Monday, July 22, 2024
antiracismdsa: Mass Deportations _
Friday, July 19, 2024
"What in the Actual F*ck?!" – Rick's Take on the Bizarre RNC
Monday, July 15, 2024
This Week’s Republican Challenge
Friday, July 12, 2024
10 Economic Myths Debunked #7- Socialism
Monday, July 08, 2024
Saturday, July 06, 2024
RS Seminar- Economic Crisis: How to Stop Fascism -Timothy Snyder
Friday, July 05, 2024
The MAGA Assault on Public Education
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Local Congressman Kevin Kiley ( R-California) supports this anti education agenda.
See below.
Project 2025.
Last weekend, Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, which is behind the Project 2025 plan, went on MSNBC to not just defend the policy proposal but to gloat about it and celebrate it.1
During his interview, he said that the goal of Project 2025 was to "institutionalize Trumpism" as the guiding principles for our government.2 Terrifying.
The vast majority of voters do not agree with plans laid out in Project 2025, and when they hear about it, they abandon Trump and the Republicans in droves. The problem is, not enough voters know that it exists. Which is why MoveOn is dedicating our resources to get the truth out to voters.
There are so many awful, bigoted, and authoritarian elements of Project 2025, but let's focus on one that Roberts discussed at length during his interview and that Trump has parroted on the campaign trail: abolishing the Department of Education.3
On MSNBC, Roberts affirmed that Project 2025 calls for firing "more than 50,000" career civil servants and that thousands of those would come from the Education Department when it is shut down.4
What he refused to discuss, however, were the actual consequences of eliminating the department. In short, they would be catastrophic.
The DOE has wide-ranging responsibilities overseeing education in our nation, but its three largest areas of work are providing student loans, managing the Title I program, and implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).5
So what would happen to these programs if the department suddenly disappeared?
Student Loans
Each year, the federal government provides more than $111 billion in federal student aid to nearly 7 million students.6,7 If Project 2025 is implemented, funding for these loans will be cut by at least half and could be eliminated altogether.8
That means 7 million students who are currently able to access higher education because of federal financial aid will be at risk of losing those opportunities. The impacts will be felt entirely by students from poor, working, and middle-class families and will disproportionately affect students of color.
This would radically reshape the future of our country, which is precisely the goal of Project 2025.
Title I
Each year, the Title I program provides nearly $18 billion in supplemental funding to schools and school districts in poor and underserved communities across the country.9 It is one of the most important pieces of education legislation in U.S. history, and it helps to provide equal access to education for all children in America, no matter where they live or how much money they have.10
Cutting funding would mean even less money for teachers, mental health staff, and interventions at Title I schools. It would mean even less money to pay essential educators. It would mean leaving tens of millions of students behind.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
IDEA ensures that more than 6.5 million infants, toddlers, children, and young adults with disabilities have free access to special education and other resources from birth to age 21.11 It was originally passed in 1975 and since then has helped to provide both funding and legal protection against discrimination for hundreds of millions of people with disabilities.12
Without funding for IDEA, there will be no way to hold schools accountable for not providing adequate services to students, programs that millions of people with disabilities rely on will be cut, and millions of families will be left in the lurch.
Let's get one thing straight: It is not an accident that so many of Project 2025's policies harm poor and marginalized communities and people of color.
This program is a surgical attack on those communities, with the goal of making America a white Christian nationalist nation that is run by and serves only the wealthy.
Duane, the policies laid out in Project 2025 are so extreme, so cartoonishly villainous, that voters have a difficult time believing it is even real.
But it is very real.
1. "Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts: Project 2025 framework will carry on for the next 10 years," Media Matters for America, June 24, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/194204?t=7&akid=395211%2E22927824%2EO_CySw
2. Ibid.
3. "Project 2025: The Trump presidency wish list, explained," BBC, June 11, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/194205?t=9&akid=395211%2E22927824%2EO_CySw
4. "Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts: Project 2025 framework will carry on for the next 10 years," Media Matters for America, June 24, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/194204?t=11&akid=395211%2E22927824%2EO_CySw
The Media Pile On
Joe Biden is being treated far worse than Donald Trump by the two institutions critical for deciding the outcome of the 2024 election — the political parties and the media.
The Republican Party has closed ranks around Trump -- despite the fact he’s a convicted felon, twice-impeached conman, sexual abuser, fraudulent businessman, self-described aspiring dictator for a day, pathological liar, and ringleader of an attempted coup against the United States.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is in a panic about Biden. Many party insiders are trying to force Biden out now, at the last minute, because he had a bad debate performance.
Democratic leaders in Congress are telling their members they should “feel free to take whatever position about Biden’s candidacy is best for their district,” according to people involved in the conversations. For some, this means blasting Biden’s debate performance and calling on him to withdraw or suggest he seriously consider it.
The media is just as bad. It has normalized Trump's non-stop lies during the debate as “old news.” Rather than treat those lies as further evidence of his proven dishonesty and criminality — and that another term of him at the helm will ruin the country — the media has focused on Biden’s halting speech and vacant gaze as evidence he’s incapable of running the country.
Almost every member of the chattering class says Biden must go. None says Trump must go.
They say Biden has another — perhaps “last” — chance this evening when he’s interviewed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
But even if Biden is coherent tonight, I doubt it will stop the uproar because the uproar feeds on itself: Some of it may be responsible for Biden’s waning polls. If Biden decides to stay in the race, the tumult will hurt his chances even more.
All of this demonstrates the discipline of authoritarianism and the messiness of democracy. But that’s the nature of these two systems. Authoritarian fascism, such as Trump and his coterie are now peddling, is even more disciplined.
All over the world (except in the UK), voters are choosing discipline over messiness, authoritarianism over democracy.
To restate the obvious, we are living in dangerous times.