“Who better to run a scam than a product of
SCAMway?”
----from “The
Quotations of Chairman Joe”
In a recent op-ed piece written in The New York
Times, education secretary Betsy DeVos was called out for
exploiting America's veterans. (1) DeVos is a product of private
education, principally Dutch-Reformed parochial schools and a
champion of the privatization of our educational system. She is
married into the DeVos family, of SCAMway fame, who have worked
assiduously over the years to savage public education in Michigan
where they have managed to bring the state's public schools down to
the level of Alabama. She is also the sister of America's most
notorious mercenary, Eric Prince of Blackwater fame. Scum stick
together.
It is no shock, then, to find her catapulted by a toxic
mix of campaign contributions and political philosophy into the
cabinet to head the Department of Education. If anyone could make a
pig's breakfast of public education it would be one who has never spent a
day in the public schools. Just ask the good people of Michigan.
Knowledge and experience are disqualifying in this administration.
Ergo: our principle ignoramus Betsy DeVos.
The G.I. Education bills that our congresses have passed
are hallmarks of the postwar era, opening doors and creating
opportunity for millions of returning veterans. To the SCAMway
mentality, however, opportunity runs in another direction. To the
stench that surrounds our Caesar Disgustus, opportunity lies not with
opening doors, but with plundering the public domain. In this case,
steering public funds into private for-profit coffers. The article cites the post 9/11 funds passed under 'Ol Two-Cows and
renewed in 2017 under tRUMP's signature being undermined by the
Education secretary and her minions.
“Despite robust objections from three dozen
national veterans and military service organizations, Secretary DeVos
has elected to eviscerate student protections and quality controls
for colleges—particularly for the often low-quality, predatory
for-profit colleges that target veterans in their marketing schemes.”
(2) This is pure DeVos,
reflecting actions that the family, through campaign contributions
and leadership positions within the Republican Party, have imposed
upon Michigan. Actions which have devastated public education in
Michigan. In Michigan, a state with which I am familiar, public
money to the tune of over a billion dollars in state taxes are annually
diverted to private religious and for-profit operations.
Accountability is nearly non-existent producing a system wherein
public schools are rapidly deteriorating as students flee to private
concerns over which there is nearly no accountability. The impact
has been harsh, as noted in previous posts, with the experience in
Muskegon Heights being a notable example. (3)
“Why are veterans the targets? Because for-profit
colleges milk a federal loophole that allows them to count G.I. Bill
benefits as private funds, offsetting the 90 percent cap they
otherwise face on their access to taxpayer-supported federal student
aid. Two dozen state attorneys general have said this accounting
gimmick—known as the '90/10 loophole'--'violates the intent of the
law.' (4) It should also be noted that the funds in question are G.I. benefits, which would include housing stipends and the like, not only federally backed student loans but also grants, putting private fingers directly into the public till.
“Hundreds of for-profit schools are almost entirely
dependent on federal revenue, and if the 90/10 loophole were closed,
they would be in violation of this federal regulation. Taxpayers, in
other words, are largely propping up otherwise failing schools.
“In December, a damning Department of Veterans
Affairs internal audit estimated the risk of G.I. Bill waste
exceptionally high at the for-profit schools, which received 81
percent of improper G.I. Bill payments. The report highlighted the
deceptive advertising campaigns aimed at veterans and warned that the
government will waste $2.3 billion in improper payments over the next
five years if changes are not made to reel in the abuse.
“Overall, for-profit colleges have vacuumed up
nearly 40 percent of all G.I. Bill tuition and fee payments since the
post-Sept. 11 G.I. Bill was introduced. Eight of the 10 schools
receiving the most G.I. Bill subsidies since 2009 are for-profit
college. Six of those eight have faced government legal action for
defrauding students.” (5)
Has our intrepid secretary moved to reign in the abuse?
Of course not—for she and her family are the very authors of it.
Instead, as Schmeling and Wolford note, “through
several scandalous appointments, Ms. DeVos has largely delegated
policymaking and enforcement to members of the for-profit college
industry, who are now her aides.”(6), citing the appointment of
an executive of Career Education –a for-profit chain to a senior
position within the Department of Education. Career Education had
“just settled with 49 state attorneys general to cough up half a
billion dollars for defrauding students.” Moreover, “(A)
top deputy worked at the same chain and at a second chain facing
multiple government investigations. A third, whom Ms. DeVos hired to
run the department's enforcement unit, disappeared a crop of
investigations into his former employer and several other large
for-profit colleges. When news reporting brought scrutiny to this
corruption, Ms. DeVos simply shifted the aide to the federal student
aid office.” (7)
DeVos is now fighting efforts by defrauded students to
gain recourse under the law. Additionally, “she eliminated a
rule requiring career colleges to prove their graduates can get a
job, even after being warned by the department's Office of Inspector
General that the rule was necessary to protect taxpayer funds.
“This week,” continue Schmeling and Wolford,
“Ms. DeVos's aides will meet in Washington with a panel (many
representing for-profit colleges) to push forward proposals that
would weaken over half a dozen regulations that govern college
quality. Some changes, for instance, could leave students learning
largely on their own from self-help YouTube-style videos and allow
the companies responsible unfettered access to a spigot of taxpayer
funds.
“The department's Office of Inspector General,
following the V.A.'s lead, conducted an investigation of Ms. DeVos
after she reinstated the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges
and Schools, which had been discredited. In a stunning ethical
breach, a senior aide to Ms. DeVos fabricated letters of support from
other accreditors, which quickly exposed the lie.” (8)
None of this comes as a surprise to anyone familiar with
the origin of the family fortune, for SCAMway was built as a pyramid
scheme designed to gather millions—indeed billions—in wealth from
the backs of hundreds of thousands who could be depended upon to
answer the siren song of greed. By structuring its labor costs to
ensure profit—much as the 'house' in any casino cannot lose
money—and by offering products in such quantity and usually
inferior to marketplace competitors, SCAMway distributors almost
always found themselves with a basement full of unsold product,
stripped of friends and surrounded by angry families. DeBoss and
VanScandal, passing the costs down the rat-line, suffer no liability
and happily danced to the bank. Fraud, in other words, mated with
greed, became the formula for success.
Add to this the parochial penchant to view all
others—particularly the secular society—as the enemy and you get
the toxic mix that is Betsy DeVos.
All of this is known by our Caesar Disgustus. He knew
what are the consequences of putting one such as Betsy DeVos in
charge of overseeing our educational institutions. He knew that
DeVos will work assiduously to aide the for-profit educational
industry in its plundering of the public domain. That was the
intent. Drain the swamp into the White House, and let the plunder
begin. Kleptocracy, aping the Russian Oligarchy, American style.
“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”
Impeach and Imprison.
__________________
- Schmeling, James. Wolford, Carrie. “DeVos vs. Student Veterans” The New York Times. Thursday, February 19, 2019. Page A23
- Ibid
- See: June 29, 2015: Tragical Michigan Tour, Deep Runs the Rot, Pure Mississippi”. Especially the section “Stop Five” about the Muskegon Heights School District taken over and then abandoned by a private for-profit operation.
- Op. Cit.
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Ibid
No comments:
Post a Comment