{"id":351963,"date":"2018-03-13T13:54:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T12:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/21-reasons-people-hate-hate-hate-betsy-devos\/"},"modified":"2018-03-13T13:54:02","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T12:54:02","slug":"21-reasons-people-hate-hate-hate-betsy-devos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/21-reasons-people-hate-hate-hate-betsy-devos\/","title":{"rendered":"21 Reasons People Hate, Hate, HATE Betsy DeVos"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
\n

Lesley Stahl:<\/strong> Why have you become, people say, the most hated Cabinet secretary?<\/em><\/p>\n

Education Sec. Betsy DeVos: <\/strong>I\u2019m not sure exactly how that happened\u2026 I\u2019m more misunderstood than anything.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The above exchange from Sunday night\u2019s “60 Minutes “interview<\/a> highlights an important point about our Education Secretary.<\/p>\n

She is deeply unpopular, but not because she\u2019s misunderstood. If anything, she\u2019s understood too well.<\/p>\n

We know what she stands for and we don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

If she was really so misunderstood, why didn\u2019t her answers in the interview veer away from the same usual canned responses she\u2019s given time-and-time-again to the same type of questions?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with schools? Not enough choice!<\/strong>
<\/em><\/p>\n

How do we prevent school shootings? Let schools arm teachers<\/strong>.
<\/em><\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t really even need DeVos to show up to the interview to be able to guess with a high degree of accuracy what her answers would be.<\/p>\n

In fact, many of her responses seemed to have been coached\u2014as if someone had prepared her with talking points before the interview even took place.<\/p>\n

So without further ado, here is my exhaustive list of all the reasons I can think of why people really, really<\/strong> <\/em>hate Betsy Devos. If I\u2019ve left something out, please feel free to add it in a comment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Why People Hate Betsy DeVos:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1)<\/strong> She didn\u2019t earn her position as Education Secretary<\/a>. She bought it<\/a>. And even then it took a tie breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence to shove her down our throats.<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong> She wants to spend tax dollars to boost privatized schools<\/a> in which she has a financial stake.<\/a><\/p>\n

3)<\/strong> She doesn\u2019t mind taking funding away from public schools<\/a> to do it.<\/p>\n

4)<\/strong> She wants to destroy the entire system of public schools<\/a> which enroll 90% of America\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

5)<\/strong> She doesn\u2019t really know what public schools are<\/a>, having never attended one or having never sent her children or grandchildren to one.<\/p>\n

6)<\/strong> She wants to arm teachers not because it will protect kids from school shooters<\/a>, but because that boosts her family\u2019s investment portfolio<\/a>. (i.e. her brother\u2019s mercenary army for hire, Blackwater)<\/p>\n

7)<\/strong> She won\u2019t make charter and voucher schools<\/a> give the same services to special education kids<\/a> as those provided by traditional public schools.<\/p>\n

8)<\/strong> She\u2019s getting rid of students\u2019 civil rights protections<\/a> while adding protections for nefarious student loan providers and fly-by-night on-line schools.<\/p>\n

9)<\/strong> She\u2019s rescinded rules that protected trans students<\/a>.<\/p>\n

10)<\/strong> She\u2019s considering rescinding rules that protect minority students from being unfairly and disproportionately disciplined by schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n

11)<\/strong> She\u2019s made it harder for victims of sexual assault and harassment to report abuse and easier for those accused to avoid prosecution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

12)<\/strong> She talks about state\u2019s rights to determine their own education systems while using the power of the federal government to coerce them to doing things her way<\/a>.<\/p>\n

13)<\/strong> She wastes public tax dollars. She is the only Cabinet member protected by Federal Marshals, which costs us nearly $1 million a month<\/a>. Whether this is necessary or not, as a billionaire she could save the taxpayers money by taking on this cost, herself.<\/p>\n

14)<\/strong> She doesn\u2019t care if the public doesn\u2019t want her at their school or event. She goes anyway and then pretends to be angry that protestors showed up<\/a>. She doesn\u2019t seem to understand that as a public servant she should serve at our pleasure \u2013 not the other way around.<\/p>\n

15)<\/strong> She uses tragedy as a photo-op<\/a> \u2013 as she did when she visited the Parkland school to promote arming teachers. She didn\u2019t meet significantly with students or staff. She didn\u2019t listen to their concerns. She even bailed on her own press conference there when the queries weren\u2019t to her liking.<\/p>\n

16)<\/strong> She has no problem whitewashing black history as she did when she claimed historic black colleges were pioneers of school choice<\/a>. In reality they had no choice. For many African Americans at the time, it was create black colleges or forgo post-secondary education at all.<\/p>\n

17)<\/strong> She is ignorant (purposefully or not) of the results of her own policies. Her advocacy of school choice in her home state of Michigan has weakened that state\u2019s public schools, not strengthened them.<\/a><\/p>\n

18)<\/strong> She\u2019s out of touch with average Americans. She\u2019s the richest member of Trump\u2019s cabinet and often travels in her on super luxury yacht<\/a>.<\/p>\n

19)<\/strong> She\u2019s rich not because she earned it, but because she was born into it and married into even more wealth. Moreover, much of her wealth is due to her family\u2019s Amway fortune \u2013 basically it\u2019s founded on rooking average people out of their hard earned money <\/a>with what\u2019s essentially a pyramid scheme.<\/p>\n

20)<\/strong> She\u2019s arrogant. She smiles vacantly at topics that don\u2019t deserve a smile \u2013 they deserve serious regard.<\/p>\n

21)<\/strong> She is extremely biased and partisan. She is supposed to serve the public interest, but her radical Christian Fundamentalism and anti-LGBT activism<\/a> make her untrustworthy to serve in that capacity. Statements such as \u201cThere is enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education\u2026 Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God\u2019s kingdom,\u201d <\/a>do not help.<\/p>\n

Okay. That\u2019s all I can think of \u2013 though more may pop into mind as soon as I publish this. If I missed something please include it in the comments.<\/p>\n

Hopefully this answers DeVos\u2019 question about why she\u2019s hated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via Common Dreams<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lesley Stahl: Why have you become, people say, the most hated Cabinet secretary? Education Sec. Betsy DeVos: I\u2019m not sure exactly how that happened\u2026 I\u2019m more misunderstood than anything. The above exchange from Sunday night\u2019s “60 Minutes “interview highlights an important point about our Education Secretary. She is deeply unpopular, but not because she\u2019s misunderstood. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-351963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}