How dare you report the facts!
by Tom Sullivan
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos hates lies. “It is unacceptable, shameful, and counterproductive,” she said, “that the media and some members of Congress have spun up falsehoods and fully misrepresented the facts.” By reporting them.
DeVos faced “withering attacks and bipartisan pushback” Wednesday in a House Appropriations subcommittee for cutting $18 million in department funding for the Special Olympics in its proposed 2020 budget. It is the third year the Trump administration has proposed the cut, and it is likely to fail once again. That did not shield DeVos, reports the Washington Post:
The maelstrom was ignited Tuesday on Capitol Hill when House Democrats who sit on an Appropriations subcommittee pressed DeVos to defend her budget plan.
“Do you know how many kids are going to be affected by that cut?” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) asked. The education secretary said she didn’t know. “I’ll answer for you,” he replied. “It’s 272,000 kids.”
“I still can’t understand why you would go after disabled children in your budget,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) scolded. “You zero that out. It’s appalling.”
DeVos defended the cuts, arguing the Special Olympics is a private program with over $100 million in annual donor funding. Philip Bump notes, however, that federal funding constitutes about 10 percent of the program’s budget. “It is also an amount that’s about equivalent to the cost of the president’s last five trips to Mar-a-Lago, a period that stretches back to Thanksgiving,” Bump writes.
DeVos is offended to find that being reported accurately.
Commenting on the response of the Trump administration and its allies to Attorney General William Barr’s 4-page summary of hundreds of pages of the Mueller report, “Full Frontal” host Samantha Bee quipped that they find only their own lies acceptable:
The host also went after the president for telling TV news producers to stop booking guests who suggested he may have colluded with Russia. “Wow, usually when he writes to TV producers, it’s to ask them to hide footage of him saying the ‘n-word.’” Speaking on behalf of all TV producers, Bee told Trump to “fuck off.”
“Telling news programs to blacklist the president’s enemies is a clear attack on the freedom of the press,” Bee said. “Also, since when did you have a problem with lying on TV? Lying on TV is Kellyanne Conway’s entire resume.”
Lying is Donald Trump’s entire resume as well. He’s just hurt more people doing it.