Thom Hartmann: Trump Finds New Ways to Grift and Grab

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2026 //
2

Thom Hartmann is a diligent journalist who digs deep into the corruption of this regime.

On the deregulation of public lands: Trump is allowing destruction of parts of Big Bend National Park, to make way for its exploitation. No complaints from Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

He writes:

— Trump has figured out a way to grift off the plight of immigrant kids. A Texas law firm with virtually no immigration experience, but multiple people close to Trump or accused of being open racists, just got a $150 million sole-source contract to replace the public defenders defending kids being held in Trump’s concentration camps for brown-skinned people. Meanwhile, ICE says that, sure, they’ll wear body cameras when they beat up and murder people, but they’ll only share those videos when they make them look good. Don’t expect to see any released that actually show criminal activity by armed, masked ICE thugs. Sounds over the top? Here’s their exact language: they’ll only release body camera footage when “it is in the best interests of the agency.” Trump has built his SA/SS force of violent, unaccountable modern-day Klan members to intimidate and even kill anybody who dares defy this regime, and it’s not about to start following the law or even behaving morally any time soon. 

— Trumponomics is even worse than Hoovernomics or Reaganomics. Since he fired his statistics person at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and replaced her with a hand-picked toady, the numbers have been looking weird. For example, the regime reported 57,000 new jobs in May, then later quietly revised that down to 20,000 (although the headlines of 57,000 are still out there); they reported 129,000 new jobs for June, then quietly revised that down to 63,000 (ditto on the headlines). And this week we found that instead of the anticipated creation of 80,000 new jobs, the American economy actually lost 23,000 jobs last month (and expect that number to get worse when they “revise” it in 2 months). No matter how hard they try, they can’t keep Americans from noticing that housing, groceries, gas, transportation, drugs, medicine, and pretty much everything else are more expensive while billionaires and the Trump Crime Family get richer and Republicans continue to refuse to allow an increase in the minimum wage or the right to unionize. Eventually, reality catches up with politics, no matter how fast and furious Trump and his lickspittles try to keep us distracted or hating on each other, and hopefully it’s going to catch up in a big way this November. 

— Over at Montana Dispatch, Ryan Busse lays out the five Big Lies Republicans are using to steal our public lands. Utah’s Republican Senator Mike Lee, for example, recently lied to his constituents that the Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments President Obama designated were brought into being no public comment or input when, in fact, over 2.7 million people weighed in during the comment period. Another Big Lie is that we must let drilling companies exploit our public lands to become “energy independent,” a designation we reached during the Obama years. They’re also trying to tell us that the way to prevent forest fires isn’t to cut back on climate-change-causing CO2 from burning fossil fuels but, instead, to log those trees and leave behind nude wastelands (which actually catch on fire even more easily, because all the wood debris there is dead). Trump — who’s probably never walked through an old-growth forest in his life — tried pitching the lie that people can’t and don’t use our public lands for recreation like camping and fishing. And they try to tell us that we’re not subsidizing the oil and cattle industries with our public lands when in fact we’re handing them the equivalent of billions of dollars every year. Hopefully one of these days there’ll be a cost to these Republicans for the continuous streams of lies they keep pouring out on dozens of topics. 

— Trump has figured out a new grift to let his oil company donors profit from his drawing down the National Oil Reserve. Here’s how it works. Normally, when we release oil from the strategic reserve we sell it on the open market at market prices. That would mean that the oil Trump’s releasing would go for around $100 a barrel, paid by the oil companies. When the oil shortage is over, the government would go onto the public market and buy the oil back for, say, $50 a barrel and refill the reserve. It actually makes a profit for the government. But what Trump’s doing is “loaning” our oil to the oil companies at no charge. They then sell it for $100 barrel and when it’s time to “return” the oil to the reserve they’ll buy it on the market at $50 a barrel (or however low it goes when the crisis is over). The entire profit — quite literally hundreds of millions of dollars — instead of going to us taxpayers, goes to the oil companies who funded Trump’s campaign for president. Lever News has the entire sordid story broken down on their site in an article by Freddy Brewster. 

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Corruption, Cruelty, Environment, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Trump

“Brave” Susan Collins! She Stands Up When It Doesn’t Matter

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2026 //
5

Andrew Tobias is a financial writer who watches politics closely.

He writes here about the hollow “bravery” of SusannCollins, who has carefully tailored her reputation as a moderate and a centrist. She is now running for her fifth term in the geriatric U.S. Senate.

Can she fool the voters of Maine one more time?

Tobias writes:

Susan Collins had the courage to stand up against her party 61 times (61 times!) when Republicans controlled the Senate in the years since 1997, as they do now — not even counting her brave announcement this past week that she would vote against Trump’s pick for attorney general, Epstein-files-scofflaw Todd Blanche.  (Look at that, Mainers!  She stands up to Trump!)

The only thing is . . . according to an analysis a classmate of mine just did with the help of A.I. . . . that in 60 of those 61 instances (60!), she knew her vote wouldn’t matter, so she got permission to do it, and it was not bravery on display, but cunning hypocrisy.  (Look at that, Mainers: she thinks you’re stupid!)

(The lone exception was a 2000 legislative-branch appropriations conference report defeated 28–69, with Republicans themselves almost evenly divided, so it was hardly much by way of defiance.)

Every one of her 27 votes against a Republican president’s nominee ended in confirmation.  And Trump’s Big Ugly Bill?  Collins was — bravely! — the sole Republican NO.  But, as planned, it squeaked by when Vance broke the 50-50 tie.

She is, of course, famously  ridiculed for being “concerned” about women losing control over their reproductive organs — etc. — but the only thing I think she’s really concerned about is losing to Troy Jackson.

It will be sweet when she does.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Hoax, Maine

Houston: How the State-Appointed Superintendent Cheated His Way to “Success”

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2026 //
1

Texas has a bizarre and punitive approach to public school accountability. If only one school in a large district is “low-performing,” the state can take control of the entire district. Houston is under state control because of only one school, as is Fort Worth.

The State Commissioner of Education, Mike Morath, is not an educator. He served on the Dallas School Board, but he is a businessman.

In Houston, he appointed former military man Mike Miles, to be the state-appointed superintendent. Miles is a “graduate” of the Broad Superintendents’ Academy, where would-be school leaders were taught to be tough, make demands, close schools, and enforce top-down commands. As a military man, Miles flourished in this environment. He led the Dallas school district, but things didn’t work out because of a exodus of teachers.

He then crested a charter chain based in Colorado. And now controjj on a the Houston Independent School Disrrict.

Daniel Dawer and Ruth Kravetz dissect Mike Miles’ “success” in Houston, which they call a shell game.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Cheating, Houston, Texas

Joyce Vance Explains Trump’s Continuing Battle Against Birthright Citizenship

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2026 //
5

Joyce Vance, former federal prosecutor for northern Alabama, describes Trump’s renewed effort to block birthright citizenship. His obsession with immigrants is odd, since two of his wives were immigrants. His mother was an immigrant. His children were born before either Ivana or Melania had become a citizen. And Melania’s parents were beneficiaries of chain migration.

The Supreme Court has spoken; birthright citizenship is part of the Constitution. Babies born here, with rare exceptions like one for children born to foreign diplomats, are American citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status. 

There was an asterisk, of course. We discussed it at the time the decision in Barbara, the birthright citizenship case, came down. The asterisk was the concurrence by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the majority but had different reasons for reaching that result. (For more detail, that piece is here.)

Justice Kavanaugh believes Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship violated a federal law—but importantly, not the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That matters because although Trump can’t amend the Constitution with an executive order, Congress can change laws it has passed. Kavanaugh wasn’t particularly subtle; his opinion was an invitation for Congress to do just that, implying he would then flip sides. Congress, he wrote, could “enact new legislation” that ends automatic citizenship for babies born to people who are “unlawfully or temporarily in the country.”

But apparently Congress doesn’t want to do that, at least not now. 

Barbara did not, however, stop Donald Trump. Thursday, in a pair of Executive Orders that read more like political puff pieces than actual policy, Trump tried, again, to undo birthright citizenship.

The first order is titled “Ending Birth Tourism.” You can find it here.

That’s ironic, since Trump-branded properties in Florida were linked to Russian birth tourism back in 2018, although it appears to have involved people in his buildings leasing their property to birth tourists, with no indication Trump or his businesses were benefiting financially. 

The executive order defines birth tourism as any effort by someone with a nonimmigrant visa to enter the U.S. “for the purpose of giving birth on American soil” or any effort by someone to help such a person enter the United States. It gives the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security the authority to take:

  • appropriate action to prevent the entry into the United States of, or the granting of any visa or other travel authorization to, any alien entering or attempting to enter the United States for the purpose of engaging in birth tourism; 
  • revoking the visa or travel authorization and permanently barring entry of any alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States for the purpose of engaging in birth tourism.

The Secretaries can also deny entry to or remove any alien from the U.S. if they “previously engaged or plans to engage in birth tourism” and also lets them take “appropriate action” against people and entities that facilitate birth tourism. 

And, of course, there’s a loophole so Trump can still help out his friends. Because there’s always one. The Secretaries, “may exempt a foreign national from actions taken pursuant to this order on humanitarian grounds or when the foreign national’s entry is in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security.” One can only imagine the subtlety with which an administration that gives every appearance of offering pardons for sale could deploy a provision like that to its benefit.

The second executive order has a title so saccharine that you know it must have given Stephen Miller a thrill when he picked it out: Continuing To Protect The Meaning And Value Of American Citizenship.

The EO, which you can read here, purports to take away birthright citizenship “when neither parent of that person (the baby) is a citizen and any of the following applies”:

  • “either parent of that person is an alien enemy”. They define “alien enemy” as a member of certain designated terrorist organizations, in other words, a concept so vague as to be applied however the administration chooses to—we all remember the boats blown out of the water on baseless claims that fishermen on them were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, intent on invading the U.S. 
  • “either parent of that person is a foreign government employee,” which they define to include traditional exclusions that are recognized to birthright citizenship like foreign ambassadors’ kids or embassy employees who are foreign citizens, but it also includes new categories like “persons employed by an international organization that possess international-organization immunity” or children born to a parent who “engaged in a commercial transaction to purchase or access birthright citizenship for the person, or engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship,” a concept so poorly designed it could be used to target people the administration wants to while permitting others to retain citizenship. It purports to deny citizenship to babies “born in a territory or territorial waters of the United States where citizenship is not conferred by Federal statute,” perhaps a nod at Justice Kavanaugh as there were four clear votes for the proposition that this is a constitutional right, not a statutory one.

There will, of course, be litigation. The issue of standing, among others, will have to be evaluated, and then the pro-democracy lawyers will go to court. We will find out if Justice Kavanaugh meant it when he said only Congress could change the law, not another, more carefully worded but still unconstitutional directive from the authoritarian in the White House. 

These newest Trump’s executive orders are little more than a performative stunt, a smack back from a narcissist who doesn’t like to be told no, even by the nation’s highest Court, which usually tells him yes. The EO’s seem unlikely to find much love from the lower courts, given the precedent from Barbara that they are obligated to apply. But we do live in the era of the unitary executive and a Supreme Court that panders to that theory, and sometimes to its current personification. So we will watch; we will see how the administration tries to implement its new policies and how the courts respond.

The issue of who gets to be a citizen is too important to be left to the whims of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. This whole sordid affair exemplifies why we have laws and why it’s important to be a rule of law country. Trump is trying to change the rules that determine who can be an American to suit his own whims. That’s not how a democracy works. We believe in justice and fairness, not kings. No kings. Not on this issue or any other. 

Here at Civil Discourse, we’ll keep following this story long after today’s headlines disappear. If you want to know what happens next, make sure you’re subscribed!

Categories Education Reform

Texas: Latest Poll Shows Democrats Surging

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2026 //
3

The Texas Pulse Poll shows James Talarico leading Ken Paxton in the US Senate race, Gina Hinojosa only one point behind Governor Greg Abbott, and Vicki Goodwin leading in the crucial race for Lieutenant Governor.

If this trend continues, Texas could flip blue, which would be historic.

Polls are evanescent, but the trend from red to blue is impressive.

Categories Elections, Opinion Polling, Texas

James Traub: The Surpringly Impressive Reading List in Texas

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2026 //
15

As a native Texan, I have become unaccustomed to hearing good news about the state’s education system. Under the reign of Gregg Abbott, the state has persistently underfunded its public schools, and Abbott went to extreme lengths to enact a huge voucher program that will inevitably drain even more money from the public schools. The state’s elected leaders are more devoted to religious schools than to public schools, which enroll over five million children (most of whom are Hispanic).

These youngsters will one day be the majority in Texas, but the state legislature–which is about 2/3 non-Hispanic white–doesn’t care about them.

Imagine my surprise when I read this article by James Traub in The New York Times. I consider this account to be very good news indeed. Traub is a highly accomplished journalist, and I’m always interested in whatever he writes.

I have been a devotee of E.D. (Don) Hirsch Jr. and his ideas about curriculum since 1983. That was when I first read an essay he published in The American Scholar titled “Cultural Literacy.” I invited him to participate in a conference organized by me and Checker Finn, Jr. I urged Don Hirsch to write a book expanding his thesis, and he did. It was called Cultural Literacy, and it was a huge national bestseller.

In 1985-87, I helped to write the California History/Social Science Framework and inserted as much cultural literacy as possible, especially in the early grades. I wanted to oust the reigning ideology of “expanding environments,” which assumed that children were eager to learn about their neighborhood and community, replacing it with biographies and stories drawn from history, mythology, and timeless tales that children love.

Traub is wrong when he says that the reliance on classic children’s literature found in Rexas would not be welcome in California. I helped to plant the seeds for a similar approach in California.

In this article, Traub describes the mandated list approved by the Texas State Board of Education. It is heavily influenced by Hirsch’s ideas. I approve.

Traub writes:

This summer the Texas State Board of Education approved a mandatory reading list for public school students that includes fairy tales and nursery rhymes for little children, stories of America’s founders and Aesop’s fables for elementary schoolers, poems by Rudyard Kipling and Langston Hughes for middle schoolers and Shakespeare’s plays and Dante’s “Inferno” for high schoolers — and passages or stories from the Bible for every grade, save kindergarten.

In our highly decentralized educational system, states don’t tell teachers which books to assign — the model Texas will begin using in 2030 makes it an outlier. Yet almost all of the reaction to the list, pro and con, has centered on the Bible. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, an organization that promotes strict separation of church and state, described the list as “a brazen promotion of religious doctrine” that threatens to convert public schools into Sunday schools.

This is a wild overreaction to what is, after all, a tiny fraction of the required readings. What’s worse, the whole debate obscures the pedagogical radicalism of what Texas has done in issuing a mandatory reading list full of classic works at all.

I spent the 2023-24 academic year in public schools across the country researching a book on civic education. I was braced for the culture war in the classroom: conservative versions of history in red states, progressive versions in blue ones. And I did see that.

What I had not expected to find was that the pedagogical and curricular problems in American schools are more damaging than the political ones. Most students, even in the well-regarded high schools I visited, knew precious little about American history and government and had only a hazy sense of chronology. Teachers in English classes complained that students would not read whole novels — and so teachers didn’t assign them.

There are many culprits for this failure, including everyone’s favorite, children’s addiction to social media. But the root of the problem lies in the way we think about teaching and learning. The view that has dominated education for several generations holds that students learn by mastering general critical-thinking skills that can be applied across disciplines and occasions. If you learn to find the main idea, you can navigate through texts. If you can recognize and articulate perspectives, you can make sense of a primary document in history.

This doctrine makes content (that is, the specific material from which these skills derive) a secondary consideration. Combined with children’s real or apparent resistance to struggling with difficult material, that leads many teachers to choose works that pose the fewest challenges or have the most surface appeal — short excerpts from classics or young adult novels about troubled teens.

Texas seeks to solve that problem not only by requiring schools across the state to teach specific books but also by choosing works that are — with some telling exceptions — rich in language, ideas and feeling. (The list is meant to constitute only part of each year’s reading curriculum; the rest will be supplied by local schools and teachers.)

More than that, the list embodies a very different pedagogical theory, one most famously propounded by E.D. Hirsch in his 1987 best-selling book, “Cultural Literacy,” and other works. Literacy, he argued, is context-specific. We become good readers and learners not by mastering generalizable skills but by acquiring the vocabulary, grammatical knowledge and stock of information that allow us to make sense of a text. A child who knows a lot about baseball will do a better job reading and summarizing a passage on baseball than a child with a higher reading level but no knowledge of the subject.

From this perspective, it is better to read a classic than a relatable contemporary story not only because one is beautiful and the other is not but also because a classic, by the very fact of its persistence over time, has become part of our shared culture. It thus increases our conversancy with all the texts from that culture. That is why it makes sense for fifth graders in Texas to read “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “The Phantom Tollbooth,” “Paul Revere’s Ride” and even, speaking of baseball, “Casey at the Bat.”

Texas has also created a social studies curriculum that has received less attention. It embodies a kindred principle to the one behind the reading list: You cannot learn to think like a historian until you have gained fluency in the materials history is made of — dates, places, events, names.

Children in Texas will start studying chronological history in third grade, a time when social studies is often devoted to broad themes like community. Fifth graders will be expected to explain how the Protestant Reformation encouraged people to question religious and political authority and why Montesquieu believed in divided government and the like, according to a draft of the new curriculum.

The Texas model will not suit everyone. The state’s idea of classic literature might not pass muster in, say, California. While educators everywhere regard Pericles’ funeral oration, which Texas students are to read in high school, as a rhetorical masterpiece, they may not feel the same way about Margaret Thatcher’s eulogy for Ronald Reagan or the works of Ayn Rand and the conservative Black economist Thomas Sowell, which are also assigned. Although 53 percent of students in Texas public schools are Hispanic, the state school board included works by only a few Hispanic authors in the reading list.

Those choices reflect Texas’ conservatism. But there is nothing inherently conservative about the idea of a stipulated reading list or about the belief that children need to be exposed from an early age to great works of literature and to history taught chronologically, that they should memorize poems and speeches, that they should learn grammar. A different reading list could achieve the same goals. Cultural literacy is not a Procrustean bed: As we become more diverse and less anchored in the Western tradition, what it means to be conversant in our culture changes as well.

After my book was published, I was contacted by some of the leading philanthropic funders of public schools; they wanted to talk about how they could help improve civic education. Here’s an idea for them: Raise Texas’ bet by promoting an equally rich reading list suitable for students in blue states. Show the world that academic rigor is not just for conservatives.

Categories Curriculum, Education Reform, Literature, Texas

Republicans Fully Cave to Trump, Todd Blanche Will Be Confirmed

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2026 //
8

The confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States has been kabuki theater of sorts. We were hopeful that three Republicans had the backbone to turn down this man who has broken the Department of Justice. Surely, the Senate would not confirm a man who is so subservient to Trump. The DOJ is supposed to be at arms’-length from the President. Blanche is under Trump’s thumb.

Blanche is the one who negotiated a deal to create a $1.776 billion slush fund for insurrectionists and Trump allies as well as a sweet deal for Trump, his sons, and their business NOT to be audited by the IRS, a gift to them of at least $100 million, probably more.

I imagined that there would be outrage towards the man who refused to release the Epstein files. The guy who spent two days interviewing sexual predator Ghislaine Maxwell, then arranged for her transfer to a minimum security prison where she received special treatment, as if she were a privileged guest, not a convicted pedophile.

Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will vote against confirming Blanche. In Collins’ case, this is a pattern. She votes against her party only when her vote is not needed.

Most shocking are the “yes” votes of Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas, and–today–Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. All three were driven out of the senate by Trump. Till is resigned because Trump threatened to primary him. The other two were primaried by Trump choices and lost.

They had reason to stand against Trump, and they had reason to have a spine. But in the end, all three caved.

And Todd Blanche will head the nation’s Justice Department, where he will continue Trump’s agenda and his vendettas.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Justice, Trump

Have You Ever Been the Victim of a Scam?

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2026 //
13

I have. Three times. But fortunately I was skeptical enough not to take the bait.

A widow in Minnesota was not so lucky, although she prevailed in the end. Someone got her credit card number (a Costco-branded Visa card) and charged more than 1,700 small transactions to her account. An article in The Washington Post described her persistence in pressing Citibank to remove the charges.

Imagine you receive your credit card statement and find 32 pages of more than 1,700 unauthorized charges, made one right after another over three days. The majority of the debits are for $4.38, with about a dozen for $2.19, all to the same vendor, totaling close to $8,000.
Simple to fix, right?

Well, for one 66-year-old widow from Minnesota’s Twin Cities, getting those transactions removed became an odyssey. Her story is a warning for anyone — and that’s many of us — who ever has to dispute fraudulent activity on a credit card.

She was persistent, encountered foot-dragging, and eventually got the charges removed.

As for me, I was on the receiving end of three attempts to fall for a scam.

In the first one, I’m sitting at my desk working, and the phone rings. I pick up, and an teen boy says, “Grandma?” I say, “yes.” He says “It’s your grandson.” I’m not sure about the voice, so I say, “Which one?” He says, “Alden.” I say, “Are you okay?” He says, “Not really, I ran a red light and hit a car driven by a pregnant woman. I’m in trouble. Right now, I’m at a police station. I need bail, cash bail. $7,000.”

I said, “Did you call your mother?” He said, “I tried, she didn’t answer. Please help me. Here’s the number of the police officer who arrested me,” and he gave me a number.

Instead of calling the police officer, I called his mother. She answered right away. I told her what happened, and she said, “That’s ridiculous. Alden is in his dorm, studying for finals.”

That ended that.

The second scam occurred when I was a passenger in a car. The caller ID said that my bank was calling. I picked up, and a secretary answered. She transferred my call to a customer service representative. He asked me if I had transferred $5,000 by Zelle to someone I never heard of. I said no. He said I had been the victim of a scam, and I should follow his instructions to reverse the payment. He gave me a “case number,” which I wrote down. Then he told me to open Zelle and follow his instructions. He gave me the name of a person and a phone number. Then he said, “Write in $5,000 and press send.”

I stopped and wondered, “Why is the bank telling me to send someone $5,000? How will that help me get my money back?” I opened my bank account and saw no evidence that anyone had withdrawn $5,000, though I was on the verge of sending that amount to a stranger. A light bulb turned on, and I said to the “customer service representative,” that this call was a scam, and I would not send money to anyone.

End of that scam.

Third scam was very recent. I got an online ad for a non-prescription supplement that supposedly had a dramatic effect on cognition. The supplement reversed the tolls of aging and enabled you to improve your memory. The real inducement in the ad was that the research for the supplement was funded by Bill Gates. He spoke at length about his pursuit of this “fountain of youth” supplement. It involved honey sourced from Sardinia and other natural ingredients. At one point in the 30-minute video, Dr. Sanjay Gupta spoke enthusiastically about the product.

The product is called Memopezil.

I intended to try one bottle but the more you ordered, the lower the price, so I ordered more. When I finished ordering, another supplement popped up that was a multiplier for the first one. Etc.

As soon as I placed the order, I googled Bill Gates and Memopezil. Half a dozen websites warned that the video was a fake, that Gates had nothing to do with the supplement, and that the pitch was a scam. I immediately wrote trying to cancel my order. No response. The next day I called Amex, my credit card company, and alerted them.

Eventually, a large box was delivered to me, which I promptly returned. Eventually I got full credit. American Express is super-good in protecting its cardholders.

Three scams. Three escapes from the consequences. Have you been scammed!?

Now, I have learned to check carefully for scams before ordering. Online is loaded with alluring offers that’s fake. While writing this, I came across a claim that appeared to be on the AARP website. It said that a Japanese scientist had discovered a way to reverse dementia. Bill Gates was cited. Clint Eastwood used it and came back. But I asked Google whether it was a scam. The answer was yes.

https://youtu.be/WPDKgv5UCwU?is=wD7_ceeFDFosBvY8

Don’t believe anything until you have thoroughly vetted it.

Categories Cheating, Personal

Unprecedented: Retired Judges Act to Protect the Rule of Law

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2026 //
1

We live in strange and dangerous times. For the first time in memory, maybe ever, the rule of law itself is under attack. Our Dear Leader has threatened judges who rule against his wishes. He and his lawless administration ignore decisions they don’t like. He installed a Supreme Court majority who were vetted by the far-right Federalist Society. That majority proceeded to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite their repeated pledges not to do so, and to gut the Voting Rights Act, terminating guarantees of equal rights for Black Americans.

At this time when the rule of law itself is disregarded by the President, who is himself ruled only by whim and self-aggrandizement, two retired judges expressed their concern in The Guardian.

Judge Michael P. Connelly and Judge Robert F. Orr wrote:

Last October, US lawyers, judges and rule-of-law advocates traveled to Warsaw as guests of the Carter Center. Neither of us was among them. But when our colleagues returned, their stories inspired us.

They told us about judges and lawyers across central Europe who had been surveilled, smeared, prosecuted and sometimes jailed for standing between political power and courts meant to remain independent.

And they kept going.

Poland’s example was especially compelling. When its government sought greater control over the judiciary, Polish judges put on their robes and marched through Warsaw. Judges from across Europe joined them in what became the March of 1,000 Robes.

Then they left their courthouses and traveled through towns and villages, explaining what an independent judiciary means to a farmer, shopkeeper, parent or business owner. They talked about law not as an abstraction, but as protection against arbitrary power.

They understood a truth Americans can no longer overlook: judicial independence cannot survive merely because judges believe in it. The public must understand why it matters.

That lesson brought us on to a bus.

Last month, shortly after the United States celebrated its 250th birthday, the Justice in Motion tour traveled from western Pennsylvania through Ohio and into Michigan. Thirty sitting and retired judges, lawyers and advocates handed out pocket constitutions, met students and asked a question Americans do not consider often enough: what does the rule of law mean in everyday life, and what happens when we take it for granted?

In Columbus, we did something neither of us imagined during our years on the bench. We put on our robes and marched from the federal courthouse toward the supreme court of Ohio, carrying purple flowers, an international symbol of judicial independence.

American judges do not ordinarily march in the streets. Nor should they. The judiciary derives much of its legitimacy from restraint. Judges do not campaign for particular outcomes or answer criticism with press conferences. They speak through their decisions. But these are no ordinary times.

And our Polish colleagues taught us that silence can carry its own risk.

Our march was not about Democrats or Republicans, nor about defending particular judges or decisions. It was about defending the system that allows legal disagreements to be resolved according to law rather than political power.

One of us was elected to the supreme court of Ohio as a Democrat. The other was elected to the supreme court of North Carolina as a Republican and is now an independent. Through two long careers, we have disagreed about plenty.

That is precisely the point.

The rule of law is not a partisan possession.

Both sides enter a courtroom with the right to be heard. Judges must apply the law to the facts without regard to which party is more powerful, popular or politically useful.

Sometimes judges get it wrong. That is why we have appellate courts. Sometimes courts issue decisions that elected officials or citizens strongly dislike. That is unavoidable in a constitutional democracy.

The answer is appeal, legislation where constitutionally permissible, or constitutional amendment. It cannot be intimidation, retaliation for unpopular rulings or the suggestion that compliance with lawful court orders is optional.

Once adherence to judicial decisions depends upon whether the politically powerful agree with them, we have left the rule of law behind.

In Wooster, Ohio, about 150 people gathered across from the historic courthouse. The discussion was not about red America or blue America. It was about ordinary life.

The rule of law is why you can deposit money in a bank and expect it to be there tomorrow. It is why contracts mean something, property can be protected and an individual citizen can enter a courthouse and challenge the government.

These protections seem ordinary only because generations before us built institutions strong enough to make them ordinary. When the rule of law works, it is almost invisible.

Judges are trained – rightly – to exercise restraint. During our years on the bench, we spoke through our rulings. That tradition is essential to maintaining confidence in an impartial judiciary.

But restraint should not be confused with silence about the survival of the institution itself.

When judges are threatened because of their rulings; when an adverse decision is answered not with an appeal but with demands for retaliation; when courts are judged legitimate only when they produce politically desired outcomes, those who understand the system have an obligation to explain what is being lost.

Our Polish friends understood this before we did. Their circumstances differ from ours, and comparisons should be made carefully. But the lesson travels well.

The rule of law does not defend itself. Neither does an independent judiciary. Constitutions are pieces of paper unless citizens and public officials possess the courage and habits necessary to honor them.

Four days on a bus will not persuade a nation. The purpose was more modest: to begin conversations, one community and one citizen at a time, about institutions Americans have been fortunate enough to take for granted.

That work belongs not only to judges and lawyers, but to all of us.

The rule of law is not something judges possess. It is something citizens inherit.

And every generation must decide whether to preserve it.

What’s giving us hope now

Justice Robert F Orr (retired): What gives me hope is the scope of individuals and groups now focusing and talking about the rule of law and the independence of our judiciary. Our bus trip had a great mix of backgrounds and experience both in the judges participating and meeting us at stops as well as the young people who amplified the message across various media platforms. It’s genuinely a national movement.

Justice Michael P Donnelly (retired): What gives me hope is the genuine appreciation we encountered during the bus tour for the role of an independent judiciary in protecting individual rights and civil liberties. The people we met understood that these freedoms, defended at great sacrifice throughout our history, cannot be taken for granted – and that each generation must be willing to stand up for them.

  • Michael P Donnelly is a retired justice of the supreme court of Ohio
  • Robert F Orr is a retired justice of the supreme court of North Carolina. Both participated in the Justice in Motion tour organized by the Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Justice, Trump

Benjamin R. Cremer: A Christian Case for Separation of Church and State

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2026 //
1

Benjamin Cremer was raised in a strict fundamentalist home in Idaho and home-schooled. He became an Evangelical Christian minister. Several years ago, he began to question his church and eventually was expelled. He is now affiliated with the Wesleyans and keeps asking hard questions.

He wrote:

On June 26th, the Trump Administration’s Religious Liberty Commission released a draft report calling for a reexamination of the traditional understanding of separation between church and state. The report argues that religion and government should be viewed as partners rather than distinct institutions and recommends expanding the role of religious expression within public life and government institutions. Supporters see these proposals as necessary protections for religious freedom.

Others, however, have expressed serious concerns. They warn that when government begins treating religion as an essential partner rather than maintaining neutrality among faiths, the rights of religious minorities, dissenting Christians, and nonreligious citizens become more vulnerable. History repeatedly demonstrates that when governments become closely aligned with a dominant religious tradition, those outside that tradition often find their freedoms diminished.

From a Christian perspective, this concern should not be dismissed lightly. The church has often suffered most when political power became intertwined with religious authority. The same New Testament that calls believers to proclaim Christ boldly also presents a church that transformed the world without controlling the state. The earliest Christians did not seek privileged status within the Roman Empire. They sought faithfulness to Jesus.

For this reason, many Christians continue to defend the separation of church and state not because they want less Christianity in society, but because they want the church to remain free from political control and governments to remain free from religious domination. They recognize that religious liberty is strongest when government protects the freedom of all faiths rather than privileging one faith over others.

The Historical Problem

Few ideas are more misunderstood in modern American politics than the separation of church and state. Many people hear the phrase and assume it means separating God from public life, silencing religious voices, or forcing faith into the private sphere. Historically, however, the principle emerged largely because Christians had experienced the dangers of governments controlling religion and religions controlling governments.

The separation of church and state is not an attack on Christianity. In my opinion, it is one of the greatest protections Christianity has ever received.

For most of history, governments and religions were deeply intertwined. In ancient Egypt, rulers were often considered divine. In the Roman Empire, religious devotion and political loyalty were fused together. Citizens honored the gods not merely as a matter of personal belief but as an act of civic responsibility. Religious conformity was seen as essential to social stability and national prosperity. 

The earliest Christians lived within this system. Their refusal to participate in emperor worship and sacrifices to the Roman gods was viewed as dangerous. They were often accused of undermining the social order because they would not give ultimate allegiance to the empire’s religious expectations. The church began as a minority movement that understood firsthand the dangers of state-controlled religion.

Ironically, after Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, many Christians began wielding the very power that had once been used against them. Over the centuries, state churches often persecuted dissenters, imprisoned religious minorities, punished heresy through civil law, and sometimes used violence to enforce theological conformity.

Catholics persecuted Protestants. Protestants persecuted Catholics. Both often persecuted smaller Christian groups such as Anabaptists, who were the most persecuted set of Christians during both the Protestant reformation and Catholic counter reformation. The result was centuries of religious conflict throughout Europe.

One of the most devastating examples was the Thirty Years’ War, a conflict fueled in part by religious and political rivalries that killed millions and left large portions of Central Europe devastated.

The lesson became increasingly clear that when governments gain authority over religion, faith becomes vulnerable to political manipulation. When churches gain governmental power, the temptation to coerce rather than persuade becomes difficult to resist.

The American Experiment

The founders of the United States were deeply aware of this history. Although many founders held religious beliefs themselves, they also understood the dangers of establishing a national church.

The First Amendment begins with two related protections: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These two principles work together. The government may not establish or favor a particular religion. At the same time, the government may not interfere with citizens freely practicing their faith. This arrangement was not designed to weaken religion. It was designed to protect it.

Many of the strongest advocates for religious liberty were Christians themselves. One of the most important was Roger Williams, a Baptist minister who argued that government involvement in religion corrupts both institutions. He famously described a “wall of separation” that protected the church from the state as much as it protected the state from the church. For Williams, faith must be freely chosen. Genuine belief cannot be compelled by political power.

The New Testament Perspective

The New Testament offers remarkable support for this principle.

Jesus consistently resisted attempts to merge God’s kingdom with political domination. When crowds wanted to make him king by force, he withdrew. When questioned about Roman taxes, he responded, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Before Pontius Pilate, Jesus declared that his kingdom was “not from this world.”

Probably the most remarkable example is Jesus refusing the temptation from Satan to have power over all the kingdoms of the world, which would have been the entire Roman Empire at the time. Jesus refused because he didn’t come to seek power over others for himself, which is how earthly empires operate. He came to bring and share the power of God with the world. 

This did not mean that Jesus was unconcerned with public life. His teachings had profound social and political implications. Rather, it meant that God’s kingdom advances through witness, service, truth, sacrifice, and love, not through coercion and control. The earliest Christians transformed the world without controlling the state. They cared for the poor. They welcomed strangers. They rescued abandoned infants. They crossed ethnic and social boundaries. They proclaimed Christ as Lord. They did all of this while possessing little political power. Their influence came through faithful witness, not governmental authority.

Why This Matters Today

The separation of church and state remains essential because the temptation that confronted Christians throughout history still exists.

Whenever Christianity becomes closely tied to political power, faith risks becoming a tool for preserving social status, cultural dominance, or national identity. That is exactly what we are seeing today. Christian Nationalism has accepted the temptation that Jesus rejected, to have power over the kingdoms of this world. 

A Neo-evangelical sect of Christianity that runs the Heritage Foundation, is seeking to inject its own brand of Christianity over everyone else in our nation, even over other kinds of Christians. It is seeking to not only define what is truly “American” but what is truly “Christian.” This will inevitably lead to the erosion of of both civil and religious liberties. This also opens the door for other religious groups to control high positions of power in the future. However, my hunch is the Heritage Foundation and company don’t plan on releasing the controls any time soon, so they aren’t worried about another religious group gaining power over them.

When the church fuses itself with the nationstate, it begins to ask different questions. Instead of asking, “Are we being faithful to Jesus?” It asks, “Are we winning?”

Instead of asking, “How do we love our neighbors?” It asks, “How do we maintain control?”

Instead of measuring success by loving God and our neighbors as ourselves, it measures success by influence.

History repeatedly demonstrates that when Christianity becomes fused with state power, the result is often harmful both to the church and to society. The church becomes less prophetic because it becomes invested in protecting power.

The state becomes less just because it begins favoring particular religious groups over others. Both institutions are weakened.

Separation Is Not Silence

Defending the separation of church and state does not require Christians to withdraw from public life. Christians should vote. Christians should advocate for justice. Christians should speak about moral issues. Christians should serve in public office. Christians should bring their convictions into public conversations.

The principle simply means that government should not establish, privilege, enforce, or coerce religious belief. Faith flourishes best when it is freely embraced rather than politically imposed.

A Christian Defense

Ultimately, the separation of church and state is not rooted in hostility toward Christianity. It is rooted in humility.

It recognizes that the church is at its best when it relies on the power of the Spirit rather than the power of the sword. It recognizes that authentic faith cannot be manufactured through legislation. It recognizes that governments make poor churches and churches make poor governments.

Most importantly, it recognizes that Jesus never instructed his followers to seize political power in order to build the Kingdom of God. He instructed them to take up their cross, love their neighbors, serve the vulnerable, tell the truth, and follow him. The church’s greatest strength has never been its proximity to power.

Its greatest strength has always been its faithfulness to Christ.

Now I’d like to hear from you!

Did you find this helpful? What thoughts came to your mind as you read? Feel free to respond to this email and share your thoughts with me. I look forward to reading them.

Categories Religion, Separation of church and state
« Older Entries