Ian Vandewalker

How Florida lost track of 30,000 students, a ‘cautionary tale’ for vouchers The state’s auditor general found “a myriad of accountability problems” in the nation’s largest voucher program.

School vouchers have always been just about taking money away from public schools. They're not even keeping track of where it went instead. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Billionaires are inheriting record levels of wealth, UBS report finds The spouses and children of billionaires inherited more wealth in 2025 than in any previous year since reporting began in 2015, according to UBS's Billionaire Ambitions Report published on Thursday.

Billionaires are inheriting record levels of wealth, UBS report finds reut.rs/3MFJWnW

Odd-Year Elections Break Spending Records Several state and local elections this year saw new highs of spending, especially from megadonor-fueled super PACs.

Several state and local elections broke campaign spending records, thanks mostly to big donors and super PACs. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

Democrats and Republicans are pouring money into a special election in Tennessee. Here's why Tuesday's special election for Tennessee's 7th Congressional District between Democrat Aftyn Behn and Republican Matt Van Epps has attracted outsize attention and spending from both parties.

"[O]utside groups have spent more than $6.5 million on the race, including more than $1.6 million from the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC. Two-thirds of the total super PAC spending has come in the last two weeks...." www.npr.org/2025/12/02/n...

On Public Financing, Part Ten: Lessons Learned - Montgomery Perspective By Adam Pagnucco. This is the tenth(!) post on Montgomery County’s public financing system, making it one of my longest series ever.  But public financing...

Thoughts from Montgomery County, Maryland, on the results of the local public campaign financing program making elections more accessible. montgomeryperspective.com/2025/11/21/o...

Odd Year Elections Break Spending Records Several state and local elections this year saw new highs of spending, especially from megadonor-fueled super PACs.

Last month's odd-year elections in the states broke spending records, a sign that we haven't yet seen the high-water mark of the big-money flood unleashed by the Supreme Court and other deregulatory actions. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

British mum detained by ICE agents in California as six-month old baby and stunned husband watch on | LBC Katie Paul, 33, was in the process of applying for a green card when she was ambushed by immigration agents

ICE arrests, detains British woman with US husband and newborn when she shows up for her green card interview. She’s now in a detention center, separated from her 6-month-old. No criminal record. She had overstayed her visa.

www.lbc.co.uk/article/brit...

Trump to Hold Two Fund-Raisers for His Super PAC Next Year

Trump is the only president to fundraise for a super PAC while constitutionally prohibited from running again. (To be fair, only one other president, Obama, even had the chance.) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/u...

The case of a felon who paid lobbyists nearly $1 million to seek a Trump pardon Nursing home magnate Joseph Schwartz was sentenced in April to three years for defrauding the government of $38 million. Seven months later, Trump pardoned him, but the White House denies a lobbying t...

Convicted of defrauding the govt of $38M and pardoned by Trump after spending almost $1M to lobby for a pardon. Admin says lobbying had nothing to do with pardon decision. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Robo-Trump: Big Tech’s Big Spending and the Republican Effort to Delete State Laws Against AI Harms - Public Citizen

"How did the technology sector achieve so much power under the second Trump administration? One undeniable factor is money – more than $1 BILLION in influence spending" www.citizen.org/article/robo...

We spent a year investigating billionaires for @washingtonpost.com.

We found: the wealthiest 100 Americans gave $1.1 billion to influence the 2024 elections — 140x more than they did in 2000. And almost all of that giving boosted Republicans.

washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

Americans Show Consensus on Many Democracy-Related Matters A Kettering Foundation/Gallup survey finds most Americans support political compromise, view multiculturalism as a strength and reject political violence.

Americans overwhelmingly agree on a range of key democracy issues, like limiting the influence of the wealthy, cultural pluralism, facts matter, and violence is unacceptable. news.gallup.com/poll/696494/...

These idiots are lying about vaccines to pander to the politics of cruel stupidity, and they are going to kill children.

Not just left vs right: Most voters think about affordability and material wellbeing, not in ideological terms Most voters want a party that emphasizes cost of living issues and makes the world a better place. Few Americans think in solidly ideologically terms. "Moderates" are mostly non-ideological.

Good morning. I've got a banger new post out today that develops a new method for placing voters on the left-right ideological spectrum, and adds a new, "non-ideological"/affordability axis to usual way we chart & think about US voters (esp swing voters). www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-l...

Ought to be front-page headlines.

Opinion | The White House Gold Rush Is On

wrote about the president’s flagrant and destructive corruption in a column that references street fighter, the simpsons, machiavelli, and a host of revolutionary-era americans (gift link)

Majority of corporate Trump ballroom donors represented by 3 lobbying firms, watchdog says Lobbyists from the three firms mingled with top tech executives and President Trump at a dinner for White House ballroom donors last month.

The majority of the corporations known to have donated to the fund for Trump's new White House ballroom are represented by three lobbying firms. www.cbsnews.com/news/corpora...

“Ticking Time Bomb”: A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn’t Get an Abortion in Texas. Walker is one of several women ProPublica found with underlying health conditions who died when they couldn’t access abortions.

NEW:

In 2024, Tierra Walker was sick and getting sicker. She was also pregnant.

She knew abortion was illegal in Texas, but thought there was an exception for women like her, whose health was at risk. Doctors told her there was no emergency.

Then she died.

www.propublica.org/article/texa...

Exclusive: Coinbase explains donation to Trump's ballroom Tech firms like Google, Amazon, and Nvidia also donated to Trump's ballroom fund.

Coinbase CEO says the company gave to Trump's ballroom fund to "keep good relations with the White House." www.axios.com/2025/11/18/t...

Sanford grandfather, born in refugee camp, nabbed by ICE after 70 years in U.S. Paul Bojerski never gained official residency, but he checked in regularly with ICE for years. Then in July, at age 79, he was detained and sent to Alligator Alcatraz.

79-year-old Paul Bojerski was born to Polish parents in a WWII German refugee camp. His family legally emigrated to the U.S. when he was 5.

He’s been taken by ICE in Florida.

www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/11/16/s...

The Coin Laundry, a global cryptocurrency investigation How the crypto boom minted a shadow economy that thrives on crime — and left a trail of devastated victims.

ICIJ’s latest investigation The #CoinLaundry is now live!

Tap the link to read how the crypto boom minted a shadow economy that thrives on crime — and left a trail of devastated victims.

Trump Invests in Media Merger His Administration Controls Days after the Ellison family expressed interest in buying Warner Bros. Discovery, Trump bought up to $1 million in its debt. He is now reportedly pushing the deal to be approved.

NEW: Trump Invests in Media Merger His Administration Controls readsludge.com/2025/11/17/t...

Ponzi Schemer Who Got Trump Clemency Faces 50 Years in New Fraud A convicted Ponzi schemer whose 24-year prison term was commuted by President Donald Trump in 2021 now faces as much as 50 years behind bars for an investor fraud that took place after his clemency.

We're now up to over 40 persons pardoned by Trump facing charges for new crimes. The recidivism rate is exceptionally high. Showing that the people sentenced were in fact hardened criminals... but wealthy enough to buy their pardons. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

State Legislatures Can Push Back Against Citizens United State lawmakers can fight the influence of big money in politics by passing trigger laws that would go into effect if the Supreme Court’s misguided ruling is reversed.

A strategy that helped antiabortion activists in their quest to overturn Roe v. Wade could also work for campaign finance reform: enacting state "trigger laws" that challenge the legitimacy of Citizens United. bit.ly/3Xsczat

NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find:

- NONE of the arrested were criminally charged
- NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists."
- ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.

How Congress Can Rein in Surging Political Corruption Federal lawmakers can protect the American public by passing a new law to fully implement the Constitution’s oldest anticorruption safeguards.

No single reform can eliminate corruption or fully repair the public’s faith in government. But codifying the Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses would be a powerful start. bit.ly/43MmpHM

Trump administration seeks to halt SNAP food aid payments after a court order The Trump administration has asked a federal appeals court to block a judge’s order to distribute November’s full SNAP benefits during a U.S. government shutdown. U.S.

BREAKING: The Trump administration seeks an emergency pause to a court order demanding full November SNAP payments.

Codifying the Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses To prevent corruption, the Constitution prohibits the president and other officials from receiving untoward benefits. Congress, however, must take action to enable enforcement.

An important piece of the anti-corruption puzzle... www.brennancenter.org/our-work/pol...

At $16 million in campaign spending, the PA retention elections are the second most expensive retention elections ever. But the justices themselves have only raised $4 million, the bulk of the spending is by outside interest groups. 2/

The welfare state is about dignity, equality, and making people not poor, but as @itsafronomics.bsky.social says/cites here, it’s often also an investment that more than pays for itself