Changes to this site

November 2, 2026, latest: Track Every Dollar

A new permanent section follows every public school dollar: where it comes from, where it goes, and how each state spends its lottery money.

• Main menu:

  Before: The emergency, The old fights, The Forward Board, Learn, History.

  After: Track Every Dollar first, then the same five.

• Homepage:

  Before: the One School line art, then the clock.

  After: the One School line art, then a Track Every Dollar band with the line "If they can track every dollar you make, you can track every dollar they spend on our kids.", a map of every state and a state finder, then the clock. Nothing was removed.

• New pages:

  Every state, every school system, every state lottery, federal education money by program, and how we track it, under /track-every-dollar/.

Track Every Dollar: number updates

Every number the Ledger adds or changes, newest first.

• November 2, 2026: Track Every Dollar opened: 180 numbers across 51 states and DC from Census FY2024, USAspending FY2025 and 27 state lottery reports.

October 31, 2026, latest: education is the pillar, sitewide

Every page now says the same thing: education is the party's only priority, and the emergency inside it changes.

• The model:

  Before: "A permanent party for one issue at a time" and "Lower your priority on the rest for a while, so the one that cannot wait moves."

  After: "Education is our only priority" and "Make education your priority, so our kids move forward." The AI education emergency is the emergency in education now.

• About:

  Before: headline "Leave left and right at the door." and "a permanent party that carries one issue at a time".

  After: headline "Education is our only priority." and "The Democratic Republican Party has one priority: education."

• Every emergency page:

  Before: closing band "Leave left and right at the door." and kicker "The issue now".

  After: closing band "Education is our only priority." and kicker "The emergency in education now".

• Join, the homepage join band, the footer, the site description and the board's standing question:

  Before: the one-issue wording.

  After: the education wording, and the standing question "What is the next emergency in education?"

October 31, 2026, latest: education is our only priority

• Homepage headline:

  Before: "Leave left and right at the door."

  After: "Education is our only priority." with "Leave left and right at the door." above it.

• Homepage hero art:

  Before: the Apollo 16 rollout photograph beside the headline, and the Elementary Rocket School line drawing below it.

  After: one line drawing under the headline: the two old party schoolhouses falling apart, the donkey and the elephant walking from them toward one grand new school with its doors open.

• Under the hero buttons:

  Before: "1 priority. 1 goal. Education overhaul." and a line about Apollo 16.

  After: removed.

• Why Apollo 16 page:

  Before: a page at /apollo-16/ linked from the homepage and footer.

  After: removed with the photo it explained.

October 31, 2026, latest: the dolphin centered on the lower wall

• Homepage hero photograph:

  Before: the dolphin painted small on the lower wall, to the right of the shadow.

  After: the dolphin painted larger and centered on the lower wall of the Vehicle Assembly Building, with the building's shadow falling across it.

October 31, 2026, latest: why Apollo 16, and the dolphin on the building

• New page, Why Apollo 16:

  Before: no page.

  After: Why Apollo 16 (/apollo-16/, removed later the same day) tells how NASA rolled the Apollo 16 Saturn V back to the Vehicle Assembly Building in January 1972 to replace a damaged fuel tank, and why education is the part inside in 2027. Linked from the homepage and the footer.

• Homepage hero, under the buttons:

  Before: nothing under the two buttons.

  After: "1 priority. 1 goal. Education overhaul." and "In 1972, NASA rolled Apollo 16 back off the pad to fix one part inside. Then it flew to the Moon. In 2027, that part is education." with a link to Why Apollo 16.

• Homepage hero photograph:

  Before: 2027 FORWARD and EDUCATION lettered on the Vehicle Assembly Building, captioned in one line.

  After: the same lettering with the party dolphin painted on the building's lower wall, and the caption set in two lines: "Apollo 16 rolls out, December 13, 1971." and "We went to the Moon together. Next mission: education." with the credit "Photo: NASA, lettering added." below.

October 31, 2026, latest: the homepage photo names the next mission

• Homepage hero photograph:

  Before: the Apollo 16 rollout photograph, captioned "Spectators watch Apollo 16 roll out to the pad, December 13, 1971. Photo: NASA."

  After: the same NASA photograph with 2027 FORWARD and EDUCATION lettered down the side of the Vehicle Assembly Building in the building's own navy, and USA lettered on the rocket, captioned "Apollo 16 rolls out, December 13, 1971. We went to the Moon together. Next mission: education. Photo: NASA, lettering added." The lettering is ours and the caption says so; the unaltered photograph stays on file.

October 31, 2026, later: photographs lead two more history chapters

Two chapters of How we got here now open with a public-domain photograph from their own era beside the unchanged title, byline and short answer. Each photo's record is listed on every image on this site.

• From the First Parties to the Civil War, 1790s to 1865:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "The inauguration of President Lincoln, March 4, 1861, with the Capitol dome under construction behind. Photo: Library of Congress." (Library of Congress, ppmsca.87879).

• Today, 2000 to Now: From 420 to 1 to a 36-Point Gap:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "An American flag hangs on the side of the Pentagon the night after the September 11 attack, September 12, 2001. Photo: U.S. Navy." (U.S. Navy Photo 010912-N-5573G-001).

October 31, 2026: four page photos removed

• Page photos held to one standard:

  Before: photos led The AI education emergency (a 1974 classroom), How we answered this before (a 1958 medical school class), From the First Parties to the Civil War (the Capitol about 1846) and History (the Senate chamber of Congress Hall).

  After: those four pages open with text only until a photo of equal strength to the homepage photo is found. The other page photos stay. Captions sit on a darker band so they read over any photo.

October 31, 2026: photographs lead the first party history and Why the dolphin?

• History of the Democratic-Republican Party, 1790s to 1820s:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same title, byline and short answer beside "The Senate chamber on the second floor of Congress Hall, Philadelphia, 1975. Photo: Library of Congress." (Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS PA,51-PHILA,6A-7).

• Why the dolphin?:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same title, byline and short answer beside "A bottlenose dolphin breaching, NOAA Photo Library image anim1069, 2010. Photo: NOAA."

October 31, 2026: photographs lead three history chapters

Three chapters of How we got here now open with a public-domain photograph from their own era beside the unchanged title, byline and short answer.

• From the First Parties to the Civil War, 1790s to 1865:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "The United States Capitol, east front, about 1846, in a daguerreotype by John Plumbe. Photo: Library of Congress." (Library of Congress, Daguerreotype collection, DAG no. 1230).

• From Reconstruction to the New Deal, 1865 to 1932:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "The head of the woman suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., 1913, with the Capitol behind. Photo: Library of Congress." (Library of Congress, Bain Collection, LCCN 97500042).

• How We Got Here, 1932 to 1968: The New Deal to Civil Rights:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "Marchers fill the Mall along the Reflecting Pool at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. Photo: National Archives." (National Archives 542045, catalog.archives.gov).

• Photo size on page heads: before, the photograph stretched to the full height of the page head text. After, it keeps a steady height beside the text, so long short answers no longer squeeze it into a narrow strip.

October 31, 2026: photographs lead four issue pages

The issue pages now open the way the homepage does: the headline and its words on the left, a public-domain photograph on the right with its caption. Every headline, line and button is unchanged. Each photo's record is listed on every image on this site.

• The AI education emergency:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "Students and teacher in a classroom at Cathedral High School in New Ulm, Minnesota, October 1974. Photo: National Archives." (National Archives 558214, catalog.archives.gov).

• The Forward Board:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "Flight controllers gather at a console to study a weather map of the Apollo 13 landing site, April 15, 1970. Photo: NASA." (NASA image S70-35014, images.nasa.gov).

• Learn:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "The Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., between 1900 and 1910. Photo: Library of Congress." (Library of Congress LC-D4-33474).

• How we answered this before:

  Before: the page head in text only.

  After: the same text beside "Students in class at George Washington University Medical School, Washington, D.C., April 1958. Photo: Library of Congress." (Library of Congress, U.S. News & World Report collection, ppmsca.03097).

• Homepage: the hero is now built from the same shared component as these pages. It looks exactly as before.

October 31, 2026: the Together and Dug in strip shows the recent run

• Homepage strip:

  Before: year labels 1787, 1861, 1933, 1964 and the current year, spaced evenly rather than at their places on the line.

  After: year labels 1787, 1820, 1861, 1900, 1933, 1964, 2000 and the current year, each at its true place on the line. The unbroken run of Dug in moments at the end of the record is circled in red with the label "Since 2011: dug in 5 times, together 0." The label is counted from the same record the strip draws.

October 31, 2026: a photograph leads the homepage

• Homepage hero:

  Before: the headline above the line drawing of Elementary Rocket School.

  After: the headline beside a NASA photograph, "Spectators watch Apollo 16 roll out to the pad, December 13, 1971. Photo: NASA." (NASA image S72-19795, images.nasa.gov). The line drawing of Elementary Rocket School now sits directly under the hero with its credit unchanged.

October 31, 2026, evening: the fairness review finished

• The old fights: every fight's short side descriptions went through two more full rounds of the fairness review. Two pass and now show their descriptions and a slider: school safety and school meals. The rest show both sides in their own quoted words.
• Two quotes replaced: on standardized testing, NEA President Becky Pringle's 2021 statement became her August 2023 column on nea.org; on absenteeism, Oklahoma Rep. Ronny Johns's words as quoted by The 74 became Pennsylvania Sen. Tracy Pennycuick's own September 2, 2025 release.

October 31, 2026, later: the founder's letter, newer sources, analytics

• New page: Why I started this, a letter from the founder, linked from About.
• Together and Dug in: the CARES Act (2020) is no longer listed as a Together moment, because the House passed it by voice vote and left no party split; the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) is no longer listed as a Dug in moment, because it passed by vote. Both stay in the record as ordinary history: the CARES Act in 2000 to now, with the Senate roll call, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act's Senate and House party splits added to 1790s to 1865.
• The old fights: 21 quotes replaced with newer ones from the same side, each from its own published source, so no side is quoted from before 2018. One side's short description changed: before, "Stop tying graduation and penalties to test scores"; after, "Stop relying on standardized test scores to judge students".
• Privacy: the site now runs Cloudflare Web Analytics, which is cookieless and aggregate. The privacy page says what it collects, quoting Cloudflare's documentation. Before: "sets no cookies, runs no ads and no third-party trackers". After: "sets no cookies, runs no ads, uses only cookieless aggregate analytics".

October 31, 2026: one party, one issue at a time

The site became the home of the Democratic Republican Party: a permanent party that carries one issue at a time. The first issue is the AI education emergency. Every history page keeps every word. A copy of the site as it stood before this change is kept in the project's archive under the tag pre-emergency-2026-10-31.

• Homepage hero:

  Before: "Our history. Unvarnished." with the line "How Americans divided, issue by issue, and where we still agree. The full truth, every fact linked to its source, so we can learn from it." and three archival prints.

  After: "Leave left and right at the door." with the issue line "Our kids need us to move forward. Together. Now." and a line drawing of Elementary Rocket School between two classic schools, credited: "Elephant logo: Republican National Committee. Donkey logo: Democratic National Committee. Trademarks of their owners, shown to identify each party. No affiliation or endorsement."

• DEMO retired: the DEMO tag beside the wordmark in the header and footer is removed. The logo files are unchanged.
• Name line: before: "Democratic-Republican Party: An independent history project". After: "Democratic Republican Party: Leave left and right at the door." Bylines changed from "The editors, Democratic-Republican Party history project" to "The editors of the Democratic Republican Party".
• Navigation: before: How we got here, History, Symbols, What's next?, Sources, and the button "See where we agree". After: The emergency, The old fights, The Forward Board, Learn, History, and the button "Move it forward". Every earlier page keeps its address.
• Footer text:

  Before: "An independent history project on the Democratic-Republican Party and how we got here, and the home of the Democratic Republican Party (Demo). Our future over politics. Every claim links to its source."

  After: "Leave left and right at the door. The issue now: the AI education emergency. Every fact links to its source."

• Homepage sections moved off the homepage, pages kept: the Demo party band ("Don't change your party. Commit to moving forward."), "Learn from it. Do better.", "Where we already agree" (the starting ten, at its page), "A party that argued its way into existence" (at the first party), "Six moments that shaped the party" (at the timeline), "Documents and objects worth inspecting" (at the Library), "The Donkey and the Elephant" (at the paper), "Left. Right. Forward." (at What's next?), "What a mascot leaves out" (in the Library), "Read in any order" and "Check our work" (at Sources). The 1801 band stays, last, as "Who we are".
• New pages: the AI education emergency, the old fights, the Forward Board, Learn and its lessons, How we answered this before, every emergency, Terms of Use. Short addresses /now/, /board/, /learn/ and /old-fights/ always lead to the current issue.
• About: rewritten for the party. Before, its first answer read: "The Democratic-Republican Party history project is a reading room on early American party history." and "The historical party dissolved in the 1820s. This site is the independent history project that tells its story, and the home of the Democratic Republican Party (Demo). It endorses no candidate, takes no donations, holds no votes, and answers to its sources." After: "An independent initiative founded by Mike Millett. Unaffiliated with any political party, candidate or campaign." with what the party is, what it never does, and Our Truce.
• Join: before: "Don't change your party. Commit to moving forward." with an "I commit" button and a running count. After: "You can't join our party. You're already in it." The commitment button is retired; the count recorded so far is kept.
• Privacy: rewritten to describe the Forward Board: an anonymous device code kept in the browser, stored on the server only as a salted hash; no name, email, party or address.
• Editorial standards:

  Before: "We do not reproduce the current trademarked logos of today's parties."

  After: "The current logos of the two major parties appear only in the home page drawing, to identify each party, credited to their owners with a no-affiliation line. They are never used as this party's mark." Added: studies carry their design and limits; safe messaging on suicide and self-harm; both sides quoted with equal weight.

  Before: "The project is not affiliated with any party, campaign, party committee, or government body, and it accepts no donations or advertising." After: "An independent initiative founded by Mike Millett. Unaffiliated with any political party, candidate or campaign. It accepts no donations and runs no advertising."

• Why the dolphin?: rewritten around the cooperation evidence. The page as it stood is kept word for word at the evidence review, including its section "The uncomfortable record", and listed in the Library with the whole record and What a mascot leaves out. Those three pages keep their addresses and are no longer linked from the menus.
• What's next?:

  Before: "Left. Right. Forward. Learn from the record, the bad and the good, then do better than it." After: "Left. Right. Forward. Leave left and right at the door, and move forward together."

  Removed from that page's dolphin paragraph: "We show the whole animal, because common ground holds up best when it is honest." The link line "the cooperation evidence and the record a mascot leaves out" became "the cooperation evidence", and the line linking the whole record moved to the Library.

• The mark page: before: "The descriptor travels with the name: wherever "Democratic-Republican Party" appears as a brand, "An independent history project" sits beside or under it." After: "The line travels with the name: wherever "Democratic Republican Party" appears as a brand, "Leave left and right at the door." sits beside or under it where there is room."
• History, every word kept: How we got here and each era chapter now open with their Together and Dug in moments, each with the roll call and what followed. The hub adds a timeline strip and the Together index. The chart "How far apart the parties in Congress have been" is replaced by "The gap between the parties, and the times we crossed it anyway." The issue bar chart is retired; its data stays in the project's files, and each issue now reads as cards: both parties' positions side by side, then the period, then sources. The right-hand page tools moved to a section bar across the top of each chapter.
• Library: a new section, "The dolphin and the animals".

October 30, 2026: the Democratic Republican Party (Demo)

The site became the home of the Democratic Republican Party (Demo), a demo party with one plank and one commitment. The history stays exactly as it was. A copy of the site as it stood before this change is kept in the project's archive under the tag pre-party-2026-10-30.

• Logo: a DEMO tag now sits beside the wordmark in the header and footer. The logo files themselves are unchanged.
• New chapter: Changed their minds, ten people who changed position, each in their own words, with what followed. Added to the homepage chapter cards and MyHistory.
• Cross-links: the first mention of each person, law, court case and event on a page now links to the section that covers it. No text changed.
• New pages: Join (the commitment and the one plank), MyPriority (education first) and this page.
• Homepage: a new band under the hero: "Don't change your party. Commit to moving forward." The hero is unchanged.
• About page:

  Before: "The historical party dissolved in the 1820s. This site is the independent history project that tells its story. It endorses no candidate, collects no membership, takes no donations, and answers to its sources."

  After: "The historical party dissolved in the 1820s. This site is the independent history project that tells its story, and the home of the Democratic Republican Party (Demo). It endorses no candidate, takes no donations, holds no votes, and answers to its sources." A new question, "What is the Democratic Republican Party (Demo)?", follows it.

• Site description:

  Before: "An independent history project on the Democratic-Republican Party, the names and symbols that shape political identity, and the possibilities and limits of cooperation."

  After: "An independent history project on the Democratic-Republican Party and how Americans divided, and the home of the Democratic Republican Party (Demo): one plank, the ten things most Democrats and Republicans already agree on."

• Footer text:

  Before: "An independent history project on the Democratic-Republican Party, its symbols, and the common ground Americans share. Every claim links to its source."

  After: "An independent history project on the Democratic-Republican Party and how we got here, and the home of the Democratic Republican Party (Demo). Our future over politics. Every claim links to its source."

October 30, 2026: How we got here

• Homepage hero:

  Before: "Left. Right. Forward." with the line "We agree on far more than we disagree. Work together to move forward." and the dolphin mark.

  After: "Our history. Unvarnished." with the line "How Americans divided, issue by issue, and where we still agree. The full truth, every fact linked to its source, so we can learn from it." and three archival prints. "Left. Right. Forward." and the dolphin moved to What's next?.

• Navigation: "The dolphin" became "What's next?"; "Common ground" became "How we got here". Both earlier pages keep their addresses and remain linked in the footer.
• New pages: How we got here and its five era chapters, Religion and the parties, MyHistory, every image with its credit.
• Citations: numbered footnote links became source chips that show each source's address and open it in a new tab. The numbered Sources lists on every page are unchanged.