President-Elect Trump announced that he has chosen Linda McMahon as his Secretary of Education. McMahon, 76, was co-chair of Trump’s transition and served as head of the Small Business Administration in Trump’s previous term. She made a lot of money as a partner in World Wrestling Entertainment and helped turn it into a multi-billion company.
McMahon briefly served on the Connecticut State Board of Education before she quit to run for the Senate and lost. She is a graduate of East Carolina University with a degree in French.
She is board chair of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned “think tank.”
Her selection continues Trump’s pattern of selecting totally unqualified people for his cabinet. McMahon’s job is to destroy the U.S. Department of Education.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., vaccine opponent: appointed to run the Department of Health and Human Services. FOX commentator, Pete Hegseth, who has zero managerial experience, to run the massive Department of Defense; Tulsi Gabbard, Putin sycophant, as Director of National Intelligence. Matt Gaetz, allegations of drug use and sex with underage girls, as U.S. Attorney General. On and on with people who seem to be not only unqualified but at odds with the organization they are supposed to lead.
Trump’s choices are intended to destabilize the government.
Steve Bannon says the Trump team wants to destroy “the administrative state.” That’s our government. Trump is choosing people to destroy our government.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Trump has already turned the Republican Party into a subsidiary of his family crime empire with millions of dollars contributed to campaigns diverted into Trump accounts.
I think Trump is now working to turn the United States into a subsidiary of the family crime empire he controls. Once all the checks and balances are gone, how much of the taxes we pay will also flow into Trump’s accounts?
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They are working very fast. If you live in a district with Republican representation, call your representative–those representatives are getting tremendous pressure from the other side. every little bit helps so a phone call or a letter will be a stone on the scale bending towards the maintenance of democracy and its freedoms that we all enjoy and will miss when they disappear into the empty promises of Trump’s smoke and mirrors campaign. CBK
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He is assembling a reality shit show cast
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Just when you think it can’t get anymore bizarre or weird, Trump tops himself and comes up with this gem of a selection. If Gaetz gets dumped, I’m sure Don the Con will select his slavish supporter, Sylvester Stallone for the attorney general.
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He has already chosen his personal defense attorneys for the top jobs in DOJ.
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This is the template. If they can’t destroy the government, they will hobble it. So, welcome to the Department of Edutainment.
And, the first hundred days of Trump 2.0 will hit like “shock and awe” but waged on our own nation.
I feel so sorry for our children.
What kind of country are we leaving for them?
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She & her husband were also named in a recent lawsuit as knowingly enabling the sexual exploitation of children by a WWE employee in the 1980s.
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TRUMP’S OBLIGATION: CREATE CHAOS IN AMERICA
Newsweek reports that Putin’s personal intelligence aide, Nikolai Patrushev, declared that Trump has “obligations” to Putin that Trump is now “obliged to fulfill.”
Trump’s choosing outrageous people like Gaetz, Kennedy, and Hegseth isn’t just “Trump being Trump” — it is Trump fulfilling his obligations to Putin by carrying out Putin’s plan to make America’s government and our military forces dysfunctional, giving Putin all the opportunity he needs to achieve his military and political goals in Ukraine, in the Republic of Georgia, and in Syria while America is in CHAOS.
Putin is likely also planning to invade Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Moldavia, knowing that European NATO nations won’t go to war without the support of the United States, which Trump will withhold. NATO will be ended, and Russia will be free to take over its entire post-World War II empire and eventually all of Europe.
THE QUESTION IS — Are there enough members of Congress who have the backbone and the love of America to stand up to Trump, to not allow “recess appointments” of Trump’s hand-picked Putin heads of our government departments?
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This is really a reflection of the very low opinion Trump has of the people who voted for him. Trump apparently believes that the people who voted for him are as stupid as the people who gave him thousands of dollars to attend his fake university, and donated to his fake charity. Trump apparently believes that the people who voted for him would be thrilled to have the person who got people to pay them lots of money to watch fake wrestling be in charge of their kids’ education. I’m guessing Trump believes his voters would prefer to have their kids taught by professional wrestlers than professional teachers. Just as Trump believes his voters share the values of Matt Gaetz.
Perhaps Trump is right. Trump voters do share his values and the values of Matt Gaetz and professional wrestling. I haven’t seen any evidence that Trump’s very low opinion of his own supporters is wrong, although I hope some day I might.
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Don’t hold your breath.
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NYC: You just described a grifter. CBK
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Another predictable, ridiculous choice. Willing to put a positive spin on it. He didn’t pick Ryan Walters. And boy, is he pissed. Walters can go back to forcing prayer videos on the Oklahoma public schools.
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All these picks are indicative of inverted totalitarianism.
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The McMahon appointment truly feels like a boot heel being ground into our faces.
How many of us worked hard and have 16 – 20 years of education (k-12 through doctorate degrees) under our belts, now to be led by a fake wrestling promoter?
Betsy DeVos was bad enough, but this one feels 10 times worse.
God help us.
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The one positive in McMahon’s choice is that the others in his short list were far worse. Chris Rufo? Tiffany Justice? Brian Donalds? Michelle Rhee (her name was not on his list)?
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Trump most certainly wants to destroy this country while making everyone sick. Dr. Oz wants everyone to get Medicare Advantage because he has invested in UnitedHealth Group and in CVS Health which owns Aetna.
I remember seeing Dr. Oz on Oprah years ago. I had no idea he was this crooked.
Trump Picks Oz, Champion Of Medicare Privatization
…Oz bills his own health care plan as “Medicare Advantage for All.” Such a program could move seniors and most Americans into private insurance plans that have been raising premiums and denying roughly one in ten medical claims, according to a recent government reportfinding that the plans frequently refuse to cover services required by Medicare.
To pay for his privatization plan, Oz has proposed a 20 percent payroll tax, which would ultimately transfer money from workers to the Republican Party’s private insurance donors that have been reporting record profits while jacking up premiums.
In other words, Oz himself wants to increase taxes on lower- and middle-class Americans to fund his own version of a corporate-run, universal health care system — one that could come with high patient costs, continued barriers to care, and a windfall for the health insurance industry.
Oz’s campaign did not respond to The Lever’s request for comment…
Oz’s plan could boost companies in which he invests: Financial disclosures show Oz and his wife own up to $550,000 worth of stock in UnitedHealth Group and up to $50,000 in CVS Health, which owns Aetna. Both UnitedHealth and Aetna have reported big revenues from Medicare Advantage plans, the privatized Medicare plans operated by corporate health insurers. In all, Oz and his wife have at least $8.5 million in personal investments in the health care sector.
Oz has pushed Medicare Advantage plans on his TV show, the Dr. Oz Show, including in a segment sponsored by MedicareAdvantage.com, an insurance agency. Viewers were encouraged to call a hotline so they could sign up for Medicare Advantage plans right away…
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Let’s Make America Dumb Again!
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Destabilize” means to make something unstable or less secure, often referring to a system or situation where power or control is weakened.
While “destroy” means to completely ruin or demolish something, signifying a more severe and permanent state of damage.
Essentially, “destabilize” is to shake the foundations of something, while “destroy” is to completely dismantle it.
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Of course any republican Secretary of Ed is going to be awful, but I was expecting much worse.
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Like who? Mike Tyson? Not many could be worse. The Resident-Elect is doing just what he said he would–get rid of the Department of Education in the most brutal way possible. MASA–Make America Stupid Again.
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One characteristic of totalitarian societies is that the dictatorial government keeps the populace as ignorant as possible by being the sole source of information (Faux News?). Another is that the leader keeps people around him who must look to him for direction because they are incompetent. They don’t know precisely what to do. He becomes the one source of initiative and direction.
The choices that the Resident-Elect is making for his cabinet all reflect these tenets. None of these people is qualified to perform the functions asked of them in their position. They also will not be able to adequately report on their respective areas because they don’t fully understand them or have the skills necessary to be in charge.
If we survive the next four years as an intact entity known as the United States of America, a possibility I have some doubts about, the damage this Felon-In-Chief will have perpetrated upon our country may be beyond restoration.
I fear for our future and even more for the futures of my children and grandchildren.
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