Republicans Continue on Trump's Fascist, Sexist and Racist Road with Concentration Camp Plans

At 59.1% of the vote counted its liberal  Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz at 55.9% to conservative Daniel Kelly's 44.1%.

After this week getting a supermajority when a Democratic representative flipped parties, North Carolina Republicans in another severely gerrymandered state are already talking about passing transgender bills with the ability to override the Democratic governor's veto. The switcher, Tricia Cotham had won in a district Biden had won by 23%. She claimed she had been bullied by Democrats for having an American flag and praying hands on her social media. Apparently she has no trouble supporting a party who bully transgender people and a wide range of others. (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/north-carolina-d...).  It also enables the North Carolina Republicans to impeach whoever they want to and override vetos of gun legislation days after the Tennessee school shooting. There are also rumours two other Democrats could flip parties in North Carolina. Did the Republicans offer her a new gerrymandered seat for the next election, now that they have the veto to enable that? 

North Carolina Republicans have wasted no time with their new veto-proof legislative majorities, introducing a flurry of bills this week focusing on transgender issues that were previously dead-on-arrival. 

Following state Rep. Tricia Cotham's switch from the Democratic Party to the GOP ranks, Republicans filed half a dozen bills dealing with transgender treatments for minors and whether trans athletes can play on sports teams associated with their self-proclaimed identity. 

Two bills, The Fairness in Women's Sports Act and the School Athletic Transparency Bill, address school athletics.

The first bill would make transgender athletes play on sports teams associated with their sex, which "shall be recognized based solely on the student's reproductive biology and genetics at birth." 

And the transparency bill reads, "Interscholastic athletic activities designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex." It reiterates that sex is defined by reproductive biology and genetics at birth. 

"This bill would protect females from being forced to play against biological males on sports teams, which can leave females with injuries and cheats them out of equal opportunities," said NC Values Coalition Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald. …

Additionally, Republicans filed the Youth Health Protection Act, which would ban gender dysphoric minors from receiving puberty blockers or sex-reassignment surgeries, defined as procedures such as mastectomy genital construction or removing otherwise healthy and non-diseased body parts or tissue.  

Until this week, such bills would have been vetoed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and that would be the end of it. But Cotham's party-switch gives Republicans a veto-proof majority in the state House, complementing the GOP supermajority in the state Senate. Aptly described as a "political earthquake" by Democratic state Rep. Jeff Jackson, Cothanm's switch means Republicans now may have the votes to pass these bills and other legislation previously stymied by Democrats. ...

At least 20 states have introduced legislation banning transgender youth from participating in school sports based on their identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project.  And at least 13 states have banned transgender treatments for minors, which is considered best practice medical care by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and other leading medical groups.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/emboldened-by-new-supermajority-north-...

Here's more on the Republican accused of sexually assaulting three 14 year old girls to serve out his term that contrasts with the two Blacks expelled for violating decorum rules.

Tennessee state Rep. David Byrd, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women who were underage at the time, quietly told his Republican colleagues in the state House that he would not seek reelection next year due to the controversy. In his comments, made during a closed-door caucus meeting, he also reportedly insisted he would not be stepping down. 

I wrote about the case against Byrd late last year, not long after he had won election in a landslide, despite common knowledge of the allegations and a recorded conversation between him and one of his accusers in which he apologizes to her. (He does not specify what he is apologizing for in the recording.) Byrd did not respond to requests for comment when I was writing that story and, as I explained then, he “has not exactly denied the allegations against him; rather, he emphasizes repeatedly that they are from more than 30 years ago.” ...

During my investigation, I spoke with Christi Rice, who alleges that Byrd abused her over the course of her sophomore year when he was her high school basketball coach. Byrd apologizes to her in the recorded call. ...

Rice tells Mother Jones that she remembers Byrd leaving her what she calls IOUs, that insinuated she owed him a sexual quid pro quo. The first came the morning after a late-night basketball game that prevented her from being prepared for a surprise biology test the next morning. Byrd, who was also Rice’s biology teacher, told her she didn’t need to worry when she fretted to him about her potential score.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/tennessee-david-byrd-sexual...

A Texas judge, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, banned the abortion pill on the grounds that it is unsafe despite FDA approval and 23 years of safe use, not just in Texas but across the nation as anti-abortionists went judge shopping to find the most right wing judge possible on the issue. However, a Washington state judge ruled in the opposite direction less than an hour later, thereby all but ensuring this is heading to the Supreme Court. Women's rights are being cast in the wastebin of history by Republicans. Will Canadian Conservatives take the same long game strategy of appointing extremely conservative judges to overturn abortion legislation rather than by going through Parliament?

A federal judge in Texas released a ruling Friday night that overturns the federal approval of a common abortion pill, mifepristone, which would ban the medicine from being prescribed in the United States.

Mifepristone will still be available in North Carolina in the near future, as the Texas judge gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seven days to appeal before the ruling takes effect.

Hours after the ruling, the Justice Department appealed the decision and a Washington federal judge issued a contradictory ruling in a separate case that prevents the FDA from changing the availability of mifepristone.

If the Texas judge’s unprecedented ruling is upheld, mifepristone, which is currently used in nearly 60% of abortions in the state, could be taken off the shelves. The medication is also commonly used to help manage miscarriages.

Dr. Jenna Beckham, a Raleigh abortion provider, said doctors can still use other medications to safely and effectively carry out medication abortions.

https://www.wjhl.com/news/regional/tennessee/gov-lee-opens-up-about-daug...

“We are in the middle of an existential crisis for the future of our burgeoning multicultural, multiethnic democracy,” and the extreme events unfolding in Tennessee and other states “are the early manifestations of an abandonment of democratic norms,” Janai Nelson, the president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, wrote in an email.

In rapid succession, Republican-controlled states are applying unprecedented tactics to shift social policy sharply to the right, not only within their borders but across the nation. Just last Thursday, the GOP-controlled Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two young Black Democratic representatives, and Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, on Saturday moved to nullify the verdict of a jury in liberal Travis County. In between, last Friday, a single Republican-appointed federal judge, acting on a case brought by a conservative legal group and 23 Republican state attorneys general, issued a decision that would impose a nationwide ban on mifepristone, the principal drug used in medication abortions.

All of these actions are coming as red states, continuing an upsurge that began in 2021, push forward a torrent of bills restricting abortion, LGBTQ, and voting rights; loosening controls on gun ownership; censoring classroom discussion of race, gender, and sexual orientation; and preempting the authority of their Democratic-leaning metropolitan cities and counties.

This flood of legislation has started to erase the long-term trend of Congress and federal courts steadily nationalizing more rights and reducing the freedom of states to constrict them—what legal scholars have called the “rights revolution.” Now, across all these different arenas and more, the United States is hurtling back toward a pre-1960s world in which citizens’ basic rights and liberties vary much more depending on where they live. ...

The past week’s events in Tennessee and Texas, and the federal court case on mifepristone, extend strategies that red states have employed since 2020 to influence national policy. But these latest moves show Republicans taking those strategies to new extremes. Together these developments underscore how aggressively red states are maneuvering to block the federal government and their own largest metropolitan areas from resisting their systematic attempt to carve out what I’ve called a “nation within a nation,” operating with its own constraints on civil rights and liberties.

“It shows there really is no limit, no institution that is quote-unquote ‘sacred’ enough not to try to use to their advantage,” Marissa Roy, the legal team lead for the Local Solutions Support Center, a group opposing the broad range of state preemption efforts, told me.

This multipronged offensive from red states seeks to reverse one of the most powerful currents in modern American life. Since the 1960s, on issues including the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage and the banning of discrimination on grounds of race or gender, the Supreme Court, Congress, and federal agencies have broadened the circle of rights guaranteed nationwide and reduced the ability of states to limit those rights.

Over the past decade, Republican-controlled states have stepped up their efforts to reverse that arrow and restore their freedom to impose their own restrictions on rights and liberties. Nelson sees this red-state drive as continuing the “cycle of progress and retrenchment” on racial equity through American history that stretches back to Reconstruction and the southern resistance that eventually produced Jim Crow segregation. “The current pendulum swing is occurring both in reaction to changing politics and changing demographics, making the arc of that swing that much higher toward extremism,” she told me.

The vote in the Tennessee House of Representatives, for instance, marked a new level in the long-term struggle between red states and blue cities. In most red states, Republicans control the governorship and/or state legislature primarily through their dominance of predominantly white non-urban areas. Over the past decade, those red-state Republicans have grown more aggressive about using that statewide power to preempt the authority of, and override decisions by, their largest cities and counties, which are typically more racially diverse and Democratic-leaning.

These preemption bills have removed authority from local governments over policy areas including minimum wage, COVID masking requirements, environmental rules, and even plastic-bag-recycling mandates. Legislatures have accompanied many of these bills with other measures, such as extreme gerrymanders, meant to dilute the political clout of their state’s population centers and shift influence toward exurban and rural areas where Republicans are strongest. In Tennessee, for example, the legislature voted to arbitrarily cut the size of the Nashville Metropolitan Council in half, a decision that a state court blocked this week. Many of the bills that red states have passed since 2020 making it harder to vote have specifically barred techniques used by large counties to encourage participation, such as drop boxes or mobile voting vans.

Republicans who control the Tennessee House took this attack on urban political power to a new peak with their vote to expel the two Black Democratic representatives, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who represent Memphis and Nashville, respectively. Though local officials in each city quickly moved this week to reappoint the two men, the GOP majority sent an ominous signal in its initial vote to remove them. The expulsions went beyond making structural changes to diminish the power of big-city residents, to entirely erasing those voters’ decision on whom they wanted to represent them in the legislature. Conservative legislatures and governors “have become so emboldened [in believing] that they can tread on local democracy,” Roy said, “that they are going all out and perhaps destroying the institution altogether.”

One of the most aggressive areas of red-state preemption this year has been in moves to seize control of policing and prosecutorial powers in Democratic-leaning cities and counties, which typically have large minority populations. In Georgia, for instance, both chambers of the GOP-controlled state legislature have passed bills creating a new oversight board that would be directed by state officials and have the power to recommend removal of county prosecutors. In Mississippi, both GOP-controlled chambers have approved legislation to expand state authority over policing and the courts in Jackson, the state capital, a city more than 80 percent Black. The Republican governor in each state is expected to sign the bills.

Tennessee legislators passed a bill in their last session increasing state authority to override local prosecutors. This week they went further. Although it didn’t attract nearly the attention of the expulsion vote, the Tennessee House Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday approved a bill to eradicate an independent board to investigate police misconduct that Nashville residents had voted to create in a 2018 referendum.

In 2019, the GOP legislature had already stripped the Nashville Community Oversight Board of the subpoena power that was included in the local referendum establishing it. The new legislation approved this week, which is also advancing in the State Senate, would replace the board and instead require that citizen complaints about police behavior in Nashville and other cities be directed to the internal-affairs offices of their police departments. The legislation is moving forward just weeks after five former police officers were indicted in Memphis for beating a Black man named Tyre Nichols to death. “You would think that while the Tyre Nichols case is going on … that we would be really wanting more oversight, not less,” Jill Fitcheard, the executive director of the Nashville oversight board, told me. Coming so soon after the vote to expel the two Black members, the attempt to eradicate the oversight board, she said, represents “another attack on democracy in Nashville.”

Texas has joined this procession with bills backed by Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick advancing in both legislative chambers to make it easier for state officials to remove local prosecutors who resist bringing cases on priorities for the GOP majority, such as the measures banning abortion or gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

But Abbott last Saturday introduced an explosive new element into the red-state push to preempt local law-enforcement authority. In a statement, Abbott directed the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole to fast-track consideration of a pardon for a U.S. Army sergeant convicted just one day earlier of killing a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. Abbott, who had faced criticism from conservative media for not intervening in the case, promised to approve the pardon, and criticized the Democratic district attorney who brought the case and the jury that decided it in Travis County, an overwhelmingly blue county centered on Austin.

Although many Republicans are seeking ways to constrain law-enforcement officials in blue counties, Abbott’s move would invalidate a decision by a jury in such a Democratic-leaning area. And whereas the preemption legislation in Texas and elsewhere targets prosecutors because of the cases they won’t prosecute, Abbott is looking to override a local prosecutor because of a case he did prosecute. ...

 

All of these legal and political struggles raise the same underlying question: Can Democrats and their allies defend the national baseline of civil rights and liberties America has built since the 1960s?

Democrats have found themselves stymied in efforts to restore those rights through legislation: While Democrats held unified control of Congress during Biden’s first years, the House passed bills that would largely override the red-state moves and restore a set of national rules on abortion, voting, and LGBTQ rights. But in each case, they could not overcome a Republican-led Senate filibuster.

The Biden administration and civil-rights groups are pursuing lawsuits against many of the red-state rights rollbacks. But numerous legal experts remain skeptical that the conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority will reverse many of the red-state actions. The third tool available to Democrats is federal executive-branch action, such as the Title IX regulations the Education Department proposed last week that would invalidate the blanket bans against transgender girls participating in school sports that virtually all the red states have now approved. Yet federal regulations that attempt to counter the red-state actions may prompt resistance from that conservative Supreme Court majority.

And even as Democrats search for strategies to preserve a common baseline of rights, they face the prospect that Republicans may seek to nationalize the restrictive red-state social regime. Congressional Republicans have introduced bills to write into federal law almost all of the red-state moves, such as abortion bans and prohibitions on classroom discussion of sexual orientation or participation in school sports by transgender girls. Several 2024 GOP presidential candidates are starting to offer similar proposals.

The past week has seen Republicans reach a new extreme in their effort to build a nation within a nation across the red states. But the next time the GOP achieves unified control of Congress and the White House, even this may seem like the beginning of an attempt to impose on blue states the rollback of rights and liberties that continues to burn unabated through red America.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-tennessee-expulsions-are-just-the-...

Former Republican Arkansas Governor Mike Huchabee and father of the current Republican Arkansas Governor Sara Huckabee Sanders said this week "2024 will be last election ‘decided by ballots rather than bullets’ if Trump loses over legal cases". And he's not the only one making wild anti-democratic statements. In other words, let's have full fascism. 

Right-wing commentator Mike Huckabee is coming under heavy criticism after warning of “bullets” in future elections should Donald Trump lose in 2024 due to his mounting legal woes.  Over the weekend, Huckabee accused President Joe Biden of trying to “destroy Trump” via legal actions in the courthouse rather than at the ballot box via an election.

“Here’s the problem: If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” he said during his monologue on his TBN show “Huckabee.” 

Trump is facing a combined 91 felony charges in four different cases, including charges related to the mishandling of classified information, his attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, and his efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia. 

But Huckabee compared the proceedings to those that go on in “banana republics and communist regimes,” where political opponents are imprisoned or exiled for “made-up crimes. Joe Biden is using exactly those tactics to make sure that Donald Trump is not his opponent in 2024,” he declared:

Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and father of current Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was a White House press secretary under Trump.  His comments over the weekend are the latest in a line of inflammatory statements from figures aligned with the former president. 

Last week, Georgia state Sen. Colton Moore told former Trump strategist Steve Bannon that he wanted to defund Fani Willis, the district attorney prosecuting Trump in the state, and warned of dire consequences if she’s allowed to proceed with the case.  “We need to be taking action right now. Because if we don’t, our constituencies are gonna be fighting it in the streets. Do you want a civil war?” he said, according to Salon. “I don’t want a civil war. I don’t want to have to draw my rifle. I want to make this problem go away with my legislative means of doing so.”

Last month, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin alluded to a civil war and urged Trump supporters to “rise up and take our country back.” 

Last year, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake also issued a thinly veiled threat to Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith.  “If you want to get to President Trump, you are going to have to go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me,” she said, The New York Times reported. “And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA.” She said it wasn’t a threat but “a public service announcement.” 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-huckabee-bullets_n_64f94986e4b02eee3...

Milt Romney, the only Republican Senator who voted twice to impeach Trump but also tried to become a member of Trump's only to be humiliated in being rejected, has announced that he will not run again in 2024, admitting that his establishment breed of Republicans are dying out. Good riddance. The only tragedy is that the MAGA, populist, racist, sexist fascist Trump cultists that have taken over are even worse. 

 Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah announced Wednesday he will not run for reelection to a second term in the Senate in 2024, calling for a "new generation of leaders" beyond President Biden and former President Donald Trump to assume power.

"I spent my last 25 years in public service of one kind or another," Romney said in a video posted on social media. "At the end of another term, I'd be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it's time for a new generation of leaders." ...

In 2020, Romney became the first senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a member of his own party in an impeachment trial when he voted to convict Trump of abuse of power. He was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in that case.  He also voted to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, though more Republicans crossed the aisle in that vote.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitt-romney-says-hes-not-running...

Newt Gingrich says the Republican presidential race is over and Trump has won. 

 

Newt Gingrich claims the Republican primary is already over - and Trump has won: Former House Speaker says third debate would be a waste of time with barely any viewers

• Spread across three separate channels on which it aired - Fox Business, Fox News , and Univision - the viewership was down more than 3million from the first
• A drop off from a first debate to the second is far from abnormal, historical data shows - given the inherent intrigue of a first faceoff between the candidates

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says it is time to end Republican presidential debates because former President Donald Trump has already sewn up the nomination before the first votes have been cast.

Gingrich, who himself fueled a presidential campaign in 2012 through fiery debate performances, predicted a third contest would have 'have virtually no viewership.'

There is now evidence that Americans already turned the channel on the second televised contest.

He called on the Republican National Committee to cancel future debates, after a slugfest Wednesday night that frequently descended into bickering that was impossible for viewers to digest. A DailyMail.com snap poll found a plurality thought Trump was the winner – and he wasn't even on the stage. A source told DailyMail.com Trump isn't likely to take part in the third scheduled meting in Miami.

'I think the Republican National Committee should cancel the future debates and say, "Look, we recognize the objective fact that Trump will be the nominee. We want to work with him,'"' Gingrich said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12575377/Newt-Gingrich-claims-R...

So there is  a new race for House Speaker: Austin Scott vs. Jim Jordan. Scott this morning called the Republicans who overthrew McCarthy "chaos agents". When asked how the Republicans look, Scott replied "It makes us look like a bunch of idiots". Finally, a Republican who tells the truth occasionally. 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is back in the race for speaker of the House, the congressman said Friday, and is running against Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), one day after the GOP nominee for House speaker, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), dropped out of the contest as factions within the Republican party fight over who should succeed an ousted Kevin McCarthy.

Jordan told reporters at the Capitol on Friday that he plans to get back into the race after conceding to Scalise earlier in the week.

Scott confirmed on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he filed paperwork to become speaker, saying in part that he wants “to lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people.”

Jordan said he plans to speak with his colleagues in conference but feels “real good about us having the votes.”

Jordan also said that he supported Scalise before the Louisiana representative dropped out because he wanted “to get unified and get this accomplished as soon as possible,” with Jordan adding he now believes he’s the person who can do that now.

Scott, who previously said he would not support Jordan’s candidacy, criticized the ongoing dysfunction within the party Thursday and said, “it makes us look like a bunch of idiots.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/10/13/jim-jordan-vs-austin-sc...

When asked about Trump's "Vermin" threat " root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country", his campaign official defended it with another threat that "their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” 

Donald Trump is once again comparing his political enemies to animals on the campaign trail—and scholars are sounding the alarm about the fascist roots of his rhetoric. 

At a Veterans Day rally in Claremont, New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump used the word “vermin” to refer to the left, pledging to take down his perceived political enemies if he wins a second term as president. As experts are pointing out, the same word was historically weaponized by dictators—including Adolf Hitler—as a tool of dehumanization.

Here’s Trump’s full quote (which starts at 1:47:30 in the C-SPAN video): 

In honor of our great veterans on Veterans’ Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible—they’ll do anything—whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and to destroy the American dream.

He also posted the same message on Truth Social. 

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung pushed back on those condemning the former president’s choice of “vermin” to attack his opponents, telling the Washington Post that critics “who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” (Cheung later clarified to the Postthat he meant to say their “sad, miserable existence” instead of their “entire existence.”)

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/trump-vermin-hitler-threat/

Trump's allies are planning to put 54,000 loyalists in government posts to eliminate any opposition to whatever Trump wishes to do, including putting people that oppose them or are members of minorities they despise in concentration camps. 

Former President Trump's allies are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand his power at every level of the U.S. government if he wins in 2024, officials involved in the effort tell Axios.

Why it matters: Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents. 

• The screening for ready-to-serve loyalists has already begun, driven in part by artificial intelligence from tech giant Oracle, contracted for the project.
• Social media histories are already being plumbed.

What's happening: When Trump took office in 2017, he included many conventional Republicans in his Cabinet and key positions. Those officials often curtailed his behavior and power.

• Trump himself spends little time plotting governing plans. But he is well aware of a highly coordinated campaign to be ready to jam government offices with loyalists willing to stretch traditional boundaries.

If Trump were to win, thousands of Trump-first loyalists would be ready for legal, judicial, defense, regulatory and domestic policy jobs. His inner circle plans to purge anyone viewed as hostile to the hard-edged, authoritarian-sounding plans he calls "Agenda 47."

Behind the scenes: The government-in-waiting is being orchestrated by the Heritage Foundation's well-funded Project 2025, which already has published a 920-page policy book from 400+ contributors. Think of it as a transition team set in motion years in advance. 

• Heritage president Kevin Roberts tells us his apparatus is "orders of magnitude" bigger than anything ever assembled for a party out of power.
• The policy series, "Mandate for Leadership," dates back to the 1980s. But Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, told us: "Never before has the entire movement ... banded together to construct a comprehensive plan to deconstruct the out-of-touch and weaponized administrative state."

• Project 2025 gets muscle from 80 partners, including Turning Point USA, led by MAGA star Charlie Kirk; the Center for Renewing America, headed by former Trump budget director Russ Vought; and American Moment, focused on young believers for junior positions.

• A separate group of former Trump officials — the America First Policy Institute, led by Brooke Rollins — has a Pathway to 2025 laying groundwork for what it calls "the next America First administration."

• Trump insiders relish rebuilding the team with purists. But the truth is, they have no choice: Many more-traditional Republicans quit the first administration in frustration or were fired by tweet. And some former advisers are talking to prosecutors or are charged with crimes.

• The Trump campaign tells us no outside group speaks for him: "The campaign's Agenda47 is the only official comprehensive and detailed look at what President Trump will do when he returns to the White House. ... While the campaign is appreciative of any effort to provide suggestions about a second term, the campaign is not collaborating with them."

Questions for Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 applicants. Screenshot via Project 2025 website

How it works: The most elaborate part of the pre-transition machine is a résumé-collection project that drills down more on political philosophy than on experience, education or other credentials.

• Applicants are asked to "name one person, past or present, who has most influenced the development of your political philosophy" — and to do the same with a book.
• Another query: "Name one living public policy figure whom you greatly admire and why."

Details: Heritage's "Presidential Personnel Database" already has 4,000+ entries, we're told.

• We're told immense, intense attention will be given to the social-media histories of anyone being considered for top jobs. Those queasy about testing the limits of Trump's power will get flagged and rejected.
• The massive headhunting quest aims to recruit 20,000 people to serve in the next administration, as a down payment on 4,000 presidential appointments + potential replacements for as many as 50,000 federal workers who are "policy-adjacent," as Trumpers put it. 

Reality check: Technically, this apparatus will be inherited by any Republican nominee — Heritage officials tell us they've briefed the campaigns of Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

• But this is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump's closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. 
• One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration. Miller is charting an even harder line on legal and immigration policy than last time. While he maps a White House return, he's president of America First Legal, which vows to fight "lawless executive actions and the Radical Left."

Between the lines: Trump doesn't hide his intentions. It's important to tune out the theatrical language that drives social media and cable TV, and focus intently on the directional guidance of his second term.

• He's telling us exactly what he intends to do — like it or loathe it. And this time, he'll have prefabbed institutional muscle to turn pugilistic words into policies and action from the get-go.

Here's what the early days of a second Trump presidency would look like, based on his words and our conversations with Trump insiders:

1. His top obsession will be the Justice Department, the FBI and the intelligence community — all of which he thinks conspired to investigate him, thwart him, screw him. He's been very clear that he's willing to unleash these agencies against political enemies.
2. The next priority will be the Department of Homeland Security and the border, with plans to erect sprawling detention camps, "scour the country for unauthorized immigrants," and "deport people by the millions per year," The New York Times reports. We're told Trump's top criterion for immigration officials will be whoever promises to be most aggressive. Trump has told allies he's confident the Supreme Court will back his most draconian moves.
3. As first reported by Jonathan Swan for Axios last year, a key tool for Trump's "revenge term" would be the use of Schedule F personnel powers to wipe out employment protections for tens of thousands of civil servants across the federal government. Trump allies want a deep and wide purge of the professional staff that often serves across new administrations.
4. Officials close to the Pentagon tell us they're worried about a plan, articulated by former Trump official Russ Vought in the Heritage document, to direct the National Security Council to "rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters, including climate change, critical race theory [and] manufactured extremism." Indeed, the Trump allies see obstacles to remove at every level of every agency.

The bottom line: This Trump-allied machine has the most power over the formation of a potential future government of any group in U.S. history. Trump, if elected, will leverage it to do things with government that none of us has seen in our lifetime.

• Go deeper: These themes have been explored in a great, deeply reported series by The New York Times' Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage. Read their pieces about Trump plans for the Justice Department, federal agencies, federal workers, Mexico, radical lawyers, legal gatekeepers and immigration.

"Behind the Curtain" is a column by Axios CEO Jim VandeHei and co-founder Mike Allen, based on regular conversations with White House and congressional leaders, CEOs and top technologists.

Get the rundown of the biggest stories of the day with Axios Daily Essentials.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-allies-pre-screen-loyalist...

Imitating Trump's anti-migrant policies, Texas Republicans have passed a law an immigration bill making it legal for state officials to arrest suspected undocument migrants with probable cause, thereby challenging a decade-old Supreme Court decision that states do not have the right to do this, only the federal government can. Refusing to return to their homeland, could result in a twenty year felony prison term, according to the legislation. The Texas representative Jolanda Jones called SB 4 and its supporters “racist”. “It’s not all right to be racist. I will stop pulling the race card when you stop being racist,” she said. ...the Texas Civil Rights Project, a social justice non-profit, said the bill was “creating an entirely new, separate, unequal immigration system in the US” and allowing police to “be both judge and jury to determine a person’s right to stay in the US”.

Another sign of the Republican Party authoritarian march and its billionaire connections: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (the same guy that was impeached just months ago) is investigating Media Matters  after it claimed Musk's X platform displayed corporate ads next to far-right figures causing the corporations to halt ads on X.  Musk then sued Media Matters for defamation. 

 

 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he opened an investigation into Media Matters for alleged fraudulent activity.

The investigation comes soon after X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, launched a defamation suit against the group after it claimed the site displayed ads next to far-right figures. Paxton said he launched the investigation after he heard of the suit against the "radical anti-free speech organization."

"We are examining the issue closely to ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square," Paxton said in a statement.

Media Matters is being prosecuted under the Texas Business Organizations Code and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

X owner Elon Musk touted the lawsuit in a post on the platform shortly after Paxton's announcement. "Fraud has both civil and criminal penalties," he said.

Last week, a report from the nonprofit group Media Matters alleged that advertisements from Apple, IBM, Amazon, and Oracle were among those that appeared next to far-right content on X. In response to the ad, Apple, Comcast, IBM, Warner Brothers, Paramount Global, Disney, and Lionsgate all halted their advertisements on the site.

Musk responded on Monday by filing a defamation lawsuit against the media watchdog, alleging that it had fabricated data in its report.

"Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation - news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda - every day, in real time," Media Matters's about page reads.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/texas-ken-paxton-invest...

The head of Florida's Republican Party, Christian Ziegler, a close ally of Ron DeSantis, is being investigated following an allegation of sexual battery, according to the Sarasota County Police Department. He was involved in a menage a trois for three years with his wife Bridget, who was the the co-founder of the parents rights" organization Moms for Liberty that "expanded nationwide on a platform of trying to combat “gender ideology” and “critical race theory” in schools", and another woman, who has now accused him of rape. In other words the female head of the anti-gay Moms for Liberty was engaged in a biseuxal sexual relationship with another woman even before she co-founded Moms for Liberty to attack gays. "Moms for Liberty was at the forefront of efforts to pass Florida’s “don’t say gay bill”, and was named an “anti-government extremist” organisation by the Southern Poverty Law Center in June." It just shows that the complete hypocrisy of the entire movement as well as they sense of impunity and power that makes them believe such people can get away with rape. 

The chair of the Florida Republican Party has been accused of raping a woman who he and his wife, the co-founder of “parent’s rights” group Moms for Liberty, were reportedly in a long-term consensual relationship with.

Christian Ziegler is under investigation for alleged sexual battery, according to a heavily-redacted report provided to The Independent by the Sarasota Police Department.

The complaint does not name Mr Ziegler, but his attorney Derek Byrd confirmed to The Independent that the high-ranking Republican official and ally of Governor Ron DeSantiswas cooperating with the police investigation and expected to be fully exonerated.

The female complainant had been in a long-term consensual relationship with Mr Ziegler and his wife Bridget, according to the investigative journalism site the Florida Center for Government Accountability, which was first to report on the story.

Citing police sources, the site stated that the incident occurred when Mr Ziegler and the complainant were at the woman’s home on 2 October without Ms Ziegler present.

The words “rape” and “had been sexual battered…on 10/02/2023” were among the few words visible on the redacted police report.

Mr Ziegler’s cellphone was seized after police obtained a search warrant, which he reportedly used to film sexual liaisons between the trio.

The couple are power players in Florida politics, and have both touted their commitment to “family values” while running for public office. Mr Ziegler is a long-term GOP official and former Sarasota County Commissioner who was elected chair of the state party in February.

Bridget Ziegler is a former school board official who co-founded the “parent’s rights” group Moms For Liberty in 2021.

The right-wing activists initially focused on anti-Covid lockdown measures but have since expanded nationwide on a platform of trying to combat “gender ideology” and “critical race theory” in schools.

Moms for Liberty was at the forefront of efforts to pass Florida’s “don’t say gay bill”, and was named an “anti-government extremist” organisation by the Southern Poverty Law Center in June.

Ms Ziegler received Mr DeSantis’ personal endorsement for her Sarasota school board seat earlier this year. She was also appointed by the governor to the newly-formed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, after he rescinded Disney’s special district status after a political fight with the Magic Kingdom.

Ms Ziegler did not respond to multiple text and email requests for comment by The Independent.

In a statement, Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried called on Mr Ziegler to resign immediately “given the “severity of the criminal allegations”.

“As leaders in the Florida GOP and Moms for Liberty, the Zieglers have made a habit out of attacking anything they perceive as going against ‘family values’ — be it reproductive rights or the existence of LGBTQ+ Floridians. The level of hypocrisy in this situation is stunning.”

She applauded the accuser’s bravery in coming forward against a “political figure as powerful as Christian Ziegler”.

“Allegations of rape and sexual battery are severe and should be taken seriously,” said Ms Fried said.

Mr Byrd, the attorney representing Mr Ziegler, told The Independent he was confident that no charges would be filed against his client.

“Unfortunately, public figures are often accused of acts that they did not commit whether it be for political purposes or financial gain. I would caution anyone to rush to judgment until the investigation is concluded.”

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/florida-gop-chair-accused-rape-231437810.html

Bridget Ziegler, who is now being called a hypocrite after admitting she was invovled in a lesbian relationship that also involve a menage a trois with her Florida GOP chair husband who is now charged with raping the other woman,  co-founded and was running Moms for Liberty that aimed at electing school board members dedicated to anti-trans policies and far right white Christian curriculum. That curriculum is called the  Hillsdale College 1776 Curriculum, except it’s not really a curriculum. Far right-wing white Christian threads "run through the 'curriculum.': American exceptionalism; The Constitution as holy writ; History as the story of individuals; but social forces, systems, none of that stuff matters. The constant challenge of people who want to overthrow the Constitution with 'modern' ideas. ... Hillsdale gets around the issue of discussion by operating on the belief that all history is settled, that there is one Truth, and that anyone who tells you otherwise is operating out of some sort of bias or attempt to push their unfounded agenda." Converting curriculum to this far-right agenda is also seen as an enormous money making opportunity as it requires many billions to be spent on books, consultants, and other school resources that are taken from the non-religious current educational system as this system is privatized.  

For example, one of the threads of Hillsdale’s program "is a belief that geography is really important, so Lesson 1 focuses on that, on the advantages of the “virgin territory,” America’s excellent and untouched soil, though the indigenous tribes get a mention as well. “Explain how America is and has always been a land of immigrants,” it advises, noting that even the “native” people (the guide puts “native” in quotes) had probably immigrated from Asia. And also talk about Columbus “discovering” this “New World.” Lesson 2 is exploration and settlement, abd is heavy on the economic and spiritual freedom aspect of settlement." The dream is to make this the national curriculum and in the process assist in the separation of church and state founded in the US constitution. (https://buckscountybeacon.com/2023/09/whats-in-hillsdales-1776-curriculum/)

When Ziegler's Moms for Liberty anti-trans school board candidates won the Pennridge schoolboard election in Pennsylvania they started implementing anti-trans policies and the Hillside 1776 (named for Trump's 1776 agenda), provoking a strong community reaction against it. 

First came policies that eliminated safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students and restricted racially inclusive reading materials. Then, the Pennridge School Board voted to hire Vermilion Education, a Michigan-based consulting company with limited experience and questionable curriculum standards.

Despite objections from parents, students and teachers, such moves are dominating the public education agenda in this community just north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, now that five of the nine Pennridge School Board members are linked to Moms for Liberty, the far-right so-called parental rights organization.

The Vermilion Education deal with Pennridge appears to be the latest tactic in Moms for Liberty’s efforts to force what many view as anti-inclusive ideals into local public education. Ranking only behind Florida, where Moms for Liberty was founded, Pennsylvania has the second-largest concentration of the organization’s chapters. “Bucks County seems to be the epicenter for where Moms for Liberty took off in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Jenny Stephens, a freelance reporter for the Bucks County Beacon, a local progressive media outlet, told Hatewatch.

Though Vermilion Education is a fairly new company, its connection to Hillsdale College is a primary selling point for the Pennridge board members with ties to Moms for Liberty. Long known for its objectionable education philosophies and affiliation with far-right activists, Hillsdale is a south Michigan-based private, right-wing, Christian college. In 1984, the school began operating on private donations after rejecting federal funds so it could refuse to implement Title IX regulations that prohibit racial and gender discrimination in its educational programs and activities.

Addressing the 2016 graduating class at Hillsdale College, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas warned of an increasingly complex America society that only depletes the benefits of a free society without contributing anything in return. “But this is Hillsdale College, and you are special, that shining city on the hill,” he told the audience. Hillsdale, according to Thomas, is the “clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law” because it understands that liberty precedes government and is not a benefit owed by government.

Hillsdale has prominent anti-inclusive education allies. It has joined forces with the likes of conservative activist Christopher Rufo and former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to consistently undermine public education and promote privatization. It has also welcomed as a speaker Matt Walsh, a well-known anti-LGBTQ+ activist. Given Hillsdale’s reputation and record, the contract with affiliated Vermilion Education and the Pennridge School Board sparked vehement opposition from many local observers.

“Vermilion is a Trojan horse. It is Hillsdale,” Stephens said, “but Hillsdale has become so tainted that no one’s going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s bring that in.”

As in the Pennridge School District, Moms for Liberty-affiliated majorities in school boards are disregarding the expressed concerns of local stakeholders who fear that the parent group’s book bans, anti-inclusion policies and other measures endanger marginalized students and jeopardize the education of all students.

After cutting social studies requirements, shadow banning books, eliminating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students by prohibiting teachers from displaying flags, stickers or signs and implementing policies targeting transgender students, the Pennridge School Board’s decision to approve the Vermilion Education contract could be the tipping point in efforts to turn the schools in their district into mini Hillsdales.

The majority of parents, students and community members do not support the Moms for Liberty agenda, as evidenced through public polling by national organizations. For instance, an NBC News education survey that polled likely midterm voters in seven states including Pennsylvania in May 2022, revealed that over 80% of Americans disagreed with removing from school libraries books that criticize U.S. history, have differing political views, depict slavery or discuss race. The majority also felt that teaching about race gives students a better understanding of what others have experienced.

In the Pennridge School District, efforts to eliminate safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students and remove books including Beloved and A Queer History of the United States for Young People deemed by board members as pornographic have been apparent through policies enacted by the school board.

Not long after Moms for Liberty got its start in 2021, it entered the political arena. The group’s PAC received its first donation when Publix supermarket chain heiress Julie Fancelli, who helped fund the “Stop the Steal” rally ahead of the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, gave the group $50,000.

By the 2022 elections, Moms for Liberty deployed its PAC to endorse 500 school board candidates across the country. By the close of the election cycle, the group’s leadership claimed to have “flipped” 17 school boards in their favor.

Immediately after gaining power in elections, Moms for Liberty-majority boards began making sweeping changes. For example, in the Berkeley County School District in South Carolina, the state’s fourth-largest public school district, where Moms for Liberty claims that it “took” six of the total nine seats, the newly sworn-in board voted to fire the district’s superintendent, with only the six Moms for Liberty-endorsed board members voting in favor of the termination. The board also voted to establish a committee to review books and instructional materials, to replace the school board chair with a Moms for Liberty-backed member and to ban critical race theory, which the newly elected chair defined as “a worldview that believes all events and ideas around us in politics, education, entertainment, the media and the workplace and beyond must be explained in terms of racial identities.”

Moms for Liberty praised these changes on social media, posting, “Berkeley County – 6 new board members clean house first night on the job.” Deon Jackson, the ousted superintendent, has since filed a civil lawsuit in South Carolina against the school board members, claiming the Moms for Liberty-backed majority plotted his demise through a number of means, including gross negligence, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy.

Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of Moms for Liberty and chair of the Sarasota, Florida, school board, was endorsed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and local Proud Boys to win her reelection to the Sarasota school board in August 2022. Earlier this year, she added an agenda item – called the “Vermilion Education brief” – just 24 hours before a scheduled board meeting was slated to meet.

This last-minute addition sparked a firestorm of protests and commentary in the community with many parents, students and citizens speaking out against the proposal to hire the education consulting firm. Paulina Testerman, co-director of Support Our Schools, a Sarasota-based parental advocacy group, spoke at a school board meeting, highlighting the lack of proper public notice, documentation and transparency surrounding the proposed Vermilion Education contract.

“It is important to know the levels of deception that swirled around the Vermilion contract,” Testerman told Hatewatch. “To this day, Ziegler hasn’t provided the sources that she’s legally bound to share. When elected officials are putting politics above the schools’ and students’ best interest, that’s a problem.”

VERMILION EDUCATION TIES TO HILLSDALE COLLEGE

Ziegler apparently had no qualms about the inexperience of Vermilion Education and its ties to Hillsdale College. With her declared interest in bringing Vermilion Education to the Sarasota School District, the months-old company was thrust into the national spotlight.

However, Hillsdale’s leadership was known in local, state and conservative circles. In a 2013 subcommittee hearing on Michigan’s education standards, Hillsdale’s current president, Larry Arnn, recounted learning of concerns from the Michigan Department of Education about Hillsdale’s lack of diversity and a subsequent campus visit, saying: “The State of Michigan sent a group of people down to my campus, with clipboards ... to look at the colors of people’s faces and write down what they saw. We don’t keep records of that information. What were they looking for besides dark ones?”

Arnn served on former President Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission, which was apparently established in September 2020 as a response to the 1619 Project, a New York Times journalism project that examines the contributions of Black Americans since the beginning of slavery.

Under Arnn’s leadership, Hillsdale went on to create what it calls the 1776 Curriculum. Jordan Adams, Vermilion Education’s founder and CEO, had a hand in creating it. Adams, a Hillsdale College alum who most recently served as interim director of curriculum for the Hillsdale College K-12 Education Office, has said the 1776 Curriculum is “based off of the curriculum and the type of instruction that students in Hillsdale-affiliated schools receive when it comes to studying American history and civics.” Experts, however, have criticized the curriculum for its lack of accuracy, depth and context on important historical points, including slavery and the Civil War.

VERMILION EDUCATION TRIES FLORIDA

By the time Ziegler proposed that Vermilion Education come to Sarasota County schools, Adams and Hillsdale College already had a strong foothold in Florida.

In 2022, DeSantis was a keynote speaker at the Hillsdale National Leadership conference, which the school claims reaches millions of Americans. The governor praised the college for its network of classical schools in his state. He went on to tout his support for Hillsdale, adding that he would be negatively disposed to hiring a Yale University graduate – despite being a Yale alum himself. Instead, if he received a resume from a Hillsdale College graduate, DeSantis said he’d feel assured that person has “the foundations necessary to be able to be helpful in pursuing conservative policies.”

Arnn further highlighted Hillsdale’s relationship with the Florida governor in a school newsletter. In it, he commended what he considered DeSantis’ political successes, claiming that most of the governor’s victories were “won on the battleground of education.”

Just after DeSantis seized control of New College of Florida, a small, public liberal arts school in Sarasota, appointing six new members to its 13-member board of trustees, the governor’s chief of staff James Uthmeier told the far-right website The Daily Caller, “It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”

DeSantis has asked representatives from Hillsdale College to advise on Florida’s public education curriculum several times since 2019, inviting them to work with the state’s Department of Education to review civics education standards as well as math and English curricula. Jordan Adams reviewed textbooks, rejecting dozens that DeSantis alleged included “indoctrinating concepts,” such as critical race theory. When Adams also contributed to the state’s new civics curriculum, teachers raised concerns over what they considered inaccurate history lessons on slavery and the inclusion of Christian nationalist concepts.

In Sarasota when Ziegler presented her “Vermilion Education brief,” at a school board meeting, she offered little information about the newly formed company. She did note that it was the only consulting firm that did not provide diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) services.

Ziegler defended her decision to introduce Vermilion to Sarasota, saying, “Why is it a bad idea to either consider how we can take pieces of that which would align into our mission as a public education institution and that wouldn’t imply any indoctrination of anyone’s ideology but get back to the core classical components of academics.” Such rationale directly aligns with the curriculum of the five Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools in Florida, she added.

From the start, there were red flags about the Vermilion Education proposal and contract, which called for a consulting fee of $125 per hour, plus travel expenses. Adams’ proposal, titled “Education Restored,” began with a letter to the school board, calling on its members to remain part of the right-wing movement against public education. “If you’re reading this, you’re likely already part of one of the greatest reform movements of our lifetime,” Adams wrote in the proposal. “Like all great reform movements, those who have the authority to make a difference must make a difference if their officers are to have any meaning at all. This requires – as you have already demonstrated – great courage on your part, and great sacrifice.”

Adams also proposed a “Character Audit Program” to eliminate discussions of race and gender identity from schools by preventing the spread of “ideologies hostile to shared understandings of right conduct and responsibility, undermining the wishes and efforts of parents to raise upright young men and women.”

The proposed contract between Sarasota School District and Vermilion Education initially included two parts. The first, titled Board Services, would have granted Adams access to school board materials and interviews of candidates for administrative, staff and teaching positions so he could review proposed policies, programs and curricula; advise the board on academic matters; review resumes and remotely attend interviews; review proposed contracts and assist with board communications to the public.

Vermilion Education also proposed conducting a “district improvement study” that would include reviewing textbooks, library lists, sample lesson plans, professional development materials, guidance counseling policies and the collective bargaining agreement, among other district items.

By the time the contract came up for a vote, only the district improvement study portion remained, with no explanation as to why the portion for board services had been excluded. Ultimately, after protests and more than four hours of public comment at a school board meeting on April 18, the board voted 3-2 not to adopt the Vermilion contract. Tim Enos, who was endorsed by Moms for Liberty during his campaign, voted against the contract, along with Tom Edwards and Robyn Marinelli. Before casting his vote against the contract, Edwards stated, “If we’re going to be a competitive school district, then let’s do a better job of how we select vendors.”

Just a week after the defeat in Sarasota, a last-minute item showed up on a Pennridge School Board meeting agenda: Vermilion Education contract.

THE FOX IS IN THE HENHOUSE

In June, when Moms for Liberty held its annual conference in Philadelphia, Adams conducted a session, “The First 100 Days: Getting Flipped School Boards to Take Action,” offering tips on how to push their agenda within the first 100 days of taking office. During his presentation, he cautioned attendees against referring to him as an expert, explaining: “If 2020 has proved anything else it is that expertise is dead in the country. There’s no such thing. That is a label to shut down any type of dialogue and pretend that you can’t use your own brain to figure things out. ... You should be calling yourself a U.S. citizen instead.”

Attendees were given a worksheet to help formulate a timeline on “getting flipped boards to act.” Adams instructed that to get contentious policies approved with minimal objection, school boards should inundate districts with demands and changes, making it difficult for any opponents to keep up. He also told participants: “What I’m bringing to the table here is the inside information. I’ll tell you, in a couple of the boards that this has come up with, and they have a contract with me, the right people are freaking out because the fox is in the henhouse.”

That session was presented just weeks after the Pennridge School Board in Pennsylvania became the first public school district in the country to hire Vermilion Education.

The move was not without controversy. Similar to the introduction of Vermilion in Sarasota, the agenda item was added just 24 hours before the board meeting, catching several members off guard regarding the pending contract. Vermilion was also allowed to circumvent the normal process that allows multiple contractors to do presentations, after which the administration chooses the best-qualified bidder.

In Sarasota, Bridget Ziegler took to social media to express her disappointment with the Sarasota School Board’s failure to approve a Vermilion contract just days after the Pennridge School Board meeting. “WOKE Audit (Vermilion) headed to Pennridge in Pennsylvania,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “Should be in Florida, specifically Sarasota. We could have led on this. When a school district rids themselves of any social, political or religious agendas, they remove unnecessary distractions and remain focused on improving distractions for all students.”

Paulina Testerman, from Sarasota’s Support Our Schools, however, who celebrated the defeat of the Vermilion Education contract there, told Hatewatch, “[A contract like] this is very symbolic of the cronyism and indoctrination that we are seeing in Florida.”

As in Florida, the introduction of the Vermilion proposal was met with ire from parents, students, teachers and the community. In an over six-hour long curriculum committee meeting in June that lasted until 1 a.m., Adams made a presentation in which he admitted no experience working in public schools or with Pennsylvania education.

Laura Foster of the RIDGE Network, a group of parents, students and other local citizens working to spotlight issues in the Pennridge School District, told Hatewatch that the board is “trying to turn Pennridge schools into Hillsdale charter schools.”

During a question-and-answer session, a board member pointed out the board’s responsibility to ensure that employees entrusted with developing curriculum have five years of teaching and a principal or supervisory certification. Adams admitted that he lacked these qualifications.

No one spoke in favor of Vermilion Education during the meeting.

There was also a vote scheduled to eliminate the district’s curriculum supervisors, which would give Vermilion control of curriculum without trained, state-qualified specialists in place. This vote has been postponed.

In the end, the Pennridge board approved the open-ended Vermilion contract by a 5-4 vote.

TALES FROM A ‘FLIPPED’ SCHOOL BOARD

The Pennridge School Board’s approval of the Vermilion Education contract came as no surprise for some involved with that local school district. Board member Jonathan Russell was endorsed by Moms for Liberty during his campaign, and current board members Ricki Chaikin, Joan Cullen, Jordan Blomgren and Christine Batycki are among the more than 1,000 members of the Bucks County Moms for Liberty private Facebook group.

Since Moms for Liberty-affiliated members joined the school board, they have conducted a master class on the anti-inclusion transformation of a school board, including passing policies that ban books and restrict stickers and flags designating safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community in areas such as restrooms and locker rooms.

Board member Ricki Chaikin has posted anti-trans messages on social media. She also posted a message titled, “The Controversy with Vermilion … and why Republicans should support Jordan Adams,” in which she defended his credentials, gave a history of the board’s relationship with Hillsdale College and the 1776 Curriculum and argued in favor of paying Adams his proposed fee of $125 per hour because the district had previously hired DEI consultants. The Pennridge School Board Facebook page also featured Chaikin’s post.

The board decided to reduce social studies credit requirements to three from four. Just a month later, board member Jordan Blomgren announced her intentions to “overlay” portions of Hillsdale College’s 1776 Curriculum into existing materials. This proved the perfect segue to implementing a contract with Vermilion.

Board president Joan Cullen, who marched in the Jan. 6 protests at the U.S. Capitol, has come under fire for controversial social media posts, including one calling a survivor of the deadly 2018 Parkland school shooting a “tyrant.”

LGBTQ+ students in Pennridge schools have expressed fears that the policies seek to eliminate their identities from schools by eliminating safe spaces and creating an environment that would lead to increased bullying. One told local NPR affiliate WHYY, “When we don’t have a safe space, it’s more of a struggle to be in the learning environment … because you can’t focus on learning when you’re focusing on surviving.”

The Pennridge School Board also voted to disband the district’s DEI committee and its initiatives for the second time in under a year. Cullen, who has publicly denied the existence of systemic racism and injustices, suggested pausing the committee, stating that it had achieved what it was established to do, which was to raise to administrators community concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion. Cullen gave examples of issues raised, including diversity in hiring and curriculum, and stated that those issues would be passed along to the necessary people. The NAACP’s Bucks County chapter strongly condemned the decision to disband the committee.

One of Adams’ first acts as consultant was to help revamp the social studies curriculum, which now lists Hillsdale College’s 1776 Curriculum as a required resource for teachers to use. Many voiced their concerns at both the board curriculum meeting where the changes were introduced and the subsequent August 28th board meeting where the new curriculum was adopted with a 5-4 vote. According to public comments, teachers were troubled by the lack of time to make necessary changes given that the new curriculum was approved on the first day of school. Parents spoke out about the inclusion of the controversial 1776 Curriculum components and Adams’ lack of the required qualifications to write curriculum.

Jenny Stephens warns that the changes in Pennridge could have long-lasting consequences for everyone, not just marginalized citizens. “If they don’t get the education they need, and if they are so cloistered from reality,” Stephens said, “these kids are going to go out into the world very unprepared. And that’s like a big detriment to our society.”

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/09/13/when-moms-liberty-flips-s...

ETA: Republicans are not conservatives. Conservatives want to minimize the role of the state. The Republicans are extreme statists who want the state to control your body by preventing abortion and your mind by censorship of what you read and making the educational system reflect only their beliefs by using the power of the state to sanction you with punishments up to and including death. Of course, they have no intention of having their actions be consistent with these strict rules and laws, which is reflected in the hypocrisy of the head of the Christian nationalist Florida Republican GOP, Christian Ziegler having a menage a trois and raping the other woman despite his Christian evangelist belief system, while his wife, Bridget Ziegler engages in a lesbian affair at the same time she cofounds Moms for Liberty to attack the LGBTQ population. The same applies to Trump, who violates every Christian norm and continues to be worshipped as the American emperor, as with Texas AG Ken Paxton, who threatens women with prison for attempting to get an abortion because the fetus will be born dead, while being so corrupt that even a large number of Republicans in the Texas legislature voted to impeach him.
The Republicans of course are also extreme statists when it comes to the military-industrial-espionage complex that they so willingly fund, along with the Democrats, to such an extent that spending on this is greater than the next ten nations combined.

jerrym wrote:

Quote:

Republicans are also using the opposition to the Gaza war to attack those who support the Palestininans, particularly in the univeristies, without acknowleging that both antisemitism and Islamaphobia are occurring. ... The Republicans have created a new era of McCarthyism where blacklisting is becoming the norm once again. 

josh wrote:

Quote:

 It's not just Republicans unfortunately.  

Yes Democrats, including Biden, have criticized those opposed to the war, but it is the Republicans who are the central force in creating this new McCarthyism, not just on the Gaza War, but on immigration where Trump is pushing for concentration camps for migrants, on anti-LGBTQ and especially anti-trans issues, on abortion, where five Republican states have proposed murder for abortion providers, and on so many other issues. 

A new poll of Iowa Republicans shows far it has shifted to the extreme neo-Nazi right. The poll found that when they were asked about Trump's Hitlerian comments, such as "Immigrants entering the US illegally are 'poisoning the blood' of America", the comments increased support for Trump:

• 50% are more likely to support Trump because "to deal with immigration Trump would authorize raids, giant camps and mass deportations" with only 22% less likely to vote for Trump; 
• 43% are more likely to support Trump because "the radical left thugs who live like vermin in the US need to be rooted out" with only 23% less likely to vote for Trump; 
• 42% are more likely to support Trump because "Immigrants who enter the US illegally are poisoning the blood of America" with only 28% less likely to vote for Trump; 

The url below contains a chart of the responses for all the questions asked to the Iowa voters.

 

Quote: 

As Donald Trump seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he has laid out his vision for a second term that includes locking up political opponents, conducting sweeping immigration raids and searching for replacements for Obamacare. 

 

On the campaign trail, he has engaged in harsh rhetoric to describe political enemies as “radical thugs that live like vermin,” said that immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood” of the U.S., touted himself as “the only one who will prevent World War III,” and suggested suspending parts of the Constitution because of the “stolen” 2020 presidential election. 

The former president’s comments have ignited concerns from critics and scholars who have warned that a second Trump administration threatens democracy — even as his advisers push back on those fears, dismissing them as baseless. 

Many likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers have no issue with several of Trump’s recent controversial statements, a new Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll has found — and more often than not, they say the same statements make them more likely to support the former president. 

Holly Rice, a 57-year-old poll respondent from Cumming, said she was backing Trump for his policy agenda, and “I don’t care what he tweets.” 

“It’s a little off the wall, but you know? A lot of them do stuff like that,” Rice said. “At least we know he’s not a polished politician. He reminds me of my father.” 

More:Donald Trump said he'd be a dictator for one day. His supporters say they're not worried.

Likely Republican caucusgoers were asked about eight recent statements Trump has made on the campaign trail, asking if what he said makes them more or less likely to support him in the caucuses or if it doesn’t matter. 

The poll of 502 likely GOP caucusgoers was conducted Dec. 2-7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. 

J. Ann Selzer, the president of Selzer & Co. who conducts the Iowa Poll, said the questions were designed to determine “whether there is any sense that these are problematic for likely caucusgoers.” 

“They don’t seem to be given pause,” Selzer said of likely caucusgoers. “They’re more likely to support because of these utterances.” 

How Republicans responded to Trump on locking up opponents, replacing ACA & more 

For five of the eight statements tested, a plurality of likely caucusgoers say Trump’s words make them more likely to support him in the caucuses. 

Trump’s comment that he is “seriously looking at alternatives to Obamacare” prompts 55% of likely caucusgoers to say they are more likely to support the former president, who for years has floated plans to “repeal and replace” the 2010 health care law.  

Poll respondent Rob Weissenfluh, 60, from Dike said he still remembers the late U.S. Sen. John McCain’s famous thumbs-down in 2017 that halted a Republican-led attempt to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act. He believes lawmakers should again revisit the law. 

“They’ve got to put some competition back into the system,” Weissenfluh said. “A government-run system, it’s going to do nothing but end up like a Canadian or European system. They pretend to give you good health care and you pretend that you don’t want to get sick. So yeah, we need an alternative.” 

Trump’s pledge to authorize “sweeping raids, giant camps and mass deportations” prompts half of respondents to say they are more likely to support him. Trump has laid out aggressive plans to curb illegal immigration under his second term, including sending thousands of U.S. troops to the southern border and reviving a travel ban for several Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East. 

And he has gone even further when speaking about immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally, saying in an interview and at rallies that they are “poisoning the blood” of America. Asked about that statement, 42% of likely GOP caucusgoers say it makes them more likely to support Trump. 

June Koelker, a 71-year-old poll respondent from Monticello, said Trump’s immigration plans made her more likely to back him, but she answered she was "less likely” to support him for his statement about those who enter illegally “poisoning” the country.  

She said there is “nothing wrong” with immigrants who seek entry legally but expressed concern about America’s national security under the Biden administration’s current border policy. 

“The ones who are coming in now, with no children, no wife, no family, dressed fine as wine, we’re handing them money and giving them air traffic anyplace in the country,” Koelker said. “And don’t you wonder — they’re all military age — what they’re here for? Our country is not safe now.” 

Trump’s declaration that he would have to root out “the radical left thugs that live like vermin” in the U.S. prompts 43% of likely Republican caucusgoers to say they are more likely to support him — words that historians said echoed language used by fascist leaders like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. 

And Trump declaring that he is “the only one who will prevent World War III” makes 42% of likely caucusgoers more likely to support him. Trump has pledged to swiftly resolve ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel. 

Rice said Trump is “good at getting people to come to the table,” citing his peace accords with Israel and tariffs on China as examples of negotiations with foreign leaders.  “Maybe he can put it back together again, I don’t know,” Rice said. “You never know. But he’s the most likely one to be able to do that. It’s like negotiating a business deal.”

Just one statement makes a plurality of likely caucusgoers less likely to support Trump: his suggestion that “fraud” in the 2020 election could justify terminating parts of the U.S. Constitution. Forty-seven percent of likely caucusgoers say that makes them less likely to support Trump. 

Trump calling himself “the most pro-life president in American history” effectively elicits a shrug from a plurality of those surveyed, with 41% saying it would not impact their support one way or the other. 

A similar share of likely caucusgoers (43%) say it doesn’t matter that Trump said he would have “no choice” but to lock up his political opponents. 

Haley and DeSantis supporters are far more concerned with Trump’s statements than his own supporters 

Likely Republican caucusgoers whose first choice for president is former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are far more likely than supporters of Trump to take issue with his recent statements. 

Supporters of Haley have the most negative reaction to all eight statements polled compared with Trump and DeSantis supporters. Backers of DeSantis fall between the Trump and Haley supporters on every statement but trend closer to Haley supporters than Trump supporters on their level of concern for all but two statements. 

For example, 71% of Haley supporters say they are less likely to support Trump because of his statement that he would have “no choice” but to lock up his political opponents; 52% of DeSantis supporters say it makes them less likely to support Trump.  

Just 12% of Trump supporters say his consideration of imprisoning political opponents makes them less likely to back the former president. 

Travis Webber, a 43-year-old independent from Creston who is leaning toward supporting Haley, said Trump’s past actions and remarks were “an embarrassment” to the Republican Party. 

“Running a campaign on revenge and retribution is not something I want any part of,” Webber said. 

DeSantis supporters side more closely with Trump supporters than Haley supporters on two issues:  “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act and Trump’s claim to be “the most pro-life president in American history.  

Thirty-one percent of Haley backers say Trump’s pledge to look at Obamacare alternatives makes them less likely to support Trump. Just 7% of DeSantis supporters and 3% of Trump supporters say it would erode their support.  

On Trump’s “most pro-life president” claim, 38% of Haley supporters say it makes them less likely to support Trump, while 20% of DeSantis supporters and 4% of Trump supporters say the same.  

The former president's supporters take little issue with most of his recent statements: Just two resulted in more than 10% of Trump supporters saying the remarks make them less likely to support him.  

Trump having “no choice” but to lock up his opponents resulted in 12% of his supporters saying it makes them less likely to support him; his suggestion that “fraud” in the 2020 election justified terminating parts of the Constitution causes the most concern, with 22% of his supporters saying it makes them less likely to support him. 

 

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/caucus/2...

Trump put out a post on Truth Social of a word cloud of voters ideas of what a Trump second term would involve. The largest words were dictatorship, revenge and power. A picture of the word cloud can be seen at the url below. 

Like millions of Americans, Donald Trump spent Christmas with loved ones, sharing gifts and attending church services on one of his faith tradition’s most important holidays.

No, I’m just kidding. The former president actually spent Christmas publishing a series of hysterical tirades to his social media platform. The Republican also became the first major-party White House hopeful in American history to honor Christmas with a message in which he wrote, in reference to his perceived political foes, “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL.”

A day later, as The Hill reported, he continued to use his online platform in provocative ways.

Former President Trump on Tuesday shared a “word cloud” from a recent poll showing the former president’s political plans to be most associated with the terms “revenge” and “dictatorship.” The word cloud, originally posted Tuesday by Daily Mail to visualize the results of their latest survey, shows voters most frequently described Trump’s political plans for a second White House term with words including “revenge,” “dictatorship,” “power” and “America.”

 

For those unfamiliar with word clouds, the basic idea is that a polling outfit will ask respondents an open-ended question. In this case, it was The Daily Mail, a prominent publication in the U.K., which conducted a poll in which likely voters were asked for one word to describe what Trump would want from a second term.

People weren’t given a list of words to choose from; they simply volunteered answers.

The publication then collected the responses and created an image to reflect the results: The more frequently a word came up, the larger it appeared in the word cloud.

And in this case, many likely voters, when asked about a second Trump term, responded with the word “revenge” most frequently. “Power” and “dictatorship” were also volunteered quite a bit, and “corruption” and “dictator” were among the other common answers.

The front-runner for the GOP nomination apparently wasn’t bothered by any of this. On the contrary, he promoted the word cloud, as if it were worth celebrating.

Or put another way, Trump seemed rather comfortable being associated with words such as “revenge,” “power” and “dictatorship.”

It comes on the heels of the former president repeatedly saying — out loud and in public — that he has ambitions of creating a temporary dictatorship on the first day of his second term in the Oval Office. It also dovetails with recent polling that found many Republican voters embracing Trump’s authoritarian-style rhetoric — including phrasing that echoed Adolf Hitler.

In other words, the presumptive GOP nominee isn’t embarrassed by the aforementioned word cloud, because as far as Trump is concerned, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. The public might expect him to pursue a revenge-driven dictatorship, to which the former president has effectively replied, “Yep, that’s what I’ve been promising to do. I’m glad people have noticed.”

Trump has never bothered with a platform in his previous national campaigns, but it’s increasingly obvious that he has one now. It’s just not the kind of platform Americans have ever seen before in a competitive candidate for national office. 

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/promoting-provocativ...

Trump continued his march to the Republican nomination with a victory in New Hampshire over the sole remaining opponent Nikki Haley. 

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/new-hampshire-primary-01-23-24/in...