Tag: hypocrisy

Weingarten Blames Screens, Not Herself, For Falling Test Scores

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is sounding the alarm about the decade-long decline in student test scores, pointing to screens and devices as a culprit. She’s calling it a “call to action.”

She left out the part about how she helped cause the problem in the first place.

For two years during the COVID pandemic, Weingarten and the AFT fought aggressively to keep schools closed. In July 2020, as the Trump administration urged schools to reopen, Weingarten called the push “reckless,” “callous,” and “cruel,” and threatened the possibility of safety strikes.

Internal emails later released by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee showed the AFT had access to draft guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control before it was made public, as well as proposed specific language that could trigger renewed closures.

Research published afterward confirmed what was already evident: Districts with stronger teachers unions were significantly less likely to reopen for in-person instruction, even after controlling for local COVID conditions.

So kids stayed home. They got on computer screens and stayed there for two years, cut off from teachers, friends, and anything resembling a normal childhood.

The consequences were not abstract. The National Assessment of Educational Progress recorded the largest declines in math and reading scores in its history. Reading results dropped to levels not seen since the early 1990s.

Researchers documented surging rates of anxiety, depression, and social developmental delays among children who spent critical years in isolation. The damage, experts say, will take a generation to undo.

In her book published last fall, Weingarten wrote that she “…led the AFT in developing a concrete plan to reopen schools as quickly and safely as possible.” That’s a remarkable claim given the documented record of what her union actually did.

Weingarten told Congress in 2023 there were “… things we really didn’t get right,” including the impact of prolonged closures. That acknowledgment was notable, but what followed it wasn’t accountability. It was a pivot.

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Scott Bessent Just Humiliated a Democrat Senator Over Jeffrey Epstein

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) walked into a budget hearing Wednesday thinking he could grandstand his way through an attack on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Instead, Wyden walked out looking like a fool.

The hearing was supposed to be about the federal budget, but Wyden, being a Democrat, had other plans. He opened with a broadside against President Donald Trump’s administration, accusing it of “widespread corruption” and personally dragging Bessent into it. He also wanted to make Jeffrey Epstein the issue, because it’s pretty much the only play Democrats have, and it’s not even a good one. He claimed that Bessent blocked congressional investigators from accessing Epstein’s financial records and participated in a cover-up lasting a year and a half.

“There’s no better example than the fact that there has been a cover-up of the massive file of Epstein’s financial records for a year and a half,” Wyden said. “This is part of the effort I’ve made, it’s the only one, to follow the money in the Epstein situation. And yet there’s been a denial of access to committee investigators and lying in public about their significance. That subject alone deserves its own hearing. Senate investigators are trying to figure out who paid Epstein for girls, and unfortunately, Secretary Bessent is involved in preventing that from happening.”

Strong words. Too bad they collapsed on contact with reality. As far as Epstein is concerned, the Trump administration has always been about transparency. The Trump administration released the Epstein files to the public, something the Biden administration refused to do. So the senator railing about cover-ups belongs to the party that actually kept those files buried for years.

Bessent wasn’t about to sit there and take it.

“I had hoped to keep this in terms of the economy — Senator Wyden has mendaciously slandered the Treasury building in an attempt to cover up his son having an investment meeting with Jeffrey Epstein to ask for funding,” Bessent said.

Wyden didn’t take it well.

“Let’s be clear here. Nobody is interested in the ramblings of a capo in the most corrupt regime in American history. We want to get some facts about this deal. That’s what we’re here for,” Wyden shot back.

And then Bessent went in for the kill. “And we would like to hear what Adam Wyden and Jeffrey Epstein talked about. Your son’s largest investment position was Rick’s Cabaret. So did your son and Jeffrey Epstein talk about pole dancing as he begged him for money using your limited credibility?” Bessent said.

The room went quiet. Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) turned to Wyden to check whether he had a response. He didn’t.

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Rampant Kleptocracy Feeds Wealth Inequality In A Crumbling American Empire

The state of the American economy is something that is increasingly on the minds of Americans these days. With life getting more expensive millions of Americans are feeling the squeeze getting tighter and tighter. And it seems with every passing day that the so called “leaders” of the American empire further demonstrate their disconnect from the fiscal reality of the average citizen.

The Grand-Canyon-sized wealth gap in this nation is staggering, with a classism characterized by despotic decadence on the one hand and dire desperation on the other, with most people falling into the latter category while the former flaunt their obscene opulence.

This of course isn’t just prevalent among the political predators, but throughout the entirety of the parasitic one percent, political and cultural elitists stretching from the halls of Congress to corporate power centers, to the Hollywood Hills.

A prime example of this being the annual Met Gala earlier this month. While politically unimportant, the cult of celebrity was on full display as these supercilious snobs laud over themselves for the world to see in grandiose fashion, grandstanding with multimillion dollar outfits and accessories. Meanwhile much of the population struggle to make ends meet. 

And let us be clear, this is not a condemnation of the rich for the sake of being rich. Rather, it is a condemnation of a society in which self proclaimed elitists enrich themselves through the institutionalized exploitation of the average person, profiting from systems deliberately designed to oppress the many for the benefit of the few.

This permeates throughout the entirety of America’s power structure, observable on federal, state, and even local levels, as demonstrated by The Free Thought Project’s recent reporting on the continued criminalization of homelessness.

Fiscal recklessness is running rampant through American legislature. As recently reported by The Daily Economy, the US debt has now crossed 100% of GDP for the first time since the end of World War II.

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Bernie Sanders Says Graham Platner Has ‘the Guts’ to Fight, Despite Mounting Scandals

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says scandal-ridden Graham Platner has the “guts” to fight billionaires — despite headline after headline proving a nightmare for the Maine Democrat Senate candidate’s campaign.

“What we’re looking at right now is a situation where billionaires have already pledged to spend $90 million in a tiny state like Maine,” Sanders said, according to a report by Fox News.

“Trust me, that is a lot of money. They don’t want him in,” the Vermont senator added of Platner, who, during his campaign, faced scrutiny for sporting a Nazi-linked tattoo.

Sanders, however, argues that the skeletons in Platner’s closet are only being revealed because he has “the guts” to stand up to billionaires.

“The reason that they do not want him in the Senate is he has had the guts to stand up to the big money interests, to fight for healthcare as a human right, to demand the billionaires start paying their fair share of taxes,” Sanders asserted.

Platner’s slew of campaign scandals began after video footage surfaced of his chest adorned with a tattoo of a totenkopf — a symbol of the Nazi war machine from World War II.

The 41-year-old first-time candidate has denied being a Nazi and maintains that he would not have gone through life with the tattoo had he known its significance.

Senator Sanders, however, does not seem phased.

“I think what we, as a nation, need to do is to focus on the important issues facing working families, 60 percent of whom are living paycheck to paycheck,” he said. “And I think that Graham and his wife, Amy, will work on their marriage, and I wish them the best.”

Meanwhile, unearthed Reddit posts show Platner admitting to masturbating every time he defecates in a porta-potty, as well as praising crude penis drawings he has spotted while inside portable toilets.

Additional recently revealed past Reddit posts also showed the Maine Democrat Senate candidate mocking a U.S. soldier and Purple Heart recipient who was shot four times in Afghanistan, writing, “Dumb motherfucker didn’t deserve to live,” among other similar sentiments.

Platner — who has also been endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — faced backlash late last year when more recent Reddit posts resurfaced, including one from five years ago in which he referred to himself as a “communist” and “socialist.”

Other posts show him calling police “bastards,” saying Americans who live in rural areas are “stupid,” and claiming sexual assault victims should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so messed up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”

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DSA LA candidate caught in shocking hypocrisy, breaks own party’s rules

A socialist who sells herself as a champion of struggling renters in Los Angeles is secretly living a life of luxury, the California Post can reveal.

Faizah Malik, 41, the Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidate challenging moderate Councilmember Traci Park, 50, on Los Angeles’ Westside with a campaign centered on rent reform and housing affordability, lives in a sprawling, $2.5 million mansion in Venice Beach.

The sprawling home sits on a 5,780-square-foot lot with a private enclosed yard, with sun-drenched interiors and high-end finishes throughout.

It has an all-white kitchen with stainless steel appliances, multiple bedrooms opening onto private balconies and a deck designed for outdoor dining, a rare luxury in the expensive enclave.

The property is tucked inside Penmar, near the Penmar Golf Course, a neighborhood of single-family homes where prices typically start at $1.7 million and climb to $4 million.

A Zillow listing has the property’s rental estimate at $8,000 a month, a far cry from the struggling renters she claims she will represent.

The average Angeleno pays up to $3,000 a month for a place to live, according to a March rental market trends report by Zumper.

Only 9 percent pay more than $6,000 a month for rent.

But when The Post contacted Malik, her spokeswoman suggested she too was feeling the squeeze: “On the Westside, there are renters that are in every possible financial situation, and there are homeowners who are feeling enormous financial pressure as well.

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Mamdani’s “COGE” commission to prepare deeper cuts to New York City social programs and regulations

On Thursday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the formation of a Committee on Government Efficiency (COGE) to examine the New York City Charter for efficiencies: that is, to search for ways in which social programs can be cut.

“The Commission on Government Efficiency will take a hard look at how City government functions and identify the reforms we need to deliver faster, smarter and more effectively for working people,” Mamdani told the media.

The Charter is essentially New York City’s constitution. It defines what authority belongs to the mayor and other officials and what to the City Council; laws, timelines and mandatory minimum rules for city reserve funds; the multi-step public review process required to build housing, change zoning laws or approve major infrastructure; and the scope, duties and enforcement powers of every city department.

The Charter does not control funding but does dictate the operational rules that heavily control, protect or limit social spending. For example, the Charter legally mandates the existence of agencies like the Department of Social Services and the Human Resources Administration, which a mayor cannot simply abolish to save money. The Charter also sets the exact legal procedures for how the city buys goods and hires outside nonprofits to run homeless shelters, daycare centers and after-school programs.

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Graham Platner slams articles over his alleged ‘sexting’ as ‘journalistic malpractice’

Democrat candidate for United States Senator from Maine Graham Platner accused media outlets that had reported on his alleged “sexting” scandal as “journalistic malpractice.”

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, he specifically called out the The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and The New York Times (NYT), which had reported on the scandal on Saturday.

“The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times ran stories without any evidence besides the gossip from a former staffer…I’m sorry, that’s frankly journalistic malpractice,” Platner stated.

According to reporting by both outlets, Platner’s wife had told the campaign about messages she had discovered of her husband “sexting” with multiple women, despite the couple having been married since 2023.

Current and former officials working on Platner’s campaign had confirmed the exchanges, according to the NYT. One current official reportedly said the conduct had stopped before the launch of his Senate campaign.

A former campaign senior aide, Genevieve McDonald, claimed that Gertner had reached out in 2025 about her husband’s alleged behavior, the NYT reported.

Per media reports, Gertner talking about feeling betrayed by an unnamed campaign staffer in a statement provided by the Platner campaign.

“I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind — and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy,” Gertner said.

In a Saturday video statement posted to Platner’s social media campaign account, Gertner said she found the willingness to spread gossip “shameful.”

“It makes me really angry, disappointed. And I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on,” she said.

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Trump and Interior Sec Doug Burgum Nuke the Failing New York Times for Lying About Reflecting Pool Restoration at a Fraction of Obama’s $34 MILLION Hack Job

President Trump went off on the New York Times in a lengthy Truth Social post on Friday over its attacks on Trump’s renovation of the nearly half-mile-long reflecting pool, which sits between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. 

The outlet has written several hit pieces on the project to restore the filthy green water basin, built in the 1920s, which has been marred by issues, including sinking and leaking into the swamp beneath. “Hundreds of Millions of Dollars have been spent throughout the years trying to fix it, and even from its inception, in 1922, it never really worked!” Trump noted.

Still, a recent New York Times piece attacks Trump over his $13.1 million budget and the so-called “lucrative contracts” awarded to “hand-picked vendors.”

But according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the Trump Derangement Syndrome-infected Times ignores the scope of the project to properly seal the pool with crack and leak-proof materials for the expansion joints, which will withstand the years and changing temperatures that come with the seasons. “This is something the Obama administration didn’t understand,” Burgum said, adding that Obama “wasted millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars” with a failed project in 2012, which had a massive cost of $34 million, more than twice what Trump is paying. Notably, Obama’s botched repairs took nearly two years to complete, while Trump’s will be completed by July 4 after starting in April. 

The “Obama-era errors that failed at the cost of millions for the American taxpayer,” Burgum said, caused the pool to continue leaking a whopping 16 million gallons of water per year.

“Finally, we have professionals doing the right job for a tiny fraction of the money that has been spent, and The Failing New York Times continues to demean the work of these wonderful, talented, and proud construction professionals that are bringing this over 2,000 foot long pool, the largest in the World, BACK TO LIFE!” Trump said. “It is happening before your very eyes, and will soon be completed at a much higher level, and after doing much more work than was originally anticipated.”

Trump previously said they had to remove “eleven or twelve truckloads of filth out of the water” when a reporter asked why he would bother cleaning the monument.

Along with screenshots of an X thread by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, correcting the record, Trump slammed the Times, saying the failed news organization “should spend more of its energy on fixing its broken ‘shop,’ and celebrating America’s Greatness.”

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Veteran Who Graham Platner Said Didn’t ‘Deserve to Live’ Slams Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for Backing Him 

Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat running for senate who has been plagued with multiple scandals calling his character into question, was recently exposed once again, for mocking a fellow war veteran and saying that he didn’t ‘deserve to live.’

That veteran is a man named Teddy Daniels and he just wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, firing back at Platner for his comments.

This weekend, Daniels appeared on CNN and slammed not only Platner, but Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for backing Platner, despite all of these awful remarks and controversies.

Transcript via Mediaite:

I kind of consider the source on that, first and foremost, and I’ll be honest with you, what really upset me about the comments is — you know, I can’t even say that I was upset. I’m upset about the comment that he made about Chris Kyle. You know Chris Kyle has kids. He’s not here to defend himself.

I have kids and you know with people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders backing this man, I want them, I want Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to — my youngest is 8, he turns 9 in a couple days — to tell my kids that they’re supporting a man who said their father didn’t deserve to live. I mean, think about that. You know, that’s the issue there. It’s just sad that somebody like this is being considered for a position in leadership in the United States Senate.

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Hillary Clinton Gets Nuked With These Two Critical Reminders After She Rips Trump for Turning White House into “Rubble” and a “Cage Match”

Hillary Clinton emerged from hiding on Friday to lash out at President Trump’s remodeling of the White House and immediately got torn to shreds on social media.

As TGP readers know, the White House is undergoing a $400 million East Wing renovation primarily funded by private donors and spearheaded by Trump. It features a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom complex.

The construction of the ballroom has been limited by activist judges.

Trump has also installing a UFC fighting cage on the South Lawn ahead of next month’s event to celebrate 250 years of American independence, causing more liberal heads to explode.

Clinton angrily lashed out over the state of the White House, calling it “rubble” and a “cage match.”

“What a metaphor,” she added.

Despite Clinton turning off the comments, X users were quick to remind her of two critical items: not only did her husband, Bill, defile the Oval Office by having sex with an intern, but they also stole silverware and trashed the White House right before leaving for good.

Who really disgraced the White House?

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