John Thompson: Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters Is in Hot Water!

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2024 //
15

John Thompson, historian and teacher, writes about the controversies swirling in Oklahoma, mostly around the MAGA State Superintendent of Schools Ryan Walters, who has mandated Bible lessons in every grade, among other things.

Thompson writes:

The Oklahoma press has been reporting on a seemingly endless number of battles between traditional Republican, conservative legislators, and rightwing extremists exemplified by State Superintendent Ryan Walters and Gov. Kevin Stitt. But this week this political civil war exploded. It culminated in Walters demanding that the Republican Speaker of the House, who almost certainly plans to run for governor against Walters, start impeachment hearings against him!

As KFOR News noted, that raises the question as to why Walters would call for an impeachment hearing against himself. It then quoted the former Attorney General Mike Turpen, who has a half-century of political experience, “Ryan Walters appears to be embracing what I call victim-hood,” Turpen said. “Ryan, what you’re doing right now, saying ‘come get me,’ is political suicide.” Turpen then concluded, “I have no idea who’s advising him, but it breaks my heart for his family,” he said. “This is a Republican Party like a firing squad of circle, and they’re all aimed at one person, Ryan Walters.” 

As Nondoc explains, this came at:

The end of a long week for Walters, which has included news about a legislative investigation into how his agency has and has not allocated appropriated funds, questions about his compliance with state transparency laws, and a new defamation lawsuit filed against him by Bixby’s superintendent (Rob Miller.)

This also was pivotal because Miller was the first superintendent to publicly call out Walters on his mismanagement of funds, even though the World spoke to “at least a dozen other superintendents [who] confirmed that Miller was accurate.” Walters then responded to Miller, a highly respected Gulf War veteran, by calling him a “clown” and a “liar,” and claiming that ‘the Department of Education was ‘dealing with all kinds of financial problems’ at Bixby schools.”

And Walters repeatedly continued to use his aggressive language, “I will not continue to stand here and listen to Speaker McCall and (Republican) Mark McBride lie about my office and lie about the work we are doing.”

As the Oklahoman reported:

On Monday, state Rep. Mark McBride sent a letter to McCall requesting a special investigation of Walters and the state Education Department. Initially, McCall told McBride “no” and said there would be no investigation until 51 Republican members of the House signed the letter.

By Thursday, however, “McBride had the support of 24 other Republican House members and the 20-member Democratic Caucus.” And as the Tulsa World reported, “McBride said he’s heard from other representatives who want to sign on or say they want Walters and the OSDE investigated but are afraid to go public.”

And, as the Oklahoman further explained, its stories this week looked “at Walters’ agency’s failure to turn over funds for life-saving asthma inhalers and why it took more than a year for “off the formula” school districts to be reimbursed for a state-mandated teacher pay raises.” 

Moreover, “other lawmakers criticized Walters for his recent online name-calling about Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller.” Vocal critics included “House Speaker Pro Tempore Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) [who] did not sign McBride’s letter, but on Tuesday he did call for an end to Walters’ “rhetoric toward educators.” 

Hilbert also said, “The same is to be said about allowing legislators access to meetings in which they are clearly authorized by statute to observe.” (He thus came out in support of Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s legal challenge to Walters’ refusal to obey that law. By the way, Drummond will likely be another opponent to Walters in the governor’s race.)

Even Gov. Stitt backed off from Walters’ “name-calling,” saying that, “‘hey, let’s focus on the policies.’ It’s a hateful game sometimes in politics, as people are taking shots at you.” For what It’s worth, Stitt is now calling for “discussions across party lines.”

Then, Rep. Kevin Wallace (R-Wellston), the chair of “the House Appropriations and Budget Committee became the “spearhead” of the call for the investigation of Walters and the Education Department by the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT). And then, McCall “softened his stance and approved an investigation by LOFT.” It “will focus on issues raised by both legislators and private citizens regarding alleged state Education Department funding disbursement issues.”

And by Friday, Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat said, “Numerous Senators and I have been raising questions about spending and money not being allocated to specific programs the legislature has authorized at the Department of Education.” The Senate’s leader further explained that he originally said, “investigations like the state Education Department/Walters investigation weren’t part of LOFT’s original mission or purpose, but he supported the review because the concerns were serious.” He now says, “the Senate will stand ready to respond to any of the (LOFT) findings.”

And that brings us back to the second series of internal conflicts between MAGA’s and “adult Republicans.” As the Oklahoma Voice had reported, months ago, Senator Treat had “warned Gov. Kevin Stitt against targeting Republican senators who are up for reelection.” Treat cited “strong rumors” that Stitt “is seeking to take out good members of the Republican caucus.” He said that Republicans had supported Stitt on school choice and outlawing abortion, but “some Republican senators have been at odds over tax cuts, gaming compacts and other issues.” Treat tactfully said, “I know he (Stitt) is fairly new to it, but all of us talk and so it is even a smaller group of people who fund these ventures.” And, “senators have heard from people who have been “hit up” by Stitt’s operation to go after some Republican senators.”

Who knows if the pushback against Walters and Stitt is a prelude to the inner conflict that the Washington Post reports is growing in the Trump campaign? It reports:

Some of the internet’s most influential far-right figures are turning against former president Donald Trump’s campaign, threatening a digital “war” against the Republican candidate’s aides and allies that could complicate the party’s calls for unity in the final weeks of the presidential race.

For instance, the rightwing extremist Nick Fuentes “said on X that Trump’s campaign was ‘blowing it’ by not positioning itself more to the right and was ‘headed for a catastrophic loss,’ in a post that by Wednesday had been viewed 2.6 million times.” And, “Candace Owens, a far-right influencer … described the conservative infighting in a podcast Tuesday as a ‘MAGA Civil War.’”

Whether we’re talking about Oklahoma’s or national MAGA-ism, they have grown, in large part, because it is easier to tear down a barn, than build one.  Now, that truth may be wrecking Trumpism.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Curriculum, Disruption, Extremism, Oklahoma, Religion

Heather Cox Richardson: Democrats Offer a New Vision for America

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2024 //
7

Heather Cox Richardson describes the Democratic National Convention and Kamala Harris offering a vision of community, of neighbors helping neighbors, of government removing barriers to opportunity and lifting up those who need help.. She notes that the party has gone beyond identity politics: Harris did not mention her race or gender even as her nomination was history-making because of her race and gender. Instead of the tired tropes of the past, she appealed to traditional American values.

She writes:

The raucous roll call of states at the 2024 Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, as everybody danced to DJ Cassidy’s state-themed music, Lil Jon strode down the aisle to cheers for Georgia, and different delegations boasted about their states and good-naturedly teased other delegations, brought home the real-life meaning of E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” From then until Thursday, as a sea of American flags waved and attendees joyfully chanted “USA, USA, USA,” the convention welcomed a new vision for the Democratic Party, deeply rooted in the best of traditional America. 

Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s. This week’s convention showed that it has now gone further, recentering the vision of government that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, called upon to make it serve the interests of communities.     

When the Biden-Harris administration took office in 2021, the United States was facing a deadly pandemic and the economic crash it had caused. The country also had to deal with the aftermath of the attempt of former president Donald Trump to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and seize the presidency. It appeared that many people in the United States, as in many other countries around the world, had given up on democracy. 

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. As the middle class hollowed out, those slipping behind lined up behind an authoritarian figure who promised to restore their former centrality by attacking those he told them were their enemies.

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. On Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the economy than Republicans, to bed. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination convention suggested a more thorough reworking of the federal government, one that also recalls the 1930s but suggests a transformation that goes beyond markets and jobs. 

Before Labor Secretary Perkins’s 1935 Social Security Act, the government served largely to manage the economic relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But Perkins recognized that the purpose of government was not to protect property; it was to protect the community. She recognized that children, women, and elderly and disabled Americans were as valuable to the community as young male workers and the wealthy men who employed them.

With a law that established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services, Perkins began the process of molding the government to reflect that truth. 

Perkins’s understanding of the United States as a community reflected both her time in a small town in Maine and in her experience as a social worker in inner-city Philadelphia and Chicago before the law provided any protections for the workers, including children, who made the new factories profitable. She understood that while lawmakers focused on male workers, the American economy was, and always has been, utterly dependent on the unrecognized contributions of women and marginalized people in the form of childcare, sharing food and housing, and the many forms of unpaid work that keep communities functioning. 

This reworking of the American government to reflect community rather than economic

relationships changed the entire fabric of the country, and opponents have worked to destroy it ever since FDR began to put it in place. 

Now, in their quest to win the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz—the Democratic nominees for president and vice president—have reclaimed the idea of community, with its understanding that everyone matters and the government must serve everyone, as the center of American life. 

Their vision rejects the division of the country into “us” and “them” that has been a staple of Republican politics since President Richard M. Nixon. It also rejects the politics of identity that has become identified with the argument that the United States has been irredeemably warped by racism and sexism. Instead, at the DNC, Democrats acknowledged the many ways in which the country has come up short of its principles in the past, and demanded that Americans do something to put in place a government that will address those inequities and make the American dream accessible to all.

Walz personifies this community vision. On Wednesday he laid it out from the very beginning of his acceptance speech, noting that he grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people, with 24 kids in his high school class. “[G]rowing up in a small town like that,” he said, “you’ll learn how to take care of each other that that family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they’re your neighbors and you look out for them and they look out for you. Everybody belongs and everybody has a responsibility to contribute.” The football players Walz coached to a state championship joined him on stage.

Harris also called out this idea of community when she declined to mention that, if elected, she will be the first female president, and instead remembered growing up in “a beautiful working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all who tended their lawns with pride.” Her mother, Harris said, “leaned on a trusted circle to help raise us. Mrs. Shelton, who ran the daycare below us and became a second mother. Uncle Sherman. Aunt Mary. Uncle Freddy. And Auntie Chris. None of them, family by blood. And all of them, Family. By love…. Family who…instilled in us the values they personified. Community. Faith. And the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated. With kindness. Respect. And compassion.”

The speakers at the DNC called out the women who make communities function. Speaker after speaker at the DNC thanked their mother. Former first lady Michelle Obama explicitly described her mother, Marian Robinson, as someone who lived out the idea of hope for a better future, working for children and the community. Mrs. Obama described her mother as “glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation.” 

Mrs. Obama, Harris, and Walz have emphasized that while they come from different backgrounds, they come from what Mrs. Obama called “the same foundational values”: “the promise of this country,” “the obligation to lift others up,” a “responsibility to give more than we take.”  Harris agreed, saying her mother “taught us to never complain about injustice. But…do something about it. She also taught us—Never do anything half-assed. That’s a direct quote.”

The Democrats worked to make it clear that their vision is not just the Democratic Party’s vision but an American one. They welcomed the union workers and veterans who have in the past gravitated toward Republicans, showing a powerful video contrasting Trump’s photo-ops, in which actors play union workers, with the actual plants being built thanks to money from the Biden-Harris administration. The many Democratic lawmakers who have served in the military stood on stage to back Arizona representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine, who told the crowd that the veteran unemployment rate under Biden and Harris is the lowest in history. 

The many Republicans who spoke at the convention reinforced that the Democratic vision speaks for the whole country. Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) identified this vision as “conservative.” “As a conservative and a veteran,” he said “I believe true strength lies in defending the vulnerable. It’s in protecting your family. It’s in standing up for our Constitution and our democracy. That…is the soul of being a conservative. It used to be the soul of being a Republican,” Kinzinger said. “But Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.” 

“[A] harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” Harris said. And she reminded people of her career as a prosecutor, in which “[e]very day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and said five words: ‘Kamala Harris, for the People.’ My entire career, I have only had one client. The People.”

“And so, on behalf of The People. On behalf of every American. Regardless of party. Race. Gender. Or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with. People who work hard. Chase their dreams. And look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America.”

The 100,000 biodegradable balloons that fell from the rafters when Vice President Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president were blown up and tied by a team of 55 balloon artists from 18 states and Canada who volunteered to prepare the drop in honor of their colleague, Tommy DeLorenzo, who, along with his husband Scott, runs a balloon business. DeLorenzo is battling cancer. “We’re more colleagues than competitors,” Patty Sorell told Sydney Page of the Washington Post. “We all wanted to do something to help Tommy, to show him how much we love him.” 

“Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for this community,” DeLorenzo said.  

Categories Civics, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Freedom, Gender, Harris, Kamala, Race

Trump Judge Rules that Machine Guns Are Legal

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2024 //
35

To anyone who wonders if there is a difference between the two parties, here’s a big one: gun control. A Trump-appointed federal judge in Kansas struck down a ban on machine guns. He was following the advice of Justice Thomas, who made the wacky argument that if something was okay when the Constitution was written, then it’s okay now. The Founding Fathers did not ban machine guns: why should we?

Politico wrote:

Up next in the arms of school shooters: fully automatic machine guns. Trump appointee U.S. District Judge John Broomes (Kansas) ruled that the ban on owning fully-automatic machine guns that’s been part of American law since the 1930s is unconstitutional. Citing Clarence Thomas’ argument that if something wasn’t illegal at the time the Constitution was written it shouldn’t be illegal now, Broomes has set up a new case that’ll almost certainly end up before the six rightwing cranks on the US Supreme Court.

Categories Evil, Extremism, Guns, History, Stupid, Trump

The Democrats Are Rebranding the Party

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2024 //
81

During its exhilarating convention, the Democratic Party rebranded itself. It was impossible to miss the sea of American flags, which everyone periodically waved in unison, or the loud chants of “USA! USA!”

It was impossible to miss the frequent paeans to FREEDOM and the signs in the audience emblazoned with the word FREEDOM.

As the brilliant writer Anand Girihadaras wrote on his blog “The Ink,” Democrats reclaimed five words that had been captured by the Republicans:

Freedom. Patriotism. Family. Masculinity. Normalcy.

Governor Tim Walz was a key figure in exemplifying these words. A guy animated by love of family. A coach. A hunter (who favors common-sense gun control). A member of the National Guard for 24 years. A guy.

Kamala Harris, Walz, and others focused on Freedom: the freedom to make your own healthcare decisions, the freedom that comes from knowing that your child will not be shot dead in school, the freedom to afford a home, the freedom to vote. Walz said, on more than one occasion, that the government should not insert itself into your doctors’ office or your bedroom. He repeatedly invoked what he described as a small-town virtue: “Mind Your Own Damn Business.”

Harris and Walz deliberately snatched those words away from the Republicans and claimed them as their own.

At the same time, they doubled down on criticizing Trump for his affinity for tyrants, like Putin. In their display of dignity and patriotism, they contrasted their party with Trump’s unhinged rants and childish personal insults. They emphasized the importance of telling the truth, as Trump tweeted that the next round of a Trump administration”would be great for women and reproductive rights.”

And they showcased JOY, as they laughed and danced in the aisles. The contrast was especially sharp during the states’ roll call vote: Republicans announced their votes to polite applause; Democrats announced their votes to music and dancing and flashing lights. Harris radiated joy, with her vivacious smile and her celebrated laugh. Trump evoked fear, frightening images of a nation in decline, divisesiveness. Which America do you want to live in?

The Republicans spoke wistfully about turning back the clock to a mythical time when America was “great.” An era of white male supremacy? An era of Christian dominance? The Democrats spoke hopefully about a better future, where everyone has the opportunity to live a decent life. The past or the future. Your choice.

The biggest contrast was the difference in the delegates themselves. The Republicans were, with minor variations, the party of white people. The Democrats overflowed with ethic and racial diversity.

Which party is the past? Which is the future?

Categories Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Freedom

Jennifer Rubin: What the Democratic Convention Revealed about Both Parties

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2024 //
13

Jennifer Rubin, columnist for the Washington Post, was at the convention in Chicago with her colleagues. She made a sage observation. The Democrats have a strong bench of new and young faces. The Republicans do not.

She wrote:

It has become evident during convention week that Democrats are blessed with three groups of leaders. The wise first group — Hillary Clinton, the Obamas, former speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and now Biden — has guided the party for the past generation, nationally making strides and keeping the Democratic coalition together. The domestic accomplishments they have collectively made would stand up to any other generation’s output. The second group’s time has come: Harris, Gov. Tim Walz (Minn.), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Gov. Josh Shapiro (Pa.). They are more media savvy than many in the older generation and better able to reach voters who are younger and more diverse. This second group’s challenge will be putting a stake through the MAGA movement and charting a path forward for a sustainable, center-left governing majority. The third, and most interesting, group includes the future stars, two of whom (Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (Tex.)) lit up the convention on Monday night. Other less flashy but equally compelling figures have the governing chops to win legislative battles and keep the party from straying too far left. These include Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.), who is running for governor; Rep. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), who is running for Senate; Rep. Mikie Sherrill (N.J.); and Rep. Dan Goldman (N.Y.), who distinguished himself by going toe-to-toe with Republicans who ineptly and corruptly tried to investigate the Bidens.

Republicans have nothing comparable. Trump has hollowed out and disgraced the party. Any rebuilding, if Trump loses, will likely have to fall to a new generation. Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and a flock of House and Senate extremists have dominated the GOP, turned off a great many voters and done immense damage to comity, the rule of law and good governance. One of the most attractive features of a possible Harris victory: Many prominent Republicans will be swept aside. We can only hope a better crop replaces them.

Note that Trump and his acolytes have driven the next generation of Republicans out of the party. Trump himself campaigned to defeat any member of Congress who voted to impeach him. Trump-aligned governors have “primaried” moderate Republicans. To be successful in today’s Republican Party, a candidate must pledge to defend The Big Lie. That hollows out good people like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

Categories Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Trump

Scott Dworkin: Don’t Normalize Trump! Advice to the Media.

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2024 //
51

Scott Dworkin urges the media to stop treating Trump like a normal politician. He is not.

Here is his advice for the press:

We’ve been talking a lot about how the mainstream media has failed to cover Trump and his campaign properly. All too often they simply parrot Donald’s propaganda as if it’s news, and give him unchecked airtime while he tells nothing but lies…


I am sick of the same garbage being tossed around like Donald is an average candidate, instead of the deranged and twisted wannabe dictator he has proven he wants to be.
Time and time again, Donald gets away with his lies and gaslighting. The Trump-supporting owners of mainstream media only want money, ratings, and for Donald to be elected. The journalists they employ are along for the ride.

Enough is enough.

Here are some simple things the Press must do to combat today’s lies from Donald during and after his lie-filled presser.

They Can’t Let Lies Slide

If a reporter asks Trump a question and he lies, they need to ask him why he’s lying. This isn’t hard. If it’s a lie, it’s a lie. It’s the journalist’s job to hold him accountable. And their duty to interrupt Trump and point out the facts, not to just nod their head along like he’s telling the truth.

Make Donald Answer the Question

The Press needs to stop letting Trump get away with dodging questions and lying in every answer. He isn’t smart enough to answer anything complex, so the questions they ask need to be as simple as possible. And they must keep pushing until they get a real answer. Don’t let him change the subject or move on from it. Get thrown out of his golf club if need be. But don’t let him steamroll you with his lies or misdirections.

Check the Facts

When Trump lies, hosts of shows should interrupt the broadcast to point out a lie and then correct the record. Or better yet, don’t air him live at all.

Cover it Critically

Press can’t just copy, paste and repeat any of the unhinged things Trump says into their headlines. And they can’t cut him slack and act like whatever he is saying is normal.

Stop Cowering

The mainstream media must start covering Trump as the maniacal liar in cognitive decline that he is. No more of the same weak treatment from the Press as if they don’t know who Donald is. They need to stop being afraid of him. And stop being scared of losing the job they aren’t actually doing.

When I go on tv, I get tons of threats immediately afterwards. It’s sadly part of the job, due to Trump’s constant attacks on journalists. But all threats do is drive me to do more, to dig in further on an investigation. To not stand down. And to keep going.

Last week our work helped garner more than 1.9 billion impressions on social media. Yesterday, we ran a campaign using the hashtag #TrumpWillCutSocialSecurity and thanks to everyone’s help it trended #10 in the US, garnered over 365 million impressions and even Mark Hamill joined in again!

Today we will share this post with millions of people to pressure mainstream media into properly covering this absurd Trump PR stunt. We’ll also be calling out individual journalists and networks, demanding they do better. I don’t expect immediate miracles, but they sure as heck will hear us.

Categories Education Reform

The Bulwark: A Great Night for Harris, a Bad Night for Trump

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2024 //
65

The Bulwark is a Never-Trumper site, made up of angry Republicans. They have terrific content. Here is Bill Kristol, former editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, praising Kamala’s fabulous speech.

Kristol wrote:

Success.

Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech last night was a success. It capped a Democratic convention that was a success. That convention, in turn, capped Harris’s first month as a candidate, which was a success.

All that success was by no means inevitable.

One really has to tip one’s hat to the vice president and her campaign, and say: Not bad. Not bad at all. Pretty damn impressive, in fact.

Of course past performance is no guarantee of future results. Still, it does seem that a certain amount of optimism—guarded and hard-headed optimism—is warranted. We now have a reasonable likelihood of defeating Donald Trump, and electing as our next president a vigorous and centrist leader of a healthy and mainstream political party.

The convention has sought, for the most part, to present such a party. And last night’s speech presented such a leader.

The speech began with a very effective biographical section. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Harris, was central to her narrative. The tribute to her mother ran like a red thread through this part of the speech, and indeed the speech as a whole, allowing Harris to humanize herself while deftly avoiding the grandiosity and pomposity that often mar such efforts.

Having introduced herself to the nation, Harris formally accepted the nomination of her party. But it was a remarkably nonpartisan acceptance of a party’s nomination:

And, so, on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother, and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with—people who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.

The tone of that paragraph laid the groundwork for the rest of the speech. Harris spoke more as an American than as a Democrat; as a patriot, not a partisan; and as someone grateful not aggrieved, future-oriented but not at all hostile to our past.

And so Harris continued:

And let me say, I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.

The invocation of America’s fundamental principles, in turn, laid the predicate for a criticism of Trump as threatening them:

In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

And the critique of Trump led into the last half or so of the speech, which consisted of a pitch for more-or-less centrist domestic policies— including the bipartisan border bill that Trump torpedoed—and a robust endorsement of America’s necessary and distinctive role in the world.

Overall, the vision was kind of Bill Clinton (with a touch of Jack Kemp) at home, and John McCain abroad, with a hefty dose of John F. Kennedy-Ronald Reagan patriotism throughout. Harris even offered a striking endorsement of American exceptionalism:

I see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation and inspired the world . . . We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world.

It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American.

With this speech, and with this convention as a whole, we have come a long way—the Democratic party has come a long way—from the identity and grievance politics of the left. Harris and Tim Walz have laid the predicate for a center-oriented, optimistic, and patriotic campaign. Consider the final tally. The terms America, American, Americans were uttered 34 times; country or nation, 20 times; freedom, 12 times; opportunity, 6 times; Democrats or Democratic party, 0 times.

It won’t be smooth sailing ahead. Trump and his campaign will go after them. And the left won’t simply be quiet. So there will be challenges aplenty.

Still, the prospects for the next two months seem pretty good to me.

But enough of all this unaccustomed good cheer. We need to start worrying about the debate. It’s only two-and-a-half weeks away.

While Kamala Harris was giving her terrific speech last night, Trump was live-tweeting on his favorite site. He was outraged!

Andrew Eggers wrote:

When things are going well and he’s feeling good, Donald Trump can sometimes be cajoled by his team into something resembling discipline. When things are going badly, he’s much more prone to publicly venting some spleen.

So perhaps the greatest measure of the effectiveness of Kamala Harris’s convention speech was the truly unhinged content bender it sent Trump spiraling into last night.

It started on Truth Social, where Trump informed us he had “assembled a small group of people, GREAT PATRIOTS ALL,” to watch Harris’s “puff piece.”

At first, Trump was jocular: “A lot of talk about childhood,” he wrote as Harris told her personal history, “we’ve got to get to the Border, Inflation, and Crime!”

Soon, though, the wheels were coming off. “These Prosecutions were all started by her and Biden against her Political Opponent, ME!” Trump fumed as Harris turned to his legal troubles. “IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?”

A random sampling of what followed:

  • “LYING AGAIN ABOUT PROJECT 2025, WHICH SHE KNOWS, AND SO DO ALL DEMOCRATS, THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH!”
  • “She just called to give all Illegals CITIZENSHIP, SAY GOODBYE TO THE U.S.A.! SHE IS A RADICAL MARXIST!”
  • “Walz was an ASSISTANT Coach, not a COACH.”
  • “SHE HAS LED US INTO FAILING NATION STATUS!”
  • “WHERE’S HUNTER?”

But posting, it turned out, wasn’t enough to soothe Trump’s jangled nerves. After the speech, he dialed into Fox News for still more free-associative complaining, bowling right over Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum’s attempts to get in specific questions, seemingly pressing phone buttons with his face as he talked. They eventually had to cut him off mid-sentence to wrap up their show.

Not to worry, though: When they pull the plug on you on Fox, there’s always Newsmax. So Trump picked up the phone again. “I will tell you, I just watched it,” he told Greg Kelly and Mercedes Schlapp a few moments later. “She didn’t talk about many things, like interest rates, China, fracking anywhere, let alone Pennsylvania, crime, poverty, trade deficits, child trafficking, woman trafficking, drugs, the border—she didn’t talk about the most important things.”

Did he get the bile out of his system? Trump’s rallying in Arizona this afternoon; I guess we’ll find out then.

Categories Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Republicans, Trump

A Dark Day in Arkansas As Court Rejects Abortion Referendum

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2024 //
6

The majority of the Supreme Court of Arkansas opposes abortion. So, they blocked a referendum on abortion access on flimsy technical grounds. Democracy, be damned in Arkansas. To read the background and the Court’s opinions, please open the link.

The Arkansas Times reported:

The Arkansas Supreme Court today likely drove a final stake through the heart of a ballot initiative to restore abortion rights in Arkansas. In a 4-3 decision, the court denied the request from the group backing the measure to restart the review process after the secretary of state preemptively disqualified the group last month due to a piece of paperwork the group failed to include in its final submission of the petition.

Despite collecting signatures from more than 100,000 Arkansans — and despite the fact that the plain language of the statutes appeared to show that the review process for the petition should have continued — the court ruled that paperwork omission was fatal to the group’s effort. 

For those following the case, this has always been the fear: Even if the law was on their side, the majority of the court opposes abortion. Ultimately the law is what the Supreme Court says it is. Among the grab-bag of flimsy arguments offered by Attorney General Tim Griffin, they found a couple they could stretch to suit the purpose of disqualifying the abortion petition.

In a blistering dissent, Associate Karen Baker took the majority to task for their descent into Calvinball:

Even a cursory review of how the present ballot initiative has progressed since its inception demonstrates that both the respondent and the majority have treated it differently for the sole purpose of preventing the people from voting on this issue.

“Today is a dark day in Arkansas,” said Rebecca Bobrow, a spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG), the group leading the petition effort. “This morning, by a vote of 4-3, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Secretary Thurston’s disqualification of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment. More than 102,000 Arkansas voters exercised their constitutionally protected right to engage in direct democracy by signing the petition to get the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. The Court’s majority ratifies Secretary Thurston’s decision to silence those voices.”

Theoretically, AFLG could file a lawsuit in federal court. But for procedural and timing reasons, that is extremely unlikely to help. In all likelihood, it’s over: Citizens will not have the opportunity to vote to restore abortion rights in November.

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Democracy, Education Reform, Gender, Health

Elie Honig: What Will Happen to Jack Smith’s Case Against Trump Now?

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2024 //
2

Elie Honig is a former federal prosecutor who writes at a site called Cafe, where he and other legal experts follow and explain Trump’s legal entanglements. In this post, he speculates on how Jack Smith’s effort to hold Trump accountable for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election might fare in the months ahead.. Note that he points out that the investigation was hampered by the very late start of the U.S. Justice Department.

He writes:

Dear Reader,

I remember vividly the first time I lost a key piece of evidence. The NYPD had caught our defendant in Washington Heights with a fake police badge around his neck and a loaded gun in his waistband, and we charged him with federal firearms and armed robbery conspiracy crimes. Better yet (for us on the prosecution side), we flipped a cooperating witness who would testify that he and the defendant had committed two prior armed robberies together by posing as cops and ripping off drug dealers.

A week or so before trial began, the judge held a conference to handle routine pre-trial housekeeping. I confidently laid out the cooperator’s expected testimony. “That’s out,” the judge ruled, nonchalantly. “Too prejudicial.” For those who think that every judicial decision is rendered in scholarly prose, replete with probing analysis and citations to applicable precedent: welcome to the real world.

It was a kick in the gut. “That’s such bullshit. He can’t do that,” I whined afterwards. “Sure he can,” my supervisor responded. “He’s the judge.”

My experience is a tiny-potatoes version of what the U.S. Supreme Court has done to Special Counsel Jack Smith and his 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump. The Court declared, for the first time in our history, that a president is entitled to criminal immunity for official acts. That part was no surprise; the law has long recognized civil immunity, and the justices during oral argument seemed in no mood to affirm the lower courts’ outright rejection of Trump’s claim.

But the breadth of the Supreme Court’s decision was astonishing. The majority held, for example, that “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” (It remains unclear exactly how a judge is supposed to draw that vital distinction.) And the Court ruled that if conduct is immune, prosecutors can’t base a criminal charge on it – nor can they mention it at all during trial, even as necessary context or background.

Now the case has landed back in trial court, before Judge Tanya Chutkan. She originally wanted the parties back before her today, but Smith asked for a few more weeks to gather his thoughts; he clearly has accepted that there won’t be a pre-election trial, despite his prior dogged efforts. Trump’s counsel, ever intent on slowing things down, happily consented to the prosecution’s request for delay. When Court reconvenes on September 5, it’ll be up to the Judge to pick through the wreckage and figure out what can be salvaged.

On that question, the Supreme Court has offered pointed guidance, and it bodes poorly for the core of Smith’s indictment. Trump’s effort to coerce the Justice Department to gin up proof of non-existent election fraud? Almost certainly an “official act,” and therefore immune and out of the case altogether. Trump’s pressure campaign aimed at his vice president, Mike Pence? Probably out. And Trump’s public statements, including his tweets and January 6 Ellipse speech? Likely toast, too.

The Supreme Court conspicuously reminded Judge Chutkan that it’s unimpressed with her work so far and will be watching her closely. The justices in the majority blasted the lower courts for “the expedition of this case, the lack of factual analysis… and the absence of pertinent briefing by the parties.” Indeed, as we’ve noted here before, Smith, Chutkan, and the intermediate appeals court judges tried to shortcut ordinary process to get Trump tried before the election; the Supreme Court noticed and disapproved. Most importantly on the vital timing issue, the Court has specified that Trump can appeal Judge Chutkan’s decisions about what conduct is (and is not) immune, before trial starts. That means, as a practical matter, there’s a zero-point-zero percent chance this trial happens before the November 2024 election.

If you’ve been hoping that Trump faces accountability for trying to steal the 2020 election before voters head to the polls for the next one, don’t despair – not fully, anyway. (For the record, I’m with you. The real problem is that DOJ took over two-and-a-half years to charge the case.) Judge Chutkan still can – and I believe will – order an evidentiary hearing to enable Smith to air some of his most explosive evidence, before voters head to the polls.

The Judge now must sift through the prosecution’s evidence and determine how much of Trump’s alleged conduct was an official act (and therefore immune), and which conduct can remain in the case. She has some leeway here. The Judge could opt to take “proffers” from both sides – detailed statements by the lawyers about what they expect their evidence to show. That’s a little flat, but it’s also perfectly permissible and efficient. And then there’s the more sensational alternative: the Judge can permit Smith to call live witnesses to expound from the stand on what their trial testimony would be.

I expect Smith to push for door number two, and Judge Chutkan to agree. If that happens, brace for a series of dramatic in-court encounters. We could see Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, take the stand to give his first-ever public accounting of what his boss did (and didn’t do) before and on January 6. And Mike Pence could testify about how Trump begged and eventually threatened him in an effort to get him to throw the election – and how, on January 6, he had to run for his life to avoid the frothing mob.

No, an evidentiary hearing won’t hit nearly as hard as a jury trial and verdict. And we won’t actually see or hear any of it, because federal courts don’t permit cameras or live audio streaming. (Fair enough, given that it’s apparently the year 1892 right now.) We likely already know the most damaging information, as revealed in 2022 during the unforgettable January 6 Select Committee hearings in Congress, and the ensuing 800-plus page report. But, really, imagine: Trump’s own former chief of staff and VP taking the stand in, say, September of an election year, to describe firsthand how their former boss trampled on the Constitution to try to steal an election. Even if we all mostly know the story by now, that simply can’t be good for Trump at the polls, just weeks before voters cast their ballots.

It’s unclear how much of Smith’s case will ultimately survive the Supreme Court’s strafing. He might eventually go to trial on a tattered indictment focused on Trump’s effort to pressure state and local officials, without any of the damning evidence relating to DOJ and the VP and incitement of the rally crowd. Or the wounds inflicted by the Supreme Court might ultimately prove fatal.

But if Smith’s goal is to expose Trump’s conduct to the American public before the election – and let’s face it, that’s plainly been a driving force for the special counsel all along, despite his refusal to acknowledge it – he’ll still have a backdoor path to partial success.

Stay Informed,

Elie

Elie Honig served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York for 8.5 years and as the Director of the Division of Criminal Justice at the Office of Attorney General for the State of New Jersey for 5.5 years. He is currently a legal Analyst for CNN and Executive Director at Rutgers Institute for Secure Communities

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Justice, Scandals, Trump

Michael Tomasky: Trump is Going Into a Meltdown Phase

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2024 //
42

Michael Tomasky is a respected political journalist and the editor of The New Republic. In this post, he describes Trump’s inability to cope with running against Kamala, not Joe. He has spent nearly four years prearing for a rematch with Biden, and the change of candidate seems to have confused him. At times like this, im remindedthat Trump’s had severe dementia at the end if his life.

Tomasky writes:

It continues. Six days ago, The New York Times ran a story under the headline “Inside the Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign.” Usually, when the country’s most important newspaper runs a story like that, the candidate pays a little attention and the ship begins to right itself. But in this case, it’s just gotten worse. The ship is capsizing, and the captain is losing his marbles.

Right after that story ran, Trump came out with his wild accusation that Kamala Harris’s crowd of thousands at a Detroit airplane hangar was fake. The next night, he did that weird, to borrow an au courant word, interview with Elon Musk, where he made more WTF comments than I can recount, capped by his vow to move to Venezuela (a country ruled by a corrupt autocrat who just cheated massively in this month’s election) if he loses. On Wednesday, he gave a rambling speech at a North Carolina rally.

Then, on Thursday, we had a little taste of some peak Trump crazy. He claimed Harris is responsible for a law in California that says it’s OK to steal from a grocery store as long as your take is under $950. (This is not what the law says.) He made strange comments about Cheerios. He lectured Jews (at a later event) about how if the Democrats win, Jewish people “don’t have a chance” in America, saying of Harris—whose husband is Jewish—that “she doesn’t like Jewish people. You know it, I know it, and everybody knows it, and nobody wants to say it.” And we can’t forget the assertion that more than 100 percent of recent U.S. jobs have gone to migrants.

But wait. These are just the appetizers! Then he called Harris a “Communist” and said the country under her leadership would devolve into a commie dystopia in which “everyone gets health care” (the horror!). And then, the pièce de résistance: At the Jewish event, he praised Miriam Adelson, the huge Trump donor and widow of Sheldon Adelson, mentioning that he’d given her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he noted was the civilian equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor (given to military veterans) but was “actually much better” because people who receive the latter medal are “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”

You know how they say in sports that an opponent has gotten inside the other team’s head? Well, Harris and Tim Walz have certainly gotten inside Trump’s head. Walz’s “weird” comment, which Trump has also responded to in a, well, sort of weird way, was just the start. Harris has also smartly refused to take the GOP campaign’s bait, like when Trump attacked her race and J.D. Vance tried to make her childlessness an issue. Meanwhile, the Harris-Walz campaign trolls Trump in its press releases with snarky language I don’t recall Joe Biden’s or Hillary Clinton’s campaigns using. It sends the message, which must drive him nuts, that they don’t fear him at all.

Meanwhile, what else is Harris doing? Starting to unveil an economic package that, so far anyway, looks pretty great. It’s aimed straight at middle-class voters and focused on housing and grocery prices. You can’t get more kitchen table than that. And the bit about going after corporate price gougers is great. It sends a nice populist signal that she’s willing to make some enemies.

We’re coming up on a month now of Harris being the candidate. That isn’t much time, granted, and of course the race is still in margin-of-error territory and at some point, Trump is bound to find his footing and quit flailing as desperately as he has been.

But all that said, the Harris campaign has been as shrewd as any presidential campaign I’ve ever seen. Her stump speech is excellent. The choice of Walz was great—their personal chemistry is so evident in that video they just released of the two of them chatting about spicy food and whatnot (the right is trying to gin up outrage over Walz saying he eats “white-guy tacos”). The focus on family economics recognizes a potential Harris weak spot and establishes the campaign as not being out of touch. They just haven’t done one thing wrong yet…

And Trump is a hot mess. He’s facing a problem he’s never faced. In 2016, he was running against a very known quantity whom the right had been instructing Americans to hate for 25 years. In 2020, he was running against someone who’d been around for nearly 50 years. He’s spent his time since losing that 2020 race sitting around thinking about his rematch with that opponent.

And now suddenly he’s running against someone else, and to his shock, the more America sees of her (so far), the more America kinda likes her. He can’t understand this, and he simply can’t stand it. Trump’s like a predatory animal in a literal sense. Since he has no conscience, he’s all instinct, and his instinct is to find his prey’s weakness and go after it over and over.

He hasn’t come close to finding Harris’s. She is not a lunatic Communist, she’s not stupid, she’s not any of things Trump is saying she is. The America of 2024 is ready for Kamala Harris. Donald Trump is not and can’t accept that fact. No amount of staff shakeups or focusing on “the issues” can fix that.  

Categories Biden, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Trump
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