Betsy DeVos – The Wrongologist

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – March 31, 2019

Wrongo and Ms. Right saw “What the Constitution Means to Me” on Broadway last night. It’s a riveting and powerful show, good for both your head and heart. The cast is led by Heidi Schreck in an amazing performance. Schreck also wrote the play. She tells her (true) story of earning college money by traveling around the country delivering short speeches on the Constitution and competing in rapid-fire challenges about its amendments.

In the play, she resurrects her teenage self, tracing the effects of the founding document on generations of women, including many in her family. She focuses on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment, and the “penumbra” of Amendment 9. She applies these to a few cases, specifically, the Supreme Court case, Castle Rock v. Gonzales.

Schreck plays a recording of Justices Scalia and Breyer debating Castle Rock v. Gonzalez: They focus not on the mother, or her children who were kidnapped and killed by her husband. Or, on the negligence of the local police, who failed to respond to the permanent restraining order she had against her husband, despite the many, many times that Gonzalez called them. Instead, they pedantically debate the meaning of the word “shall.”

It’s a debate about rhetoric, entirely stripped of humanity.

She lost. The Supremes decided that the police did not have an obligation to protect Ms. Gonzalez or her kids. They held that enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law. See the play if you can.

On to cartoons. Barr’s report isn’t the report you are looking for:

Barr’s report will keep America at odds until we see what Mueller says:

Barr tells us that Donnie’s clean:

Last week, Republicans called for Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), to be removed. Every Republican on the committee was on board for Schiff’s removal. Schiff didn’t take it lying down. He pointed out everything shady and suspicious that Trump & his associates did during the campaign. He closed by saying “But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is OK. And the day we do think that’s OK, is the day we will look back and say that is the day that America lost its way.” Watch Schiff’s response here:

Betsy shows her disability:

Trump, king of health care, says the Republicans will sometime in the future, become the party of health care:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 26, 2018

The majority of Americans under 18 live in households that receive “means-tested assistance” from the US government. In 2016, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau, there were approximately 73,586,000 people under 18 in the United States, and 38,365,000 of them, 52.1%, resided in households in which one or more persons received benefits from a means-tested government program.

Those programs include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), Medicaid, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the National School Lunch Program.

And when the Census Bureau excluded school lunch programs from its calculations, the percentage of those under 18 who lived in a household receiving means-tested assistance (44.8%), still exceeded the percentage in any other age bracket.

We have now had four straight years: 2013 – 2016, during which a majority of those under 18 lived in a household taking means-tested benefits.

The primary reason for this is that most in this category are single parent households headed by a woman. Many can’t find employment paying a decent wage with some benefits. Many have to choose between full-time work and childcare. Some are working 2-3 part time jobs but still can’t cover their expenses.

But, the economy is good, the stock market is great, so why worry about these banana republic statistics, America? On to cartoons.

Trump sings the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, “What’s That Smell?”

Speak to a Trumpist, and you’ll find a reasonable, fact-driven human being:

Trump tweets about “widespread” killings of white farmers in South Africa. Here’s the truth:

Immigration unmasks the hate:

DeVos shows that she’s a helper:

Mitch reserves his looks of disgust only for Democrats:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – June 10, 2018

Trump says Russia should return to the G-7, making it the G-8 the way it was before Crimea. He says that Obama let Crimea get taken by Russia instead of blaming Putin for invading, and it isn’t his problem. OTOH, the G-7 seem like it would prefer to be the G-6.

But we start this week with RFK:

Fifty years ago, RFK was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, his coffin carried by his sons and only surviving brother. He was a man of promise, of purpose. Someone who could have made a huge difference, but it was not to be. This puts Wrongo in mind of the last line of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Wrongo didn’t know what Fitzgerald meant when he first read this line in high school, more than 50 years ago. Now, he realizes that as we age, there is more of the past. It is a beacon, a lighthouse, both a warning and a welcome.

We can’t know what RFK’s future would have been, or how it would have shaped the future of America. We can be fairly sure he would have beaten Richard Nixon in 1968, but even that isn’t a certainty.

California’s blue wave may not hit the beach:

Trump shows the G-7 he really does love Russia:

Some cakes in Colorado really do have two guys holding hands:

We are the only country with an uneducated person as the Education Czarina:

GOP proves once again that it has no moral core:

Trump’s new pardon box:

DeVos Trashes DOE Unit Investigating For-Profit Fraud

The Daily Escape:

Cherry Trees in spring, Japan

From the NYT: (emphasis by Wrongo)

Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees.

The unwinding of the team has effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked.

It is difficult to say which Cabinet Secretary is the worst member of the Trump administration. EPA head Scott Pruitt makes the list, judging by his personal proclivities, and that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s destructive impact is far-reaching.

But Wrongo’s vote goes to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for doing the most damage to America because of her undermining of America’s education system. And her relentless efforts continue the entrapment of millions of young people in the for-profit student loan system that has now reached $1.5 trillion. This will threaten America’s economy for decades.

More from the NYT: (emphasis by Wrongo)

During the final months of the Obama administration, the team had expanded to include a dozen or so lawyers and investigators who were looking into advertising, recruitment practices and job placement claims at several institutions, including DeVry Education Group. The investigation into DeVry ground to a halt early last year. Later, in the summer, Ms. DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team’s new supervisor.

With the reorganization, now just three employees still work on the team, their mission has been scaled back to focus on processing student loan forgiveness applications.

This is Trumplandia, where agencies are run based on the personal motivations of the head of the agency. DeVos has long had personal and financial interest in the for-profit segment of education. She has pursued funding of private charter schools and religious schools using public funds.

Corporations and moneyed interests now directly control several of our key agencies. Trump has opened the doors wide to industry lobbyists. Pruitt is running the EPA at the behest of industry, at the expense of the well-being of the American people. Zinke is out to shrink public lands to aid private interests.

People who want the best for the nation clearly are not welcome in the Trump administration.

This is another reason for people to go out and vote in huge numbers in November. It is the only way to change the dangerous course that Trump has placed us on.

And it’s not simply Trump. This is who and what the GOP is now.

Time to take the country back from those in Washington who see privatization as the holy grail of corporatism.

People are talking about impeachment if the Democrats take back the House in 2018. Rather than focusing on Trump, the idea should be to impeach DeVos. The Constitution provides for impeachment of cabinet secretaries.

But, it will be tough to choose between Pruitt and DeVos when it comes to high crimes and misdemeanors.

Monday Wake Up Call – June 19, 2017

The Daily Escape:

Round Hill Highland Games – Litchfield County, Connecticut

From Zandar:

The slow death of the civil rights era under the Trump regime continues as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will proceed with handcuffing the department’s civil rights office, because systemic racism and sexism in education is embarrassing to Dear Leader, so in order to Make America Great Again™ it will no longer be exposed or even acknowledged.

What’s up? The DoE is scaling back investigations into civil rights violations at the nation’s public schools and universities, easing off mandates imposed by the Obama administration that the new leadership says have bogged down the agency. The NYT reports that Candice E. Jackson, the acting head of the Department’s office for civil rights issued an internal memo stating that: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Requirements that investigators broaden their inquiries to identify systemic issues and whole classes of victims will be scaled back. Also, regional offices will no longer be required to alert department officials in Washington of all highly sensitive complaints on issues such as the disproportionate disciplining of minority students and the mishandling of sexual assaults on college campuses.

The new directives are Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ first steps to reshape the DoE’s approach to civil rights enforcement, moving away from President Obama’s efforts to require that schools and colleges overhaul policies addressing a number of civil rights concerns. That approach sent complaints soaring, and the civil rights office found itself understaffed and struggling to meet the department’s stated goal of closing cases within 180 days.

So, DeVos’ new protocols have the cover of “we need to move faster” to resolve the big case backlog.

But civil rights leaders believe that the new directives will have the opposite effect. Since DoE staff members would be discouraged from opening new cases, and efficiency will take priority over thoroughness, the entire process will be weakened. Catherine Lhamon, who was the assistant secretary of the Education Department’s civil rights office under Mr. Obama, and who now heads the United States Commission on Civil Rights says:

If we want to have assembly-line justice, and I say ‘justice’ in quotes, then that’s the direction that we should go.

So the logic of DeVos seems to be: “Well if we can’t close civil rights cases in six months, why bother opening them? Let’s just save the money.”

This is another example of Zero-Sum Thinking by the Trumpists.

Time to wake up America! While you are following the twists and turns of Russiagate, the Trump administration is overturning the civil rights accountability that Obama put in place for the nation’s schools. Obama’s idea was that ALL students should have their civil rights protected, not just the Taylors and Hunters out there in the suburbs, but those kids in the poorer school districts.

To help you wake up, here is The Weeknd with his newly released “Secrets”, which owes a big debt to Tears for Fears:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 19, 2017

President Trump is engaged in an open war on the US press. While he can’t be impeached for that, it is time to recognize what he intends: His plan is to neutralize what is our most vital check on authoritarianism. If he succeeds, it will still be called the “free press”, but we will hear only the official story from the White House. Our media must change its game, or democracy will die. Right now, its Trump’s facts first, and THE facts second, if at all. This is a battle the public must make certain Trump loses. Only 47 months to go…

Trump’s press conference was all we needed to know:

The Westminster dog show was controversial in some circles:

There were leaks on both coasts last week:

Netanyahu met with the Donald:

Betsy DeVos hit the ground running:

The conclusion after one month in office:

But it’s a tiny handbasket.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 12, 2017

Another week of the Trump administration is in the bag, just 205 weeks to go! No worries, they’ll make great progress in destroying the country while hurting our most vulnerable. Here is this week’s example:

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) wants kids to learn early in life that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. To make sure they absorb that lesson, he’s proposing that low-income children do some manual labor in exchange for their subsidized meals.

He’s remembering fellow Georgian Congressman Newt Gingrich who suggested in 2011 that poor kids work in schools replacing janitors:

Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools…

As Atrios said, many people think being born in the lucky sperm club makes you a better human being, and those who weren’t need to learn just how horrible and inferior they are because their parents are poor.

Who doesn’t want to see kids well-nourished? Republicans. Before Reagan, charitable works were a good thing, but now we know that helping folks out just makes them weak, and unable to contribute to society.

On to cartoons. Leave it to the GOP. We now need three cans for recycling:

Nordstrom’s decides on a new spring line:

Ivanka’s dad tries to measure up:

New Education Secretary Betsy DeVos loves vouchers:

Dems adopt Tea Party tactics by shouting down Congress Critters at Town Halls:

Trump says that busloads of fraudulent voters were the difference in NH Senate race:

Trump narrowly lost New Hampshire to Hillary Clinton. On Thursday he told a group of senators that he lost because of the “thousands” of people “brought in on buses” from Massachusetts to “illegally vote” in New Hampshire. Former NH Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, who lost in November was there.

It was reported by Politico that there was an “uncomfortable silence” in the room, and here’s why: If thousands means at least 3,000, and if a bus holds 50 people, that would be 60 buses rolling up US 93 or US 91 from Massachusetts to NH that nobody noticed.

Then came the cherry on top of Trump’s crumb cake: He told Democrats in the room (Chris Coons, Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester) that he was glad “Pocahontas”, his nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was “becoming the face of the Democrats.”

That’s sure to win friends among the Dems that he needs to help confirm Neil Gorsuch as a SCOTUS Justice.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Tag: Betsy DeVos