After an epic confirmation process that included nationwide protests, a petition signed by 1.4 million Americans opposing her nomination, a 24-hour overnight session led by Democrats on the Senate floor, and countless calls and emails to legislatures across the country, billionaire Betsy Devos has been confirmed as our new Education Secretary, with homophobe Mike Pence casting the decisive tie-breaking vote.
Related: ‘Clerical error’ to blame for Betsy DeVos’ 13 years of antigay donations — really?
And, just like that, the future of children’s education in America has been handed over to a woman who believes guns should be allowed in schools to protect students and teachers “from potential grizzlies,” whose family has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to anti-LGBTQ organizations that support conversion therapy, including Focus on the Family, NOM, FRC, and Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and who, BTW, has no education degree, teaching experience, or work experience in a school environment.
What could possibly go wrong?
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Related: Al Franken challenges Betsy DeVos on million$ in antigay donations
Yes, it’s a dark day for young minds in America. As well as for anyone who supports the idea of having an educated public. Not to mention grizzly bears. Luckily, we have memes to turn to for help in finding the humor in this incredibly dire situation…
NateOcean
Of the answers she failed to evade, she mostly got wrong.
Unqualified.
Any doubt why the Republicans voted her in?
dwes09
Let’s do a multiple choice! Just for fun:
a. She donated a lot of money to superpacs as well as to the candidates.
b. She will be easily manipulated.
c. This will aid in the creation and maintenance of an easily manipulated electorate through the undermining of critical thinking skills in upcoming generations.
e. She will get more money to “faith based” schools and reduce the oversight on already suspect charter schools.
f. All of the above.
dwes09
But remember, the appointment of ignorant homophobic twits to important positions is irrelevant because Trump mentioned the phrase “LGBT” at least twice and promised to keep mythic homo-hating Muslims out of our hair even as he undermines our actual rights and quality of life!
And besides anybody who does not lick the ass of the new administration is “intolerant” in that peculiar way only the regressives understand.
Hard not to be cynical as the social progress of the last 50 years evaporates and gay men who seemingly can read and write (but oddly cannot think or understand reality) come here to support their own re-marginalization and that of other minorities.
Kieran
President Trump wins again. *YAWN*
dwes09
The point here is who loses. You’d like to think it is the “libs”, but are too stupid to see it is the children in this country, as well as those who understand the purpose of public education, of which the US model was the inspiration for a good part of the rest of the world.
I’ll be curious to see how much yawning you will be doing in a year or so: if you are so simple and self absorbed, short sighted and parochial, that you’ll be content to see incompetents and cynical manipulators turning back the clock on social and intellectual progress.
dwes09
There would have been any number of real conservatives who understand the purpose and importance of public education. There were any number of republicans who had actual experience in the educational system. But folks like you see the current political situation as a football game or MMI match. There is little as stupid as that, little as short sighted. You are perfectly fine with corruption and incompetence so long as your little boy “wins”.
dwes09
(MMA match)
KaiserVonScheiss
The grizzly thing was taken out of total context. More lies from the leftist media.
dwes09
She said it, and she said it specifically when asked about guns in schools. It was her answer!
Do you actually understand what “out of context” means? Or are you simply one of those who will do anything to lick the assholes of those who hate him (if you are actually a gay man in addition to a regressive tool)? Though you are , by your own admission the king of shit.
KaiserVonScheiss
Emperor. I’m the Emperor of Shit. I think it’s funny how an illiberal regressive like yourself would call a liberal like me a regressive.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
@dwes09 she can still be awful (which seems to be the case) AND be unfairly quoted out of context, and acknowledging it and lamenting the ltawdry standards of political debate on all sides does not of itself make one a Right wing apologist.
The Right completely — and completely cynically– took out of context Clinton’s comments about putting coal miners out of jobs ..omitting the rest: “We’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people, Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.” Etc
Calling out the distortions and BS on both sides can only be an unalloyed good thing for fostering legitamte political debate, and for us to see the true picture of what we’re up against, as well as for the health of the democratic system itself. Only a narrow minded, blinkered partisan would think otherwise.
mhoffman953
@dwes09 It was taken out of context. You should go back and read the question, her response, the follow-up question, and her response.
Since you obviously won’t I will refresh your memory. Senator Christ Murphy asked Betsy DeVos if she thinks guns have any place in or around schools to which she replied the issue is “best left to locales and states to decide.” Meaning that it should be a local and state issue and not a federal one.
That answer didn’t seem to suffice Senator Murphy who followed up by saying “You can’t say definitively today that guns shouldn’t be in schools?” To which DeVos replied “I will refer back to Sen. Enzi and the school he was talking about in Wyoming. I think probably there, I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies.”
Her quote was to cite an example showing that guns in schools are up to local schools and states to decide dependent upon their local issues and community decisions. It wasn’t because she thinks grizzlies are attacking kids in ALL schools. She merely cited one school that was just mentioned where they actually have guns in schools, regardless of if you think the reason for it is silly or not, it was an example. You should be smarter than that to understand context. Either you choose not to understand context or you don’t know what context is in language.
FnameLname
You also have to consider how she said what she said. She was struggling to think of a reason why guns should be necessary in schools. She’s not stupid, she doesn’t want to make enemies with NRA folk. Of course she’s not going to come out and say that all teachers should carry guns but she is certainly not being misread. She knows what she’s doing.
MaxTaste
She’s bad for kids.
Mo Bro
The left hates this woman because she refuses to be a union lackey and puts children’s education above teachers’ benefits.
The nerve of her.
Oh, and by the way, this makes article #542 since November that has absolutely nothing to do with gay issues and everything to do with trashing your new president.
1EqualityUSA
May have something to do with her anti-gay stands.
FnameLname
Yes it does have every thing to do with gay issues…Her family has been contributing thousands of dollars over many years to defeat gay rights ……she was the vice president of the family organization that donated repeatedly Of course she comes out now and says that her being the vice pres. was only a typo that existed for about 13 years! Do you really think she cares about gay kids and what kind of torture they will experience in school?
ShowMeGuy
Anyone selected to be Education Czar should first have to pass any State’s Teacher Certification Exam.