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Glenn Kessler: Trump Is the Master of Bullshit

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2025 //
9

I seldom recommend a blog that requires payment. Here is an exception: Glenn Kessler. He served for many years as the Fact Checker for The Washington Post. He is remarkably good as a fact checker. After many years, he left The Post and started his own blog, as so many other journalists have done. He is a member of the International Society of Factcheckers. He relies on facts, not opinion. Consider subscribing. He has my stamp of approval.

Kessler recently started a series about Trump’s long history of bullshitting. As he explains here, there is a difference between lying and bullshit.

Kessler writes:

This is the first in a series of Substack essays looking at Trump’s bullshit. Future installments will be available to paid subscribers.

Twenty years ago this month, the late Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt published his seminal work On Bullshit, which argued that bullshit was worse than lying. His point was that a liar knows the truth and deliberately tries to hide or distort it, while a bullshitter doesn’t care about the truth at all — they care only about the impression they make.

When Donald Trump emerged on the political stage in 2015, Frankfurt wrote in Time magazine that Trump was the epitome of the bullshit artist he had identified a decade earlier.

“Trump freely offers extravagant claims about his own talents and accomplishments,” Frankfurt said. “He maintains, for example, that he has the greatest memory in the world. This is farcically unalloyed bullshit.”

When I managed The Fact Checker for The Washington Post, readers constantly asked: Why rely only on Pinocchio ratings? Why don’t you call Trump a liar?

I thought “liar” was a conversation stopper — it would be my judgment that he lied. With Trump, it’s hard to tell. He might actually believe some of the stuff he says, or has convinced himself it’s true.

The one time I clearly labeled a lie was when I had convincing evidence. Trump had insisted he knew nothing about hush-money payments to silence alleged paramours before he was elected president. Then his former attorney released a recording of Trump discussing an arrangement with the National Enquirer to pay $150,000 to one woman. Trump was caught on tape, so there was no doubt Trump had lied.

But, following Frankfurt’s theory, focusing only on Trump’s lies obscures a deeper danger to American society. As a bullshitter, Trump doesn’t care whether what he says reflects reality. He says whatever serves his momentary purpose, often contradicting himself without hesitation or shame. This indifference to truth makes Trump’s bullshit more insidious than lies.

Trump is the dominant political figure of the past decade — perhaps of our lifetimes. Tens of millions of Americans support his policies, or at least disdain the policies of his Democratic opponents. In the last election, he narrowly won both the Electoral College and the popular vote. He views those victories as a mandate for a reordering of the federal government, with an unchallenged executive wielding vast power.

The danger is that Trump’s bullshit has become woven into the fabric of American life. Many citizens now struggle to discern reality from spin. Was January 6 a violent attack on democracy — or a peaceful protest demonized by the media? Was Joe Biden legitimately elected — or did Democrats steal the presidency in the greatest fraud in U.S. history?

Trump bullshits to construct an alternative reality — one that almost half the country has accepted as fact. He has been aided by the balkanization of American society, where people live in blue or red zones and often absorb information that confirms what they already believe. Social media, unfiltered and often partisan, has replaced legacy media as a source of information.

Trump’s handling of the Covid pandemic in his first term was disastrous, with the exception of producing vaccines in record time. Yet Americans seemed to erase that period from memory. Thanks to Trump’s relentless bullshit during his first term about having created the “greatest economy in history” — in reality, it was on the brink of recession when the pandemic struck — many Americans retained halcyon memories of Trump’s economic policies, especially once inflation soared in the pandemic’s aftermath.

I often wondered how, if Trump had been re-elected in 2020, he would have explained the runaway inflation. I can only guess, but in any case, he would have spouted bullshit. Most economists agree Biden’s policies added some inflationary pressures on the margins, but pandemic-related supply-chain issues were mostly responsible.

In his second term, Trump has weaponized his bullshit. He is surrounded by lackeys who echo and defend his untruths.

No accurate damage estimate was available when Trump in June declared Iranian nuclear weapons sites had been obliterated. So when he made the statement he was bullshitting. In previous administrations, the results of such an attack might have received positive spin from unnamed officials, but since Trump is never wrong, once he puts it in his own words, the rest of government must twist its findings to conform with Trump’s claim.

Sometimes Trump gets lucky, and his bullshit turns out to be true. But more often than not, he just pretends he was right even when he was wrong.

Trump a few weeks ago fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because job-growth estimates were revised downward — a common occurrence, especially if an economy is stumbling. Trump claimed the BLS director had manipulated the figures because she was a Biden appointee. That was bullshit. The BLS director cannot manipulate the job numbers, which are derived from surveys conducted by professionals many rungs below in the Labor Department. Yet Trump’s bullshit now threatens to erode faith in the accuracy of federal data.

This week provided another example. Trump, desperate to win a Nobel Peace Prize ever since Barack Obama did, keeps claiming he ended six wars in six months. This is, of course, exaggerated, as numerous fact checks have documented. But Trump took it a step further when Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders visited the Oval Office and Trump explained to reporters why he had dropped his demand for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.

“If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn’t do any ceasefires,” Trump said.

That was bullshit. At least three of the conflicts on Trump’s “six wars” list were halted with ceasefires. But Trump needed to explain why he folded on his demand for an immediate ceasefire — embraced by Ukraine — in the face of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s charm offensive in Alaska last week.

So he just invented bullshit on the spot. The consequence is that Russia feels no pressure to end the war and can continue shelling Ukrainian cities. More people will die.

As part of this Substack, I intend to write a series of essays that examine specific examples of Trump’s bullshit and the consequences. I will likely start with Trump’s claim that he was a self-made business success — so central to the myth that carried him into office — but I also welcome suggestions from readers. Future posts on this theme will be limited to paid subscribers, so please consider signing up. 

Trump’s central tactic is saturation — flood the zone with bullshit until the truth becomes impossible to locate. I intend to create a record of what happened before it’s lost in a storm of revisionism and propaganda.

To open the next Glenn Kessler fact-checks, become a subscriber.

Categories Accountability, Character, Elections, Ethics, Lies, Trump

The Atlantic: Other World Leaders Laugh at Trump

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2025 //
12

Tom Nichols of The Atlantic published an article that explained why Trump is a laughing stock among other world leaders. The recent meeting of the leaders of China, Russia, North Korea, and India was convened to celebrate the victory over Japan in 1945. Trump was not invited. He proceeded to write whiny complaints on social media about being left out.

They laugh at him. They saw how Putin played Trump like a violin when they met in Alaska. The meeting was supposedly about Putin agreeing to a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump rolled out a red carpet for Putin. Waited for him, clapped his hands in excitement as Putin approached. At the meeting’s end, Putin spoke first, which is not customary. Then he departed, skipping a lunch that Trump planned in his honor.

Putin made a fool of Trump.

The next night, Russia bombsrded Kyiv with an unprecedented number of drones and missiles, aimed at civilian targets.

Putin and the others know that Pete Hegseth is an empty suit. Trump busies himself redecorating the White House and its grounds. Trump is not a serious man. He can be ignored.

Nichols began:

The leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea are not good men. They preside over brutal autocracies replete with secret police and prison camps. But they are, nevertheless, serious men, and they know an unserious man when they see one. For nearly a decade, they have taken Donald Trump’s measure, and they have clearly reached a conclusion: The president of the United States is not worthy of their respect.

Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing is the most recent evidence that the world’s authoritarians consider Trump a lightweight. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s maximum nepo baby, Kim Jong Un, gathered to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. (Putin’s Belarusian satrap, Alexander Lukashenko, was also on hand.) The American president was not invited: After all, what role did the United States play in defeating Japan and liberating Eurasia? Instead, Trump, much like America itself, was left to watch from the sidelines.

Categories Evil, Extremism, International, Stupid, Trump

Fascism Alert! SCOTUS Allows Trump’s “Roving Patrols” of ICE

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2025 //
18

Is there anything that Trump does that will be found unconstitutional by this supine Supreme Court?

ICE “roving patrols” have stopped and detained people who looked Hispanic, on suspicion that they might be “illegals.” Some were U.S. citizens.

Lower courts said such practices violated the Fourth Amendment.

The Supreme Court’s rightwing majority overruled the lower courts.

CNN reported:

The Supreme Court on Monday backed President Donald Trump’s push to allow immigration enforcement officials to continue what critics describe as “roving patrols” in Southern California that lower courts said likely violated the Fourth Amendment.

The court did not offer an explanation for its decision, which came over a sharp dissent from the three liberal justices.

At issue were a series of incidents in which masked and heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled aside people who identify as Latino – including some US citizens – around Los Angeles to interrogate them about their immigration status. Lower courts found that ICE likely had not established the “reasonable suspicion” required to justify those stops.

The decision deals with seven counties in Southern California, but it has landed during a broader crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration – and officials are likely to read it as a tacit approval of similar practices elsewhere.

A US District Court in July ordered the Department of Homeland Security to discontinue the practice if the stops were based largely on a person’s apparent ethnicity, language or their presence at a particular location, such as a farm or bus stop. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld that decision, which applied only to seven California counties.

But the Supreme Court disagreed with that approach. 

The majority claim to be “originalists” who adhere to the letter of the Constitution and its original meaning.

But they are originalists only when it suits their political goals.

The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable search and seizure. It reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

To stop and search and seize people because they look Hispanic or they are not white is the very definition of “unreasonable search and seizure.”

Shame on the six members of the U.S. Supreme Court who joined this egregiously bad opinion.

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

The Courts Are Striking Down Trump’s Illegal Orders; What Will the Supreme Court Do?

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2025 //
2

Jay Kuo writes a delightful blog called The Status Kuo. He is a lawyer with a sense of humor, and he writes clearly for the public, not for other lawyers.

This post is important because Kuo shows that the courts are blocking Trump’s overreach and cautions us not to assume that the Supreme Court will act as Trump’s echo chamber.

He writes:

Trump’s losses in the federal courts continue to pile up, and this week saw a number of critical rulings go against him. Judges from D.C. to Texas to California rejected the Trump regime’s illegal overreach on tariffs, deportations, military law enforcement and even his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

Let’s do a legal lightning round to summarize these rulings, any one of which frankly is important enough to have warranted its own stand alone analysis. Today I’ll cover

  1. A major ruling from the Federal Circuit invalidating most of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs;
  2. A long weekend emergency ruling stopping planeloads of unaccompanied children from being deported to Guatemala;
  3. Trump’s big loss after a bench trial in California over his unlawful use of federal troops in that state; and
  4. The Fifth Circuit smackdown of Trump’s invocation of the “Alien Enemies Act” to justify summary deportation of alleged gang members.

Make no mistake: These are big losses that carry major implications for Trump’s plans to isolate the U.S., impose a police state, and conduct mass detentions and deportations.

And if you’re now thinking to yourself, “What does it matter, the Supreme Court will reverse these?” or “Great, but Trump will just disobey the orders,” I want to hit pause and do a reality check. As I’ll explain toward the end of this piece, these arguments, while common and understandable, simply don’t match the facts on the ground….

At this point, Kuo discusses each of the above decisions. You should subscribe to read these analyses.

But these rulings don’t matter! SCOTUS will overrule! Trump will defy!

There’s an understandable tendency to hear about a big court victory for the good guys but then cynically dismiss it, claiming either that the Supreme Court will overturn it, or that the Trump White House will simply ignore the courts’s orders.

I want to encourage readers to not fall into this trap. True, the Supreme Court has intervened in a few cases to lift a few injunctions imposed by lower courts, and that admittedly has been awful to see. But it hasn’t ruled substantively on much of anything yet. 

And that has allowed court victories by the good guys to produce some real progress.

For example, the Blue State Attorneys General group has been successful at using lawsuits to claw back huge sums impounded by the White House. This has occurred even while the red states, which failed to challenge the illegal withholdings, were left starved of funds. 

In his newsletter today, Robert Hubbell pointed to a chart with data from KFF Health News illustrating how successful lawsuits have spared the blue states from a great deal of the blow to public health infrastructure funding:

This helps show that the Supreme Court hasn’t been able to stop every lawsuit from succeeding. Indeed, many if not most have achieved their goals.

It’s also common to believe that the government is simply refusing to comply with every single court order. This misconception perhaps arose because so much attention was on a pair of lawsuits involving deportations, where the Justice Department and Homeland Security pretty much gave the finger to the courts.

But those are the only instances I’m aware of where court orders have been defied outright. And there are now major consequences for those involved with the plan to show open contempt. Judge Boasberg is now weighing bar disciplinary referrals for the lawyers involved.

In other cases, it is also true that the government has dragged its feet, delayed, deflected, misdirected and sought immediate appellate review of preliminary injunctions. But that is not the same as open defiance. And the courts have gotten much better at holding the government’s feet to the fire, as we just saw with Judge Sooknanan’s order followed by a demand for a series of status updates, all to keep the government on the straight and narrow.

The Department of Justice wants the American public to assume that none of the orders granted by federal judges are being heeded. They want us to believe that they, and not the judiciary, are in control. But this is simply not the case. As we saw this weekend, the Justice Department doesn’t have the appetite for another round of contempt proceedings, and it is even turning planes around when ordered to do so.

Zooming out a bit, we can understand why. The Justice Department is in disarray and demoralized, it has in some instances squandered the crucial “presumption of regularity” that is normally afforded to government functions, and the Trump regime is now losing the lion’s share of the most consequential lower court cases. 

Sure, the Supreme Court may eventually weigh in with a set of terrible decisions. But that won’t stop, and hasn’t stopped, resourceful civil rights lawyers from finding new and novel ways to attack the White House’s policies and orders. For example, when SCOTUS found that litigants could not obtain nationwide injunctions against White House directives, plaintiffs adjusted quickly, moving for class certification so that the nationwide part got built into the definition of the class.

And who knows? Maybe even this SCOTUS majority will draw the line somewhere—perhaps by protecting the bright line independence of the Federal Reserve or by telling Trump he can’t order federal troops anywhere he wants for whatever mission he wants. 

Until then, every win in the lower courts chips away at the MAGA fascist golem, and maybe with enough blows, we can take the entire monstrosity down.

Categories Accountability, Justice, Trump

Former Directors of the CDC: RFK Jr. Endangers Public Health!

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2025 //
0

Nine former directors of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control wrote a joint opinion piece for The New York Times. These are men and women devoted to public health who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations. They agree that what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing to the Department of Health and Human Services is outrageous and dangerous.

They write:

We have each had the honor and privilege of serving as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, either in a permanent or an acting capacity, dating back to 1977. Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the C.D.C., the world’s pre-eminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations — every president from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump — alongside thousands of dedicated staff members who shared our commitment to saving lives and improving health.

What the health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months — culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago — is unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.

Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused onunproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez — which led to the resignations of top C.D.C. officials — adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.

We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America’s health security. Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to health care. Families with low incomes who rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines because of the cost.

This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.

To finish reading the article, open the link.

Categories Budget Cuts, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Health, Ignorance, Insane, Medicine, Trump

Why is Trump Destroying the Foreign Service?

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2025 //
2

Politico posted an article about the demoralization of career foreign service officers. DOGE laid off many of the top diplomats, and everyone who remains is walking on eggshells, unsure if they will be next. It seems that Trump’s version of “America First” is actually “America Only,” and he doesn’t care about our relationships with other nations. In earlier times, he would have been called an isolationist.

Trump treats allies as enemies, but adores Putin, no matter how frequently Putin humiliates him (as he did at their meeting in Alaska, where Putin departed before a luncheon in his honor, as he did when Russian state media published nude photos of Melania before the 2024 election).

Foreign service officers are afraid of saying the wrong thing. They don’t feel free to express dissent or even to communicate, fearing that someone is watching and any disagreement will get them into trouble.

Naval Toosi reported:

President Donald Trump promised to reform American diplomacy. Insiders say he’s breaking it instead, to the point where he’s undermining his own global influence.

Eight months into Trump’s second term, more than half of U.S. ambassadorships, an unusually high amount, are vacant. Most top State Department roles are filled on an acting basis, often by people with little relevant experience. Many U.S. diplomats, especially those overseas, are largely cut out of policy talks while struggling to implement administration orders they say are confusing. Many also are too afraid to speak up because they could be fired or lose a promotion under new rules that measure their “fidelity.” They’ve already seen thousands of their colleagues pushed out and many offices dismantled.

Categories Ethics, Extremism, International, Stupid, Trump

The GOP Death March, Led by RFK Jr.

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2025 //
13

Concerned about RFK Jr.’s assault on vaccines, I called my local CVS pharmacist a few days ago to schedule every vaccine for which I was eligible. I got the flu vaccine and the RSV vaccine.

I asked for the COVID-19 vaccine, but was told that the latest version would not be available until mid-October. I’m in the eligible group (over 65), but no vaccine yet. When I got home, I learned that the vaccine is not available in certain states, including New York. I worry that RFK Jr. may decide to cancel the vaccine altogether.

Wajahat Ali writes on his blog, The Left Hook, about RFK Jr.’s threat to public health:

In today’s Democracy-ish, Danielle and I spend the hour discussing the most dangerous horseman of Trump’s Apocalyptic cult: RFK Jr. 

Oh, you know, the scion of the Kennedy empire who was a heroin addict, suffered from brain worms, ate exotic animals, and was described as a predator by his own cousin.

That RFK Jr., who promotes reckless and dangerous anti-vaxx conspiracies, eugenics, and has no medical background or training. That’s the wealthy, mediocre, white man that Trump has elevated as the director of America’s Health and Human Services.

I mean, what could go wrong? 

Who needs vaccines during COVID or the rise of measles? Who needs Medicaid except 20% of Americans who depend on it for healthcare? Who needs the National Institute of Health or the CDC staffed by competent, qualified professionals who have spent their lives devoted to saving lives?

Not the United States, because we aren’t a bunch of woke, weak pansies who listen to so-called experts, damn it!

Welcome to Trump and MAGA’s pro-death march led, in part, by RFK Jr. and his broligarch friendswho are perfectly fine killing Americans to make a profit and advance their white supremacist agenda. 

We bring all the receipts. It’s depressing, but it’s worth hearing to ensure you stay informed, safe, and protected.

Here’s Danielle’s write-up at DAM DIGEST:

In the United States, public health has long depended on institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). For decades—through Republican and Democratic administrations alike—these agencies functioned under a shared goal: protecting Americans’ health through science, research, and expertise.

But in recent years, that foundation has begun to crack. The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.), an outspoken anti-vaccine activist with no medical training, to lead HHS has brought that crisis into sharp focus. His presence in the nation’s top public health office signals a seismic shift—one where politics trumps science, conspiracy theories replace research, and ideology threatens lives.

The Erosion of Trust in Science

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than one million Americans died, while public health officials faced harassment, death threats, and relentless political attacks. Former CDC Director Anthony Fauci, who spent his career working to save lives, became a target of right-wing media and extremist groups.

Instead of rallying around experts, leaders like Donald Trump and his allies downplayed the severity of the pandemic, promoted misinformation about masks and vaccines, and openly mocked scientists. This politicization of science directly fueled vaccine hesitancy, prolonging the crisis and causing unnecessary deaths.

Now, five years after the peak of the pandemic, the United States faces a resurgence of diseases once thought to be under control—measles, polio, and other preventable illnesses—precisely because vaccination rates have dropped.

RFK Jr.: Conspiracies Over Credentials

RFK Jr.’s position is especially alarming given his history of promoting anti-vaccine propagandaand debunked eugenics myths. He has falsely claimed that autism and other health conditions are caused by vaccines and even suggested that COVID-19 was “targeted to spare Jews and Black people”—a statement widely condemned as antisemitic and racist.

Despite his lack of medical training, Kennedy insists he can “diagnose” children by sight, attributing health challenges to supposed “mitochondrial issues visible in their faces.” Licensed physicians, including those trained at Harvard and Mayo Clinic, have dismissed such claims as pseudoscience.

Yet under the Trump administration, this man now wields control over Medicare, Medicaid, the CDC, NIH, and national vaccine policy—institutions responsible for the health of over 330 million Americans.

The Resignations and Walkouts

The consequences are already unfolding. After Kennedy moved to push out CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez—a Trump appointee who nonetheless refused to abandon science—top scientists and health officials resigned in protest. Dr. Dimitri Daskalakis, a respected infectious disease expert, wrote in his resignation letter that serving under Kennedy was “untenable” because HHS leadership was no longer guided by science.

Soon after, CDC staff staged mass walkouts, warning the public that American lives are being endangered by unqualified leadership. These resignations leave critical gaps at the very moment the nation faces rising COVID variants, climate-driven disease risks, and growing vaccine hesitancy.

Cuts That Will Cost Lives

Beyond personnel, the Trump–Kennedy administration has overseen massive funding cuts:

  • $500 million slashed from vaccine research
  • $1 trillion cut to Medicaid, threatening to shutter rural hospitals and nursing homes
  • Reductions in NIH research funding
  • Cuts to foreign aid and peacekeeping operations, destabilizing global health security

These moves directly undermine America’s preparedness for the next pandemic. As climate change accelerates, experts warn that new infectious diseases are almost inevitable. Yet instead of strengthening systems, leaders are dismantling them.

The Bigger Picture: A Pro-Death Movement

This moment cannot be seen in isolation. It reflects a broader “pro-death” political movement that prizes ideology over evidence, power over public health, and partisan gain over human life. Whether it was Trump pushing “herd immunity” at the expense of vulnerable Americans, or Kennedy advancing conspiracy theories that endanger children, the pattern is clear: science is under attack.

The result? Americans are less safe, less protected, and less prepared for the crises ahead.

Why This Matters Now

The rise of unqualified, conspiracy-driven figures like RFK Jr. at the helm of America’s most critical health institutions is not just political theater—it is a direct threat to public safety. The decisions made today about vaccines, research funding, and disease response will determine whether millions live or die in the years ahead.

Public trust in science and medicine must be restored. That means demanding qualified leaders, protecting the integrity of institutions like the CDC and NIH, and pushing back against those who seek to weaponize public health for political gain.

Because as history has shown—from pandemics to polio eradication—science saves lives. Conspiracies cost them.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Health, Ignorance, Lies, Medicine, Trump

Trump Celebrates Labor Day by Terminating Unions at More Federal Agencies

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2025 //
2

Happy Labor Day!

This is a day to thank working people for their contributions to our society. It’s a day to thank unions for providing a path to the middle class to help those who need pensions, decent wages, and job security.

Trump is celebrating Labor Day by banning unions at several federal agencies.

Government Executive reports:

President Trump on Thursday signed a new executive order targeting unions at more than half a dozen agencies, again under the auspices of national security.

The edict, which was published within minutes of Trump’s proclamation marking Monday’s Labor Day holiday, appends a March edict that seeks to outlaw collective bargaining for two-thirds of the federal workforce, citing a seldom-used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act allowing the president to exclude agencies from federal labor law if the law “cannot be applied to that agency or subdivision in a manner consistent with national security requirements.”

Thursday’s order would ban collective bargaining at the International Trade Administration and the Patent and Trademark Office within the Commerce Department; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service and the National Weather Service; as well as NASA and the U.S. Agency for Global Media. It states that all these agencies “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work.”

Matt Biggs, national president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, whose union represents a portion of NASA’s workforce along with the American Federation of Government Employees, suggested that the administration’s targeting of NASA—IFPTE’s largest union—was in retaliation for its own lawsuit challenging the Spring iteration of the executive order, filed last month.

“It’s not surprising, sadly,” Biggs said. “What is surprising is that on the eve of Labor Day weekend, when workers are to be celebrated, the Trump administration has doubled down on being the most anti-labor, anti-worker administration in U.S. history. We will continue to fight in the courts, on the Hill and at the grassroots levels against this.”

Categories Trump, Unions

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker: “Leave Chicago Alone”

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2025 //
8

Governor JB Pritzker gave a lesson in bold resistance when he gave a clear, bold message to Trump: Stay away from Chicago. We don’t want you, we don’t need you. If you have to send troops anywhere, send them to red states, where the crime rate is higher than blue states.

Categories Chicago, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, History, Illinois, Resistance, Trump

Richard Rothstein: It Is Time for Direct Action to Resist Tyranny!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2025 //
7

Richard Rothstein recently wrote a book about how to resist the illegal, unjust, and tyrannical actions of the Trump regime. Protests and marches are good but not enough, he argues. It’s time to find more powerful ways to express opposition to tyranny, to dictatorship, to a police state.

Please share this article with friends and social media. And please suggest your own ideas for direct action.

He writes:

My 2017 book, The Color of Law, showed that “de facto,” accidental, neighborhood segregation is a myth; in truth, government purposely enforced it, creating racial inequality in wealth, education, employment, health, and criminal justice. Readers asked, “What can we do about it now?”

So in 2023, Leah Rothstein and I published a sequel, Just Action, that showed how community groups could remedy this unconstitutional system. Intended for normal times, its suggestions for direct action have become urgent when Trump’s unlawful policies in housing and other sectors call for resistance. Just Action and follow-up articles describe how to create diverse committees that can embrace all who seek to preserve democracy.

Trump has taken full control of federal power—executive, legislative, and judicial—to:

  • destroy our already inadequate safety net;
  • gut health and environmental protections;
  • promote racial and ethnic inequality;
  • threaten the security of immigrants and their citizen children;
  • suppress free speech and independent journalism; and
  • prohibit schools from teaching historical truth.

He’s now moved to rig elections in 2026 and 2028, so will no longer depend on popular support. Marches, rallies, and media outrage remain necessary but insufficient. We are now called upon to do more than protest, but to act. What John Lewis called “good trouble, necessary trouble” becomes essential. As Trump “floods the zone” with so many illegal policies that we can’t keep up, so should resistance emerge in many sectors and communities to throw his authoritarianism off balance.

Most resistance will be law-abiding, some with civil disobedience. A decent society won’t be restored from Washington. A movement with a strong popular base can only begin with committees that pursue opportunities in their own neighborhoods, towns, and cities.

Here are two from Just Action, with details and many more examples in the book:

  • Regional housing centers have insufficient resources to uncover much discrimination and Trump has made it worse by defunding them. Volunteers can do the uncovering, then bypass the Justice Department by taking cases directly to court. They can campaign to force apartment owners and realtors who discriminate to commit to reform and organize boycotts of those who refuse.
  • The administration no longer deems policies unlawful if they unintentionally but needlessly harm historically disadvantaged groups. For example, property assessments usually create higher tax rates for homeowners and landlords who live in lower-income areas. Community groups can campaign to make county assessment practices fair.

Committees with actions like these will develop experience that builds toward resistance in other sectors and a national movement.

After Just Action’s publication, Washington State challenged the federal refusal to remedy housing discrimination. Volunteers documented 80,000 home deeds that banned residents who weren’t considered “white,” causing large wealth gaps between descendants of white people and others. A statewide organizing campaign won a state subsidy for home purchases by members of the previously excluded groups; 300 households have now received assistance, averaging over $100,000 each. Leah Rothstein has described how the reform was won. Groups elsewhere can mobilize for similar victories.

  • The Justice Department has cancelled settlements that required police to end abusive practices. Local groups can organize “blue ribbon” commissions to adopt the agreements and then campaign to grant them legal power to monitor and enforce compliance.
  • The administration has threatened public schools that teach “divisive” history, such as slaves’ suffering, Native Americans’ extermination, Japanese Americans’ World War II internment, or racial inequality’s origins. Local committees can organize support for teachers told to avoid these topics and for school board candidates who have pledged to protect truth in curriculum.
  • The Greyhound bus company will not permit warrantless or suspicionless immigration arrests on buses or in its stations. The Los Angeles Dodgers prohibits ICE from entering its parking lots without a warrant. Retail stores, markets, and restaurants should post signs announcing a similar prohibition. Customers can organize to ensure that it is advertised and enforced.

Campaigning for democratic practices starts by inviting friends and associates to plan. But we mostly interact only with people like ourselves. That’s no formula for successful resistance. Just Action begins by describing those who reached beyond their bubbles. We report on a Chicago artist who photographed pairs of nearly identical homes, one in a North Side white area, the other in a South Side Black one. She then invited residents to meet their “map twins.” Many agreed and were astonished by how much they had in common. We also recount six churches in Winston-Salem—three white and three Black—whose ministers created an interracial discussion and social group of 40 parishioners, divided equally by race. It eventually took direct action, successfully campaigning for a police review board and school curriculum reform.

Leah Rothstein reported recently on a project that organizes monthly dinner meetings of 25 residents from Marin City, California—with a mostly Black population—and 25 from its predominantly white suburbs. Reforms resulted in education, policing, health care, the arts, and housing. They model what diverse resistance cells can achieve.

Indivisible, the organization that led “Hands Off” and “No Kings” rallies this year, has concluded that while vocal opposition to Trump remains necessary, successful resistance must evolve to direct action. Indivisible is now conducting online training to teach and inspire local committees to undertake acts of resistance. You can watch previous sessions and register for subsequent ones here. These should offer more examples of direct actions you could take.

Please click here to share other acts of resistance, so Leah and I can promote them.

Categories Fascism, Resistance, Trump
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