The House of Representatives Has the Sole Power to Impeach the President. Read the Constitution.

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2019 //
18

This is a good time to teach the Constitution. Since we are in the midst of a historic impeachment proceeding, I have highlighted the sentences referring to impeachment. I am citing this source.

Just yesterday, Trump threatened to sue Adam Schiff, chairman of the intelligence committee, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, because he doesn’t think they have the right to impeach him or even to criticize him. He thinks they should be impeached.

The CNN article says:

The speech and debate clause in the US Constitution, which appears in Article 1, section 6, protects members of Congress from being sued over their statements made on the floor, which also would apply to committees.

Let’s review what the Constitution says about the powers of Congress.

The Preamble to the Constitution delineates its purposes.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.  

The Constitution establishes three co-equal branches of government to ensure that there would be checks and balances, and no branch would become authoritarian or monarchical, or superior to the other branches.

Article 1 describes the role and powers of the Congress.

Article 2 describes the role and powers of the President.

Article 3 describes the role and powers of the judiciary.

Here is Article 1:

Section 1.

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2.

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section 4.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section 5.

Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6.

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section 7.

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

Section 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repeal Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings;–And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section 9.

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases or Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census of Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

Section 10.

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

To be clear, the House has the sole power to impeach the president. The trial occurs in the Senate, not the House.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, History

Trump’s Quid Pro Quo

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2019 //
14

Democrats in the House of Representatives have opened an impeachment inquiry because a whistleblower warned that the president offered to release $400 million in financial aid to Ukraine if its government investigated Joe and Hunter Biden. The whistleblower’s warning was verified when the White House released the contents of a conversation in which Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as to investigate whether Ukraine—not Russia—hacked the 2016 election. This would enable him to discredit the leading Democratic candidate and to discredit the findings of the CIA and the Mueller report.

Trump insists the conversation included no “quid pro quo.” He has said repeatedly that it was a “perfect” conversation.

What is a “quid pro quo”?

Definition:

quid pro quo
/ˌkwid ˌprō ˈkwō/
noun
A favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.
“the pardon was a quid pro quo for their help in releasing hostages”

Another definition:

In common law, quid pro quo indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the transaction is in question. A contract must involve consideration: that is, the exchange of something of value for something else of value.

The following article appeared on the Brookings website. It was written by Steven Pifer, the former ambassador to Ukraine.

 

Editor’s Note: Steven Pifer’s takeaways from what we’ve learned about President Trump’s approach to Ukraine’s Zelenskiy administration through the White House record of a presidential phone call, a whistleblower’s complaint to Congress, and diplomats’ published text messages. This piece originally appeared on FSI Stanford’s Medium.

 

Over the past two weeks, a CIA whistleblower’s complaint, a White House record of a July 25 telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and texts exchanged by American diplomats have dominated the news and raised questions about the president’s handling of policy toward Ukraine. Here are five observations:

First, President Trump was not doing the nation’s business on July 25. Trump has described the call as “perfect,” but the memorandum of conversation shows that he did not seek to advance U.S. interests. He did not ask Zelenskiy about progress in ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. He did not propose steps to facilitate more American trade. He did not raise how U.S. liquified natural gas might strengthen Ukraine’s energy security (something of interest to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, whom Trump now says instigated a call that he did not want to make).

Instead, Trump posed two requests to his Ukrainian counterpart: check CrowdStrike (even though nothing suggests a Ukrainian link to the company that examined the Democratic National Committee’s servers in 2016), and investigate a thoroughly-debunked charge that Vice President Joe Biden sought to have a Ukrainian prosecutor general fired to protect his son, Hunter Biden. Neither ask advances U.S. national goals. Both are about Trump’s personal interest in undermining his potential Democratic rival in 2020.

Second, the president sounds poorly briefed on Ukraine. The fact that Trump did not raise any issues of interest to the United States — as opposed to issues of personal interest — suggests he took no briefing from National Security Council staff before the call. He raised discredited stories similar to those that his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been peddling for months on cable news. Giuliani seems to have received much of his information, including his claim about the Bidens, from a former Ukrainian prosecutor general who held a grudge against the U.S. embassy in Kyiv — and who has since recanted or denied most of the stories he fed Giuliani.

Third, there was a quid pro quo. The president claims there was no quid pro quo in his call to Zelenskiy. From texts released late on October 3, however, senior U.S. diplomats believed there was. Consider the following text exchanges:

  • July 25 text from Ambassador Kurt Volker (U.S. special envoy on Ukraine) to Zelenskiy aide Andrey Yermak (just prior to the Trump-Zelenskiy call): “Heard from White House — assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”
  • August 9 text from Ambassador Gordon Sondland (U.S. representative to the European Union) to Volker: “To avoid misunderstandings, might be useful to ask Andrey [Yermak] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover.”
  • From August 13 text from Volker to Sondland describing possible Ukrainian statement: “Special attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political processes of the United States especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians. I [Zelenskiy] want to declare that this is unacceptable. We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma [the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat] and 2016 U.S. elections, which in turn will prevent the resurgence of this problem in the future.”
  • August 13 text from Sondland in response to above Volker text: “Perfect.”

In his statement to the House Committees on Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs on October 3, Volker said that he and Sondland talked with Giuliani on August 16. In that conversation, Giuliani had noted that a more generic anti-corruption statement offered by the Ukrainians was insufficient and should specifically mention Burisma and 2016.

Ambassador William “Bill” Taylor, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006–2009 and currently the charge d’ affairs in Kyiv, was clearly uncomfortable with all this:

  • September 1 text from Taylor to Sondland: “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?”
  • September 9 text from Taylor to Sondland: “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to hold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

It is hard to read these texts and conclude that there was no quid pro quo. To his great credit, Taylor questioned the very idea and in a separate text even suggested that he would resign (full disclosure: Taylor is a former colleague and good friend whom I admire).

Categories Lies

New York Times Reveals Bill Gates’ Friendship with Jeffrey Epstein

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2019 //
14

 

The New York Times published a lengthy article about Bill Gates’ friendship with convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Gates visited Epstein’s lavish townhouse in Manhattan on several occasions. He hitched a ride on Epstein’s private jet. They engaged in lengthy discussions about philanthropy.

All of this hobnobbing happened after Epstein was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a minor and was required to register as a sex offender.

Gates says he now “regrets” the relationship.

Mr. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, whose $100 billion-plus fortune has endowed the world’s largest charitable organization, has done his best to minimize his connections to Mr. Epstein. “I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him,” he told The Wall Street Journal last month.

In fact, beginning in 2011, Mr. Gates met with Mr. Epstein on numerous occasions — including at least three times at Mr. Epstein’s palatial Manhattan townhouse, and at least once staying late into the night, according to interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the relationship, as well as documents reviewed by The New York Times.

Employees of Mr. Gates’s foundation also paid multiple visits to Mr. Epstein’s mansion. And Mr. Epstein spoke with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase about a proposed multibillion-dollar charitable fund — an arrangement that had the potential to generate enormous fees for Mr. Epstein.

“His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me,” Mr. Gates emailed colleagues in 2011, after his first get-together with Mr. Epstein.

Bridgitt Arnold, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gates, said he “was referring only to the unique décor of the Epstein residence — and Epstein’s habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates….”

Two members of Mr. Gates’s inner circle — Boris Nikolic and Melanie Walker — were close to Mr. Epstein and at times functioned as intermediaries between the two men.

Ms. Walker met Mr. Epstein in 1992, six months after graduating from the University of Texas. Mr. Epstein, who was an adviser to Mr. Wexner, the owner of Victoria’s Secret, told Ms. Walker that he could land her an audition for a modeling job there, according to Ms. Walker. She later moved to New York and stayed in a Manhattan apartment building that Mr. Epstein owned. After she graduated from medical school, she said, Mr. Epstein hired her as a science adviser in 1998.

Ms. Walker later met Steven Sinofsky, a senior executive at Microsoft who became president of its Windows division, and moved to Seattle to be with him. In 2006, she joined the Gates Foundation with the title of senior program officer.

At the foundation, Ms. Walker met and befriended Mr. Nikolic, a native of what is now Croatia and a former fellow at Harvard Medical School who was the foundation’s science adviser. Mr. Nikolic and Mr. Gates frequently traveled and socialized together.

Ms. Walker, who had remained in close touch with Mr. Epstein, introduced him to Mr. Nikolic, and the men became friendly.

In Jeffrey Epstein’s will, he named Mr. Nikolic as a fallback executor of his estate, in case the two primary executors declined.

Mr. Nikolic declined the designation.

We knew Bill Gates has bad judgment about education. Now we know he has appallingly bad judgment about people. Hasn’t he ever googled people before meeting with them? Isn’t there someone on staff to do it for him?

I’ve tried many times to meet with Bill Gates, with no success. I guess I don’t have the right connections.

Categories Ethics, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Mercedes Schneider: Louisiana State Board of Education, Bought and Paid For

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2019 //
5

 

Mercedes Schneider reports that the deluge of out-of-state money into the election of the state board of education was sufficient to elect a board amenable to the failed strategies of testing and choice. 

No fresh ideas to be expected from Louisiana. Just the same tired nostrums that were written into federal law nearly 20 years ago.

Schneider wonders if the new board will reappoint State Superintendent John White, a former TFA corps member and a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Academy. White was appointed in 2012 and was a cheerleader for charters and vouchers. Under his leadership, Louisiana has not only stagnated on the authoritative national test called NAEP, it has dropped almost to the rock bottom. One thing we have learned about corporate reformers: they are never dissuaded by failure. They fail and fail, but they never change course.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Louisiana, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Rudy Guiliani’s Two Indicted Friends

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2019 //
22

John Cassidy of The New Yorker wrote about the indictment and arrest of two men who were leaving the country with one-way tickets. Photographs of these men have been published showing them having a meeting at the White House with Trump and on another occasion, dining with Rudy G. at a Trump hotel and also a photo of them with Don Jr.

Cassidy writes:

What’s the most arresting detail that’s been unearthed so far in the unfolding scandal of Rudy Giuliani and the Ukrainian grifters? The more you delve into the story, the more it reads like something Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen cobbled together after a guys’ getaway to Kiev. To make the selection a bit easier, let’s make it a multiple-choice question:

(a) Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, whom the Wall Street Journalpolitely describes as “Florida businessmen who are U.S. citizens born in former Soviet republics,” were both carrying one-way tickets out of the country when federal agents arrested them at Dulles International Airport, on Wednesday night, and charged them with breaking campaign-finance laws by disguising donations from foreign entities.

(b) Parnas, a forty-seven-year-old native of Ukraine who arrived in the United States in 1976, owns a company called Fraud Guarantee. Evidently, it’s some sort of fraud-prevention advisory service. According to the Times, this company paid Giuliani hundreds of thousands of dollars for “business and legal advice.”

(c) According to Buzzfeed News, Parnas has in the past “worked for three stockbrokerages that were later expelled by regulators for fraud and other violations—though he was never individually charged—and racked up nine court judgments for failing to pay loans and other debts.”

(d) Parnas once tried to produce a movie called “Anatomy of an Assassin.” It didn’t go well. “Mr. Parnas is a con man, he is a crook,” Dianne Pues, a New Jersey woman who invested in the project, toldthe Miami Herald. “He conned us from day one. . . . He financially ruined us.”

(e) As he travelled around doing whatever he did, Parnas didn’t stint on expenses. “There were bills running to hundreds of dollars at exclusive restaurants such as Novikov in London and BLT Prime in Washington,” Buzzfeed reported. “During one of his many trips to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, there was a $657 charge at Tootsie, the popular strip club in the heart of the city.”

(f) Fruman, a fifty-three-year-old native of Belarus, apparently runs an import-export business that ships goods to and from Ukraine. He also reportedly owned, or owns, a beach club in the Black Sea city of Odessa, which has long been a stronghold of organized crime. The name of the club: Mafia Rave.

(g) In the spring of last year, after the dynamic duo donated three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to America First Action, a super pac that supports Donald Trump, they were invited to the White House, where they had dinner with the President and got their pictures taken with him. “Thank you President Trump !!! Making America great !!!!!! incredible dinner and even better conversation,” Parnas posted on his Facebook account.

(h) On Thursday, Trump said, “I don’t know those gentlemen.”

As I said, it’s a tough choice. On human-interest grounds, I’m choosing Option D, but the grip-and-grin picture of Parnas and Trump at the White House is also priceless—as is a picture of him having coffee with at Giuliani the Trump International Hotel in Washington last month. And let’s not forget the shot of Fruman and Parnas having breakfast in Beverly Hills last year with Donald Trump, Jr., and Tommy Hicks, Jr., a friend of Trump, Jr., who was then running America First Action.

But humor and Schadenfreude aside, this is a deadly serious matter. While there is still a good deal of murk surrounding the activities of Fruman and Parnas, we do know that they were two very busy and well-connected fellows. In addition to doing some of Giuliani’s bidding in Ukraine, as he sought to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Parnas got hired by a law firm run by two other Trump supporters and frequent Fox News guests, Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the law firm “hired Mr. Parnas in July to serve as an interpreter related to their representation of Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch, who was detained in Vienna, in 2014, on corruption charges filed in the U.S.”

Meanwhile, Parnas and Fruman were also representing, and acting at the behest of, at least two Eastern European parties who haven’t yet been identified. The indictmentsays that their political donations, some of which were routed through shell companies to hide their identities, “were made for the purpose of gaining influence with politicians so as to advance their own personal financial interests and the political interests of Ukrainian government officials, including at least one Ukrainian government official with whom they were working.”

Who was this Ukrainian official, and what did he or she want? That’s one of the things we don’t know yet, but the indictment says that Parnas met with a U.S. congressman, widely believed to be the former Texas Republican congressman Pete Sessions, and sought his “assistance in causing the U.S. Government to remove or recall the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine”—Marie Yovanovitch—and these “efforts to remove the Ambassador were conducted, at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.”

We also know that the other Eastern European who was employing Parnas and Fruman is Russian. The indictment says that some of the donations that Fruman, Parnas, and two other individuals made in 2018 were really funded by a certain “Foreign National-1,” with a view to obtaining licenses for a recreational-marijuana business in certain U.S. states, including Nevada. One of the other conspirators is quoted in the indictment, and he says Foreign National-1’s identity was kept hidden because of “his Russian roots and current political paranoia about it.”

What does all this add up to? Although Parnas and Fruman hardly appear to fit the bill of men of international intrigue, they clearly played significant roles in the Giuliani-inspired effort to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens, get rid of Yovanovitch, and help Donald Trump get reëlected. That means they are potentially important witnesses in the Presidential-impeachment inquiry.

The House Democrats who are investigating Trump will most certainly want to hear what Parnas and Fruman have to say. (At least one House committee has already served a subpoena on them.) And, according to ABC News, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which brought the campaign-finance case against Parnas and Fruman, is also investigating their business relationship with Giuliani. That’s not good news for Rudy or Trump.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Virginia ordered the pair to be held in detention until they secure a bail bond of a million dollars each. Right now, they are being represented by John Dowd, a former lawyer for Trump, which would suggest they aren’t about to turn on their former associates and spill. But, like Michael Cohen, they could always have a change of heart.

  • John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995.

Categories Accountability, Fraud

Arkansas: Inside the Shadowy World of the School ”Choice” Movement, Part 3

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2019 //
2

Cathy Frye was a journalist for 21 years, then changed careers and eventually landed a job as communications director of a Walton-funded organization called the Arkansas Public Schools Resource Center (APSRC), which was actually a covert front for the school choice movement.

I previously posted her Part 1 and Part 2.

In this post, she reveals more about the deceptive organization that existed to suck public school districts into the Walton school choice universe by pretending to help them.

Frye describes a secretive office where no one one was allowed to collaborate with anyone else. When she was told to apply for a new round of Walton funding, she couldn’t discuss her grant proposal with other department heads, who were writing their own proposals. For years, she never learned whether her proposal was funded.

She writes:

To this day, I don’t know whether the Waltons ever signed off on the grant application or not.

I asked several times in 2017, 2018 and 2019 to see the entire grant application so that I would know what I needed to do to assist other departments in meeting their goals. I never received one. Nor did I ever hear an explanation as to why not.

Why all the secrecy?  Because if you read the application in full, you’ll notice that that APSRC’s focus isn’t on all public schools. 

While the number of traditional public school districts – with or without conversion charters on their campuses – far exceeds the number of charter schools in Arkansas,  a reading of the grant application will make it clear who gets priority standing. 

Yes, 100 percent of Arkansas’ open-enrollment charters are members of APSRC. But they are far fewer in number than the state’s many rural school districts, and, really, if they want Walton support, they have no choice but to become members. Also, bear in mind that more than 85 percent of APSRC’s members are traditional public school districts that may or may not have conversion charters on their campuses. 

I finally managed to snag a copy of the entire grant application and feel compelled to share this little gem from “Request/Purpose” section: 

APSRC has long been a strong advocate for the improvement of educational policy and advocacy for issues at the core of our work which matches the Walton Family Foundation’s principles of accountability, transparency, choice, and sustainability. 

Before moving on to the next topic, I’m just going to note that a lack of transparency and accountability will one day be APSRC’s downfall. 

As a journalist, I know that people who are secretive, deceptive and paranoid are more than likely hiding something. 

Her boss, she says, was secretive, deceptive, and paranoid.

When the legislature convened, she was warned not to talk to any legislators she knew.

She covered a news conference called by State Senator Joyce Elliott. Frye covered the news conference and quoted Senator Elliott in a story she sent out to members of APSRC. Her boss was furious.

The next day, Smith asked why I had quoted Elliott.

“Well, she’s the person who called the news conference,” I said. “It would be kind of weird to not quote her.”

“Well, nobody likes her,” Smith shot back. 

Said no newspaper editor ever.

This is getting long and time is getting short – my family is still waiting on dinner – but this is what I want those of you residing in – or supporting – the Little Rock School District to know. 

Yes, APSRC has some talented folks on staff. And they do a great job of trying to provide professional development. That said, the organization’s primary role is to lobby on behalf of school “choice.” It is not a friend to public schools. It is using them to help shroud its true mission…

Supporters of a return to local control within LRSD – please hear me: 

APSRC wants your facilities. Each year, the organization’s charter director is required to court and bring in potential CMOs. These charter operators always tour the same two cities – Little Rock and Pine Bluff. Sometimes they meander down to the Delta, but they are most interested in Little Rock and Pine Bluff. Again, read the grant application. It’s a road map to Walmartized education. 

Meanwhile, APSRC is charged with propping up any failing charters. Why? Because school facilities are a prize to win and keep. Just look at how things unfolded in the Covenant Keepers/Friendship drama. (More on that in another post.) 

I’ll end by saying this: APSRC wants your buildings. It wants your students and the funding that goes with them. It does not care if its actions result in re-segregation. It will do everything it can to help the State Board do away with legit unions.

Think of it this way – open-enrollment charters are merely placeholders in the Waltons’ endeavor to dismantle public education.

  • Get the building.
  • Get the students.
  • Get the funding that follows the students.
  • Prop up the failing charters. Continue the pursuit of private-school vouchers. 
  • Rinse. Repeat. 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Steven Singer: Testing More Means Learning Less

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2019 //
57

 

How often have you learned something for a test, then promptly forgot it?

One of the goals of education surely is to instill a love of learning and to build a foundation of knowledge that one can draw upon and increase in future learning.

Steven Singer notes that a steady diet of standardized testing may actually undermine learning. 

He begins:

The main goal of schooling is no longer learning.

It is test scores.

Raising them. Measuring growth. Determining what each score means in terms of future instruction, opportunities, class placement, special education services, funding incentives and punishments, and judging the effectiveness of individual teachers, administrators, buildings and districts.

We’ve become so obsessed with these scores – a set of discrete numbers – that we’ve lost sight of what they always were supposed to be about in the first place – learning.

In fact, properly understood, that’s the mission of the public school system – to promote the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Test scores are just supposed to be tools to help us quantify that learning in meaningful ways.

Somewhere along the line we’ve misconstrued the tool for the goal. And when you do that, it should come as no surprise that you achieve the goal less successfully.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Real Education, Testing

Mississippi: Teacher Activism Is Making Red State Governor Races Competitive

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2019 //
4

 

Bracey Harris writes in The Hechinger Report that teacher activism is making the governors’ races in red states competitive. 

This is great news.

Paula Howard teaches in a Republican stronghold in north Mississippi, along the Tennessee border. She usually votes Republican and is closely following the campaign of Jerry Darnell, a Republican educator running to represent Howard’s home district in the state Legislature.

But — while energized about the possibility of sending a conservative colleague to the state Capital — for governor she’s backing the Democrat, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. She likes his calls to dramatically increase funding for education, including raising teacher pay, directing an additional $300 million to school districts, and expanding the state’s public pre-K program.

And, like other teachers around the state, she hasn’t forgiven the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, for opposing a 2015 school funding initiative that would have increased money for education.

“It’s not about a ticket,” Howard said. “It’s about what they can do for our children…”

Spending on education is a wedge issue in the other two governor’s races this year, in Louisiana and Kentucky. A teacher sickout roiled the Bluegrass State in February, and the two candidates there have clashed on issues like teacher pensions and charter schools. Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker said part of the playbook for Democratic candidates is to stay focused on local and state issues.

Republican candidates have made low taxes their highest priority. But voters seem to recognize that low taxes hurt schools and children.

If Southerners started voting for the best interests of their communities and their state, not for the wily promises of the 1%, it would be a new day for the South.

 

Categories Accountability, Funding, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi

The Richest People in America Pay at a Lower Rate than the Bottom 50%

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2019 //
20

 

Two articles were published recently about a new book that makes the point that billionaires pay at a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans.

The book is The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times, in a column called “The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You”: 

For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data.

Since then, taxes that hit the wealthiest the hardest — like the estate tax and corporate tax — have plummeted, while tax avoidance has become more common.

President Trump’s 2017 tax cut, which was largely a handout to the rich, plays a role, too. It helped push the tax rate on the 400 wealthiest households below the rates for almost everyone else.

The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equaled less than one quarter of their total income. This overall rate was 70 percent in 1950 and 47 percent in 1980.

Christopher Ingraham writes in the Washington Post:

In 2018, for the first time in history, America’s richest billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the working class.

“The Triumph of Injustice,” by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley, presents a first-of-its kind analysis of Americans’ effective tax rates since the 1960s. It finds that in 2018 the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families in the country was 23 percent, a full percentage point lower than the 24.2 percent rate paid by the bottom half of American households.

In 1980, by contrast, the 400 richest had an effective tax rate of 47 percent. In 1960, that rate was as high as 56 percent. The effective tax rate paid by the bottom 50 percent, by contrast, has changed little over time.

When you see these data, it becomes clear why our society can’t afford to pay for good education or healthcare that covers everyone.

Consider this:

Forbes annually publishes a list of the 400 richest people in America.

This is the 2019 list. 

Number one is Jeff Bezos. He lost some of his net worth because of his divorce. His ex-wife collected over $36 billion from Jeff, which made her one of the 400.

The rich have gotten so rich that 221 billionaires didn’t make the cut.

Under our current tax structure, the top 400 will continue to get richer and richer, while the public sector pays more for defense and less for social welfare.

Our tax structure is a statement of our priorities.

What do we value?

Why, in a democracy, do people who are living from paycheck to paycheck—or have no steady job— support politicians who voted to reduce the taxes of the Forbes 400? Why do they put on a red hat and cheer for the man who gave the Forbes 400 a hefty tax cut?

Categories Billionaires, Economy

Tim Jackson: Why Little Rock Parents Cannot Trust Arkansas’ Governor or State Board

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2019 //
3

Tim Jackson is a parent with children in the Little Rock School District and an active member of Grassroots Arkansas, which has been fighting for the restoration of democratic control of the LRSD public schools. He is also a film-maker. He attended the state school board meeting that theoretically restored local control.

He wrote this account:

ARKANSAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING – 10.09.19

Yesterday’s meeting of the Arkansas State Board of Education was another exercise in futility for the true stakeholders in the Little Rock School District. Don’t believe the headlines that local control of the district has been returned or will be retuned anytime soon to an elected school board. All the State Board did yesterday was trash an ill conceived and inequitable framework for reconstituting the district that it announced last month but could not sustain in the face of political and public opinion headwinds.

Board Chairman Diane Zook made it clear – much to the chagrin of Board members who were trying to appear conciliatory – that nothing changed yesterday. And Zook has no intention for things to change until the District is recreated in the image of the prevailing “business knows best” education model that bedevils American public education. As if American public education needed another self-important, self-entitled, shortsighted, external force bedeviling it.

I sat on the front row at yesterday’s meeting for eight hours until I was invited to leave by the Arkansas State Police who were brought in as a show of force by the board. Chairman Zook – whose personal animus toward the Little Rock School District is both unreasonable and inexhaustible – read twice from a prepared statement that anticipated more public outcry to what she knew was coming later in the meeting. We were told yesterday that 1) Police officers would escort anyone who spoke out of turn from the building. 2) Anyone who was escorted from the building yesterday would be banned from speaking in future meetings. 3) The Chairman would decide what constituted “out of turn.”

One of Ms. Zook’s frequent rebuttals when we cry “taxation without representation” over the State’s heavy-handed and demonstrably underhanded takeover is to remind us that we have a Community Advisory Board. Under the terms of the State takeover the Community Advisory Board of the Little Rock School District has no authority, no public accountability, and members serve solely at the pleasure of the State’s Education Commissioner, Johnny Key – a man so unqualified for the job that the Arkansas Legislature had to reduce the qualifications for the job in order for Governor Asa Hutchinson to appoint him.

An influential member of that Citizens Advisory Board stood in the parking lot of the Arkansas Education Building a month ago and told me that the nine members of the State Board of Education are the Governor’s choice for overseeing public education in Arkansas. This CAB member elaborated that under the Arkansas Constitution those nine appointed people don’t owe the people of Little Rock “a vote, a voice, or an explanation for anything they do.” I was told that if I didn’t like, I should go change the Arkansas Constitution.

So, that’s our representation. That’s what Diane Zook wants us to feel good about.

The State Board never fails to create chaos at the end of its meetings – at least at meetings in which the Little Rock School District is on the agenda. Yesterday was no exception. In a flurry of confusion and a complete flaunting of acceptable procedure the Board voted 9-0 to cease recognition of the Little Rock Educators Association as the sole contract negotiator for teachers and other full time support staff in the Little Rock School District. The LREA has been under attack since the State takeover and FOIA requests bear out that the Board’s plan for the LREA hasalways been death for the union by a thousand cuts. Yesterday the Board twisted the knife.

This action did not kill the union. But it is another serious attack and clear evidence that Zook and Company do not have a plan for the Little Rock School District but they do have a vision for it. It’s a vision that values the haves and patronizes the have-nots while expanding a privatized system of public education that we will pay for as a society for the next 50 years.

Tim Jackson | tjackson@category-one.com 

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Lies, Little Rock, Privatization, Walton Foundation
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