curated citations to news sources
AP: New standards for Oklahoma high school students promote misinformation about the 2020 election
Leaders in the Republican-led Legislature introduced a resolution to reject the standards, but there wasn’t enough GOP support to pass it.
Oklahoma high school students studying U.S. history learn about the Industrial Revolution, women’s suffrage and America’s expanding role in international affairs.
Beginning next school year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
(AP more…)
Wikipedia: Butler Act
…prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 24, 2025
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While President Donald J. Trump might well have his own reasons for hating a university famous for its brain power, the anti-intellectual impulse behind Trump’s attacks on higher education has a long history in the United States.
…On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court decided that an American president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties, and the next day, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, the key organizer of Project 2025, went on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room to tell supporters that America’s radical white Christian nationalists were “going to win. We’re in the process of taking this country back.” He said the country needed a strong leader because “the radical left…has taken over our institutions.”
And now the Trump administration is dismantling higher education. As Harvard said in its lawsuit: “There is no lawful justification for the government’s unprecedented revocation of Harvard’s [certification for accepting foreign students], and the government has not offered any.”
“[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution,” Roberts said last July, “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Guardian: George Floyd’s family fights for sacred ground where he took his last breath: ‘That’s my blood’
(Guardian more…)USA Today: George Floyd’s legacy under siege as racial justice efforts lose ground, memorials removed
Latin Times: Trump Admin Creates New ‘Style Guide’ Banning Use of Rhetoric Referring to Threat of White Supremacism
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Daily: Trump’s Decline Can’t Be Hidden At West Point Speech Disaster
The White House can purge transcripts and try to keep Trump on the golf course, but when the president has to give a speech like his commencement address at West Point, his decline is obvious.
Donald Trump’s presidential events have taken on a very choreographed look and feel. On most days, Trump is sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, signing things that he doesn’t seem to know what they are in front of a group of White House reporters who are increasingly littered with friendly right-wing media.
The days of rallies are long gone because Trump doesn’t have to run for office anymore and has seemingly little interest in consistently holding rallies. Trump doesn’t stand up in the White House briefing room and hold press conferences. He doesn’t give many organized speeches.The White House has purged all transcripts of Trump’s remarks.
Trump gave the commencement address at the non-political West Point commencement address, and the nation got a taste of what his administration seems to be hiding.
(Daily more…)Lucian K. Truscott IV: I watched Trump’s West Point commencement speech so you don’t have to
Mary Geddry: Ghosts in the Transcript, Ghosts in the Machine
Trump at a podium dissolving into static, a courtroom gavel wrapped in circuit board wiring, and a tearful soldier stepping off a bus, three Americas colliding.
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Maybe that’s the most dangerous development of all: not that Trump still believes his own delusions, but that millions of Americans are willing to pretend along with him.
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Christina Pagel: Latest Covid variants and outlook for UK summer
There probably will be a Covid summer wave.
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There is an even newer variant popping up which has got some Covid experts’ attention. The main worry with XFG is that it is an offshoot of a much older Coronavirus strain and has added a lot of new mutations, raising concerns that it could more easily evade our immune responses.
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Crooks & Liars: Feds Reveal They Have A Very Weak Case Against Milwaukee Judge
Footage released by federal prosecutors contradict the criminal petition against Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan
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Jess Piper: Empty Suits. Empty Seats.
The empty town hall phenomenon.
My Congressman hasn’t held a town hall since 2012.
He doesn’t come to his rural district often unless it’s for a fundraiser or for a photo op. He does post pictures from his farm twice a year — planting and harvest time. Other than that, no one I know has seen hide nor hair of Missouri’s 6th District Congressman, Sam Graves, in a very long time.
In his absence, his constituents have started meeting to talk about the policies he keeps voting for while his district keeps falling behind.
…I invited Representative Graves to a town hall in St Joseph, Missouri on March 24th. I never heard back from his office, but I know he was invited by several others who did hear back from his office: a staffer explained to one St Joseph constituent that Sam couldn’t attend the town hall hosted by Persisterhood because he “would be in Washington.”
Fair enough. It was March.
So you can imagine my surprise to hear Rep Sam Graves was actually in St Joseph on the morning of March 24th speaking on a local radio show. It was also a surprise to the radio host and a surprise to the organizers of the empty town hall. No one in the group could recall the last time our Congressman had visited St Joe and here he was in town on the same day Sam’s staffers claimed he couldn’t come to the town hall because he was in Washington.
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Over 300 people attended the empty town hall in St. Joseph for Sam Graves. It was one of the biggest scenes of resistance I have witnessed in Northwest Missouri and it keeps happening.
(Jess Piper more…)
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AP: ‘Leap together,’ Kermit the Frog says in address at University of Maryland graduation
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“As you prepare to take this big leap into real life, here’s a little advice — if you’re willing to listen to a frog,” the beloved Muppet said. “Rather than jumping over someone to get what you want, consider reaching out your hand and taking the leap side by side, because life is better when we leap together.”
(AP more…)
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Harvard: Free Online Courses
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American Statesman: Austin mosques targeted in vandalism, prompting calls for heightened security
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Dean Blundell: American Senators Descend on Ottawa in A Desperate Plea to Keep Canada Anchored to the South
A Bipartisan Group of Anti-Trump US Senators Spent The Week In Canada Begging For Their Economic Lives But It’s Way Too Late…
Dean Blundell: Ban Him at the Border? Why Canada Has Every Right to Bar Trump from the G7
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Thom Hartmann: Chapter 6: The Right To Work For Less
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
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