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    Betsy DeVos wants to turn millions of America's children into pandemic lab rats

    Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory
    July 19, 2020

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore)

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory

    The trouble with actually listening to Education Sec. Betsy DeVos and other Trump cabinet members is that their words lead nowhere.


    They are circular arguments: Schools should open despite coronavirus because, well, schools should be open.

    Clearly DeVos is backing Trump’s demand for schools across the country to be fully open with in-person classes in September. But under the fairly predictable questions of talk show appearances, she was tongue-tied about exactly how that is supposed to happen. Instead, she turned to the old reliable – that local districts need to figure it out on their own. All of which makes it more curious as to why the Trump campaign would send her around the country with her mealy-mouthed speech about re-opening schools as part of re-electioneering.

    Fine. But, if “no one-size solution fits all cases” is the mantra, why are Trump and DeVos saying the federal guidance – under threat of loss of federal funds — is exactly that: Open up or else.

    Return to ‘normalcy’ means making it appear that conditions are the best for a Trump reelection. But the contagion isn’t going away.

    That this advice ignores a singularly difficult pandemic spread is obvious. Return to “normalcy,” as we hear endlessly, means making it appear that conditions are the best for a Trump reelection. But the contagion isn’t going away, nor is the popular unwillingness to take even basic precautions.

    In states like Florida where Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to step as lightly as possible despite record numbers of new outbreaks of coronavirus, there is criticism because he is ignoring the disease. In states like California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom is re-imposing many but not all stay-at-home orders, there is criticism from those who find the orders will kill their businesses.

    In the midst of chaos, the Trump White House is busy attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading immunologist, rather than taking more aggressive, direct steps to enable exactly what it really wants – some semblance of normal. It’s wacky.

    It is baffling how attacking Fauci helps keep contagion at bay. It is equally baffling how opening schools fully helps to allay the contagion that is keeping schools closed altogether, or how threats to cut budgets that cannot afford safety investments work exactly.

    Do You Believe in Magic?

    We may as well bring on the magic dust.

    Lists of obvious questions for safe operation of schools around the country are circulating widely on social media. They range from the safety of students, to ways to ensure physical distance, to children as asymptomatic transmitters of disease to families, to pay issues for teachers, administrators, custodians and cafeteria workers who also are in these schools.

    There are no answers forthcoming. The Centers for Disease Control offers guidance to local school districts, which say they cannot afford to implement them. The White House criticizes the CDC for issuing guidelines altogether, and then says it will issue its own; the CDC leaders say the guidelines were never meant to keep schools closed and doesn’t want to change them to meet a political need at the White House. Worse, the White House now wants to grab all the data and control what is shared publicly. Do you think this will help reduce the disease – or just the bad numbers?

    Meanwhile, parents, grandparents, teachers and families watch both nervously and angrily that such inane tail-chasing does nothing to address the key questions here.

    Many schools are scheduled to open next month, leaving little time for physical rearrangements even if districts have money available. That most do not because coronavirus lockdowns have created so many state and city tax revenue shortfalls—none of which seems to register with DeVos, who may not have been in a classroom more than a half-dozen times in nearly four years in the job.

    It takes no special genius to recognize that either keeping schools closed or opening them under such conditions will have a heavier impact on schools in low-income, urban neighborhoods. Yet in all her remarks to date, that is a reality that seems not to matter to DeVos.

    Where’s the Plan?

    If schools were closed in March and April because of the disease, where’s the plan for why opening in September is safer?

    You’d think that the Department of Education instead would be working on detailed ways to boost on-line teaching resources, including trainings for teachers on how to be most effective in on-line teaching. Or that the department would be working with tech companies to ensure that students all over the nation could have access to laptops and internet connection without regard to social status, income or residence.

    You might think that DeVos would be out talking with teachers and visiting enough local schools to make some kind of assessment of what exactly the challenge is. Or she might be reconciling the CDC guidelines with the realities of compliance in districts large and small, to get a sense of whether emergency grants might help achieve the goal she and Trump want.

    Or given that she is such an advocate for private and parochial schools, she might be consulting with them.

    Instead, we fall back on the silliness of partisan politics. We should open schools, risking further spread of contagion among adults as well as children, because Trump wants it.

    Magic will make it so.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

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    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

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    Do you approve of Biden's presidency so far?

    Rand Paul ripped for 'completely disgusting' transphobic attack on HHS nominee Rachel Levine

    Common Dreams
    February 25, 2021

    Democratic lawmakers and human rights advocates on Thursday rebuked Sen. Rand Paul after the Kentucky Republican attempted to derail the historic Senate confirmation hearing of assistant health and human services secretary nominee Rachel Levine, in part by conflating gender-affirming healthcare with "genital mutilation."

    "You absolutely cannot compare transgender medicine and hormone pills to genital mutilation. This is a disgusting line of questioning."
    —Vanessa Lamers,
    Public Health Foundation

    If confirmed, Levine—a pediatrician and former Pennsylvania state health secretary—would be the first out trans person to serve in a position approved by the Senate. Paul, who is also a physician, used his time to attack Levine and disseminate transphobic misinformation.

    Noting that "genital mutilation"—a completely incongruous topic—has been "almost universally condemned," Paul suggested that "the social pressure to conform, to do what others do... as well as the need to be accepted socially and fear of being rejected by the community" was a factor driving trans people to seek gender-affirming surgery.

    Paul then accused Levine of advocating "surgical destruction of a minor's genitalia" before asking if she believes "minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one's sex."

    Levine—who has stated that surgical treatment is not recommended for anyone younger than 18 years of age, with "some exceptions"—politely thanked Paul for his interest in the subject and noted that "transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed."

    Paul, however, refused to let it go, telling the tale of a British woman who "read something about transsexuals" online before undergoing sex reassignment surgery she later regretted. Paul also aspersed the use of puberty-blocking hormones, a reversible therapy shown to reduce suicidal urges in transgender adolescents.

    As Vox noted, the affirming model—which includes social and medical transition—"has been recommended by nearly every major American medical association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and many others."

    Health, Education, and Labor Committee Chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) eventually cut Paul off.

    "I appreciated your thoughtful and medically informed response to Sen. Paul's questions earlier in the hearing," she told Levine. "It is really critical to me that our nominees be treated with respect and that our questions focus on their qualifications and the work ahead of us rather than on ideological and harmful misrepresentations like those we heard from Sen. Paul earlier."

    Human rights advocates were outraged by Paul's remarks and questioning. Ruben Gonzalez, executive director of the LGBTQ Victory Institute, accused the senator of choosing "devotion to anti-LGBTQ extremist groups over substance and the health of our nation."

    "His remarks echo the talking points of the same organizations who said gay men deserved AIDS and that LGBTQ people should be criminalized," Gonzalez told The Hill. "He explicitly attacked vulnerable trans youth for his own perceived political gain and it was a disgrace. Dr. Levine is an extremely qualified nominee whose experience can help America effectively tackle this pandemic, but he took this opportunity to give voice to hate groups instead."

    Paul's attack came a day after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—who has a history of blantant bigotry—made anti-trans remarks while arguing against the Equality Act, a landmark bill passed by the Democratic majority in the House on Thursday that bans sexual orientation- and gender identity-based discrimination.

    Greene also misgendered the trans daughter of Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.), and when Newman hung a transgender flag outside her office, Greene posted a sign across the hall with the medically and historically false assertion that "there are two genders: male and female."

    Meghan McCain trolled after falsely claiming her father was never invited to speak at CPAC

    Meaghan Ellis, AlterNet
    February 25, 2021

    Meghan McCain's left some social media users scratching their heads when she claimed her father, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was never invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). But Twitter users quickly corrected McCain for her epic blunder by reminding her of what happened in 2008.

    On Thursday, Feb. 25, during a segment of "The View," McCain spoke about the upcoming CPAC where former President Donald Trump is slated to be the keynote speaker. "I think it's going to be more about who can gather this specific audience, which are media people, MAGA people, Trump people, people who work in all factions of conservative media, and their opinion on what happens this weekend is going to matter," McCain said on the show.

    The talk show host went on to insist the conference typically attracts the most conservative members of the Republican Party as she claimed her father was "never invited" to speak. "My father never spoke at CPAC and he was never invited," she said. "So it's not really been a place for more moderate people."

    But despite McCain's claim, Twitter users quickly pointed out the problem with McCain's remarks as they reminded her of the facts. Her father did, in fact, speak at the 2008 CPAC conference.


    @TheView @MeghanMcCain She did it. She lied about her dad never being invited to CPAC even though he spoke there in… https://t.co/5jQNOdPic0
    — Marky D (@Marky D)1614271551.0


    @MeghanMcCain @TheView You may want to make a correction. Your father at CPAC 2008: while as a Republican presiden… https://t.co/F9OKHuBURA
    — Sn00pster (@Sn00pster)1614271737.0


    @MeghanMcCain I saw him speak at CPAC 95-97
    — CJ Good (@CJ Good)1614275082.0

    At the time, he was a presidential candidate running against former President Barack Obama (D), reports Mediaite. "Thank you for inviting me. It's been a little while since I've had the honor of addressing you, and I appreciate very much your courtesy to me today," McCain said at the time. "We should do this more often. I hope you will pardon my absence last year, and understand that I intended no personal insult to any of you."

    "I was merely pre-occupied with the business of trying to escape the distinction of pre-season frontrunner for the Republican nomination, which, I'm sure some of you observed, I managed to do in fairly short order," he continued. "But, now, I again have the privilege of that distinction, and this time I would prefer to hold on to it for a while."

    CPAC called out — for not being conservative

    Bob Brigham
    February 25, 2021

    As Donald Trump prepares for his first major post-presidency speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the event is being called out for not being conservative.

    Former George W. Bush official Michael Gerson laid out his argument in his latest column for The Washington Post.

    "Asking Conservative Political Action Conference attendees for their views on conservatism is like asking arsonists to lecture on fire safety. For decades, the fondest hope of the kind of agitators attracted by this annual event has been a Republican president who shares the breadth of their grievance, the depth of their anger and the fervor of their conspiratorial delusions. In Donald Trump, they finally found their man. He will be welcomed this year — as he will be for the rest of his life — as the god-king of Crazy Town," Gerson wrote.

    "Views espoused by an extremist at CPAC merely reinforce the views of other extremists. Views declared from behind a lectern with a presidential seal on it are at least partially normalized. If we believe that moral leadership can improve a country, it follows that immoral leadership can debase it," he explained.

    He offered an example.

    "Many Americans have an uninformed or mixed opinion about undocumented migrants. When an American president compares such migrants to vermin, slanders them as rapists and criminals, shatters their families at the border, and condemns their children to cages, Americans are given permission for dehumanization. Other GOP politicians are given a green light for demonization. White supremacists are confirmed and emboldened in their hatred. Not just the politics of the country but also the character of the country are poisoned," he wrote. "This is one reason that right-wing populists can never be true conservatives. If intellectual conservatism means anything, it means one generation has the moral duty to cultivate humanizing beliefs and habits in the next. Conservatives do not believe that human beings come pre-wired for character. Children must be carefully taught to know what is right, informed by millennia of reflection on the matter. They must be instructed to do what is right through example and habituation. No form of traditional conservatism would urge people to follow their destructive passions or indulge their baser instincts."

    He worried about the message CPAC is sending.

    "By a conservative standard, what should we make of the activists and participants at CPAC? It is worth noting that many who attend each year are young. What moral messages is an older generation transmitting to the next?" he asked. "From Trump's deification they will learn that civility is for losers, that compassion is for suckers, that misogyny can be fun, that strength requires brutality and that racism makes for good politics. They will learn that deadly incompetence, based on lies and lunacy and costing countless lives, means nothing. They will learn that the Constitution can be shredded in the pursuit of raw power and that populism must be rowdy enough and transgressive enough to break a few windows and kill a few policemen. Call this what you will, but it has nothing to do with conservatism."

    “They will learn that deadly incompetence, based on lies and lunacy and costing countless lives, means nothing.” https://t.co/Eag34FWtKE
    — Michael Gerson (@Michael Gerson)1614294357.0
     
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