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.

The Obama administration is taking sexual assault on college campuses very seriously. And actually doing something about it.

President Obama signs the Campus Sexual Assault Presidential Memorandum

Courtesy of Feminspire:  

As the perfect cap to Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the task force President Barack Obama created in January to work toward ending sexual assault on college campuses released its first report this week. 

The 20-page document echoes many of the concerns women’s rights advocates have pressed the importance of for years. The horror stories from victims who are forced to see their attackers on campus on a daily basis, who were told by administrators they were to blame for the actions of their rapist because they were drinking or because of what they were wearing, aren’t exceptional. And while the words might never be written in an executive decision, Obama made it clear that it’s time for higher education to get its shit together, and fast. 

For a 90-day project, the report is surprisingly thorough. For once, our government shut up and listened, and if the path outlined in the report is to be followed, there could be significant results on college campuses’ conduct within the next school year.

Here is a sampling of what the report lays out:

The task force will work to provide colleges with materials for effective trauma response, training for college conduct systems to investigate and properly sanction offenders, and guidelines for local law enforcement and campus police to work together for better security and prosecution.

Colleges WILL be held accountable:

Student’s rights need to be at the forefront of any college conduct process, and the way colleges treat their students will be monitored. 

If students suffer, so will schools, in the form of federal funding. It’s No More Mr. Nice Government, and if anything kicks schools into gear, it’s the threat of budget cuts. 

And schools will have trained staff to specifically deal with sexual assault:

The report makes it clear that sexual assault perpetrators are no longer to be treated on the same grounds as students who plagiarize or drink underage. And reporting sexual assault is no longer to be on the same level as reporting a stolen laptop. 

Sexual assault victims need extensive aftercare to cope with the immediate and continuing effects of trauma. Schools will have to train responders and physical and mental health staff to be advocates and provide support systems. 

Then there is this PSA:

I have to say that when James Bond tells you that one sexual assault is too many, while sitting at a table with a face that looks like it just returned from beating the shit out of a room full of frat boys, that is something that a lot of young men are going to hear loud and clear.

I come from an era when snapping bra straps and slapping girls on the ass was considered playful flirting, but those days are long gone. And even at our most misogynistic it was NEVER considered okay to have sex with a girl too drunk to know any better or force ourselves on a girl pleading with us to stop.

That did happen once to a female friend of mine, and it got handled.

I won't screw up your day by describing what happened to that POS but I will tell you that in a just world that would be the fate of EVERY person who took advantage of a young woman, or man, just because they were unable to defend themselves.

I look forward to the day when this kind of task force is no longer necessary and parents universally teach their sons that nothing that you take from another person against their will has value.

Until that day I am very glad that we have the President that we have, and that he is responding the way that he is.

Certainly a hell of a lot better than a certain Governor of Alaska recently responded to a similar problem with the National Guard.

Lawrence O'Donnell virtually eviscerates Asa Hutchinson, head of the NRA's "School Shield Task Force," in an interview last night.

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Okay I am not going to lie to you, this interview is long (Just over 25 minutes). But do yourself a favor and watch it, because Lawrence REALLY puts this guy through the meat grinder, and does NOT allow him to bullshit his way out of ANYTHING.

There were a number of times that Hutchinson looked like he wanted to just crawl away, and a number of questions, such as on the extended clips, that he simply could not answer adequately.

This is one of O'Donnell's best interviews, and I think he deserves serious props for getting Hutchinson to come on, and then doing his job as a journalist once he did.

As much as it pains me I should also say that I am impressed that Hutchinson showed up for an interview that he had to know would be hostile, and then sat through it without ripping off his mic and running for the exit. I think a lot of people would have bailed.

By the way to go along with this there is also a report on Raw Story which undermines the very premise of the NRA's "School Shield" findings: 

The proposal appears to be based on a faulty — although widespread — opinion. The NRA has said schools are not safe places for children because gun-free zones make them “utterly defenseless.” However, the article contends schools are in fact safe places. Though gun violence is the second leading cause of death among those ages 5-9 and 15-24, nearly all of those deaths occurred outside of school. In fact, Stephen Brock of California State University, a leading expert on school violence, described schools as “the safest place for a student to be.” 

“To try and reduce something that already is rare… is tricky business,” Crews remarked, noting that there is only 1 homicide or suicide at school for every 2.7 million students. 

Crews and his colleagues found there was little evidence to suggest that placing armed guards in schools would actually prevent gun violence. About 27 percent of schools in the United States already have armed or unarmed security officers. Both Columbine High School and Virginia Tech had armed security guards, but that did not prevent two deadly mass shootings. A 2011 study found schools with armed guards actually had higher rates of violence than similar schools without armed guards. 

Having armed guards in schools also raises the troubling possibility that a student could get ahold of their firearms. 

“Ongoing research that we are conducting with incarcerated perpetrators of school violence also indicates that school shooters have easy access to weapons, often getting them (either as gifts or stealing them) from their parents, neighbors, or friends who may have purchased them legally,” Crews explained. “Putting more weapons in schools just makes more weapons available because inevitably, someone will forget to lock their drawer, misplace their key, or otherwise lose track of their firearm, making it easy for kids who want to have one to take it.”

Personally I think that just about anybody with critical thinking skills could have worked this out on their own, but nice to see a report by experts which backs our commons sense.