The Washington Post reports that Trump questioned whether an important funding source for Historically Black Colleges and Universities is constitutional.
“In February, President Trump invited leaders from historically black colleges and universities to the White House, a move they hoped signaled his support for the institutions and showed an effort to give them more clout in his administration. But critics had a more cynical description of the Oval Office meeting: a photo op.
“Those naysayers got more ammunition Friday after the White House released a signing statement connected to the recently approved federal funding measure. Tucked away in the last paragraph, the White House announced that it would treat a program that helps HBCUs get low-cost construction loans “in a manner consistent with the (Constitutional) requirement to afford equal protection of the laws.”
“People in higher education circles worried that the statement meant that the president was planning to get rid of a capital financing program that helps historically black colleges repair, renovate and build new facilities. Congress approved the program in 1992 after finding that “HBCUs often face significant challenges in accessing traditional funding resources at reasonable rates,” according to the Education Department.”
This raises many questions.
What about Trump’s pledge to be supportive of African Americans?
What will Betsy DeVos say about this when she speaks at an HBCU in a few days and receives an honorary degree?
What does Donald Trump know about the Constitution?
Has he ever read it?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why does this not surprise me?
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Can everyone hear the “reverse discrimination” dog whistle? And do the presidents of the HBCUs who gave our Dear Leader his cynical photo-op realize how they have been snookered? One more strike and they’re out.
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One thing for sure, that dump is making America GRATE, not great.
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Everyday there is a new low for the Orange Hair. I just wait and read the next one, and the next one, and the next one, etc. It never ends.
Is tRump really Dump, Agent Orange, Malignant Narcissist or the Orange Buffoon? I’ve never seen so many derogatory names for a president. At least those of us with some creativity are getting some mileage out of it.
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Yes, I don’t ever remember any president garnering so much ridicule and mocking (which trump richly deserves). Trump is so clueless, incompetent and scatter-brained. He, along with the reactionary GOP are a threat to this nation and will set us back for decades. Kiss goodbye to the SCOTUS for generations. It all could have been so different with Hillary (or Bernie) but enough of the electorate decided to commit national suicide.
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Darn, right, Joe.
The DNC was not just the lesser of the two evils; it was as EQUALLY corrupt, disconnected, presumptuous, and hubris-ridden of the two evils as well.
One thing I will give the DNC head honchos credit for, such as Pelosi, Hillary, Schumer, etc., is that they have stated succinctly and honestly (about their own political orientation) that Americans are going to remain capitalists as a nation because “that’s who we are”, and that “we will never have a single payer health care system in the U.S.A . . . . Ever.” At least we know where they stand. It was about the most honest statement ever to come out of their razor-blade mouths in a very, very long time.
The DNC is not at at all interested in redistributing wealth. Bernie and the American people are, but not the DNC. About the only thing that separates the GOP from the DNC are the choice capital letters from the alphabet.
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And this Agent Orange appears to be not only very poorly educated, but suffering from a severe and unpredictable case of attention deficit disorder. He simply cannot focus long enough to remember what it is that he just said or did.
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He knows as much about the Constitution as he does about Andrew Jackson, the Civil War, and Frederick Douglass.
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Birds Of a feather flock together!
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Why would any black college – or any college for that matter – want to bestow an honorary degree upon Betsy DeVos? I don’t understand at all. Unless they are that corrupt and cowardly to think they will be favored by this administration and get a piece of the federal pie?
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An alumni of Bethune Cookman, the HBCU giving the award to DeVos, posted a petition with has almost 50,000 signatures. The petition asks the College President to disinvite Betsy. An internet search of Fedrick Ingram petition, provides a link to his petition.
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I see. Thank you.
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There’s a link to the petition at Deutsch 29.
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THank you, linda.
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Shared from BBC News…Stephen Colbert investigated over ‘homophobic’ anti-Trump joke
The way I see it, Colbert is a comedian. tRump is President. If Colbert is being investigated by the FCC, tRump by now should have been fired. How many disgusting, demoralizing, ridiculing, hateful, bigoted, harmful things has he said? He has no morals nor and sense of decency and yet Colbert is being investigated. Is this the first step in closing down the media when they don’t worship our ignorant Orange Buffoon?
……………..
US comedian Stephen Colbert is to be investigated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over a joke about President Donald Trump.
The body’s chairman Ajit Pai said it received several complaints about the monologue, which some viewers branded homophobic.
It concerned crude sexual references involving Mr Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39828336
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That’s rich considering the blind eye that the FCC turns on Fox, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity etc. while they denigrate women and/or people of color. Advertiser backlash has been the right wing’s only consequence.
But, I understand that the offended party, isn’t gay people, it’s Russia’s “strong man”, whose allies have been linked to Trump.
In a perfect world, Fallon and Kimmel would say the exact same thing Colbert said on his show.
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As a straight person with links to the gay community because my son and his husband are, of course, gay, I can clearly say that no complaint has come from no LGBQT organization. They understand the meaning of the joke. The fact that the right wing media is not being investigated proves to me that this is completely politically motivated. If I have to live with and accept the hate coming from the right, they have to accept what we from the left dish out to make a political point.
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He most likely did not read the signing statement either. This stinks of Jeff Sessions, Bannon, or Miller.
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Stinks of others, too.
The Koch’s undermined public support for taxes. Then, Gates came along this year with the Frontier Set program for states like Georgia to “implement business models for collaborative course development and delivery.” The Frontier Set has 5 HBCU’s in the program. There are 5 N.C. colleges, the state being carved up by Art Pope and the Koch’s.
Then, the Center for American Progress ($2.2 mil. in Gates’ grants) and Sen. Rubio called for removal of faculty assessment in college accreditation, substituting it with student outcome measures. Forbes-“It’s time for a Quality Alternative to College Accreditation”, co-written by a former employee of Gates’ New America.
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Gates’ commercializing plan for higher ed has disproportional impact on HBCU’s. 5% of HBSU’s are in the Frontier Set. Approximately, .005% of other colleges and universities are in Frontier.
Gates could open up his wallet and give Black colleges and universities strings-free money and then, they could decide if the Gates’ plan will harm their community of scholars, staff, students and administrators and, the future of the nation, economically and in terms of democracy.
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