Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Image by Jim Cooke, photo via Getty Even among all the billionaires, ideologues, and straight-up racist goons Donald Trump has nominated for his cabinet, Betsy DeVos, who was confirmed earlier this week as the Secretary of Education, stands out for how seemingly unqualified she is. As the doomed critics of her nomination were quick to…
Surely there are more than two Republican senators who are smart enough to realize that Betsy DeVos is neither qualified nor competent to lead the U.S. Department of Education. Which makes her confirmation Tuesday all the more maddening. For all of President Donald Trump’s talk as a candidate about disrupting Washington as usual, there…
The Senate is expected to vote today on whether to confirm Betsy DeVos as education secretary. She needs a majority of votes to be confirmed, though Vice President Mike Pence can vote if there is a tie. Here’s a full list of Senate confirmation votes. This page will update live as votes are cast. Live: Senate…
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) on Tuesday morning approved Betsy DeVos’s nomination to lead the Department of Education. DeVos was confirmed 12-11 along party lines. Her nomination will now go to the Senate floor, where she’ll need only need a simple majority to be confirmed. The billionaire GOP donor…
As to policy, DeVos stood firm in her long held beliefs that parents — not the government — should be able to choose where to send children to school, pledging to push voucher programs should she be confirmed to lead the nation’s education system. But the hearing largely hinged on her qualifications for the job….
Photographed by Matthew Frost I first met Michelle Obama at the White House Easter Egg Roll in 2011, when I was 15. I was obviously nervous but was immediately put at ease when she gave me and my mom a big hug and we all instantly bonded over our height. “Oh, we like tall girls…
END CLASS=”PROGRAM-BLOCK” END CLASS=”STORY-META__ONE” END CLASS=”STORY-META__TWO” END ID=”STORY-META” CLASS=”STORY-META HAS-BYLINE” President-elect Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that school choice is “the new civil rights issue of our time.” But to many Americans, talk of school choice isn’t liberating; it’s just plain confusing. Exhibit A: Vouchers. Politicians love to use this buzzword in perpetual…
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, president-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Attorney General, is worrying many civil rights activists because of his history of alleged racist comments. It’s an issue that concerned a Reagan-era Congress so much that it refused to confirm him for a seat on the federal judiciary in 1986. A history of racism isn’t…
A think tank funded by Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education pick recently advocated for putting kids back in the workforce. The Acton Institute, a conservative nonprofit that is said to have received thousands of dollars in donations from Betsy DeVos and her family, posted an essay to its blog this month that called child labor “a gift our…
Melissia Hill was eating crepes with her 5-year-old son, Phoenix, at a Brooklyn cafe this summer when he asked her, “Is Donald Trump a bad person? Because I heard that if he becomes president, all the black and brown people have to leave and we’re going to become slaves.” Next he wanted to know, “What…