Month: February 2017

DeVos’ Post Meeting Statement After Hearing Black College and University Leaders…

Statement from Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Following Listening Session with Historically Black College and University Leaders

February 28, 2017
Contact:   Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released the following statement after meeting with presidents and chancellors of Historically Black Colleges and Universities at the White House:

A key priority for this administration is to help develop opportunities for communities that are often the most underserved. Rather than focus solely on funding, we must be willing to make the tangible, structural reforms that will allow students to reach their full potential.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have done this since their founding. They started from the fact that there were too many students in America who did not have equal access to education. They saw that the system wasn’t working, that there was an absence of opportunity, so they took it upon themselves to provide the solution.

HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.

Their counsel and guidance will be crucial in addressing the current inequities we face in education. I look forward to working with the White House to elevate the role of HBCUs in this administration and to solve the problems we face in education today.

A nice fluffy statement. Plays well no doubt with certain elements, likely Trump’s most ardent supporters.

We look forward to reading exactly:

A) What does the administration view specifically as the top three major issues facing higher education in the underserved communities?
B) What specifically are the tangible structural reforms DeVos is referring to. How are the projected changes going to provide greater opportunity?
C) Does the rather than focus solely on funding really mean expect funding cuts? If so how much and what will be cut?

Just some immediate thoughts. Given Trump’s track record it is hard to accept this statement as anything but fluff. Fluff with code to satisfy his base.

Liberty…

Edward Thomas, 1878 – 1917

The last light has gone out of the world, except
This moonlight lying on the grass like frost
Beyond the brink of the tall elm’s shadow.
It is as if everything else had slept
Many an age, unforgotten and lost
The men that were, the things done, long ago,
All I have thought; and but the moon and I
Live yet and here stand idle over the grave
Where all is buried. Both have liberty
To dream what we could do if we were free
To do some thing we had desired long,
The moon and I. There’s none less free than who
Does nothing and has nothing else to do,
Being free only for what is not to his mind,
And nothing is to his mind. If every hour
Like this one passing that I have spent among
The wiser others when I have forgot
To wonder whether I was free or not,
Were piled before me, and not lost behind,
And I could take and carry them away
I should be rich; or if I had the power
To wipe out every one and not again
Regret, I should be rich to be so poor.
And yet I still am half in love with pain,
With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth,
With things that have an end, with life and earth,
And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.

A Big Idea…

THE BIG IDEA: As a House freshman, Jay Inslee lost reelection in 1994 because of voter frustration with Bill Clinton’s first two years as president. Tom Foley, who represented an adjacent district, became the first Speaker to lose reelection since the depths of the Civil War.

“I’ve personally experienced a 65-foot fall tsunami directed at a party whose president had caused a great backlash,” said Inslee, who returned to Congress four years later and is now in his second term as governor of Washington State. “So I know what blowback can look like, and I will tell you that the energy that now exists in the opposite direction is greater than existed in 1994.”

As the chairman-elect of the Democratic Governors Association, Inslee will quarterback his party’s efforts in next year’s gubernatorial contests. To say he’s bullish would be an understatement. “Democrats are going to crawl across broken glass on their knees to go vote in 2018, if the conditions exist as they do today,” Inslee said during an interview yesterday afternoon at the J.W. Marriott, before he headed to the White House for a black-tie gala hosted by President Trump.

Hm, not so fast. You see it’s like this. Folks vote their pocketbook. So, If Trump does deliver on bringing jobs back to America (unlikely), the economy continues to improve (we note the economy is stronger because of President Obama),  he builds that wall and makes Mexico pay for it (ain’t gonna happen), and defeats ISIS (we’re still waiting for that secret 30 day plan to of his), none of his bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, legendary lying, or anything else will matter. Principals and values are trumped, pun intended, every time by the family’s financial and physical security.

We’re not saying Trump is going to succeed with his grandiose plan to Make America Great Again. In the first place America is already great, and for reasons Trump obviously doesn’t understand.  Just as important Trump has already shown his ineptness with an executive branch in disarray and his inability to give sound rational guidance. Even to his own party. If things  start to fall apart over the next 18 months, it is at least a 50/50 chance they will, then yes, 2018 may very well be the tsunami Inslee is talking about. Followed by sweeping an unprincipled and inept Trump out of office in 2020.

What is the bottom line here? Democrats had better not get cocky or too confident. Don’t forget what just happened in 2016. They also better forge solid relationships with the moderate wing of their own party, reach daily across the aisle to forge relationships with more reasonable and liberal republicans in congress, calm the nerves of the more progressive element in their party (because defeating Trump and his dangerously reactionary agenda in is job 1 for 2020), and they had better focus on governorships and state houses as well.

This writer has always been a fiscal conservative and generally believed the republican party was best equipped to handle both domestic and foreign affairs effectively. The last 16 years has taught me this is no longer true. Maybe it never was. At any rate the fight to defeat Trump, those supporting him, and his reactionary agenda is the most pressing concern and perhaps the most difficult challenge of the next four years.

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When A President Emboldens Haters…

It happened last week in St Louis and Saturday it happened again in New York. Are the incidents of anti-Semitism that have occurred with increasing regularity since Trump hit the political streets just coincidental. Or is it possible that his divisive rhetoric has actually giving impetus and cover for what we’ve seen happening since his announcement that he was running for president?

To think Trump’s rhetoric does not represent his true beliefs and feelings is naïve. To believe the millions who support and voted for Trump for the presidency don’t approve of his bigoted rhetoric is, to say the least, naïve as well.  When the leader of a nation speaks, his words have consequences. The consequence of Trump’s many bigoted, racist, and xenophobic words? To embolden and give rise to the bigotry and hatred we say in St Louis and New York just this past week.

Stacy Silver prayed as she drove with her husband to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia’s Wissinoming section Sunday: Please don’t let my mother and great-grandmother be among the victims.

When Silver, 50, of Cherry Hill, N.J., heard about the vandalism at the Jewish cemetery that occurred overnight Saturday, she rushed to her loved ones’ graves.

What she saw when she arrived was worse than she imagined — tombstone after tombstone, story after story, was toppled to the ground — including those belonging to her mother and great-grandmother.

“Your stomach just drops,” Silver said. “I mean it’s just horrible.”

Detectives canvassing the cemetery Sunday afternoon estimated that  75 to 100 headstones had been knocked over.

“It’s criminal. This is beyond vandalism,” said Northeast Detectives Capt. Shawn Thrush, as he walked the cemetery grounds. “It’s beyond belief.”

The vandalism, coming a week after a similar incident in St. Louis, prompted the Anne Frank Center to call for President Trump to make a forceful denunciation of anti-Semitic hate crimes.

“Mr. President, it’s time for you to deliver a prime-time nationally televised speech, live from the Oval Office, on how you intend to combat not only #Antisemitism but also Islamophobia and other rising forms of hate,” the organization posted Sunday on Twitter. “Whether or not your intention, your Presidency has given the oxygen of incitement to some of the most viciously hateful elements of our society.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center recorded 1,372 bias incidents between Trump’s inauguration and Feb. 7, the watchdog group reported. Among those, the group highlighted 57 incidents in 24 states of anonymous bomb threats being called in to Jewish Community Centers. The organization has also recorded that the number of hate groups in the U.S. grew in 2016 for the second straight year, with a threefold increase in the number of anti-Muslim hate groups.

The incident at Mount Carmel prompted support from the national Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA.

“We are deeply troubled by these rising and ongoing attacks on our Jewish sisters and brothers and members from our Philadelphia chapter are in route to assist in clean up,” said Nasim Rehmatullah, the organization’s national vice president. (emphasis mine)

Indeed Mr. Trump. Your words have had an impact. A very dark and sinister one. You can not change or take back your stream of bigoted words and xenophobic utterances. Just as a leopard is incapable of changing its spots your words have defined who and what you are. Simply put Trump, you have zero credibility and anything you say is therefore meaningless. Try as you might to cover your rancid character it will not work in the end.

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CNN UPDATE AT 10:25 AM WITH VIDEO.