‘Worse‘ than you think: Betsy DeVos and the far-right
Yes, the Donald Trump nominee for the U.S. Secretary of Education is the same Betsy DeVos who cheered the defeat of SQ 779 and helped fund pro-voucher candidates for the Legislature. She’s the same Amway heiress who pushed the expansion of Oklahoma City’s KIPP charter school.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Betsy DeVos wants to make America’s public education sector into a national version of the starved Oklahoma school system. The founder of the American Federation for Children wants to complete the full ALEC, Koch Brothers, Walton Foundation for-profit, privatization agenda in our state and the rest of the nation.
But it is even worse than that.
DeVos’ political ties like a who’s who of conservatism
A comprehensive 2014 analysis of the DeVos family’s right-wing agenda concluded that they “sit alongside the Kochs, the Bradleys, and the Coorses as founding families of the modern conservative movement.”
As the Mother Jones analysis reports, Richard DeVos Sr. “was an early member and funder of the Council for National Policy, a secretive network of hardline conservative leaders founded by Left Behind author Tim LaHaye.”
Betsy’s father was also a founder of the conservative, Christian, anti-choice Family Research Council. Her brother founded the infamous Blackwater private-security company. Disgraced Texas congressman Tom DeLay advanced their agenda under the informal name of the Amway caucus.
Other DeVos allies include gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson, Texas investor Harold Simmons, activist attorney Jim Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, who also was the chief architect behind the controversial 2010 Citizens United case and, last, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, of course. DeVos also used the ‘Worse‘ than you think: Betsy DeVos and the far-right - NonDoc:
