50 Years In The Making

We have completed a process (a plan) that begun about 50 years ago by electing Trump as president for the second time.

???  What on Earth are you going on about Professor?

Simple if you study political history….

To meet the challenge, business leaders would have to first recognize the severity of the crisis, and begin marshalling their resources to influence prominent institutions of public opinion and political power — especially the universities, the media and the courts. The memo emphasized the importance of education, values, and movement-building. Corporations had to reshape the political debate, organize speakers’ bureaus and keep television programs under “constant surveillance.” Most importantly, business needed to recognize that political power must be “assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”

Powell emphasized the importance of strengthening institutions like the U.S. Chamber — which represented the interests of the broader business community, and therefore key to creating a united front. While individual corporations could represent their interests more aggressively, the responsibility of conducting an enduring campaign would necessarily fall upon the Chamber and allied foundations. Since business executives had “little stomach for hard-nosed contest with their critics” and “little skill in effective intellectual and philosophical debate,” it was important to create new think tanks, legal foundations, front groups and other organizations. The ability to align such groups into a united front would only come about through “careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and united organizations.”

The Lewis Powell Memo: Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

If you read the article…..does any of that sound any where near familiar?

In 1971 there was a plan and it has been pretty much followed to a tee ever since….

We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50 year plan. Louis Powell laid it out in 1971, and every step along the way Republicans have follow it.

It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America’s richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them.

As any advertising executive can tell you, with enough money and enough advertising — particularly if you are willing to lie — you can sell anybody pretty much anything.

Even a convicted felon, rapist, and friend and agent of America’s enemies.

America was overwhelmed this fall by billions of dollars in often dishonest advertising, made possible by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and it worked. Democrats were massively outspent, not to mention the power of the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” and 1500 hate talk radio stations.

Open the lens a bit larger, and we find that it goes way beyond just this election; virtually every crisis America is facing right now is either caused or exacerbated by the corruption of big money authorized by five corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court.

They are responsible for our crises of gun violence, the drug epidemic, homelessness, political gridlock, our slow response to the climate emergency, a looming crisis for Social Security and Medicare, the situation on our southern border, even the lack of affordable drugs, insurance, and healthcare.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-oligarchy-wins

The plan is almost complete just a few more cogs to work out.

After that half century we have Trump and his minions of doom…..

The American people want Donald Trump. And now they will get him. He will bring with him a horde of cranks, frauds, religious zealots, gutter racists, and vindictive thugs unprecedented in modern American history. The Nixon White House will look like a zen temple compared to what is coming. Trump’s second term will be a wave of pure malevolence. There will be revenge against his enemies, and there will be assaults on innocent and vulnerable Americans of the sort that our government usually reserves only for people overseas. Fringe lunatics will dictate health policy; Crypto grifters will dictate economic policy; Christian evangelicals will dictate Middle East policy; Flinty corporate lawyers will dictate labor policy; and the mighty American federal government will be run with all the propriety of a late night infomercial selling miracle cures to insomniacs. The cure will be branded ​TRUMP,” in large golden letters. It won’t work. There will be no refunds.

(Hamilton Nolan)

You see the GOP has been planning this very thing for 50 years and anyone who voted for the GOP in those 50 years has contributed to the situation that many bitch about today.

But let us take a closer look at what that memo brought forth…..Project 2025….

But just how influential are their recommendations? According to The Heritage Foundation, during the first year of Trump’s first term, he “embraced” nearly two-thirds of their policy mandates. The website states that “64 percent of the policy prescriptions were included in Trump’s budget, implemented through regulatory guidance, or under consideration for action.” These included leaving the Paris Climate Accords, increasing off-shore drilling and military spending, and repealing net neutrality.

It remains to be seen just how much of Project 2025 will be enacted once Trump takes office, but there’s no doubt that everything from LGBTQ+ and abortion rights to immigration and climate justice are at risk. Below, what Project 2025 lays out for several top issues.

Read On….

https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/project-2025/

Now you have a small idea of what you will get by putting your vote into ignorance.

If you did vote GOP at any point you can bitch but you see you helped make Trump’s assault on democracy possible by buying into this plan.

I hope you are happy…..and have a merry christmas.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump On Education

The continuing series on what we Americans can expect from our new president……

Trump is NO friend to education but does that mean that it will become an elective for life?

Donald Trump will be serving a second presidential term, and with both chambers of Congress likely under Republican leadership—though the House is still to be decided— the future of education in the U.S. could starkly change. 

Trump has pledged to dismantle the Department of Education, cut federal funding for schools teaching critical race theory, and bar transgender female athletes from participating in school sports.

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver,” Trump-Vance Transition Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told TIME in a statement. 

Trump’s transition team did not respond to specific questions regarding which of his policies will take priority come January. 

Here’s what to know.

Dismantling the Department of Education

On the campaign trail, the President-elect vowed to eliminate the Department of Education, which has been a cabinet-level agency since 1980. The Department takes on numerous functions: designating federal aid through Title I, which gives state and local funding for schools serving low-income families, handing out Pell Grants, and regulating student loan relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program or income-based repayment plans. 

There more….please read on….

https://time.com/7174651/what-trump-winning-means-for-education/

With that said a closer look at the possibility with the elimination of the Dept of Ed…..the link below is from a conserv paper….

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to cut the Department of Education and move its responsibilities back “to the states.” The change would be an unprecedented move as no Cabinet department has ever been dissolved without being reorganized in some way.

The Washington Examiner spoke to three leading education policy experts, who explained how cutting the Education Department would work, if it is realistic, and what the effects would be.

“I think it’d be fine,” Frederick M. Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies for American Enterprise Institute said. “The Department of Education is extraordinarily bureaucratic. It creates extraordinary amounts of red tape for the nation’s schools, especially relative to the money it actually provides.”

Hess said that under the Obama and Biden administrations, the department became “a political entity frequently engaged in promoting particular ideological nostrums” which he called “massively problematic.” He added that the two Democratic presidents “make the best possible case for abolishing the department. So, yeah, I think downsizing the department, or even abolishing it, is certainly wholly sensible.”

How Trump’s promise to abolish the Department of Education would work

In my opinion every word of that report is bullshit!

Then there is a view from the other side of the political spectrum….

The consequences of President-elect Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to abolish the Department of Education could be widespread, CNN reports.

“I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” Trump said during a September rally in Wisconsin.

“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” he added.

The establishment of the Department of Education as a Cabinent-level agency goes back to 1979 when former President Jimmy Carter signed it into legislation. Before Carter, federal education programs were housed in other agencies. It’s unclear how Trump would handle shutting the department down, but the move would have reverberating effects on K-12 schools and higher education.

One of the Department of Education’s biggest tasks is administering federal funding to K-12 and managing the federal student loan and financial aid programs. Funding programs under the federal agency for K-12 schools include the Title I program, an aid to low-income families, and the IDEA program, which helps provide money to meet the needs of children with disabilities. Programs like these could be in danger with the abolishment of the Department of Education.

The agency also doles out roughly $30 billion annually to low-income college students through the Pell grant program and manages about $1.6 trillion of student loans.

https://www.binnews.com/content/2024-11-12-heres-what-could-happen-if-trump-shuts-down-department-of-education/

My feeling is that education is a vital part of life and any attempt to eliminate or lessen its impact is a disaster waiting to happen.
Will Trump make good on his promise to eliminate the Department of Education or will he decide on something less?

Texas is trying a template for the rest of the nation on education…..

A new Texas public school curriculum criticized for focusing too much on Christianity passed a preliminary Texas State Board of Education vote on Tuesday. A measure to reject the state-produced Bluebonnet Learning curriculum was defeated in an 8-7 vote, with three Republicans siding with the board’s four Democrats, the New York Times reports. It is up to schools whether they adopt the curriculum—but those who do so can get an extra $40 per student per year. A final vote on the curriculum is expected Friday.

  • The K-5 curriculum incorporates lessons from the Bible as early as kindergarten, with a “Golden Rule” kindergarten lesson focusing heavily on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and making only brief mentions of other religions. A first grade “Sharing Stories” unit includes the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the New Testament, reports CNN. Critics say the Christian stories and ideas are presented without being introduced as religious beliefs.
  • In a press release days before the vote, Texas AFT, one of the state’s largest teachers’ unions, said it “believes that not only do these materials violate the separation of church and state and the academic freedom of our classroom, but also the sanctity of the teaching profession.
  • Critics say the curriculum has other problems, including the downplaying of the role of racism and slavery in American history, the San Antonio Express-News reports. A kindergarten lesson instructs teachers to tell children that Founding Fathers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson “realized that slavery was wrong and founded the country so that Americans could be free,” ignoring the fact that both men were slaveowners, reports the Texas Tribune.
  • Supporters say the Bible plays a big part in American history, the Times reports. The curriculum will “allow our students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the US Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.
  • “Of course, the Bible is an important part of history and American society. And of course, students should learn about the Bible as literature and history in the context of a secular curriculum,” Charles Haynes, a senior fellow for religious liberty at the Freedom Forum, tells CNN. “But inserting faith-based lessons into public school classrooms, which sounds like what is intended here, is not the study of history or literature. It is religious indoctrination.”
  • The Times notes that as conservative Christians push to expand the role of religion in public schools, similar lessons may be adopted by other states, and the Texas curriculum “may also offer a playbook for the White House” after Donald Trump returns to the presidency.

Forced indoctrination.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”