How to dismantle the Dept. of Education (02-20-2025--Hour3)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] Christopher Ruffo writing at city-journal.org, city-journal.org. He points out the administration has to understand, right, the three primary activities that the Department of Ed does, that they administer. Student loans, K-12 funding, ideological production. That includes an array of programs, grants, civil rights initiatives, third party NGOs that create

[00:00:58] left-wing content to push on local schools, right? It is not possible or desirable to shut down all three functions at the same time, he says. Rather, the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, in partnership with Musk and Doge, should handle each separately. First, spin off the college loan program. Spin off the loans and the grants.

[00:01:26] Put them in partnership with us, put them in partnership with us, put them in an independent financial entity, right? The federal government right now backstops $1.6 trillion in student loans. Every year it issues another $110 billion in student aid. That is a massive portfolio. Put it aside. Get some other group to administer that with risk analysis.

[00:01:56] And cost cutters. They should reform that portfolio. And shift as much of the financial entity and shift as much of it as possible back to the private market and restrict the total number of loans, which is partially responsible for the administrative bloat and the student debt crisis. Okay? That's what's driving it. Thank you, Obamacare, by the way, for that.

[00:02:19] Number two, K-12. In cooperation with Congress, they need to block grant the ed departments or the ED, as I call it, the K-12, the ED, K-12 funding programs. Block grant it. The department sends $100 billion to state governments and local school districts every year. They attach restrictions, ideological conditions.

[00:02:44] The Biden administration tried to use the federal money to push race and gender politics into local school districts. Okay? So instead of legitimizing that kind of coercive power, Rufo says the administration should simply tally up all of the K-12 expenditures divided by state population and disperse the result to each state with no strings attached. Just, here's your money. Done.

[00:03:15] Done. States can continue to use the funding for meals, low-income schools, special education, right? Whatever. But they will have the flexibility to do so in a way that meets their local needs. Third, the ideological production element. They need to just shut that down and terminate the employment of bureaucrats who run them.

[00:03:40] This department maintains a sprawling network of ideological centers through its research programs, right? The vast array of non-government organizations, the NGOs, which survive on ED funding and promote left-wing identity activism. These groups have become hotbeds of progressive identity politics, promoting theories of systemic racism, right?

[00:04:08] The idea that men can turn into women. These activities do not serve the public good. They do not serve public subsidy or deserve public subsidy, especially so under a conservative government that is now in charge, who promised to put an end to critical race theory and gender ideology in the federal government. Also, the Department of Education has their office for civil rights.

[00:04:39] While ostensibly serving a noble purpose, it has been used as a battering ram to promote left-wing ideologies. Take their core functions and move them over to the Department of Justice. Get it out of the Department of Education.

[00:04:58] Send it over to DOJ, where the administration can provide the oversight without the Department of Education's left-wing ideologies and civil rights apparatchiks. He says it is unlikely that you can just scrap the Department of Education without specific legislation or, at minimum, an agreement by Congress to delegate reorganization authority to the president as it did regularly between 1932 and 1984.

[00:05:28] So you're going to need Congress to help. But there is a new reality that may help in this endeavor. I will tell you what the new reality is. First, let's get over to the WBT News Center and get the update here. Scott Hamilton. Thank you, Pete. The winter weather that has been sweeping through our area impacting travel. Hundreds of flights hindered by the winter weather blanketing the East Coast.

[00:05:53] And as of a few minutes ago, 454 flights delayed at Charlotte Douglas. 229 canceled altogether. We'll keep an eye on that, along with providing your full forecast in a few moments. But right now, tensions between the U.S. and Ukraine that have been brewing behind the scenes now spilling out in public. The country is differing on everything from peace talks to ending the war with Russia to how it even started the war in the first place.

[00:06:20] The presidential envoy for Ukraine and Russia is in Kiev today. He's working to find a path to end the war that Russia launched against Ukraine just about three years ago now. There, Kellogg said he understood Ukraine's need for security guarantees. This week, Trump has ripped into Zelensky, suggesting he was to blame for the war and a dictator for suspending elections. With Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine, the country is under martial law.

[00:06:45] Zelensky points to Ukraine's constitution, which provides for delayed elections since it'd be difficult to hold him under Russian assault. Zelensky has also cited a poll showing he has the support of a majority of Ukrainians living in areas under Ukrainian control. That's Fox's Rich Edson. President Zelensky has said Trump lives in a Russian, quote, disinformation space. South of the border, Mexico's president wants constitutional reform related, at least partially, to the United States.

[00:07:14] A day after President Trump designates eight Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says this cannot be an opportunity for the U.S. to invade her country's sovereignty, violating its territory, to go after them. She says she will not allow involvement in investigations or prosecutions without authorization and collaboration of the Mexican government. And she wants Mexico's constitution to make that clear.

[00:07:36] She also proposes constitutional reform to apply the severest possible penalties to gun dealers and smugglers, which would include Americans. President Sheinbaum says she's also expanding a lawsuit against American gun makers. Most guns in Mexico, including the cartels, come from the U.S. Chris Foster, Fox News. Meanwhile, Democrats are stoking fears and condemning FAA layoffs. This after several mid-air disasters over the last month.

[00:08:31] A day after. Since Trump took office and 10 for then President Biden over the same period. That did not stop Swalwell from issuing this blunt statement to our colleagues at Fox Digital saying, quote, Trump is president. President Trump is in charge of air safety. All crashes are Trump's fault. That's Fox's Lucas Tomlinson. The Trump administration has emphasized no employees with a, quote, critical safety position were eliminated. News Talk 1110 and 99.3 WBT. Let's take a look at traffic.

[00:09:01] Here's Pam. All right. And we are going to see some of those slowdowns. Things are starting to pick up here just a bit on the roadways, but it's nothing we can't handle. Right now in University at Harris Boulevard at McCullough Drive with a stalled vehicle. Steel Creek, South I-77 and West Arrow. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too. And you probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why?

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[00:10:14] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Christopher Ruffo writing at cityjournal.org, city-journal.org. He points out the administration has to understand, right, the three primary activities that the Department of Ed does, that they administer. Student loans, K-12 funding, ideological production.

[00:10:43] That includes an array of programs, grants, civil rights initiatives, third-party NGOs that create left-wing content to push on local schools. It is not possible or desirable to shut down all three functions at the same time, he says. Rather, the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, in partnership with Musk and Doge, should handle each separately.

[00:11:13] First, spin off the college loan program. Spin off the loans and the grants. Put them in an independent financial entity. Right? The federal government right now backstops $1.6 trillion in student loans. Every year it issues another $110 billion in student aid. That is a massive portfolio. Put it aside.

[00:11:42] Get some other group to administer that with risk analysts and cost cutters. They should reform that portfolio and shift as much of it as possible back to the private market and restrict the total number of loans, which is partially responsible for the administrative bloat and the student debt crisis. Okay? That's what's driving it. Thank you, Obamacare, by the way, for that.

[00:12:12] Number two, K-12. In cooperation with Congress, they need to block grant the Ed Departments, or the ED, as I call it, the K-12, the ED, K-12 funding programs. Block grant it. The department sends $100 billion to state governments and local school districts every year. They attach restrictions, ideological conditions.

[00:12:36] The Biden administration tried to use the federal money to push race and gender politics into local school districts. Okay? So, instead of legitimizing that kind of coercive power, Rufo says the administration should simply tally up all of the K-12 expenditures, divide it by state population, and disperse the result to each state with no strings attached. Just, here's your money. Done.

[00:13:08] Done. States can continue to use the funding for meals, low-income schools, special education, right? Whatever. But they will have the flexibility to do so in a way that meets their local needs. Third, the ideological production element. They need to just shut that down and terminate the employment of bureaucrats who run them.

[00:13:33] This department maintains a sprawling network of ideological centers through its research programs, right? The vast array of non-government organizations, the NGOs, which survive on ED funding and promote left-wing identity activism. These groups have become hotbeds of progressive identity politics, promoting theories of systemic racism, right?

[00:14:01] The idea that men can turn into women. These activities do not serve the public good. They do not serve public subsidy or deserve public subsidy, especially so under a conservative government that is now in charge, who promised to put an end to critical race theory and gender ideology in the federal government. Also, the Department of Education has their Office for Civil Rights.

[00:14:31] While ostensibly serving a noble purpose, it has been used as a battering ram to promote left-wing ideologies, take their core functions and move them over to the Department of Justice. Get it out of the Department of Education. Send it over to DOJ, where the administration can provide the oversight

[00:14:57] without the Department of Education's left-wing ideologues and civil rights apparatchiks. He says it is unlikely that you can just scrap the Department of Education without specific legislation or, at minimum, an agreement by Congress to delegate reorganization authority to the president as it did regularly between 1932 and 1984. So you're going to need Congress to help. Here's a great idea.

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[00:16:49] There is a lot to choose from, but arguably the most important breakthrough in Trump 2.0, especially for the long-term strength of the MAGA movement, is the total collapse of emotional blackmail as a weapon. The total collapse of emotional blackmail as a weapon. The media, Democrats, but I repeat myself,

[00:17:14] and elites once wielded it to great effect, but not anymore. J.D. Vance's offhand remark, I don't really care, Margaret. Remember that? It wasn't just a moment. Menke says, It was the perfect encapsulation of our new reality. The guilt trips, the manufactured outrage, the pressure campaigns that once dictated the terms of debate simply do not work anymore.

[00:17:42] And they're not coming back, Democrats. They're not coming back. And this is something like, in my role, in my job, and what I've been doing, you know, for the better part of, now, well, over a decade. I've been called all sorts of names. So this emotional blackmail hasn't worked on me in a very, very, very long time. But I recognize that it does work on people who are not in this position.

[00:18:10] People are trying to keep their jobs by not talking about certain things. And so they are very worried about these accusations. People of older generations who are very worried about certain words being used about them and against them. See, it's the thing. Like, I'm with Vance on this. I don't really care, Margaret. I don't care. You can say whatever you want to say. I'm done playing your emotional blackmail game. He is, and I agree 100% with this. I think this is the difference.

[00:18:39] So the time is now to start ripping out this insanity in the Department of Education is just the latest target here. If you're going to do any kind of bold reform, public support is crucial. To maintain Americans' approval, the Trump administration, according to Chris Ruffo, has to explain that college students are still going to be able to get loans. K-12 will still get their money.

[00:19:07] Civil rights will still be protected under the DOJ. This ensures that the argument can be focused on eliminating deeply unpopular and divisive left-wing ideologies, just like Musk has already done at USAID. The time is now. The president is in his first 100 days, and major change is best enacted when an administration enjoys high public approval. Musk understands also that hesitation signals weakness.

[00:19:36] Now, Ruffo, in another piece over at his own website, ChristopherRuffo.com, he adds to this, he says, over the first 30 days, the DOJ method has come to resemble a seek-and-destroy mission. Musk dispatched small teams of lawyers, engineers, and human resource specialists to government agencies, told them to cut wasteful spending and needless ideological programs. Musk seems to have identified two switches,

[00:20:06] payments, and personnel. And these provide the greatest leverage. The DOJ teams have quickly organized a reduction in force and canceled billions of dollars in government contracts, two steps that reduce spending, and reverse the process of left-wing capture. This reflects a number of important developments. First, national politics is highly online now. People are like, oh, Twitter's not real life. Hmm.

[00:20:36] Eh. I don't know. Maybe we're getting to a point of singularity here, but Musk's Twitter, or X, shaping the discourse now. Journalists circulate ideas on social media, government officials, and put them into action, sometimes within hours. The process creates a virtuous circle with journalists, policymakers, and technologists making information public and taking corrective action as necessary.

[00:21:04] The other notable development is the speed. Unlike government bureaucrats, Musk and the DOJ team operate at a lightning-fast tempo. Their stated ambition is to cancel billions of dollars in government contracts every day. These initial strikes at the Department of Education could be the opening for a broader fight. The public can now see that the department functions in part as a patronage scheme for left-wing ideologies. That is correct.

[00:21:34] It is a patronage program. In all of the reporting that I have been covering over the last three weeks here, right, I keep hammering away at that. This is a shadow government. It is a jobs program. It is a patronage system. People move in and out into the NGO that gets the government money, and then when their party, the Democrats, assume control again of the government levers of power, they then move back

[00:22:04] into the government. They enrich their friends. They enrich their NGOs. They promote their agenda, their shared ideology. Then if they lose and they're out, they move back to the NGO circuit, and they reap those rewards. And there is a perfect example of it with the Green New Deal and our old pal Stacey Abrams. Remember her? Two billion dollars in taxpayer funds

[00:22:33] got set aside for a non-profit linked to her, the former perennial Georgia Democrats candidate for governor, right, Stacey Abrams, or I guess she ran for, she ran for Senate or something too? I don't know. She's run for a lot. The Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration awarded a two billion dollar grant to a group called Power Forward Communities. This was part of the agency's greenhouse

[00:23:02] gas reduction fund program. Power Forward Communities got the grant despite the fact that it was founded just four months before it got the grant. And they never managed any amount of money anywhere close to two billion dollars. In fact, total revenue generated by the Power Forward Communities group, you know how much it was? Total revenue, a hundred dollars.

[00:23:33] One hundred dollars. I started my podcast with more capital investment than that. Okay? Power Forward Communities grant was one of eight. And now we're learning more, by the way, about some of these other eight. But the eight grants under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that altogether total twenty billion dollars. Twenty billion went out the door. EPA Administrator

[00:24:02] Lee Zeldin announced last week that the administration, the former administration, the Biden administration, took the twenty billion dollars and parked it in an outside bank, in Citibank actually. They took twenty billion dollars, they put it in a bank, and that limits the federal government's oversight of the program. They parked it there to protect the money from

[00:24:32] Trump. So they could push the money out the door to these eight organizations. They propped up organizations that would, that were specifically designed to get the money under this program, which was in fact created to operate as a green bank, they called it. This was all done under the Inflation Creation Act, sorry,

[00:25:01] Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Lee Zeldin, the new head of the EPA, told the Washington Free Beacon where this story I'm reading to you comes from, when we learned about the Biden administration scheme to park twenty billion outside the agency, we suspected some organizations were created out of thin air just to take advantage of this. And we were right. Power Forward Communities, or PFC, was created October 2023.

[00:25:31] It's a coalition of groups led by Rewiring America. That is a left-wing group that advocates for electrification policies and a transition away from fossil fuel dependence. Abrams serves as Rewiring America's senior counsel. And she said she was thrilled to be part of the Power Forward Communities Coalition. Power Forward Communities has a large number of partners on its website.

[00:26:01] Among its partners are the Southern Economic Advancement Project. Another is called Fair Count. These are left-wing non-profits founded by Abrams in the wake of her electoral victory, sorry, defeat in 2018. The Southern Economic Advancement Project seeks to boost racial equity and economic power in the South. And it is fiscally sponsored as a project of

[00:26:30] the Tides Center, which is connected to George Soros. Surprise, surprise. All right, I hope you had a happy holiday season, but tell me if something like this happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around, maybe y'all are in the living room, you're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says, hey dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet,

[00:26:59] all eyes are on dad, who says, oh, you know, well I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year. All right, Create A Video has been helping families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since 1997. Simply bring in your old camcorder tapes and Create A Video will transfer them to a USB flash drive for just $14.95 per tape. You have a big collection? They've got a discount for you. And next year, instead of talking

[00:27:29] about those memories, imagine gathering the family to watch them together. Talk about a memorable gift. So do what I did. Trust the experts at Create A Video, conveniently located in Mint Hill, right off I-485, and online at createavideo.com. Power Forward Communities has a list of partners that also includes the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO as well.

[00:27:58] Shortly before leaving office, Biden's EPA parked $20 billion in Citibank, in an account at Citibank. It has been located by Lee Zeldin and the new leadership at the EPA. This is a patronage scandal of a size never witnessed in American history. The dollar figures alone, this $20 billion is, you know,

[00:28:28] tip of the iceberg type stuff. The arrangement, because it's in a Citibank account, means the Trump administration cannot claw it back. They can't, they're trying to retrieve the funds, but it's going to be problematic. But wait, there's more. The senior Biden administration official tasked with directing former President Joe Biden's $27 billion climate grant program, okay, this GGRF, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction

[00:28:58] Fund, right, $27 billion program, oversaw a $5 billion grant from the program to his former employer. Same program, same fund. A guy by the name of Jahi Wise joined the EPA in December of 2022 as the founding director of the newly created GGRF. In April, so like four months later,

[00:29:28] while Wise served in that role, the EPA announced it was going to be giving GGRF grants totaling $20 billion to eight nonprofits, including one called the Coalition for Green Capital. CGC. That is a Washington, D.C.-based group. It got $5 billion. I mean, that's no Stacey Abrams linked, you know, $20 billion, but still $5 billion as part of the announcement. It's also the place where Wise previously

[00:29:57] worked. He was the director of policy there. And there's no indication that he recused himself from the grant giving process. He left that gig at the Coalition for Green Capital to join the Biden White House in 2021. Then he joined the EPA less than two years later. They just move him around, just move him around. The grant that went to CGC and Wise's involvement is also notable because

[00:30:27] former Biden administration David Hayes served on the CGC board. Hayes rejoined the group's board in October of 2022, so before Wise went over to work at the EPA, Hayes joined the board. After he had served as a special assistant to the president in the White House climate policy office for about a year and a half, meaning Hayes

[00:30:57] and Wise were close colleagues at the White House for just about two years. On Tuesday, Denise Chung, the top criminal prosecutor in the Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney's Office, was forced to resign after she declined to open a grand jury investigation into this program's funding. Quote, the story of the Biden's EPA gold bars never stops,

[00:31:27] said Lee Zeldin. The waste and abuse was so deeply interwoven in the last administration that not only did the leaders who oversaw this not bat an eye at billions of taxpayer dollars going towards partisan pet projects, but serious conflicts of interest were also ignored, and that should have raised red flags. And again, this all went to that private account, and that limits the federal oversight. This was a first-of-its-kind arrangement, by the way, this parking of money

[00:31:57] like this. Shortly before Wise departed the agency is when he did it. September 2024, Wise joined the nonprofit Open Society Institute. That's George Soros' institute. That's his nonprofit. He's a leadership in government fellow. He's got an 18-month fellowship. They just keep moving him around, keeping him paid,

[00:32:26] keeping him paid, keeping him in the mix, keeping him in the flow, and then he'll be ready to transfer back into a government role or a nonprofit role in order to continue the ideological spread. Overall, and by the way, this is a report from the Washington Free Beacon, which is a national treasure, freebeacon.com. Overall, the GGRF is the single largest non-tax investment within the

[00:32:56] 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The program was created by Democrats to act as a green bank, directing billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to intermediaries, which then financed green energy and environmental justice projects across America. It was criticized when it was made by Republicans and energy experts. They said its size, its scope, its going to lead to government waste and abuse. They said that while massive, the program would actually have very

[00:33:26] little impact on climate change. A senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Benjamin Zeicher, said, quote, it really has nothing to do with climate. The obvious objective of the program is the provision of large subsidies to favored interest groups. Let me see here. Thomas says, please stop, Pete. My wife is screaming at the radio because of your reporting on Doge.

[00:33:56] We have been reading about all the fraud, waste, and abuse Elon and the Musketeers have been finding, but hearing you report it on air makes the corruption even more real. Now, at 30 days in, I believe she has become maxed out on all of the winning. Not me, but I am afraid she and others may be showing the initial symptoms of Doge derangement syndrome. Great reporting. Kevin says, you may have already said this, but I just had an epiphany. Finding

[00:34:25] socials in the system that have paid into the system for years but have not filed a tax return is an easy way to find socials that are being used fraudulently. Anybody in their right mind that is a genuine social is definitely going to file a tax return to get a refund. Yeah. Yeah, Kevin, you're right. They can find this stuff if they want to. They are choosing not to. The bureaucracy and the people that are in control of it through whatever administration takes over,

[00:34:55] they do not want to find this stuff. And that's why the work that the Doge people are doing is so important to our, dare I say, democracy. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to

[00:35:25] thepcalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.