Top of the News – 22nd June 2020
Late Posting
A Scathing Rebuke of Donald Trump by former Republican Steve Schmidt
Steve Schmidt—MSNBC, June 20, 2020
I can’t wait for this moment. It will come early. “Fox News is now projecting Joseph R. Biden is the President-Elect of the United States” The American people are going to throw you out of office. You will be repudiated and disgraced. The oh leave nothing behind but the stench of epic failure.
No American has ever failed this country worse than you. None. Your incompetence, ignorance, ineptitude and old fashioned stupidity have caused economic collapse and made the US the epicenter of Corona virus death and suffering. You have shattered American Alliances and weakened our military.
You are a disgrace. Your name will be a synonym for losing, failure and weakness.
Biden is crushing you. You want to know why? It’s because he is a good man and you are a bad one. He cares about the American people and you do not. He is Respected on the world stage and you are laughed at like some type of grotesque and buffoonish clown. He is capable and you are not. You attack because you are scared.
Take a minute to look at the picture of Fred Trump on your desk. Do you think he would be surprised by your Failures? He would not. He bailed you out over and over again. He bailed you out because you couldn’t cut it as anything other than a Conman.
There will be no monuments and no encomiums for you. The whole country has watched you fail. The whole country is watching your Increasingly feeble state. The whole country is watching you lose. We will all watch you return to your golf clubs as the biggest loser the American Presidency has ever produced
Trump rally highlights vulnerabilities heading into election
By STEVE PEOPLES and JONATHAN LEMIRE
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s return to the campaign trail was designed to show strength and enthusiasm heading into the critical final months before an election that will decide whether he remains in the White House.
Instead, his weekend rally in Oklahoma highlighted growing vulnerabilities and crystallized a divisive reelection message that largely ignores broad swaths of voters — independents, suburban women and people of color — who could play a crucial role in choosing Trump or Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Austin, TX: Third day in a row of record-breaking daily coronavirus cases: 506
Alcohol permits suspended at two Houston-area bars for violating COVID-19 requirements
OPINION
Betsy DeVos is an abysmal failure and our nation’s schoolchildren are paying the price
By Helaine Olen - WASHINGTON POST
Almost two months ago, the American Federation of Teachers released a plan detailing how schools could reopen safely. Their recommendations include mandatory hand-washing on entering the school and capping class sizes to encourage physical distancing. Last month, the conservative American Enterprise Institute released one as well; among other things, it urges schools to evaluate students for learning gaps as a result of the closures.
The Education Department, by contrast, is all but silent, issuing little in the way of guidance, and doing little to review what did and didn’t work. Anecdotal evidence suggests many parents and teachers found virtual learning dissatisfactory, while surveys found a large number of students didn’t attend their online classes regularly. A poll of North Carolina parents found a majority believed their children learned less online then in-person. The Education Department’s response? According to The Post’s Laura Meckler, just this month, “the department invited education officials to a panel discussion on the practical applications of virtual learning."
The result is that states, cities and individual districts are on their own trying to dig out of a deep hole. One study estimates that students will return for the new academic year — if they return at all, that is — with less than half the gains in math knowledge they normally would be expected to possess.
It’s not that DeVos isn’t hard at work — it’s just that she’s not devoting her efforts to what we would assume a federal education head should be prioritizing. For DeVos, the pandemic is no obstacle to pushing her long crusade for charter schools and “school choice,” not to mention cracking down on people struggling to repay student loans. She’s attempted to reroute a portion of the $13.5 billion in the Cares Act dedicated for K-12 funding needs — money that’s supposed to be distributed based on poverty and need formulas — to independent and religious schools. She continues to promote school choice and the use of vouchers. She’s fighting efforts by colleges to include undocumented students among the recipients of money designated for helping students in need. And her Education Department has continued to collect student loan payments from borrowers in default even though the Cares Act had suspended such collections and the department had promised to comply.
“It is absolutely mind-blowing that the basic functions of the department are not getting done because she is so ideologically against public schooling,” says AFT president Randi Weingarten. “The level at which the Department of Education has abdicated responsibility for the safety, well-being and instructional success of the 90 percent of children in America who go to public schools is stunning.”
Shocking, yes, but hardly surprising. Over the past 3½ years, DeVos has done yeoman work supporting the nihilistic approach of the Trump administration, backing budgets that would take away money from everything from after-school activities to the Special Olympics. Time and again her pet causes have taken precedence over what’s best for teachers and students. Now, facing an unprecedented crisis for education, DeVos has again abandoned the field. She deserves an F for her time in office.
