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Where Is Betsy DeVos? Education Secretary Hiding in ‘Sprawling’ Michigan Mansion While Demanding Schools Reopen: Report

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Where is Betsy DeVos? The Education Secretary is under fire for demanding schools reopen while not giving them the assistance they need to protect students, teachers, administrators, and staff, yet she is working remotely from her “sprawling” 22,000 square foot “waterfront estate with a round-the-clock security detail paid for by taxpayers,” NBC News reports. That security cost taxpayers $25 million over the past year.

DeVos “insists that it isn’t her job to help localities determine how to [re-open] safely.”

The Education Secretary’s’ public schedule “has been mostly empty for the past several weeks, including no events on her public schedule for this week,” NBC’s Heidi Przybyla reveals.

Yet DeVos “has been holding events not listed on her public calendar, including several sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, according to Federalist Society postings. She has also participated in a few events related to private schools and advocacy for vouchers, including a roundtable July 23 at a private Christian school in Ohio and two events in the Carolinas with Vice President Mike Pence.”

Przybyla says DeVos is “not touring those public schools that she’s demanding reopen.”

The Education Secretary also “declined to appear at a House coronavirus subcommittee hearing on safely reopening K-12 schools ‘so she could explain why she is pressuring schools to fully reopen, despite the risks,’ James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat, said Thursday.”

Here’s what some are saying:

 

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NOT HOW THIS WORKS

Caitlyn Jenner Slammed for Claiming She’s Qualified to Be Governor Because She’s ‘Sold $1 Billion of Exercise Equipment’

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May 11, 2021

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Republican Caitlyn Jenner‘s latest interview is driving more criticism of her campaign for governor of California.

Asked what training she has that would make her qualified to be governor Jenner told CNN, “I have been in the entrepreneurial world.”

“People think that that you’ve been in show business, think of you as a reality star, certainly I’ve done that. But entertainment is a business. And you have to run that business. But I’ve also done other things,” Jenner insisted.

“You know, we sold a billion dollars of exercise equipment on television. Aviation companies. I’ve just always been involved being an entrepreneur.”

Her background did not seem to impress many, especially after Donald Trump’s presidency.

 

 

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Top Trump Allies in Full Freak-Out Mode Threaten Facebook Over Board’s Ban: ‘Supreme Court Should Overturn’

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3 years ago

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May 5, 2021

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After the Facebook Oversight Board released its decision that banning then-President Donald Trump over his comments on the January 6 insurrection – including determining that he had “created an environment where a serious risk of violence was possible” – was appropriate, top Trump allies are in full outrage mode.

Mark Meadows, the former Chair of the powerful House Freedom Caucus and former Ranking Member of the powerful House Oversight Committee who traded all that to become President Trump’s fourth and last White House Chief of Staff, went ballistic, threatening the social media giant.

“It’s a sad day for America,” Meadows told Fox News. “It’s a sad day for Facebook because I can tell you a number of members of Congress are now looking at do they break up Facebook, do they make sure that they don’t have a monopoly?”

Charlie Kirk, the head of the pro-Trump activist group Turning Point USA, which took in $28.5 million in the fiscal year ending June 2019, is close friends with Donald Trump, Jr., and once “interviewed” President Trump (photo).

Kirk seemed to think that the Facebook Oversight Board is part of the U.S. federal courts system (it is not), and that based on exactly no law, the U.S. Supreme Court should intervene to overturn the “outlawing” of Trump by an independent committee to a private company.

House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused Facebook of shilling for Democrats.

Every day almost all of the top 10 shared links, thanks to Facebook’s algorithms, are from the far right:

Sen. Ted Cruz, who just had dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, fear-mongers that there’s nothing to stop Facebook from silencing liberals, ignoring the fact that no liberals have ever incited an insurrection.

Sen. Tom Cotton called it “Orwellian,” ignoring that what’s actually Orwellian is Donald Trump declaring that “The Big Lie” will now mean the election was “fraudulent.”

 

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Trump-Loving God-Fearing MyPillow CEO Claims First Amendment Right to Lie About Voting Tech Companies

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3 years ago

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April 19, 2021

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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is building a high-profile legal team to defend him against a billion-dollar defamation suit that he hopes will land before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The staunch Donald Trump ally has hired veteran First Amendment attorney Nathan Lewin and is getting advice from Alan Dershowitz for his defense against Dominion Voting Systems, which alleges that Lindell defamed the company with baseless claims about the 2020 election, reported The Daily Beast.

“I want to take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” Lindell has repeatedly said. “I’m not stopping.”

The 85-year-old Lewin helped prosecute Jimmy Hoffa for Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department, and later represented Jodie Foster, former attorney general Edwin Meese, President Richard Nixon and John Lennon, and Dershowitz — who defended Trump during his first impeachment — gave a preview of Lindell’s defense.

“Our position is that Dominion is the government, for purposes of the First Amendment,” Dershowitz said. “The government delegated to them the most important governmental function, mainly counting votes in a presidential election, and they are therefore subject to criticism in the exact same ways that the government would be subject to criticism in that situation, and criticism of how the government conducted a presidential election is the highest bar protecting the First Amendment right to criticize such action.”

Dershowitz is not an attorney of record in the case, but he confirmed that he’s been helping Lindell’s team craft a defense.

“I’ve been on conference calls repeatedly with [Lindell’s] legal team, sometimes Lindell is on, sometimes he’s not,” Dershowitz said. “My role is to come up with ideas as they pertain to the First Amendment. I give them cases, and I suggest First Amendment theories — my role is limited to advising on the First Amendment issues at hand.”

 

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