More specifically, part of the plan is to implement work requirements for Medicaid eligibility—this is currently only a feature of the program in Georgia—and to justify adding this administrative hurdle for patients and states, Republicans are claiming that access to taxpayer-funded healthcare is causing young men to waste all their time playing videogames instead of working.
A 2023 Pew Research survey found that about 80% of women married to men in the U.S. take their husband’s last name. Under the SAVE Act, if their voter registration name differs from the name on their birth certificate or passport, they may need to show additional documents.
If the SAVE Act were to become law, Bedekovics said married women who have changed their names should obtain certified copies of all marriage certificates, locate their birth certificates, and keep any change-of-name documentation on hand for any updates to their voter registration.
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order to expand school choice across the country. While this policy could allow more students access to alternatives outside of public schooling, critics warn it might divert essential funding from public schools and exacerbate educational inequalities.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which provides a comprehensive measure of students’ academic achievement across the country, overall student achievement has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. The percentage of eighth-graders reading below NAEP Basic is the highest in the assessment’s history, and the percentage of fourth-graders scoring below NAEP Basic is the largest in 20 years.
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Recent audits revealed that private school parents, and now voucher recipients, have used the funds for a slew of, at best, questionable expenses, including kayak lessons, horseback riding lessons, home gyms, televisions, and more. Earlier audits conducted prior to the most recent expansion revealed similarly questionable uses.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.
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In part because of her recent policy role and her experience as the small business administrator, Ms. McMahon had been discussed as a possible pick to lead the Commerce Department until the role was officially offered to Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive and a chairman of the Trump transition team, earlier in the day.
Ms. McMahon will be in charge of overseeing what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions, as Mr. Trump and many of those in his orbit have questioned the agency’s purpose and disparaged its work as overregulating schools on political and ideological terms.
Other than a brief appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year, Ms. McMahon has no experience in overseeing education policy. She would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.
But the America First Policy Institute has set out a more immediate list of changes it says could be achieved through vastly changing the department’s priorities. Those include stopping schools from “promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts” about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding “school choice” programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes or at private and religious schools.
On Friday evening, August 2, Howard Lutnick, the Chairman and CEO of the Wall Street trading house, Cantor Fitzgerald, held a fundraiser populated by the super wealthy at his home in the Hamptons. The bash was to help presidential candidate Donald Trump shore up his sagging campaign coffers. Tickets went for $25,000 each or $50,000 if you wanted a photo with Trump. You could be listed on the program as a host for a mere $500,000. According to Lutnick, the event raised $15 million. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Lutnick himself was responsible for a third of that amount. He wrote out a check for $5 million to the Trump campaign the Monday after the event.
Information published on social media and reviewed by Hatewatch show that RAIR’s president is Chris Gaubatz, a well-known anti-Muslim figure previously affiliated with the hate group Understanding the Threat. …
Though not the most outspoken anti-Muslim figure, Gaubatz has presented Islam as a violent religion and subscribes to a variety of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. In 2016, he joined up with former FBI agent turned anti-Muslim conspiracist John Guandolo. Up until April of this year, Gaubatz served as vice-president of Guandolo’s consulting firm Understanding the Threat (UTT). During that time, Guandolo and Gaubatz traveled the country providing training seminars about the “jihadi threat” to law enforcement and civilians. …
Siino, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles to launch a doomed internet media startup called WeMash with Quincy Jones III, son of the famous music producer. …
Mekelburg had also been trying to make inroads into what Ibrahim Hooper calls “the cottage-industry of Islam haters,” which is run by bigots such as Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, Brigitte Gabriel and Frank Gaffney — several of whom have close ties to the Republican establishment and the Trump administration. Their efforts can be remunerative, thanks to generous funding from conservative and libertarian foundations such as the Donors Capital Fund.
Mekelburg’s best connection to this world was through Anni Cyrus, who produces The Glazov Gang, an Islamophobic talk show that can be found on YouTube. Host Jamie Glazov is the editor of one of Horowitz’s anti-Muslim publications. Mekelburg asked for Cyrus’ help in launching her own anti-Muslim organization. Cyrus, who did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment, greeted Mekelburg’s overture with enthusiasm. …
Mekelburg named her organization Resistance Against Islamic Radicals (RAIR). She created a website, set up a Facebook page and a Twitter handle, and recruited Cortez to design artwork from behind bars, according to Galasso. RAIR’s mission would be “to stop the Jihadi infiltration in our American communities.” Mekelburg didn’t mention herself anywhere on the organization’s website. Under an “accomplices” section, however, she posted the names, photos and contact information for people and groups she believed were collaborating with jihadi terrorists. That could mean anyone with a connection to Islam.
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