“I have decided to stop taking offense,” Betsy DeVos wrote in a Roll Call column, “at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point.”
Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, knows plenty about buying influence and has plenty of money to do so. Dubbed “The New Kochs” by an article in Mother Jones, Betsy and her husband Richard earned multiple mentions in Dark Money, the authoritative book on the topic by Jane Mayer. True, among the über-rich who participate in the Koch brothers’ seminars, Richard and Betsy rank a few notches below the top ten. Their almost $6 billion valuation isn’t near the combined $86 billion of Charles and David Koch or the $31 billion of Sheldon Adelson. But $6 billion ain’t chopped liver. It can buy you a whole lot of influence. And it has, in the pursuit of removing any restrictions from political donations and in promoting the spread of vouchers and charter schools.
Betsy DeVos, born Betsy Prince, came from a wealthy family, and she moved up a rung or two when she married into the Amway marketing empire fortune. Betsy and Richard have been part of the upper echelons of the state and national Republican Party. Richard ran for Michigan governor in 2006, unsuccessfully. In 1997, Betsy was a founding board member of the James Madison Center for Free Speech, a group whose only purpose was to wipe out legal restrictions on spending money in politics. (A school choice group she ran still owes a $5.2 million fine to the Ohio Elections Commission for making illegal political contributions in 2008. One of the lawyer’s arguments against paying the fine is that the contribution would have been legal if the Citizens United decision had been in place at the time.) In 2000, DeVos put $2 million into a state referendum pushing school vouchers, which was voted down by 68 percent of the voters. Vouchers lose when they’re put to a popular vote every time, so she decided to devote her efforts to electing pro-voucher legislators who could enact the necessary legislation without needing voter support.
DeVos chairs the American Federation for Children (AFC), a 501(c)(4) dark-money group which I have written about in the past. It funds and endorses candidates who are voucher supporters. In this election cycle, AFC spent $218,000 in Arizona’s primaries alone.
Our probable next Secretary of Education attended a private, religious high school. I don’t know about her elementary education or her children’s education. Unless someone can show me differently, I’m going to make a guess that public schools didn’t figure into any of their schooling. DeVos has never taught or been connected with a public school based on anything I’ve read. Her college degree is in business administration and political science, not education. If she’s well read in educational literature, it’s a secret she keeps to herself. But she has her beliefs. She believes in the Republican Party, unlimited political donations, the use of money to buy influence, vouchers and charter schools. How this gives her the breadth of knowledge and understanding needed to make educational decisions affecting all the country’s children, the great majority of whom attend traditional public schools, not private or charter schools, is a mystery to me.
This article appears in Dec 1-7, 2016.
“…is a mystery to me.”
A very, very low bar.
You outta know about low bars Wrong, Again.
Shit, you’ve set the standard for that.
Mother Jones? What a racist international rag.
Then we must also look at the pedophiles and friends of the Clintons. What were tgey trying to buy? They were assured by the media that Hillary would win.
http://www.google.com/amp/amp.dailycaller.com
David,
Why does someone’s net worth have to do with your story, except to demonstrate they are successful and most probably good managers. This would, of course, make a person more qualified, at least it does in the real world. And boy, does government need a good dose of real world management!
This lady will bring a positive attitude to the department, something long lacking; a positive attitude for parent empowerment in their child’s education and future. Teachers unions fear the parental power that this will bring, as the parents will “shop with their feet” – taking their kids to schools they think best and often at substantial cost in dollars and time. Where is the problem?
What is the “real world,” Bisbee Boy?
Is that the place where some married couples with children could, if they chose, sit on their asses all day and more money than it takes to feed, clothe, house, and educate a small army would automatically flow into their bank accounts because they have sufficient stock portfolios to pay dividends? While other couples with children work 80 hours or more every week in the wealthiest country in the world and are given less than it takes to feed, clothe, house, and educate their own children? Where their local public school under-serves poor families and blames them because while working 80 hours a week they can’t provide their children with the same level of support that upper middle class families where a single income is enough to support the family enables one parent to stay home and support the children’s needs full time, chauffering them to and from whatever school it may be best for them to attend, open enrolling in another district’s public schools or in charters or privates, engaging in expensive extracurricular activities and receiving tutoring and homework help as needed?
Is the “real world” where people with capital engage in “rent seeking,” aka the search for “surplus value,” areas where they can take over what were previously public services provided with no profit margin and create more endeavors that feed money automatically to the wealthy through profits and dividends, while ownership brutally suppresses labor costs and cuts off benefits to the people educating our kids, as TUSD did when it outsourced the management of the subs delivering education to children in too many of the schools in the district that serve poor families?
Ah, yes, that IS the “real world,” according to those like you who are looking forward to watching Trump and Betsy De Vos “make America great again,” which evidently means seeing the country return to some of the abuses witnessed here during the Gilded Age.
We need someone in the “Secretary of Education” position who is committed to bringing the public system up to decent, functioning level and who knows how to hold the private and charter system accountable for delivering quality services, for operating, like the public system, on a strictly non-profit basis, and for being transparent in how it applies the public funds made available through “choice” programs states create.
Nothing we have heard about Betsy De Vos indicates that she would be remotely capable of delivering what the American education system — public, private and charter — needs at this point.
Great post Real World/Not De Vos.
Bisbee boy has proven again and again that he has no love for those who somehow got left behind.
God forbid that people who aren’t as “blessed” as he have options for their children. He would probably rather see them suffer.
Good for him. He’s definitely one of Trump’s people.
People like you keep others poor, because you have no concern for anyone but yourself.
Greed and selfishness will be your downfall.
Loneliness and depression shall become your “reward”.
Hi What Again —
Curious to know if you have actually read Karl Marx.
When you can quote from (and provide well-thought out arguments for or against) a couple of important passages in “Theories of Surplus Value” or one of the other key texts, why don’t you get back to us with your critique of his system of thought? (Whether or not you agree with every aspect of Marx, his crisis theory is interesting — some would say prophetic — when you’re looking at episodes in our own history like 1929 and 2008.)
As for our poverty in Southern Arizona, that can be explained in a number of different ways. It’s true some of our government institutions, including some of our public school districts, are malfunctioning, but those of us who’ve seen high functioning public institutions in blue states might identify different causes than you would identify. Lack of sufficient oversight and enforcement of transparency laws and lack of sufficient funding of public institutions of education which can then feed more high functioning graduates into the local economy might be a couple of key things to talk about. (It’s problematic to demand increased funding without somehow guaranteeing that there will be an increase in the sort of oversight and transparency proper to institutions using PUBLIC funds, though, which is where our local branch of the “Democratic” party gets it wrong.)
You folks really dont know thecsource of your problems do you?
Hmmm, What Again – I think when you read “Theories of Surplus Value” you may have missed a couple of key points. Marx does not advocate that “instead of earning on their own” people “simply take from those that have.” If you can’t find the time to go to the source, you might try Googling the term “alienation of labor” or “capital in search of surplus value.” See if you can find an online source of information that helps you to understand the concepts.
Just as all financial “bubbles” are destined to burst, all societies built on systemic injustice and exploitation are destined, eventually, to correct their courses. Sometimes you have to go far enough in the wrong direction that the grass roots reaction builds strength. Some speculate that that is where we are now. Sanders and Warren and others like them are continuing to build their networks. I will venture to guess that there will be no great increase in prosperity — and no great increase in the quality of education available — for the middle and the bottom sectors of our citizenry during the next four years. When the next election cycle rolls around, those sectors may be prepared to vote better leadership in. We’ll see.
Keep calm and commie on, Tucson liberals, commie on.
You’re the only one not being calm. Get a clue and get a life.
The proof is, as they say, in the pudding. The Make-America-Great Again Pudding will have to be served to the middle and lower classes as well as the 1% in order to get this demagogue re-elected in 2020. But unless he significantly alters his policies, mindset, and modus operandi, he will not achieve benefit to the majority of people working for a living in this country.
Keep your eye on the ball, Progressives: Donnie Drumpf was elected by recruiting votes from sectors of the citizenry whose best interests he will not serve. What happens in those sectors — with prosperity, access to and quality of educational opportunities, safety nets, health care, and economic security — will be what needs to be observed, reported, and discussed relentlessly for the next four years.
Jeep carrying Fidel Castros ashes breaks down during funeral procession
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/04/see-the-photo-jeep-carrying-fidel-castros-ashes-breaks-down-during-funeral-procession/
There you go, ‘progressives’. This is your dream for Tucson.
Thanks for the link, but what we’ll be watching is not what’s going on in Cuba, but what kind of Pudding is being served (and to whom) here in the good old U.S. of A.
There’s been a lot of rejoicing among Trump supporters in the comment streams…but the reality is the pressure (and intense 24/7 media scrutiny) is now focused on the former candidate, current President-elect, who has already seen fit to admit he doesn’t intend to follow through on a few key crowd-pleasing assertions made on the campaign trail.
I expect that in the months to come the attention of a sufficient number of the electorate will remain exactly where it belongs: on Trump’s promise delivery and the effect of his policies on the 99%.
Mr. What, Again really seems to dislike facts. A far as far can go right wing conservative who seemingly has no ideas of his own. Just another sheep in a flock of know-nothings where the only purpose for belonging is to tow the party line. Individuality and independent thought be damned! If you do any less, you’ve become a “progressive” liberal who might as well be sucking at the teat of Crooked Hillary and the rest of those Obama administration loving heathens. What good does having hate do you if you can’t utilize it to its fullest extent?
Everybody needs to do a little soul searching when they watch those that demanded tolerance, have become completely intolerable.
And tolerance couple with total ignorance is shuffling through the burned out warehouse in Oakland where they have now found 33 bodies.
When the DA releases the facts of this tragedy you will not believe what they are about to tell you.
Government tolerance of liberals. Was this murder or suicide?
“Preliminary indications suggest the blaze was not caused by arson, but rather an electrical fire. The power went out inside the building when the fire began and the flames blocked the building’s only exit, making it difficult for people inside to escape, an official briefed on the ongoing investigation told ABC News.”
And Susan Hirsch is attempting to slander liberals by suggesting they started this. What a disrespectful move to all those involved.
Yes, Susan Hirsh, the free market, which created a situation in which affordable housing has been in short supply in the Bay Area (even in Oakland), coupled with lax enforcement of government regulations that should have helped to protect the safety of those who must rent a place to live (as opposed to owning one, which requires capital and/or higher income levels), created a tragedy in Oakland.
Don’t tell me, Susan, that you favor government regulation? Rent controlled housing for lower income brackets? Raising the minimum wage, perhaps? Government enforcement of health and safety regulations?
(It seems in their sick quest to turn every current event — even tragedies like this — into an indictment of “liberals,” some commenters can’t even recognize when the arguments they make are incompatible with their standard-issue right wing talking points and corporate-manufactured ideology.)
Just wait.
We definitely don’t have to wait for you to make a complete ass out of yourself Susan.
You’ve already done that 3 times in this thread.
You are such a classy lady.
Mother Jones,…
and into the trash this article goes.
Why are there so many communist sympathizers and wanna-be anarchists here in Tucson? What on God’s earth is going on at the University of Arizona????
Interesting commentary David Safier, and with the billionaires our populist president elect has surrounded himself with right on target. Our soon to be Secy of Ed, is not an educator nor has she attended any public schools, nor has she saved on a school board by any measure, her only qualifications for the position is that she has been a shill for private schools.
As a side note, she has already influenced education here in Arizona. our newly elected freshman legislator from LD 1 (Prescott), David Stringer, was funded by DeVos. He greatly outspend his clean elections opponent and won the election. He too is for vouchers for all.
Keep shining a light on this David!!
Hey David –
How about some coverage of wages, entitlements, and labor conditions in the businesses run by Trump and his cabinet picks, including De Vos?
Then, just to be sure you’re being even-handed in your reporting — something I know you care about — you might include some info on wages, entitlements, and labor conditions in TUSD, making sure to include the outsourced substitute teacher labor force as well as the underpaid full time permanent teacher labor force. Don’t forget to include the full amount of public funds going in management fees to ESI per month, as well as what ESI’s vetting process is for the adults they recruit and put into classrooms with children enrolled in TUSD schools.
Thanks in advance for your work on this. And do keep shining a light, as Michael S. Ellegood requests, on the various ways — and there are many of them, coming from several different political / ideological quarters at this point — that children are getting a raw deal in American education these days.
Michael S Ellegood were you using the term “shill” as a noun or a verb?
shill
SHil/Submit
NORTH AMERICANinformal
noun
1.
an accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others.
As a noun you would call her a swindler. Is there any room for a difference of opinion on education?
Officials had cited the buildings owner for blight on Nov. 13 after neighbors complained of a ton of garbage piling up in the adjoining lot. They next day, city records show officials began an investigation of an alleged illegal interior building structure.
When inspectors returned on Nov. 17, they couldnt get in, Darin Ranelletti, Oaklands interim director of planning and building, said at a news conference. He didnt say why or explain whether they had tried later to return.
But City Council member Noel Gallo told the Bay Area News Group on Saturday that nobody had answered the door when inspectors visited the building, and they apparently had not tried again.
Family members waiting for word about loved ones were furious when Mayor Libby Schaaf told them that the city had tried to inspect the warehouse last month but couldnt get access.
What I dont understand is why werent they able to gain access, and if that was the case, why didnt they stay there until they could? said Dan Vega, an Oakley mechanic whose 22-year-old brother Alex Vega is still missing. They should have locked it up.-East Bay Times
Just wait. It will get much worse.
The building inspectors had the responsibility and the right to get inside and make sure that it was safe. Were they told not to ? Three more weeks they allowed it to compound because they couldn’t get inside?
How long until it’s linked to the Mayor? Who knows.
Yeah, who knows?
Who knows why you’re being such a disrespectful troll?
Why don’t you approach everyone who is involved in this, from the victim’s families all the way through to the firefighters that responded to this tragedy. Stand your ready to collapse sinkhole ground and inform them that this was all caused by the Libtards.
Susan Hirsh, putting the ASS in class for 4 posts in a row.
Hopefully she has released all that ignorant venom and the disrespect will cease.
Oops! I forgot the important part.
Please stop using my name to bully posters on this thread.
For any others that had interest in the process, this is the point:
8.2.A. Absolute Immunity
By its terms, Section 1983 imposes liability without defense on state and local officials who, acting under color of law in their individual capacity, deprive plaintiffs of rights created by the Constitution and federal law. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court, drawing on common law, created absolute immunity from liability for some government officials and qualified immunity for others. Absolute and qualified immunity were developed to protect officials from lawsuits for actions relating to their official duties. The Court explained the underlying rationale for immunity:
[T]he public interest requires decisions and actions to enforce laws for the protection of the public . . . . Public officials, whether governors, mayors or police, legislators or judges, who fail to make decisions when they are needed or who do not act to implement decisions when they are made do not fully and faithfully perform the duties of their offices. Implicit in the idea that officials have some immunity absolute or qualified for their acts, is a recognition that they may err. The concept of immunity assumes this and goes on to assume that it is better to risk some error and possible injury from such error than not to decide or act at all.
http://federalpracticemanual.org/chapter8/section2
This who they are left to go after.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/oakland-warehouse-owner-refuses-questions-interview-fire-article-1.2900279
Lessons, hard as they seem, must be learned from this tragedy. Or it will happen again.
Tucson City Council, are you listening?
Wake up! You’re being the bully.
Throwing politics into an arena where it doesn’t belong is also EXTREMELY disrespectful.
Are you out of venom yet?
So saving lives to you is nothing more than politics? I don’t think you are comprehending what I am saying.
Have a good day.
Your posts had nothing to do with saving lives. It had to do with politics.
You’re the one who brought this off topic subject into this thread just to feel big and slander liberals.
Once again, your lack of class is exposed.
Susan, I can’t believe that you don’t see what you are doing. This article is making the case that those that attend private, religious schools have no right to comment on public schools. I can only wonder if you are not one of them. The Constitution protects us from people like you. It’s in the 9th Amendment.
You can’t imitate me.
I have a an account dumbass.
You click on my name, you get a user history.
Unlike your chicken shit ass!
Go away Ratt, ya bother me.
P.S. : If you wanna get it right, it’s AZZZZ(emphasis on the Z)/DC.
I am not a hard rock band from Australia. You extreme right wing morons can never get anything correct.
Imagine that!
May all of those that lost their lives in the Oakland fire rest in peace.
Here is the latest from the investigation.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4010390/Inside-cultish-mind-control-world-Oakland-inferno-warehouse-organizer-tenants-tell-personal-charisma-threats-violence-rituals.html
Usually when a troll says “Have a good day” in their posts, they know they’ve defeated and they have ran out of ammunition.
Yet, here you are again to bring more of your off topic nonsense to this thread.
Stop it already.