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Video: Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08) Says “We may not be too far” from “Civil Disobedience, a la Nelson Mandela or Gandhi”

By
lowkell
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2

See below for video of Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08)’s virtual townhall with the Del Ray Citizens Association in Alexandria. A few of Rep. Beyer’s comments jumped out at me, including:

“We’re actually trying to think what it is can we do that actually DOES something, that changes the outcome. Some of my friends from the Civil Rights Movement have suggested…moving to Civil Disobedience, a la Nelson Mandela or Gandhi or the like. And we we may not be too far from that. But in the meantime, there’s lots and lots of lawsuits, there’s enormous numbers of press conferences. One of the things we lack…is…that single voice equivalent to a president who can have the press conference at nine o’clock every morning and tell you everything good that’s happening, tell you everything bad that’s happening, ask what you can do that day. And I’m very much hoping that that person – whether it’s Hakeem Jeffries or Pete Buttigieg or whoever emerges soon to be the the person who’s carrying that message of the urgency and everything that we’re doing. But I promise you, none of us are sleeping much; we we feel the fear and the anxiety and the need to do something meaningful. In the meantime, we we’re getting back to Michelle Obama – just do something.”

And a bit of a pep talk at the end:

“Hang in there…at bottom, all life asks of us is that we live it with courage. These are hard times, but our parents and grandparents had World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Great Recession, 9/11. We’ve been through a lot of really bad stuff over the years and we’re still here and we’re 249 years old. I deeply believe we will get through this too…And I really do deeply believe that most Americans are good people who want to do the right thing and love their country. And to the extent that what this Administration does is bad for our country, there will be payback.”

Let’s hope Rep. Beyer’s right, but right now things are looking very dark for those of us who aren’t, as Beyer describes himself, ” a born optimist.”

Four Years After Glenn Youngkin Promised to “Restore Excellence in Education,” New Scorecard Finds “Virginia Ranked 51st in Math Recovery Between 2019 and 2024,” “41st in Reading Recovery Between 2019 and 2024”

By
lowkell
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5

Four years ago, Glenn Youngkin was busy running for governor on a thoroughly dishonest platform, pretty much on every single issue, including education, where he falsely attacked Democrats for a variety of things that were either false, distorted or fear mongering/demagoguery garbage. For instance, remember the racist panic over “CRT,” which wasn’t even being taught in Virginia K-12 schools (hell, 99%+ of voters had never even heard of it before Youngkin and the right-wing noise machine decided to make it an issue for the 2021 campaign, never to be heard about again)? Or how about Youngkin’s bogus claims that Democrats (supposedly) maliciously shut down public schools during COVID (and/or made kids wear masks), as opposed to doing so – along with most states, red or blue – as a deadly pandemic raged? Or how about Youngkin falsely claiming that Democrats lowered educational standards and that he, in contrast, would “restore excellence in education.” On all fronts, of course, Youngkin was (and still is) a L-I-A-R.

Then there was Youngkin’s far-right running mate, Winsome Sears, making WILDLY false claims about Virginia public schools, such as that supposedly “84% of Black kids are failing 70% of Latino kids are failing.” As then-VA Education Secretary Atif Qarni responded, “I don’t know what data points she’s talking about…what is she using…she just made up some numbers…she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Sears also falsely claimed, “they were teaching pretty much that there is white guilt and, uh, white privilege, that…white folks are racist the minute you see them” and “We don’t have time to teach reading writing and racism we need reading writing and arithmetic our kids are failing let’s focus on that.” Again, total bulls*** – false, wrong, inaccurate, distorted, etc.

Anyway, so now that Youngkin/Sears have been in charge since January 2022 – over three years – have they “restored excellence in education?” (of course, NOT counting insane stuff like Stasi-style “snitch lines,” etc.) According to the newly released Education Recovery Scorecard, uhhhh….not really! Here are some highlights from the Scorecard on Virginia, specifically, followed by the full press release on Virginia:

  • “Virginia Ranked 41st in Reading Recovery Between 2019 and 2024″
  • “Virginia Ranked 51st in Math Recovery Between 2019 and 2024; 46th in Math Improvement Between 2022 and 2024″
  • “Average student achievement in Virginia remains almost a full grade level below 2019 levels in math and three quarters of a grade level below in reading.”
  • “Mean achievement for students in Richmond City Public, Portsmouth City Public, Alexandria City Public, and Stafford Public, remains more than a full grade equivalent below 2019 reading levels.”
  • “Virginia received $3.3 billion in federal pandemic relief for K-12 schools—or roughly $2,500 per student (which is less than the national average of $3,700 per student.) Nationally, our analysis suggests that the dollars did contribute to the academic recovery, especially when targeted at academic catch-up efforts such as summer learning and tutoring.”

By the way, just a reminder that you should *never* believe claims made by MAGA/Republican politicians, certainly not about education, because they are almost always totally or partly false, distorted, cherry picked, demagogic, racist, homophobic or some combination of all of those things. Not that the “mainstream media” will ever let you know that!

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Virginia Ranked 41st in Reading Recovery Between 2019 and 2024

Virginia Ranked 51st in Math Recovery Between 2019 and 2024; 46th in Math Improvement Between 2022 and 2024

Average student achievement in Virginia remains almost a full grade level below 2019 levels in math and three quarters of a grade level below in reading.

Mean achievement for students in Richmond City Public, Portsmouth City Public, Alexandria City Public, and Stafford Public, remains more than a full grade equivalent below 2019 reading levels.

(February 11, 2025) In its third year of reporting on the pace of academic recovery measures in districts nationwide, the Education Recovery Scorecard (a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University) is issuing its annual report on district-level student growth in math and reading.

The latest report also provides the first high resolution picture of where Virginia students’ academic recovery stood in Spring 2024, just before federal relief dollars expired in September. While the National Assessment of Educational Progress described changes in average achievement by state, we combine those scores with district scores on state assessments to describe the change in local communities throughout Virginia. Here’s what we found:

  • Virginia was 45th among states (including the District of Columbia) in terms of the size of the 2019-2022 change in math achievement, and 46th in terms of improvement between 2022 and 2024. As a result, Virginia ranked 51st among states in terms of math recovery. As discussed in our previous report, Virginia experienced some of the nation’s biggest drops in reading and math scores from 2019-2022, and therefore has further academic ground to recover than other states.
  • Similar to math, Virginia was 46th in the country in terms of the 2019-2022 change in reading. However, Virginia was 14th in the country in terms of its improvement in reading between 2022 -2024. In the end, Virginia was 41st among states in terms of reading recovery between 2019-2024.
  • Average student achievement in Virginia remains almost a full grade level below 2019 levels in math (.92 grade equivalents) and three quarters of a grade level below in reading (.72 grade equivalents). In other words, the loss in math achievement in Virginia is equivalent to 92 percent of the progress students typically make annually between grades 4 through grade 8.
  • Mean achievement for students in Richmond City Public, Portsmouth City Public, Alexandria City Public, and Stafford Public, remains more than a full grade equivalent below 2019 levels in reading.
  • The post-pandemic chronic absence rate in Virginia (19 percent in 2023) was below the national average of 26 percent in that year.
  • Virginia received $3.3 billion in federal pandemic relief for K-12 schools—or roughly $2,500 per student (which is less than the national average of $3,700 per student.) Nationally, our analysis suggests that the dollars did contribute to the academic recovery, especially when targeted at academic catch-up efforts such as summer learning and tutoring.

The federal pandemic relief dollars may be gone, but the pandemic’s impact lingers in many Virginia schools.  Even without federal relief dollars, states could be targeting continuing federal Title I dollars and state dollars to implement interventions which have been shown effective, such as tutoring and summer learning.  State leaders, mayors, employers and other community leaders should join schools to redouble efforts on the shared challenge of reducing student absenteeism.

One of the project leaders, Professor Tom Kane from Harvard, said: “Unless state and local leaders step up now, the achievement losses will be the longest lasting– and most inequitable– legacy of the pandemic.”

For the national press release and findings click here.

About the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University 

The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, seeks to transform education through quality research and evidence. CEPR and its partners believe all students will learn and thrive when education leaders make decisions using facts and findings, rather than untested assumptions. Learn more at cepr.harvard.edu.

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UPDATED: Also, see below for an excellent thread by State Sen. Schuyler VanValkenberg, a public school teacher who knows a GAZILLION times more (and cares a GAZILLION times more) about public education than MAGA Glenn Youngkin.

Winsome Earle-Sears Reiterates Her Support for Trump’s Attacks on Virginia Jobs

By
lowkell
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4

Check out the following press release from the Democratic Party of Virginia on the latest evidence for why Winsome Earle-Sears should NEVER be governor of Virginia – these comments should be completely disqualifying. Also note that almost everything Earle-Sears said in this article is FALSE (although the paper just lets the lies slide – FAIL!), such as:

  • “’I am glad that President Trump is getting to the bottom of all of this,’ Earle-Sears said of the president’s efforts to uncover waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.” (What “DOGE” is doing has NOTHING to do with “uncover[ing] waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government,” it’s actually about DESTROYING the federal government!)
  • “Earle-Sears said it is important for the federal government and DOGE to research how every tax dollar is spent.” (Again, that is NOT what “DOGE” is doing, and the newspaper should point that out to its readers!)
  • “Earle-Sears touted the Virginia economy under her boss, current Gov. Glenn Youngkin.” (This is ridiculous/false; in fact, Youngkin has had *nothing* to do with the recovery of the US economy the past few years, and essentially nothing to do with the fact that Virginia – along with the rest of the country – rebounded from the COVID pandemic, etc.)

With that, here’s the DPVA’s press release.

NEW: Winsome Earle-Sears Reiterates Her Support for Trump’s Attacks on Virginia Jobs
Sears: “I am Glad The President Is Getting To The Bottom of All This”

New reporting from the Fredericksburg Free Press details Winsome Earle-Sears backing Donald Trump’s efforts that have put nearly 145,000 Virginians at risk of losing their jobs, saying Virginians worried about layoffs will be “all right.” This comes after Sears defended — and doubled down on — her support for Trump’s threats to Virginia’s workforce and economy.

Fredericksburg Free Press: Earle-Sears: Virginians will be ‘all right’ despite federal workforce purge

  • [Sears] offered her thoughts on the purge of federal workers currently taking place under the leadership of President Donald Trump.
  • “I am glad that President Trump is getting to the bottom of all of this,” […]
  • In a brief interview with the Free Press after her speech, Earle-Sears made it clear that she supports the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the advisory agency headed by billionaire Elon Musk under the president’s direction.  
  • More than 144,000 federal workers live in Virginia, and the House of Delegates recently formed a bipartisan committee, that includes Del. Joshua Cole (D-Fredericksburg), to study the effects of federal budget cuts on the Virginia economy. The bulk of the federal workforce in the state lives in Northern Virginia, the region that accounts for approximately 40% of the state’s revenue.
  • Fired federal workers, she said, should apply for private sector jobs in the Commonwealth.

Tuesday News: “A spurious U.S. ‘realism’ about Ukraine flirts with catastrophe”; “No Kings Day: Protesters Denounce Trump and Musk”; “We Hold America’s Fate in Our Hands”; “DOGE Seeking Your Taxpayer Data!”; WaPo Refuses to Run Anti-Musk Ad

By
lowkell
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18

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, February 18. As the brilliant David Rothkopf says, “By any measure, the first few weeks of this new administration has been far more harrowing and destructive than we could possibly have imagined.” Unfortunately, “thus far we have not seen US demonstrations equivalent to those we’ve seen in Israel or Georgia or Germany. We have not seen Democrats effectively block GOP initiatives. We have not seen moderate Republicans—if any remain—stand up to block senior level administration appointments that pose a profound risk to us all regardless of political party.” And the bottom line is “the answer to whether they will succeed on their destructive dangerous mission does not lie with them. It lies with us. It lies with people within our capitol city and within our government but also in cities and towns across America. It lies with you and with me.”

Video: In Munich, Sen. Mark Warner Says His Telephone Townhall with Sen. Tim Kaine Had 71k Listeners (vs. 3k-5k Normally), Highlighting How Trump/DOGE Are Creating “Huge Concern” Among Virginians

By
lowkell
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4

Yesterday, Politico posted video of Sen. Mark Warner responding to one of their questions, posed to him at the Munich Security Conference. In that response, Sen. Warner riffed on Democrats’ tarnished “brand”; “ideological purity” and “over-the-top ‘wokeism’” being a “recipe for disaster,” splintered media, the importance of culture, etc. Those comments resulted in a LOT of responses, but actually they were only a very small part of the interview, which covered a wide range of important topics. Now,  fortunately, Politico has posted video of Sen. Warner’s full interview (which they really should have done in the first place). See below for that, as well as a transcript and highlights (in bold). Enjoy?

  • “I think [Ukrainian] President Zelenskyy made a strong case for us to continue to stand with Ukraine, what’s at stake not just for Ukraine but for Europe and for that matter the world. And my hope is that as one of the folks who’ve been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine, I wish we’ve been able to get the last aid package six months earlier, but I still think the Ukrainians while outnumbered on the front, particularly the drone activity recently,  I hope he’s starting to shift a little bit of the battlefront tactics.”
  • “I don’t think the vice president spoke for the majority of Americans. I don’t think he spoke obviously for the majority of Democrats. I don’t even think he spoke for the majority of Republicans in terms of how he views the alliance with Europe, how critical it is to America’s long-term security. And if everything becomes simply a transaction tactic, then the kind of 70 plus years of alliance that we’ve had won’t stand the test of time. And I was disappointed by the tone. As somebody, it was our committee – the intelligence committee – that did the deepest dive into the Russian intervention in the 2016 elections, it was completely bipartisan, for him to also kind of underestimate the power of misinformation and disinformation candidly shows that I’m not sure he’s read much history, the ability of particularly Russia in previous engagements to overthrow regimes based upon misinformation, disinformation campaigns. That is real and it can be now done at speed and scale with AI tools that make the threat even greater.”
  • “I think if suddenly he or the Secretary of Defense are starting to take negotiating items off the table, how is that anything but positive for Russia? Now, of course, that follows on some of the activities of the DOGE group that again have been celebrated by Russia, by China, by Iran, as you start to see for example 70 years of American soft power through USAID and other institutions frankly try to be almost erased or disappeared in what literally are the first 3 weeks of this Administration. And again, that’s great news for a China or a Russia that can come in and very quickly supplement where America has provided humanitarian or medical aid in countries are terribly important. And there’s not a single person, current or particularly some of our retired military, that don’t strongly stand up for the soft power that foreign aid represents.
  • “Well first of all we don’t know yet…the Democrats on the intelligence committee have written to try to say all right who are these DOGE folks, what level of clearance do they have? We’ve already seen release of classified information in terms of the National Reconnaissance Organization, NRO, release of the the number of employees; that may have just been ignorance for that individual not to realize that that’s classified. Or the kind of mistake made on sending names of CIA agents…that’s crazy. I mean it shows a complete lack of understanding of how long it takes to get a clearance and how long it takes to train someone to be that careless. And we don’t know the security level clearances of the the DOGE folks. I do think our committee’s always been bipartisan, Senator Cotton who’s the chair now, I was chair until recently, the vice chair, we’re going to I believe jointly try to get these answers. But I have huge security concerns when you have 22 year olds who may not even appreciate the value of the information they have being so careless. For example, the one individual who was over at Treasury who was 25 and then got fired for a while because of racist comments and then got rehired, this individual in effect having visibility into America’s checkbook, it’s no secret to say that America or any other nation-state sometimes does covert actions through another entity. You send out that kind of information and you could destroy operations that literally have taken years to build.”
  •  “Let’s put it like this, we are a very bipartisan committee that’s always hung together…I raised concerns about the new DNI, I now hope that she’s going to be successful, but I think there are a number of folks who’ve got concerns. And it’s going to be interesting to see when and where this breaks. It may not break at the Congressional level first. You know Virginia is home for a lot of federal employees; we’ve got about 150,000, we have lots of government contractors. We are seeing for example on the so-called government freeze that supposedly has been unfrozen, yet we have community health centers around rural Virginia that are shutting down because they didn’t get their funds, we have Head Start programs stopping. And my belief is this may start to bubble from the ground up, where local Republican elected officials will be the first to break, as we’ve got projects in Virginia we’ve been working for years, on economic development, that suddenly the money that will make the projects up for grabs. So I think it may start at the local level and move to the state level and then hopefully percolate to the federal level. But of an evidence of how significant this is, and we go back to Russell Vought, who’s the head new head of OMB who made his claim and he’s been quite successful that he wanted to traumatize the federal workforce. But to give you an example of that trauma, you know Senators oftentimes do what’s called tele-town halls where you have a firm call out the random numbers and you say, pick up and Senator Warner will be on the line for an hour. You usually get about 3 to 5,000 people on one of those calls. Tim Kaine and I did one the other day – we had 71,000 people…one out of every 10 voters in Virginia and the thing was 60,000 of them stayed on for the whole hour. So this is causing huge concern. And you know the unfortunate thing is even as a senior senator I didn’t have full answers for a lot of their questions.”
  • “Remember, whether it’s Five Eyes or our other alliances on the intel side, there’s no document that says we’re going to share this information, you share that information.  I mean I think America’s intelligence community is the best, but we get about 50% of our intelligence from our allies. And that exchange of information is totally based on trust. And if that trust is burned, then that information is not going to be shared…at this point I think everybody and some of our intelligence partners that I’ve met with here in Munich I think they’re in a wait-and-see mode. I think they want to work with the administration. They hope that the norms about protecting classified information will be maintained. They hope that if they share some of the most important information they collect or intelligence they collect it will be protected. But I think there is a understandable wariness. I’m thinking folks are all hoping for the best...intelligence sharing is a two-way street, many of the allies don’t want to lose the intelligence they obviously get from America. But these are the kind of relationships that, once burned, takes a long time to recover. And…God forbid that happens, it will make the United States less secure if we have less of that sharing.”
  • “It’s crazy, I mean it’ll be interested to see if you can actually document any savings, but the notional idea that you’re going to offer a buyout to a CIA field operative or a buyout to an NSA code breaker and replace him with a 22-year-old coder the way you might be able to replace somebody at a company in the valley shows a complete lack of understanding of what the intelligence community does, how long it takes for people to get this expertise. And it is NOT interchangeable. So I think there is still…the leadership at some…of the agencies I know have been quickly trying to include more people in their excluded category, but to me from the outside and seeing this it seems like it’s chaotic.”
  • “On DOGE, I think there’s, as somebody who was a business guy before I was in politics, the idea of a DOGE made a lot of sense to me. You know, there are lots of ways you could bring more efficiency – I mean, defense contracting, cutting back, making loser pays when you do contract resolution, trying to have more fixed-price contracts. That kind of actually where you could bring efficiency, bring innovation  – that was what I thought we were going to get instead of a sledgehammer coming at the workforce with people that have virtually no knowledge of even the functions of the agencies they’re going after. And then the backtracking we saw over at Department of Energy when they said, oops, maybe shouldn’t fire all the people that take control of our nuclear materials. That kind of lack of knowledge and kind of irresponsible approach, I think it’s making people scratch their head, obviously making Americans scratch their head, it’s making I think our European friends scratch their heads. It’s one of the reasons why with some of my Republican colleagues as we were coming over, we thought – and this was before the vice president’s speech – that this was the most important Munich conference we’d have to come to, to try to say you know regardless of what may be coming out of the White House we’re not walking away from NATO, we’re not walking away from the alliance with Europe, we’re not walking away from our trading partnerships…It depends on which Americans you’re talking about…I’m not sure, and I can’t say that I’ve heard every one of my Congressional colleagues, but I don’t think any of them have echoed the vice president’s comments. Now, again, there may be self- selection if you come on this trip you’re more pro-NATO, pro-Europe, but I’ve have yet to hear anyone you know echo that kind of and also I believe a most naive dismissal of the power of misinformation and disinformation, particularly at scale with technology tools.”
  • “It’s hard to believe, but we’re not even a month into this new Administration; in dog years it feels like it’s been about 20 years. But I think, as in any new Administration, there’s going to be competition. I think folks like Mike Waltz and others who kind of have a more traditional view of of these relationships, I think time will tell who wins out. But I’m not sure…everybody sometimes describes President Trump as crazy like a fox or something. But with the vice president’s comments, the Secretary of Defense’s comments and how they then get backtracked back and forth, it feels if this is strategy, it’s at a level much higher than my ability to compute, it seems to me a lot more just kind of ad hoc throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what what might stick.”
  • “I think the first week or so, Democrats were reeling. I think since that time, both in terms of virtual unanimity, and…listen, I voted for many of President Trump’s nominees first term, I worked closely with particularly Secretary Mnuchin, that first week or so I voted for a lot of Trump’s nominees, the ones that I thought were were kind of in the mainstream. I think that has changed. I think you’re seeing you know a lot of redress to the courts and the courts so far have stood up for rule of law. I think the brave US attorney in New York standing up against the kind of outrageous attempted pardon of the mayor. I think you’re also starting to see Americans rise up; there was not the kind of resistance movement that happened after the first Trump effort, but I think it’s now, you know the level of voices rising, the amount of kind of output that we’re trying to put out has dramatically increased.”
  • “Let’s see where [Trump’s approval rating] is in two weeks. Let’s see where that is, as some of these effects of community health centers shutting down or thousands of your neighbors being put out of work that happen to work for the government. And because the government is not just in Washington DC. And one of things that I’m not sure my European friends know is the size of the federal workforce in America in 2025 is about the size it was in 1970; it’s not grown with this massive bureaucracy. And when people will start saying your food inspector is being fired, your park ranger is being fired, that’s where I think people will start to feel these effects. But there is at the Congressional level, there are effects when you lose and when you’ve got a trifecta, the other party having all three both houses of Congress and the presidency. And with some of the rule changes, is one of the reasons why you know 10 years ago when we got rid of the filibuster on nominees and moved it to a 50-vote majority, I thought that was going back and bite us, it obviously has.”
  • “I think you’ve got to find, you know Donald Trump is president of the United States, I want him to succeed because I want America to succeed. But that does not mean you give him a pass on irresponsible actions around national security. That doesn’t mean you turn a blind eye when I believe you’re taking illegal actions. I mean the crazy buyout...what is the initial sign of any scammer call right away? Offer expires at midnight! Well that was the approach was taken on the buyouts. There is no money for these buyouts; the federal government in United States runs out on March 14th. I fear these people are going to be left not only without a job but probably without the promise of eight months pay. And where we on those kind of actions, we will fight to every level. But I am not going to go into the sense of you know there are things that we can help make sure America stays strong, particularly in terms of the authoritarian threats. I’m not going to resist on those efforts.”
  • “I don’t agree with Bibi on a lot of things, but he’s a very skilled politician. And for him to try to say, well, maybe there’s merits of good ideas [regarding Trump’s Gaza plan], I think everybody was pretty surprised…How’s that for the understatement of the day?...some of his willingness to constantly move his government to the right, I don’t see any path that has displacement of 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. I also continue to be amazed with all of the challenges and some of the internal corruption within the the Palestinian Authority. I’m still amazed that the Palestinian Authority security forces still keep showing up for work each day on the West Bank. And I continue to fear that if someday they all decide we’re not going to work, you could have what would make previous intifadas look like nothing compared to the potential for violence on the West Bank. And that kind of, whether it’s Gaza or the West Bank, precludes the ability to go ahead and finally negotiate a treaty between Saudi Arabia and Israel, it diminishes the ability to have the Sunni nations in the region along with Israel, along with America, along with Europe have a more of a united front against Iran. And I think that’s frankly to Israel’s long-term detriment.”
  • “What about my job?…whichever the outrage happens and…how you temper your reaction to things, how you realize this is the kind of classic cliche that it’s a marathon not a sprint, how you reassure people? You can’t have the volume at all the way…on DEFCON 5 on every item. I think that’s what President Trump is doing it by flooding the zone.”
  • “First of all…I expected at the beginning of Trump a flood, I didn’t expect a tsunami. And I think after…that first week…we had the initial EOs, they were all kind of in the the range of what was expected. You know, the DOGE crowd of young folks without clearances getting access to information just so goes against the grain of everything I’ve learned in the national security community for the last 12 to 14 years, it’s just stunning to me. The fact that you could see the 70 years of soft power, and… like in any entity there are bad programs, but the idea that you’re going to erase USAID and all the good it does? I mean I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year on Sudan where more people die every day than Gaza and Ukraine combined. We spent most of last year trying to open up humanitarian channels to Sudan and candidly there’s no good guys in Sudan, the RSF and the SAF…The fact that we have American medicine rotting because we can’t pay the AID workers to distribute to the population. And the fact that China can come right behind and for pennies on the dollar play a much more major role, that in my mind is a DEFCON 5 even though it may not be to the most of the American public. So the long-term loss that we have in some of these nations is irreplaceable.”
  • “One, do I think there’ll be Democratic votes on the Republican reconciliation plans that are out there? No! We’ve not been invited in. You know, the one thing about this process you can see in American politics, whether it was the Trump tax bill, whether it was Obamacare when you pass something with only one party, that means all you’re going to do is relitigate it at some later time. You know there is a value in bipartisan, not because the ideas are better, but because both parties then own the good and the bad of the program. And when they’re talking about literally trillions of cuts and frankly where all the benefits are going to go to those at the top. And I’m a capitalist, pro-business Democrat, when all the benefits of these tax cuts are going to go to the top, that’s not fair or right. And…I remember 15 years ago I had my first gang, was around the Simpson Bowles plan when I thought, oh my God, America’s going to go hell in a hand basket because we were approaching 17 trillion in debt and how we were going to raise revenues and cut back on spending. We were horribly unsuccessful obviously, we got called debt Cassandras. Now debt’s at 37 trillion, annual debt payments exceed the defense budget, and with this four to five to 7 trillion that you can see coming out of the reconciliation plan this is going to bite us, this is again an attack on our national security.”
  • “I have not ever lived through a presidential election that had less to do with issues. I don’t think getting rid of tax on tips was something that drove the whole election, but that may have been the only new idea that came frankly from either candidate. I think the Democrats’ brand is really bad. And I think this was an election based on culture. And the Democrats’ kind of failure to connect on a cultural basis with a wide swath of Americans is hugely problematic…When I first ran for governor 25 years ago in Virginia, I had a bluegrass band, I sponsored a NASCAR truck, I had Sportsman for Warner. I didn’t change who I was, but I said I appreciate the culture and I don’t think until you have a cultural connection there’re ever going to people are going to listen to you on your issues…”
  • “I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster, and that candidly the attack on over-the-top ‘wokeism’ was a valid attack. The irony of course is – and this sounds like a a whining Democrat, which maybe I am – is that Democrats do some stupid things in 2019 and occasionally one person says one thing that sticks forever; President Trump can say virtually anything and it’s forgotten within the same 24-hour news period. So that is a whine and a complaint but it’s the reality!…Be crazy all the time?…But I do think acknowledging the over ‘wokeism’. I don’t think the kind of notion that some in my party say of, well, we just got to turn out more people. You know, I think they did turn out more people and folks that we thought were going to go for Democrats aren’t. I think a lot of that goes back to culture; until you can make a cultural connection, I’m not sure people are going to listen to you on issues. And particularly as we now live in a world where the number of people who watch a Politico or read a newspaper or do the normal means of communication or the old traditional means of communication is less than 50%. And… Trump was brilliant at, Trump was so ahead of his time on sorting that out with a huge reinforcing network of supporters, of followers – that’s extraordinary and the Democrats have got a lot to learn  from that.”

The Heroic Groups Leading the Lawsuits Against the Musk Coup

By
kindler
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By Kindler

In basketball, it’s smart to pass the ball to whichever player happens to have the hot hand, making all their shots for the moment. Politics is not any different. And the hottest hands right now belong to the non-profit groups leading the lawsuits against the brutal assault on American government led by the richest a**hole in the world. Considering the speed with which the MAGA thugs are taking their wrecking ball to key institutions, restraining orders and other legal actions to halt (and hopefully reverse) this destruction are absolutely essential.

These groups need your support – to state the obvious, lawsuits are expensive! Here’s my initial list of such groups, but please let me know of any which I may have inadvertently left out:

– Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) was a major opponent of Trump’s last stab at dictatorship and they have wasted no time jumping back into the fray. Per Just Security’s Litigation Tracker – an essential resource I encourage you to bookmark – CREW is one of the groups suing the administration to stop its effort to gut the civil service by turning thousands of public workers into political appointees easy to fire. CREW is also tracking the hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump family is making through corruption as he even more blatantly uses the presidency as a profit center than he did last time around. They’re an essential follow, worthy of support.

– Democracy Forward is another key player, partnering with CREW on the case mentioned above as well as representing unjustly terminated federal employees in the crucial case to stop the incredible damage Trump and Musk are doing by ending the careers of thousands of needed public servants nationwide. Democracy Forward is also leading the cases to save the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and US Agency for International Development (USAID). They are devoted to the work of fighting to preserve American democracy nationwide.

– Public Citizen is working with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to sue the administration over the existence of the mysterious, lawless, undefined blob named “DOGE” which does not fit any of the categories of a legal governmental organization – not following the rules of an agency, an advisory committee, or anything recognizable. A truly important case to put a leash on this wild DOGE.

– Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is focused on the presently endangered federal employees who work on environmental issues. It is the plaintiff in the case mentioned above to prevent civil servants from being stripped of their legal protections to not be fired from their jobs without due process and just cause.

– American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the best known of all of these groups, is leading the way on lawsuits to protect the rights of targeted groups including people legally granted “birthright citizenship” per the 14th Amendment, legal asylum seekers and LGBTQ Americans denied the right to use their chosen gender designation on their passport.

Bottom line – we are not powerless, but we cannot waste any time as the Muskrats are very much living up to their motto of “move fast and break things”, those “things” now referring to the agencies of the Federal government that enrich, help and protect us in so many ways, from environmental protection to air traffic control to health care research and services. We have to get this right and, for the moment, that means getting into court and using the full powers of the judiciary to blow the whistle and maintain some semblance of the rule of law in America.

Per one estimate I recently heard, there are around 70 lawsuits pending against the Trump administration. I am supporting a number of the groups doing this life-saving, democracy-preserving work and I encourage you to do the same.

Please check out my Substack and subscribe for free.

Video: UVA Prof. Larry Sabato Talks About “one of the most disturbing posts that [Trump] has ever made”; Dems Doing “a terrible job, so far at least, of mobilizing opposition to Trump”

By
lowkell
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1

UVA Professor/ director of the Center for Politics Larry Sabato nails it on Trump claiming, “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”

“That is one of the most disturbing posts that [Trump] has ever made, and remember how many disturbing posts he’s made. That really, if you read it literally, it suggests that he who is saving the country – meaning Donald Trump – can violate any law and it isn’t really a violation because the [ends justify the means]. Now look, Donald Trump trolls us a lot, he always has. This could be just another troll or it could be the introduction to a completely new approach to the presidency and an approach that will diminish democracy at the very least…

…the Democrats have done a terrible job, so far at least, of mobilizing opposition to Trump. They really are in desperate shape. And they recognize it; they’re trying to do something about it. But you need LEADERSHIP in the out-of-power party…someone who is organized and who knows how to oppose a president like this. And they’re simply not doing it to this point…”

Hopefully, the rest of the interview will be posted later, but for now, that’s excellent – albeit very, very disturbing and distressing – stuff by UVA Professor Larry Sabato.

With regard to Democrats standing up to Trump, I started to wonder what was going on right after the election, as the weeks went by and we mostly got silence from top Democratic leaders. But I kept thinking, maybe they’ll kick it up a few notches after Trump is inaugurated. Then Trump was inaugurated and…meh, not really.  I also thought maybe Democrats were quietly formulating a plan to defend our democracy and fight back against Trump’s lawlessness, authoritarianism, etc. But again, not really – as least as far as I’ve seen. Instead, we’ve actually seen most Democratic US Senators voting for multiple Trump Cabinet picks, refusing to use all the tools at their disposal to grind the Senate to a halt, failing to raise the alarm (or doing so inadequately) among the people they represent, etc. WTF is this all about? Are they afraid? Do they feel powerless? Are they in deep denial? Stockholm Syndrome? Other?

Anyway, the bottom line is that at this point – with Trump and Musk literally destroying our government and our alliances as we sit here – Democratic “leaders” seem to be more engaged in business-as-usual rather than shifting to an emergency footing.  And that’s just completely unacceptable, pathetic, etc.

UPDATE 2/17: Here’s the full video of Sen. Warner’s interview with Politico in Munich.

Monday News: Trump Throws Allies Into Chaos, Makes Putin Very Happy; “DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data”; “Our Government Is Experiencing a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly”; “It’s never been more important to stay tuned in”; Trump “Channel[s] Napoleon”

By
lowkell
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9

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, February 17. As Paul Krugman says, “Our Government Is Experiencing a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly,” as “Musk is moving fast and breaking important things.” Which is why, as Robert Hubbell explains, “We must do everything, everywhere, all at once” – “Leadership and coordination are welcome and desperately needed—but we must stop waiting for Democratic leaders to tell us what to do. Continue to do whatever you are doing. Do more, if possible, but do not exhaust your physical, emotional, or mental reserves. We are in a marathon and the winner will be the group that is still running four years from now. Endure. Abide. Outlast. Persist.” Meanwhile, as Margaret Sullivan writes, “Big Journalism’s leaders need to think hard — and fast — about whether they are just presenting facts — the latest developments — or actually getting the nightmarish reality across.”

Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA07): When It Comes to Ukraine, Trump Is Engaged in “not just appeasement,” but “an endorsement of Russian aggression”

By
lowkell
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4

I don’t normally post fundraising emails, but this one from Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA07) – whose family is from Ukraine – is a good one, as Vindman explains that Trump has “confirmed our worst fears” and is engaging in “not just appeasement” but in “an endorsement of Russian aggression.” Vindman continues:

“In 2019, Trump tried to exploit Ukraine’s vulnerability by threatening to withhold military aid unless they launched a political investigation into President Biden. He made it clear then that he doesn’t value our allies — or democracy itself — and the same stands true today. Trump has never valued democracy and will choose fascism at home or abroad any day.”

Exactly – Trump is intensely hostile to democracy, to democratic nations, to our allies, etc., and instead actually ADMIRES the worst of the worst – dictators, thugs, war criminals, etc.  The fact that literally ANY Americans voted for this is just mind boggling and horrifying. It’s also going to be – hell, it already IS – extremely destructive, such that we might never be able to recover from it…

I need to make sure you saw this…

Trump confirmed our worst fears: He and Pete Hegseth want to force Ukraine to cede its land to Russia in the name of a so-called “peace deal.”

Take a listen to what he said:

Tweet: Trump implies that since Russia 'fought for that land' in Ukraine 'and lost alot of soldiers' doing it, that Russia should keep it.I can't remember a darker day for the democratic world.

Trump and Hegseth believe Russia has earned Ukrainian land through war, and they see no future where Ukraine regains its rightful borders. This is not just appeasement—it’s an endorsement of Russian aggression.

The U.S. is a world power, yet Trump is willing to abandon our allies and betray democratic values to appease Putin. Facilitating and forcing Ukraine to cede its land to Russia does not uphold American values. We are meant to stand with those fighting for freedom, not force them into surrender.

While these statements are appalling, they are not surprising. In 2019, Trump tried to exploit Ukraine’s vulnerability by threatening to withhold military aid unless they launched a political investigation into President Biden. He made it clear then that he doesn’t value our allies — or democracy itself — and the same stands true today. Trump has never valued democracy and will choose fascism at home or abroad any day.

I stood up to Trump in 2019 when he made that fateful call that led to his first impeachment, and I will do everything in my power as a member of Congress to hold him accountable once again.

We will not abandon Ukraine.

But I need you by my side in this fight. Chip in $3 today to help us stand up to Trump’s dangerous agenda and defend Ukraine against Russian aggression. Every dollar makes a difference.

Video: In Munich, Sen. Mark Warner Riffs on Democrats’ Tarnished “Brand”; “Ideological Purity” and “Over-the-Top ‘Wokeism'” Being a “Recipe for Disaster,” Splintered Media, the Importance of Culture, etc.

By
lowkell
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30

Senator Mark Warner, speaking yesterday “at a POLITICO Pub event on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference,” had the following to say in “a blunt assessment of the Democratic Party’s struggles in the wake of its crushing losses in the last election.”

“I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster, and that candidly the attack on over-the-top ‘wokeism’ was a was a valid attack. The irony of course is – and this sounds like a a whining Democrat, which maybe I am –  is that you know, Democrats do some stupid things in 2019 and occasionally one person says one thing – that stick forever. President Trump can say virtually anything and it’s forgotten within the same 24-hour news period. So that is a whine and a complaint but it’s the reality.

[Is there something Democrats can learn from from President Trump and how he does politics?]

Be crazy all the time?…But I do think acknowledging the over ‘wokeism’. I don’t think that you know the kind of notion that some in my party say of, well, we just got to turn out more people, I think they DID turn out more people. And folks that we thought were going to go for Democrats aren’t. I think a lot of that goes back to culture. Until you can make a cultural connection, I’m not sure people are going to listen to you on issues. And particularly as we now live in a world where the number of people who watch a Politico or read a newspaper or do the normal means of communication or the traditional means of communication is less than 50%. And Trump was brilliant…was so ahead of his time on sorting that out with a huge reinforcing network of supporters, of followers – that’s extraordinary and the Democrats have got a lot lot to learn from that.”

So, lots to unpack here, but I’d just say: 1) Warner is absolutely correct that Democrats need our own “huge reinforcing network of supporters,” which we most definitely do NOT have right now; 2) Warner’s also 100% correct that people get their news – including bits and pieces of misinformation, half truths, disinformation, etc. – all over the place (TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, talk radio, whatever) as the traditional news media has splintered into a gazillion pieces; 3) I also agree that a lot DOES go to culture, namely that if voters think you’re not in sync with them on core values, they’re not going to listen to your arguments on anything; 4) I wouldn’t lump “the groups” together necessarily, because they’re very diverse and it’s hard to generalize, but Warner’s correct that enforced ideological purity is not helpful at all – in fact, it’s VERY alienating, off putting, divisive, etc.; 5) no question, “President Trump can say virtually anything and it’s forgotten within the same 24-hour news period,” which gets back to the splintered media environment, people’s short attention spans and constant seeking for something new/exciting/novel; 6) I understand what Warner’s getting at, but I wouldn’t adopt Republican “framing” by using words like “wokeism,” which really is just a right-wing (wild) distortion of something which, at its core, is simply about raising awareness about racial/other discrimination and injustice (having said that, of course you build a winning coalition through ADDITION, not SUBTRACTION, and that means being welcoming – and not alienating – to large groups of voters who might agree with you on a bunch of issues but feel put off by perceived hostility or whatever towards them); and last but not least 7) Dems *really* need to be focused pretty much 100% on fighting back against Trump’s dangerous assault on democracy, the rule of law, the federal government, the constitution, etc.

With that, what do you think of what Sen. Warner had to say? Should it have been said publicly at all, or should this be more of a private discussion?

P.S. Interesting comment here: “‘Ideological purity’ and ‘over the top Wokeism’ aren’t characteristics of actual Democratic politicians; they are insults used by Republicans for political gain. A competent politician could simply refuse to go along with the ruse.”

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