Pennsylvania: Democrats Sweep School Board Races, Ousting Extremists

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2025 //
11

In Pennsylvania school board races, extremists who provoked battles over culture war issues were ousted. One winner said that parents looked forward to the days when school board meetings were “boring,” not divisive.

Pittsburgh’s NPR station WESA reported:

A slate of Democratic candidates won four seats on the Pine-Richland school board last night and unseated one incumbent with ties to a statewide movement of conservative education leaders.

The sweep capped an Election Day marked by Democratic victories in school board races statewide.

Pine-Richland electee Randy Augustine and his peers on the Together for PR slate won over voters with slogans like “excellence over extremism.”

“School board positions are theoretically supposed to be non-partisan, non-political positions,” Augustine said. “A number of the school board members were trying to push a political agenda, focusing on culture war issues, not focusing on the students.”

The Republican-led school board initiated policies that gave board members the final say over which books were included in school libraries and challenged books with LGBTQ characters. The district’s teachers union issued a vote of no confidence in the majority of school board members this spring.

“ It was becoming toxic, and the turmoil, I think, was spreading,” said fellow Together for PR winner Melissa Vecchi. “People just wanted to see it back to boring.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Democrats, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Parent Groups, Pennsylvania

Zohran Mamdani’s Inspiring Victory Speech

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2025 //
20

On election night, Zohran Mamdani gave the following speech, celebrating his victory and also the multicultural coalition that made his victory possible. He is now the Mayor-elect of New York City. He is 34 years old, the youngest Mayor in more than a century. He was born in Uganda to Indian parents. His father is a professor of African Studies at Columbia Unicersity, his mother is a noted film-maker. He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Sciebce–a selective public high school–and Bowdoin College. He was elected to the State Assembly in 2032, representing the Astoria district of Queens

This transcript was published by The Guardian..

The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.”

For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands.

Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: these are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.

Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.

I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name, as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few. New York, tonight you have delivered. A mandate for change. A mandate for a new kind of politics. A mandate for a city we can afford. And a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.

On 1 January, I will be sworn in as the mayor of New York City. And that is because of you. So before I say anything else, I must say this: thank you. Thank you to the next generation of New Yorkers who refuse to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past.

You showed that when politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher in a new era of leadership. We will fight for you, because we are you.

Or, as we say on Steinway, ana minkum wa alaikum.

Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city, who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties.

To every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point, know this: this city is your city, and this democracy is yours too. This campaign is about people like Wesley, an 1199 organizer I met outside of Elmhurst hospital on Thursday night. A New Yorker who lives elsewhere, who commutes two hours each way from Pennsylvania because rent is too expensive in this city.

It’s about people like the woman I met on the Bx33 years ago who said to me: “I used to love New York, but now it’s just where I live.” And it’s about people like Richard, the taxi driver I went on a 15-day hunger strike with outside of City Hall, who still has to drive his cab seven days a week. My brother, we are in City Hall now.

This victory is for all of them. And it’s for all of you, the more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force. Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again. With every door knocked, every petition signature earned, and every hard-earned conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.

Now, I know that I have asked for much from you over this last year. Time and again, you have answered my calls – but I have one final request. New York City, breathe this moment in. We have held our breath for longer than we know.

We have held it in anticipation of defeat, held it because the air has been knocked out of our lungs too many times to count, held it because we cannot afford to exhale. Thanks to all of those who sacrificed so much. We are breathing in the air of a city that has been reborn.

To my campaign team, who believed when no one else did and who took an electoral project and turned it into so much more: I will never be able to express the depth of my gratitude. You can sleep now.

To my parents, mama and baba: You have made me into the man I am today. I am so proud to be your son. And to my incredible wife, Rama, hayati: There is no one I would rather have by my side in this moment, and in every moment.

To every New Yorker – whether you voted for me, for one of my opponents or felt too disappointed by politics to vote at all – thank you for the opportunity to prove myself worthy of your trust. I will wake each morning with a singular purpose: to make this city better for you than it was the day before.

There are many who thought this day would never come, who feared that we would be condemned only to a future of less, with every election consigning us simply to more of the same.

And there are others who see politics today as too cruel for the flame of hope to still burn. New York, we have answered those fears.

Tonight we have spoken in a clear voice. Hope is alive. Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift, despite attack ad after attack ad. More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centers, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.

And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together. Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas. Hope over despair. We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible. And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.

Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: “A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

Tonight we have stepped out from the old into the new. So let us speak now, with clarity and conviction that cannot be misunderstood, about what this new age will deliver, and for whom.

This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt. Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia: an agenda that will freeze the rents for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants, make buses fast and free, and deliver universal childcare across our city.

Years from now, may our only regret be that this day took so long to come. This new age will be one of relentless improvement. We will hire thousands more teachers. We will cut waste from a bloated bureaucracy. We will work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered.

Safety and justice will go hand in hand as we work with police officers to reduce crime and create a department of community safety that tackles the mental health crisis and homelessness crises head on. Excellence will become the expectation across government, not the exception. In this new age we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another.

In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light. Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too.

And we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism. Where the more than 1 million Muslims know that they belong – not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.

No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election. This new age will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.

For years, those in City Hall have only helped those who can help them. But on 1 January, we will usher in a city government that helps everyone.

Now, I know that many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them. As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour.

They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game any more. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us.

Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.

After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.

This is not only how we stop Trump; it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.

We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.

New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.

So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them. A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.

If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme, and let us build a shining city for all. And we must chart a new path, as bold as the one we have already traveled. After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate.

I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.

And yet, if tonight teaches us anything, it is that convention has held us back. We have bowed at the altar of caution, and we have paid a mighty price. Too many working people cannot recognize themselves in our party, and too many among us have turned to the right for answers to why they’ve been left behind.

We will leave mediocrity in our past. No longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great.

Our greatness will be anything but abstract. It will be felt by every rent-stabilized tenant who wakes up on the first of every month knowing the amount they’re going to pay hasn’t soared since the month before. It will be felt by each grandparent who can afford to stay in the home they have worked for, and whose grandchildren live nearby because the cost of childcare didn’t send them to Long Island.

It will be felt by the single mother who is safe on her commute and whose bus runs fast enough that she doesn’t have to rush school drop-off to make it to work on time. And it will be felt when New Yorkers open their newspapers in the morning and read headlines of success, not scandal.

Most of all, it will be felt by each New Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back.

Together, New York, we’re going to freeze the rent together, New York, we’re going to make buses fast and free together, New York, we’re going to deliver universal childcare.

Let the words we’ve spoken together, the dreams we’ve dreamt together, become the agenda we deliver together. New York, this power, it’s yours. This city belongs to you.

Categories Courage, Creativity, Elections, Hope, Immigration, New York City

Why I Voted For Zohran Mamdani

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
35

I decided after Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary that I would vote for him. I was concerned about his lack of managerial experience, but impressed by his energy, his enthusiasm, his ever-present smile, and his willingness to try bold policies on behalf of working-class and low-income New Yorkers. I was repulsed by the billionaire-funded hate campaign against him as a Muslim.

But at some point before the general election, I wavered. I read article after article about his hard-and-fast views on Israel, the BDS movement, and other third-rail topics. I am not a Zionist but I believe that Israel should not have to justify its right to exist. And I condemn the rightwing cabal in Israel that has supported the genocidal war in Gaza, as well as settler terrorism against Palestinians who live on the West Bank.

I decided not to vote, which I have never done. Voting is a precious right, which I have always exercised.

Then I read this article in the New York Times, in which David Leonhardt interviewed Senator Bernie Sanders, and it resolved all my doubt and hesitation. After reading this, I went to my polling place and very happily voted for Zohran Mamdani.

Of course, I was thrilled to see a Democratic sweep in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania (where the state GOP proposed to remove three Democratic judges from the state’s Supreme Court), and California, where Prop. 50 passed easily, allowing a redistricting intended to produce an additional 5 Democratic seats in Congress. Prop 50 was a response to the Texas GOP’s redistricting that will eliminate 5 Democratic seats. Joke of the day: California Republicans are suing to block the Prop 50 gerrymandering because it favors one race over another. I didn’t hear similar concerns about gerrymanders by Republicans in Texas, Missouri, and other states that are creating new Republican seats, eliminating Black representation.

The article linked above is a gift article, so you can read it in full without a subscription.

Here is a sample:

David Leonhardt: Senator Bernie Sanders started talking about income inequality nearly 40 years ago.

Archived clip of Bernie Sanders in 1988:In our nation today, we have extreme disparity between the rich and the poor, that elections are bought and sold by people who have huge sums of money.

He railed against oligarchs before Elon Musk made his first million.

Archived clip of Sanders in 1991: To a very great extent, the United States of America today is increasingly becoming an oligarchy.

Sanders started out as a political oddity. But his focus on inequality has made him one of the most influential politicians in America. I wanted to know where he thinks we’re headed next. So I asked him to join me for “America’s Next Story,” a Times Opinion series about the ideas that once held our country together, and those that might do so again.

Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you for being here.

Bernie Sanders: My pleasure….

Leonhardt: OK, let’s get into it. I want to go back to the pre-Trump era and think about the fact that a lot of Democrats during that time — I’m thinking about the Clintons and Obama — felt more positively toward the market economy than you did.

They were positive toward trade. They didn’t worry that much about corporate power. They didn’t pay that much attention to labor unions. And if I’m being totally honest, a lot of people outside of the Democratic Party, like New York Times columnists, had many of those same attitudes.

Sanders: Yes, I recall that. Vaguely, yes. Some of them actually weren’t supportive of my candidacy for president.

Leonhardt: That is fair. I assume you would agree that the consensus has shifted in your direction over the last decade or so?

Sanders: I think that’s fair to say.

Leonhardt: And I’m curious: Why do you think those other Democrats and progressives missed what you saw?

Sanders: In the 1970s — the early ’70s — some of the leaders in the Democratic Party had this brilliant idea. They said: Hey, Republicans are getting all of this money from the wealthy and the corporations. Why don’t we hitch a ride, as well? And they started doing that. Throughout the history of this country — certainly the modern history of this country, from F.D.R. to Truman to Kennedy, even — the Democratic Party was the party of the working class. Period. That’s all your working class. Most people were Democrats.

But from the ’70s on, for a variety of reasons — like the attraction of big money — the party began to pay more attention to the needs of the corporate world and the wealthy rather than working-class people. And I think, in my view, that has been a total disaster, not only politically, but for our country as a whole.

Leonhardt: I agree, certainly, that corporate money played a role within the party. But I also think a lot of people genuinely believed things like trade would help workers. When I think about —

Sanders: Hmm, no.

Leonhardt: You think it’s all about money?

Sanders: No. What I think is, if you talked to working-class people during that period, as I did, if you talked to the union movement during that period, as I did, you said: Guys, do you think it’s a great idea that we have a free-trade agreement with China? No worker in America thought that was a good idea. The corporate world thought it was a good idea. The Washington Post thought it was a great idea. I don’t know what The New York Times thought.

But every one of us who talked to unions, who talked to workers, understood that the result of that would be the collapse of manufacturing in America and the loss of millions of good-paying jobs. Because corporations understood: If I could pay people 30 cents an hour in China, why the hell am I going to pay a worker in America a living wage? We understood that.

Leonhardt: I think that’s fair. I guess I’m interested in why you think that members of the Democratic Party — not workers, but members — and other progressives ignored workers back then but have come more closely to listen to workers. I mean, if you look at the Biden administration’s policy, if you look at the way Senator Schumer talks about his own views shifting, I do think there’s been this meaningful shift in the Democratic Party toward your views. Not all the way.

Sanders: Well, what we will have to see is to what degree people are just seeing where the wind is blowing as to whether or not they mean it.

In my view, working-class Americans did not vote for Donald Trump because they wanted to see the top 1 percent get a trillion dollars in tax breaks. They did not want to see 15 million people, including many of them, being thrown off the health care they had or their health care premiums double, etc. They voted for Trump because he said: I am going to do something. The system is broken. I’m going to do something.

What did the Democrats say? Well, in 13 years, if you’re making $40,000, $48,000, we may be able to help your kid get to college. But if you’re making a penny more, we can’t quite do that. The system is OK — we’re going to nibble around the edges. Trump smashed the system. Of course, everything he’s doing is disastrous. Democrats? Eh, system is OK — let’s nibble around the edges.

Democrats lost the election. All right? They abdicated. They came up with no alternative. Because you know what? They, even today, don’t acknowledge the economic crises facing the working class of this country. Now you tell me, how many Democrats are going around saying: You know what? We have a health care system that is broken, completely. We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people I’ve introduced Medicare for All. You know how many Democrats in the Senate I have on board?

Leonhardt: How many?

Sanders: Fifteen — out of a caucus of 47.

Leonhardt: And you think Medicare for All is both good policy and good politics?

Sanders: Of course, it’s good policy! Health care is a human right! I feel very strongly about that. And I think the function of our health care system should not make the drug companies and the insurance companies phenomenally rich. We guarantee health care to all people — that’s what most Americans think. Where’s the leader?

I think that at a time when we have more income and wealth inequality, you know what the American people think? Maybe we really levy some heavy duty taxes on the billionaire class. I believe that. I think most Americans, including a number of Republicans, believe that. Hmm, not quite so sure where the Democrats are. I believe that you don’t keep funding a war criminal like Netanyahu to starve the children of Gaza. That’s what I believe. It’s what most Americans believe. An overwhelming majority in the Democratic world believes it. Hmm, Democratic leadership, maybe not quite so much.

The point is that, right now, 60 percent of our people have been paycheck to paycheck. I don’t know that the Democratic leadership understands that there are good, decent people out there working as hard as they can, having a hard time paying their rent. Because the cost of housing is off the charts, health care is off the charts, child care is off the charts. The campaign finance system is completely broken. When Musk can spend $270 million to elect Trump, you’ve got a broken system. Our job is to create an economy and a political system that works for working people, not just billionaires.

PLEASE OPEN THE LINK AND READ THE REST OF THIS AMAZING INTERVIEW.

Categories Democrats, Disruption, Elections, Inequality, Injustice, Republicans

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

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
5

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

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

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

HRC wrote:

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

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

Trump pardoned him on October 23.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And you answered…” O’Donnell put in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To increase pressure, they are hurting the American people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

Notes:

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

Bluesky:

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atrupar.com/post/3m3pkxrl5js2e

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muellershewrote.com/post/3m3n4v5ryak2l

joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3m4qrclpi4s2i

acyn.bsky.social/post/3m4rlvxp5el2l

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

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

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
4

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

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

The Pensacola News-Journal reported:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Florida

Joseph Stiglitz: A Critical Moment for Democracy in the World

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2025 //
5

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

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

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

A Smart Interview About My New Book

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2025 //
9

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

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

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

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

Let me know what you think.

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

Jamelle Bouie: The Constitution Prohibits a Third Term for Presidents

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2025 //
11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peter Greene Reviews “An Education” in His Inimitable Style

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2025 //
12

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

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

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

Here is his blog review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump Is Renovating the Lincoln Bathroom

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2025 //
7

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

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

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

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

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

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

He knows what matters most for him.

Emily Davies and Dan Diamond write:

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

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

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

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

Categories Education Reform, Trump
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