Heather Cox Richardson: An Overview of Trump’s Latest Scams and Lies

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
5

The lies come so thick and fast that it’s hard to sort them out. Fortunately, historian Heather Cox Richardson does it for us.

She read the full transcript of the recent interview of Trump by Norah O’Donnell of “60 Minutes.” The final interview was heavily edited, which is standard practice. The actual interview lasts for about an hour, but only 20 minutes is aired. If you recall, Trump sued CBS for $10 billion for airing an edited version of the “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. He claimed that the interview was intended to hurt his candidacy, a totally meritless claim, since editing is routine and he suffered no injury. Rather than fight for its most prestigious news team, CBS caved and paid Trump $16 million. The corporation paid off Trump so that its merger with Paramount would be okayed by the FCC, which is the hands of a Trump flunkie.

Not mentioned by HRC was that O’Donnell asked Trump if he pressured Pam Bondi to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James. He denied it. She let it pass instead of showing the tweet in which he directed her to prosecute them. She should have asked why he did it, not whether he did it. The evidence was public.

HRC wrote:

At the end of her interview with President Donald J. Trump, recorded on October 31 at Mar-a-Lago and aired last night, heavily edited, on 60 Minutes, Norah O’Donnell of CBS News asked if she could ask two more questions. Trump suggested previous questions had been precleared when he mused aloud that if he said yes, “That means they’ll treat me more fairly if I do—I want to get—It’s very nice, yeah. Now is good. Okay. Uh, oh. These might be the ones I didn’t want. I don’t know. Okay, go ahead.”

O’Donnell noted that the Trump family has thrown itself into cryptocurrency ventures, forming World Liberty Financial with the family of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. In that context, she asked about billionaire Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Binance. Zhao is cryptocurrency’s richest man. He pleaded guilty in 2023 to money laundering, resigned from Binance, paid a $50 million fine, and was sentenced to four months in prison.

Trump pardoned him on October 23.

O’Donnell noted that the U.S. government said Zhao “had caused ‘significant harm to U.S. national security,’ essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around.” She asked the president, “Why did you pardon him?” 

“Okay, are you ready?” Trump answered. “I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. And what I wanna do is see crypto, ‘cause if we don’t do it it’s gonna go to China, it’s gonna go to—this is no different to me than AI.

“My sons are involved in crypto much more than I—me. I—I know very little about it, other than one thing. It’s a huge industry. And if we’re not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100%. This man was, in my opinion, from what I was told, this is, you know, a four-month sentence.”

After he went on with complaints about the Biden administration—he would mention Biden 42 times in the released transcript—O’Donnell noted, “Binance helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin. And then you pardoned [Zhao].” She asked him: “How do you address the appearance of pay for play?”

Trump answered: “Well, here’s the thing. I know nothing about it because I’m too busy doing the other….” O’Donnell interrupted: “But he got a pardon….” Trump responded: “I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto. I think it’s good. You know, they’re running a business, they’re not in government. And they’re good—my one son is a number one bestseller now.

“My wife just had a number one bestseller. I’m proud of them for doing that. I’m focused on this. I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you’re talking about the Biden government.” And then he was off again, complaining about the former president and boasting that he would “make crypto great for America.”

“So not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this?” O’Donnell asked.

Trump answered: “I can’t say, because—I can’t say—I’m not concerned. I don’t—I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, ‘Can I ask another question?’ And I said, yeah. This is the question….”

“And you answered…” O’Donnell put in.

“I don’t mind,” Trump said. “Did I let you do it? I coulda walked away. I didn’t have to answer this question. I’m proud to answer the question. You know why? We’ve taken crypto….” After another string of complaints about Biden, he said: “We are number one in crypto and that’s the only thing I care about.”

If, among all the disinformation and repetition Trump spouted in that interview, he did not know who he was pardoning, who’s running the Oval Office?

It appears House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) doesn’t want to know. At a news conference today, journalist Manu Raju noted: “Last week…you were very critical of Joe Biden’s use of the autopen…[you said] he didn’t even know who he was pardoning. Last night, on 60 Minutes…Trump admitted not knowing he pardoned a crypto billionaire who pleaded guilty to money laundering. Is that also concerning?”

Johnson answered: “I don’t know anything about that. I didn’t see the interview. You have to ask the president about that. I’m not sure.”

Pleading ignorance of an outrage or that a question is “out of his lane” has become so frequent for Johnson that journalist Aaron Rupar of Public Notice, who is very well informed about the news indeed, suggested today that journalists should consider asking Johnson: “Do you ever read the news, and do you agree it’s problematic for the Speaker to be so woefully uninformed?”

Johnson continues to keep the House from conducting business as the government shutdown hit its 34th day today. Tomorrow the shutdown will tie the 35-day shutdown record set during Trump’s first term. Representative Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), whom voters elected on September 23, is still not sworn in. She has said she will be the 218th—and final—vote on a discharge petition to force a vote requiring the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.

Trump and Johnson continue to try to jam Democratic senators into signing on to the Republicans’ continuing resolution without addressing the end of premium tax credits that is sending healthcare premiums on the Affordable Healthcare Act marketplace soaring. They continue to refuse to negotiate with Democrats, although negotiations have always been the key to ending shutdowns.

To increase pressure, they are hurting the American people.

The shutdown meant that funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on which 42 million Americans depend to put food on the table ran out on October 31. Although previous administrations—including Trump’s—have always turned to contingency funds Congress set aside to make sure people can eat, and although the Trump administration initially said it would do so this time as usual, it abruptly announced in October that it did not believe tapping into that reserve was legal. SNAP benefits would not go out.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell of the District of Rhode Island ordered the administration to fund payments for SNAP benefits using the reserve Congress set up for emergencies. Since that money—$4.65 billion—will not be enough to fund the entire $8 billion required for November payments, McConnell suggested the administration could make the full payments by tapping into money from the Child Nutrition Program and other funds, but he left discretion up to the administration.

Today the administration announced it would tap only the first reserve, funding just 50% of SNAP benefits. It added that those payments will be delayed for “a few weeks to up to several months.” The disbursement of the reserve, it continued, “means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely.”

“Big ‘you can’t make me’ energy,” Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall noted. It’s also an astonishing act of cruelty, especially as grocery prices are going up—Trump lied that they are stable in the 60 Minutes interview—hiring has slowed, and the nation is about to celebrate Thanksgiving.

The shutdown also threatens the $4.1 billion Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) that helps families cover the cost of utilities or heating oil. Susan Haigh and Marc Levy of the Associated Press note that this program started in 1981 and has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress ever since. Trump’s budget proposal for next year calls for cutting the program altogether, but states expected to have funding for this winter. Almost 6 million households use the program, and as cold weather sets in, the government has not funded it.

When the Republicans shredded the nation’s social safety net in their budget reconciliation bill of July, the one they call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” they timed most of the cuts to take effect after the 2026 midterm elections. But the shutdown is making clear now, rather than after the midterms, what the nation will look like without that safety net.

In the 60 Minutes interview, O’Donnell noted an aspect of Trump’s America that is getting funded during the shutdown. She said, “Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?”

“No,” Trump answered. “I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the—by the judges, the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama.” (In fact, a review by Kyle Cheney of Politico on Friday showed that more than 100 federal judges have ruled at least 200 times against Trump administration immigration policies. Those judges were appointed by every president since Ronald Reagan, and 12 were appointed by Trump himself.)

It appears that the administration did indeed ignore today’s deadline for congressional approval of the ongoing strikes against Venezuela, required under the 1973 War Powers Act. It is taking the position that no approval is necessary since, in its formulation, U.S. military personnel are not at risk in the strikes that have, so far, killed 65 people.

—

Notes:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/read-full-transcript-norah-odonnell-60-minutes-interview-with-president-trump/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/03/politics/fact-check-trump-cbs-interview
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/03/snap-trump-food-court-shutdown.html
https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-heating-assistance-liheap-winter-7bcec80a167bd01f442d6dabe1149b71
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/snap-50-percent-delays-november
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/31/trump-administration-mandatory-detention-deportation-00632086
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/01/trump-venezuela-war-drugs-law/
Dissecting the Trump Administration’s Effort to Circumvent the War Powers Resolution for Boat Strikes

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Categories Accountability, Corruption, Ethics, Extremism, Lies, Trump

Florida: Imprisoned Charter School Owner Seeks to Reduce Repayments to District He Cheated

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
4

The owner of the Newpoint Charter School chain in Florida was convicted of racketeering and fraud in 2018, involving six different school districts. He pocketed millions of dollars that should have been spent on students and teachers. Ordered to pay back his ill-gotten gains, he now claims he can’t make the payments because his wife took most of his assets when they divorced.

Florida spends billions of dollars on charter schools and vouchers, with minimal oversight. Crooked charter operators and inadequate voucher schools are having great pay days.

The Pensacola News-Journal reported:

Escambia County’s Clerk of Court is taking Newpoint Charter School owner and convicted felon Marcus May back to court over claims he can’t afford to make the same monthly payments to repay nearly $7 million he owes in fines, interest and court costs.

May, 63, was convicted in 2018 in Pensacola for committing racketeering and fraud at six different school districts around Florida.

State prosecutors say he created shell companies to sell school property at outrageous markups and pocketed millions of dollars.

May has filed motions with the state saying his financial situation has changed due to his settlement agreement with his ex-wife, and he wants to cut back significantly on the monthly payments he makes.

“We’re going on seven years after the verdict, we’re still pursuing collections,” General Counsel at Escambia County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Cody Leigh said. “Justice extends beyond the verdict and that includes the clerk’s collection duties and obligations under the statute.”

May has been paying about $7,700 a month to the Escambia County Clerk of Court’s Office as part of his restitution payment plan, but he wants to drop that amount to about $1,500 a month.

To date, the clerk’s office says he has paid a total of about $270,000.

After his conviction in Pensacola in 2018,  the businessman was ordered to pay $5.5 million in fines and restitution as part of his sentencing, but that amount has ballooned to around $7 million due to interest charges.

May has been in a legal fight with the clerk’s office since April of 2020 over collection of payment, and he filed for bankruptcy in May 2021.

The county spent another six months in bankruptcy court with May until a payment plan was confirmed.

At that time, it was determined May was earning about $13,000 a month, in large part income from real estate rentals he owns across the state, among other assets.

Now May is telling his creditors, including Escambia County, that his wife is getting those real estate assets under their amended marital divorce settlement agreement and he only has $3,000 a month to divide between several creditors, leaving the county with a monthly payment of about $1,500.

“In July of this year, we got a letter from Marcus May’s attorneys that said the planned payments would be substantially reduced because his disposable income went down substantially,” Leigh said.

Unconvinced of his reasons for cutting his payments to the county by five grand a month, the clerk and legal staff pushed to have May’s federal bankruptcy case reopened to take a closer look at what has become of his assets, including the real estate he now says belongs to his ex-wife.

“We filed a motion to reopen the bankruptcy case claiming that that was an impermissible plan modification,” Leigh said, “and that’s a discretionary call by the judge. She doesn’t have to reopen it, but she did. That is the first win of round two of reopening the bankruptcy and figuring out what was sold.”

Escambia County Clerk and Comptroller Pam Childers believes the judge’s decision is a win for taxpayers and county residents who have a right to collect what the court ruled was owed due to fraud, even if it means a years long legal fight.

“It’s just amazing how they will continue to connive and protect those assets as if they are theirs when they just use the school money, the children’s money, for their benefit,” Childers said. “They just feel entitled. I mean, even sitting in prison, there’s no remorse.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Florida

Joseph Stiglitz: A Critical Moment for Democracy in the World

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
5

Joseph Stiglitz is a distinguished economist and is a Nobel laureate in economics. He has written eloquently about the benefits of increasing equality by taxing the richest people in the world.

Recently, democratic countries from the Global North and South – including Brazil, Chile, Norway, and Spain – came together at the United Nations not just to reaffirm their commitment to democracy, but to develop an agenda which would sustain and enrich it.The membership of this group, Democracia Siempre (Democracy Always), has increased enormously since it first met a year ago. The group’s growth reflects its members’ recognition that democratic backsliding is gathering pace around the world. This is particularly true in the country that has often claimed to be the oldest and strongest democracy: the United States, where there has been a sustained attack on the constitutional order lately.Both within countries and internationally, the rule of law is being trampled, leading to rampant corruption, violations of basic human rights and due process, and systematic erosion of institutions. Longstanding safeguards for our liberties and well-being are being dismantled before our eyes, with academic, press, and other freedoms under attack.In these dark times, Democracia Siempre is a ray of hope. Its members remain committed to defending democracy and the rule of law, setting an example for the timorous who have been cowed by Trump’s bullying. They have made it clear that national sovereignty and democracy are not something to be traded away. They refuse to follow the path of Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.As an economist who has studied why we have far higher living standards and longer lives today than 250 years ago, I understand the importance of Enlightenment values and the role of science in enabling us to understand the world around us. The unprecedented material progress we have achieved in the modern age stems from our commitment to reason and freedom.Enlightenment thinkers taught us that we can design institutions to co-ordinate individual actions, facilitate co-operation, and make our societies work better. This matters, because humans are social beings. We have always been able to do far more working together than alone, and in our highly urbanised, globally integrated society, we have no choice but to co-operate. Also, among the critical institutions that we inherited from the Enlightenment are those that enable us to ascertain and assess the truth, without which neither our economy nor our democracy can function well.Democracy and the rule of law are an essential bulwark against abuses of power and are fundamental to the preservation of our human rights. History shows what happens when they are abandoned or dismantled.The UN itself was created to help ensure peace on our planet after World War II. Since we share one world, peace, stability, and common prosperity require a world body, international law, and multilateral co-operation.This summer, as Democracia Siempre’s second global meeting approached, 43 Nobel laureates from a wide variety of disciplines signed a letter of support, both for the initiative and for an agenda to achieve its goals. That agenda includes strengthening institutions, addressing income inequality, and tackling online mis- and disinformation. Critically, the signatories affirmed their commitment to reason. Their worldviews may differ, but all agree that facts cannot, and must not, be falsified. All know that it was adherence to Enlightenment values that led to their own Nobel Prize-winning discoveries.Our reasoning about the world must be based on facts, and those come from scientific research and objective news gathering. High-quality information and journalism are necessary to inform the public, promote constructive civil engagement, and preserve democracy. Freedom of expression is an internationally recognised human right. Like academic freedom, it plays an indispensable role in ensuring government accountability and preventing the kind of agglomeration of power that undermines democracy.Yet actions by governments in many countries have had a chilling effect on these freedoms. Those in power have used defamation suits and other means to silence journalists, while massive technology companies allow their platforms to amplify mis- and disinformation, polluting the information ecosystem. Generative AI threatens to make matters worse, and those training the models have been stealing information produced by the legacy media and others. As a result, they have little incentive to produce high-quality information themselves. Technologies that could improve how we disseminate and process information are instead likely to degrade our information ecosystem even further (hence Democracia Siempre’s focus on this issue).An essential feature of democracy is that everyone’s voice counts – one person, one vote. But this cannot be the case when a few multi-billionaires control what has become the global town square.Checks and balances inevitably break down in the face of yawning economic inequality, because political inequality follows, with oligarchic interests using their resources to bend rules in their favour.But addressing inequality is critical for another reason: If democracies are to function well, the body politic must exhibit at least a modicum of solidarity. Yet today’s extreme inequalities, combined with a hyper-polarising media ecosystem, have eviscerated social cohesion.For too long, many took democracy and human rights for granted. We now know that was a mistake. Sustaining and improving these institutions takes continual effort. The Democracia Siempre movement provides hope that this still can be done.The following Nobel laureates signed the letter of support for Democracia Siempre:Maria A Ressa, Nobel laureate, Peace, 2021; Klaus von Klitzing, Nobel laureate, Physics, 1985; Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, Literature, 1986; Óscar Arias, Nobel laureate, Peace, x1987; Elias J Corey, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, 1990; Richard J Roberts, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 1993; José Ramos-Horta, Nobel laureate, Peace, 1996; William D Phillips, Nobel laureate, Physics, 1997; Jody Williams, Nobel laureate, Peace, 1997; Louis J Ignarro, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 1998; Anthony J Leggett, Nobel laureate, Physics, 2003; J M Coetzee, Nobel laureate, Literature, 2003; Shirin Ebadi, Nobel laureate, Peace, 2003; Aaron Ciechanover, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, 2004; Barry J Marshall, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2005; John C Mather, Nobel laureate, Physics, 2006; Edmund “Ned” Phelps, Nobel laureate, Economics, 2006; Andrew Z Fire, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2006; Roger D. Kornberg, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, 2006; Orhan Pamuk, Nobel laureate, Literature, 2006; Eric S Maskin, Nobel laureate, Economics, 2007; Mario R Capecchi, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2007; Martin Chalfie, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, 2008; Jack W Szostak, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2009; Leymah Gbowee, Nobel laureate, Peace, 2011; Tawakkol Karman, Nobel laureate, Peace, 2011; May-Britt Moser, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2014; Edvard I Moser, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2014; Joachim Frank, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, 2017; Richard Henderson, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, 2017; Michel Mayor, Nobel laureate, Physics, 2019; Gregg L Semenza, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2019; Sir Peter J Ratcliffe, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2019; Roger Penrose, Nobel laureate, Physics, 2020; Guido W Imbens, Nobel laureate, Economics, 2021; Annie Ernaux, Nobel laureate, Literature, 2022; Narges Mohammadi, Nobel laureate, Peace, 2023; Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel laureate, Physics, 2024; Daron Acemoglu, Nobel laureate, Economics, 2024; Gary Ruvkun, Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 2024; Oleksandra Matviichuk, Center for Civil Liberties, Peace 2022; His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Nobel laureate, Peace, 1989. — Project Syndicate

  • Joseph E Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is a former chief economist of the World Bank, a former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, University Professor at Columbia University, and the author, most recently, of The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.
Categories Education Reform

A Smart Interview About My New Book

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2025 //
9

The New Books Network selected my memoir as the book of the day on October 28.

They posted this interview with me about the book. I hope you watch.

I really liked the conversation with Tom Discenna, who is a Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

Tim read the book. Very often, I have been interviewed by people who read the copy on the jacket or had questions prepared by their staff. Not Tom. He read the book.

Let me know what you think.

Categories Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ravitch, Diane

Jamelle Bouie: The Constitution Prohibits a Third Term for Presidents

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2025 //
11

Jamelle Bouie is a columnist for The New York Times. He is my favorite. He has a broad and deep knowledge of politics and history. He writes about what he’s reading and what he’s cooking.

In this column, he explains that the Constitution prohibits any President from serving a third term. Since Trump loves to scoff at the Constitution, he’s been dropping hints that he will run again or maybe be president for life.

The polls are not encouraging. He currently is at 42% approval, and 52% disapproval. Polls can change, of course. But Trump is as impulsive, arrogant, and vengeful as ever.

Jamelle Bouie reminds us that it was Republicans who insisted on a two-term limit for the Presdency:

It does not come as a great surprise to see that less than a year into his second term in office, President Trump is already thinking about a third.

“I would love to do it,” he told reporters on Air Force One this week.

He has, in fact, been thinking about a third term for years.

“We’re going to win four more years in the White House,” he said in 2020. “And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we are probably entitled to another four after that.”

And earlier this year, he told NBC News that he wasn’t “joking” about serving a third term. “There are methods which you could do it,” he said.

The obvious response to Trump’s musings is that the Constitution limits each president to two full terms. “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once,” reads the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951.

But allies of the president insist that there is a plan — a loophole — that might allow Trump to circumvent the Constitution and serve another four years or more.

“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people just ought to get accommodated with that,” said Steve Bannon last week. “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”

This sounds plausible, but it is wrong. First, it treats the Constitution as a language game whose meaning depends less on the text, structure, history and purpose of the document and more on whether you can use the fundamental indeterminacy of language to brute-force your preferred outcome.

But that is not how you should read the Constitution, which isn’t a rigid set of instructions to be gamed by clever lawyers, but a political document meant to structure the rules of self-government in the United States. The 22nd Amendment was written to change one of those rules and limit the president’s term of office, regardless of the circumstances. Any apparent “loophole” is a mirage produced by a basic misunderstanding of what it is that the Constitution set out to accomplish. A quick look at the history and debate behind the amendment makes this clear.

Two terms in office had been the norm for American presidents since George Washington declined to stand for a third in 1796, instead handing the reins to his vice president, John Adams. In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt became the first president to run for and win a third term of office. He continued the streak in 1944, winning another term but dying in office just a few months after he delivered his fourth Inaugural Address.

In the following midterm elections, Republicans won a House and a Senate majority for the first time since the early 1930s. And at the top of the agenda for the 80th Congress was a constitutional amendment to make the two-term tradition a formal rule of American politics. Although this was a clear response to Roosevelt, congressional arguments in favor of the two-term limit emphasized the vast scope of presidential power and the threat it might pose to American democracy if left in the hands of one man over an extended period of time.

“If long tenure of office of the president was a threat to our republican form of government as stated by President Jefferson nearly 140 years ago, with his limited powers, small disbursements, small Army and Navy and a small number of appointees, how much greater must that threat be to our republican form of government and to the liberties of the American people today?” asked Representative John Marshall Robsion of Kentucky during floor debates over the amendment in 1947.

“I favor this proposed amendment,” said Representative John Jennings Jr. of Tennessee. “Only by its adoption can the people be assured that we shall never have a dictator in this land. Without such a limit on the number of terms a man may serve in the presidency, the time may come when a man of vaulting ambition becomes president.” Backed by a “subservient Congress,” continued Jennings, such a man “could well name to the Supreme Court of the United States men of his political faith and economic thinking” who could “sweep aside and overthrow the safeguards of the Constitution” and “overrule the settled states of law that have been declared and recognized for a hundred years.”

“Almost all of the rest of the world has slipped away from the foundations of freedom and skidded dangerously close to the shoals of executive domination, one-man rule, dictatorship and ruthless tyranny,” declared Representative Karl Earl Mundt of South Dakota. “Let us consolidate our gains in self-government by passing this resolution to prevent any president hereafter — Republican or Democratic — from perpetuating himself in office.”

The overriding concern among congressional supporters of the 22nd Amendment was to limit the president’s overall tenure of office. They did not parse the difference between service and election; they did not intend to create some special scenario by which, if a president followed the right steps, he could circumvent the restriction. They meant, simply, to restrict the president to two full terms for fear of what might be if presidential power fell into the wrong hands.

“To grant extended power to any one man would be a definite step in the direction of autocracy, regardless of the name given the office, whether it be president, king, dictator, emperor or whatever title the office may carry,” Senator Chapman Revercomb of West Virginia said during his chamber’s debate over the proposed amendment. “It would be a definite step toward the destruction of real freedom of the people.”

Categories Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, History, Trump

Peter Greene Reviews “An Education” in His Inimitable Style

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2025 //
12

If you have been following this blog for a long time, you know that in my estimation one of the best (actually the best) education bloggers is Peter Greene. Peter taught high school students for 39 years in Pennsylvania. He knows more about teaching than all the experts at the elite universities.

Best of all, he has a keen eye for flimflammery and a great sense of humor. His is one of the few blogs that makes me laugh out loud. He pierces through BS and shysters with ease. And he’s more prolific than anyone I know. Some years back, I devoted every post on one day to Peter’s writings. I consider him to be one of my teachers.

So I was immensely grateful when I discovered that he reviewed my memoirs in both Forbes and, in a different voice, on his blog Curmudgacation.

Here is his blog review:

Over at Forbes.com, I’ve posted a piece about Diane Ravitch’s new memoir, An Education. That’s my grown-up fake journalist piece; but I have a few more blog-appropriate things to say. 

Most folks know the basic outline of the Ravitch career, that she was a recognized and successful part of the conservative ed reform establishment who then turned away from the Dark Side and joined the Resistance–hell, basically co-founded the Resistance. 

I have never heard her talk or write much about what that change cost her, and she doesn’t really talk about it in those terms in this book, but the early chapters show just how in that world she was. Connected to all the right people, welcome at all the right gatherings, in demand as a speaker, and the people–the names just keep coming. Ravitch was in the Room Where It Happens, and not just in it, but close friends with some of the folks in it with her. And she walked away from all that.

I don’t point to that to say we should feel sad for what she gave up, but as a sign of just how tough she is. She looked at the reality on the ground and concluded that she had to change some core beliefs, and having changed them, she had to act on them. If there was more of that kind of intellectual and ethical toughness in the world, the world would be a better place. It’s unusual enough that folks on the privatizer side have often assumed that someone must be paying her off, and a handful of people on the public school side were reluctant to fully trust her. 

There are other details in the book that attest to her guts and hard work. Her first book, The Great School Wars, was a history of the New York City public school system– a massive research project that Ravitch in her mid-thirties just assigned to herself, a project so thorough and well-constructed that she could use it as her PhD thesis. 

There are lots of fun details in the book– imagine the young Diane Ravitch swinging on a rope ladder outside a Wellesley dorm room where a formal dinner was in progress.

The book tells the story of how she got there, how she concluded that the policies that she had believed in were simply not so. And again– many another person would have at that point either kept going through the motions, or retreated to a quiet cave, but Diane instead became an outspoken critic of the very policies, organizations, and people who had been her professional world.

Back in the early 2010s, I was a high school English teacher in a quiet rural and small town corner of Pennsylvania. I knew things were happening in education that just felt really wrong, and I went searching for answers. What I found was Diane Ravitch’s blog, which was like a gathering place for many voices of advocacy for public school. It was where I found many writers who could help me make sense of things like Common Core and NCLB’s undermining of public education. 

There are several people who were responsible for my finding an audience (or the audience finding me) but it was Diane’s blog that got me my earliest connections to audiences. I didn’t know any of these folks, didn’t have any of the connections that hold together movements. At my first NPE conference, the most common question I got was some version of “Who the heck are you and where did you come from?” Diane’s network had made it possible for me to find my connections with a larger movement.

I’m just one example of how Diane’s extraordinary generosity in sharing her platform allowed all sorts of supporters of public education from all across the country to connect and support each other. It’s a notably different approach to leadership than, say, making a movement all about yourself in an attempt to collect personal power on the backs of followers instead of lifting everyone up to be a leader and activist in their own little corner of the world.

The book provides part of answer to where a person like Diane comes from, where that kind of intellectual and ethical courage and diligence come from. And it also provides a clear, compact explaining of where modern ed reform has gone wrong, from the toxic test-and-punish approach of NCLB to the billionaire-driven privatization push to the culture panic debates currently raging. If you want to hand someone a quick simple explainer of what has gone wrong, you can do worse than the last few chapters of this book.

At 223 pages, this is a brisk read but an illuminating one. I highly recommend it

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Trump Is Renovating the Lincoln Bathroom

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2025 //
7

The burden of office must rest heavily on Trump’s shoulders. But foreign policy and economic policy are not what captures his imagination and passion. He loves decorating and renovating.

The Washington Post reported that he has undertaken the upgrade of the Lincoln bathroom.

What’s really cool is that Trump replaced the green tile with white marble and changed the hardware on the bathtub, the shower, and the toilet to gold. Gold! Trump’s favorite material.

Trump’s press secretary said earlier that Trump’s biggest priority right now is his $300 million ballroom, which at 90,000 square feet will overshadow the entire White House, a mere 55,000 square feet. He demolished the East Wing of the White House without submitting plans to the commissions that usually review changes to historic sites. In Trumpian fashion, he acted without informing anyone or asking approval from any official body.

Melania is not around to chime in. She’s living in the Trump penthouse in New York City and shows up only for special events. The New York Times reported that the First Lady was in D.C. for fewer than 14 days of Trump’s first 108 days in office. She is in absentia.

So Trump is having fun as the Master Decorator of the White House. He’s not wasting his time getting involved in the government shutdown. He’s leaving that to his friends in Congress. He is surely not concerned about the potential cutoff of food stamps for 42 million people because he thinks most of them are Democrats. Ditto for the fate of health insurance.

He knows what matters most for him.

Emily Davies and Dan Diamond write:

President Donald Trump on Friday unveiled yet another White House design project: an overhaul of the Lincoln Bathroom, sharing 24 images that highlight his choice of marble accented with golden handles on the bathtub, shower and toilet.

“I renovated the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House,” Trump wrote Friday afternoon on Truth Social. “It was renovated in the 1940s in an art deco green tile style, which was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era. I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble.”

He revealed the work on his way to spend the weekend at his club in Mar-a-Lago — a trip that comes as pressure rises to reopen the government as tens of millions of people are bracing for their food stamp benefits to be interrupted as a result of the partisan standstill.

It’s a gift article so you can open the link and read it all.

Categories Education Reform, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Repeatedly Ignores and Defies the Law

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2025 //
6

Heather Cox Richardson reviews Trump’s flagrant indifference to the law.

She writes:

Yesterday I wrote that President Donald J. Trump’s celebration of his new marble bathroom in the White House was so tone deaf at a time when federal employees are working without pay, furloughed workers are taking out bank loans to pay their bills, healthcare premiums are skyrocketing, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are at risk, that it seemed likely to make the history books as a symbol of this administration.

But that image got overtaken just hours later by pictures from a Great Gatsby–themed party Trump threw at Mar-a-Lago last night hours before SNAP benefits ended. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby skewered the immoral and meaningless lives of the very wealthy during the Jazz Age who spent their time throwing extravagant parties and laying waste to the lives of the people around them.

Although two federal judges yesterday found that the administration’s refusal to use reserves Congress provided to fund SNAP in an emergency was likely illegal and one ordered the government to use that money, the administration did not immediately do as the judge ordered.

Trump posted on social media that “[o]ur Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP,” so he has “instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.” Blaming the Democrats for the shutdown, Trump added that “even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out.” His post provided the phone number for Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s office, telling people: “If you use SNAP benefits, call the Senate Democrats, and tell them to reopen the Government, NOW!”

“They were careless people,” Fitzgerald wrote, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

This afternoon, Ellen Nakashima and Noah Robertson of the Washington Post reported that the administration is claiming it does not have to consult Congress to continue its attacks on Venezuela. The 1973 War Powers Act says it does.

In 1973, after President Richard M. Nixon ordered secret bombings of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution to reassert its power over foreign wars. “It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations,” it read.

On September 4, 2025, Trump notified Congress of a strike against a vessel in the Caribbean that he said “was assessed to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in illicit drug trafficking activities.” The letter added: “I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution.”

Monday will mark 60 days from that announcement, but the administration does not appear to be planning to ask for Congress’s approval. It has been reluctant to share information about the strikes, first excluding senior Senate Democrats from a Senate briefing, then offering House members a briefing that did not include lawyers and failed to answer basic questions. The top two leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Jack Reed (D-RI), have both said the administration has not produced documents, attack orders, and a list of targets required by law.

Representative Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Nakashima and Robertson: “The administration is, I believe, doing an illegal act and anything that it can to avoid Congress.”

T. Elliot Gaiser, who leads the Office of Legal Counsel under Trump, told a group of lawmakers this week that the administration is taking the position that the strikes on unnamed people in small boats do not meet the definition of hostilities because they are not putting U.S. military personnel in harm’s way. It says the strikes, which have killed more than 60 people, have been conducted primarily by drones launched off naval vessels.

Brian Finucane, who was the War Powers Resolution lawyer at the State Department under President Barack Obama and during Trump’s first term, explained: “What they’re saying is anytime the president uses drones or any standoff weapon against someone who cannot shoot back, it’s not hostilities. It’s a wild claim of executive authority.”

If the administration proceeds without acknowledging the Monday deadline for congressional approval, Finucane said, “it is usurping Congress’s authority over the use of military force.”

—

Notes:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/31/politics/snap-benefits-november-judge-ruling

https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/war-powers-resolution-1973

https://assets.ctfassets.net/6hn51hpulw83/iOdLcVg6XVHorL4Rv5rWr/9a116b4c89cb06efee02dcd6df96bba1/20250904-Trump.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/all-the-u-s-military-strikes-against-alleged-drug-boats

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/01/trump-venezuela-war-drugs-law/

Bluesky:

onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3m4ldvvz7322u

meidastouch.com/post/3m4jy6x5iks2y

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Trump

The Most Annoying Story of the Month About Schools

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2025 //
31

Every so often, I read a story about education that is truly annoying. The most recent one is in The Atlantic. It was written by Idrees Kahloon, a staff writer at the magazine. It is titled “America is Sliding Toward Illiteracy.” The subtitle is “Declining standards and low expectations are destroying American education.”

As a historian of American education, I have read the same story hundreds of times. In the 19th century, these warnings that children were not learning anything in school were commonplace. The cry of “crisis in the schools” appeared frequently in every decade of the 20th century. We are only 25 years into this century, and similar views appear in the popular press regularly.

Long ago, attacks on the schools were intended to produce more funding for them, or higher standards for those entering teaching..

Now they serve the purposes of those pushing privatization of public schools, those who are promoting vouchers, charters, homeschooling, and every other way of destroying public schools.

Test scores have fallen! The culprit? Smart phones! Social media! Low expectations! Low standards! Bad teachers! Bad Schools!

George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law of 2002 raised standards and expectations but it raised them absurdly high, to a literally unreachable goal. A rebellion formed among those who didn’t think it possible that “all students” would reach “proficiency” by 2014.

NCLB required that all students would be “proficient,” not just at grade level, by 2014. By NAEP standards, “proficient” does not mean grade level. It means “A” performance. In no other nation in the world are all students rated “proficient” on the NAEP scale. Nor has any district or state ever reached that goal.

But the Cassandras of American education have monopolized the podium for many years, wailing that we will be an impoverished third-world country if test scores don’t rise dramatically.

Think about it. The biggest explosion of doom-and-gloom was caused by the Reagan-era report called “A Nation at Risk” in 1983. It flatly predicted that our economy was imperiled by a “rising tide of mediocrity.” But what has happened since 1983? Our economy is booming, we have not been eclipsed by other nations. We continue to be a land of innovation, creativity, scientific and medical pre-eminence.

How is our nation’s success possible, given the cry for more than 40 years that our schools are hobbling our economy and compromising our future?

Instead of complaining about our schools and lambasting them nonstop, the critics should be complaining about poverty and inequality. These are the root causes of poor student outcomes.

If the critics are worried about our future, they should shout out against Trump’s orders to withhold funding for research in science and medicine. If they really wanted great schools, they would stop diverting public funds to nonpublic schools and homeschoolers–where there are low or no standards for teachers– and make sure that every student has certified, experienced teachers, small classes, and the amenities available in every school that are typically available only in wealthy suburban districts.

No, our kids are not sliding into stupidity. If you don’t agree, I dare you to take an eighth grade math test and release your scores. You will be surprised.

The greatest generation sits in our public high schools today, unless our government continues to impose moronic policies of choice and competition that have failed for the past thirty-five years.

Categories Accountability, Data, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Fake News, Hoax, Standardized Testing, Students

Thom Hartmann: Why Does the Shutdown Continue? Ask Senator Thune.

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2025 //
4

Thom Hartmann explains why the shutdown continues. The Republicans in the Senate have the votes to end it.

He writes:

— The GOP’s dirty little secret exposed, courtesy of Donald Trump: Republicans in the Senate could have ended the shutdown anytime they wanted. Ever since the shutdown started, I’ve been shouting into the wilderness that Senate Majority Leader Republican John Thune (who now holds the position Mitch McConnell held for so long) could reopen the government with the GOP’s so-called “clean continuing resolution” or “clean CR” any time he wanted. All it takes to suspend or even eliminate the filibuster rule — which is neither in the Constitution nor any law, but merely a Senate rule — is 51 votes. Republicans have 53 senators and the Vice President adds a 54th, so it shouldn’t be a particularly heavy lift. I pointed it out on Ali Velshi’s program, and a few days later Congressman Ro Khanna and I discussed it on my program; he went on to point it out over on Fox “News” (the host thought he was discussing reconciliation; they don’t hire the best and the brightest over there). But virtually none of the mainstream media have bothered to point out this simple reality; instead, they go along with the story that Republicans are essentially helpless victims of evil Democrats who are holding the nation hostage. Finally, though, Trump himself let the bomb drop in a posting on his Nazi-infested social media site, writing: “WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN’… It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” I’ve argued for years that the filibuster helps the GOP and special interests far more than Democrats, and Schumer, et al, should have nuked it years ago when they had the power to do so. Hell, it was originally put into the Senate rules back in the early 19th century to protect against the passage of legislation outlawing slavery! Thune could suspend the filibuster for a single bill or blow it up altogether; either would be an improvement over the status quo. Yes, it would enable Republicans to pass more of their toxic and destructive legislation over the short term, but it would — importantly — also let Americans see the unvarnished consequences of Republican policies. And when Democrats come back into power, they could get a lot more done without the filibuster, including rolling back Citizens United and establishing an absolute right to vote. Let your Republican senators know (202-224-3121) they should take Trump’s advice and end the filibuster!


— Epstein, Rubio, or ego? What’s really behind Trump’s Venezuela madness? What the hell is going on with Trump’s provocations against Venezuela? It sure looks like he’s trying to gin up a war or regime change, neither of which are popular with the American people or consistent with Trump’s outspokenly loud anti-interventionist anti-nation-building campaign rhetoric. And he’s trying to do it the same way he tore down the East Wing of the White House: in secret until it’s such a done deal that nobody can undo it. But why? I’ve posited that — like Reagan and both Bush presidents — he thinks he needs a “little war” to distract us from his crimes, corruption, Epstein, and the weakness of the economy. But it’s also possible that this is being driven by Secretary of State “Lil” Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense “Whiskey Pete” Hegseth. Rubio rose to political power in Florida by lying for years that his parents were Cuban refugees who fled Castro and communism (in fact, they came to the US in May, 1956, more than 2 years before the Cuban revolution), and has long harbored anti-Latin-communist sentiments. It’s entirely possible that he still nurtures presidential aspirations and thinks taking down Maduro might be his ticket to the GOP nomination in 2028 (assuming there’s an election that year). Hegseth is a dry (?) drunk apparently doped up on testosterone who gets giddy every time he can use the words “lethal” or “kill” in a sentence; it’s a safe bet that he’d be orgasmic over the chance to murder more than just a few dozen people in small boats. Yesterday, the Miami Herald reported: “The Trump Administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald…” Adding to the intrigue, the DOD gave a secret briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee and — get this — only allowed Republicans into the room. The committee’s senior Democrat, Mark Warner, called the unprecedented decision by Republicans “bullshit” and over in the House, where Democrats were allowed in, Democrat Seth Molton said: “What I heard here today was a tactical brief. I heard no strategy, no end game, no assessment of how they are going to end the flow of drugs into the United States…” Every day it seems more and more evident that this has little to nothing to do with drugs, which raises the question: “Why?” Why take such a chance by attacking a country with mutual defense agreements with Russia and China? Why risk war in our hemisphere? Why put our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen at such risk? Is it Epstein? Rubio‘s ambitions? Inquiring minds — and American patriots who care about our military and our reputation around the world — want to know.


— Trump’s new refugee policy: white, wealthy, and welcome. In a major change of a refugee policy that stretches back to the 1920s, the Trump administration has announced that only 7,500 people will be allowed into the US this year, and priority won’t go to Afghans who helped our troops or brown immigrants who’ve served in America’s military. Instead, the entire front of the line will be filled by white South Africans like Elon Musk’s father (who was in Moscow this week for a party with Putin). The white supremacy credentials of the Trump administration — including widespread layoffs of Black employees — are now absolutely impeccable.


— Hispanics not welcome either, unless they worked for one of Trump’s shabby golf motels. Alejandro Juarez illegally crossed the US border 22 years ago, and soon thereafter became one of Trump’s many undocumented workers (like the Poles who built Trump Tower, for example). ICE picked him up a few weeks ago and put him on a deportation flight to Mexico before, apparently, somebody from the Trump organization noticed he was missing. DHS is now frantically trying to find the valued worker and bring him back to the US so he can apply for long-term residency and a work permit. Irony of ironies…


— “Judge Boxwine” Pirro, recently recruited from Fox “News” for a federal judgeship, apparently demanded prosecutors delete the word “mob” to describe a member of the mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6th. George Orwell famously wrote, “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.” It now appears that we’re falling deeper and deeper into an Orwellian world where Trump redefines the past so he can rewrite the future, much as the remnants of the Confederacy did with their Lost Cause mythology when Reconstruction collapsed in 1877. Pirro won’t explain why the description was excised, nor why the two prosecutors who wrote it into a sentencing recommendation have been relocated, perhaps in anticipation of being fired. But anybody with half a brain can figure this one out…


— Tear gassing trick-or-treaters: Noem’s new definition of American values. Puppy killer Noem refused to pause operations in Chicago so children can trick or treat. What have we become? Brutal is probably a good word, to begin with. In another example of the Trump regime’s frantic efforts to harass, imprison, and deport brown people — and perhaps to gin up an insurrection that could justify suspending elections — Noem denied Illinois Governor Pritzker’s request to hold off on the tear gas and masked terror operations for Halloween. When ICE recently raided a Chicago apartment building, they then trashed multiple apartments, ripping up furniture, smashing windows, breaking and scattering possessions, and removing and carting away phones and laptops. No warrants signed by judges were presented and one ICE thug, when asked about the shivering zip-tied American citizen kids standing in the freezing cold, said, “Fuck the children.” Setting aside the invocation of Epstein (and Trump?) the phrase immediately brings to mind, the brutal sentiment appears to be one embraced by ICE Barbie herself…


— From firebrand to outcast: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s midlife MAGA crisis. What’s happening with MTG? The MAGA firebrand appears to be undergoing some sort of a conversion experience, most recently calling out “pathetic Republican men” who she says are essentially telling her to sit down and shut up. Prior to that, she posted on social media: “Democrats did this with Obamacare 15 yrs ago and Johnson says Republicans have a mystery plan that is yet to be revealed to fix it. But no one knows what it is and we’re told to stay home in our districts.” Either Greene is in trouble politically in her district as she looks at an upcoming primary or next year’s midterm election, or she’s finally figured out that she’s been being played for a sucker by Trump and his Republicans all these years (along with so many others) and is no longer willing to play the game. I’ve invited her on my program for a friendly discussion; we’ll see if she shows up…

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Republicans, Trump
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