The World-Class "Clerical Error"

Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education Secretary-designee, left senators at her hearing flummoxed by many of her answers, but went over the top when she denied her documented involvement in a foundation that has funneled millions of dollars to anti-LGBT causes.

From 2001 to 2013, DeVos was listed in tax filings as vice president of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, a nonprofit group founded by her mother that has been a generous donor to controversial groups like Focus on the Family and Family Research Council. Yet when pressed by Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) to explain her role at the Foundation, DeVos insisted her name should not have been included in any tax forms and that she had nothing to do with the organization.

"That was a clerical error -- I can assure you," DeVos said. "I have never made decisions on my mother's behalf."

Unfortunately for DeVos, there is a paper rail documenting her involvement in theFoundation has existed for years, but recently the organization filed a certificate of correction with the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs to have her name removed as a director.

"It is hard to believe that Mrs. DeVos could be listed as vice president of the Prince Foundation for 13 years and yet have no involvement with, or knowledge of, the millions of dollars in donations made to anti-LGBTQ groups that promote intolerance," Hassan said in an email. "For Mrs. DeVos to try to explain away these donations by claiming that her title was simply a 'clerical error' is concerning, to say the least."

During the time DeVos was listed as an officer, the Prince Foundation gave $5.1 million to Focus on the Family, an advocate of "conversion therapy" -- counseling designed to make gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer people become straight. The same group has railed against anti-bullying programs that even mention homosexuality as a covert way to introduce sexual orientation to children.

The organization also poured $6.1 million into the Family Research Council, a conservative think tank labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for saying such things as homosexual men are more likely to engage in child sexual abuse than heterosexual men. (Source: Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, "Betsy DeVos's 13-year 'clerical error'," The Washington Post, January 18, 2017.)

ADDENDUMS:
*In 2012, Democrats received 1.4 million more votes than GOPers for the U.S. House of Representatives, yet the GOP won the House by a wide margin.

*Since 1993, 1.3 million square miles of wilderness -- 10% of what's left on earth -- disappeared, usually plundered by lumbering, oil or gas exploration.

*A 2013 poll found that not even 6% of college-age millennials planned to enter the public sector right after college.

*"The last eight years have been painful for most people: between 2005 and 2014, the real incomes of over 60% of the world's population were flat or falling. If current economic trends continue, two-thirds of the world's individuals will be on track to be poorer than their parents." (Source: Rena Foroohar, "Looking for answers to the world's biggest challenges in the Eternal City," TIME, December 12, 2016.)

*"There are no American MIAs remaining in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are 126 MIAs from 14 Cold war clashes (not including shoot downs over water); 1,618 from Vietnam; 7,780 from Korea; and more than 73,000 from WW2." (Source: Mark Thompson, "Bringing a hero home," TIME, December 12, 2016.)