Trump’s Face and Signature on the New Passport?

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2026 //
5

The Bulwark reported that the State Departnent plans to put Donald Trump’s face and signature on new passports. The story has since been confirmed by major media, including The New York Times.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I renewed my passport last year. It doesn’t expire until 2035.

According to Benjamin Parker in The Bulwark:

THE STATE DEPARTMENT IS CLOSE TO FINALIZING a radical redesign of the U.S. passport to include a picture of President Donald Trump, The Bulwark has learned from two sources with knowledge of the redesign, including one who shared images currently under consideration.


The redesign is ostensibly part of a larger celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence. It comes as the Treasury Department prepares to produce coins featuring Trump’s image—both a controversial $1 coin in general circulation1 and an “as large as possible” commemorative gold coin—and as the National Park Service emblazons Trump’s face on its park passes. Both of those redesigns were justified as being part of the 250th anniversary celebration.


According to the images of the passport redesign provided to The Bulwark, the inside cover of the new State Department-issued document will feature a scowling Trump—taken from his second inaugural portrait—superimposed over the Declaration of Independence, as well as the president’s signature in gold.

Categories Trump

ProPublica: Texas Medical Board Sanctions Three Doctors Whose Inaction Caused Pregnant Women to Die

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2026 //
4

ProPublica fearlessly reports on injustice, profiteering, and malignant public policy.

In this article, ProPublica reports on a decision by the Texas Medical Board to sanction three doctors who withheld treatment from pregnant women who needed medical intervention and died because they didn’t get it. The doctors were following the state’s strict abortion ban, which harshly punishes any doctor who aids an abortion unless the fetus is dead.

ProPublica reports:

Two of the doctors failed to properly intervene as a pregnant teenager repeatedly sought care for life-threatening complications, the board found. The third did not provide a dilation and curettage procedure to empty a miscarrying patient’s uterus, and she ultimately bled to death.

As ProPublica investigated those preventable deaths and five others across three states in the past few years, reporters found that abortion bans have influenced how doctors and hospitals respond to pregnancy complications. Facing risks of prison time and professional ruin, doctors have delayed key interventions until they can document that a fetus’ heart is no longer beating or that a case meets a narrow legal exception. Some physicians say their colleagues are discharging or transferring pregnant patients instead of taking responsibility for their care.

Doctors and lawyers have questioned why medical boards, which oversee physician licensing and investigate substandard care, have not played a more active role in guiding doctors on how to uphold medical standards within the constraints of the law. When asked by ProPublica in 2024 what recourse miscarrying patients had when a doctor denied them necessary treatment, the president of the Texas Medical Board said it had no say over criminal law but that patients could file a complaint and “vote with their feet” to seek care from another doctor.

Since then, the Texas board has taken more steps than those in other states, publishing guidance this year that provides case studies on how doctors can legally provide abortions to patients with certain medical complications. The state Legislature ordered the board to create the training materials as part of the Life of the Mother Act, which was passed after ProPublica’s reporting and made modest adjustments to the state’s abortion restrictions in an attempt to prevent additional maternal deaths.

Georgia, where Amber Thurman died after doctors did not try to empty her septic uterus for 20 hours, has not revisited its ban or disciplined key doctors involved.

Maternal care experts say health care providers will continue to hesitate to offer standard care as long as bans carry serious criminal consequences — Texas’ law can put a physician behind bars for 99 years. But those who spoke to ProPublica say that medical board sanctions are one of the few levers that can provide a counterweight, pushing hospitals and doctors to provide standard care despite uncertainty over vaguely written laws.

Michelle Maloney, who is representing the families of both Texas patients in malpractice lawsuits, said she was pleasantly surprised by the board’s recent actions. “Over the course of my career, I’ve had many horrific, horrific death cases. For someone to get disciplined by the medical board, especially while there’s ongoing litigation, is just extraordinarily rare,” she said.

In 2024, ProPublica reported on the case of 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, who began experiencing severe pregnancy complications when she was six months pregnant in 2023. Although she exhibited clear signs of an infection, doctors at two hospitals sent her home. On her third visit, as Crain’s condition deteriorated, a doctor did not send Crain to the intensive care unit until he could confirm fetal demise with two ultrasounds. Texas law requires doctors to create extra documentation before performing procedures that could end a pregnancy. By the time the doctor had logged there was no fetal heartbeat, the medical record shows, Crain was too unstable for surgery. She died with her fetus still in her womb.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Ethics, Gender, Health, Medicine, Texas

Dan Rather: Trump’s War on Science Is Outrageous!

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2026 //
6

Dan Rather, the esteemed journalist, wrote on his blog Steady about the dreadful consequences of Trump’s defunding of science, medicine, and public health.

But on Friday night, when we weren’t looking for a controversial announcement, Trump fired every single member of the 24-person National Science Board. Why? The simplest answer is that the members of the board were not his sycophants. They allegiance is to science, not to the person of Donald J. Trump. He couldn’t control them. They had to go.

Dan Rather wrote:

We toss around terms like “American exceptionalism” far too easily. But there is little debate that, in areas of science and medicine, this country has long been the world leader. We have more top scientists, elite doctors, and preeminent researchers than anywhere else. Their work has meant people live longer, healthier lives.

It is also a cornerstone of American influence around the world.

Scientific and medical research requires significant funding. It has thrived because our elected officials have had the political will to provide a financial pipeline to the public and private sectors.

President Donald Trump is severing that lifeline.

As the mainstream media was renting tuxedos and getting manicures ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump was busy pounding nails into the coffin of the American scientific research community.

Tucked away on Friday evening, in a terse, two-line email, the White House personnel office fired the entire National Science Board. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I’m writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately,” the email read.

No reason was given in the email, and the White House has had no additional comment on the firings.

The independent, 24-person board is made up of top scientists and engineers who serve staggered, six-year terms, to ensure overlap between presidential administrations. They are chosen “solely on the basis of established records of distinguished service.”

The board advises the National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports a wide range of research, from Antarctic exploration to quantum computing. NSF-funded research helped develop the MRI machine, LASIK eye surgery, and Wi-Fi, among many other innovations. It distributes $9 billion in research grants annually.

“[I]t is not enough simply to keep abreast of the rest of the world in scientific matters. We must maintain our leadership,” President Harry Truman said in 1950, when he established the board.

Keivan Stassun, a physicist and astronomer at Vanderbilt University who was appointed to the board in 2022, called the Trump purge “a wholesale evisceration of American leadership in science and technology globally,” to the Los Angeles Times.

Although the president is often reluctant to explain why he does imprudent and detrimental things, if one looks hard enough, a reason can usually be found. In this case, there may be two.

Reason one: to save face. The board was set to meet in early May to work on the release of a new report. The report outlines how the U.S., once the world leader in scientific research, is losing ground to China. If there is no board, the report can’t be released.

Reason two: money. In its 2026 budget, the Trump administration recommended a 55% cut to the NSF. After lobbying by the National Science Board, Congress rejected the White House’s proposal and funded the NSF at 2025 levels.

To avoid the same fate for this year’s budget, which again recommends slashing the foundation’s funding, Trump did away with the board before its members could convince members of Congress.

Friday’s firings are just the latest in Trump’s long list of objectionable actions to cast doubt on scientific findings and thwart research.

The United States has been on the cutting edge of scientific and medical research since the end of World War II. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been the world leader in funding biomedical research. A 2020 study found that NIH-funded research was associated with every new drug approved between 2010 and 2019.

But all of that is now changing. And Trump is to blame.

Science is “explicitly designed to counter human self-deception,” psychologist Steven Pinker told Chris Mooney in his book “The Republican War on Science.”

When deception is your modus operandi, you will naturally try to squash, discount, and demonize the truth. Being anti-science helps protect established special interests. Think climate change denialism and fossil fuel companies.

Trump called the climate crisis “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” at last year’s United Nations General Assembly. He said this even as the globe is in the midst of the warmest 10-year span on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The NSF’s board is not the first the Trump administration has hamstrung. In June of last year Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, fired the 17-person vaccine advisory board and replaced many with vaccine skeptics. Trump himself replaced leading scientists with tech billionaires on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

The administration significantly cut funding to the National Cancer Institute, once the gold standard for rigorous, evidence-based research. It no longer funds mRNA research, a revolutionary technology that has the potential to radically improve cancer care.

It canceled 22 separate mRNA contracts, including one working on a vaccine for brain cancer in children. Kennedy is an mRNA skeptic, claiming the vaccines aren’t safe while providing no evidence.

Pancreatic cancer is an incurable disease with a dismal survival rate. Fortunately for pancreatic cancer patients, research into an mRNA vaccine was far enough along that the cuts didn’t affect the very promising treatment.

BioNTech, a German biomedical research company, partnered with Moderna, an American company, to develop pancreatic cancer vaccines using mRNA technology.

The technology, already in development when the pandemic hit, was used to create the Covid vaccine. The Lancet estimated that mRNA vaccines prevented 14.4 to 19.8 million deaths just in the first year of use.

MRNA vaccine technology was in the pipeline thanks to billions of dollars in federal grants over decades. This allowed researchers to get Covid vaccines to market incredibly quickly. This technology is now helping people with pancreatic cancer live years longer than ever before.

Moderna is also using mRNA therapy in combination with other drugs to cut melanoma death rates by 49%. Applications for a variety of cancers are in the works.

Paul Darren Bieniasz, a British-American virologist, wrote in The Guardian, “If we continue the destructive course plotted by this administration, medicines that would otherwise have saved lives in future generations, will not be invented. Technologies that would have ensured future employment and prosperity in the U.S. will not be devised. Solutions that allow the generation of power while causing less damage to the environment, will never be developed. Clearly, if we decline to nurture science, the lives of future Americans will be shorter, sicker and poorer.”

While Donald Trump won’t be around to see that, millions of Americans will. Trump doesn’t like inconvenient truths. Science is a kaleidoscope of inconvenient truths. Rather than deal with them like the world leader he should be, he gaslights, he rages, he denies all.

And as with so much else in this administration, we the people pay the price.

Categories Academic Freedom, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Health, Injustice, Medicine, Science, Stupid, Trump

Shawgi Tell: In Minnesota, Charter Schools Frequently Fail and Close

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2026 //
1

Shawgi Tell keeps close watch over the checkered evolution of charter schools. He discovered that Minnesota, the first state to open a charter school, beats every other state when it comes to charter closure and failure.

It bears remembering the reason why almost every state has authorized charter schools. When Arne Duncan announced the Race to the Top competition for a share of $5 billion, every state that applied had to first authorize charter schools. That requirement turbo-charged the growth of charter schools.

He writes:

The first charter school law in the U.S. was passed in Minnesota in 1991. The first charter school in the country, City Academy High School, opened in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1992. Since then charter school laws have been passed in 47 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Over the past 34 years many charter schools have failed and closed in Minnesota. According to a 2025 article titled “More Minnesota charter schools are facing possible termination,” “In 2024 [alone], nine charter schools closed, the most ever. But records show another 10 charter schools could face termination.” It is worth noting here that, like many privately-operated charter schools across the country, most charter schools in Minnesota are highly segregated.

On April 23, 2026, Hoodline featured an article titled: “Charter Shock: AFSA Parents Scramble As Twin Cities Ag‑STEM School Shuts Down.”

What is interesting about this article is that it speaks to the shock, trauma, and abandonment that families and educators always feel when a charter school fails and closes abruptly, which is how charter schools close nine out of ten times. This article also highlights the same reasons that charter schools fail and close every week: declining enrollment, mismanagement, financial malfeasance, and/or poor academic performance.

Hoodline reports that, “The Academy for Sciences and Agriculture (AFSA), a Twin Cities charter serving students from pre-K through 12th grade, will shut its doors at the end of this school year, leaving families in Little Canada and Vadnais Heights scrambling for new schools.” AFSA first opened in 2001 (25 years ago).

The article continues: “Parents say the announcement came out of nowhere. Several told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS they had little warning. ‘Yes, it was sudden’, parent Kevin Cedeno said, adding that his son is having a hard time with the news.”

It appears that “the school [which focuses on science, the environment, and agriculture] has dealt with declining enrollment since the pandemic.” And like so many other charter schools nationwide, AFSA also experienced “oversight gaps” and problematic “procurement and contracting practices,” according to Hoodline. Conflicts of interest and poor accountability are common in deregulated charter schools operated by unelected private persons.

In related news, Agamim Classical Academy, a K-8 charter school in Edina, Minnesota, founded in 2015, will also be closing its doors in June 2026. Watershed High School, a charter school located in the city of Richfield, Minnesota, will also be closing its doors at the same time. The privately-operated charter school was open for only four years.

Old and new charter schools fail and close every week in America. The proponents of such schools openly and publicly embrace the idea that the “free market” should be the arena in which schools operate, which means that schools are a commodity and susceptible to the chaos, anarchy, and violence of the “free market.” This arrangement is seen by “free market” idealogues as a modern humane way to organize education and other services and social programs. In this setup, nothing is guaranteed and everyone fends for themselves. The right to education is replaced with the notion that education is an opportunity, something you shop for like a consumer. Education is reduced to chance and luck. “Buyer beware” is the only rail guard.

“Choice” and “competition” are some of the buzzwords attached to this outmoded approach to life. Thus, “parents are empowered” to choose which school to send their child to when in fact charter schools actually choose students and parents. This is why so many groups of students are under-enrolled in these “free schools of choice” that are said to be “open to all.” 

Parents are also led to believe that the philosophy of winning and losing is in no way problematic. Thus the notion of a school lottery is openly normalized in the charter school sector, meaning that some students will get into their “school of choice” while others will not. There is no concept of guaranteeing everyone’s basic right to a high-quality, free, fully-funded public education controlled by a public authority worthy of the name. You may or may not get a “good” education. How is this possible in the richest country in the world? Why is education a gamble in the 21st century?

To be sure, privatization creates and exacerbates numerous problems. See here for a detailed discussion of these problems.

According to the Minnesota Department of Education there are 173 charter schools in Minnesota today serving around 70,000 students.

Shawgi Tell (PhD) is author of the book Charter School Report Card. He can be reached at  stell5@naz.edu. Read other articles by Shawgi.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Minnesota

Whose Rhetoric Incites Violence?

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2026 //
0

The blog Wonkette takes exception to Republicans attacking Democrats for rhetoric that incites violence against Trump. Any criticism of Trump is off limits, say Republicans, but Trump can say or tweet anything he wants without criticism.

Wonkette writes today about CNN’s Dana Bash interviewing Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin:

But Bash couldn’t help but try to use both-sides-ism to somehow blame Dems for this event. 

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/S2W6-c6YIYk?start=247&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

On CNN’s State Of The Union, host Dana Bash interviewed Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin. The House Judiciary Committee ranking member was in attendance at the WHCD along with Bash and talked about his firsthand experience. 

BASH: And you have, and as many of your fellow Democrats have used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you think twice about that when something like this happens?

Raskin was diplomatic in his answer, while being perplexed at the idiotic implication. 

RASKIN: What rhetoric do you have in mind? I … 

Bash then quickly clarified that she was insinuating a correlation by doubling down.

BASH: Well, just talking about some of the fact that he is terrible for this country and so on and so forth. I understand that that’s your democratic right. But, overall…



RASKIN: Right.



BASH: … do you have a responsibility?

Raskin went on to calmly explain the First Amendment and his valid criticisms of Trump.

We, however, are not members of Congress nor beholden to niceties. So with no due respect to Dana Bash, she can f—- off with this bullshit. In fact, if anything, many Democrats are too restrained with their commentary against Trump, too scared of calling a fascist a fascist. 

Here are some things Donald Trump has called the Democratic Party and/or just generally people who oppose him, in no particular order:

  • The Enemy Within
  • The Enemy of the People
  • Scum
  • Terrorists 
  • Vermin 
  • Radical
  • Lunatics 
  • Demonic 
  • Evil 
  • Fascists 
  • Marxists 
  • Communists
  • Garbage 
  • Treasonous
  • Animals 
  • Degenerates
  • Jew haters 
  • Lowlifes

These kinds of moments expose the insane double standard “liberal media” places on Dems. Trump’s constant, daily violent rhetoric against his enemies is normalized — sanewashed — while Democrats are taken to task for incivility for daring to oppose the king.

Categories Education Reform

DeSantis Proposes Gerrymander to Eliminate 4 Democratic Seats

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2026 //
3

Trying to retain control of the House of Representatives, Trump urged states to redraw their Congressional districts, although this redistricting usually happens every 10 years, after the census is reported. Texas, led by ultra-MAGA Governor Greg Abbott, was first to redistrict, creating a likely four additional Republican seats. California countered with a referendum, in which voters approved a temporary redistricting. Other states followed.

Now Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has produced a new map, drawn to eliminate four Democratic members of Congress. If his map is approved (which is likely since Republicans have a supermajority in both legislative houses), the Florida delegation to Congress will have 24 Republicans and only 4 Democrats.

Forget the fact that Florida voters passed a state constitutional amendment to ban partisan gerrymanders in 2010. The State Constitution also bans funding for religious schools, which was reaffirmed by voters in 2008. Now, billions of dollars are spent by the state for religious schools. The State Constitution. Just a piece of paper.

Please note that DeSantis gave his new map to FOX News before sharing it with the legislature.

The New York Times reported:

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida proposed a redraw of the state’s congressional districts on Monday that could give Republicans as many as four new seats, an aggressive gambit that could also set the party up for some losses in the November midterms.

The map appears to eliminate two Democratic-held districts in South Florida, a third in the Tampa area and a fourth in the Orlando area, leaving Democrats with perhaps only four of the state’s 28 congressional seats. There are currently seven Florida Democrats in Congress; an eighth, former Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, resigned last week after being charged with embezzlement.

Florida, which does not hold primary elections until August, is the last state aiming to redraw congressional maps ahead of the midterms. A Supreme Court decision expected soon on a key provision of the Voting Rights Act could provide opportunities for other states to do so, but with many holding primaries in the next month or two, time is running out.

Mr. DeSantis’s map, initially made public without detailed county borders or other critical information, was first reported by Fox News, which received the map before the State Legislature did Monday morning. Lawmakers are scheduled to meet in a special redistricting session starting Tuesday, which means they have less than 24 hours to examine the proposal before they convene.

The short turnaround is likely to upset some state lawmakers, few of whom have expressed much interest in redistricting, as well as many members of the Florida congressional delegation, who will have to introduce themselves to new voters between now and the midterms. State lawmakers are not expected to propose any maps of their own, but rather to vote on Mr. DeSantis’s redraw as early as Wednesday. It is almost certain to pass, given the Republican supermajorities in the State House and Senate.

Should the map pass, it could give Republicans nationwide an edge of roughly two to four seats heading into the midterms. That would hardly be the multiseat advantage that President Trump and national Republicans envisioned when they kicked off the national redistricting battle in Texas last summer.

But should the fight for the U.S. House come down to a few districts, any seat that flips from Democrat to Republican could prove critical. Republicans currently control the chamber by just a handful of seats.

Any redistricting effort in Florida faces a significant legal hurdle. In 2010, voters in Florida passed the Fair Districts amendments, which effectively ban partisan gerrymandering in the state. Mr. DeSantis told Fox News that his proposed map — colored red and blue to indicate the expected political leanings of new districts — “more fairly represents the makeup of Florida today.”

Here is the current party registration in Florida, according to Florida government data:

Current proportions (≈ February–March 2026)

  • Republican: ~41%
  • Democrat: ~30%
  • No Party / Independent (plus minor parties): ~29%  

But DeSantis’ gerrymander awards 85% of Congressional seats to Republicans.

Categories Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Ethics, Florida, Politics, Trump

GOP Reacts to Saturday Night Chaos with Demand to “Build the Golden Ballroom!”

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2026 //
4

The Meidas Network summarized the events post-Saturday night.

Politico pointed out that Republicans have taken to social media to blame Democrats for “divisive rhetoric that fuels violence. So stop calling Stephen Miller a fascist, stop calling ICE “Brown Shirts” or the Gestapo, stop calling out Trump’s authoritarianism. .

And they all agree that Trump’s armored golden ballroom must be built, even though future White House Correspondents dinners would never be held in that ballroom.

Meidas writes:

Trump’s has been oddly quiet…and the MAGA machine is doing the work for him

Let’s start with the silence. Donald Trump’s approval rating is sitting at 33%. His approval on the economy is 30% — worse than Nixon’s numbers at the time Nixon resigned. And oddly enough, Trump this morning has essentially vanished from his own social media feed. His last post was about renaming ICE to “NICE” — National Immigration and Customs Enforcement — so the media would have to say “NICE agents” all day. A random account called @alyssamariiee11 floated the idea, so naturally, Trump ran with it.

Meanwhile, the White House Correspondents Dinner incident, where a lone individual breached a security perimeter before being stopped, has become the latest Trump regime talking point factory. Rather than address inflation, the economic freefall, or the catastrophic war in Iran, the entire MAGA congressional caucus has been deployed with one singular mission: demand Dear Leader a ballroom.

The Ballroom Brigade

I want you to understand what’s happening here. While Americans are struggling to pay rent, while we are in a jobs recession, while this administration loots the public treasury for its right-wing billionaire benefactors — the Republican Party is spending its media time in a coordinated push for a White House ballroom. This is not a coincidence. This is the talking point. They all have it.

Rep. Pat Fallon says a ballroom is something they can “completely control.” Rep. Michael Rulli says “we gotta build that ballroom as soon as possible.” Rep. Mike Lawler calls it “imperative.” Speaker Mike Johnson says it’ll have seven-inch-thick glass and be “a very safe environment.” Rep. Warren Davidson, perhaps the most unhinged of the bunch, calls the entire situation a “flex” directed at Iran…that gathering every top official in American government in a non-secured hotel was some kind of geo-strategic message rather than a security failure.

And then there’s Rick Scott, who told the cameras that Democrats “want President Trump, Republicans murdered all across this country, capitalists murdered.” That is a sitting United States senator. On television.

Rep. Scott Perry added that the whole incident stems from Democrats calling Trump a threat to democracy and comparing people around him to Nazis. Tom Emmer wanted everyone to know that despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s hearing “positive feedback” from somewhere about Trump’s Iran war. And Kash Patel, who should be spending his time running the FBI, not doing cable hits, told the world this was something “the movies don’t even write about.”

Journalist Mehdi Hasan’s response to all of it: “I think I’m gonna have an aneurysm.” Honestly, Mehdi, same.

One social media user put it simply: the GOP’s ability to completely hijack news cycles with this kind of nonsense, while gas prices surge and corruption runs unchecked, is infuriating. And they’re right. That is the strategy. Create a noise machine loud enough that you don’t have to answer for anything real.

The ballroom doesn’t even having anything to do with the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, because the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an event held by the private organization the White House Correspondents’ Association, not the White House. The entire narrative is a complete non sequitur. But that doesn’t stop the MAGA drones from repeating it ad nauseam like shoddy computer software that just got a new update.

Oh, Melania…

In Trump’s absence, Melania stepped up this morning with a social media post attacking Jimmy Kimmel, calling his monologue about their family “hateful and violent rhetoric” and demanding ABC take action. She called Kimmel a coward who “hides behind ABC.”

MeidasTouch’s Adam Mockler reminder her of a recent post made by her husband following the death of Robert Mueller: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

“[T]his your husband?” replied Mockler.

As Mockler went on to write, “MAGA authoritarianism is pretending the president is ‘joking’ when he makes death threats, but comedians are somehow ‘shaping public policy’ when they make jokes.”

By the way, Sunday was Melania’s birthday — and if you noticed, Donald didn’t publicly post a happy birthday message.

Who did wish Melania a happy birthday? Paolo Zampolli — the man who introduced her to Trump back in 1998 and who once reportedly explored starting a modeling agency with Jeffrey Epstein. Zampolli, currently serving as a U.S. ambassador for cultural affairs in this administration, posted a birthday tribute featuring an AI-generated Mount Rushmore with Melania’s face replacing all four presidents. It was weird.

Germany calls out Trump’s Iran “humiliation”

Now to what actually matters internationally. While Trump’s congressional supporters spend their day lobbying for granite and bulletproof glass, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — speaking publicly today — delivered one of the most direct indictments of Trump’s foreign policy failures I’ve seen from a Western ally.

Merz said the United States has “absolutely no coherent strategy whatsoever” in its conflict with Iran. He said this entire situation is, at minimum, “ill-considered,” and directly compared it to the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq — 20-year quagmires that the U.S. stumbled into and couldn’t exit. He pointed out that the Iranians are either negotiating brilliantly or refusing to negotiate brilliantly, and either way, they’re winning. He noted that making American officials travel to Islamabad only to leave empty-handed is the humiliation of a nation.

Merz didn’t stop there. He said Europe has offered to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities end, and offered to deploy German minesweepers to clear mines from the strait. But first, he said, the fighting has to stop — and he doesn’t see how that happens any time soon given that Iran is “proving to be much stronger than initially thought” and the Americans have no convincing path to a negotiated exit.

This is the chancellor of one of America’s closest allies, speaking at a school, saying publicly that the United States is being humiliated. And he’s right.

Iran and Russia Meet

Making matters considerably worse, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi is currently in Moscow, where he met with Sergey Lavrov and Vladimir Putin as part of a pre-planned three-country visit that also included Oman and Pakistan. What Araghchi said while there should be front-page news everywhere.

He declared that Iran and Russia are “strategic partners,” that Russia has “always supported” Iran, and that their cooperation will continue. He added that the world has now seen “Iran’s true power in confronting America,” and declared the Islamic Republic a “stable, steadfast, and powerful system.”

Putin, for his part, praised the Iranian people for “fighting with courage and valor” and said Moscow will do everything in its power to help Iran through this period.

This is happening while Trump invites Russia to the G20. While Trump sucks up to Putin in Alaska. While Trump bombs Iran. All three of these things are happening simultaneously. The so-called strategy, if you can call it that, is collapsing in real time.

Katie Phang sues the DOJ over Epstein Files

Finally, important news from within the MeidasTouch family. Our host and legal analyst Katie Phang has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump DOJ, accusing it of brazen violations of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The suit alleges the DOJ missed statutory deadlines, over-redacted documents — including materials referencing Donald Trump — and withheld key records from the public. Katie is asking the court to order full disclosure, strike the unlawful redactions, and appoint a special master to oversee compliance.

Scott MacFarlane Reports

Journalist Katie Phang Files Suit Against Justice Department Over Epstein Files Release

A former Justice Department prosecutor has filed a federal civil lawsuit, on behalf of journalist Katie Phang, against the Trump Administration, alleging the Administration is violating federal law by withhold and redacting documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files.

This is what independent journalism looks like in 2026. You don’t just report on the corruption, you fight it in court. I’m proud to have Katie on this network. Subscribe to her YouTube channel and follow this lawsuit closely.

More to come. Stay focused, and subscribe to the MeidasTouch podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Categories Accountability, Republicans, Trump

Jan Resseger: Linda McMahon Decides Which Federal Programs Live or Die, Not Congress

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2026 //
1

Jan Resseger, the most reliable analyst of federal programs, reports on the Trump administration’s decisions to increase or decrease or eliminate federal programs at will–regardless of Congressuonal direction.

By the way, be sure to read The New Yorker‘s fascinating dissection of the career path of wrestling entrepreneur and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. Wrestling prepared her for politics, says writer Zach Helfand.

A brief excerpt:

Eventually, Linda McMahon came to be “tombstoned” (held upside down and slammed on her head) by a wrestler named Kane, “stunnered” (put in a three-quarter facelock jawbreaker) by Stone Cold Steve Austin, sexually assaulted, cheated on, driven to seek a divorce, lusted over, and sedated. Vince tried to get Shane to slap her in a scene, but Shane [her son] refused. Stephanie [her daughter] slapped her, though, and she slapped Stephanie. McMahon’s most memorable story arc involved Vince demanding a divorce, triggering a nervous breakdown in the ring which rendered her catatonic. For months, Vince would roll out her limp body in a wheelchair and subject her to various humiliations. The wrestler Trish Stratus, who was kissed and groped by Vince in a scene in front of a vegetative McMahon, has recalled that during rehearsal Linda asked, “If I drool, would that be more effective for my character?”

Before the election, I foolishly predicted that Trump would never get rid of the Department of Education because many Republicans support it. I did not anticipate that Trump would appoint a Secretary willing to hollow it out by transferring most of its programs to other departments.

Resseger follows up by showing how McMahon has cut and rearranged the budget:

If you have been tracking what is happening to federal funding for the nation’s public schools, you won’t be surprised to learn that Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman continues his role as the best reporter on this subject.  Here are two updates from last week.

How will federal funding flow this year once most of the Department of Education’s programs have been sent to other federal departments through interagency agreements?

Lieberman reassures state education officials and school district leaders that most key programs will continue to have their funds released “through the U.S. Department of Education’s grant portal this summer… Programs like Title I aid for disadvantaged students and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)… allocate funds for school districts, but by law the money flows first to states in two batches, one on July 1 and another three months later… In a statement, an Education Department spokesperson said the agency is ‘committed to delivering formula funding by the July 1 deadline.”

Operation of Title I is traveling to the Department of Labor, and the work IDEA is traveling to the Department of Health and Human Services.  Lieberman describes what is expected to happen with Title I: “The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration in recent months has advertised new education grant competitions ‘on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education,’ and the two agencies have touted their collaboration in jointly running the competitions.  Still, most staffers overseeing those programs still work for the Department of Education. The postings announcing grant availability list Education department email addresses under the section with contact information.”

To what extent did the Trump Administration Violate the Congressional power of the purse last year?

Lieberman reports that data recently released by the Department of Education shows that under Linda McMahon’s leadership, the Department of Education “sidestepped Congress on more than $1 billion in education spending.”

“The Education Department, under President Donald Trump, subsequently subtracted appropriated funding from more than a dozen programs and instead added those dollars to other priorities, according to an Education Week analysis of congressional justification documents the White House published this month as part of its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal… The Education Department typically publishes its ‘spending plan’ mere weeks after Congress passes a new fiscal year budget, confirming allocations lawmakers laid out in their budget bills.  Congress approved fiscal 2025 spending (last year’s final federal budget) in March of last year, but the Education Department’s spending plan never materialized. That means the recently published numbers offer the first glimpse at how the executive branch decided to spend funds Congress appropriated more than a year ago.”

Here are merely some of Lieberman’s examples of what the new numbers show.  “For four Education Department programs, the Trump administration spent more than what Congress had prescribed: charter schools ($60 million added), civics instruction ($140 million added), historically Black colleges and universities ($439 million added), and tribal colleges ($56 million added).  To come up with those added expenditures, the Trump administration effectively zeroed out another four programs entirely, rerouting a total of $463 million for teacher preparation, public television, university foreign-language studies programs, and Hispanic-serving higher education institutions.  For another eight programs, the executive branch underspent the allocation Congress approved. That included redirecting hundreds of millions of dollars for minority-serving institutions within a higher education grant program—Aid for Institutional Development—that the Trump administration has argued violates the Constitution.”

Lieberman explains where McMahon’s department found $60 million to add to charter school spending: “To bolster the Charter Schools program, the agency depleted the entire $31 million allocation for the Ready to Learn grant program, which supports the development of educational TV programming for young children. The remaining $29 million boot for charter schools came from portions of fiscal 2025 allocations for four other programs: Magnet Schools ($14 million), Javits Gifted and Talented ($9 million),  Statewide Family Engagement Centers ($3 million), and Assistance in Arts Education ($3 million). The Trump administration last year slashed ongoing grants for each of those four programs as well as dozens of others, arguing in many cases that individual grantees were engaged in diversity-related initiatives that contradicted the president’s priories. But for most of those changes, the department offered no public announcement, instead notifying individual grant recipients with little warning that their awards had been discontinued.”

Perhaps there will be less cutting or rearranging of Congressionally allocated education dollars in the coming year: “Lawmakers included language in the fiscal 2026 budget law they approved in February that much more explicitly restricts movement of money from one program to another. The Department has already begun soliciting new grant applications for programs it moved to disrupt or shutter last year… Lieberman reports that the ranking members of the Senate and House appropriations committees, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) “said they prioritized unambiguous guardrails in the fiscal 2026 budget to block the Trump administration from further reprogramming funds.”

Lieberman adds, however, that Office  of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought has threatened to use “pocket rescissions,’ in which the executive branch proposes to rescind appropriated funds so late in the fiscal year that the money expires whether Congress approves the changes or not. In other words, this year, Congress could allow Congressionally appropriated dollars expire.

Lieberman quotes Sarah Abernathy, who served for a decade as executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, a federal budget advocacy group: “This is the first time I’ve ever seen an administration say, ‘We have tons of authority to make our own decisions about funding levels for programs.’ “

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Curriculum, Disruption, Education Industry, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Extremism, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

How to Get RICH Quick? Open a School in NC!

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2026 //
4

Please open this link and scroll all the way down to see how easy it is to make big money in North Carolina with no experience!

Yes, you too can GET RICH QUICK!

Categories Education Reform

Miami-Dade Board Reluctantly Approves Five Schools for Controversial NYC Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2026 //
8

Success Academy (originally called Harlem Success Academy) wil open five charter schools in Miami. The board had the paperwork for only one day, but were pressured to make a decision or have the decision made by a special magistrate.

SA is run by Eva Moskowitz, a former New York City Council member. She has nearly 60 charter schools in NYC. The chain is amply funded by billionaires, including several Wall Street titans.

Her debut in Miami is facilitated by a gift of $50 million by billionaire Ken Griffin.

Under a law passed recently, SA is authorized to move into any school with empty classrooms. In NYC, this is called co-location. It inevitably creates bad feelings between the public school and the charter school, because the charter school–especially SA–is better funded than the public school and has better everything.

Moskowitz hopes to enroll 8,000-10,000 in Miami and then expand into other parts of Florida.

Board member Luisa Santos, who represents the district Homestead Senior High is in, expressed concern for what the co-location would mean for students with disabilities. 

“ On paper it may look like we have the seats, but in reality, once I started looking at how you implement this year one and year two, at the specific school in my district, the reality would be that you’re doubling and tripling up some of those highest need students into environments that frankly will become very chaotic,” Santos said.

SA is a “no-excuses” charter chain, which has strict rules about student behavior. It retains the power to oust students who don’t conform to its rules.

It has been controversial in NYC for multiple reasons. For high student attrition; for high teacher turnover; for accepting only students with the mildest disabilities; for ousting students who can’t comply or keep up; for bringing students to legislative meetings at the city or state levels to lobby for more funding for charter schools; for Moskowitz’s compensation (close to $1 million a year including bonuses); and for using a powerful, wealthy campaign PAC to support candidates who back charter expansion.

The students who survive 12-13 years of SA get very high test scores.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Florida, Funding, Harlem Success Academy, Miami
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