The Supreme Court Is About to Let Religion Ruin Public Education

 

In modern America, religious education is offered in private schools or in a homeschooling setting. Public education, by contrast, is secular, because the government is not in the business of sponsoring religious indoctrination. 

But in two cases the Supreme Court heard over roughly the last week, the justices appear ready to throw out public education as we know it and usher in a new era where tax dollars flow to religious schools and religion can dictate what is taught in public classrooms. When the decisions come down, public education may change forever.

“This is taxpayer-funded, state-sponsored religious indoctrination. You’ve just got to call it what it is.”

On Tuesday, the justices heard arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, a case over whether Oklahoma must fund a religious charter school that carries out religious instruction and hosts religious activities, including mass. Rather than consider this an affront to the separation of church and state, four Republican-appointed justices appeared outraged at the idea that a state would fund a charter school focused on language immersion or the arts but not one focused on religious instruction.

Without ever acknowledging that the First Amendment’s establishment clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”) prohibits government-sponsored religion, several expressed palpable anger that allowing only secular charter schools was a form of anti-religious discrimination.

“All the religious school is saying is ‘Don’t exclude us on account of our religion,’” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. “If you go and apply to be a charter school and you’re an environmental studies school, or you’re a science-based school, or you’re a Chinese immersion school, or you’re an English grammar-focused school, you can get in. And then you come in and you say, ‘Oh, we’re a religious school.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, no, can’t do that, that’s too much.’ That’s scary.” He continued: “You can’t treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second-class in the United States… And when you have a program that’s open to all comers except religion… that seems like rank discrimination against religion.”

The case comes out of Oklahoma, where state law mandates public charter schools be secular. Nevertheless, the Catholic archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the diocese of Tulsa sought to create the country’s first religious charter school. Called St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, it would be an online school that would infuse Catholic teaching in its curriculum and require students to attend religious programming.

The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual School Board granted the charter, but Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to order the board to reverse course. “This is not [about] free exercise of religion,” Drummond has said. “This is taxpayer-funded, state-sponsored religious indoctrination. That’s what this is. You’ve just got to call it what it is.”

The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed that the charter was illegal because Oklahoma law requires public charter schools be secular. So, the board and St. Isidore appealed to the US Supreme Court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself because she is friends with a law professor who advised the school. 

The result at Wednesday’s oral argument was four GOP-appointees who appeared ready to usher in a new era of religious public schools, and three Democratic-appointees who opposed such a move. Chief Justice John Roberts was the only Republican appointee who did not tip his hand, though his questions showed he was skeptical of the argument against religious charter schools.

The arguments technically centered on whether public charter schools are indeed public schools or private entities. If they are public, as Oklahoma law defines them, then the guarantee against the establishment of religion is a stronger argument. But if the schools are actually private, as St. Isidore’s insists—along with the charter board and the Trump administration—then it is harder to argue that private religious entities should not be entitled to the same charter contracts as any other organization.

Whether they are public or private, however, the bottom line is that charter schools are taxpayer funded, which means the argument is more broadly over public funding of religious education and whether to integrate religious instruction into state education offerings. “Once you… approve one religion, not another religion, or this religion, there’s going to be strife.”

Justices Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito were the most vociferous defenders of the Catholic charter school, repeatedly suggesting that the only reason one might deny a religious institution tax funding to run a school is anti-religious bigotry. Alito went so far as to suggest that the Oklahoma constitution’s requirement to provide a secular public education was based on anti-Catholic animus. “This whole position that you’re defending seems to be motivated by hostility toward particular religions,” Alito said to Gregory Garre, a former US solicitor general representing Drummond. 

Garre pushed back. “I don’t think that the court could treat any prohibition on funding that’s similar as simply motivated by bigotry,” Garre said. “If you did, then I think, frankly, the establishment clause jurisprudence with respect to public schools would come tumbling down.”

Listening to arguments, it seems possible that’s what Alito and some of his colleagues want. In recent years, the court’s GOP majority has increasingly removed the bricks separating church and state, including in the realm of schools.

While the Constitution’s establishment clause used to protect separation, conservative justices seem to have decided that the free exercise clause mandates the state can do nothing to maintain it—freedom of religion is increasingly the freedom to bring religion into every corner of American life, including public education.

Alito also suggested that Drummond was motivated by bias against non-Christian religions because of comments in which he suggested Oklahomans might approve of Christian charters but not charters by religions that the majority views with suspicion.

Garre defended his client as simply stating the political reality of state-sponsored religious instruction: “Once you open up government programs and bring people in to becoming part of the government, and approve one religion, not another religion, or this religion, there’s going to be strife that comes from that,” he said. “It’s, frankly, one of the reasons why we have a religion clause in the Constitution to begin with.” 

Kavanuagh pounced on Garre’s suggestion that the government picking and choosing which religions got public charter schools could create “strife.” “It seems like strife could also come when people who are religious feel like they’re being excluded because they’re religious,” he told Garre. “I think you’re missing a portion of the country when you say strife would not result from that kind of outcome.”

As Kavanuagh’s comment demonstrated, the Republican-appointed justices seemed to feel that in America today, it is religious people who are the victims of discrimination and whose needs are ignored.

The Democratic appointees approached the case very differently. They seemed to squarely see public charter schools as public schools and that Oklahoma had the right to decide that its public schools should be nonreligious. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson analogized the situation to a local government that solicits contracts to paint landscape murals on public buildings.

If a religious painter proposed a mural full of religious symbols, Jackson queried, would it be a violation of his religious rights for the government to deny him a contract? “Would that person say, ‘You are rejecting me as a painter because of my religion’… when, really, what the state is doing is saying ‘We are offering a particular public benefit and the particular benefit is a nonsectarian mural, a secular mural, and to the extent that you’re not wanting that, we’re rejecting your proposal?’”

The court is poised to deliver a one-two punch that profoundly changes public education.

Justice Elena Kagan stressed that in keeping with their faith, religious charter schools might not just teach religious beliefs as fact but also seek to upend state-mandated curriculums and nondiscrimination requirements. Today, St. Isidore’s might promise to teach the content required by Oklahoma law. But why couldn’t a Hasidic community in New York get the state to pay for a yeshiva that teaches only religious texts in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic? The attorney for St. Isidore’s couldn’t deny the possibility. 

Kagan later asked Garre to share what he predicts would happen if the Supreme Court found that states must allow religious charter schools—essentially ushering in an era of public religious schools. 

“First, every charter school law and the federal charter school program is unconstitutional, because they all require that charter schools be public schools and that they be nonsectarian. So, we’re dealing with the confusion and uncertainty that’s created by that to begin with.” From there, Garre predicted some states might end charter programs altogether, disrupting education, while others would push forward and accommodate religious charters.

He foresaw fights over whether federal law mandating education for disabled kids would apply to charters deemed to be private. Every aspect of this new education regime would go through the Supreme Court. He predicted litigation over which students can attend, who can teach [“can you have a gay teacher?”], and finally, over the curriculum itself. Questions over what can be taught will be mediated not through the local democratic process but through nine Supreme Court justices. 

This case alone will be a bombshell if the court mandates that states begin funding religious schools through their charter school programs. But this term, the Supreme Court is poised to deliver a one-two punch. Last week, the court heard arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which it considered whether religious parents could opt their kids out of lessons that did not conform with their beliefs.

Again, the GOP-appointed majority appeared ready to side with the plaintiffs and allow religious parents to pull kids from the classroom when material they object to is taught—a policy that threatens to create a backdoor through which religious parents have veto power over elements of the curriculum and classroom discussion. 

In any school that cannot accommodate children leaving the classroom and being provided alternate materials, the religious preferences of a minority seem destined to dictate the curriculum for all. The likely result is the wide elimination of LGBTQ content. Teachers may fear answering a question about a gay politician, for example, or even displaying a picture of their same-sex partner on their desk.

If the justices decide in the next few months to allow religious opt-outs in public schools and the creation of religious charter schools, it’s hard to see how public education will not change profoundly. In many districts, together the decisions would likely mean the only publicly funded school options would be either explicitly religious or circumscribed by the religious preferences of certain parents.

Donald Trump, whose administration has argued for the religious interests in both cases, has ordered the shuttering of the Department of Education and threatened to withhold funding to schools that engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. But the president’s ability to direct public school curriculums is limited, because public education is primarily controlled at the state and local level.

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, can dramatically reshape public education, reaching across geographic boundaries to make decisions for individual districts and schools. When it comes to the religious right’s agenda of returning religion to public classrooms, it’s not the administration that is to be feared the most, but the Supreme Court.

-Pema Levy, Mother Jones

Trump Social Security Cuts Will Result in New Burden for Millions of People

 

A new analysis out Friday makes the case that cuts proposed by the Trump administration to Social Security operations nationwide will create a "significant new burden" for millions of people, particularly "those who live in rural areas or have transportation or mobility difficulties."

Those who collect Social Security benefits will no longer be able to update their direct deposit banking information solely by phone. Instead of verifying their identity via security questions over the phone, the agency will require those who rely on Social Security to use a multifactor authentication process that includes a one-time PIN code or to visit a social security office in person.

The left-leaning think tank behind the new analysis, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), warned Friday that even though Trump officials within the SSA have claimed that the policy shift is designed to reduce fraud, "the agency's own figures show that direct deposit fraud is a very small problem—less than one-hundredth of one percent of benefits are misdirected."

A document from the agency gives "estimated burden figures," which indicates that nearly 2 million beneficiaries will need to visit a field office as a result of the changed process.

An April analysis from CBPP estimated that some 6 million live more than a 45-mile trip away from the nearest Social Security field office.

"The new PIN code requirement will be impossible for many beneficiaries to meet," according to the analysis from CBPP released Friday. "Many seniors and people with disabilities lack internet service, computers or smartphones, or the technological savvy to navigate SSA's online services."

What's more, the analysis states, "the PIN requirement expects callers to complete a multi-step, multifactor authentication and generate a PIN code while on the phone with an agent. Or if they don't have an account, they must hang up, establish an online account, then call back—a not-insignificant inconvenience when most callers to SSA do not reach an agent on the first try, and the wait time for a call back from SSA averages 2.5 hours."

Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, told Common Dreams on Friday that the CBPP analysis helps show how "the Trump administration and its goons are waging a full scale war against Social Security. They are forcing millions of Americans into Social Security offices at the same time they are cutting a huge percentage of the workforce."

"They are forcing millions of Americans into Social Security offices at the same time they are cutting a huge percentage of the workforce," Lawson added. "The Trump-Musk regime has one goal: Wreak Social Security so they can rob it. When people can't get their benefits for any reason, that is a benefit cut."

Trump, with the help of his billionaire advisor Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, have endeavored to slash government spending and personnel. A tracker from The New York Times estimates that there has been a 5% staff reduction at SSA, but total planned reductions at the agency could ultimately cut staff by 17%. Reporting from NPR from last week highlighted how workers at the SSA are struggling to keep up, with fewer staff working to serve over 70 million beneficiaries.

- by Eloise Goldsmith for Common Dreams

Trumpland Last Week: "Imagine if you will..."

 

“You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” So said Winston Churchill 87 years ago about Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, infamously secured in the Munich Agreement of 1938.

Much has been written this week about the first 100 days of the Trump Administration. But what strikes us, as we survey the state of our democracy at this time, is how long it has taken for so many to heed Churchill’s lesson.

Thankfully, however, that wisdom is starting to resonate, as institutions and individuals who had once buckled to Trump—from law firms to universities—have begun to strengthen their spines and realize that a single show of capitulation will not satiate him.

That bounce back was buoyed by the indomitable spirit of righteous indignation and love of country that has swelled among people throughout the country. As that one-two punch begins to wallop Trump, he has responded with increasing brazenness and erratic-ness. Both dynamics were on display this week.

This week, the Trump DOJ was dealt two significant blows by two Republican-appointed district court judges. On Thursday in Texas, Trump-appointee Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., ruled that the Trump Administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act—a 1798 law that allows the government to detain and deport noncitizens from the country during wartime—was improper and unlawful. Rodriguez, Jr., ruled that Trump’s proclamation “exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute's terms.”

Earlier in the week, Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia, who was appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan, lambasted the Trump Administration, preventing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from being decimated and ruling that “It is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary and capricious actions than the Defendants' actions here.”

Lamberth then took an extraordinary step back from the particulars of the case to strongly defend the independence of the judiciary in our constitutional system, writing: “By enjoining the defendants’ efforts to dismantle the plaintiff networks, actions which I perceive to be contrary to the law, I am humbly fulfilling my small part in this very constitutional paradigm—a framework that has propelled the U.S. to heights of greatness, liberty and prosperity unparalleled in the history of the world for nearly 250 years. If our nation is to thrive for another 250 years, each co-equal branch of government must be willing to courageously exert the authority entrusted to it by our Founders.”

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Beyond the judiciary, institutions that bent the knee to Trump faced setbacks while those that held resolutely against intimidation were rewarded. Notably, Microsoft, one of the largest companies in the world, dropped the law firm Simpson Thacher—among the shops that caved and made a deal with the Trump White House—and signed up Jenner Block, one of the three law firms that challenged Trump’s Executive Order in court.

The cowardly firms that acquiesced cited, as their prime justification, their obligation to their clients to maintain good relations with the government. That was always a false choice, but it was also foolhardy in the long run—after all, what client wants a lawyer who will be intimidated by its bad-faith adversary?

That is indeed courageous, a fact that can be quantified. In the law firms’ litigation against the Trump Administration, hundreds of firms banded together to sign an amicus brief defending their colleagues and decrying the president’s Executive Order.

The first amicus brief a couple weeks ago, supporting Perkins Coie’s lawsuit, secured about five hundred firms; this week, another amicus brief in the Jenner Block suit garnered around eight hundred signatories.

Meanwhile, people from a wide range of backgrounds, regions, and professions continue to pour out onto the streets. This week featured sizable labor protests throughout the country. And the typical sight of lawyers in business attire in front of federal courthouses in New York and Washington, D.C. looked decidedly different on Thursday, as attorneys gathered on the streets not to enter the courts but to decry Trump’s attacks on the rule of law and Constitution.

All of this growing opposition may be leaving its mark on Trump. But that only seems to be ratcheting up his incoherence and cruelty. That split-screen was made evident this week in two made-for-television displays broadcast from the West Wing, both ostensibly commemorating his 100th day mark. 

On Tuesday night, Trump sat for an interview with ABC News, in which his ego gave away the game when he responded that he could get El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, as the Supreme Court ordered him to do. But, Trump said, his lawyers told him he didn’t have to. That admission directly undercut the government’s position (that it did not have the ability to facilitate Garcia’s return).

The following morning, Trump held a cabinet meeting, which devolved into yet another contest for ostentatious, baseless flattery. As our friend Norm Ornstein noted, Pam Bondi won the lickspittle Olympics, when she claimed that Trump and the Bondi-led DOJ had saved 258 million American lives—meaning that, according to the Attorney General, 75% of Americans would be dead right now were it not for Trump’s presidency.

The ridiculousness of that display, however, obscures the harsh reality of the administration’s actions. The federal government continues its indiscriminate and inhumane immigration policies, with numerous U.S. citizens getting caught in the dragnet. In one of the latest heartbreaking developments, the National Immigration Project reported that two children, including a four-year-old who had been receiving treatment for a rare form of cancer, were put on their mother’s deportation flight to Honduras.

As The Democracy Index team takes the temperature of our democracy each week, we are thrilled to announce our newest feature: Next week, we’ll be rolling out an interactive graphic allowing our readers to easily digest the most important democracy news of the week (please note that these temperatures were not set by the team, but merely to offer a visual of how it will look). To prevent things form getting too overwhelming, we’ve divided our metrics into six categories: National Security, Rule of Law/Autocracy, Corruption, Free Elections, Civil Rights/Public Safety, and Free Press/Disinformation. This is not a quantitative project. Rather, it is a qualitative overview of where the country stands from a democracy standpoint.

Until then,

The Democracy Index team

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Totalitarianism

 

“Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed. In modern society, with its characteristic lack of discerning judgment, this tendency is strengthened, so that someone who not only holds opinions but also presents them in a tone of unshakable conviction will not so easily forfeit his prestige, no matter how many times he has been demonstrably wrong…

“[E]perience has proved time and again that the propaganda value of evil deeds and general contempt for moral standards is independent of mere self-interest, supposedly the most powerful psychological factor in politics…

“[Totalitarian movements] found a membership that had never been reached, never been ‘spoiled’ by the party system. Therefore, they did not need to refute opposing arguments and consistently preferred methods which… spelled terror rather than conviction… Now they made apparent what no other organ of public opinion had ever been able to show, namely, that democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country.

“Thus, when the totalitarian movements invaded Parliament with their contempt for parliamentary government, they merely appeared inconsistent: actually, they succeeded in convincing the people at large that parliamentary majorities were spurious and did not necessarily correspond to the realities of the country, thereby undermining the self-respect and the confidence of governments which also believed in majority rule rather than in their constitutions…

“A whole literature on mass behavior and mass psychology had demonstrated and popularized the wisdom, so familiar to the ancients, of the affinity between democracy and dictatorship, between mob rule and tyranny. They had prepared certain politically conscious and over conscious sections of the Western educated world for the emergence of demagogues, for gullibility, superstition, and brutality…

“The object of the most varied and variable constructions was always to reveal official history as a joke, to demonstrate a sphere of secret influences of which the visible, traceable, and known historical reality was only the outward façade erected to explicitly to fool the people.

“To this aversion of the intellectual elite for official historiography, to its conviction that history, which was a forgery anyway, might as well be the playground for crackpots, must be added the terrible, demoralizing fascination in the possibility that gigantic lies and monstrous falsehoods can eventually be established as unquestioned facts, that man may be free to change his own past at will, and that the difference between truth and falsehood may cease to be objective and become a mere matter of power and cleverness, of pressure and infinite repetition. Not [a leader’s] skill in a collective unit to back up the lies with impressive magnificence, exerted the fascination…

“Totalitarianism propaganda raised ideological scientificality and its technique of making statements in the form of predictions to a height of efficiency of method and absurdity of content because, demagogically speaking, there is hardly a better way to avoid discussion [of the significant issues] than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future can reveal its merits…

“A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of the mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of the masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.

“The mixture in itself was remarkable enough because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynicism the vice of superior and refined minds. Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.

“The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statements were lies and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness… A mixture of gullibility and cynicism is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements, and the higher the rank the more cynicism weighs down gullibility…

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi… but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist…”

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

Trump's Authoritarianism

 

…Trump’s aspirations to authoritarianism are showing in the announcement that there will be a military parade on Trump’s 79th birthday, June 14, which coincides with the 250th anniversary of the Second Continental Congress’s establishment of the Continental Army in 1775. About 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and 50 helicopters will proceed from near the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, to the National Mall at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.

Trump’s attempt to empower loyalists showed today in the news that the Trump administration has reached a settlement in principle with the family of Ashli Babbitt, the Trump loyalist who was shot by Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd as she tried to breach the House Speaker’s Lobby on January 6, 2021. The right-wing Judicial Watch organization had filed a $30 million civil suit on behalf of Babbitt’s estate. A 2021 internal review determined that Byrd saved lives.

The administration’s hunkering down in right-wing ideology showed as well in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s public attack on U.S. ally Germany for declaring the German right-wing political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist party that goes against Germany’s “free democratic order.” That designation is the result of a three-year investigation. It allows the government more leeway in monitoring the AfD.

Both Vice President J.D. Vance and billionaire White House advisor Elon Musk supported the AfD and backed it in a recent election. Rubio took AfD’s side today, writing on social media that that new designation was “tyranny in disguise.” He attacked the current government and urged Germany to “reverse course.”

The German Foreign Office responded publicly. “This is democracy. The decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”

It says something about the Trump administration that the German government is lecturing the U.S. government about the dangers of right-wing extremism.

Molly Beck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan spoke to reporters yesterday, threatening Wisconsin governor Tony Evers with arrest after the governor issued a memo to state workers directing them to check with a lawyer before turning over documents or other items to officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Evers said Republicans were mischaracterizing his memo, which did not direct anyone to break the law.

"We now have a federal government that will threaten or arrest an elected official, or even everyday American citizens who have broken no laws, committed no crimes and done nothing wrong," Evers said. "And as disgusted as I am about the continued actions of the Trump administration, I'm not afraid."

Yesterday, at an event for judges, jurists, and lawyers, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke out against the attacks on judges currently plaguing the country. Judge Esther Salas, whose son Daniel was murdered by a man who came to their house looking for her, has been calling out the recent tactic of sending pizzas to the homes of judges or their children, making the point that right-wing opponents know where they live. Furthering their attempt at intimidation, the perpetrators have been using the name of Judge Salas’s son.

Judge Jackson began her remarks yesterday by saying she wanted to address “the elephant in the room”: the attacks on our legal system. Such attacks are not just on individuals, she said, but undermine the system itself. “Attacks on judicial independence is how countries that are not free, not fair, and not rule of law oriented, operate,” she said, and she told her colleagues: “I urge you to keep going, keep doing what is right for our country, and I do believe that history will vindicate your service.” According to Laura N. Pérez Sánchez of the New York Times, the audience gave her a standing ovation.

At least some of the administration’s intimidation is an attempt to cow opponents. It does not appear to be working.

Yesterday, about 1,500 lawyers and their allies packed the plaza outside Manhattan’s federal courthouse to defend the rule of law. According to Santul Nerkar of the New York Times, they held up pocket Constitutions, reaffirmed their oath to support and defend the Constitution, and chanted: “The rule of law protects us all. Without it we will surely fall.”

Speaking in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., constitutional law scholar and U.S. representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said, “The whole country needs a constitutional refresher.” He recited the Preamble of the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

On March 6, Trump issued an executive order attacking the law firm Perkins Coie, which has represented high-profile Democratic individuals and causes, by barring the federal government from hiring the firm, suspending the security clearances of individuals working for it, barring its lawyers from entering federal office buildings, and preparing to end government contracts with any of its clients.

Rather than back down, as several other firms did, Perkins Coie sued the next day. Today, Judge Beryl Howell permanently barred any enforcement of Trump's executive order, saying it “violates the Constitution and is thus null and void.” In her opinion, Howell noted that “disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.” Trump’s executive order violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to free speech, the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, and the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of right to counsel.

She pointed out that the fair and impartial administration of justice has been part of the U.S. since John Adams “made the singularly unpopular decision to represent eight British soldiers charged with murder for their roles in the Boston Massacre.” “I had no hesitation,” Adams wrote in his diary, because “the Bar ought…to be independent and impartial at all Times And in every Circumstance.”

Today, Riley Board and Dylan Tusinski of the Portland Press Herald reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state of Maine reached a settlement in the state’s lawsuit against the Trump administration after it froze funding to Maine education. The administration claimed the state violates the law because it allows transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams. 

Governor Janet Mills said she was following state and federal law and that Trump could not change the law by fiat. Maine attorney general Aaron Frey said the state had no choice but to sue in order to force the USDA to follow the law. The settlement restores the funding and establishes that the administration will go through the legally required process to pursue its policy.

When Trump tried to bully Governor Mills over the issue at a White House meeting in February, she told him, “See you in court.” Today she commented: “It’s good to feel a victory like this. I stood in the White House and when confronted by the president of the United States, I told him I’d see him in court. Well, we did see him in court, and we won.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi has launched a different lawsuit against the Maine Department of Education that would pull funding primarily from poorer students and students with disabilities. “That’s a separate complaint they filed a few weeks ago, it’s only a one-page complaint that cites no authority, no case, no law,” Mills said. “We’ll see them in court on that one as well.”

Finally, tonight, Trump’s apparent determination to dominate the news and to project an image of leadership is overlapping with his increasingly erratic behavior. After suggesting on Tuesday that he’d like to be Pope, tonight the president of the United States posted on his social media site an AI-generated image of himself wearing papal robes and a miter.

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

"By institutionalizing the persecution of journalists and their sources, she’s laying the groundwork for a full-scale assault on press freedom"

 

In the dark corners of America’s halls of power, something sinister is unfolding. Attorney General Pam Bondi has just launched an assault on one of the most sacred pillars of our democracy: the freedom of the press. And make no mistake, this isn’t just another policy change. It’s a deliberate strategy straight from the dictator’s playbook.

Last week, Bondi quietly issued a memo rescinding vital protections for journalists that had prevented the government from forcing reporters to reveal their sources or surrender their notes during leak investigations. This wasn’t just any memo; it was a declaration of war against the very foundation of press freedom in America.

Bondi’s memo, released late on a Friday afternoon (a classic timing choice to minimize media attention), rescinded policies that had limited when and how Justice Department attorneys could pursue records or testimony from journalists, including in cases involving the unauthorized disclosure of government secrets to the press. The implications are chilling and immediate.

The Justice Department will now allow federal investigators to pursue communications from media outlets in government leak investigations, marking a complete reversal of Biden-era (and previous administrations’) policies that protected journalists from becoming targets of government intimidation.

Bondi’s justification? The Justice Department “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”

Did you catch that? Not disclosures that threaten national security, but those that “undermine President Trump’s policies.” Since when did the President’s policies become sacred and beyond scrutiny? Since when did exposing wrongdoing by our government become a crime against “the American people”?

Throughout our history, ethical government officials who leaked information to the press have been essential to maintaining our democracy. They’ve exposed corruption, illegal wars, and unconstitutional surveillance, and in many cases they’ve paid a heavy price for their courage.

Take my old friend and correspondent Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps America’s most famous whistleblower. In 1971, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing how multiple presidents had systematically lied to the American people about the Vietnam War.

He believed the documents contained “evidence of a quarter century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen elections, lies and murder.” His brave act helped change public opinion and ultimately contributed to ending that disastrous war.

When Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon administration tried to block their publication. The Supreme Court ruling in New York Times Co. v. United States upholding the press’s right to publish has been called one of the “modern pillars” of First Amendment rights with respect to freedom of the press.

That same Nixon administration that tried to silence Ellsberg created the infamous “White House Plumbers” unit to stop leaks, which later led directly to the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s downfall.

History shows that when presidents attack whistleblowers and the press, they’re usually trying to hide their own misdeeds. And it sure feels like that’s exactly what Bondi and Trump are now up to.

In more recent history, we’ve seen Edward Snowden expose the NSA’s mass surveillance programs and Chelsea Manning reveal troubling military actions, including the killing of civilians. Both were driven by their conviction that the American people deserved to know about government overreach and misconduct.

The Founders understood that a democracy cannot function without an informed citizenry, and citizens cannot be informed without a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. That’s why they enshrined press freedom in the First Amendment; they knew from bitter experience that power corrupts, and that the powerful will always seek to hide their corruption.

A free press serves as our early warning system against government overreach and abuse. When journalists can protect their sources, those inside the government who witness wrongdoing can come forward without fear of retribution. This critical flow of information is what Bondi is now trying to shut down.

Bondi’s actions come in the midst of an aggressive campaign against unauthorized leaking in Trump’s second administration. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has already referred “two intelligence community leakers” to the Justice Department for potential prosecutions, with a third referral on the way.

What we’re witnessing is step one in the dictator’s playbook: silence those who tell the truth about your regime. We’ve seen this pattern in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and countless other countries where democracy has withered into authoritarianism. First, attack the press. Then, criminalize dissent. Intimidate lawmakers, lawyers, and judges. Finally, consolidate power in the hands of a single leader.

Bondi’s memo added that there will be procedures in place before members of the media are compelled to testify or their records are seized, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Justice Department is now prepared to compel journalists to testify, and their records will be subject to seizure.

But the most alarming part of all is what Bondi reportedly wants to do next. According to sources close to the Justice Department, she has argued that leakers — or even reporters — who provide information that she doesn’t like could be prosecuted for treason, a crime that carries the death penalty. Let that sink in: the Attorney General of the United States believes that journalists doing their constitutionally protected job could be subject to execution.

I’ve been covering American politics for five decades, and just to be very clear: This is not normal. This is not just another partisan policy dispute. This is an existential threat to our constitutional system of government.

When a government official can decide that reporting unflattering information is “treason,” we’re no longer living in a democracy. We’re living in an authoritarian state where power flows from the top down, not from the people up.

Bondi’s actions reveal the Trump administration’s true nature. They have no interest in our democratic traditions or constitutional liberties. Their only goal is to consolidate power and silence dissent.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which documents threats to press freedom, has already condemned Bondi’s decision and criticized Republicans in Congress who killed a federal shield law in 2024 that would have protected journalists from such subpoenas.

We’ve seen this before. Nixon’s attacks on the press were a precursor to his abuses of power. The Bush administration’s aggressive prosecutions of leakers after 9/11 helped enable his unconstitutional torture program and illegal surveillance. And Trump’s first term was marked by constant rhetorical attacks on the press as “enemies of the people.”

But this move by Bondi takes things to a new and dangerous level. By institutionalizing the persecution of journalists and their sources, she’s laying the groundwork for a full-scale assault on press freedom.

She claims that “subpoenaed news outlets are to be given advanced notice” and that the subpoenas will be “narrowly drawn,” but these are empty promises from an administration that has repeatedly shown contempt for democratic norms and the rule of law.

The time for polite disagreement or “strongly worded letters” is over. The time for waiting to see what happens next is over. We must act now to protect our democracy before it’s too late.

First, demand that Congress pass a federal shield law to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources. This is not a partisan issue; it’s about preserving the basic functioning of our democracy.

Second, support independent journalism with your dollars and your attention. Subscribe to newspapers, donate to nonprofit news organizations like ProPublica, and share important stories with your networks. A robust press is our best defense against tyranny.

Third, contact your representatives and tell them that protecting press freedom must be a top priority. Remind them that their oath is to the Constitution, not to any president or party. The phone number for the congressional switchboard, which can connect you to both your senators and your member of the House, is 202-224-3121.

Fourth, prepare to take to the streets if Bondi follows through on her threat to prosecute journalists for treason. That would be a red line from which there is no return to normal democratic governance.

Finally, remember that the press isn’t perfect — no human institution is — but it’s essential. When governments attack journalists, it’s rarely because they’re telling lies. It’s almost always because they’re telling truths that the powerful don’t want heard.

We stand at a crossroads in American history. Down one path lies a renewed commitment to our democratic values, including a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. Down the other lies authoritarianism, where “truth” is whatever the leader says it is, and those who disagree face persecution or worse.

The choice should be obvious. But making the right choice requires courage, from journalists who continue to do their jobs despite threats, from whistleblowers who risk everything to expose wrongdoing, and from citizens who refuse to be silent in the face of growing tyranny.

Pam Bondi and Donald Trump have shown their true colors. They’ve revealed their contempt for the Constitution and their fear of the truth. They’re trying to create a country where no one can challenge their power or expose their corruption.

We cannot — we must not — let them succeed. Our democracy depends on it.

The time to act is now.

-Thom Hartmann

The Torturing and Death of Ukrainian Journalist Viktoria Roshchyna

 

Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity, was tortured and had organs removed before her body was returned, according to a joint media report published Tuesday through Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit media organization.

In February, Russia returned Roshchyna's emaciated body with signs of torture and some organs removed, possibly to hide further traces of torture, said the report by media outlets including The Washington Post, The Guardian, Ukrainska Pravda, and stories, citing Ukrainian prosecutors.

The forensic examination "revealed numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment", the prosecutors were quoted as saying. These included "a broken rib, neck injuries, and possible electric shock marks on her feet," according to Yuriy Belousov, head of the War Crimes Unit at the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's office. Despite a high DNA match, the journalist's father does not believe the body is his daughter's and he has requested further forensic analyses.

Roshchyna went missing in 2023 while in Russian-occupied territories in southeast Ukraine investigating alleged torture prisons. She was 27 years old at the time.

Ukrainian journalists rarely go to Russian-occupied areas because of the high risks. Roshchyna is the first known Ukrainian journalist to die in Russian captivity.

Ukraine urged the international community to respond to the report. "The issue of civilian hostages abducted and held by Russia requires increased international attention and immediate and strong response," foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are held in Russian prisons or in occupied areas of Ukraine, where many are tortured and deprived of correspondence, according to NGOs and media reports. Last year, BBC Russia reported that thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including journalists, in Russian custody were being held without charges or access to legal counsel.

Who was Viktoria Roshchyna?

Roshchyna worked as a freelancer for various independent news outlets, including Ukrainska Pravda, and had collaborated with the Ukrainian service of U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe.

In March 2022, Roshchyna was detained by Russian forces for 10 days while reporting in southeastern Ukraine, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In 2022, she was awarded the Courage in Journalism award by the International Women's Media Foundation for her reporting in east Ukraine.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Moscow for Roshchyna's death. 

"Victoria's passing is not just the loss of a remarkable woman, but of an intrepid witness to history," the group said in a statement after her death. "Regardless of her cause of death, we can say with certainty that her life was taken because she dared tell the truth. We hope her death will not be in vain: the international community must pressure Russia to cease targeting journalists and silencing press freedom."

"Responsibility for her death lies with the Russian authorities, who detained her for daring to report the truth on the Russia-Ukraine war," CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator said in a statement. "Ukrainian and Russian authorities must do everything in their power to investigate Roshchyna's death."

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