEI programs erodes camaraderie and threatens mission execution. 

Some images aren’t gone

In some cases, the removal was partial. The main page in a post titled “Women’s History Month: All-female crew supports warfighters” was removed. But at least one of the photos in that collection about an all-female C-17 crew could still be accessed. A shot from the Army Corps of Engineers titled “Engineering pioneer remembered during Black History Month” was deleted.

Other photos flagged in the database but still visible Thursday included images of the World War II Women Air Service Pilots and one of U.S. Air Force Col. Jeannie Leavitt, the country’s first female fighter pilot. 

Also still visible was an image of then-Pfc. Christina Fuentes Montenegro becoming one of the first three women to graduate from the Marine Corps’ Infantry Training Battalion and an image of Marine Corps World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves. 

It was unclear why some other images were removed, such as a Marine Corps photo titled “Deadlift contenders raise the bar pound by pound” or a National Guard website image called “Minnesota brothers reunite in Kuwait.” 

Why the database?

The database of the 26,000 images was created to conform with federal archival laws, so if the services are queried in the future, they can show how they are complying with the law, the U.S. official said. But it may be difficult to ensure the content was archived because the responsibility to ensure each image was preserved was the responsibility of each individual unit.

This whole project is stupid.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Extremism, Stupid

Trump’s List of Banned Words: It’s Worse Than You Thought!

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2025 //
52

Reporters at The New York Times pored through 5,000 pages from various federal agencies and found that the following words had been removed from government websites and publications. As the article points out, Trump and Musk frequently claim to be champions of “free speech,” but they have no problem censoring words and ideas that offend them.

Karen Yourish, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Isaac White andd Lazaro Gamio wrote:

As President Trump seeks to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives, agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, according to a compilation of government documents.

  • accessible
  • activism
  • activists
  • advocacy
  • advocate
  • advocates
  • affirming care
  • all-inclusive
  • allyship
  • anti-racism
  • antiracist
  • assigned at birth
  • assigned female at birth
  • assigned male at birth
  • at risk
  • barrier
  • barriers
  • belong
  • bias
  • biased
  • biased toward
  • biases
  • biases towards
  • biologically female
  • biologically male
  • BIPOC
  • Black
  • breastfeed + people
  • breastfeed + person
  • chestfeed + people
  • chestfeed + person
  • clean energy
  • climate crisis
  • climate science
  • commercial sex worker
  • community diversity
  • community equity
  • confirmation bias
  • cultural competence
  • cultural differences
  • cultural heritage
  • cultural sensitivity
  • culturally appropriate
  • culturally responsive
  • DEI
  • DEIA
  • DEIAB
  • DEIJ
  • disabilities
  • disability
  • discriminated
  • discrimination
  • discriminatory
  • disparity
  • diverse
  • diverse backgrounds
  • diverse communities
  • diverse community
  • diverse group
  • diverse groups
  • diversified
  • diversify
  • diversifying
  • diversity
  • enhance the diversity
  • enhancing diversity
  • environmental quality
  • equal opportunity
  • equality
  • equitable
  • equitableness
  • equity
  • ethnicity
  • excluded
  • exclusion
  • expression
  • female
  • females
  • feminism
  • fostering inclusivity
  • GBV
  • gender
  • gender based
  • gender based violence
  • gender diversity
  • gender identity
  • gender ideology
  • gender-affirming care
  • genders
  • Gulf of Mexico
  • hate speech
  • health disparity
  • health equity
  • hispanic minority
  • historically
  • identity
  • immigrants
  • implicit bias
  • implicit biases
  • inclusion
  • inclusive
  • inclusive leadership
  • inclusiveness
  • inclusivity
  • increase diversity
  • increase the diversity
  • indigenous community
  • inequalities
  • inequality
  • inequitable
  • inequities
  • inequity
  • injustice
  • institutional
  • intersectional
  • intersectionality
  • key groups
  • key people
  • key populations
  • Latinx
  • LGBT
  • LGBTQ
  • marginalize
  • marginalized
  • men who have sex with men
  • mental health
  • minorities
  • minority
  • most risk
  • MSM
  • multicultural
  • Mx
  • Native American
  • non-binary
  • nonbinary
  • oppression
  • oppression
  • oppressive
  • orientation
  • people + uterus
  • people-centered care
  • person-centered
  • person-centered care
  • polarization
  • political
  • pollution
  • pregnant people
  • pregnant person
  • pregnant persons
  • prejudice
  • privilege
  • privileges
  • promote diversity
  • promoting diversity
  • pronoun
  • pronouns
  • prostitute
  • race
  • race and ethnicity
  • racial
  • racial diversity
  • racial identity
  • racial inequality
  • racial justice
  • racially
  • racism
  • segregation
  • sense of belonging
  • sex
  • sexual preferences
  • sexuality
  • social justice
  • sociocultural
  • socioeconomic
  • status
  • stereotype
  • stereotypes
  • systemic
  • systemically
  • they/them
  • trans
  • transgender
  • transsexual
  • trauma
  • traumatic
  • tribal
  • unconscious bias
  • underappreciated
  • underprivileged
  • underrepresentation
  • underrepresented
  • underserved
  • undervalued
  • victim
  • victims
  • vulnerable populations
  • women
  • women and underrepresented
  • Notes: Some terms listed with a plus sign represent combinations of words that, when used together, acknowledge transgender people, which is not in keeping with the current federal government’s position that there are only two, immutable sexes. Any term collected above was included on at least one agency’s list, which does not necessarily imply that other agencies are also discouraged from using it.
  • The above terms appeared in government memos, in official and unofficial agency guidance and in other documents viewed by The New York Times. Some ordered the removal of these words from public-facing websites, or ordered the elimination of other materials (including school curricula) in which they might be included.

  • In other cases, federal agency managers advised caution in the terms’ usage without instituting an outright ban. Additionally, the presence of some terms was used to automatically flag for review some grant proposals and contracts that could conflict with Mr. Trump’s executive orders.

  • The list is most likely incomplete. More agency memos may exist than those seen by New York Times reporters, and some directives are vague or suggest what language might be impermissible without flatly stating it.

  • All presidential administrations change the language used in official communications to reflect their own policies. It is within their prerogative, as are amendments to or the removal of web pages, which The Times has found has already happened thousands of times in this administration.

  • Still, the words and phrases listed here represent a marked — and remarkable — shift in the corpus of language being used both in the federal government’s corridors of power and among its rank and file. They are an unmistakable reflection of this administration’s priorities.

  • For example, the Trump administration has frequently framed diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as being inherently at odds with what it has identified as “merit,” and it has argued that these initiatives have resulted in the elevation of unqualified or undeserving people. That rhetorical strategy — with its baked-in assumption of a lack of capacity in people of color, women, the disabled and other marginalized groups — has been criticized as discriminatory.

Haha. That “rhetorical strategy,” assuming that those groups are incompetent has not only been “criticized as discriminatory.” IT IS DISCRIMINATORY!

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Gender, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Inequality, Inequity, Racism, Stupid

Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Cozies Up to Putin, Allows Musk to Take Over Role of Congress

By dianeravitch
March 7, 2025 //
13

Heather Cox Richardson sums up the dizzying events of the past few days. It’s hard to keep track of the array of court orders, overturned, affirmed, or Elon Musk emails, warning government employees to answer or resign, or tariffs, announced, then paused, then announced, then paused again. Is Trump’s intent to dazzle us with nonstop dung?

Trump has disrupted the Western alliance, having made common cause with Putin in his unprovoked and brutal war on Ukraine. Trump is destabilizing not only our alliances with other nations but our government as well. He has approved of draconian cuts to every department, ordered by Elon Musk or his team of kids. The determination to cut 80,000 jobs at the Veterans Administration, most held by veterans, may be a wake-up call for Republicans.

This country is in desperate trouble. When will Republicans in Congress stand up for the Constitutionand stop the madness?

She writes:

This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”

“This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”

The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world. Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti reported in the New York Times today that senior officials in the State Department are making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe, including consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal, as well as a consulate in Brazil and another in Turkey.

In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politicothat President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.

Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.

As the U.S. retreats from its engagement with the world, China has been working to forge greater ties. China now has more global diplomatic posts than the U.S. and plays a stronger role in international organizations. Already in 2025, about 700 employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned from the State Department, a number that normally would reflect a year’s resignations.

Shutting embassies will hamper not just the process of fostering goodwill, but also U.S. intelligence, as embassies house officers who monitor terrorism, infectious disease, trade, commerce, militaries, and government, including those from the intelligence community. U.S. intelligence has always been formidable, but the administration appears to be weakening it.

As predicted, Trump’s turn of the U.S. toward Russia also means that allies are concerned he or members of his administration will share classified intelligence with Russia, thus exposing the identities of their operatives. They are considering new protocols for sharing information with the United States. The Five Eyes alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S. has been formidable since World War II and has been key to countering first the Soviet Union and then Russia. Allied governments are now considering withholding information about sources or analyses from the U.S.

Their concern is likely heightened by the return to Trump’s personal possession of the boxes of documents containing classified information the FBI recovered in August 2022 from Mar-a-Lago. Trump took those boxes back from the Department of Justice and flew them back to Mar-a-Lago on February 28.

A CBS News/YouGov poll from February 26–28 showed that only 4% of the American people sided with Russia in its ongoing war with Ukraine.

The unpopularity of the new administration’s policies is starting to show. National Republican Congressional Committee chair Richard Hudson (R-NC) told House Republicans on Tuesday to stop holding town halls after several such events have turned raucous as attendees complained about the course of the Trump administration. Trump has blamed paid “troublemakers” for the agitation, and claimed the disruptions are part of the Democrats’ “game.” “[B]ut just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION,” he posted on social media, “it’s not going to work for them!”

More Americans voted for someone other than Trump than voted for him.

Even aside from the angry protests, DOGE is running into trouble. In his speech before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Trump referred to DOGE and said it “is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight.” In a filing in a lawsuit against DOGE and Musk, the White House declared that Musk is neither in charge of DOGE nor an employee of it. When pressed, the White House claimed on February 26 that the acting administrator of DOGE is staffer Amy Gleason. Immediately after Trump’s statement, the plaintiffs in that case asked permission to add Trump’s statement to their lawsuit.

Musk has claimed to have found billions of dollars of waste or fraud in the government, and Trump and the White House have touted those statements. But their claims to have found massive savings have been full of errors, and most of their claims have been disproved. DOGE has already had to retract five of its seven biggest claims. As for “savings,” the government spent about $710 billion in the first month of Trump’s term, compared with about $630 billion during the same timeframe last year.

Instead of showing great savings, DOGE’s claims reveal just how poorly Musk and his team understand the work of the federal government. After forcing employees out of their positions, they have had to hire back individuals who are, in fact, crucial to the nation, including the people guarding the U.S. nuclear stockpile. In his Tuesday speech, Trump claimed that the DOGE team had found “$8 million for making mice transgender,” and added: “This is real.”

Except it’s not. The mice in question were not “transgender”; they were “transgenic,” which means they are genetically altered for use in scientific experiments to learn more about human health. For comparison, S.V. Date noted in HuffPost that in just his first month in office, Trump spent about $10.7 million in taxpayer money playing golf.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out today that people reporting on the individual cuts to U.S. scientific and health-related grants are missing the larger picture: “DOGE and Donald Trump are trying to shut down advanced medical research, especially cancer research, in the United States…. They’re shutting down medicine/disease research in the federal government and the government-run and funded ecosystem of funding for most research throughout the United States. It’s not hyperbole. That’s happening.”

Republicans are starting to express some concern about Musk and DOGE. As soon as Trump took office, Musk and his DOGE team took over the Office of Personnel Management, and by February 14 they had begun a massive purge of federal workers. As protests of the cuts began, Trump urged Musk on February 22 to be “more aggressive” in cutting the government, prompting Musk to demand that all federal employees explain what they had accomplished in the past week under threat of firing. That request sparked a struggle in the executive branch as cabinet officers told the employees in their departments to ignore Musk. Then, on February 27, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that the firings were likely illegal and temporarily halted them.

On Tuesday, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) weighed in on the conflict when he told CNN that the power to hire and fire employees properly belongs to Cabinet secretaries.

Yesterday, Musk met with Republican— but no Democratic— members of Congress. Senators reportedly asked Musk—an unelected bureaucrat whose actions are likely illegal—to tell them more about what’s going on. According to Liz Goodwin, Marianna Sotomayor, and Theodoric Meyer of the Washington Post, Musk gave some of the senators his phone number and said he wanted to set up a direct line for them when they have questions, allowing them to get a near-instant response to their concerns.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters that Musk told the senators he would “create a system where members of Congress can call some central group” to get cuts they dislike reversed.

This whole exchange is bonkers. The Constitution gives Congress alone the power to make appropriations and pass the laws that decide how money is spent. Josh Marshall asks: “How on earth are we in this position where members of Congress, the ones who write the budget, appropriate and assign the money, now have to go hat in hand to beg for changes or even information from the guy who actually seems to be running the government?”

Later, Musk met with House Republicans and offered to set up a similar way for the members of the House Oversight DOGE Subcommittee to reach him. When representatives complained about the random cuts that were so upsetting constituents. Musk defended DOGE’s mistakes by saying that he “can’t bat a thousand all the time.”

This morning, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. ruled in favor of a group of state attorneys general from 22 Democratic states and the District of Columbia, saying that Trump does not have the authority to freeze funding appropriated by Congress. McConnell wrote that the spending freeze “fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.” As Joyce White Vance explained in Civil Discourse, McConnell issued a preliminary injunction that will stay in place until the case, called New York v. Trump, works its way through the courts. The injunction applies only in the states that sued, though, leaving Republican-dominated states out in the cold.

Today, Trump convened his cabinet and, with Musk present, told the secretaries that they, and not Musk, are in charge of their departments. Dasha Burns and Kyle Cheney of Politicoreported that Trump told the secretaries that Musk only has the power to make recommendations, not to make staffing or policy decisions.

Trump is also apparently feeling pressure over his tariffs of 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on imports from China that went into effect on Tuesday, which economists warned would create inflation and cut economic growth. Today, Trump first said he would exempt car and truck parts from the tariffs, then expanded exemptions to include goods covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) Trump signed in his first term. Administration officials say other tariffs will go into effect at different times in the future.

The stock market has dropped dramatically over the past three days owing to both the tariffs and the uncertainty over their implementation. But Trump denied his abrupt change had anything to do with the stock market.

“I’m not even looking at the market,” Trump said, “because long term, the United States will be very strong with what’s happening.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Economy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Funding, Health, History, Stupid, Trump

If You See DEI, Report it to the U.S. Department of Education!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2025 //
4

The U.S. Department of Education has followed civil rights law since the Department was created in 1979 and began operating in 1980. Its Office for Civil Rights investigates complaints of discrimination against students based on their race, gender, ethnic origin, or disability status.

The Trump administration has flipped the meaning of discrimination and now invites the public to report any examples of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” that they suspect or see. Is it Orwellian? Yes. What was once considered laudable is now labeled as dangerous.

Educators are expected to avoid acknowledging the existence and reality of diversity. They are expected to oppose “equity,” which means that everyone is treated fairly. They must stand up against “inclusion,” that is, welcoming all into activities.

Here is their “tip line,” which you are supposed to call.

From: U.S. Department of Education <ed.gov@info.ed.gov>

 

U.S. Department of Education Launches “End DEI” Portal

U.S. Department of Education Launches “End DEI” Portal

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Education launched EndDEI.Ed.Gov, a public portal for parents, students, teachers, and the broader community to submit reports of discrimination based on race or sex in publicly-funded K-12 schools.

The secure portal allows parents to provide an email address, the name of the student’s school or school district, and details of the concerning practices. The Department of Education will use submissions as a guide to identify potential areas for investigation. 

“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing, and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies—but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” said Tiffany Justice, Co-Founder of Moms for Liberty. “Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools. This webpage demonstrates that President Trump’s Department of Education is putting power back in the hands of parents.”

The Office of Communications and Outreach works with national, state, and local educational agencies, programs, and organizations to empower parents and families with information and resources to help them be full partners in their child’s programmatic, education and academic progress.

Contributors: OCO Editorial Team.

Note: This document contains information about and from public and private entities and organizations for the reader’s information. Inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any entity or organization or the products or services offered, or views expressed. This publication also contains hyperlinks and URLs created and maintained by outside organizations. They are provided for the reader’s convenience; however, the Department is not responsible for the accuracy of this information.

If you’re having trouble reading this message, click here

Categories Censorship, Equity, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, Stupid, U.S. Department of Education

Thom Hartmann: Does Putin Own Trump?

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2025 //
22

Thom Hartmann sees how obsequious Trump is towards Putin and wonders: “Does Putin own Trump”?

Given that he has just given Putin everything he wanted in Ukraine, it’s a natural question.

Please open the link.

Categories Corruption, Education Reform, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Fraud, International, Stupid, Trump

Mercedes Schneider: In Louisiana, Getting Vaccinated is Now a “Personal Choice”

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2025 //
10

Mercedes Schneider writes about a remarkable decision by Louisiana’s top health official.

He has decided that getting vaccinated should be a personal decision, not a mandate that applies to everyone. It’s not possible to stop the spread of a highly contagious disease if vaccination is optional.

Please open the link to read the order of the Louisiana Surgeon General.

A lot of people, mainly children, will get seriously ill, and some will die, because of this idiocy.

Schneider writes:

If it were only that easy:

Do you want to contract polio? Measles? Smallpox? 

No?

Well, now it is only a matter of personal choice: Just say you don’t want a disease, and you will not catch a disease.

Of course, that’s not how it works. If it did– if one’s “personal choice” could prevent disease, especially disease epidemic– then count me in. I really don’t care for shots, anyway.

But you know what I like less that those shots?

The diseases themselves.

When I enrolled in my masters program at West Georgia in 1995, I received a letter stating that I needed to have a booster of the MMR (measles mumps rubella) vaccination since my first shot in that two-shot series occured before I was a year old (I was 10 months old at the time).

So, I went to the health clinic where I received my childhood vaccinations, and I received the booster.

While I was there, the nurse asked if I wanted to also have a tetanus shot, as I had not had one for 10 years.

I remember that shot making my arm ache. I replied, “I hate that shot.”

Without missing a beat, and dryly-stated, she responded, “You would like lockjaw even worse.”

Indeed I would. And so, I also received a tetanus booster.

If you want the benefit of disease protection without incurring the full wrath of a disease, the prophylactic properties of unvaccinated personal choice fall far short.

Nevertheless, in the name of “personal choice,” the Louisiana surgeon general has decided that the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) will no longer promote vaccinations, as Contagion Live reports on February 16, 2025:

The Louisiana Surgeon General, Ralph Abraham, MD, is advocating for autonomy over one’s body and that the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) will no longer be publicly promoting vaccination, but rather saying it is a discussion between people and their providers. Abraham told the LDH staff to not encourage vaccines, and LDH will no longer have vaccination events, according to a memo sent late last week (see below).

“The State of Louisiana and LDH have historically promoted vaccines for vaccine preventable illnesses through our parish health units (PHUs), community health fairs, partnerships and media campaigns. While we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination,” Abraham wrote in the memo.

So, no campaign to stop outbreaks from happening, but Louisiana will promote vaccination once there is an outbreak.

If I have an outbreak of measles, there is no longer a vaccination option for me to prevent it. I just need to plug it out. By the way, at 57 years old, I now fall into the category of people likely to experience complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis (I.e;. brain swelling, whereby “most people require hospitalization so they can receive intensive treatment, including life support.”)

However, I am vaccinated against measles, so the odds are pretty slim (3 in 100).

Speaking of measles, the personal choice prophylactic is currently falling short in neighboring Texas, where NBC News reportsthat by February 14, 2025, 49 cases had been confirmed in rural West Texas:

On Friday, the number of confirmed cases rose to 49, up from 24 earlier in the week, the state health department said. The majority of those cases are in Gaines County, which borders New Mexico.

Most cases are in school-age kids, and 13 have been hospitalized. All are unvaccinated against measles, which is one of the most contagious viruses in the world.

The latest measles case count likely represents a fraction of the true number of infections. Health officials — who are scrambling to get a handle on the vaccine-preventable outbreak — suspect 200 to 300 people in West Texas are infected but untested, and therefore not part of the state’s official tally so far.

The fast-moving outbreak comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has long sown distrust about childhood vaccines, and in particular, the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, falsely linking it to autism.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can only send in its experts to assist if the state requests help. So far, Texas has not done so, the CDC said.

The CDC has sent approximately 2,000 doses of the MMR vaccine to Texas health officials at their request. However, most doses so far are being accepted by partially vaccinated kids to boost their immunity, rather than the unvaccinated.

Without widespread vaccination, experts say, the outbreak could go on for months.

Seems like a good time to promote measles vaccination in Louisiana.

Nah. Let’s just wait until the outbreak finds its way to East Texas then crosses the state line.

Categories Accountability, Ethics, Extremism, Health, Louisiana, Science, Stupid
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