We know about the grizzly bears and Billionaire Betsy’s ignorance about special education, but we have not seen her respond to questions about higher education.
This clip of Elizabeth Warren grilling her on higher education is priceless.
It is almost cruel to ask substantive questions of DeVos. She doesn’t know and doesn’t care. She promises to discuss it and get back to you later, after she is confirmed.
Please watch:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Grizzly thing is unfair. The clip lacks context. I don’t much like it,nor the nominee, but your posts are becoming anal, too partisan. Engage your brain before you post. A shame that folks will pay less attention to you because of this. Your judgment is what we appreciate. Lacking recently.
SelectPrep,
I love my country. I always hoped and believed we were growing closer to our ideals of justice and brotherhood. You know, “And crown thy good, with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.” I feel right now that the ideals I grew up with are in jeopardy. Somehow we elected a fraud and a demagogue. I can’t believe it. The issue I’m most engaged in is education. This man has appointed a billionaire debutante and religious zealot, who knows nothing about real life or other people’s children.
I write as honestly as I can. I expect readers to do the same. I can’t sit idly by and ignore what is happening to my country.
It is really bad form to lecture Diane about what you think she “should write” in her living room. You don’t like it? Don’t come here.
Threatened Out West:
What you wrote.
😎
SelectPrep? Seriously, are you joking? How do we ignore the anal and too partisan demagogue who will become our “president” tomorrow (barfing). Anyone with an engaged brain would be appalled and stricken with horror at our collective plight. It’s too bad that more Americans didn’t engage their brains and had voted for Hillary. Diane’s judgment is spot on like a laser beam. We can only hope that more Americans will engage their brains and vote out the GOP in 2018 and especially 2020.
SelectPrep,
Seriously?????? The ‘Grizzly thing’ is MORE THAN FAIR under direct, on-the-record testimony in a Senate confirmation hearing, THANK YOU. Enter it into the record, shall we. And context???? I’ve watched the whole hearing, not much of one to be embedded in. You’re yanking at straws, dude. The fact, truth, and obvious display is that Betsy DeVos is simply an implanted oligarch with her 10 of 12 bought off repubs on that committee set to confirm her.
Betsy was born to wealth; married to more wealth. She doesn’t need brains or an education. She buys whatever or whoever she wants.
Actually, it is entirely fair. Consider this:
She was replying to Chris Murphy. Of Connecticut. Of Sandy Hook. To deliberately use a pun, he is an absolute BEAR on gun violence and schools. That she made that comment to Senator Murphy suggests that she was entirely unprepared for her hearing or ignored her preparation or is too dumb to keep track of her preparation.
She was wrong on the facts. She reached down into her head to improvise and came up with something factually inept. The schools in that Wyoming town do NOT keep guns on the premises in case of bears. In fact, guns are banned from schools in Wyoming as a whole. And wildlife experts say that in most bear encounters, you are safer using something like bear spray which doesn’t require precise aim under duress.
So she was stupid and wrong. I call that fair game for criticism.
Charles Pierce, at Esquire, quipped about DeVos’ incompetence, on display, at the hearing, “The nominee was further at sea than Magellan ever was.”
She needs to go home and stop embarrassing herself.
I wish Senator Warren had ended it with a mic drop.
Dianeravitch
I fail to see where this is a theory . Sounds more like a rehashing of fact.
Lock them up .
Meanwhile VonClownstick is talking completely ruined the Chris Hayes show. Of course. I put it on mute the visual is bad enough.
Well I will repose this where it belongs
I watched. Wow! But as tough as EW is, the GOP is going to ram this through anyway regardless of the fact that Betsy isn’t competent to pick up our trash at the curb and cart it away. If the GOP doesn’t support her nomination, I will be surprised, and I will be disgusted if even one Democrat votes to confirm her.
They would have needed more than ten rounds to get all the questions in that needed to be asked. The democrats just scratched the surface. What about teacher assessment? Common Core? Federal funding for k-12? Questions about Piaget? Learning styles? Educational
Modifications for Special Ed students? Needs of ELL? Educating refugees? Role of Federal Government in determining policies for each state? Title IX? The list goes on . . .
Yearly testing of students?
Warren’s problem is there’s no liberal theory or argument for public education. They abandoned it.
Democrats adopted the GOP ideology on education because they don’t have one of their own. They have technocratic fixes all of which come from what they imagine the private sector would do or are lifted straight from economics.
They don’t stand for anything.
It’s nice that she fights with these people but what is her “theory of the case”? What broad theme or principle is she defending?
I know what Republicans believe in. They’re anti- public entity and anti-regulation. What do Democrats believe in? Collecting data? Whoopee! I’d crawl over broken glass to support that!
Public education will die because Republicans are opposed to it and Democrats have no passion or commitment towards it. They’re “agnostics”
No one follows “agnostics”. Normal people don’t feel passionately about the educational theories of Harvard economists. It’s not that people won’t join Democrats it’s that there’s nothing there to join.
Good analysis. Democratic politicians, anticipating the next election, run scared of the backlash of the religious (fascist) right and the richest 0.1% who back them. Core values of right and wrong allude almost all politicians.
Senator Warren is a force of nature. She knows she smells a rat so it is her job to trap the rat. Warren did her homework and her job. As a result, DeVos proves she is totally out of her depth. If the Republicans appoint her, they will look like the shady fools they are. Warren understands this.
I don’t recall any questions at the hearing about the religious beliefs of DeVos and how they might influence her decisions as secretary.
The title of the article at the end of the link is
BETSY DEVOS WANTS TO USE AMERICA’S SCHOOLS TO BUILD “GOD’S KINGDOM”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary
Ms. Warren, how about scolding these people while you are at it…
The protests downtown at times grew violent. Just before 10:30 a.m., a large group of black-clad protesters — self-described as anti-capitalist and antifascist — made their way south on 13th Street near K Street, throwing newspaper boxes and garbage cans into the street and trying to set them on fire, leaving them smoldering. They also broke glass at bus stops and businesses and smashed the windows of a limousine.
And what about these people:
“As protesters at the spot shouted “This is what democracy looks like,” a Trump supporter countered. He pointed to the other side of the fence and said, “This is what democracy looks like but I can’t get to it because of you!”
I know what the responses would have been to these kinds of actions if it had been a Clinton inauguration..
I’m sure that British loyalists living in the colonies, and King George of the British Empire said the same things you said in your comment about those criminals/traitors who fought the revolutionary war in the 18th century: George Washington, Jefferson, Adams, B. Franklin, etc.
They were considered criminals during the American revolution and would have hanged and lost everything if they had lost to the British. Everything America’s founding fathers did during the revolution was considered treason, barbaric and criminal.
George Washington was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies worth hundred of millions in today’s dollars, and yet he risked all his wealth and land, and his life to lead that bloody rebellion against an autocratic empire.
If Littlefingers Donald Trump continues to trample the U.S. Constitution and starts to crush people’s Constitutional rights, what you described in your comment might become common place and much worse; it could become the 2nd U.S. Civil War and/or a 2nd revolution against another autocratic, despotic, brutal leader.
Are you a loyalist or a rebel like Washington and the other Founding Fathers?
How does destruction of property fall under free speech, Lloyd?
How does stopping people from exercising their freedoms help democracy, Lloyd?
It’s been a sad day, in many different ways, for many people. Destroying the property of others does not help.
It has been a very sad day. Sad for democracy. Sad for science. Sad for knowledge. Sad for most of us.
You did not answer my question. The history of civil wars and revolutions are written by the winners, the victors. The term to describe this destruction will be credited to rioters/criminals or revolutionizes/patriots, and the term used depends on who wins.
Trump said in his speech, after he swore his loyalty to support the U.S. Constitution from both domestic and foreign enemies, “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.”
There can be no total allegiance in a country with a Constitution that allows its citizens to disagree with its leaders and be safe from punishment.
Trump talks about unity within the context of nationalism and patriotism and nothing about supporting the U.S. Constitution from domestic and foreign enemies.
It’s clear that Trump is calling for total obedience and loyalty to him, and that isn’t going to happen as long as the U.S. Constitution stands and is supported. America was born on the principals of descent and disagreement.
Are you loyal to Trump or to the U.S. Constitution, and if Trump tramples the U.S. Constitution that offers us citizens protection from the tyranny of a tyrant/government, will you continue to cowmen the damage caused by angry rioters or revolutionaries?
The Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution to protect us from a mob. There is freedom of expression, the right the own firearms, due process rights through the justice system, but Littlefingers Donald Trump said today he is giving the country to the mob.
Trump said, “But we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”
The power of Washington DC and every state government resides in the language of the U.S. Constitution, not in the hands of the people, people who can easily turn into a mob more violent and destructive of life and property than Trump’s angry protestors.
I trust the U.S Constitution, and I don’t trust the people to support that Constitution if they are told by their president, they have the power because he just transferred it to them from the U.S. Constitution that he just swore an oath to.
Have you ever read what some of the Founding Fathers said about mob rule?
We are a Constitutional Republic, not a people’s republic. Communist China calls itself a People’s Republic.
“As a constitutional republic, the United States government is controlled by its Constitution, which sets forth the relative political power of the people, the federal government,and the state governments. As a federal republic, the power ultimately sits with the people through their ability to elect their federal and state representatives. The federal government is restricted by the sharing of power with the states as delineated in the Constitution. Although some people like to call the United States a democracy, this is technically not the case because people do not directly control legislation, but only do so through their elected representatives.”
https://www.reference.com/government-politics/type-government-united-states-c747e430102f5554#
This is what I heard. Trump just said he is going to rule through the mob that loyally supports him, and if we aren’t part of that mob, we are the enemy, we are traitors regardless of the Constitution.
Ask the people who’s property was destroyed today, Lloyd.
Ask the people in Ferguson whose property was destroyed, Lloyd – all for NOTHING.
Ask the people who wanted to exercise THEIR rights today and were stopped from doing so.
You have a lot of rhetoric here. But it does not help.
Diane said it was a sad day for democracy. But democracy is not only for those who do not like trump. So when people stop me from exercising my freedom, democracy is hurt as well. No matter when or where.
Im tired of the onesidedness of your argument, Lloyd. I get it. You don’t like trump. I don’t either. But for crying out loud, does that mean the neighbors property had to be damaged? When did that ever become an excuse or reason?
That’s what happens with an angry mob. That why we have insurance, courts and police. When angry rioters that damage property are caught, they end up in court.
What those angry protesters did wasn’t right, but Trump wasn’t right when he handed the country to another mob, the mob that supports him with its blind loyalty, and everyone else will be, by definition, a traitor and at the mercy of Trump’s mob if he Tweets about them. In fact, we have already seen that happen.
Trump targets someone in a Tweet, and then that person starts getting threatened.
You still didn’t answer my questions.
I believe in the rule of law, and personal responsibility. I believe that I, as a citizen, have the right and responsibility to act honorably, peaceably, and lawfully. Until we have evidence that trump indeed ignores the Constitution (which, so far he has not!) have to stick with the rule of law.
And when he does step out of bounds, there is a lawful and legal way to deal with that. Two years from now, there is another election, where changes can be made.
But, unlike you, I don’t make assumptions about what trump MIGHT do. If the world would run like that, there would be nothing but stupidity. After all, Lloyd, you MIGHT come to my house and rob me, so I guess I better shoot you now. Just self defense, you know…
The violence and destruction today were acts of stupidity, not democracy. Show me where in the Constitution this kind of violence is condoned, Lloyd.
From the Washington post:
The anarchists in the streets are playing right into Trump’s hands. The mass disturbances across Washington today highlight some of the non-GOP resistance Trump will face, but the anarchy – including a limo being torched right outside of The Post’s newsroom – plays into the president’s hands. It earns Trump public sympathy and validates his dark warnings about lurking dangers on the home front. It also makes it harder for conservatives to resist potential executive overreach
Anyone that protests, riots, or publicly disagrees, even peacefully, with Littlefingers Donald Turmp will get crushed by his Tweets and his “loyal” people.
So violent behavior should be tolerated when it is against trump?
And if Clinton had been on the stage and others would riot the same way, then what?
Lock them up and throw away the key?
No, do not lock them up and throw away the key. Let justice takes its course as the U.S. Constitution dictates. This is exactly what Littlefingers Donald Trump and most if not all of his deplorable supporters want, to lock them up and throw away the key without due process.
Those who were arrested yesterday will have their day in court. That’s the protection the Constitution offers every one of us. Take that away, and anyone can be tossed in jail and the key can be lost without ever having a day in court.
If the arrested are found guilty in court, they they will pay a fine and/or end up with jail time.
The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution each contain a due process clause. Due process deals with the administration of justice and thus the due process clause acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the Government outside the sanction of law.
I also want to challenge your obvious knee-jerk bias and ignorance.
How do you know that those who were breaking class and damaging public an/or private property were all anti-Trump protestors and not just some common street thugs or were members of the Alt-Right who took advantage of the crowds to be destructive, to make the peaceful protesters look bad? You can’t.
And who will pay for the damage done, Lloyd? A number of Business owners in Ferguson did not have the insurance to rebuild and now are ex-business owners.
Freedom of speech does not equate to vandalism.
You ask, “Who will pay for the damage?”
That’s up to the courts and the insurance companies. We do not throw away the U.S. Constitution because of the 217 that were arrested yesterday, who were caught by the police destroying public and private property.
“Six police officers were injured and 217 protesters arrested Friday after a morning of peaceful protests and coordinated disruptions of Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony gave way to ugly street clashes in downtown Washington.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/19/politics/trump-inauguration-protests-womens-march/
I guess you missed the fact that a number of business owners in Ferguson were not insured for riotous acts.
Explain to me why people in Ferguson protesting against violence against blacks thought it ok to plunder shops owned by blacks. Explain to me why protesters against violence against blacks thought it ok to plunder shops owned by Koreans.
How can you twist the constitution into justifying acts like that?
Reminds me of the cowardice of those who should or blow up women and children instead of hard targets.
Rudy, are you real; are you rational? I’m beginning to doubt your sanity and lack of common sense.
I didn’t twist the U.S. Constitution and justify anything. What I said is that everyone in the United States is protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution that each contain a due process clause. That doesn’t mean criminals are exempt from being found guilty in court and punished, according to the law.
Due process deals with the administration of justice and thus the due process clause acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the Government outside the sanction of law.
If we make an exception with the 216 who were arrested on Friday, and lock them up without a trial and throw away the key, for damaging private/public property and deny them their due process rights then we open an evil Pandora’s box because anyone can be accused of anything and found guilty without a trial and be punished; even you, for something you never did.
That’s why it is illegal to punish someone without a fair trial that strictly followed the law.
Without a proper trial, that is vigilant justice.
The foundation of the American legal system rests on the RULE OF LAW, a concept embodied in the notion that the United States is a nation of laws and not of men.
Vigilantism is illegal. We cannot, legally, lock them up and throw away the key.
I did not accuse you of twisting anything.
You said that insurance will pay for damage caused by protestors.
I merely asked the question who pays for the damage when there is no insurance.
Protesting is fine. Vandalism is NOT speech protected under the constitution.
I did not say the insurance would pay. I said it would be up to the courts and the insurance. If there is no insurance, then it will be up to the courts. If the perp is guilty but broke, then that’s life.
It is a fact that often the insurance won’t pay. For instance, when an 80-foot oak fell on our property and landed blocking the street and took out the power lines. It cost $3,000 to pay for the tree to be cut up and removed and the insurance company denied the claim based on it was an act of God, or nature.
PG&E couldn’t make us pay for the repairs to the downed power lines because it was ruled an act of God or nature. Damage caused to other people’s property by that tree was paid by each neighbor.
In the U.S. up until Trump, we don’t shoot perps or throw them in prison for life because they can’t pay for the damage they caused. They pay their fines, and/or serve their time in jail/prison according to the law they are found guilty of breaking, not some arbitrary lock them up and throw away the key.
Earthquakes destroy homes and if the owners didn’t have earthquake insurance they lose everything. Riots also cause damage. If the police catch the perps, then their are charges, a trial, etc.
What the perps did was wrong. If caught and found guilty, they will be punished for the crime according to the language of the law they are found guilty of.
What’s wrong with you? Lock them up and throw away the key is the kind of thinking that destroys democracies and gives too much power to bullies and con-men like Trump.
Please reread. It was a question rather than a statement. Had this been a situation where Clinton was inaugurated and republicans were the rioters was the context.
WHAT IF isn’t the same as WHAT IS or WHAT ALREADY HAPPENED.
“Conservatives forget history in discrediting Trump protestors”
“these perceptions do not reflect what actually followed the election of our country’s first black president, much less the difference between why people are protesting Donald J. Trump’s presidency as compared to Barack Obama’s presidency.
“Obama’s election in 2008 was preceded and followed by violent attacks and property destruction targeted against minorities.”
“More frequently, Obama’s presidency was marked by effigies of our first black president hanging from nooses across the country, for example in Kentucky, Washington State, and Maine, or being burned around the world. What Trump supporters fail to remember is that following Obama’s election, property was destroyed across the country, for example in Pennsylvania, Texas, and North Carolina, and a predominately black church was torched in Massachusetts.” …
“and while anti-Trump protesters have engaged in mostly peaceful demonstrations against the president-elect, pro-Trump supporters have been responsible for a wave of attacks against Muslims, Latinos, blacks, and the LGBT community.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/305749-republicans-employ-double-standard-to-discredit
“Anyone that protests, riots, or publicly disagrees, even peacefully, with Littlefingers Donald Turmp will get crushed by his Tweets and his “loyal” people.”
Lloyd, you make it sound like the other side is defenseless against LF.
“It earns Trump public sympathy and validates his dark warnings about lurking dangers on the home front. ”
And it will make Trump think, for a change: the other side is mad too, and since there are 3 million more of them….
Máté Wierdl
No, we are not defenseless. The harder Littlefingers Donald Turmp pushes against our Constitutional rights, the harder we will push back, and if this pushing continues, which it probably will because Trump seldom if ever backs down or admits he’s wrong, eventually the U.S. will have a full blown Civil War.
What happened with the U.S. military the last time the U.S. had a Civil War? The military split between the South and the North. For instance, in 1838, Robert E. Lee was a lieutenant of Engineers in the U.S. Army. He fought in the Mexican-American War and was promoted to the rank of major. He even served with Grant.
In 1952. Lee was appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point and he was a Brevet Colonel. Lee went back to Washington and was appointed Colonel of the First Regiment of Cavalry in March 1861. Lee’s colonelcy was signed by the new President, Abraham Lincoln. Three weeks after his promotion, Colonel Lee was offered a senior command (with the rank of Major General) in the expanding Army to fight the Southern States that had left the Union. Fort Mason, Texas was Lee’s last command with the United States Army.
How many of America’s officers and troops will fight to support Trump if a Civil War breaks out or leave the official U.S. military to join the revolution?
DeVos in song: