U.S. Anti-Intellectualism Finally Reaches Its Zenith

PBS: “A poll from the journal "Nature" found 75% of researchers are considering leaving 🇺🇸— including a man dubbed the Mozart of Math… a scientific brain drain.” The Trump Effect. The opposite of Making America Great Again. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

[image or embed]

— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) November 30, 2025 at 8:14 AM

Support Trumpism by Choosing Northwestern U.

bsky.app/profile/prof...

[image or embed]

— Milan Markovic (@profmarkovic.bsky.social) November 28, 2025 at 6:51 PM

It’s Happening!

LET’S GO!!!! share.newsbreak.com/g3e6w06o

[image or embed]

— James Horn, PhD (@schools-matter24.bsky.social) November 27, 2025 at 12:27 PM

Scripted “Parrot” Learning Is Not in the Best Interests of Children and Society

Reshaping Reading Instruction In U.S. Public Schools to Support the 60% of Children in America who are Coping with Adverse Childhood Experiences and Potentially Life-Long Traumas by Denny Taylor

Read on Substack

U.S. Media Outlets Closely Following TN 7th District Race

The Tennessee race that suddenly has Trump world nervous www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

[image or embed]

— James Horn (@schools-matter24.bsky.social) November 22, 2025 at 8:21 AM

Veterans in Congress Speak Directly to Active Military and Intelligence Communities

TN Parents File Lawsuit to Stop Bill Lee’s School Voucher Privatization Plan

Lawsuit Alleges Tennessee's School Voucher Program is Unconstitutional nashvillebanner.com/2025/11/21/t...

[image or embed]

— James Horn (@schools-matter24.bsky.social) November 21, 2025 at 8:06 AM

The Felon-in-Chief Calls a Female Reporter “Piggy"

 

Every outlet worth a damn should be calling this out. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

[image or embed]

— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) November 18, 2025 at 10:45 AM

On Horny Racist, Epstein Pal, and Former Harvard President, Larry Summers

Despite Dr. Summers’ attempt to have the Harvard trustees muzzle the Harvard Crimson, follow the link to the reporting excerpted below.

This is absolutely disgusting. Larry Summers discussed wanting to fuck a former Harvard student who was Chinese with Epstein. He nick named her "peril" a reference to the racist "yellow peril." Larry Summers needs to resign. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

[image or embed]

— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) November 16, 2025 at 8:58 PM

She's Aftyn Behn and She’s Running for Congress.

Blackburn and Hagerty Among Senate’s Most Corrupt

 

TENNESSEAN: “Ethics complaint filed claiming 8 Senators ― including @MarshaBlackburn & @SenatorHagerty ― violated conflict of interest rules by supporting a provision allowing them to sue the government for millions…” (Finally they cover this story! 👏🏽) www.tennessean.com/story/news/p...

[image or embed]

— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) November 15, 2025 at 7:21 AM

Feinberg Finally Speaks Some Truth about KIPP

When the high-rolling co-founder of KIPP, Mike Feinberg, was fired in 2018 based on allegations of child sexual abuse, he found work running some vocational programs in Houston. He is once more hooked up with construction magnate and charter school enthusiast, Leo Linbeck, and Feinberg heads up an outfit called Work Texas, a jobs training program that sends its grit-infused program completers into blue collar careers.

As a board member of Work Texas, one of Linbeck’s companies was paid $2.4 million in 2020 to build the Work Texas vocational school (see IRS 990 here). 

Rather than training children to become future assets for white collar corporations, which is the mission of KIPP, Feinberg’s new lucrative “non-profit” venture hopes to make black and brown workers into assets for construction and building companies. 

In the following clip from a recent article promoting Work Texas, which uses an old photo of Feinberg from his “stallion” days at KIPP, Feinberg finally admits at least some small part of the damage that KIPP has imposed on its graduates.

The [graduation] numbers are eye-catching: WorkTexas boasts an 88 percent completion rate. But Feinberg insists the more telling data emerges later. Graduates who stay employed for at least a year earn an average of $23 an hour, while about 100 alumni have returned for additional training to advance their careers.

This long-term obsession comes from Feinberg’s earlier work at KIPP, the charter school network he co-founded. KIPP famously tracked its students through college for up to a decade after middle school. That data revealed sobering truths: while half of KIPP Houston alumni earned degrees, others dropped out burdened by debt.

“We hurt children,” Feinberg admits about students who took on massive loans but never finished. “They’re working at Starbucks with $100,000 worth of debt.”

New Report Shows How WH Weaponized Civil Rights to Attack Campus Free Speech

A new report published today by the AAUP and the Middle East Studies Association finds that the weaponization of civil rights law has been central to attacks on campus speech over the past two years. 

The report, “Discriminating Against Dissent: The Weaponization of Civil Rights Law to Repress Campus Speech on Palestine,” is the first systematic empirical study of government investigations and private lawsuits against US colleges and universities under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The findings in the report underscore how the Civil Rights Act of 1964—which passed in response to years of nonviolent civil disobedience against racial injustice—is being cynically used to squash political dissent and speech that advocates for the human rights of Palestinians. At the same time, the Trump administration appears to have completely halted investigations based on complaints of racial harassment.

While reprehensible acts of antisemitism have occurred on campuses over the last two years, “Discriminating Against Dissent” shows that most government investigations of antisemitism are prompted by complaints received from outside of university and college campuses, including from people and organizations who have no relationship with the schools under investigation. Of the 102 complaints filed with the Office of Civil Rights that the report analyzes, all but one focus on speech critical of Israel. Eighty percent describe speech critical of Israel or Zionism--with no reference to Jews or Judaism--as antisemitism, and 50 percent consist solely of such criticism.  

The report documents the surge in investigations since October 7, 2023, with more opened in the last two months of 2023 (25) than in all previous years combined (24). Investigations broke record numbers in 2024 (39) and are on track to do so again in 2025 (with 38 as of September 30).

The explosion in antisemitism investigations has been largely driven by a handful of pro-Israel and right-wing organizations; such groups were involved in 78 percent of complaints leading to investigations.

Federal antisemitism investigations in the final year of the Biden administration pressured over twenty schools to accept deals in which they agreed to sweeping policy changes such as handing over extensive data on internal antisemitism complaints—including the names of accusers and accused.

The report also analyzes the twenty-eight Title VI antisemitism lawsuits filed to date by pro-Israel groups against universities in federal courts. Although no case has yet resulted in a final judgment for plaintiffs, some have resulted in settlements implementing even more draconian policy changes than government investigations.

Finally, the report analyzes the work of the Trump administration’s multi-agency Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, including its pretextual use of antisemitism allegations to cut federal funding to universities and the coercive agreements it has extracted from Columbia and Brown Universities. It highlights the first appellate decision in a Title VI case alleging anti-Israel discrimination in which the First Circuit rejected attempts “to stifle anti-Zionist speech by labeling it inherently antisemitic.” 

Source: https://www.aaup.org/news/new-report-civil-rights-law-weaponized-chill-speech

Maddow: Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (again)

"Rachel Maddow looks at the powerful political momentum Democrats had built, including massive nationwide protests and a wildly successful election, only to have their unity falter on the shutdown fight with Republicans, resulting in capitulation that leaves many Americans who'd been encouraging Democrats to stand up and fight feeling hopeless and dispirited. Senator Bernie Sanders talks with Maddow about his objections to vote, 

Democratic plans going forward, and why "the Democratic establishment" should be the target of primarying."

Mark Elias on 8 Ways Republicans Will Subvert The 2026 Election

Mark Elias and his law firm have brought and won more lawsuits to protect voting rights than any other group in the U. S. This guy is a bulldog of the best kind.

The Senate Surrender WILL Have Repercussions

 

[image or embed]

— Indivisible ❌👑 (@indivisible.org) November 10, 2025 at 7:11 AM

Pathetic Cave-in By 8 Cowards Who Should Resign from the Senate

These 8 Senators sold us out to Trump: Hassan King Cortez-Masto Shaheen Kaine Fetterman Durbin Rosen Understand This Fact: Chuck Schumer is behind this. None of these 8 are up for reelection in 2026. Schumer asked them vote yes—they agreed. He's such a coward that he folded and won't even own it.

— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@qasimrashid.com) November 9, 2025 at 8:59 PM

Cornell Sells Out to Fascists

 

Whore-nell bends over for Trump Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...

[image or embed]

— James Horn (@schools-matter24.bsky.social) November 7, 2025 at 2:00 PM

He Just Doesn’t Care

If he cares this much about a med emergency of someone in his own circle, imagine how much he cares about the millions of people in rural America where hospitals are closing. 'That guy doesn't care': MSNBC host calls out Trump's indifference after executive faints www.rawstory.com/trump-oval-o...

[image or embed]

— James Horn (@schools-matter24.bsky.social) November 7, 2025 at 7:59 AM

Another angle: 

Early Voting in TN 7th Starts Nov. 12

Tennesseans are Getting a Rough Ride by Rep. Aftyn Behn

Our first campaign ad of the TN-7 Special General Election

Read on Substack

Vote for Making Life Affordable OR Pleasing Donald Trump

Where In the World Is Matt Van Epps?

". . Van Epps has skipped public forums, and mostly avoided interacting with . . . the media. The Van Epps campaign has not responded to multiple requests for interviews. . . . Instead, he's focused energy on hosting fundraisers, and taking a trip to the White House." www.yahoo.com/news/article...

[image or embed]

— James Horn (@schools-matter24.bsky.social) November 6, 2025 at 8:30 AM

Wins, Big Wins, and Seismic Wins

 Last night saw the first official repudiation at the voting booth of all things MAGA.  

This is such a statement!! Between this and the trouncing that appears to have happened to the Virginia House of Delegates, it does seem like an absolute repudiation of many of MAGA Now, we need to carry that momentum into 2026 but also 2028. LFG!!!!

[image or embed]

— Bock Sam (@bocksam.bsky.social) November 5, 2025 at 6:34 AM

Marsha Blackburn Lies on the U.S. Senate Floor

Marsha Blackburn has been known to offer up some whoppers on the Fox propaganda channel, but now she has been spotted lying outrageously on the Senate floor.  We’re talking Trump-class lying.

In this clip, she blatantly lies when she says that extension of the ACA health care tax credits will cost "450 billion hard-earned dollars every single year.” 

Rather than $450 billion per year, as Lying Marsha claims, extending the enhanced tax credits will cost $350 billion over 10 years—with 3.6 million additional Americans who will be able to afford health care, thanks to the credits.  

Here are the facts, brought to you by the Congressional Budget Office and summarized at Congress.gov—you know, where Marsha has an office. 

What Might Happen If the Enhanced Subsidies Are Extended?

CBO and JCT provided budgetary and coverage estimates under a permanent extension of the enhanced PTC.21 They estimated that direct spending would increase by nearly $296 billion (on net) over the FY2026-FY2035 budget window and that revenues would decrease (on net) by more than $54 billion over the same window. Taken together, the permanent extension would add approximately $350 billion to the budget deficit for that time period. 

In addition, CBO and JCT estimated that, under a permanent extension, "the number of people with health insurance would increase by 3.6 million in 2030 and by 3.8 million in 2035."22 CBO also projected that gross benchmark premiums would decrease 7.6%, on average, each year over the 2026-2035 period.

 

Saying Goodbye to 60 Minutes

Watching 60 Minutes last Sunday evening offered a peek into what we may expect from CBS’s style of dumbed down investigative journalism under new right-wing management. Mike Wallace is surely rolling in his grave.

Bari Weiss's team at 60 Minutes offered up a shallow, lopsided lead-off piece on Trump’s obvious attempts to overthrow the government of Venezuela; a puff piece on a medical fitness entrepreneur who has a 75-patient load (total), each of whom he charges several hundred thousand dollars per year; and a story on a manipulative mentalist who entertains the rich and famous with his powers to read and control people. I will focus comments here on the 60 Minutes lead story.

Problem One: Sharon Alfonsi’s story provides no historical context for understanding how we got to where we are today with relations between Venezuela’s criminal dictator and America’s criminal would-be dictator. If the 60 Minutes team had offered just a smidgen from any historical source on our own government’s repeated meddling over the past 120 years in Venezuelan politics for the benefit of American corporations, it would have been helpful to viewers. See GovFacts.org for an able synopsis. Here is just one paragraph from there that stands out:

This half-century [1908-1958] of U.S. policy was defined by stark pragmatism where oil flow served as the ultimate arbiter of American interests. Stated democracy commitments were consistently subordinated to securing energy resources and maintaining regional stability goals, even at the cost of supporting repressive regimes. This approach fostered deep, lasting Venezuelan perceptions that the United States was an ally of corrupt domestic elites and foreign corporate interests—powerful grievances that would fuel nationalist political movements for generations.

From 1958 to 1998, Venezuela enjoyed forty years of relative stability under a social democratic government whose anti-Communist stance and support for U.S. economic goals guaranteed American support. 

That all came to a screeching halt in 1998 when Hugo Chavez was elected President. Chavez was able to exploit his own people’s deep resentment of growing economic inequality, political corruption, and U.S. exploitation of Venezuelan natural resources in order to consolidate power under a populist banner that Chavez, in turn, exploited to secure for himself dictatorial powers. Despite U.S. support for a coup attempt in 2002 to replace Chavez, Chavez persisted and was able to further consolidate power by presenting himself as a victim of foreign aggression and by nationalizing important industries, including oil, and by using proceeds to initiate programs like health care and education. 

Chavez’s hand-picked successor in 2013, Nicolás Maduro, further tightened one-man rule of Venezuela as the economy melted down. For the people of Venezuela, the result was severe economic hardship and severe suffering due to Chavez’s human rights violations aimed to eliminate political opposition and to assure compliance.

The Obama Administration responded with a program of targeted sanctions that aimed to punish human rights violations and the elimination of democratic institutions in the country.

In 2017, the Trump Administration expanded sanctions in an attempt to crush Maduro’s rule:

Key measures included financial sanctions cutting off the Venezuelan government and its state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), from U.S. financial markets; ban on the government’s digital currency; and, most critically, sectoral sanctions blocking all U.S. dealings with PDVSA, the central bank, and gold mining sector. In August 2019, E.O. 13884 effectively blocked all Venezuelan Government property in the United States.

In addition to applying an economic chokehold, Team Trump attempted to impose regime change in 2019, an effort that solidified Maduro’s closer linkages with China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran, while raising U.S.-Venezuelan relations to a boiling point.

The other direct side effect was to create a Venezuelan crisis that resulted in the massive influx of immigrants to the United States comprised of people seeking political asylum and economic survival.

None of this historical context was reported by the 60 Minutes gloss, and Alfonsi interviewed no historians, political scientists, or economists.

Instead, Alfonsi and her bosses limited American “analysis” to Trump’s last ambassador to Venezuela, James Story, and one of Trump’s leading sycophants in the U.S. Senate, Rick Scott. On cue, these Trump yes men had nothing to say of attempts at Venezuelan regime change so as to guarantee billionaire oilmen and tech bros access to the country's valuable resources. 

Most stunning of all, Alfonsi’s report offered no official or unofficial U.S. critique of Trump’s current unofficial war on Venezuela.

So this evening when the clock at 60 Minutes starts its ticking, I will be looking elsewhere to find informative stories on politics, culture, and the arts. Goodbye, Bari, and to all the real reporters remaining at CBS, goodnight, and good luck.

Finally, the article at GovFacts closes with this summation regarding foreign policy based on bullying and heedless machoism. It's is well-worth remembering:

The “maximum pressure” campaign created a profound paradox. While the policy succeeded in inflicting severe Venezuelan economy damage, it failed to achieve its primary political objective. The regime didn’t collapse; instead, Maduro consolidated power, retained military loyalty, and deepened reliance on U.S. adversaries for economic and political lifelines.

The resulting economic devastation fueled unprecedented refugee crisis, with over 7 million Venezuelans fleeing their country, creating major challenges for the U.S. and entire region. This outcome demonstrated stark limits of using unilateral economic sanctions as regime change tools and has forced U.S. policy into more complex, nuanced strategy of leveraging sanctions as bargaining chips in protracted diplomatic stalemate.

The Venezuelan case illustrates broader tensions in American foreign policy between idealistic democracy promotion and pragmatic strategic interests. From early 20th-century support for oil-friendly dictators to 21st-century sanctions aimed at democratic restoration, U.S. policy has consistently reflected immediate strategic priorities over long-term democratic values. Today’s crisis represents the culmination of nearly two centuries of complex, often contradictory engagement—a relationship shaped by oil, ideology, and the persistent challenge of balancing American interests with Latin American sovereignty. https://govfacts.org/history/a-history-of-us-policy-toward-venezuela-from-monroe-to-maduro/