Trump Claims That Schools in 5 States Encourage Transgender Surgery

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2026 //
13

At a rally a few days ago in Dalton, Georgia, Trump made the preposterous claim that five states allow schools to promote transgender surgery.

We got critical race theory and transgender mutilization insanity out of our schools. I mean, we have five states where your child goes off to school as Tim and comes back as Tammy three or four days later. It’s true. And teachers make — somebody makes a decision. Can you imagine? Goodbye, Timmy. I love you so much.

I’ll see you later. And you say where’s my son? My son is in the hospital. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? They don’t even need approval. It’s sick. You’ll have five — I think Minnesota and some others. I think it’s five or six states. You know that, right? So — and we made English the official language of the United States of America.

He told the same story about the notorious five states repeatedly in the 2024 election, and each time he said it, the news media said it was false. He never produced evidence. Never. Not one single instance.

No teacher. No student. No Timmy. No Tammy.

At first, I was outraged that no journalist called him out for this lie.

But as I read the speech, I realized there were so many lies that it would be overwhelming to correct them all.

Please, if you can stomach it, read the clips from this speech given in Dalton, Georgia, on October 16, 2026.

Categories Fake News, Fraud, Gender, Lies, Trump

Andy Spears: Tennessee Republicans Want State Takeover of Nashville Schools, Despite Record of Failure

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2026 //
3

Andy Spears is a veteran education journalist from Tennessee. He writes on his blog that Tennessee Republicans want the state to take control of the public schools in Nashville. They have already taken over the schools of Memphis.

They are unfazed by the fact that Tennessee’s first effort to take over “failing schools” was a disastrous failure. It was called “the Achievement School District” and was launched with bold promises of catapulting low-performing schools into high-performing schools. Other states copied Tennessee’s lead without waiting for results. When the results came in, the low-performing schools were still low-performing schools. The state has no magic formula.

He writes:

Tennessee Republicans spent the past two legislative sessions engineering a state takeover of Memphis schools. Now, they’ve set their sights on Nashville. 

State Rep. Scott Cepicky of Maury County, who chairs one of two Education Committees in the Tennessee House of Representatives, told WKRN in Nashville that he’s looking at an effort to have the state take over Nashville schools.

“We’ve already gone after Memphis, and now it’s Nashville’s next,” Cepicky told the radio show host.

Cepicky also spoke about the comptroller potentially doing a financial audit: “I am asking the Speaker to do a forensic audit on Nashville to start the process of looking at taking them over. We’re going to get the comptroller involved, financially.

A board appointed by Tennessee Republican leaders now has authority over Memphis schools, after some legal wrangling that delayed the takeover. That board includes the leader of a dark money issue advocacy organization that has been at the forefront of state education policy since 2010 – Tennessee Score.

Tennessee has a terrible track record in the school takeover business. The so-called Achievement School District, run by the state, was supposed to turn schools around in Memphis. Instead, the ASD failed massively, leaving students and Memphis communities behind. 

Four Tennessee schools are now returning to local control after getting taken over by the state ten years ago. The Memphis-area schools were brought into the Achievement School District with the promise from state leaders to turn things around.

But the schools are now returning to Shelby County Schools with no significant improvement in test scores.

The latest data from the Department of Education shows each of the four schools report less than five percent of students performing at grade level. ASD as a whole reports just 4.5 percent of students performing at grade level.

This is the type of terrible policy Cepicky and his GOP colleagues want to bring to Nashville schools.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Failure, State Takeover, Tennessee

Texas Evangelicals Lead the Fight to Eliminate Separation of Church and State

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2026 //
1

Robert Downen wrote for The Texas Monthly about the Texas-hatched plan to make the United States a “Christian nation.”

He opened:

Dan Patrick calls the separation of church and state a lie and has worked to infuse Christianity into Texas institutions. Trump is helping him take that strategy nationwide. 

Dan Patrick is the state’s powerful far-right Lieutenant Governor. Before he entered politics, he was a talk-show host and was considered a mini-Rush Limbaugh, completely lacking any trace of compassion. His goal now is to spread Christian nationalism.

Anyone who has studied American history knows that the Founding Fathers had no intention of creating an evangelical Christian nation. If they did, they would have written it into the Constitution. Indeed, the word religion appears only twice in the document:

The First Amendment says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Article VI, Clause 3, of the Constitution says:

“No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

But prominent religious extremists claim that the Founding Fathers actually wanted a decidedly Christian nation with no separation of church and state.

They must have forgotten to write it down.

Texas evangelicals are intent on imposing their views on everyone, and not just in Texas.

Robert Downen of The Texas Monthly wrote:

Flanked by a coterie of pastors, lawyers, a self-described prophet, and a former talk show host, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick stood in the Oval Office in June and boldly proclaimed the beginning of a new era for religious liberty. For far too long, he said, Americans of faith had been trampled underfoot by secularism, their sway over government held at bay by weaponized disinformation. “The separation of church and state is not in the Constitution,” Patrick said as President Donald Trump nodded from behind the Resolute Desk. “From this day forward, that phrase should have no power over people of all faiths ever again.”

It was a monumental moment. For decades, leaders of Texas’s religious right have argued that the Founding Fathers were primarily conservative evangelicals and that the First Amendment’s establishment clause was meant only to prevent the adoption of a specific Christian denomination as the national religion. Led by David Barton, an Aledo-based activist and self-described amateur historian, the movement contends that because the words “separation between church and state” do not appear in the U.S. Constitution, the notion that the founders intended to maintain a wall between the two is a myth that has been used by secularists to obscure America’s true Christian heritage. Rather than a bulwark against theocracy, they claim, the founders envisioned a wall that extends only one way—protecting the church from the government.

In Texas those theories have helped fuel a massive infusion of Christianity into public life, particularly in schools. State lawmakers have in recent years passed bills that require the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms; grant voluntary, school-sanctioned prayer time; and allow districts to replace counselors with religious chaplains. At the same time that Texas leaders have successfully pushed for school-voucher legislation that sends taxpayer money to private, often unregulated, religious schools, they have focused intently on what is taught in public classrooms. Barton, for example, served as an adviser to the State Board of Education’s recent overhaul of K–12 social studies curricula, a process that experts said inserted revisionist history into lessons and downplayed the contributions of non-Christians.

Patrick’s Oval Office remarks, delivered as part of the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission, which he coleads with Trump’s former housing secretary Ben Carson, were a high-water mark for the movement. Now, with a friendly president and U.S. Supreme Court, Patrick and his allies are working to codify their views into federal policy. The result would be an America that looks a whole lot more like Texas.

A few decades ago, the ideas championed by Patrick would have been considered fringe, even to many conservative Christians, according to Joseph Locke, a historian at the University of North Texas and author of One State Under God: A History of Religion in Texas. “To see [these ideas] sponsored and supported at the highest level—and to see Texans at the head of it—is pretty remarkable,” Locke told me.

For most of the nation’s history, the church-state wall was treated as near sacrosanct by many  Christians—especially Baptists, who looked to it for refuge from the violent persecution they faced in colonial America. Texas, with its heavy concentration of Southern Baptists, was aggressive in separating faith from policy in the decades after declaring its independence. Clergy were constitutionally barred from serving in state offices until 1869. For much of the next century, Locke said, the idea of advocating for policy on explicitly religious grounds would have been anathema to most Christians. Church-state separation “is not some kind of idea that emerged from the ether in the nineteen-sixties,” he told me. “This is something that was absolutely foundational to what it meant to be a Protestant in Texas.”

But that began to change amid growing conservative anxieties over secularism, feminism, gay rights, and racial desegregation. By the late eighties, a Republican coalition of business interests and politically active Christians led in much of the South. Enter Barton, whose theories gave leaders permission to abandon the church-state wall, Locke said, and to call for Christian dominance over American life.

Many scholars have pushed back against Barton’s work, noting that it is riddled with errors and false quotes. (His 2012 bestseller on Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was pulled by its Christian publisher because “basic truths just were not there,” the company said.) Still, his theories have become increasingly mainstream as acolytes of his movement have risen to power. Mayes Middleton, the Republican nominee for Texas attorney general, repeatedly invoked Barton’s theories during his three terms in the Texas Legislature. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said Barton had a “profound influence on me and my work and my life.” And leaders of Barton’s advocacy group, WallBuilders, are frequently called to testify in statehouses across the country and reportedly are advising the Trump administration’s purge of “woke” history from the Smithsonian Institution.

The DOJ’s Religious Liberty Commission, which Patrick said he persuaded Trump to establish, is the latest example of the movement’s rising influence. Save for one Orthodox rabbi, its members are all conservative evangelicals or Catholics—including notable Texans such as Dr. Phil McGraw and Allyson Ho, a lawyer and the wife of hard-line Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho. Its findings are undergirded by the work of Barton, who also testified during one of the commission’s hearings. 

Released in late June and based on several hearings held over the previous year, the commission’s 224-page draft report details what it says were intentional attempts, namely by the Biden and Obama administrations, to persecute people of faith. The examples range from a Navy SEAL who was punished after refusing, on religious grounds, to get a COVID-19 vaccine to a former Texas Children’s Hospital surgeon who was federally charged after leaking information about patients, including children, who sought gender-affirming care. (The DOJ dropped the charges after Trump’s reelection.)

Echoing the work of the DOJ’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which was formed in 2025, the report describes a wave of anti-Jewish discrimination sweeping across college campuses—including via student protests over Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. (One adviser to the commission was removed after speaking out against Israel and what she said was Zionist influence over the commission’s work; the only Muslim member resigned in protest of the removal and the war in Iran.) And the report includes dozens of examples in which conservatives faced social or workplace consequences for expressing their views on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights, or use of gender-inclusive pronouns.

photo of donald trump and dan patrick shaking hands
Trump greeting Patrick during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 1, 2025.Alex Brandon/AP

The report focuses heavily on discrimination in education—specifically in what it calls “government-run schools.” Across three sections totaling about forty pages, it describes numerous examples in which public school students, teachers, or other employees were prevented from expressing their religious views. Among the stories it highlights are that of a high school valedictorian who was told not to mention Jesus Christ during his graduation speech and a high school football coach in Washington state who was told by administrators not to pray midfield with his team after games. In both cases, as with many others mentioned in the report, the current system worked: After legal intervention, the valedictorian was allowed to give the speech as intended, and Joe Kennedy, the high school football coach, won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld his right to personal prayer.

Still, the commission recommended a host of policy changes that may ring familiar to Texans: enacting universal school-voucher legislation, allowing school-sanctioned prayer time, and ensuring that classrooms can hang religious displays such as the Ten Commandments.

The commission also wants a massive expansion of legal and public enforcement mechanisms. Any public official who accuses someone of improperly engaging in religious expression would be required to provide, within thirty days of their complaint, a written explanation that outlines where church-state separation appears in the Constitution or what law has been violated. Commissioners also want to create another DOJ task force to “track and prioritize litigation protecting religious liberty”—sourced from hotlines established across the federal government and education system. Disputes would then be handled by a federal judiciary that, per the report’s recommendation, would ideally be staffed by judges who are sympathetic to the commission’s interpretations of religious liberty.

Most consequential, the commission calls for the DOJ to issue guidance clarifying the “understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.” In other words: to make denial of the separation of church and state federal policy. To emphasize the point, Patrick has said, he may personally “print up a million bumper stickers saying there is no separation of church and state.”

Some religious experts warn that the report—and the ideas espoused in it—are dangerous. In comments submitted to the commission in July, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which advocates for the historical Baptist position on church-state separation, argued that it cherry-picks anecdotal evidence to support its claims. When I spoke with David Segal, a rabbi and a policy counsel for the BJC, he expressed concern that the report ignores the long history of attacks on the religious liberty of minority faiths, including the president’s frequent targeting of Muslims and the recent decision by the U.S. Department of Defense to drop 180 faith traditions from its list of recognized religions. “It’s very focused on anti-Christian bias at the expense of other kinds of religious discrimination,” Segal said. “They were trying to present one version of a story of how religious freedom looks or should look in this country, which is a story about how Christians are targeted by the government.” 

Please open the link to finish reading the article.

Categories Religion, Texas

Robert Reich: The NY Times Reports “Both Sides” of a Campaign Debate

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2026 //
3

Robert Reich condemns the “both sides” reporting of the debate between the Senate candidates in Michigan, as presented by The New York Times.

Honest reporting, he contends, would comment on the accuracy of the candidates’ remarks, not present them as equivalent.

Reich writes:

Friends,

The venerable New York Times — the “gray lady” of American journalism that not only determines what’s news but sets the standard for how it should be reported — has been describing the upcoming midterms as if it were a competition between two equally passionate and roughly equivalent sides.

For example, in describing the recent debate between the two candidates vying to represent Michigan in the Senate, Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the Times offered its readers an analysis of social media feeds —“one curated for a left-wing audience and one for a right-wing audience.” 

The Times did this by collecting more than 13,000 posts from X, and then — using a social media analytics company — categorizing the posts according to their apparent political leanings and whether they were “personal attacks and criticism” or concerned a particular issue area. 

Then the Times presented it all in a vertical graph, starting with the beginning of the debate at the top and the end at the bottom, with responses to El-Sayed on the left side and responses to Rogers on the right. 

What did the Times report that might be useful to its readers? It turned out that “viewers following the event on social media likely came away with two very different impressions, depending on their own political inclinations.”

Well, duh. People choose social media depending on their political inclinations to begin with. 

The Times then suggested that the two very different impressions were roughly equal, both in the degree to which they distorted the truth and in how troubling we should find those distortions.

“An algorithm attuned to Democrats … served up commentary depicting the Democratic candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, as a firebrand who delivered quick-witted attacks that left his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, scrambling. A feed curated for Republicans … created an impression of Mr. Rogers as calm and composed onstage as he landed blistering critiques of Dr. El-Sayed.”

When the candidates talked about the Iran war, according to the Times, “left-leaning users” praised “Dr. El-Sayed’s opposition to the conflict” while “right-leaning users” posted “personal criticism of Dr. El-Sayed’s Muslim beliefs.” As the debate shifted to the economy, “left-leaning users” posted about affordability, while the posts of “right-leaning users” were “often laden with personal attacks against Dr. El-Sayed.”

As the debate progressed, the Times reported, these “dueling narratives” became more pronounced. When Dr. El-Sayed again referred to the economy, left-leaning accounts “posted about the high cost of living” while Rogers’s supporters posted that “high gas prices are only temporary.” When Dr. El-Sayed talked about improving healthcare, Rogers’s supporters expressed “skepticism about Dr. El-Sayed’s medical background.” (The Times then noted that although Dr. El-Sayed has a medical degree from Columbia University, he has never practiced medicine.)

So what is the average reader or voter supposed to take away from this so-called analysis? 

Note for starters that all the responses analyzed by the Times were on Musk’s “X” — which already leans authoritarian. 

Beyond this is circular reasoning. People identified as “left-leaning users” were assumed to be “left-leaning” because their comments showed they were for El-Sayed and against Rogers, and “right-leaning users” were “right-leaning” because they were for Rogers and against El-Sayed. 

The worst ad populum fallacy is that both sides deserve equal weight. They engaged in “dueling narratives” and they posted about the same number of comments. Even the graph represented a kind of equivalence. 

Rubbish. Doesn’t The New York Times have a responsibility to tell readers that Rogers has been a rubber-stamp for Trump, including Trump’s war in Iran; that he voted for the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, and surveillance legislation; that he has a political record of suppressing Black votes in Detroit and across Michigan; and that he has long represented corporate interests over the interests of average working people?

And doesn’t the Times also have a responsibility to tell its readers that El-Sayed takes the opposite position on these — and is pushing for a single-payer healthcare system, breaking up large healthcare monopolies, taxing billionaire wealth and regulating AI and data centers, banning corporate campaign contributions, ending gerrymandering, reforming the Supreme Court, and ending U.S. military aid to Israel?

Two weeks from an election that will determine whether guardrails will be erected against America’s first dictator, and what does The New York Times do? Depict it like any other contest between America’s two major political parties — in which they present “dueling narratives” from their “left-leaning” or “right-leaning” perspectives. 

This depiction is irresponsible and dangerously fraudulent. Don’t accept it.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Failure, Fake News, Michigan, Trump

Excuse Me While I Keep a Close Watch on Texas

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2026 //
5

Over the next couple of weeks, I will write several pieces about the upcoming election in Texas. More than any other state. I will explain why.

First of all, I was born there, and I’m tired of Texas being a laughing stock. Texans are better than that.

Second, if Texas flips blue, it will be a political earthquake. The state has been owned by oil and gas billionaires for decades. It’s time for a change. It’s time for leaders who care for the people of Texas, not the 1%.

Third, Texas has two great candidates in James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa. Talarico is a religious man, actually a seminarian, who speaks eloquently about our obligations to one another. Gina Hinojosa is running to give the regular people of Texas a voice.

Fourth, Gina understands the sham of Abbott’s “vouchers for all” program. She has pledged to roll back the voucher scheme and invest in the state’s public schools, where almost 90% of the state’s 5.5 million children are enrolled. Under the voucher regime, rural schools are at risk of closing. Gina will fire State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath, who has used his power to take control of entire urban districts, despite the well-documented history of the failure of state takeovers.

Fingers crossed for a new day in Texas, free of the control of billionaires, corrupt politicians, and grifters.

Categories Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, Republicans, Rural Schools, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Students, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

Texas: Houston Chronicle Endorses Gina Hinojosa for Governor

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2026 //
3

The polls in Texas show a close race between Governor Greg Abbbott and challenger Gina Hinojosa. Abbott has about $91.5 million in campaign funds, Hinojosa has about $21.7 million.

Abbott’s single biggest donor is S. Javaid Anwar, who has given $4,122,086. Anwar is Muslim but supports Abbott despite the Governor’s anti-Muslim rhetoric. Abbott’s top five donors have each donated at least $2 million.

Hinojosa’s biggest donor is the American Federation of Teachers, which appreciates Hinojosa’s strong support for public schools and teachers. The AFT has contributed $345,000.

Abbott is running for his fourth term. Abbott is a hard-hearted MAGA man. He is the favorite of billionaires in Texas and beyond.

Gina is the only candidate in the nation running for governor who has made public schools her number 1 issue. She has pledged to fire Abbott’s State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath and to roll back the billion-dollar “voucher scam.”

Abbott and Hinojosa are one point apart in the polls, a statistical tie.

A few days ago, the biggest newspaper in the state–The Houston Chronicle–endorsed Hinojosa.

The Houston Chronicle said:

Here is the full editorial:

In February, when state Rep. Gina Hinojosa visited the Chronicle editorial board as one of six Democrats who imagined themselves taking up residence in the Governor’s Mansion, we were impressed but saw little reason for Gov. Greg Abbott to worry. What we saw in Hinojosa was a capable, experienced lawmaker with a passion for public education, clearly the best candidate among the six but with little name recognition beyond her Austin district. An even more daunting prospect if she happened to prevail in the primary would be campaigning in the general election under the Everest-sized shadow of a $106 million war chest the governor could avalanche onto her effort if he needed to. 

We didn’t think he’d need to. In Abbott’s quest for an unprecedented fourth term, we expected Hinojosa to be the next in a line of hapless Democrats willing to take one for the party. Hinojosa herself acknowledged that she decided to run for governor only after it became obvious that none of her fellow Democrats were willing to offer themselves up for the quadrennial double-digit beat-down the party has endured for more than three decades. If the ebullient, well-known and well-funded Beto O’Rourke couldn’t come within single digits of Abbott four years ago, why would Texans expect an earnest, relatively low-key unknown to do any better? 

For Governor: Gina Hinojosa

Gina Hinojosa ★★★★ — This Democratic challenger and five-term state representative is running one of the most impressive populist campaigns anywhere in the country. She’s fighting to put everyday Texans back in charge.

Greg Abbott  ★★1/2 — After 12 years as governor, this Republican incumbent seems to care only about billionaire donors and partisan extremists.

When Hinojosa visited the editorial board a few weeks ago, the descriptor “low-key” didn’t come to mind. She made a full-throated, confident call for change. As with her Democratic cohort, the now-nationally known U.S. Senate candidate, James Talarico, her campaign is riding a wave of Trump fatigue and economic angst that has spread nationwide like algae in a reflecting pool. The success of her populist economic message — and the fact that Abbott finally deigned to mention her name only recently — suggests that fiery-red Texas might be slipping toward something closer to crimson, or even purple, on the political color spectrum. Despite the incumbent governor’s advantages — money and name recognition, primarily — the 52-year-old Rio Grande Valley native and five-term House member is within striking distance in most polls.

And it’s not just Hinojosa who has changed: There’s also Abbott himself. The GOP candidate Texans first met way back in the mid-’90s when he ran for district judge here in Houston, the office-holder we got to know through his successful campaigns for the Texas Supreme Court, attorney general and three terms as governor, has transmogrified. In the three decades Abbott has held public office, the seemingly moderate, Bush-era Republican — who even attracted Democratic votes when he ran for the state Supreme Court — has become a relentless, hardcore MAGA standard-bearer. This is the governor whose billion-dollar border boondoggle, Operation Lone Star, pleased the true believers but did nothing to resolve the nation’s immigration remorse. The governor who, in the pursuit of absolute and centralized power, trashed any notion of “local control,” long a Republican value. The governor who sneers at urban Texas, including Harris County, despite its function as the economic engine of a growing state. 

Perhaps that’s the type of pol he has always been, but he has no interest in disguising it now, as he seeks a fourth term as governor (and perhaps a launching pad for the presidency).

But the biggest change of all — bigger than any individual candidate — is happening all over Texas, where Republicans have dominated statewide elections for the past 30 years.  Like a barnacled Moby Dick, parties in power too long grow tired, weighted down, ineffective. Poked and prodded by unrelenting schools of special-interest pilot fish, they lose a sense of a larger public-service mission.  They may be politically dominant, but in fact they’re netted and enmeshed by the privileged and powerful. Like an unfree Willy, they come to feel they have no choice but to acquiesce, even as they seek to distract the citizenry with trivialities. (The Furries Act, anyone?) In an ocean of new ideas, new directions and unfamiliar challenges, they founder. 

“I will tell you that with 30 years of Democratic rule, it would probably be just as corrupt,” Hinojosa said. “That’s what happens when you have one-party control for so long.” 

Those of a certain age will remember the Sharpstown scandal that hastened the demise of Texas Democrats. Now, after decades of near-total dominance by Republicans, a dozen years under one governor, it’s time for a change.

We had an opening question for the candidate who seeks to forge a new approach for the state: Why would we change leadership given how much Texas is growing, how strong our economy is and, overall, how well things are going?

We found Hinojosa’s answer compelling: “That narrative does not match the experience of everyday Texans. Despite the fact that Texans work more hours  than the national average, we have the most people without health insurance, we have the most children without health insurance of any state, we have the most people being disconnected from their electricity because they can’t afford to pay their bills, despite the fact that we are the energy powerhouse of this country. We have the most bankruptcies of any state in the union, and that is affecting our small businesses in a big way. Small businesses are really struggling to keep their doors open, and all this despite the fact that our property taxes have skyrocketed under Greg Abbott.”

Hinojosa has a name for those economic burdens those bankrupt businesses and everyday Texans carry constantly. She calls it “the Greg Abbott corruption tax.” 

We prefer a Watergate-era cliche: “Follow the money.” Billionaires seem to have an outsized influence on Abbott’s governing priorities. Consider natural gas tycoon Kelcy Warren, whose Energy Transfer vacuumed up $2.5 billion during devastating Winter Storm Uri in 2021. When Abbott showed little interest in determining how the gas industry managed to collect $11 billion in profit during the ensuing blackouts, the Dallas billionaire conveniently showed his appreciation with a $1 million contribution to the governor’s campaign coffers.

Or consider billionaire school-voucher zealot Jeff Yass of Pennsylvania, who donated $12 million to Abbott in apparent appreciation of his unrelenting efforts to establish a billion-dollar school voucher program. The governor got his money from Yass and other political extremists, such as the billionaire Wilks brothers of Cisco, Texas, but public schools, particularly those in rural Texas, lost out: The program siphons much-needed money away from them and into private schools.

Or consider, more recently, AI tech billionairesgetting all manner of tax goodies from our governor — to the tune of $1 billion per year — as gigantic data centers sprawl across acres and acres of the Lone Star State.   

Of course, Abbott isn’t the only governor — Democrat and Republican — who fell hard for data centers. He’s also not the only governor who suddenly feels compelled to respond to the growing rumble of unrest. He can’t help but notice that much of the opposition is coming from rural and small-town Texans, likely Abbott/Trump supporters who have legitimate concerns about water and energy use, incessant noise just across the fence line from their properties, or simply a desire to have some local control over their own communities. 

The growing grassroots fury at elected officials who initially ignored their concerns is democracy in action. We expect that a respect for a government of, by and for the people of Texas, a respect for their needs and concerns, would be the fundamental governing principle in a Hinojosa administration. 

Priorities for what Hinojosa calls her “economic populist agenda” include firing Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath “and putting an educator in that position;” freezing electricity rates and insisting that corporations and industry — including data centers — pay their fair share; and making sure that every Texas child has access to quality healthcare. 

Her most surprising priority is to write a check for $1,500 for every Texas household. The money would come from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, now at $27 billion, although in recent history it’s been closer to $10 billion. 

“The economists we talk to say it’s so irresponsible to have $27 billion hoarded in Austin,” Hinojosa said. “That money belongs in the economy, working for the economy, especially at a time when working Texans are really struggling. Not only that, but people don’t believe that government can do anything to make their lives easier.”

We asked how a $1,500 check for every Texas household differs from Trump’s proposal to send every American household a check for $5,000. 

“We have the money,” Hinojosa said — wryly, but also accurately.

An offhand remark as Hinojosa prepared to leave the editorial board meeting stayed with us. “I think people are tired of fighting,” she said. 

We agree. After a dozen years under the leadership of a governor keenly attuned to the needs of the privileged and the powerful, we look forward to a successor dedicated to serving her fellow Texans. 

As a lawmaker, Hinojosa has proven herself to be a smart, pragmatic and resourceful public servant, one who has realized during her decade in office that if she was going to get anything done, she had to work with the opposition, not divide and denigrate. We’re confident she’ll be a smart, pragmatic and resourceful governor. Gina Hinojosa has our wholehearted endorsement.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corruption, Democracy, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Texas

Trump’s Targeting of Rep. Ilhan Omar is Fascist

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2026 //
9

Trump despises Representative Ilhan Omar. She represents everything he hates. She was born in Somalia, which he considers a “shithole” country. He has referred to the Somalis in Minnesota as “garbage.” He has also called Omar “garbage,” “totally crooked,” and told her to “get the hell out.”

Ilhan Omar is a fierce critic of Trump, and he is a fierce critic of Omar.

On October 12, Trump crossed a bright line. The Department of Homeland Security sent agents to raid Representative Omar’s home in Washington, D.C. They carried away boxes of material as well as her cellphone and her computer.

From all reports, they were searching for evidence of immigration fraud.

Omar was born in Somalia in 1982. She and her family escaped the country, which was at war and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for four years. In 1995, the family immigrated to the United States. She became a naturalized citizen in 2000, when she was 17.

The family settled in Minneapolis, and she graduated from Thomas Edison High School. She then earned her bachelor’s degree from Notth Dakota State University.

She was elected to the Minnesota Hiusee of Representatives in 2017. She was elected to Congress in 2019. She was re-elected three times. She is standing for re-election on November 3.

There is a rule–not a law–that federal officials are not supposed to interfere in political campaigns within the 60-day period before an election.

The only time I recall that this rule was broken was when FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI was reopening an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails about 10 days before the 2016 election. A few days later, he closed the investigation, having found nothing. But it very likely cost her the election.

Trump’s investigation of Omar is motivated by malice. Markwayne Mullin, the former plumber who now leads the Department of Homeland Security, has admitted that his agents were looking for irregularities in the immigration paperwork filed by her father in 1995.

The assumption is that Trump is seeking an excuse to strip her of her citizenship and deport her to Somalia. What a victory that would be for the haters!

Trump is investigating whether her father (deceased) committed immigration fraud in 1995, when he and his family were admitted to this country. Ilhan at the time was 12 years old.

This is an outrageous abuse of power.

It is fascist.

She will be re-elected. In time, a federal judge will rebuke the Trump administration.

Add this to the long list of outrages committed by this lawless administration.

Categories Education Reform

A Despatch from Morocco

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2026 //
14

I have been in Morocco for a week. I am part of a group of 29 people, almost all of whom are Catholic and members of St. Boniface, a church in downtown Brooklyn. I am with my partner Mary, who is a member of the parish. The group is led by Father Dennis, a retired priest whom I adore.

First stop, Rabat, a beautiful city whose major streets are lined with carefully trimmed topiary. We had our first Moroccan meal and saw the sights. Lots of walking as we visited mosques, museums, and a grand mausoleum.

Second stop, Fez, which was notable for its Medina, an underground labyrinth of tiny shops selling almost everything: food, spices, clothing, leather goods, rugs. There were booths with dates and figs, with multiple varieties of olives, with freshly baked pastries. There were butcher shops, fishmongers, vegetables, and souvenirs.

It was an overwhelming experience, topped by stopping at a restaurant in the souk that was beautiful, serene, and served traditional Moroccan food. Another night we had dinner at one of the most astonishingly beautiful restaurants I had ever seen, with an interior courtyard that was four stories high; its walls and floors were covered with gorgeous tiles.

Third stop, Marrakech. We began with a visit to its mosque, which is fairly new, built in the late 20th century. It is the third largest mosque in the world. The mosaics and tiles were spectacular. We had a knowledgeable guide, who taught us about Islam and some of its rituals.

We had dinner in a restaurant that featured traditional Moroccan music. As we entered, we were greeted by eight men in long white robes beating their drums in ear-splitting unison. Then, dinner: traditional Moroccan food, chicken pastille and couscous. All though dinner, two musicians played Moroccan music. One played an oud, which is somewhat like a lute. The other played a drum.

With the arrival of dessert, a dancer appeared, carrying a large silver tray of lit candles and tea pots on her head. As she sought out volunteers, I managed to avoid her gaze, and Mary–ever venturesome–volunteered. The two of them danced for about five minutes, and at one point the dancer put her tray of lit candles on Mary’s head. I thought I was taping the whole thing on my cell phone but I pressed the wrong button and was mortified to discover I filmed none of it. One of the other members of the group did capture a minute or so, when the dancer put the tray on Mary’s head. But I felt badly that I had made such a dumb error. (In the video, I am sitting on the left, holding up my cell phone and imagining that I was taping the event).

Today being Sunday, the group wanted to celebrate Mass. The hotel would not give them a conference room for a “religious ceremony,” so we all crowded into Father Dennis’ room, where he said the Mass, and everyone participated. He gave me a special blessing. It felt like a covert gathering. It was certainly a moving experience.

I won’t add any more other than one anecdote. Tonight, after sharing a pizza at the hotel (skipping the traditional Moroccan meal), Mary and I walked through a small lounge where a large-screen TV was playing a film we had seen many years ago: “The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob.” There was no sound and no captions, but we watched until it ended, laughing uproariously. It’s one of the funniest, most outrageous films I have ever seen, as two men–one, a wealthy bigoted Frenchman and other, an Arab revolutionary– evade their pursuers by pretending to be orthodox rabbis. Behind the film is an implicit message about tolerance. We couldn’t get over the fact that we were watching this particular film in Morocco.

No more to report. It’s a lovely country and we have enjoyed our too-brief visit.

Categories Personal

Mary Trump: Sleepy Donald Lies the Way Other People Breathe

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2026 //
3

Mary L. Trump is Donald Trump’s niece, the daughter of his late older brother. She knows him well. She is a trained psychologist. She has beeen earning the world about him since early in his first term. It’s safe to say that she loathes Uncle Donald.

She wrote today:

Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of Trump Trolls Trump. It has been 635 interminable days since Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2025. But there’s good news. The midterm elections are just 17 days away. So first up, make sure your voter registration is up to date. And if you can vote early, please do so. As always, we are here to ridicule and mock mercilessly this inept, corrupt, and dangerous regime.

Let’s dive right in with a truism that has become increasingly difficult to deny. Donald lies like most people breathe. In fact, I think in some cases he lies more fluently than I breathe. It’s second nature to him at this point, or maybe it’s just his nature.

Sometimes those lies get us into serious trouble. Earlier we saw Donald promising, as he has done time and time and time again, that he would bring energy prices down by 50 percent. That hasn’t happened. And actually the very opposite has happened because his war on Iran, his war of choice, has helped drive energy prices up across the board.

I think it’s worth remembering that Donald lied about this too, because back in 2024 when he was asking Americans to put him back in the White House, which sadly 78 million of us thought was a good idea, this is what he had to say.

We will expel the war mongers from our government. Look at Trump. Just look at this guy. He’s going to go to war. He’s going to take us. No, no. Look at me. I’m the one that kept us out of war. I’m the only president that didn’t start a war. I didn’t start a war. Started no war. I was the first president in decades who started no new war. There are wars all over. He said, “Bring back Trump. It’ll all end. It all ended. We had no problem. I’m going to keep you out of wars. I kept you out of wars. We had no wars with Donald Trump as your president. Remember when crooked Hillary Clinton used to say, “He’s going to get us into a war. Look at him. Look at his rhetoric.” I said, “No, my rhetoric’s going to keep us out of wars.

Really? Threatening genocide is not going to keep us out of wars. Oh, wait a second. He’s threatening genocide against the country he went to war with, an unprovoked war of choice. No one knows how long this war is going to last because he keeps lying about that too. In fact, he told us it would be a matter of days or a couple of weeks. It’s been over six months.

The truth of the matter is, although we are actively still at war with Iran, a war that is expanding because Donald has completely lost control of it, we lost simply by getting involved. Back in June, Vice President Baby JD Vance told us that a deal with Iran was just around the corner. So it isn’t just Donald who is lying to our faces about how things are going. This is Vance in an interview with Robert Costa on CBS’s Sunday morning recorded on June 9th.

Right now, I feel that we are in a position to get a deal that is good for the United States economically and that really does deal with the Iranian nuclear program, not just now, not just while Donald Trump is president, but for the long term, to where my kids can say when they’re adults, Iran is not going to have a nuclear weapon. That’s the goal of the policy, and I think we’re very close to achieving that goal, but we still got some wood to chop and we’re going to keep doing it. You say very close. How soon could the deal happen before the midterm elections? Oh, absolutely. No, I think we’re going to know a lot before the midterm elections. Look, I think that the deal could happen in the next week, but the deal could also happen months from now.

Well, it’s not like there’s much difference between a week and months from now. Before the midterm elections though, absolutely, which as I mentioned, are only 17 days away. Also, remember the goal of this war is to make sure that Iran doesn’t have nuclear capability. And if that’s really what Donald and his ilk were interested in, then guess what he shouldn’t have done? Rip up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal, which actually had Iran agreeing not to develop nuclear weapon capability. These guys cannot win for losing.

Speaking of which, back in April, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott appeared on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo. Remember her? I mean, I know she is much missed and lamented, but Scott’s message was simple. Sure, the war is raging kind of out of control. Sure, prices are rising, but don’t worry your pretty little heads about that. Everything’s on track. And we of course have Donald to thank for all of that. Scott had another message for the American people though, and this is what it was.

Great news, by the way. The fact of the matter is that all of the cylinders are kicking. It is good news. You can even feel in our environment how good things are getting. Gas prices continue to come down, which means that your groceries will come down a little bit as well. We’ve got a lot of good signs in the economy. We just need to continue to execute and have confidence in the choices the American people have made by making President Trump their president and keeping Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate. Let me just say for the average person in the country, President Trump loves you.

Well, I don’t know. Does he? Considering he doesn’t know what love is, I find that highly suspect and untrue. Gas prices are coming down, aren’t they? Well, no, they’re not, because Brent crude oil is now over 105 dollars a barrel, which translates to diesel, the stuff that trucks need to get around, at 6.27 dollars a gallon. So I don’t think Donald loves you. The economy is not doing well.

As I mentioned, with the midterms this close, I can’t wait until I can actually say the midterms are two weeks away. But Donald, he’s not quite taking in what’s happening. How does he think things are doing? How does he think he’s doing? Because really, that’s the only thing he’s concerned about. Well, let me ask you this question. If Donald were asked to grade his own performance on the economy, what grade do you think he would give himself in the midst of economic catastrophe? 

We’re doing an unbelievable job. Costs are coming way down. I inherited very, very high costs and they’re all coming down now. The food, the groceries, it’s all coming down. We’ve done a great job. I think we should be giving an A plus on the economy, but I think it’s coming. People are starting to talk about it.

Interviewer: I do want to talk about the economy, sir, here at home, and I wonder what grade you would give.

A plus, Donald responds.

A plus, the interviewer repeats.

Yeah. A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, Donald says.

Well, it makes sense that he would give himself a grade that doesn’t exist. Now, Donald is laser focused on the needs of the American people. He’s working day and night to make sure that our lives are improved. I mean, you can tell by the fact that crews are working around the clock to get the ballroom built. That’s not making my life better. He’s making oil deals with Russia to help refill their much depleted coffers to aid them in attacking our ally Ukraine. That’s definitely not making my life better.

Unfortunately though, according to him and his enablers, we’re still dealing with the damage Joe Biden left behind. Donald has a few words for his predecessor. Donald has told us that he is working his considerable ass off. 

He has one ability I don’t have. He sleeps. He can sleep. This guy goes on a beach and he lays down on one of those beach chairs. They weigh six ounces and he can’t lift it, but he has an ability to fall asleep while on camera. He can lie down on one of those things and in minutes, he’s stone cold out. How does he do it? And he’s got cameras because he’s in prison, so they have cameras on him. And then they show him sleeping on the beach. You’ll never see me sleeping in front of camera. I have to tell you, he’s a different guy. He looks different than he used to. He acts different than he used to. He’s even slower than he used to be. And I wouldn’t say he’s at the top of his game. Would you think their message is Sleepy Joe because he’s not all there? Right now, I think I’m sharper than I was 25 years ago, but who the hell does? You’ll never see me sleeping in front of Joe.

I mean, that’s the reaction to listening to Donald talk about himself because I have never seen a sleepier person. That hypersomnia is not a good thing, but it’s so much nicer when he’s sleeping, isn’t it? Again, as we’ve talked about before, Donald is a master of projection, and clearly when he’s talking about Sleepy Joe Biden, he’s talking about himself because I have never met such a hypersomnolent person in my life. Although to be fair, sleepy Donald is my favorite mode of Donald.

I want to turn now to Donald’s relentless crusade against corruption. Wait a minute, sorry. Is crusade a synonym for embrace? Embrace of corruption? Well, let’s find out.

We know that Baby JD Vance is in charge of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which is fabulous. This was established by executive order back in March. The only thing that surprised me about that is that he didn’t ask Elon Musk or Ken Paxton to head that task force, but we’re talking about criminals here, hardened criminals, and Donald, as is his want, is looking at them very strongly, which is a phrase I still cannot make sense of. I do not know what it means to look at something very strongly. I think Superman was able to do that, but he had laser beams coming out of his eyes.

Now, Donald explains exactly what he has done to crack down on criminality. Before you get excited, it does not mean he’s had himself arrested. As I listen to him describe these criminals, I have a lingering question. You may have the same one, here is what he said:

91 percent of the crime in Washington DC, as an example, was caused by 2.1 percent of the population. These are many career criminals, sick people, mental problems.

Okay. I mean, I know DC’s a small town, but I didn’t think it was so small that Donald comprised 2.1 percent of the population. Oh wait, but it’s not just him. He has a lot of co-conspirators out there. If you add in all of his co-conspirators, then maybe yes, those hardened career criminals, the Vances and the Hegseths and the Musks and the Bessents and all of them might indeed make up 2.1 percent of the DC population, and they are absolutely committing over 90 percent of the crime there.

As we approach the midterms, please, please make sure your voter registration is up to date and know where your polling location is. Check both of those things repeatedly because people can get struck off the voter rolls without their knowing it right before the election, and sometimes polling places change. Republicans are going to pull out all the stops, so we need to stay on top of this.

You don’t want any surprises when you go to vote on election day if you vote in person. A lot of states offer early voting, so check your options and if you can vote early, please do so. I am one of those people. I’m old school. I like to go vote on election day, but vote early, vote by mail in states where you still think that’s the safe thing to do.

And when you step into that voting booth, remember how we got here and who brought us to this very dark time in our history. Encourage other people to vote and remind them that Donald himself said he wants us to pretend he’s on the ballot. So that’s very clear. Vote Democratic up and down the ballot.

“I can always say that the next president will get a lot of credit for what I’ve done. Please remember it was me, not them,” Donald says.

Oh, we will remember. We will remember. And as we’re remembering, we are going to tear down everything on the planet that has your name on it.

Thank you so much for joining us for Trump Trolls Trump week 91. Remember, mockery is our superpower, and we will be here every single week to call out the hypocrisy, the ineptitude, and the outright corruption of this incredibly dangerous and misguided regime. 

Go vote. 

Categories Character, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Lies, Trump

Aaron Parnas: Putin Orders Military to Make Cities in Ukraine “Unlivable”

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2026 //
11

Aaron Parnas writes up-to-the-minute news on his blog “The Parnas Perspective.” This was shocking to read today:

Good evening, everyone. I want to start tonight with Ukraine, because the messages I’ve been getting from people there over the past few days have been some of the hardest I’ve read since this war began. People are telling me it’s getting worse. They are terrified. They’re watching Russia systematically knock out power plants and substations as winter closes in, and now they’re reading reports of an intercepted Russian document that lays out the goal in plain terms: cut the electricity, cut the water, and make Ukraine’s cities unlivable until people flee.

And at that exact moment, Donald Trump chose to waive the sanctions Congress passed to stop it. A law he signed himself just last month. Ukraine wasn’t even warned.

Categories Cruelty, Trump
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