Jason Wallestad

Actions taken by Republican administrations over the last 20 years have consistently undermined schools and defunded education. Republicans give their education proposals and programs clever labels that are the opposite of what they actually do, from the Bush era “No Child Left Behind Act” to the Trump era “Every Student Succeeds Act.”

Betsy DeVos, the pyramid scheme heiress now in charge of public education in the United States, has enacted policies that are shortsighted at best and immoral at worst, as they have deliberately undermined the work being done by public school educators and diverted funding from struggling schools into voucher and charter school programs.

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We learned today that Trump knew in early February that the coronavirus was deadlier than the flu, that it was airborne, and that it posed a danger to young people.  Weeks after making these taped comments, he repeatedly assured the general public that the exact opposite was true. On February 28 at one of his rallies, he even called the coronavirus a Democrat hoax.

In a public health crisis, we need accurate information from the person in charge, and we need someone to tell us the truth. If there is public health information that could impact us, we need it to be shared with us.

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Trump claimed today that he was the “number one environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt” in a press conference where he signed a proclamation that put a moratorium on drilling off the coast of Florida.

This one was a real head spinner.

For context, Obama banned drilling off the coast of Florida in 2016 and Trump lifted that ban in 2018. So now he’s the greatest environmental President because he re-enacted a ban that he lifted?

Let’s be clear on why he lifted the ban: Trump wants to win Florida, and most Florida residents don’t like dealing with potential oil spills or their beautiful views being ruined. It’s not a dumb political calculation, but it most certainly does not make the man who pretends that climate change is a hoax the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt.

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Here’s a personal reason I’m choosing to cast my ballot this fall for Biden: actions taken by the Trump administration have placed the future of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in danger.

Chilean-owned mining company Antofagasta PLC (under their subsidiary Twin Metals Minnesota) is trying to gain approval from the U.S. government to open sulfide-ore copper and nickel mines as close as three miles to the southwestern edge of the BWCA.

The mantra of the BWCA is “leave no trace” –– when you camp there, as my daughter and I just did, you take that mantra seriously. You pack out everything you pack in, you don’t burn garbage, you don’t use soap in or near the lakes, you discard any dishwater at least 100 feet from shore, and you collect firewood only from trees or branches that have already fallen.

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Conservative television host Laura Ingraham interviewed the President on FOX yesterday, or in other words, the President was on his home turf with a home crowd cheering him on, and he, let’s see, what’s an apt way to finish my sports metaphor…missed a three-foot putt.

In an interview that wasn’t much more than a grab bag of repetition, vague phrases, and innuendo with a little anti-vaxxer sentiment thrown in, Ingraham continually tried to keep Trump on his talking points, repeatedly prompting him, and changing the subject when he was about to say something stupid. And by stupid, I mean something like this: Trump compared the police officer who shot Jacob Blake to a golfer about to “miss a three-foot…”

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I write with a heavy heart, and I start by condemning last night’s shooting in Portland as equally as I condemn the shootings last week in Kenosha.

When Trump was asked today if he would condemn the Kenosha shooter, he failed to do so and said: “We’re looking at all of it. That was an interesting situation” and then hinted that it was self defense. All he had to say about a 17-year-old militia member who traveled from another state and carried a semi-automatic rifle through the streets of a city on edge and then shot three people, killing two of them, is that it is “interesting.”

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