It's official, Jerry Falwell Jr. is part of a task force assigned to reform public education.

Courtesy of The Chronicle:

Jerry L. Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, will be part of a White House task force, an official from the White House told The Chronicle on Sunday.

The news is the first official comment from the White House on the topic since Mr. Falwell told The Chronicle in January that President Trump and others in his inner circle had asked him to head up a task force on reforming regulations related to higher education. 

Even so, information on the task force’s role, membership, purview, and timing is still scant. 

"We are working on a task force that Jerry Falwell will be involved with," was all the official would say on the topic for now. He is someone who was authorized by the White House to speak on the subject but not be named.

Damn, I can feel our children getting dumber already.

You may remember that Falwell was originally asked by Donald Trump to be the Secretary of Education. 

Falwell turned it down and Trump's second choice Betsy DeVos got the appointment instead, which taking all things into consideration was hardly any better.

With Falwell leading a task force to "reform regulation related to higher education," and alternative school advocate Devros heading up the Department of Education, our kids don't stand a fucking chance.

For the first time ever I am thinking that home schooling, not religious of course, may be the only viable alternative for educating America's children knowing that they may well end up in a public school which teaches them that man walked with the dinosaurs, global warming is a Chinese conspiracy theory, and the earth is only six thousand years old.

Trump's Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, is loudly booed during commencement speech at historically black university.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

Drawing shouts of "Liar!" and "Just go," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos powered through her commencement address Wednesday at a historically black university, even as many of the graduating students turned their backs to her in protest. 

"Let's choose to hear one another out," DeVos said, reading her prepared text in a measured tone despite continuing waves of boos, catcalls and scattered applause at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. 

As the crowd kept trying to shout her down, university president Edison Jackson briefly took over the microphone to sternly lecture the class of 2017. 

"If this behavior continues, your degrees will be mailed to you. Choose which way you want to go," Jackson warned. 

DeVos alienated many African-Americans in February when she described historically black colleges as "real pioneers when it comes to school choice." After a storm of criticism, she acknowledged that these colleges were "born, not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism."

Look I am one who typically does not believe in publicly disrespecting people, or shouting over them when they are trying to speak, however the fact is that Donald Trump chose the people he chose to undermine and even damage the agencies that they now lead, and there is nothing to respect about that.

Betsy DeVos is criminally unfit for her job, and the damage she can do to the Department of Education, and the students who are still in the system is incalculable.

In light of that, she should expect to get booed and shouted down in virtually EVERY university, high school, and kindergarten class that she visits.

Additional security for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos may cost as much as 8 million dollars, and she is charging the Education Department for it.

Courtesy of the MSN: 

Government officials said Friday that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos requires additional security detail due to a threat to her safety and that it may cost up to $7.8 million through September to protect her. 

The U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement that a threat assessment was conducted in February and DeVos was put under additional protection. 

The statement did not provide details on the threat or the number of personnel assigned to her. The agency said it will be reimbursed $7.78 million from the Education Department for services from February through September. 

The Education Department said that's a projected, not a final figure. The move comes amid a proposal by the Trump administration to cut the department's budget by 13 percent. 

The evaluation of DeVos' safety took place after a protester briefly blocked her from entering a public school in the nation's capital.

Okay seriously WTF?

The Education Department needs to shell out as much as eight million dollars because this precious snowflake had never seen protesters before?

Here is video of that protest.

You will notice that nobody touched her, or threatened to harm her in any way.

They simply blocked her from entering the building and shouted "shame" at her.

I am sure that was humiliating, but should her humiliation cost the taxpayers 8 million dollars?

And remember this is on top of all of the money being spent to protect the Trump family and all of Trump's associates. 

After 21 years on the job Alabama's one time teacher of the year quits after being told she is unqualified.

Ann Marie Corgill

Courtesy of the Independent:  

A veteran Teacher of the Year in Alabama has resigned after 21 years in the classroom after local authorities told her she is unqualified to educate fifth graders. 

Ann Marie Corgill was told by the Alabama Department of Education that her qualifications were not up to scratch, despite being 2015 National Teacher of the Year and 2014-2015 Alabama Teacher of the Year finalist. She is also the author of teaching book called “Of Primary Importance”. 

Ms Corgill said she was tired of having to prove herself and did not want to pay more fees, and sent Birmingham City Schools a letter of resignation. In the letter, first obtained by Al.com, she wrote: 

“After 21 years of teaching in grades 1-6, I have no answers as to why this is a problem now, so instead of paying more fees, taking more tests and proving once again that I am qualified to teach, I am resigning.”

You know what, I don't even know enough curse words to express my anger over this.

What in the hell are we doing?

How can we have broken public education so completely that even gifted, experienced teachers can no longer function adequately in our classrooms?

This, THIS, is what the conservatives have been working towards all along.

They want to drive good teachers away, undermine public education until it is crippled, and then declare that the Department of Education has failed, and do away with it completely.

Despite the bullshit rhetoric about "fixing" education, this was the driving force behind No Child Left Behind. And the damage it caused, and the damage still being caused by those trying to modify it, is cheating our kids out of their rights as citizens to a free, and comprehensive, education.

Teaching is not a cookie cutter profession. These are not factory workers going through the same mundane tasks over an over for a paycheck.

They are intelligent, imaginative individuals, with skills and dedication who do best when they are allowed to experiment and think outside of the box.

That is how they keep the children engaged, and how they keep things fresh and non-repetitive for themselves.

The best teachers I have seen are the ones that rarely provide instruction the same way twice. They think of new and exciting ways to keep the material interesting and sometimes even entertaining.

Yet that diversity is exactly what is being punished in American classrooms today.

And you know what? That is fucked up.

Joe Miller to officially launch his campaign on April 21st. He promises to do away with abortion, the IRS, and the Department of Education. Whoa Nelly, this ought to be good!

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:  

Claiming that one of the first things he’d do in office is support Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s effort to outlaw abortion, Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller also told student groups at the University of Alaska Anchorage on Thursday that he’d work to get the federal government out of people’s lives by turning over power to the states. 

Talking with reporters and speaking in one of his first appearances after keeping himself "under the covers" for several months, Miller said he will announce his candidacy at the Wasilla Lake Resort the evening of April 21.

Why’s he been lying low? No particular reason, he said. 

But that’s changing. His fundraising is up significantly from the last quarter, when he raised $30,000, much less than that raised by his two Republican opponents. Current Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell took in $228,000 in the quarter, and former Alaska attorney general Dan Sullivan took in $1.3 million. Miller said he’ll release the new fundraising reports soon. His donations for latest quarter are mostly from the “little people,” average donations of about $75, he said. 

Answering questions from the audience, Miller said he plans to win the Republican primary and beat Democratic Sen. Mark Begich. But Begich isn’t his target. It’s a federal government on the verge of bankruptcy and rife with crony capitalism. 

“My ultimate goal is not to get rid of Begich,” he said. “It’s to reverse the course of this country through proper representation of Alaska. That has got to be the goal. And where we’re at today is the result of both parties. It’s not the evil Democrats. It’s not the evil Republicans. It’s the evil Republicans and Democrats.”

So the guy seeking the Republican nomination wants to go to Washington to battle the evil Republicans. Such a great campaign slogan. 

But that's not all he wants to do.

Miller also claims that he wants to do away with the Department of Education, the IRS, and change the country's "surveillance state." Which I assume means doing away with the NSA in its current as well.

All things that I am sure are going to go over big with the establishment Republicans.

However it seems that Miller might be getting some of this talking points from a rather familiar source. Does this sound familiar?

Miller said there’s a broad fracture in the Alaska Republican Party that’s been created by the establishment, without naming names. 

“They’re there for one thing and that’s crony capitalism,” he said. “They don’t care about the platform. They don’t care about restricting the scope of government. They don’t care about fighting for the people. They care about the rewards of office.”

So what do you think, will she, or won't she endorse him again?

My money is on no endorsement, but then again these are insane people so you never know.

Doesn't really matter though, Miller is poison in this state, and the only way he would get this nomination is if the other two contenders  suddenly dropped dead.

Don't laugh, this is Alaska, stranger things have happened.

Video from 2002 shows Mitt Romney bragging about his DC connections and ability to get federal funds.

Courtesy of ABC News:

The video, which was surreptitiously shot by Democratic opponents of Romney on Oct. 16, 2002, shows him addressing a group called the New Bedford Industrial Foundation. The Power Point presentation he uses lists ways to improve economic development in Massachusetts, including “boost federal involvement.” 

“I want to go after every grant, every project, every department in Washington to assure that we are taking advantage of economic development opportunities,” Romney tells the group. 

And while Romney now often criticizes his opponents for being Washington insiders, in this video he touts his Washington connections. 

“I have learned from my Olympic experience that if you have people who really understand how Washington works and have personal associations there you can get money to help build economic development opportunities,” Romney says. 

He even cites money one his colleagues managed to get for the Olympics from the Department of Education. 

“She said, ‘Why don’t I get the Department of Education to buy tickets to the Paralympics so that high school and grade school kids can go to the Paralympics?’ She literally got, I believe the number was over $1 million from the Department of Education, funding to buy tickets for kids,” Romney said. “This way we got kids there and we also got additional revenues that we wouldn’t have had. That kind of creativity I want to bring to everything we do.”

Draining a federal agency of money earmarked for the education of children in order to fund your pet project? Well that certainly demonstrates the kind of compassion and selflessness that we need in the White House in 2012, don't you think? Yeah, not so much!

Damn! You know Romney is like a never empty political pinata.The more you poke him with a stick, the more lies, deceptions, dirty tricks, and flip flops pour out on the floor for all of us to gorge ourselves on.

And here I thought Sarah Palin was the faultiest choice the Republicans could EVER have chosen as their candidate!

Update: By the way John McCain ALSO thinks that Romney is a faultier choice than Sarah Palin:

Asked why he chose not to go with Romney, McCain said: "Oh come on, because we thought that Sarah Palin was the better candidate. Why did we not take [Tim] Pawlenty, why did we not take any of the other 10 other people. Why didn’t I? Because we had a better candidate, the same way with all the others. ... Come on, why? That’s a stupid question."

Oh snap!