Author: Lloyd Lofthouse

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: A reader who identifies as Quickwrit posted the following comment about the filibuster. For most of our history, debates in the Senate could be used to delay consideration of a bill, even to kill it. But the filibuster was not written into law until 1917. Our Founding Fathers would agree that “contemptible” aptly describes…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: Peter Greene explains how the Koch machine is creating new brands to hide its identity from the unsuspecting. The billionaires Charles and his late brother David were infamous for funneling Dark Money through front groups whose names sounded innocuous or inspiring. Now Charles Koch is reaching out to a new generation, attempting to pour…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect reviews the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up! “Appreciate the brilliance of the season’s most profound, category-busting movie.” Don’t Look Up is described as a parody of Trumpism and climate denial. It is elegantly that. But more importantly, the movie is a dead-on satire of the interconnected debasement of…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: Since there is now a deep partisan divide over what happened on January 6, it’s helpful to remember that there is extensive video footage of the events. Some footage was taken by the media, some by video cameras installed in the Capitol, some by police body cameras, and some by the participants who wanted…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: This very important story appeared in the Washington Post. She had seen her grandson’s red, spiral-bound notebook before that night, but now, as Catherine O’Connor sifted through its pages for the first time, what she read astonished her. “School Shootings,” Joshua O’Connor had titled the first page, above a reconstruction of the Columbine High…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: In this article, Marcus Baram of Capital & Main describes a surprising alliance between a veteran labor organizer and his chief nemesis, a man who was a master of union-busting. He begins: They were certainly an odd couple, the unlikeliest of allies: the union organizer and the notorious union buster. Bob Muehlenkamp, a stalwart of the…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: We have had some animated discussion on this blog about whether the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse was “fair,” since he walks away a free man despite murdering two men and maiming a third. Paul Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University and a contributing columnist to the Washington Post, wrote on this subject today:…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: Harold Meyerson, one of my favorite commentators on current events, says that we should stop calling Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema “moderates.” How can one man and one woman block every proposal that would help improve the lives of millions of Americans, including their constituents? Nor should we use that term to describe the…

Never for Glory is the unfinished sequel of The Patriot Oath. With 25 completed chapters, there are about 10 to 15 left to finish the first draft. The first five chapters have already been presented to two of the four critique groups I belong to. One of the two groups has heard all of The Patriot Oath. The second group…

During a regular video conference last Wednesday morning, one of the six that showed up that morning said that being vaccinated didn’t end up offering as much protection as those who were infected by COVID.  He said that people that were infected by the virus had 17 times more antibodies than people that were vaccinated. This guy was also the…