The GOP knows that it’s in trouble with the voters. Trump’s decision to join Israel in a war against Iran is a disaster. It has caused inflation at a time when voters were already worried about affordability. Trump’s poll numbers are somewhere in the 30s.

His biggest issue, meant to distract voters, is to charge that our elections are fraudulent. He told world leaders that our elections are “rigged,” which is surprising considering that he and his party won the last (rigged?) election.

Marc Elias has led the legal battle to stop Trump’s multiple efforts to take control of voter data and to control state elections. The Constitution clearly says that states control their elections. He and his team of lawyers have fought the federal government in case after case and won.

Trump’s goal is to destroy Americans’ belief in the fairness of elections. The goal is to transfer the public’s trust to authoritarianism.

Marc’s “Democracy Docket” is a must-read.

He writes:

I doubt Donald Trump thinks Chuck Gray is allowing noncitizens to vote. Indeed, when the Wyoming Secretary of State first ran for the office in 2022, Trump endorsed him. In 2024, Wyoming overwhelmingly voted for Trump for president.

Nevertheless, on Tuesday, Trump’s Department of Justice sent Gray and the chief election officials in the other 49 states a letter warning that they could face criminal prosecution over possible noncitizen voting.

Utah’s top election official, Deidre Henderson, posted on social media that the letter was “truly bizarre behavior.” The Republican Lt. Governor noted that the DOJ “is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”

I can say confidently that neither Gray nor Henderson has anything to worry about. Like their colleagues in the other 48 states, they have done nothing to warrant the insulting correspondence they received.

Though I have profound differences with many Republican chief election officials, I have no doubt they, like their Democratic counterparts, aim to keep noncitizens off their voter rolls and have done nothing remotely criminal.

But keeping noncitizens from voting wasn’t the point of the DOJ’s letter. Nor is it the point of DOJ’s announcement that it is sending “observers” to watch primary elections in fifteen jurisdictions across six states — Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia.

No, the point of both efforts, like so much in the Trump era, is performative. In lieu of evidence of actual fraud, the administration wants to use these clumsy steps to create the illusion that fraud exists.

This is a tactic Republicans regularly employ when it comes to their attacks on voting. For example, the DOJ has filed thirty lawsuits to gain access to state voter rolls. It has lost all 11 that have been decided. Yet its public posturing around the cases is intended to convey the message that something untoward resides in the data it seeks.

The RNC has followed a similar path, touting new anti-voting lawsuits that are either later dismissed or amount to nothing. Yet the propaganda value of the filing is achieved nonetheless.

There is a second, more dangerous reason why Trump and his allies act this way. They want to desensitize the public to their creeping authoritarianism.

When the DOJ deployed a handful of observers in advance of the 2025 elections, it caused waves. Now it is expanding that program with less fanfare. If, as I expect, it massively increases this behavior in the fall, officials want it to seem like old news.

Sadly, we have seen this work for Trump.

The right wing has made promoting lies about elections its top priority. It shows up in every presidential speech, is embraced by every GOP campaign, and is promoted — at least in part — by every right-wing advocacy effort.

Anyone nominated to the federal bench by this administration is required to adhere to certain norms supporting election denialism. They cannot say Biden won the 2020 election; they must parrot at least some form of voter fraud allegations.

Democrats dismiss these statements but mostly want to discuss other topics — the economy, jobs and healthcare. This makes good campaign sense but leaves a mismatch in the volume of messages Americans hear on the vital topic of democracy.

The legacy media has proven itself unable or unwilling to stay focused on threats to democracy. It feels institutionally compelled to treat the entire issue as a two-sided political contest rather than as an existential threat to the rule of law and the country.

That leaves those of us in the pro-democracy movement. Independent media has made great strides but continues to suffer from a lack of reach and resources necessary to inform the broader public of the nature and extent of the risks.

Voting rights organizations and lawyers do the hard work in the trenches but face Republican officials, a hostile administration and well-funded opponents.

With four months until the election, the challenges I lay out above will only grow. I haven’t even mentioned the role of disinformation, foreign interference, or how the Supreme Court might undercut efforts to protect voting.

But the truth is that we have faced these threats before — in 2020, when Trump tried to overturn the election and then inspired a violent insurrection at the Capitol, and in 2022, when his followers tried to prevent certification of elections.

We can defeat Trump’s authoritarianism. We can protect our elections and our democracy. But it will require all of us working together with a common mission.

That starts with refusing to allow ourselves to become numb to what Trump is doing, and insisting that we remain vigilant for signs that it is getting worse. In short, it requires us not to turn away, but to focus on the threats.

In the weeks and months ahead, there will be opportunities to discuss specific tactics and steps to take. But for now, all I ask is that you stay engaged. It’s okay to be tired and worried. It is not okay, however, to give up hope. That is what Trump wants — and is counting on.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Republicans, Trump

Trump Fires Every Member of the Federal Election Commission

By dianeravitch

July 13, 2026 //

Rebecca Slaughter was a member of the Federal Trade Commission, appointed by Trump to a Democratic seat in 2018, then reappointed for a second term by Biden in 2023. In 2025, Trump fired her and another member of the commission. She challenged her dismissal in court, because she had been removed without cause. On June 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the President could fire members of independent commissions without cause.

Although the conservative majority claims to be “originalists,” they overruled a long-standing precedent (“Humphrey’s Executor”) which protected the independence of independent commissions, requiring the president to have cause for firing or removing a member of an independent commission.

Trump hailed the decision as “the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years.”

Trump just removed three of the four remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission. He didn’t have to give a reason. Everyone (except members of the Federal Reserve) serves at his pleasure. By law, the four-member commission is supposed to be bipartisan, with two members from each party.

What makes this removal ominous is that Trump has made no secret of his desire to manipulate the election machinery to benefit his party. He wants to change the rules of eligibility, change the documentation, change mail-in voting, anything that might make it more difficult to vote.

L.C. Francis of the L.C. Francis Open Society for History & Civics warns about the dangers of removing an electoral safeguard on the cusp of an important election. Will any new commissioners be Trump partisans? Will they swear their loyalty to him? Will they agree that the 2020 election, which he lost decisively, was rigged?

L.C. Francis writes:

Trump could not force an independent commission to carry out his voting agenda. Less than four months before the midterms, he removed the entire leadership team.

“Power is of an encroaching nature, and ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.”
—James Madison, Federalist No. 48

Dear Friends,

Imagine learning, over your first cup of coffee, that less than four months before a national election, every seat on the federal commission created to protect the machinery of that election is vacant. No commissioners remain to lead it, to question political pressure, or to stand between the White House and the rules beneath the ballot.

Donald Trump recently eliminated the last three members of the United States Election Assistance Commission, leaving all four positions vacant. Two commissioners were dismissed via email, while the third resigned after being informed of her imminent removal. Subsequently, the White House issued a statement that clarified the intent behind these actions: stating that election officials need to be “totally aligned” with the president’s agenda.

The issue at hand is that an election commission, originally meant to stay independent from presidential influence, has been undermined by a president who thinks its leadership should be aligned with him.

To fully understand what has been at stake, we need to return to Florida in 2000. Election workers held punch-card ballots up to the light while lawyers argued over hanging chads, incomplete punches, and the intentions of individual voters. The presidency turned on 537 votes, handing George W. Bush the Oval Office, and the country discovered that the right to vote depended on an aging and uneven election system that few Americans had ever considered.

After the chaos of the 2000 election, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act and established the Election Assistance Commission on the hard lesson that no president, party, or faction should control the machinery beneath the ballot. Its four members were evenly split between the parties, recommended by congressional leaders, confirmed by the Senate, and required to produce three votes before the commission could act.

The design was intentional because the agency manages voting-system standards, testing labs, election grants, and the national registration form, all of which influence an election well before any ballots are counted.

While researching this article, I was struck by James Madison’s warning that power tends to overreach. Congress learned this lesson and distributed authority over elections among the states, Congress, the courts, and an independent bipartisan commission. It’s important to remember that while the president may nominate members, he cannot legally turn the commission into an arm of his campaign or personal agenda.

Trump has already tried to cross that boundary.

In March 2025, he directed the commission to require documentary proof of citizenship on the federal registration form and sought to implement new rules for mail ballots and election funding. However, a federal court halted key parts of the initiative because the Constitution assigns the regulation of federal elections to Congress and the states, not the president.

He was unable to compel the commission to follow his order and has now dismissed everyone who had been managing it.

Trump is not currently in the Oval Office altering vote counts. Instead, he aims to influence the rules governing elections before votes are even cast, including who can register, what identification is required, which voting systems are permitted, and the extent of federal pressure on the states.

We still have lawful means to prevent the consolidation of power.

The commission needs three confirmed members to function legally. Any replacements must get Senate approval, and bipartisan membership is still required. Moreover, state attorneys general and secretaries of state can challenge illegal federal requests before Election Day.

In fact, election officials are authorized to publicly disclose all White House instructions, preserve all communications, and reject policies exceeding presidential authority. Courts can also issue injunctions against disputed rules before those rules reach voting ballots, registration offices, or voting machines.

The public must therefore monitor the replacement process with the same attention normally reserved for election night. The nominees’ names, records, testimony, and views on presidential power will determine whether the commission remains independent or becomes obedient in all but name.

Congress created this commission because the country learned in 2000 that an election can be lost in the machinery before a single result is announced. Trump has now cleared out his leadership as the nation prepares to decide whether to restrain his power. No serious citizen should mistake the timing as coincidence.

The chairs at the Election Assistance Commission may be empty, but the law has not surrendered them. Courts can still block unlawful executive action, as the Kennedy Center injunction proved. States can resist presidential interference, public records can expose what is being attempted, and every nominee can be scrutinized before obedience is allowed to pass for qualification.

The danger is not that our constitutional defenses have vanished…It’s that Americans may wait to use them until the damage is already done.

I’ve always believed that no president controls the machinery of an American election. It is ultimately owned by the states, the law, our Constitution, and, most importantly, We the People.

Vivat Constitution!

Categories Trump

North Carolina: 74% of Students Using Vouchers Were Already in Private Schools

By dianeravitch

July 13, 2026 //

In North Carolina, as in every other state that offers vouchers, the overwhelming majority of students who claim them were already enrolled in private schools. Before they are enacted, there are lots of claims about helping poor kids “escape failing public schools,” helping kids with disabilities, offering opportunity to go to a better school.

It’s all malarkey.

About 1,125,000 children attend school in Tennessee. About 12.7% of students are enrolled in private schools. Unconstrained by federal law, private schools do not have to accept students with disabilities or others they don’t want. They do not have to administer the same state tests as public tests

The real effect of vouchers–and perhaps its intent–is to subsidize the tuition of kids in private schools, even when the families are rich.

T. Keung Hui of the News & Observer in North Carolina reported:

Nearly three-quarters of North Carolina’s private school students are now getting a taxpayer-funded voucher to help pay for their tuition costs, according to an analysis of state data.

The data indicates that 74.2% of North Carolina’s 143,998 private school students received an Opportunity Scholarship during the 2025-26 school year. Only a quarter of the state’s private school students were receiving a voucher two years ago, before the program was sharply expanded by state lawmakers.

“It is discouraging to see the continued growth in the unaccountable private school sector, where tax dollars fund schools that discriminate, lack transparency, are not required to publicly reveal student achievement data, and in some cases, limit admission to church members,” Heather Koons, director of research and communications for Public Schools First NC, said in an interview Wednesday…

The state has been giving Opportunity Scholarships to help families cover private school costs since 2014. The program was initially promoted by Republican lawmakers as a way to help low-income families pay for private schools to escape low-performing public schools.

But starting in the 2024-25 school year, lawmakers significantly expanded the Opportunity Scholarship program by increasing funding and opening eligibility to all families. The voucher program has tripled in size from 32,549 students in the 2023-24 school year to 106,863 students as of June 2026.

Most of the expansion has come from existing private school families applying for a voucher for the first time. Many private schools encouraged or in some cases required families to apply for an Opportunity Scholarship.

The voucher expansion has allowed some private schools to raise tuition, reduce the amount they spend on financial assistance and embark on expansion programs.

In 2023-24, the cost of vouchers was $185.6 million. In 2025-26, the cost of vouchers will be $589 million. By 2032, the legislators have pledged to spend $825 million. This is money that will diverted away from the state’s public schools, which accept everyone, and enroll the vast majority of the state’s students.

Why not put that public money into public schools, which enroll nearly 90% of the state’s students? Reduce class sizes, pay teachers more, make sure every school has a full curriculum.

Categories Education Reform

Federal Judge Drops Case Against Leaders of the Proud Boys

By dianeravitch

July 12, 2026 //

Trump pardoned the convicted criminals who were sentenced because of their actions on January 6, 2021. Those who committed the most serious crimes were accused of seditious conspiracy and did not receive a pardon. They are leaders of the Proud Boys, a group of right wing extremists. They were later pardoned by Todd Blanche.

CNN reported:

(CNN) — A federal judge on Friday dismissed the seditious conspiracy case against several Proud Boys members — granting a request from Trump’s Justice Department and undoing one of the Biden administration’s most celebrated victories against those who it said inspired the January 6, 2021, attack on American democracy.

US District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, begrudgingly agreed to drop the case against the four members, saying he “lacks the authority to compel the Executive to pursue a prosecution, full stop.”

“President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6—whether those views are based on fact or fiction—are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them through the Executive Order,” Judge Kelly said, referring to Trump on his first day back in office signing an order commuting their sentences.

Trump’s order granted pardons to over 1,000 people convicted in the attack but left in place the convictions of the four Proud Boys members — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.

In April, the Justice Department under Todd Blanche moved to vacate their convictions.

Dismissing the case against the Proud Boys associates erases some of the most serious convictions from the sprawling investigation of the US Capitol riot, one of the largest federal investigations in US history. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl were found guilty in 2023 of seditious conspiracy and a range of other charges. Pezzola was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other charges related to January 6.

The US district judge who sits in Washington, DC, said in his order that the Trump administration sought to “treat this case essentially the same way it has all January 6 cases, without regard for the seriousness of the conduct at issue or even whether the case was initiated after President Biden took office or, like this one, while President Trump was still in power.”

“The decisions to issue the Executive Order and to abandon this prosecution—even after the Government secured convictions for serious crimes relating to the attack on the Capitol on January 6—are solely the Executive’s,” Kelly continued. “No one should mistake the Court’s granting of the Government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions.”

Rehl, one of the Proud Boys members, celebrated the dismissal in a post on X, saying, “Finally, it’s all over! January 6th can now be a thing of the past for me!”

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the group who had also been pardoned by Trump, was also quick to boast on X Friday night: “Justice is served! Proud Boys don’t lose. We win. This is our victory.”

Trump has long lambasted the January 6 prosecutions as an injustice against his supporters, even referring to those in jail as “hostages.”

The president has repeatedly called January 6, 2021, “a day of love and peace” and claimed his supporters posed “zero threat.” His comments are contradicted by hundreds of video clips of Trump supporters beating police with flagpoles, batons, wooden clubs and baseball bats; deploying stun guns and chemical sprays; and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police officers.

The judge, calling the insurrection “a perilous event,” said it was “an attack on people, including police officers, many of whom were injured. It was an attack on a coordinate branch of government—Congress—that the Founders saw fit to give a place of primacy in Article I of the Constitution. And it was an attack on the Constitution’s mechanism to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next, what President Reagan called ‘nothing less than a miracle.’”

Closing his order with a somber warning, Kelly said, “Moving forward, if this Nation’s experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people—no matter their partisan preferences—will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework.”

Categories Accountability, Character, Disruption, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

Trump Department of Justice Issues Subpoenas to NY Times Reporters

By dianeravitch

July 12, 2026 //

The Trump administration claims to be transparent, but it is quick to harass reporters if they discover and reveal information that the administration wants to hide. The New York Times recently explained that Trump had to use his old Presidential airplane to return from the NATO meeting in Ankara, Turkey, because his huge airplane–the Qatari gift– didn’t have the required security enhancements. The reporters credited with the story received subpoenas, and the government will try to compel them to testify before a grand jury and reveal their sources.

The New York Times reported:

The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times, after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.

The subpoenas — which seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday — were an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.

In some cases, the subpoenas were delivered by federal agents who showed up at reporters’ homes.

The Times denounced the administration’s actions.

“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” said David McCraw, The Times’s top newsroom lawyer, in a statement on Friday evening.

“Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used,” Mr. McCraw wrote. “This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”

The subpoenas contain few specifics, asking only that the journalists testify “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” They were issued by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. Mr. Clayton, who leads one of the country’s most prominent law enforcement offices, was recently nominated by Mr. Trump to serve as director of national intelligence.

Representatives for the White House did not respond to inquiries on Friday evening.

In a statement on Saturday, a Justice Department spokeswoman said that “reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

“We value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but D.O.J. also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information,” said the spokeswoman, Emily Covington. She added, “We recognize there may always be natural tension there, but we are not going to ignore the law.”

The Times journalists who received subpoenas included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, who reported on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had departed Turkey on the old Air Force One as a security precaution at the urging of the Secret Service. On Thursday, The Times reported that the new Air Force One, a Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. Both articles cited sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.

Before the Wednesday article was published, a senior official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation contacted a reporter and a senior editor at The Times to ask that the article be held, calling it an issue of national security, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The F.B.I. official declined to explain the security issue. The official also asked The Times to disclose its sources for the article; the newspaper refused to do so. (A spokesman for The Times, Charlie Stadtlander, confirmed the account.)

Mr. Trump has long been a harsh critic of the news media. But in his second term in office, he has moved aggressively to use the immense powers of the federal government in his efforts to attack the press.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department sought to compel testimony from journalists at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. The Justice Department withdrew the subpoenas after both news organizations fought back in sealed filings.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have initiated leak investigations into the disclosure of classified information. But subpoenas aimed at journalists are not common, and First Amendment advocates say they can chill the work of news gathering.

In January, F.B.I. agents took the rare step of searching the home of a Washington Post reporter, Hannah Natanson, as part of an investigation into a government contractor’s handling of classified material. The agents seized phones, laptops and a smartwatch after executing a search warrant. Ms. Natanson had spent months speaking with government employees while reporting on the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal work force.

The Times is a party to several lawsuits involving Mr. Trump and his administration.

The president sued The Times last year, accusing it of defaming him, disparaging his reputation and seeking to undermine his 2024 candidacy.

In December, The Times sued the Defense Department after it imposed restrictions on reporters who cover the military. The company sued again after the agency reduced reporters’ physical access to the Pentagon.

In May, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued The Times, accusing it of employment discrimination. On Friday, The Times filed a counterclaim, saying the lawsuit was an act of retaliation for its coverage of the Trump presidency and a violation of its First Amendment rights.

Categories Censorship, Freedom of the Press, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Has Two Obsessions: Rigging the 2026 Elections and Redecorating

By dianeravitch

July 12, 2026 //

Heather Cox Richardson reviews the new focus in Trump’s actions. He has lost interest in governing. He is fixated on rigging the 2026 elections and redecorating the White House. He wants to leave indelible changes, sort of like the “Kilroy was here” graffiti. But in Trump’s case, he wants to make changes that can’t be wiped away, like tearing down the East Wing before anyone could stop him. His golden ballroom will be his lasting memorial. His successor will quickly strip the Oval Office of the gold kitsch that he plastered all over the walls, making it look like the reception room of Louis XIV.

Richardson writes:

Presumably afraid of investigations into his actions, President Donald J. Trump appears to have abandoned all pretense of governing for the good of the country and is focusing on rigging the 2026 election to keep Republicans in power.

This morning, as the National Association of Realtors reported that U.S. home prices have hit an all-time high, he announced that he will not sign the housing bill, which was designed to address the unaffordability of housing and which passed Congress with strong bipartisan majorities, “in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.”

As the Lincoln Project summed it up, the Republican Party’s message four months before the midterms appears to be, “You’re not getting affordable housing unless you give up your voting rights.”

His demand for the passage of a bill that most observers agree will suppress voting is only one of the ways that Trump is trying to rig the 2026 election.

After federal judges have repeatedly prohibited the administration from seizing state voter lists, apparently to run them through a program designed to identify noncitizens who are not eligible for certain federal programs (something federal judges have also prohibited), Trump’s appointees at the Department of Justice appear to have turned to trying to intimidate election officials.

On Tuesday the Department of Justice confirmed that it has sent letters to election officials in all fifty states and Washington, D.C., warning them that they could be criminally prosecuted if noncitizens vote. The letters came from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump loyalist, and gave them five days to detail how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

Utah lieutenant governor Deidre Henderson, a Republican, posted on social media: “Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution. I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts. This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”

Last night, Trump fired the last two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent federal commission that helps state and local officials make sure elections are smooth and secure. Among other things, it certifies voting machines and maintains the national mail-voter registration forms. The only other current member of the EAC, a Republican, resigned. The fourth member of the EAC, a Republican, resigned earlier this year.

A White House official told Justin Papp of CNBC that the Supreme Court recognized Trump’s authority to fire the agency officials in its June 29 Trump v. Slaughter decision, which overturned more than 90 years of precedent to rubber stamp the president’s right to fire agency officials who are not aligned with his political agenda.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted,” the official told Papp. “The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so.”

Legal analyst Harry Litman says this interpretation of the Slaughter decision is a stretch. He noted that “[n]othing in the agency cases held that Trump could simply shut down an agency of Congress’s creation. That’s what he has done with the [E]lection Assistance [C]ommission which now lacks commissioners to act. It’s taking the court’s cases to the ultimate conclusion and just disabling an important agency.”

The nonpartisan, nonprofit League of Women Voters, which works to protect the right to vote, called the removal of the Election Assistance Commission officials “a direct attack on the independence of our nation’s election infrastructure…. The American people deserve elections administered by trusted professionals, not shaped by political interference. This is not a routine personnel decision—it is a dangerous escalation in the effort to weaken the safeguards that protect free and fair elections in the November midterms.”

This is the backdrop for the news from Betsy Klein and Kaitlan Collins of CNN today that the White House is fortifying the White House entrance at the North Portico during Trump’s renovation of the Ionic columns there.

In March, Trump’s appointee to the Commission on Fine Arts, which advises Trump on design matters, urged replacing the historic Ionic columns with more ornate Corinthian columns that would match the ones Trump picked out for his ballroom. The White House says the work on the North Portico is “standard restoration work,” but did not answer CNN’s question about whether there would be more substantial changes to the North Portico. Trump recently posted pictures of the Corinthian columns at his proposed ballroom, boasting that “When completed, there will be nothing like it anywhere in the World!”

While the focus has been on the historic columns and their possible replacement, it is not until now we have learned about the strengthening of the White House door. The portico is now covered with scaffolding that is covered with a drape, and a White House official told Klein and Collins that the renovations will include security enhancements at the request of the U.S. Secret Service.

Dan Diamond of the Washington Post also reported today that under the Trump administration, the Secret Service, the White House, and the Interior Department are seeking to place permanent eight- to nine-foot-tall fencing around Lafayette Square, where tourists and protesters congregate, in front of the White House. They are also considering fencing off the parts of Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House. In the past, when officials believed it was necessary to shut off access to Lafayette Square, they used temporary barriers to avoid the perception that they were restricting public access to what is known as the People’s House.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the nonvoting congressional representative from the District of Columbia., objected. “More fencing around the President’s Park would send the wrong message to the nation and the world by continuing to transform our democracy from one that is accessible and of the people to one that is exclusive and fearful of its own citizens,” she said.

Tonight, at 11:59 PM, the housing bill became law without the president’s signature.

—

Notes:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/u-s-home-prices-hit-an-all-time-high-as-sales-slow-and-mortgage-rates-rise

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/09/trump-fires-election-commissioners

In sweeping attack on elections, Trump fires leadership of key federal voting assistance commission

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/trump-fires-election-assistance-commission-members-ahead-midterms-rcna353781

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/doj-warns-criminal-charges-state-election-officials-non-citizen-voting-rcna353433

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/10/trump-purges-election-assistance-commission.html

https://www.lwv.org/newsroom/press-releases/league-women-voters-condemns-president-trumps-removal-election-assistance?utm_source=copilot.com

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/09/politics/white-house-columns-trump-construction

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/10/politics/white-house-front-door-fortification

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/15/white-house-columns-ionic-corinthian/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/10/trump-plan-would-fence-pennsylvania-avenue-outside-white-house/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-plan-would-fence-pennsylvania-avenue-outside-white-house/ar-AA27CUyN

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/10/nx-s1-5885027/housing-bill-without-trump-signature

Trumpstruth.org:

statuses/39595

Bluesky:

lincolnproject.us/post/3mqcdfiwwh72n

harrylitman.bsky.social/post/3mqci7yv6m225

Threads:

@deidrehenderson/post/Daf_6faFINL

Categories Elections, Trump

Texas Vouchers Subsidize Students Already Attending Private Schools

By dianeravitch

July 10, 2026 //

When Governor Greg Abbott sold his voucher program, he talked about helping the poorest kids escape public schools and choose better private schools; he talked about enabling those with disabilities go to private schools. He talked about spreading opportunity through school choice.

Some moderate Republicans and rural Republicans supported their community public schools, and they repeatedly voted down Abbott’s vouchers. So Abbott used the millions of dollars contributed by Pennsylvania billionaire to replace them with conservatives who backed vouchers.

But now the data are in on which students are getting vouchers. Three-quarters of them are private school students. This is similar to what happened in other states. Vouchers are not about helping public school students; the reality is that they subsidize kids who never attended public schools.

Maryam Ahmed of The Dallas Morning News reported:

As Texas’ $1 billion school choice program approaches rollout this fall, preliminary data shows most of the program’s applicants were already enrolled in private schools, fewer applications came from families in poorer districts, and less that 30 students with special needs got the top award amount of $30,000.

The Dallas Morning News analyzed data from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which runs the Texas Education Freedom Account program.

The first year of TEFA has exposed key challenges voucher programs have faced nationwide: insufficient funding for some families to make the move to expensive private schools, difficulties for special education students finding private schools that can support their needs, and minimal benefits for lower-income and rural families.

Since similar data are reported in every state that has no income limits, it’s reasonable to conclude that the transfer of public money to kids in religious and private schools is a feature of school choice, not a bug.

Out of 5.4 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, 275,000 applied for vouchers. The legislation, passed last year, offers students $10,474 while disabled students can receive up to $30,000. Homeschooled students can get $2,000. Median private school tuition is about $9,400, not including books and transportation. Elite private schools charge much more.

Now we learn that the purpose of the voucher program was to “ease the burden” on families already paying for private school, not to help kids in public school:

TEFA spokesperson Travis Pillow said the program’s goal is not to “lure away” public school students but make private school affordable across the board. Many families with children in private school make major sacrifices to keep them there, Pillow said, and TEFA eases that burden….

Out of 5.45 million public school students in Texas, only about 68,000 even applied for TEFA — barely one percent. Half of those students were awarded funds, as of June 16 records provided to The Dallas Morning News, but more could drop out of the program if they can’t find a school to fit their needs.

But even a small drop in public school enrollment leads to budget cuts.

Florida’s voucher program has ballooned to more than $4 billion dollars since it was implemented in 2023, taking up nearly a quarter of the state’s public school fund. In Arizona, which has the country’s oldest universal school choice program, vouchers contributed to a $1.4 billion budget shortfall in 2024…

In Texas, public school districts receive a $6,215 allotment per student from the state, meaning fewer public school students directly translates to less funding…

About one in four of the voucher awards went to students with disabilities but only 20 in the entire state received the top award of $25,000-$30,000. However, private schools are not bound by federal law and may deny admission to students with disabilities. It is anticipated that many who received vouchers may return to their public school, where they are guaranteed admission and services.

If the state’s public education budget becomes strained, said Daniel DeMatthews, an educational policy professor at the University of Texas at Austin, lower-income and rural districts would likely be hit hardest.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Lies, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Texas, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” Endangers the Well-Being of Children

By dianeravitch

July 10, 2026 //

Jan Resseger is a perceptive observer of policy and a passionate defender of children. She writes on this post about the myriad ways in which Trump’s signature legislation harms children. This bill will make many children hungrier, poorer, and less healthy.

She writes:

Huge omnibus laws filled with myriad amendments and unrelated provisions are always passed without sufficient public attention to the details and long term consequences. House Resolution 1, which the President has called the “One Big Beautiful Bill” was an omnibus tax and reconciliation law. President Trump signed HR 1 into law just a year ago on the 4th of July. The law poses a number of threats to the well-being of children and to public schooling. Many of us who follow public education policy are well aware of the Trump administration’s expansion of the privatization of public education with the new tuition tax credit school voucher program buried in HR 1, but other provisions of this federal law have also begun imperiling the welfare of our society’s most vulnerable children. The damage will only expand in the coming months and years.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently updated threats to children’s welfare in HR1: “Already the law is raising costs for families and taking away health coverage, food assistance, and other essentials from people who are already struggling to afford to meet their basic needs—all while showering more tax breaks on the wealthiest households and funding a violent immigration detention and deportation agenda. The law’s harm will only deepen as its more than $1 trillion in cuts for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act… marketplaces fully take effect and states fully implement SNAP eligibility restrictions and take drastic measures ahead of the federal government’s significant shift of SNAP costs to states… (T)he law’s cuts will expand the still-deep inequities long experienced by those who face the most economic discrimination and poverty, including Black, Latino, and Indigenous people and families with people who are immigrants.”

For political reasons, many of HR 1’s punitive provisions were delayed so that they will kick in only after the 2026 midterm election. The provisions with some of the most serious implications for families with children include future cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities predicts: “The harmful… megabill will take health coverage away from millions of people and dramatically raise health care costs for millions more. The law cuts $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and ACA marketplaces… The work requirement… will take away coverage for childless adults and some parents who can’t prove that they are participating in countable ‘community engagement’ activities at least 80 hours per month.”

KFF adds: “For the first time, the law conditions Medicaid eligibility for Medicaid expansion enrollees on meeting work and reporting requirements. These work requirements, which will go into effect in January 2027, or sooner at state option, represent the largest source of enrollment declines in the law.”

There are, however, two areas in which HR 1 has already seriously impacted families with children.

Sharp Drop in SNAP Participation It has been widely predicted that millions of families who need food assistance will, by 2028, loose access to food stamps (SNAP) due to the provisions of HR 1. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Dottie Rosenbaum and Joseph Llobrera report, however, that the sharp drop in access to SNAP has actually begun in 2026:

“Millions of people are losing food assistance through SNAP due to the 2025… HR 1. This includes many children and others not targeted by HR 1’s eligibility restrictions. In fact, more people are losing SNAP, and faster, than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted. The latest data show that about 4.7 million fewer people (including 808,000 children) participated in SNAP in March 2026 compared to the average month in fiscal year 2025… The most likely reason is the impact of HR 1’s shifting of enormous new SNAP costs to states, which they owe starting in fiscal year 2028. CBO estimated the cost shift mandate would have no impact until 2028, but it has already led many states to erect barriers to people’s SNAP participation, such as requiring more paperwork and imposing other requirements that states often don’t have the staff to administer.” In 2028, HR 1 requires states to start paying part of SNAP costs, and states are already trying to make participation “harder to navigate” with “more paperwork, shortening certification periods or adding more case reviews.” (Emphasis is mine.) HR 1 ‘s SNAP requirements will reduce future coverage among parents by adding a work requirement for parents and caregivers of children who are 14 years old or over.

This week the Center for American Progress released a report demonstrating that HR 1 may eventually also reduce free school meals for children and school districts that now qualify: “When children lose access to SNAP and Medicaid, they may also lose their direct certification for free school meals. This harm expands beyond individual impacts. As a result, schools participating in the Community Eligibility Provision CEP may fall below the 25 percent of direct certified students required to qualify for the CEP, ending free school meals for the entire school or district.”

Spending on Immigration Last July, the American Immigrant Council summed up how HR 1 would help fund the President’s expanded immigration enforcement—what we have watched during the past year: “H.R. 1 provides $170.7 billion in additional funding for immigration- and border enforcement-related activities to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP, as well as for the Department of Defense (DOD) for activities related to the military’s presence along parts of the southern border.”

The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) details some of the consequences so far for children in immigrant families across the United States: “This historic ballooning of immigration enforcement funding has turbocharged family separations and child and family detention, threatening child safety and well-being. An estimated 205,000 children, 145,000 of whom are U.S. citizens, have experienced having a parent in detention… Moreover, the high level of disenrollment in SNAP and Medicaid is in part due to HR 1’s exclusion of lawfully present immigrants, such as asylum seekers and refugees, as well as the chilling effect on people whose children are likely eligible but are disenrolling because they are concerned about their participation being used against them in immigration proceedings.”

Research has shown for decades that family poverty and problems like hunger and homelessness contribute to achievement gaps as children enter school. Thirty years ago in The Manufactured Crisis, David Berliner and Bruce Biddle declared: “the larger the proportion of citizens who live in poverty, the greater challenge for public schools.” (p. 220)

More recently the National Education Policy Center’s Kevin Welner explained the correlation of children’s economic circumstances with their school achievement: “Those of us who work in or with schools never question the enormous impact that a teacher or school can have on a student. But this essential truth coexists with another truth: that differences between schools account for a relatively small portion of measured outcome differences. That is, opportunity gaps in the U.S arise primarily outside of schools. This should not be a surprise. Poverty, concentrated poverty, and racialized poverty are pervasive features of America. School improvement efforts cannot directly help children and their families overcome decades of policies that perpetuate systemic racism and economic inequality. When children are born in the United States, their educational and life outcomes can all be predicted based on their parents’ education, income and wealth… Inequality in the U.S. is stark and enduring.”

The tangled issues buried in the mammoth HR 1, what President Trump calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” threaten the well-being of millions of poor children enrolled in our nation’s urban and rural public schools. It will be urgently important for educators and public school advocates to press Congress to correct the bill’s myriad injustices.

Categories Childhood, Cruelty, Democrats, Evil, Extremism, Health, Inequality, Poverty, Vouchers

Nebraska is #1 in Supporting Its Public Schools!

By dianeravitch

July 10, 2026 //

The Network for Public Education publishes an annual ranking of states in relation to their support for their public schools. This year, for the third year in a row, Nebraska topped all other states in the ranking of states. The legislature, led by Republicans, wants school choice, including vouchers. The legislature allocated $10 million for a voucher program. The public voted by 57%-43% in 2024 to repeal the voucher program. The majority of the public wants good public schools.

Carol Burris writes:

Since our state-by-state report card, Public Schooling in America, began, Nebraska has consistently ranked among the top states for its support of public education. This year, it rose from fifth place to first.

Nebraska is one of only two states — the other being Kentucky — with no charter schools and no state voucher program. Both states’ legislatures passed voucher laws, but in Nebraska, voters overturned it by referendum. In Kentucky, the courts struck down both the charter and voucher laws, and voters went on to defeat an attempt to amend the state constitution to allow them.

Beyond the absence of privatization, Nebraska earned high marks for creating a positive climate for teaching and learning. It has fewer underqualified teachers than most states and a high teacher-attractiveness rating. It also has one of the best student-to-counselor ratios in the nation. It bans corporal punishment, and it is one of only two states that place homeschooling restrictions on families under investigation by Child Protective Services. Unlike most states, Nebraska requires families to provide annual notification when they homeschool.

Even at the top, Nebraska has room to improve. On public school funding, it landed in the middle of the pack. The state distributes what it spends equitably, but given its ability to pay, it can afford to invest more.

Nebraska also, unfortunately, opted into the federal voucher program, and it remains to be seen how much funding Scholarship Granting Organizations will direct to the state’s private and/or public schools. For now, however, Nebraskans’ commitment to their public schools has made the state a beacon of hope.

Categories Education Reform