Tag: University of Michigan

Trump 2.0: Prepare for the further dumbing down of America

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

No, it’s not Communism! It’s the privatization of education. “School choice” takes away from government spending for public schools!

Source

Trump Chooses Longtime Ally Linda McMahon to Run Education Dept.

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.

…

In part because of her recent policy role and her experience as the small business administrator, Ms. McMahon had been discussed as a possible pick to lead the Commerce Department until the role was officially offered to Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive and a chairman of the Trump transition team, earlier in the day.

Ms. McMahon will be in charge of overseeing what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions, as Mr. Trump and many of those in his orbit have questioned the agency’s purpose and disparaged its work as overregulating schools on political and ideological terms.

Other than a brief appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year, Ms. McMahon has no experience in overseeing education policy. She would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.

While Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for an outright dissolution of the agency, any effort to shutter it would require congressional action and support from some Republican lawmakers whose districts depend on federal aid for public education.

But the America First Policy Institute has set out a more immediate list of changes it says could be achieved through vastly changing the department’s priorities. Those include stopping schools from “promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts” about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding “school choice” programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes or at private and religious schools.

Read More »

[2012] The Demise of Higher Education in the United States

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The United States has experienced two major growth spurts in higher education. In 1862, the Morrill Act changed the face of higher education will by granting each state 30,000 acres of public land for each senator and representative. Sale of the land was intended to create an endowment fund for the support of colleges in each of the states. Prior to the creation of the land-grant colleges, higher education was predominantly intended for wealthy students and those intending to serve as clergy. The land-grant colleges expanded higher education to different regions and a different class of students. This expansion, however, was still incomplete.

The Demise of Higher Education in the United States

Previously:

The Origin of Student Debt: Reagan Adviser Warned Free College Would Create a Dangerous “Educated Proletariat”

The Powell Memo Revisited

Front Organizations

[2022] The Dark History of Medicare Privatization

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Medicare Advantage was supposed to be a money-saver. It’s now become a costly, unaccountable cash cow for private insurance companies that is swallowing traditional Medicare.

The Dark History of Medicare Privatization

Related:

Medicare goes “woke”?! 😉

CMS Unveils ACO REACH: What you Need to Know

The Geo Direct Contracting model is scrapped, and ACO REACH is replacing GPDC…

A new incentive will help to address health equity.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance companies are licensees, independent of the association and traditionally of each other, offering insurance plans within defined regions under one or both of the association’s brands. Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers offer some form of health insurance coverage in every U.S. state. They also act as administrators of Medicare in many states or regions of the U.S.

IRS audits Black taxpayers more often than other groups, agency confirms

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Internal Revenue Service audits Black taxpayers at significantly higher rates than other Americans, Commissioner Daniel Werfel told lawmakers Monday, confirming earlier findings by researchers at leading universities and the Treasury Department.

IRS audits Black taxpayers more often than other groups, agency confirms

Related:

The IRS Targets Black Taxpayers, Researchers May Have Uncovered Why

Consistent underfunding of the IRS means it’s a lot easier for them to go after someone who is low-income and qualifies for the EITC than it is to go after someone with a million lawyers hiding money in the Cayman Islands.

Targeting the rich for their tax-related shenanigans takes some major coins, and the IRS severely lacks the funds it would need to do that. Unfortunately, that means they’re more likely to knock on the doors of people just trying to get by.

Good thing Republicans are trying to repeal IRS funds?! /sarcasm

DoD Will Spend $750,000 Torturing Animals, By Inducing ‘Havana Syndrome’, an Illness the Intel Community Cannot Prove Exists

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Department of Defense granted Wayne State University $750,000 to attempt to give ferrets “Havana Syndrome.” Earlier this month, the intelligence community concluded the illness is not caused by a weapon.

DoD Will Spend $750,000 Inducing ‘Havana Syndrome’ in Animals, an Illness the Intel Community Cannot Prove Exists

Related:

The Pentagon is funding experiments on animals to recreate ‘Havana Syndrome’ (PETA’s response included)

Tax Flight Is a Myth

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Tax Flight Is a Myth

Related:

Dispelling the Myth of Tax-Induced Capital Flight

A study by the American Sociological Association in 2016 found that while massive top rate tax hikes might cause some millionaires to move from their high-tax state to a low-tax state, the amount of them doing so for this reason was negligible. Millionaires moved for tax purposes around 2.2% of the time. Indeed, in any event the rate of inter-state migration generally was lower for millionaires, at 2.4%, than it was for the general population, at 2.9%.

Debunking the Myth of the Fleeing Millionaire

Manchin Wants Deal on Debt, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin [Democrat] said Thursday that Congress needs to deal with the nation’s “crippling debt” by making changes to shore up Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs he said are “going bankrupt.”

Manchin Wants Deal on Debt, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

Joe Manchin, speaking at a conference for CEOs, blames the stimulus checks us plebs received for causing inflation! It couldn’t have been the PPP loans, that were forgiven, or the handouts for the Military Industrial Complex every year! 🙄

FYI, Biden didn’t say anything about protecting Social Security from his own party:

“I will not cut Social Security,” the president said. “I will not cut Medicare, no matter how hard they work at it.”

‘I Will Not Yield’: Biden Vows to Fight Any GOP Attack on Social Security, Medicare

CIA Experimented on Hundreds of Orphans, Torturing Them to Reveal Psychopathic Traits—Report

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

According to a new documentary out of Denmark, which interviewed former victims, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly carried out experiments on 311 orphaned children. The experiments were meant to reveal psychopathic traits and map out the link between schizophrenia and heredity. According to the report, the children were tortured in clear violation of the Nuremberg Code of 1947 that introduced ethical restrictions for experiments on humans.

CIA Experimented on Hundreds of Orphans, Torturing Them to Reveal Psychopathic Traits—Report

H/T: Aletho News