Despite the pleas of her constituents and parents and teachers across America, Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer just tweeted that she will vote to support Betsy DeVos.
She said that DeVos assured her in writing that the Department of Education will not impose mandates on the states regarding vouchers.
She also said–despite DeVos’s obvious ignorance and incompetence at her hearings–that DeVos has the “ability and commitment” to lead the Department.
This is very disappointing coming from the daughter of a public school teacher, a former member of a school board, and former president of the Nebraska School Boards Association.
Senator Fischer is giving her support to a woman who has demonstrated her contempt for the public school teachers and public schools of the nation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You have to wonder what’s in it for Fischer. What’s the payback. If Fischer is so willing to throw teachers and kids under this bus she has to be getting something out of it.
>
LikeLike
$$$$
Is what’s in it for Fischer.
LikeLike
Hi señor Swacker:
Have you seen a movie “Jack Reacher” in 2016? Those contracted mercenaries killed corrupted General and CIA leader.
This is a hint about DeVos’ Brother’s employees!
It is not all about money or black mail, BUT KILLING sheep by drones, uh huh! No shame, no fortune, but FEAR!
You and Ellen are old and wise, BUT NOT wise enough for a long term strategy to deal with evils who have fork tongue. May.
LikeLike
The only reason Susan Collins was allowed to now say she is voting no is because the Republicans already have the votes lines up. It is a done deal.
Susan Collins knew it. The only time she could have voted no and thwarted the wishes of her right wing bosses were in committee and she is the same profile in cowardice that she always was and always will be. She voted YES. Let’s not forget it.
If she is speaking out now and saying she will vote no, it is only because she has permission to do so from the far right because her vote doesn’t matter. When it did matter, she voted a resounding yes, yes, yes! And she owns that vote. Not this one.
I will be happy to be proven wrong, but Collins has never once done anything that was not pre-approved by the right wing when they didn’t need her vote. Not one time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yup. You nailed it. Susan Collins is the worst kind of traitor.
LikeLike
Make sure the people of Maine give her no credit.
Susan Collins did not do the right thing. She could have voted to stop DeVos when it mattered. She did not.
LikeLike
You have an understanding of American politics that surpasses many. Yep, the ‘fix is in’ and, unless there is a humongous miscalculation by Republican leadership, the die has been cast.
I’d be willing to bet a dollar to a doughnut (once a lopsided wager) that DeVos is a certainty. It’s all a ‘soap opera’ with an already written conclusion and designed to sell soap (money for ’causes’).
LikeLike
John Wund,
Soap opera, yes. Kabuki theatre too.
LikeLike
I’m just guessing, this is wild speculation. Possibly she was under big pressure from her GOP colleagues? Maybe she was promised some sort of reward for herself or her district if she voted for this latest far right wing religio-libertarian anti-public school jerkwad?
LikeLike
A friend who spent many years as a lobbyist in DC wrote to say that the pressure on her was intense. How can you betray the President? Don’t expect to get any new funds for Nebraska? Aren’t you a team player? etc.
LikeLike
The cowards like Susan Collins and Deb Fischer don’t need rewards for their constituents. They only care about not running a primary opponent against them and getting their campaigns well-funded. It disgusts me when Susan Collins gets a pass for making sure the DeVos would win by voting her out of committee and then being allowed to vote against DeVos when the Republicans have the votes lined up to make sure Collins “no” vote has no meaning whatsoever.
We need to call out these cowards. Susan Collins is a coward. And no doubt Deb Fischer is just as cowardly. Even McCain talks big but when it comes to voting, like Collins he falls in line if his vote would thwart the right wing Republicans’ desires.
LikeLike
We still have hope with Nevada.
U.S. Senator Dean Heller said he’ll support DeVos…but he is up for reelection in 2018–in a swing state that turned blue in the presidential election, elected America’s first Latina senator, and flipped two House seats. This means he knows his state is leaning liberal.
He is the deciding vote on DeVos’ nomination. KEEP CALLING HIM – the future of public education is at stake.
Vegas: 702-388-6605
Reno: 775-686-5770
DC: 202-224-6244 or 202-224-3121
LikeLike
In light of the last post about De Vos’ lying, how can we believe that she’ll stick to this promise?
LikeLike
The promise that “the Department of Education will not impose mandates on the states regarding vouchers”? Seems like a pretty easy promise to keep. $20 billion in federal grants is not a “mandate on the states.”
LikeLike
FLERP, see that was easy! Just like Race to the Top was not a mandate. If you don’t want the money, don’t ask for it.
LikeLike
I cannot predict the future. BUT- I cannot foresee an unfunded mandate to the states to set up school choice/vouchers. The proposal is for $20B, that the states would use along with their own funds, to set up a program. Sheer fantasy!
“It is better to kill bad bills, than to pass good ones” -Calvin Coolidge.
LikeLike
Charles,
The $20 billion will be taken from other programs, like Title 1 for poor kids and special education for kids with disabilities. It won’t be an “unfunded mandate.” It will be dangled as a reward for adopting DeVos’s failed reforms.
LikeLike
I haven’t looked at the proposal or its economics in any detail. But it seems to me that if vouchers are designed to redirect public education spending to private institutions, then voucher plans — and really any plan whereby funding “follows the student” — are always pre-funded by existing tax revenue.
LikeLike
There is no new money for vouchers.
Vouchers, charters, and public schools are all taking slices from the same pie. It is not growing.
LikeLike
Republicans love incompetence in combination with pay-to-play donors who want power. Add a touch of evangelical fervor for the prospect of funneling federal funds to religious and private schools.
LikeLike
“Of Coarse”
Of course she will
Of course she would
Of course, her coarse
Was understood
LikeLike
The “oa” in coarse can be replaced with a “u”.
LikeLike
Thanks, Duane
That’s actually the kind I meant (as in golf course)
I just can’t spell
LikeLike
curse, coarse, course all work.
LikeLike
Oh, JUSt a u
Her curse
Yes, that works well too
Clever.
LikeLike
“Of Course”
Of course she will
Of course she would
Of course, her course
Was understood
There, fixed
WordPress needs an editor, especially for goofy poems.
LikeLike
and she looks like a horse
LikeLike
I thought that it resembles WOLF. Back2basic
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was going for Mr. Ed B-)
LikeLike
If you read the mentions for @senatorfischer in twitter, there has been a steady stream of people urging her to vote no for at least 24 hours. The replies to her statement saying she will note yes are also 100% against DeVos. Really makes one wonder who she is casting the vote for. Not her constituents, not the American people…it is some kind of political deal. In short, she’s sold out, we just don’t know yet to who or to what.
I hope she gets primaried by an anti-Common Core Republican, who then loses to a pro-public school Democrat.
Check out justicedemocrats.com and brandnewcongress.org for groups that are looking to recruit/support candidates to run against the sellout incumbent politicians.
LikeLike
It’s the United States of the Koch Brothers.
LikeLike
Tonight in Las Vegas, a coalition of unions and advocacy organizations are demonstrating in front of Senator Heller’s office. I hope they’re successful. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208077301159500&set=a.1500046310312.2066962.1508801141&type=3&theater
LikeLike
Another win for careerism.
LikeLike
I’m sure her right wing Republican bosses will allow her to vote no on something meaningless where her vote doesn’t matter in the future to make up for this. She and Susan Collins can take turns pretending to be “moderates” when their votes don’t matter. When they do, one or both must fall in line.
LikeLike
NYC, “pretending” to be moderates is the operative word here, indeed.
Of course, anyone who is not totally insane seems “moderate” compared to Trump. That doesn’t make them actual “moderates.”
LikeLike
This is so disappointing. And this morning even the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorialized (http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/02/sen_rob_portman_should_reject.html) demanding that Portman vote âno.â That is quite amazing really. But Portman has released a statement, as you know, that he will support DeVos. Jan Resseger http://janresseger.wordpress.com/ “That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children…. is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination…. It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose… tied to one another by a common bond.” âSenator Paul Wellstone, March 31, 2000
LikeLike
Oxymoron- Portman and moral compass. Until his son came out as gay, the Senator was the face of intolerance.
That huge Ohio charter school. whose owner contributes to the Republican party, has “mostly truant” students. That qualifies as “moral failure” and “moral blindness”,
LikeLike
Aw, gee, Debbie likes the money she gets from the DeVos family.
LikeLike
Like!
LikeLike
Hard to believe that someone with this background would sell out on education. You have to ask the question WHY? I wonder if folks are so frighten of Trump that they are all doing what he ever he wants. We all need to remember what can happen when the people are afraid of their leader.
LikeLike
To answer you “WHY?” $$$$$$
LikeLike
Of course it is, Duane. 😪
LikeLike
Of curse.
Ours is not to reason why
Cur$e is cour$e until we die
Very coarse, of course, is curse
This will be my closing verse
LikeLike
Ridiculous. Nebraska doesn’t even have charters and vouchers.
DeVos offers absolutely nothing of value to parents, teachers or students in public schools. Her entire focus at that hearing was vouchers and charters. The two dissenting GOP Senators admitted it, probably because it was so blatantly anti-public school it’s impossible to deny at this point.
So what can we expect out of the Trump Administration? Give us the bad news now. Budget cuts and garbage ed tech from K12?
Thanks ed reform! Great job! 90% of US students who attend public schools just got the shaft from their own government. Again.
LikeLike
But maybe they soon will! I’m sure there are plenty of “failing schools” just waiting for their best students with no disabilities to be picked off.
LikeLike
Is there a special surgery that political must have to remove their spines. It must be very difficult to move without a spine.
The idea that they are there to represent the people of their states is gone. They are only there to represent themselves and line their own pockets.
LikeLike
Like!
LikeLike
Truth!!
LikeLike
We have reached a level of technology where we really don’t need a representative to go to Washington to represent us.
When there is an issue up for a vote, each person should have a secure login to go vote from their house. Tally up the votes for a decision.
When the people of Nebraska tell Fischer to vote “no” and she defies them then she should immediately be removed from office because she is not representing the people that she pledged to represent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Each person votes?
Tally up the votes for a decision?
That’s Communism!
You must be one of them Pootin lovers.
LikeLike
That statement from the Senator is amusing. She’s voting for DeVos because DeVos assured her “in writing” DeVos would follow federal laws.
I guess I’m supposed to be thrilled the Secretary graciously agreed not to violate laws.
I mean, my God, could the bar get any lower? That’s the best we can get? They’re handing out trophies for following laws now? Did they expect a different response? DeVos would violate laws without this “promise”?
LikeLike
When the bar is set low enough you will trip over it.
LikeLike
I think she changed because Devos offered her some kind of perk. Politicians-in this case a Senator- don’t change their minds in such a crucial and people watching issue like Sec of Ed.unless they are under pressure. And this woman apparently couldn’t hack the pressure.
I don’t believe the reason she gave…That was just to satisfy the media/press/the public
We will never know what the real reason was for this Nebraska senator to say no unless she knew with Pense being the tying vote, she would not be looked favorably upon by Trump and his people and would probably get little to nothing to bring back to her constituents.
She may have been warned…screw us and you get nothing for your state…
LikeLike
She didn’t get to vote no because Susan Collins already had to vote yes in committee so their right wing Republican bosses allowed Collins to pretend to be the moderate this time since she did their bidding when it counted, as Collins always does.
Next time there is a close vote and one Republican is allowed to pretend to be moderate, the right wing bosses will allow Deb Fischer to cast the meaningless “no” vote and Collins will fall in line.
LikeLike
Impossible to reach offices–keep cutting me off or mailboxes full, etc. Just awful, but will keep trying.
That having been said, looking at how DEMs/DINOs Heitkamp, Warner, King (I think an I-?) & one other whose name escapes me now) have voted (if I’m not mistaken, I think they helped confirm Tillerson), people better call them, as well.
LikeLike
Senator Fisher represents Outrageous failure of ethics and principles in U.S. Senator who knows better than to trust a person who did not answer her own confirmation hearing’s questions truthfully. Sad.
LikeLike
Robert Manley . . . but she paid so much money . . .
LikeLike
I’d say Deb is dumber than a rock.
LikeLike
Amazing how many stupid people are in congress.
LikeLike
Harry Truman used to tell one of my very favorite political stories. When he was elected to the Senate, he was seen as being a product of a corrupt Missouri political machine. When he attended his first Senate weekly caucus meeting, seeing all these titans he had read about but never met before, he asked himself, “My God, what am I doing here?” After he was in the Senate for a number of years, he would attend these same meetings, look around the room, and ask himself, “My God, what are they doing here?”
LikeLike
Sellout! You should be ashamed of yourself
LikeLike
Oh, yeah–of course, that other Demoncrat who voted to confirm Tillerson was, of course, Joe Manchin, W VA. You know, Manchin, father of Heather, the CEO of Mylan, Big Pharma distributor of the infamously price-inflated Epi-Pen?
Oh, yeah–& he was one of the Demoncrats/DINOs who voted against Bernie’s prescription resolution…which is why it lost. Smooth move, Ex-Lax!
Time to build a 3rd Party NOW.
LikeLike
From Inside Higher Ed: Former Secretary King to Lead Ed Trust (King opposes DeVos) (Feb.3 201)
“Former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. will be the next leader of the Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that advocates for minority and low-income students. . . .
“The organization has spoken out in opposition to Betsy DeVos’s nomination as education secretary. And its Midwest arm has criticized the Michigan charter school law that DeVos donated millions to back politically.
“King in an interview with Politico Thursday took the unusual step for a former secretary of expressing serious concerns about President Trump’s nominee. DeVos’s background in education has been as a school choice activist and donor to political campaigns to expand charter schools and vouchers.
King, who led a charter school chain in New York himself, questioned whether DeVos will be committed to protecting civil rights as education secretary.
“’People who care about public education, who care about equity, who care about civil rights should speak out loudly,” he told Politico. “When there seems to be a lack of clear commitment to protecting student civil rights, we’re going to speak up loudly.’”
“He said in comments to Ed Trust staff that he lost both parents at a young age but was supported and challenged by his teachers in public school. In leading the organization, he said he wants to help provide that same support to students from similar backgrounds. . . . ‘Amazing teachers at PS 276 in Canarsie and Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island gave me a sense of hope and possibility. If I had not had those teachers, I wouldn’t be alive today. They literally saved my life,’ King said. ‘At the Education Trust, I want to help more kids like me — kids for whom schools make all the difference — get the education they need and deserve.’” By Andrew Kreighbaum
ttps://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/02/03/former-secretary-king-lead-ed-trust?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=f9f57d8a0d-DNU20170203&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-f9f57d8a0d-198488425&mc_cid=f9f57d8a0d&mc_eid=f743ca9d07
LikeLike
What the heck is it about the two faces and a fork tongue people? Have we seen enough the trial where John B. King Jr. supported PRIVATIZATION and try to destroy Public School?
It is time for him to witness what he repays to his previous Public School Teachers who literally save his life, by supporting CHARTER = PRIVATIZATION
In the same vein, Mrs. KellyAnne Conway has shown her gratitude to American people by defending Trump and Bannon in order to destroy American Spirit in humanity towards immigrants. She is coming from an immigrant and single mother’s family, but she helps the Wall Street to put more families into dire financial bankruptcy by deregulation all safeguard for Americans’ pension and saving.
When would it be enough for these kinds of people who say and act in conflict of their conscience? Sigh! Back2basic
In short, did I hear John B. King Jr. singing along a song “Doctor My Eyes” from Jackson Browne?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqFUmo8VVg0
…
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
I hear their cries
Just say if it’s too late for me
…
LikeLike
Diane: The GOFUNDME page just made the Rachel Maddow Show.
LikeLike
CBK, that is great!
LikeLike