Two minority students say law school deans Heather Gerken, Ellen Cosgrove, and Yaseen Eldik retaliated against them when they refused to slime ‘Tiger Mom’ Amy Chua 

The Yale Law School administrators at the center of the “traphouse” incident are now the subject of an unrelated lawsuit alleging that they “worked together in an attempt to blackball two students of color from job opportunities as retaliation” for their refusal to make damning statements about a professor. The suit charges that their actions violated the university’s harassment policies, which prohibit the administration from taking “any adverse action” against a person “who has reported a concern” or “participated in an investigation.”

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court on Monday, alleges that the law school’s dean Heather Gerken, associate dean Ellen Cosgrove, and diversity director Yaseen Eldik retaliated against two students after they refused to “make knowingly and materially false statements” against Amy Chua, a Yale Law professor who has courted, and attracted, controversy.

When the students refused, Gerken and Cosgrove allegedly asked a professor not to offer them a prestigious fellowship—in part by suggesting that both students were untrustworthy. In conversations with the two students, Eldik and Cosgrove also allegedly suggested they would suffer career repercussions for their refusal to comply.

The alleged tactics mirror those displayed by university administrators in their handling of the now infamous “traphouse” controversy, in which they suggested to second-year law student Trent Colbert that his refusal to apologize for an allegedly racist email might cause him trouble with the bar.

The new case centers on an entirely different Yale Law School controversy that resulted in Gerken removing Chua from a teaching post for allegedly violating an agreement with the administration not to host students in her home.

The main evidence against Chua came in the form of a “dossier” disseminated by a law student who alleged that the plaintiffs had attended and then lied about secret dinner parties at Chua’s residence. Instead of investigating those allegations—which the plaintiffs deny, and which professors characterized as “unpersuasive”—Cosgrove and Eldik told the plaintiffs they had a “moral obligation” to confirm the claims made against Chua in the dossier, according to the lawsuit.

At an April 2021 meeting, the administrators also threatened to tell a professor who had offered the students a fellowship about the allegations against the students unless they turned on Chua, a threat Cosgrove and Gerken made good on days later. The suit accuses Eldik, Cosgrove, and Gerken of making “defamatory statements” that they knew to be false.

A spokeswoman for Yale Law School said the lawsuit is “legally and factually baseless” and that the university would “offer a vigorous defense.”

The lawsuit can be found below in its entirety.

Doe v. Gerken Complaint by Washington Free Beacon

Doe v. Gerken Complaint by Washington Free Beacon

https://freebeacon.com/campus/yale-law-students-sue-administrators-for-violation-of-harassment-policies/

Educators pursuing a career as a middle or high school English teacher should be “trained in anti-racism,” according to a newly released set of teaching standards created by National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

The NCTE last revised its standards for educators preparing to teach English language arts (ELA) in grades 7 to 12 in 2012. The professional organization said that since then, literacy demands “have changed the landscape significantly” and that “the issues of justice, equity, and diversity” have become central for English teachers and learners.

The latest NCTE standards, released last week, replace the term “social justice” in the 2012 version with “anti-racist” and “anti-bias” based on “expert advice,” according to the council. It now recommends that prospective English teachers “apply and demonstrate knowledge of learners and learning to foster inclusive learning environments that support coherent, relevant, standards-aligned, differentiated, and antiracist/antibias instruction to engage grade 7–12 learners in ELA.”

“Bigotry, discrimination, oppression, divisiveness, and racism are part of the world in which future teachers of English are working,” NCTE President Alfredo Celedon Lujan said in a statement announcing the standards. “These new standards seek to support educators as they prepare to go into the classroom.”

When it comes to the definition of racism, the council defines racism in America as the “systematic mistreatment and disenfranchisement of people of color who currently and historically possess less power and privilege than white Americans.”

“Racism … and other forms of discrimination continue to be a part of American society, continuing to affect all students and their education,” the council declares, asking that teachers “explicitly push for anti-racism by participating in ongoing professional development for educators to succeed in countering racism and other forms of bigotry.”

Anti-racism is one of the concepts popularized by proponents of critical race theory (CRT), an outgrowth from Marxism that views society through the lens of a power struggle between white and non-white people, which proponents assign the labels of “oppressors” and “oppressed,” respectively. CRT advocates see deeply embedded racism in all aspects of American society and deem it to be the root cause of racial inequity, or different outcomes for different races.

Rather than teaching children tolerance, it requires discriminatory “antiracist” practices to solve the perceived inequity, according to CRT advocates. As explained in Ibram X. Kendi’s 2019 book “How to Be an Antiracist,” discrimination should be considered “anti-racist” so long it is “creating equity.”

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination,” wrote Kendi.

The NCET didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The council will be holding its annual convention next week, featuring guest speakers such as former first lady Michelle Obama and Nikole Hannah-Jones, the leading author of The New York Times’ controversial “1619 Project,” a collection of historically revisionist literature promoting the idea that the United States is an inherently racist nation founded to preserve slavery.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/national-educators-group-pushes-for-english-teachers-to-be-trained-in-anti-racism_4105074.html

For most Americans, the first 10 months of the Biden administration have been a disaster. A new report suggests Vice President Kamala Harris is one of those Americans who is suffering through the administration’s incompetence.

West Wing aides are growing increasingly frustrated with “entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus” from Harris and her staff, CNN reported Sunday. The outlet interviewed almost three dozen current and former staffers for Harris, administration officials, donors, advisers and Democratic Party operatives, and they reportedly painted a discouraging picture.

“Harris is struggling with a rocky relationship with some parts of the White House, while long-time supporters feel abandoned and see no coherent public sense of what she’s done or been trying to do as vice president,” CNN reported.

At the same time, the outlet said Harris’ supporters are equally frustrated with White House officials who they feel are not putting Harris in a position to succeed.

“Kamala Harris is a leader but is not being put in positions to lead,” a top donor to President Joe Biden said. “That doesn’t make sense. We need to be thinking long term, and we need to be doing what’s best for the party.

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“You should be putting her in positions to succeed, as opposed to putting weights on her,” he said, speaking indirectly to Biden. “If you did give her the ability to step up and help her lead, it would strengthen you and strengthen the party.”

However, when the president has given Harris a chance to lead, she has largely failed to do so.

He tapped Harris to lead the response to the border crisis in March, The Associated Press reported. Since then, Harris has visited the border just one time, and it was far from the areas where illegal immigration is at its highest.

Border agents are still facing huge numbers of illegal border crossings, some of which are committed by convicted criminals.

Do you think Harris will run for president in 2024?

But according to a former aide to Harris, her sinking approval rating is not due to her own failures, but rather systemic racism within the Biden administration.

“It’s hard to miss the specific energy that the White House brings to defend a white man, knowing that Kamala Harris has spent almost a year taking a lot of the hits that the West Wing didn’t want to take themselves,” the aide said.

These comments show just how dysfunctional the relationship between Biden and Harris is. Members of Biden’s own party are turning on him and accusing him of racism because of the incompetence of his administration and particularly his vice president.

Obviously, none of this is helpful optically to an administration that is already floundering. For that reason, multiple White House staffers attempted to cover for Harris after the damming report.

“For anyone who needs to hear it. @VP is not only a vital partner to @POTUS but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country — from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Sunday night.

Left Plays Blame Game as Harris’ Approval Rating Drops to Historic Low, Gives Laughable Excuse

For anyone who needs to hear it. @VP is not only a vital partner to @POTUS but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country—from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband.

— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) November 15, 2021

White House chief of staff Ronald Klain also joined in on the action by retweeting a sycophantic celebration of Harris from Mayor Robert Garcia of Long Beach, California.

“Our @VP Kamala Harris just finished a highly successful trip where she strengthened diplomatic relationships,” the tweet said. “She takes on the most complex assignments because she’s capable and smart. She’s a great leader who also happens to be funny and kind. And that’s the tweet.”

Our @VP Kamala Harris just finished a highly successful trip where she strengthened diplomatic relationships. She takes on the most complex assignments because she’s capable and smart. She’s a great leader who also happens to be funny and kind. And that’s the tweet.

— Robert Garcia (@RobertGarcia) November 15, 2021

Scramble as they might, those within the walls of the White House cannot hide their dysfunction forever. Americans are growing increasingly tired of Biden, Harris and the entire administration just 10 months into it, and tensions are rising between its own members.

Many people scratched their heads when Joe Biden picked Harris as his running mate. The media claimed it was because she was an amazing politician. It had nothing to do with her race or gender. But since entering office, the woman has not had a stellar record.

She has a worse approval than Biden. That’s probably because she has done nothing with the jobs given to her. But recently she managed to drain even more water out of the shallow end. Just see what she asked NASA… about trees.

From The Right Scoop/ Twitter:

Kamala Harris interrupts a NASA presentation to ask if NASA “can measure trees” as part of “environmental justice.” pic.twitter.com/POoArDzaGc

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) November 6, 2021

Kamala Harris is a very special vice president don’t you think? Special. And she asked a very special question, interrupting a NASA presentation to do it, on the issue of tree justice.

That’s right, she wanted to know if NASA can use satellites to “track” how many trees there are on a neighborhood by neighborhood level, with those neighborhoods being apportioned by race, for the sake of environmental justice.

I think it’s safe to say that “social justice” has gone too far. No longer able to find real sources of racism in America, Kamala Harris is now asking about how racist a neighborhood is—based on its trees. Harris asked NASA if they could track tree density, per neighborhood, as some form of “environmental justice.”

Because, as we all know, racists love cutting down trees in majority-black neighborhoods.

What is Harris thinking? Does she really expect us to believe that a lack of trees in a neighborhood indicates its racial makeup? Or does she have a hunch and wants NASA to prove it? But we shouldn’t be all too surprised for her to think this way.

The left casts everything in the mold of race. She is assuming that, if there are lots of trees in a neighborhood, it’s because it is made of up rich people who planted them. And, as all social justice warriors know, rich equals white. So, if there are too many trees in a neighborhood… racism!

Has this woman ever gone to Brooklyn? There are lots of trees in the city—especially in the many parks managed by both the city and private communities. There are so many trees, despite the fact that the area is very racially diverse.

She should also visit cities outside the liberal bubble, where white, black, and other races get along very well. And guess what—plenty of trees!

Maybe there is a lack of trees in some areas because urban density meant they needed to be cut down. It had nothing to do with race, just the need to build more homes and buildings?

But nobody tell Harris that—she won’t understand!

Key Takeaways:

• Kamala Harris asked if NASA could track trees for “environmental justice.”
• The leftist seemed to think trees indicated the racial profile of a community.
• Harris tried to tie the number of trees to racism, it seems.

Source: The Right Scoop, Twitter

The supposed experts shaping the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus forced their tunnel vision upon the administration, according to a former member of the White House Coronavirus Response Team.

In a new book, Dr. Scott Atlas lambastes the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx and former CDC Director Robert Redfield for refusing to look at all options.

In his book, “A Plague Upon Our House,” Atlas recounted an incident in which he wrote that he presented compelling data indicating that schools should be reopened and that children were not major factors in the spread of the virus.

Fauci and others acted as though he had never spoken, he wrote, according to excerpts published Saturday by Fox News.

“As I finished, there was silence,” Atlas wrote. “No one offered any contrary data … Zero comments from Dr. Birx. Nothing from Dr. Fauci.”

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“And as always, not a single mention by Birx or Fauci about the serious harms of school closures. In my mind, this was bizarre,” he wrote.

Atlas wrote that he appeared to be the only one on the team looking at facts before forming theories.

“Why was I the only one in the room with detailed knowledge of the literature? Why was I the only one considering the data on such an important topic with a critical eye? Were the others simply accepting bottom lines and conclusions, without any analytical evaluation? Weren’t they supposed to be expert medical scientists, too? I waited,” he wrote.

When the reaction arrived, it was hostile.

Has the country lost faith in Dr. Anthony Fauci?

Birx said Atlas was “out of the mainstream” and part of a “fringe” group supporting school reopening, Atlas wrote, according to Fox.

“Meanwhile she insisted that all experts agreed with her,” Atlas wrote. “I shook my head, thinking of some of the world-class epidemiologists who agreed with me—John Ioannidis and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Carl Heneghan and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford—and wondered if she or Fauci had ever read a single publication by them.”

Atlas said he presented detailed data about the spread of the virus through children. Children were unlikely to spread the disease to adults, he wrote, and were themselves in little danger of catching it. In Sweden, in particular, he wrote, there were no children’s deaths from COVID-19, though schools remained open and there were no mask mandates.

“The icing on the cake was the evidence that almost all coronavirus transmission to children comes from adults, not the other way around,” Atlas wrote.

Atlas wrote that Redfield indicated that in his mind, the mountain of data was inconclusive.

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“I was disgusted at Redfield’s apparent lack of knowledge, shocked at his ignoring the scientific studies that had been published from around the world,” Atlas wrote. “I looked around the room, wondering if anyone else understood the glaring incompetence on display. Clearly, [Vice President Mike] Pence needed more input.”

In excerpts published Friday by the U.K. Daily Mail, Atlas explained the root of his opposition to policies that pushed lockdowns as the magic answer to stopping the virus.

“People were dying from the virus, and the lockdown policies were not preventing the deaths,” he wrote. “The simple logic of assuming you could stop the spread of, and some said eliminate, a highly contagious virus by shutting down society after millions had been infected was worse than nonsensical.

“The idea of stopping all businesses and closing schools while quarantining healthy young people at little risk from a disease in order to protect those aged seventy and over — that is simply irrational,” he wrote.

In the book, he wrote that former President Donald Trump was being given bad advice from his top advisers.

“They had let Birx and Fauci tell governors to prolong the lockdowns and school closures and continue the severe restrictions on businesses – strategies that failed to stop the elderly from dying, failed to stop the cases, and destroyed families and sacrificed children,” he wrote, according to the Daily Mail. “The closest advisers to the president, including the VP, seemed more concerned with politics, even though the task force was putting out the wrong advice, contrary to the president’s desire to reopen schools and businesses.”

Birx and Atlas have tussled in the past.

In late October, as Fox reported, Atlas accused Birx of trying to “rewrite history” during congressional testimony in which she said Trump’s advisers failed to push mask-wearing, social distancing, and other steps that could have saved lives.

Birx claimed Atlas wanted to let the virus spread to build herd immunity, regardless of the cost, a claim he denies.

“I never advised the president, the Task Force, or anyone else while in Washington to allow the virus to spread,” Atlas told Fox.

“Dozens of my writings and interviews during my Washington service explicitly called for specific mitigations, including social distancing, extra hygiene, and masks when not able to socially distance, and ‘focused protection,’ a heightened protection of those at risk, to allow a safe opening and end the public health destruction from lockdowns.”

Journalist and The Gateway Pundit contributor Jacob Engels was hacked after exposing a filthy porn book in a Florida public school library.

Several weeks ago, my friend and investigative journalist Jacob Engels who often reports for the Gateway Pundit was removed with force by police during an Orange County School Board meeting in Orlando, Florida for exposing a disgusting graphic and pornographic illustrated novel being peddled to our public school children.

The video of him addressing the OCPS School Board, which was filmed by local journalist DatabattlesZ, quickly went viral after the news broke here first on The Gateway Pundit.

I have known Jacob for nearly a decade and his work exposing the political interests who orchestrated the sham trial that wrongfully convicted me in a DC federal court, had the corrupt Obama appointed judge in my case threatening him with arrest only because he dared defend me publicly and expose the epic corruption surrounding ever facet of my sham trial.

After he exposed the Orange County School Board for prividing pronographic material to minors, which is a violation of state law, left-wing activists hacked his website Central Florida Post, erased over eight years of journalism that has exposed Hillary Clinton and George Soros alike.  They even left behind source code in Russian, to make it seem like Jacob’s website was built by the Russian state.  This is an obvious smear tactic of the left, who tries to paint anyone who is for President Donald Trump or against the political establishment as a “foreign agent.”

Thankfully, he had backups on a secure server and he intends on restoring his operation as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this will take a large amount of resources. That’s why I am encouraging you to donate to his GiveSendGo account to help him restore his life’s work. His “crime” of exposing a filthy pornograohic novel being given to children is not a crime, but a crucial public service in the fight against the anti-Christian woke mob that seeks to pollute American society with their Marxist ideologies.

During the politically motivated Mueller Investigation, I underwent the same demonic attacks on my livelihood and character, from the very same left-wing authoritarians who want to forcibly mask or vaccinate us, while allowing children to have access to graphic novels.

These attacks have left me financially ruined, even as my wife Nydia battles Stage Four cancer. You can help our family recover by clicking here. 

Jacob’s story is not uncommon. Millions of patriots are being targeted on a daily basis by Big Tech. His former hosting company even has ties to the Council on Foreign Relations, General David Petraeus, Goldman Sachs, and a host of globalist goons who hate America.

According to several internet security experts, sites like the Central Florida Post have been targeted by massive hacking operations, with no oversight or protection from the hosting company Bluehost, where Jacob’s website was formerly hosted.

Please donate to his Give Send Go today. Without outlets like The Gateway Pundit, or the Central Florida Post on a local level, we would have no idea about the criminality of the Democrats and Deep State.

In the meantime, you can follow Jacob’s work on the STONECOLDTRUTH.COM. 

An eight-year-old Florida girl is making the system bend to her will as she defies the Palm Beach County School Board’s mask mandate.

So far, she has been suspended 38 times for failing to do as the adults tell her.

“I was really shocked by it,” said Bailey Lashell, Fiona’s mother, according to WTEN-TV. “I couldn’t believe it was all over not complying with the mask mandate.”

Fiona made a brief appearance at a board meeting to tell her school board exactly what she thinks of their rules.

“Just because I get suspended for not wearing a mask isn’t going to change my mind. You can keep suspending me. I still have the right not to wear a mask,” she said.

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“It is not fair that I’m getting punished because you guys, the school board, are not following the law,” she said. “I’m still going to stand up for what I believe in.”

“I hope you all go to jail for doing this to me,” Fiona said.

She added one final thought: “Your rules suck.”

School board speech by Florida 2nd grader who was suspended 36 times for not wearing a mask:
Legend 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/SjEAhuQuP8

— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) November 10, 2021

Her mother is chronicling her daughter’s disobedience on a website named StandupforFiona, explaining how her child has been threatened with flunking second grade.

Is this nothing more than an abuse of power by supposedly responsible adults?

“Since August 31st and her first punishment of a referral and silent lunch in an office hallway, Fiona has been steadfast in her unwavering decision to not back down to tyranny and lunacy, vowing to do everything she can for every child going thru these lawless mandates,” she wrote.

“Fiona is a strong-minded and fearless young girl who was ready to conquer the world at 7. Unfortunately, the blows just seem to not stop as she was recently told after completing every assignment her teacher will provide that she is not only failing 2nd grade but that there is no way she could catch up per her teacher,” she continued.

Neither mom nor daughter seems the type to take these things lying down.

“Thankfully we realized this was as tyrannical a move from her teacher and after asking for nearly 3 weeks we received Fiona’s progression in an application known as success maker. Not only is Fiona at or meeting grade-level requirements in Math, but rather doing math work at a 4th-grade level with almost 100% mastery in most of the items calculated,” she wrote, noting that she put all the documents on the site for all to see.

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“Fiona has changed her priorities a bit and is on a mission to take back, not only her rights but every American child’s constitutional rights from the tyrant school board,” her mom explained on the site.

Although in July, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order that made mask-wearing optional, in Palm Beach County masks have been mandated, although the mandate ends Monday.

“You wear it for a long time, and you breathe in all those germs,” Fiona said, according to WTEN. “You set it down at lunch and put it back on your face and breathed that all in all day long.”

“I’m doing it for other kids,” said Fiona. “Not just myself.”

Her mother said compelling children is wrong.

“We have no problem with somebody wearing a mask,” Lashell said. “We just feel that the kids in this situation — or I guess the parents — should have been given that choice.”

Group wants the justices to review the case alongside a similar challenge to Harvard

An advocacy group pushing the Supreme Court to overturn Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policies on Thursday filed a petition that charges the University of North Carolina with anti-Asian bias.

The advocacy group, Students for Fair Admissions, asked the justices to fast-track a case against UNC that is still being processed in lower courts. The group is petitioning the Court to review the case alongside its landmark challenge to Harvard’s admissions practices, which it asked the justices to take up in February.

“If the Supreme Court decides, as it should, to reconsider racial preferences in college admissions, it should consider that question in the context of both a private school and a public school,” Students for Fair Admissions president Edward Blum said. “And it should resolve that question under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.”

The request is a reminder that the Supreme Court is facing a wave of affirmative action cases. Separate attacks on affirmative action are unfolding across the country and will reach the justices in due course, even if the Court refuses to hear the Harvard and UNC disputes. For example, a challenge to race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Texas is pending before the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Both matters ask the Supreme Court to overturn a foundational affirmative action decision, Grutter v. Bollinger, and forbid consideration of race in college admissions. In Grutter, the Supreme Court said colleges may consider race as one factor among many on a case-by-case basis. Grutter involved an unsuccessful attack on affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan Law School.

Although it is a private institution, Harvard is subject to federal anti-discrimination laws because it accepts federal dollars each year. UNC, on the other hand, is a public school, so the plaintiffs can attack its program on statutory and constitutional grounds.

“This case and Harvard should be heard together,” Thursday’s petition reads. “The first question presented in both cases is the same: whether this Court should overrule Grutter and hold that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions. This Court can resolve that momentous question in either case. But if it decides to revisit Grutter, its analysis would be more complete if it considered both a private university (Harvard) and a public university (UNC) and both the Constitution (UNC) and Title VI (Harvard and UNC).”

UNC awards racial preferences to African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, but not to Asians. The university considers the first three groups underrepresented on campus as compared with North Carolina’s population. In contrast, Asians account for about 12 percent of UNC’s student body and 3 percent of the state population.

Students for Fair Admissions on the same day in 2014 filed lawsuits that accused Harvard and UNC of unlawful race discrimination. The UNC case lagged through the court system behind the Harvard dispute. A federal trial court ruled for Harvard in 2019, and a federal appeals court did the same a year later. In contrast, it took almost seven years for the UNC case to reach trial. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs in Winston-Salem, N.C., ruled for the university on Oct. 18.

Grutter, decided in 2003, predicted that affirmative action would end 25 years in the future. In contrast, Biggs said race-conscious admissions are a permanent “institutional obligation to be broadly and equitably administered.”

“While no student can or should be admitted to this university, or any other, based solely on race, because race is so interwoven in every aspect of the lived experience of minority students, to ignore it, reduce its importance and measure it only by statistical models as [Students for Fair Admissions] has done, misses important context,” Biggs wrote.

Hearing the Harvard and UNC cases together would be consistent with Grutter. The justices decided to hear Grutter after a federal appeals court upheld Michigan Law School’s affirmative action policies. A separate legal challenge to Michigan’s undergraduate admissions criteria was not as far along, but the Court heard that lawsuit alongside Grutter to consider affirmative action at multiple levels of higher education.

The Court often fast-tracks closely linked cases. For example, the justices in October expedited review of two separate legal challenges to Texas’s abortion law, one from clinics in the state and another from the Biden administration.

The case is Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.

SFFA v. UNC cert petition by Washington Free Beacon

https://freebeacon.com/courts/student-group-presses-supreme-court-to-fast-track-unc-affirmative-action-case/

Élites unmasked

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) was photographed officiating Ivy Getty’s lavish wedding in San Francisco last week. The photo explains everything you need to know about the Democratic Party. Nearly every important aspect of the party and its voter base is represented.

For example:

1) Millionaires and billionaires

Getty, the great-granddaughter of oil baron J. Paul Getty, is presumed to have inherited several billion dollars after her father, John Gilbert Getty, died in 2020. Her grandfather, Gordon Getty, has helped finance the careers of prominent California Democrats such as Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom, and Pelosi. Billionaires and their wealthy scions tend to be loyal backers of the Democratic Party, whose most generous supporters include George Soros, Walmart heiress Christy Walton, Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, and the Pritzker family, heirs to the Hyatt hotel fortune. J.B. Pritzker was elected governor of Illinois in 2018, and the 2020 Democratic primary featured two billionaires, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg.

2) Really old career politicians

The top three Democrats in the House of Representatives are octogenarians who have worked in politics almost their entire adult lives. Pelosi, 81, is a Democratic Party scion whose political career began in the early 1960s. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) is 82 and has worked in politics since 1962. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D., S.C.) is 81 and got his start in 1969. President Joe Biden, who will celebrate his 79th birthday later this month, is relatively young and inexperienced by comparison. He didn’t launch his political career until 1970.

3) White guys

The Democratic Party is dominated by college graduates, a demographic that comprises roughly a third of the adult population, and is disproportionately white. Getty’s random white dude husband wouldn’t have to try very hard to find success in the Democratic Party or its affiliate, the media industry, where mediocre white dudes continue to excel. In most cases, they do so while simultaneously denouncing the toxic influence of white men. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Brian Stelter, Jeffrey Toobin, Andrew Cuomo, the Pod Save America bros, the bald weirdos at the Lincoln Project—the list goes on.

4) Celebrities

Mark Ronson opened for Earth, Wind & Fire, which played at the pre-wedding bash at The Palace of Fine Arts. Hollywood actress Anya-Taylor Joy, daughter of an investment banking tycoon, served as the maid of honor. Guests included pop star Olivia Rodrigo, assorted European royalty, and TikTok celebs, along with gender-bending performance artist Kiki Xtravaganza. As former president Barack Obama has gone out of his way to demonstrate, the ability to hang out with celebrities is one of the main reasons Democratic politicians run for higher office.

5) Anti-Semites

The bride’s dress was covered in shards of broken glass, which may or may not have been an homage to the anniversary of Kristallnacht. The bridal gown and the bridesmaid dresses were designed by British fashion icon John Galliano, who also attended the wedding as a guest. In 2011, he was convicted in a Paris court for making anti-Semitic remarks, which is illegal under French law. “I love Hitler,” Galliano reportedly told a group of Italian women at a café during Paris Fashion Week. “People like you would be dead today. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be f—ing gassed and f—ing dead.” In recent years, the Democratic Party has become a space for anti-Semites.

6) Selectively enforced rules

The wedding took place at San Francisco’s City Hall, which remains closed to the public due to COVID-19. Guests were asked to wear masks during the ceremony, but photos from the multi-day affair reveal that the California Department of Public Health’s recommendation regarding the use of masks indoors was largely ignored. Democratic politicians have routinely ignored such guidance, in some cases blatantly violating state and local mandates that might impede their ability to party with rich donors and celebrities.

There. That’s everything you need to know about the Democratic Party.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/democrats-explained/

Reports of intense surveillance of parents opposed to teaching critical race theory in Arizona’s Scottsdale Unified School District have provoked calls for the board president’s resignation.

At issue is a dossier of personal information of the parents and their children.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who writes for City Journal and is a Manhattan Institute fellow, said he reviewed the information and tweeted his conclusions.

“Scottsdale Unified school board president Jann-Michael Greenburg has been caught assembling a dossier with confidential information on parents who oppose critical race theory — including photographs of their children,” he tweeted Thursday.

“I’ve reviewed the dossier and Greenburg has assembled a disturbing range of information on parents: commercial background checks, criminal records, address histories, divorce records, business filings, personal photographs, and other sensitive data. Abusive.”

HGTV Fans at Odds After Joanna Gaines Makes Controversial Instagram Post

I’ve reviewed the dossier and Greenburg has assembled a disturbing range of information on parents: commercial background checks, criminal records, address histories, divorce records, business filings, personal photographs, and other sensitive data. Abusive.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) November 11, 2021

“Greenburg paid for extensive private investigation profiles on individual parents. This file is more than 160 pages, with information including home addresses, family members, phone numbers, mortgage data, traffic tickets, ‘known associates,’ and social security numbers,” Rufo noted.

WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers will find offensive.

According to press reports, school board president Jann-Michael Greenburg, a 27-year-old man with no children, lives with and shares a computer with his father, Mark Greenburg. Parents have accused the father-son duo of harassing them and photographing their children.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) November 11, 2021

“YIKES: Here’s the father of Scottsdale Unified school board president Jann-Michael Greenburg, secretly taking bodycam footage of parents on school property and saying he hired a “private investigator who is writing down all their [license] plates,” Rufo tweeted.

In the video, Mark Greenburg talks about the extent of his investigation.

“Somewhere around here, we have a private investigator who’s writing down all their plates,” he says.

Shock Japanese Study: No Evidence That Closing the Schools Reduced the Spread of COVID-19

“That you’ve hired?” a woman responds.

“Yeah, I did. Yeah. I had our law firm do it so that it’s protected. So that we can get the information,” Greenburg replies.

These lunatics want to permanently mask your children and pump them full of critical race theory. We owe a debt of gratitude to the brave Arizona moms who are standing up to creeps like Mark and Jann-Michael Greenburg. Don’t stop until they are removed from public life.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) November 11, 2021

Although the school district is blaming everything on Mark Greenburg, the father of Jann-Michael Greenburg who reportedly lives with his son, and trying to assuage parents, a report in AZ Free News made it clear that the damage — coming at a time when the National School Boards Association wants the Department of Justice to come down hard on parents resisting critical race theory — is beyond repair with soothing words.

“I am calling for the immediate resignation of our board president Jann-Michael Greenburg. We cannot allow anyone in a leadership position to secretly compile personal documents and information on moms and dads who have dared speak out publicly or on social media about their grievances with the district,” parent Amy Carney said.

“We request President Greenburg’s resignation from the Governing Board effective immediately for this and other recent embarrassments to our district.”

“These allegations are deeply troubling, especially as concerns the photography of a minor child without parental consent and the taking down of license plate numbers of parents who Mr. Greenberg supposedly perceived as political opponents,” said attorney Alexander Kolodin of the Davillier Law Group.

“Mr. Greenberg is an elected member of the school board. If such a photograph was taken with his express or tacit consent, he would potentially be liable for violations of Arizona’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, which recognizes a parent’s ‘fundamental’ right to consent before the government makes a video or voice recording of the minor child,” he said.

If you want someone to wear a mask, the first step is to normally just ask. But some teachers have decided to go with the option of just taping masks to their students’ faces instead.

In October, there were several reports across the country of teachers taping face masks on their students’ faces.

The most recent happened in Beloit, Wisconsin.

At McNeel Intermediate School, Fox News reported that the police are investigating after a student claimed that a teacher duct-taped a mask to his face.

The 13-year-old boy said he pulled his mask down for a moment because he was having difficulty breathing. When the teacher told him to put the mask on he responded, “I can’t breathe. Give me a moment.”

HGTV Fans at Odds After Joanna Gaines Makes Controversial Instagram Post

“She got clearish yellowish tape, pulled up my mask up to my nose and wrapped the tape around my head five times. I’m thinking in my head. I’m like, this is crazy. Why is she doing this?” the student told WKOW.

The student’s parent said, “when he came home, he (had) a red mark on the back of his neck area. And it was a little bit red around his face.”

According to the police report that the Wisconsin State Journal reviewed, the teacher claimed it was all a joke.

“The teacher told police she did tape the front of the student’s mask to his face, but only as a joke after she said the student challenged her to do so and then he laughed about it. The teacher said she removed the tape, after which the student wore his mask properly.”

Should kids be wearing masks at school?

The student said that he did not feel like he could go back to school after the incident because he did not trust anyone.

“I’m very, very upset. I’m gonna keep pursuing this until my son gets justice and my family gets justice,” the parent said.

In response to this incident, a protest was then planned for Nov. 5 to take place in front of the School District of Beloit. The school district and the Beloit Police Department then decided to close the schools, “for the safety of the students and staff.“

This may sound like an outlandish, one-time kind of incident — some COVID-hypersensitive teacher just went off the rails. But there have been other reports of this happening in different states earlier in October and September.

Near Las Vegas, in Clark County School District, one fourth-grader forgot to put his mask back on after getting a drink of water. The substitute teacher, instead of simply instructing the student to put the mask back on, pulled him to the front of the class and taped the mask across the top of his face.

Author of Child History Curriculum: US Bombed Hiroshima Only to Prove Developing Atomic Bomb ‘Was Worth It’

“I was furious, furious. I was scared for my son on what kind of long-term effect it is going to have on him socially, the fact that the entire class was laughing,” the student’s mother told KVVU-TV.

The student said that this was not the first time that had happened. He recalled up to five other times that this has happened to students in the class.

KKTV News in Colorado Springs reported a similar incident happening at Chinook Trail Middle School in October.

The school investigated the situation and found that, while teachers at Chinook Trail did not go to the extremes of the Clark County teacher in Nevada, teachers instructed students to tape masks to their faces.

“After examining all evidence, the district determined a policy/procedure was violated by the teaching team of 642. While we found that the teachers did NOT affix any student’s mask to their face, we did learn teachers directed students to affix their mask to their face with tape; and students believed they were required, by a teacher, to use tape to affix their mask to their face,” the school principal wrote in a letter to parents.

The fact that children are wearing masks in school is still questionable.

Children are obviously still in the developmental stage. They are not just learning information in school, but also learning how to socially interact and be with other people. Their emotions, social skills and cognitive skills all depend on having healthy interactions with peers, teachers and parents. Numerous experts and studies have shown this.

“Face-to-face interactions between a parent and child are the building blocks of the child’s emotional, social, and cognitive growth,” the Hanen Centre reported.

It’s really quite common sense.

“The right socially interactive environment will help children develop strong language skills, creativity, social intelligence, and confidence,” Tender Care Learning Center advocated.

For students to have that face-to-face interaction taken away from them in school can be detrimental. For teachers to enforce and humiliate students by taping masks to their faces could damage students even further. That kind of humiliation handed down from an authority figure, in front of peers, is going to cause problems.

As the mother of the Clark County School fourth-grader said, “It’s crazy. Corporal punishment in schools should not be happening.”

In 68.2 percent of the 500 biggest school districts in the United States, students are still required to wear masks in school, according to data from community tracker Burbio.

To those who just view U.S. media, this shouldn’t come as a shock. After all, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, has made it clear even vaccinated kids still need to mask up.

“We still have about 85 percent of our counties that are in high or substantial community transmission,” Walensky said during an appearance on “NBC Nightly News” on Thursday.

“And so, while I’m encouraged that numbers are coming down, I would say as our children are starting to get vaccinated, just a week into this program, to continue to scale up our vaccinations for these children and to not yet get complacent with our mitigation and prevention strategies that are keeping our children in school.”

“So that means kids should continue to wear masks even if they’re vaccinated?” Holt asked.

HGTV Fans at Odds After Joanna Gaines Makes Controversial Instagram Post

“And I would say masks are for now,” Walensky said, “but they are not forever.”

And yet, while the CDC continues to promise the masks aren’t forever but need to be worn for now, the United States is one of the few countries in the Western world that still forces its students to mask up in the classroom.

According to a Wednesday report in the U.K. Daily Mail, only seven countries in the West still recommend kids wear masks in school. Meanwhile, in at least 14 other countries, there is no masking requirement.Should mask mandates be banned?Yes No
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“Aside from the U.S., DailyMail.com could only identify six other Western countries where masking is broadly required or recommended in schools: Canada, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain,” the paper reported.

Canada leaves it up to individual provinces, all 10 of which have some kind of masking requirement. France had lifted its masking requirement previously, but it’s being re-instituted for elementary school students as of Nov. 15.

The other four countries started the school year with a mask requirement in place on a national scale.

However, in most other countries, they’ve been — as we like to say in these parts — following the science.

The Daily Mail noted that studies have shown that while minors test positive just as frequently as adults, about half are asymptomatic (compared with roughly 10 percent of those over 18) and that only 0.1 percent of school-age children experience serious illness or die from COVID-19.

Newsom’s COVID Cases Explode, Double DeSantis’ Florida Numbers

“And because of this low risk, most Western nations have opted to ditch the masks and have kids return to ‘normalcy’ in classrooms,” the Daily Mail reported.

“In the UK, for example, millions of children returned to schools in early September with face coverings not required.

“And while masks are a politically divisive issue in the U.S., members of both the Conservative and Labour Parties in the UK have stated that wearing masks prevent children from being able to communicate and socialize.”

How has that worked out for them? In the United States, children are being hospitalized at four times higher rates than in the United Kingdom.

The paper provided three potential answers for why the mask mandates aren’t in place in other Western countries.

The first postulate: higher vaccination rates. “For example, West Virginia and Idaho have yet to vaccinate 50 percent of their populations compared to more than 70 percent in all Nordic countries, according to data from the U.S. CDC and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,” the Daily Mail reported.

However, this one doesn’t necessarily hold water; according to U.S. News and World Report, neither West Virginia nor Idaho has statewide school mask mandates.

Of the eight states that outright ban school mask mandates, only one had a fully vaccinated rate above 60 percent as of Friday, according to the Mayo Clinic — Florida. Meanwhile, of the states that require masks in school, only one had a fully vaccinated rate under 60 percent: Kentucky.

Therefore, issue number two is a bit more likely: In most Western countries, particularly in the European Union, there’s a higher degree of trust in authority figures. Paradoxically, this often leads to less regulation and freer societies. As Nick Gillespie — editor at large for libertarian publication Reason — pointed out in a Daily Beast piece back in 2016, research shows citizens in countries where authority figures are trusted want less intervention from authority figures.

Meanwhile, in the United States — where one can distinctly recall a recent gubernatorial candidate saying parents shouldn’t be deciding what the state teaches their children — one can see how this would lead to education and political officials who botched in-person learning policy and public health dictums being handed more control over it, despite having proved themselves to be unworthy of the task.

Finally, the Daily Mail noted children in other Western countries are tested more often.

“Currently the UK’s Department of Education requires all secondary school students, between ages 11 and 18, be tested at home twice a week using tests,” they reported. “Additionally, Norway is mass testing students to phase out quarantining students amid Covid outbreaks.”

All of these are valuable lessons — but then, the most valuable should be that we’re an outlier when it comes to school mask mandates and we shouldn’t be. There’s little evidence they serve a public health good, particularly among vaccinated children, and with other alternatives at hand. Psychologically, they’ve done far more harm than good.

Geez…I really think I’m going to puke. WTF is happening? [US Patriot]

Inclusion, acceptance, welcoming, understanding, equality and affirmation: These are the words we often hear in support of the LGBT community. But should all sexual preferences and orientations be accepted, welcomed and included?

What about attraction to minors?

Allyn Walker — an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in the department of sociology and criminal justice who identifies as “non-binary” — wrote the book, “A Long, Dark Shadow,” to look more deeply into “Minor-Attracted People,” address the stigma around them and discuss how they should be treated.

To be clear, though, Walker is not condoning child sexual abuse in the book.

“And I want to be extremely clear that child sexual abuse is never ever okay,” Walker said in an interview discussing the book with the Prostasia Foundation.

Rittenhouse Judge Blasts Prosecution, Says They Made ‘Grave Constitutional Violation’

However, Walker did clarify that “having an attraction to minors as long as it isn’t acted on, doesn’t mean that the person who has those attractions is doing something wrong.”

“I think we have a tendency to want to categorize people with these attractions as evil or morally corrupt … From my perspective, there is no morality or immorality attached to attraction to anyone because no one can control who they’re attracted to at all.”

This immediately brings into question the meaning of morality. In the simplest terms, morality is understanding what is right and wrong. But more specifically, morality is intricately tied to natural laws and what is innate in rational human beings.

It is not natural to be attracted to a child. That is why pedophilia is treated as a disorder.

Is pedophilia a sexual orientation?

“Because it causes harm to others, it is considered a disorder,” medical information reference Merck Manuals noted.

Walker, however, wanted to distinguish between those who act on this impulse and those who simply have it but do not act on it.

“And then just as importantly, many MAPs never commit a sexual offense against a minor. And that difference is important because when we don’t understand that distinction, we make incorrect assumptions about the likelihood of offending amongst MAPs,” Walker said.

“This leads to people believing that just because someone is attracted to minors, they’re likely to commit an offense. And we start to criminalize a population just because of their attractions. Not only is this a problem in terms of criminalization, but it also serves to heighten stigma against MAPs in general, which is a huge problem.”

However, Walker is wrong in equating pedophilia with crime. Pedophilia, of course, can lead to sexual activity with children, but attraction, arousal and behavior all fall under the definitional umbrella of pedophilia.

12 Biological Males Convicted of Violent Crimes, Sex Crimes Transferred to Women’s Prisons After Identifying as Women

“Doctors diagnose pedophilia when people feel greatly distressed or become less able to function well because of their attraction to children or when they have acted on their urges,” Merck Manuals explains.

Psychology Today also lines up with Merck Manuals, defining pedophilia as, “recurrent and intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children — generally age 13 years or younger — over a period of at least six months.”

Walker is attempting to make a distinction that flies in the face of medical information, trying to differentiate between attraction and action. But there is great danger in doing so.

If “MAPs” are just people who are attracted to children, but do not abuse them, why should they not be accepted in a society that is seeking to be inclusive and welcoming to all sexual orientations?

When transgenderism became a newly accepted sexual orientation, the American Psychiatric Association removed “Gender Identity Disorder” from “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”

Following the same reasoning, this could happen with defining and diagnosing pedophilia. And there is a push to view pedophilia as a sexual orientation.

Toronto psychiatrist Dr. James Cantor has tweeted in the past, “Speaking as a gay men, I believe we SHOULD include the P. To do otherwise is to betray the principles that give us our rights.”

Speaking as a gay men, I believe we SHOULD include the P. To do otherwise is to betray the principles that give us our rights.

— Dr. James Cantor (@JamesCantorPhD) December 8, 2018

Cantor’s reasoning is correct. If our society keeps operating on the principles that give LGBT members the rights that they have, the same has to extend to pedophiles. If we follow that train of thought, attraction to children is just their sexual orientation.

There are even sites dedicated to pedophiles who are celibate, non-offenders. “Virtuous Pedophiles” is a social support group for pedophiles that promise to live celibate, non-offending lives.

The problem is that pedophilia is dangerous to children. Even if a person who is attracted to minors is determined to not act upon the impulse, having that attraction takes them one step closer to the potential of becoming an abuser.

So if pedophilia is accepted as just another sexual orientation and not treated as a disorder, that would also widen the door to “acceptable” abuse of children. If a pedophile has sexual interactions with a child, and the minor claims that they were abused, then the pedophile could hide behind their accepted, no longer termed as a disorder, sexual attraction.

As shocking as it may seem to talk about adding pedophilia to the spectrum of sexual orientations, it should be no surprise. By throwing out the conception that morality must align with what is natural, our society just opened Pandora’s box. This is just the fallout that we have to deal with now.

The North Carolina School Boards Association (NCSBA) withdrew its membership from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) on Thursday.

NCSBA’s separation follows the South Carolina, Ohio, and Missouri School Board Associations’ cutting ties from the NSBA after its Sept. 29 letter to the White House comparing parents to domestic terrorists.

Union County Public Schools Board Chair Melissa Merrell was on her way to an NCSBA convention when she received an alert from the NCSBA announcing its separation.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” Merrell told The Epoch Times. “I definitely did not see this coming. I’ve had a couple of board members who had been requesting and sending emails to the NCSBA asking if it were going to withdraw our membership from the NSBA, and they (the NSBA) had asked for our feedback, and then, on the way to the convention, we saw this message.”

Merrell said nothing was mentioned at the convention about the NCSBA’s departure from the national board.

According to Parents Defending Education (PDE), an organization that investigates indoctrination in schools, as of Nov. 9, 26 states have distanced themselves from the NSBA after the letter.

The NSBA, which represents more than 90,000 school board members and 14,000 public school districts in the United States, had written a letter to President Joe Biden asking that the parents who have protested COVID-19 restrictions and the teaching of critical race theory in public schools be regarded as domestic terrorists that should be investigated by agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.

This led to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Oct. 4 memorandum to the FBI directing the agency to work with U.S. attorneys to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.”

“The September 29 letter from NSBA to President Biden, in both its inflammatory language and the request for federal agencies to intervene in our communities, was just one in a series of lapses in governance,” said NCSBA President Amy Churchill in a press release. “NCSBA shares its members’ concerns about safety at school board meetings. As a proponent of local control, NCSBA believes that local law enforcement is in the best position to respond to those concerns and seek outside assistance if necessary.”

On Oct. 22, the NSBA issued an apology, stating that “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

State Response

The PDE requested statements from 47 states affiliated with the NSBA, and reported that the Alabama Association of School Boards (AASB) said it “has withheld its dues to join the NSBA for the current membership year, though AASB’s bylaws require it to be an NSBA member.”

According to the PDE, the AASB said it would be voting in December on changes to its bylaws that would give the AASB board of directors authority to determine its membership with the NSBA.

The PDE said it received no response from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MSCA), prompting the PDE to file a public record request for emails “to get a sense of their position.”

“It turns out that Glenn Koocher, executive director of the MSCA, was so happy about the letter that he put it in an email to NSBA CEO Chip Slaven,” the PDE said.

“We in MASC are all very happy that the NSBA has reached out to the FBI and, based on local coverage, has been identified as a key agent for generating federal support,” Koocher said in the email.

South Carolina

Thirty-six Republican state representatives asked that the South Carolina School Boards Association (SCSBA) end its NSBA membership.

“NSBA has labeled parents as domestic terrorists, with no evidence to justify that term,” the House Republicans wrote in a letter to the SCSBA executive director. “The reality is that parents and stakeholders are beyond frustrated being ignored and left out of decisions with their child. The NSBA is detached from reality and fails to recognize that Americans are angered by what is happening in our classrooms.”

SCSBA Executive Director Scott Price told The Epoch Times that the decision to separate from the NSBA was “aimed at protecting our membership from fallout from NSBA’s September 29 letter.”

“Any pressure that SCSBA was under stemmed primarily from our desire to keep this from impacting our members (local school boards),” Price said.

The NSBA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

GQ Pan and Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/north-carolina-school-boards-association-withdraws-from-the-national-school-boards-association_4099135.html

Writing for RealClearPolitics, Professor Andrew E. Busch of Claremont McKenna College finds that “one reason for Americans’ increasing political discomfort—the feeling that politics has become a blood sport in which traditional protections and safety nets are no longer present—is that the nonpartisan insulation protecting the rule of law and consent of the governed has frayed. There is a broad pattern of offices that require political neutrality being converted into offices that are genuinely partisan in their operation.”

What, I wonder, was his first clue?

Understandably, Busch concentrates on the most recent examples of this creeping partisanship in places that are supposed to be non-partisan, since the Biden administration represents a quantum leap in the politicization of everything, but especially of the law.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, he writes, “has already used the Justice Department to advance his own party’s version of the stolen-election story by suing to stop state legislative efforts to enhance ballot security, then threatening to sic the FBI on parents who complain to their local school boards about left-wing political indoctrination in the classroom.”

By contrast, Busch praises the non-partisan spirit of former Attorney General William Barr for resigning rather than supporting President Trump’s demand for a thorough investigation of election irregularities.

But then he can’t help noticing the concerted legal efforts by Democratic Attorneys General in swing states last year to change voting laws in order to create those irregularities—and, with them, the opportunities for cheating.

You can see why Busch wants to be even-handed and pretend that the partisan takeover of supposedly non-partisan institutions is coming from both sides, but he can’t quite obscure the fact that the overwhelmingly majority of these efforts have been made—and successfully made, thanks to the compliant media—on behalf of Democrats.

There is nothing like a Republican equivalent, for example, of the partisan takeover of the FBI under James Comey. “The course of the Russia investigation,” writes Busch, “complete with the obvious biases of Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, implied that the bureau had picked sides.”

Implied? Can there be any doubt about which side these and others in the bureau were on? Or which side Robert Mueller and his team were on? If there were any doubt about it, it must have been dispelled by the recent revelations, and indictments, coming out of the John Durham investigation.

Busch might also have mentioned the disparity in federal law-enforcement’s treatment of the Capitol rioters of Jan. 6 as constituting an “insurrection” and its almost complete lack of interest in the hundreds of riots, the billions of dollars in property damage and the many deaths that took place around the country last summer.

You don’t have to be particularly good at spotting “implied” biases to tell that the difference between the two was that the first was in support of Donald Trump, the others opposed to him. And, violently, opposed to the police. But why would we expect the federal police, ostensibly there to uphold the rule of law, to care about that?

Also, as I pointed out last summer in these pages, General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the nation’s armed forces, traditionally our number one non-partisan institution, along with the judiciary, testified before Congress on behalf of the Democratic talking point by asserting on the basis of zero evidence that the Capitol riot was motivated by “white rage.”

Milley is also charged with weeding out of the services those identified by the extreme left as members of the “extremist right.”

But the perspicacious could have picked up hints of the erosion of the “nonpartisan insulation” of key institutions long before 2016.

The politicization of the judiciary, I would argue, began at least as far back as 1987 when a certain Joseph R. Biden, newly appointed chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, put the kibosh on President Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court for transparently political reasons.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who once said of his fellow judges that “we don’t work as Democrats or Republicans,” has gone to heroic lengths to keep up the pretense of non-partisanship in the judiciary, but then he is also the man who, apparently without irony, once called the U.S. Senate  “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

The politicization of the armed services began even earlier. As the late Colin Powell cheerfully put it in 2007, presumably with reference to his own military career, which started in the Vietnam era, “Anybody who becomes a senior officer had better have some political instincts or you’re going to get ground up. We are a political nation. It is not a dirty word.”

What he meant to say, perhaps, was that it is only a dirty word when applied to constitutionally non-political institutions. Like the military.

I understand that he was talking about the internal politics that are inevitable in any large organization, but in the military, whose most senior officers are appointed by civilian (and political) authority, those politics are always bound up with the other kind.

Under President George W. Bush we learned, at least if we were paying attention, of the politicization of the CIA, which regularly briefed the media (anonymously, of course) against their ostensible commander-in-chief.

Under President Barack Obama we learned, even if we weren’t paying much attention, of the politicization of the Department of Justice and the IRS.

And, as everyone now knows, under President Donald Trump we learned of the politicization not only of the FBI and (again) the Justice Department but also of the State Department. All three, while ostensibly serving the President, were actually undermining him.

It should not be necessary to point out that all of these encroachments of the political onto officially non-political territory have been in one direction and one direction only—leftwards. It’s as if there were some law of political inertia analogous to Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”

Maybe this is what the progressives mean by saying that they are “on the right side of history,” If so, it means that the rest of us, who still treasure what we think is our right to be non-political, must be on the wrong side of history.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/americans-discomfort-non-political-offices-have-rushed-to-become-left-wing-partisans_4101401.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

A public school district in Northern California announced Wednesday it will not be enforcing the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for K–12 schools.

In a 5–0 vote, the governing board of the Calaveras Unified School District (CUSD) decided at a Tuesday meeting to not “enforce, support, or comply” with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mandate, which would require students at all public, public charter, and private schools to receive COVID-19 vaccines following full federal approval of the shots for their grade span.

The school board said in a message to the school community that the decision, which came during the meeting, applies to both students and employees, adding that it will further discuss and potentially make a decision on mask mandates and testing protocols at its next meeting scheduled for Nov. 23.

In an earlier statement, the CUSD said its board was aware of the possible repercussions the district may face as a result of rejecting the state mandate, including “possible liability exposure, funding loss, and other formal actions that can be taken against the district.”

“[Board members] understand there are strong perspectives and opinions on both sides of the issue,” the statement read. “They understand the Superintendent’s recommendation for mandate compliance based on these potential consequences, but they feel strong in their individual positions on this topic.”

CUSD serves about 5,300 students and includes five elementary schools, one middle school, and Calaveras County’s only two public high schools.

California became the first state in the nation to announce COVID-19 vaccine requirements for K–12 schools in October, when the pediatric vaccines were still pending a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Newsom said the mandate would take effect only when the vaccines receive full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in children.

“The state already requires that students are vaccinated against viruses that cause measles, mumps, and rubella,” Newsom said when he announced the mandate. “There’s no reason why we wouldn’t do the same for COVID-19.”

“Vaccines work. It’s why California leads the country in preventing school closures and has the lowest case rates,” said the Democratic governor, who survived his recall election fueled by his pandemic response. “We encourage other states to follow our lead to keep our kids safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

Despite mask mandates and other preventive measures the Newsom administration put in place, California’ COVID-19 infection rate has recently stopped dropping and started ticking up. As of Nov. 10, California remains one of the CDC’s red “high” level of virus transmission states, compared to yellow “moderate” level in Florida, where there is no state-issued mask or vaccination mandate.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/california-school-board-votes-to-not-support-enforce-or-comply-with-gov-newsoms-vaccine-mandate_4099663.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Despite student outrage, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California (USC) is refusing to take down a pro-police flag from his office.

James Moore, who directs the USC’s transportation engineering program, has been displaying a “Thin Blue Line” flag outside of his office door since August when the fall semester began, but has faced a complaint only recently from students who took issue with the flag’s alleged “racist origin,” according to student newspaper Daily Trojan.

“This is an inappropriate and unnecessary symbol to have on an office door where USC is, within the last year or two, trying to have a much broader diversity initiative and to be inclusive, especially in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) area,” one USC graduate student told the newspaper. The student said that he discovered the flag in October and reported the matter to the university’s office of equity and diversity.

Moore explained that he wants to add some diversity of thought to the USC campus by exposing students to a point of view they’re not usually exposed to.

“We are in an environment where there is a lot of homogenization of ideas, and diversity should include diversity of ideas,” the professor said in an interview with education news site The College Fix. “We are charging people very good money to teach them to think. I am just trying to deliver.”

The USC said Moore’s action falls within his freedom of expression and there is no rule that prevents him from hanging such a flag on the door of his own office.

“The university does not have a policy that limits the display of materials in spaces like this, though we are looking at whether it is needed,” a statement provided to the Daily Trojan reads.

This is not the first time Moore’s unpopular viewpoints upset the progressive members of the USC community. In September 2018, Moore responded to a campus-wide invitation to an event focused on believing survivors of alleged sexual assault, saying that “accusers sometimes lie.” Moore’s comment triggered a series of angry responses, including a student-led protest calling for his resignation.

“If some of them are annoyed by ideas that are opposed to theirs, well that’s just preparation for adult life,” Moore told Daily Trojan at that time regarding criticism of his remark.

Moore also expressed disagreement with USC’s policy proposals centered on racial equity in the wake of unrest sparked by George Floyd’s death, such as that faculty members undergo training to address their “unconscious biases.” He told USC President Carol Folt in a letter that the university has no business in correcting his thoughts and decision making.

“My mental and moral development are my own ongoing responsibility. The market for good ideas and sound thinking provides me with ample incentive to deliver both if I can,” Moore wrote in the June 2020 letter. “If I elect to try and improve my decisions via an assessment and awareness of my unconscious biases, this is my own affair, my own duty. I am not inclined to surrender to anyone my own role in deciding how I will decide.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/usc-professor-refuses-to-remove-thin-blue-line-flag-from-office-door-despite-student-complaint_4099401.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

NSBA leaders even altered the letter’s text to satisfy the Biden White House

Newly released internal emails reveal that the National School Boards Association coordinated with the White House and the Department of Justice before sending President Biden the notorious letter that compared concerned parents to domestic terrorists. Emails provided to Fox News show that NSBA had coordinated with the White House for weeks beforehand.

Viola Garcia, the NSBA president whom the Department of Education later named to a federal board, sent a memo to NSBA members on Oct. 11 (but dated Oct. 12), providing a timeline of the NSBA’s interaction with the White House ahead of the letter to Biden, which the NSBA sent on Sept. 29. 

Five days later, on Oct. 4, the DOJ issued a memo directing law enforcement to investigate threats to school boards. On Oct. 22, the NSBA issued an apology for the letter. 

LETTER CALLING PARENTS DOMESTIC TERRORISTS HAS ‘THROWN GASOLINE’ ON THE FIRE, PARENT ACTIVIST SAYS

“Concern over the current climate for school board members is also a top priority as disruptions at school board meetings grow and members face growing threats,” Garcia wrote at the time, according to the memo obtained by Parents Defending Education through a Freedom of Information Act request. “NSBA has been actively engaged with the White House, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, Surgeon General, and other federal agencies on pandemic related issues.”

(Oregon School Boards Association)

“In the September 14, 2021 meeting of the [NSBA Organization of State Association Executive Directors] liaison group, they were informed there had been a meeting with White House staff that morning and that NSBA was preparing to send a letter to the President. Subsequently, on September 17, 2021, the interim Executive Director emailed notice to the state association executive directors that indicated a letter requesting federal assistance would be sent.”

“In response to the letter sent by NSBA, on October 4, 2021 the Attorney General announced in a memorandum widely shared throughout the U.S. Department of Justice that he was ordering all U.S. Attorney Offices and local FBI offices to reach out to local and state law enforcement officials to coordinate efforts on this problem within 30 days of the memorandum,” Garcia also noted.

This statement appears to contradict Attorney General Merrick Garland’s testimony to Congress on Oct. 27. When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Garland if he had “second thoughts” following NSBA’s apology for the letter, he said that the DOJ memorandum did not rely upon the letter.

Sen. Tom Cotton calls for Merrick Garland’s resignation over schools memo

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., calls out the attorney general for his memo directing the FBI to look into reports of threats against school board members and has harsh words for teachers union leader Randi Weingarten.

“The letter that was subsequently sent does not change the association’s concern of violence or threats of violence. It alters some of the language in the letter … that we did not rely on and is not contained in my own memorandum,” Garland said.

MAJORITY OF VIRGINIA PARENTS WANT A SAY IN THEIR KIDS’ EDUCATION, FOX NEWS POLL FINDS

Neither Garland nor the DOJ responded to Fox News’ request for comment by press time. 

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appears before the House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Oct. 21. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS)

Another email exclusively sent to Fox News revealed that NSBA had discussed the issues with the White House “for weeks” before sending the letter. Garcia and Chip Slaven, an NSBA executive, altered the text of the letter to satisfy the curiosity of White House staff.

“In talks over the last several weeks with White House staff, they requested additional information on some of the specific threats, so the letter also details many of the incidents that have been occurring,” Slaven wrote in a September 29, 2021, email to the NSBA board of directors.

Parents have spoken up at school board meetings around the country, protesting harsh COVID-19 mitigation measures like school closures, and raising their voices against transgender policies, critical race theory, and other issues. The letter warned that these parents pose a violent threat to school boards, even going so far as comparing them to domestic terrorists.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The fallout from the letter has proven particularly severe. Ohio’s, Wisconsin‘s, and the school boards of nine other states have reportedly terminated their relationships with NSBA, and parent’s education rights organizations have grown in prominence since the letter. The letter may have also emboldened concerned parents who supported Republican Glenn Youngkin, who won the Virginia governor’s race earlier this month.

Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin gestures during a [Loudoun Parents Matter Rally] campaign event in Leesburg, Virginia, on Nov. 1, 2021. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nsba-coordinated-with-white-house-doj-before-sending-notorious-domestic-terrorists-letter-emails

For Transgender in a nutshell, see Monty Python’s “Life of Brian,” and look for Eric Idle’s “Stan (AKA Loretta)” character. [US Patriot]

Legendary actor John Cleese has cancelled a talk he was scheduled to give at Cambridge University due to what he called “woke rules” that resulted in another speaker getting blacklisted for doing an impression of Adolf Hitler.

Deadline reported that Cleese’s decision came a week after Cambridge University paper Varsity reported that Union speaker Andrew Graham-Dixon used a German accent to impersonate Hitler, using racial slurs in a videotaped meeting. Graham-Dixon said the act “was meant to be satirical and was not an endorsement of Hitler or anti-Semitism, claiming he had intended to ‘underline the utterly evil nature of Hitler and his regime,’” Deadline reported.

As the outlet noted, Cleese “famously impersonated Hitler while in character as Basil Fawlty in the 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers.”

Cleese confirmed in a tweet that he had canceled his speech at Cambridge.

“I was looking forward to talking to students at the Cambridge Union this Friday, but I hear that someone there has been blacklisted for doing an impersonation of Hitler,” Cleese wrote. “I regret that I did the same on a Monty Python show, so I am blacklisting myself before someone else does.”

“I apologise to anyone at Cambridge who was hoping to talk with me, but perhaps some of you can find a venue where woke rules do not apply,” Cleese added.

Cleese had planned to give the talk with the Channel 4 crew behind his new documentary series “Cancel Me” in attendance. The new series involves Cleese interviewing victims of cancel culture.

Cleese has been an outspoken opponent of cancel culture and those who have apologized when woke mobs came for them. In April, Cleese mocked Hank Azaria for apologizing over his portrayal of Apu on the Simpsons.

“Not wishing to be left behind by Hank Azaria, I would like to apologise on behalf on (sic) Monty Python for all the many sketches we did making fun of white English people,” Cleese tweeted. “We’re sorry for any distress we may have caused.”

The tweet came after Azaria said he left the role of Apu after some people told him they were offended by the character.

“I was speaking at my son’s school, I was talking to the Indian kids there because I wanted to get their input,” Azaria said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “A 17-year-old … he’s never even seen The Simpsons but knows what Apu means. It’s practically a slur at this point. All he knows is that is how his people are thought of and represented to many people in this country.”

“I really do apologize,” Azaria added. “It’s important. I apologize for my part in creating that and participating in that. Part of me feels like I need to go to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologize. And sometimes I do.”

In July of last year, Cleese took on cancel culture directly, saying it “misunderstands the main purposes of life, which is to have fun.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-cleese-cancels-talk-at-cambridge-university-cites-woke-rules?itm_source=parsely-api&utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email

Parents who never imagined running for office battled to win seats on local school boards last week; they won some, but lost many. Their fiercest opponents were the teachers unions.

The media portrayed these school board races as culture wars, but more than anything they were struggles by parents to wrest control of the boards from self-serving unions. For decades, the unions have maintained a tight grip on who gets elected. No wonder school district decisions—about budgets, masking, COVID closures, curriculum, and teacher contracts—protect teachers first. Never mind what’s best for kids.

That needs to change. Albuquerque, New Mexico, winning candidate Courtney Jackson told a local newspaper, “the board of education should be the kids’ union,” not a puppet of the teachers union. Jackson decided to run after watching the board discuss when to end lockdowns. The discussion focused entirely on what teachers wanted, never addressing the kids’ needs. “Their interests were not brought up once,” she said.

In Guilford, Connecticut, a small seacoast town, the Guilford Education Association, representing teachers, ran the show. In a questionnaire for school board candidates, the union’s No. 1 question asked candidates to pledge support for “collective bargaining rights.” Question two asked candidates to guarantee unions will be included in all discussions of the schools’ policies and funding. Question three asked candidates to promise to “oppose all proposals that would censor teachers from teaching about inclusion, diversity, and equity.” What about the kids?

All five Guilford candidates who gave the “correct” answers won the union’s backing and prevailed on election night. Their slogan was “Protect Guilford Schools,” but their true goal was “Protect the Teachers Union.” One of the winners boasted of coming from “a long line of educators,” while another promised, “I will listen to our teachers, administrators, and superintendent and respect that they act always in the best interest of our students and schools.”

Nearly everywhere, teachers unions use money and manpower to turn out voters. Challengers need to do the same. The three Albuquerque school board candidates who defeated the union slate went to the local chamber of commerce, other small business groups, and Republican party allies for alternate sources of money.

When the results were in, the president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation predicted “a new dynamic on the board,” with some members actually disagreeing with the school district’s employees. Imagine that.

In Colorado’s cities, including Denver and Steamboat Springs, union slates won handily. But in Douglas County, Aurora County, and Greeley Evans School District 6, challengers outspent the union and broke its monopoly on school board seats.

After union-backed candidates were defeated in Douglas County, Kevin DiPasquale, president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, predicted big changes. In the past, teachers could just assume the school board “had their backs.”

In Montclair, New Jersey, the mayor, Sean Spiller, serves as president of the state’s largest teachers union but also appointed the school board—a blatant conflict of interest. The board negotiates the teachers’ contract. Last Tuesday, the town voted 70 percent in favor of replacing mayoral control with an elected board.

That’s an improvement, but electing the board won’t guarantee students become the priority. In New Jersey, the teachers union wields enormous electoral power with the support of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

Although school board elections are often officially labelled nonpartisan, that’s intentionally misleading. In Tennessee and Florida, Republican state lawmakers are pushing legislation to discard the nonpartisan label so voters can see these elections for what they are.

Last week’s elections were just the beginning. Many school districts will elect board members sometime in the spring, instead of on Election Day. That’s by design to keep the public in the dark that an election is even happening, and to discourage turnout.

Parents and other concerned citizens have roughly half a year to gird for these upcoming contests. For anyone who has a child in public school, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/parents-go-after-union-stranglehold-on-school-boards_4099153.html

Some people spreading information about COVID-19 contrary to what is deemed “acceptable” by Big Pharma are criminals, according to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

They’re professionals, he says, that “circulate, on purpose, misinformation” regarding mRNA vaccine shots.

“They’re not [just] bad people, they’re criminals. Because they literally have costed millions of lives,” Bourla said Tuesday in a telecast with Frederick Kempe, CEO of the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank.

.@pfizer CEO Albert Bourla: People who share “misinformation” on vaccines’ efficacy are “criminals.”

“They’re not bad people. They’re criminals because they have literally cost millions of lives.” pic.twitter.com/VjIXs5rQCg

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 9, 2021

Election Integrity Group: Most 2020 Ballot Images from 56 Georgia Counties Have Been Destroyed

So who are these professionals? Dissenting researchers? Doctors treating patients with the Drugs Which Must Not Be Named? Nurses losing their jobs because of the vaccine mandate?

What about the president of the United States, Joe Biden? He’s a professional. Is he a criminal? If we follow Bourla’s reasoning, he would be.

Is Pfizer’s CEO out of line calling professionals who are critics of COVID vaccines “criminals”?

Several times throughout the course of the pandemic, Biden has said things to large audiences which contradict White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“You’re not gonna get COVID if you get these vaccinations,” Biden said.

However, Fauci has told the American people, “It is important to remember…that infections after vaccination are expected.”

BIDEN: “You’re not gonna get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”

FAUCI: “Infections after vaccination are expected.”

Both of them can’t be right. Who is getting “flagged” for “misinformation?” pic.twitter.com/LypqsQ14AT

— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) July 22, 2021

Now, in all likelihood, Bourla would not say Joe Biden is a criminal. He would say Uncle Joe’s just wrong. And Bourla said a lot of people are refusing to take the COVID vaccine for reasons which are largely not nefarious.

They’re afraid, according to Bourla.

Parents Outraged, Frightened After Children Given Faulty Dose of COVID Vaccine

“There are two groups of people, alright, there are the people that — they are vaccinated [and] there are the people that are skeptical about the vaccination, and both of them are afraid,” he said.

“Those that are getting the vaccine, they are afraid of the disease and they believe, because people are not getting vaccinated, [the unvaccinated] are increasing the risk to them, they are increasing the exposure, so they are mad with them because they don’t get the vaccine.”

“Those that don’t get the vaccine, they’re afraid of the vaccine and they are mad with the people that are oppressing them to get it,” Bourla continued.

“Those I understand — they are very good people, they are decent people, but they have a fear and I understand it and they don’t want to take chances.”

“But there is a very small part of professionals, which they circulate, on purpose, misinformation so that they will mislead those that they have concerned. Those who are criminals. They’re not [just] bad people, they’re criminals. Because they literally have costed millions of lives.”

Millions of lives. Right.

There are plenty of top-notch medical researchers and professionals with legitimate questions about the catastrophic events of what is now going on two years, including the lockdowns, the mask mandates and, of course, the quickly developed vaccine.

But Bourla says professional dissenting “criminals” are profiting by pushing “conspiracy theory.”

“People want [to] make money — some of them — by playing with the emotions of these people [and] are creating a whole conspiracy theory and they are trying to basically to benefit and profit from this fear of the people. And this is who are the criminals.”

Would that include America’s Frontline Doctors who have pushed back and the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration who also are dissenting?

These are not criminals. They are individuals following the time-honored practices of science which, to sum it up as a sort of meme, is: “Here’s my hypothesis — change my mind.”

That’s the scientific practice of what’s called falsification.

That seems to have been missing in this entire COVID scenario. And it’s been evident in the unmitigated propaganda: the constant public service announcements, the droning announcements in stores, even the proclamations of electric highway signs.

And the censorship. Where there’s censorship, there is no science.

Besides being censored, people are losing their jobs, being subjected to unhealthy physical and mental health situations and suffering from divided friendships and families because of poor decision-making on the part of makers of public policy.

It’s due to a sickness that can be truly dangerous mainly to people who are aged and who have other physical problems, such as obesity, diabetes and more.

Maybe those at most risk can receive some reduction in the chance of getting COVID-19 from an experimental vaccine presented without legal liability on the part of companies like Bourla’s.

But confidence in a company like Pfizer is not increased when its CEO describes professionals who disagree as criminals.

For the second time in less than a week, parents are demanding answers after their children were given the incorrect of COVID vaccine.

The first incident, however, merely involved two children under 10 in Texas who were given adult doses of the vaccine on Oct. 31. This time, it involves over 100 children ages 5-to-11 in Loudoun County, Virginia, who were given diluted versions of the vaccine meant for those 12 and older, according to WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.

Despite the larger number of children who were affected this time, this still isn’t national news — in part because it doesn’t fit the narrative that the Biden administration is effectively rolling out a vaccine for children, and possibly because Google is trying to starve publications that don’t parrot the approved line when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines. (We’re trying to fight this at The Western Journal — and you can help us in our fight by subscribing here.)

On Wednesday, the Virginia Department of Health confirmed that Ted Pharmacy in Aldie, Virginia administered a diluted version of the inoculation formulated for 12- to 17-year-olds to 112 children younger than 11 on Nov. 3 and 4, according to Washington’s WTTG-TV.

On Nov. 5, state and federal authorities stepped in and ordered the pharmacy to stop administering the shots. The Virginia Department of Health later collected the remainder of the vaccines at the pharmacy.

Election Integrity Group: Most 2020 Ballot Images from 56 Georgia Counties Have Been Destroyed

Dasha Hermosilla’s daughter, 7-year-old Gryffin Fahle, is one of those affected. She told WRC that Gryffin was given a diluted dose of the vaccine for older kids, which comes with a purple cap. The dose for 5-11 comes with an orange cap to differentiate it.

The pharmacist said this was allowed. All it took was a Google search for Hermosilla to confirm that it wasn’t.

“Nothing says that you can change a purple to an orange,” Hermosilla told the station. “I had this pit in my stomach that, like, ‘what did they just do to my daughter?’”

She also criticized how the pharmacy treated parents after it happened.

Would you vaccinate your children against COVID-19?

“The way they have dealt with individuals is really, like, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal,’” Hermosilla said. “There are dozens and dozens of families out there that don’t even know that this is an issue.”

She wasn’t alone.

“Another mom sent News4 a screengrab of a Facebook conversation in which the pharmacy admitted to the mistake and apologized for the ‘inconvenience,’” WRC reported.

BREAKING NEWS: 112 children were administered the WRONG DOSE of COVID-19 vaccine at Ted Pharmacy in Loudoun County https://t.co/V1iq68N1yh

— 7News DC (@7NewsDC) November 11, 2021

If Pfizer CEO Means What He Says, Joe Biden Should Be Locked Up as a Misinformation ‘Criminal’

According to WRRC, the Loudoun County Health Department released an alert after the station reported Hermosilla’s case, acknowledging the incident.

The letter stated that the formulation used resulted in the affected children receiving “a dose of COVID19 vaccine that is potentially lower than recommended.”

“The pharmacy who administered the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination to your child last week has been removed from both state and federal COVID-19 vaccination programs,” said Loudoun County Department of Health Director David Goodfriend said in the letter.

Virginia’s Board of Pharmacy, meanwhile, said it is “not at liberty to confirm nor deny whether an investigation into a possible violation of a law or regulation is or is not underway.”

“Should an investigation reveal there is probable cause to believe a law or regulation was broken an Informal Conference or a Formal Hearing before the board may be held for consideration of possible disciplinary action,” the board said in a statement.

“The Board’s findings of fact and resulting actions are contained in a Board Order that becomes a matter of public record available online on the Board of Pharmacy’s website under License Lookup and Recent Case Decisions.”

It’s unclear what this means for the children. As the county health department’s letter stated, the pharmacy’s action meant the children likely received a lower dose than they ordinarily would have.

Even still, Goodfriend’s letter said parents should first contact their pediatrician “for clinical judgment and decision making to determine the best course of action for each patient.”

The letter also urged parents to watch for the traditional COVID-19 vaccine side effects, such as fever, chills, fatigue or pain or swelling at the site of the injection.

“If any additional or more serious side effects occur or are prolonged, contact your primary care provider or pediatrician,” the letter warned.

Parents were then told to log the event in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance says parents can either restart the vaccine series in 21 days or wait for a second dose with the orange cap as scheduled.

In this case, the danger seems less pronounced than it was during a similar incident on Oct. 31 in Garland, Texas, where a 6- and a 7-year-old were both given adult doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine before a child formulation had even been approved.

“They asked us our kids’ ages, and so we told them 4 and 6, and they said ‘the 6-year-old can obviously get it if you’d like to go ahead and do that,’” Julian Gonzalez, father of the 6-year-old, told KTVT-TV in Fort Worth.

“Going off their confidence and what we read [on the form], we were all for it,” he said.

The next day, however, they were contacted by the Garland Health Department, alerting them that the vaccine hadn’t been approved for their son but that they’d received adult doses.

A dose for ages 5-to-11 is 10 micrograms while an adult version contains 30 micrograms. Gonzalez’s son experienced some side effects, while the mother of the 7-year-old said he was fine.

The case in Virginia is worrying for a different reason: It involved 112 children getting faulty vaccinations over a two-day period. And people wonder why some parents are skeptical about vaccinations?

As of Nov. 10, CDC data show only 595 individuals under the age of 17 have officially died of COVID-19 in the U.S. — and this says nothing about whether or not they had pre-existing risk factors. While every death is tragic, of course, 595 is a minuscule fraction of the more than 780,000 deaths attributed to the coronavirus in the country.

When looking at the cost-benefit analysis of vaccinating a child, that’s something that has to be taken into consideration.

Incidents like the one in Virginia may be rare. However, when it’s questionable whether the vaccination is necessary for this age group at all, it’s enough to give a mother or father pause.

A group of Virginia parents say they have secured enough signatures on petitions to remove the school board chair they say has endangered their children and placed woke politics ahead of education.

The action is the latest round in a battle between parents in the Loudoun County School District and the board.

Fight for Schools filed the recall documents in Loudoun County Circuit Court on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

The filing said board President Brenda Sheridan broke open meetings laws by using closed Facebook groups as a way to discuss school business without the public being aware. Sheridan is also accused of violating the First Amendment rights of parents by limiting public comment at meetings.

The board chair is also accused of mishandling a sexual assault case in the schools in which a student who was accused of a sexual assault was shunted from one school to another, where he has been accused of another sexual assault.

Most 2020 Ballot Images from 56 Georgia Counties Have Been Destroyed

Parents and protesters, including self-described Democrats, gather to oppose the Loudoun County School Board tonight: pic.twitter.com/pBBa4hs1Y1

— Elle Reynolds (@_etreynolds) October 26, 2021

“Today, we just filed 1200 signatures to remove the chairwoman of Loudoun County School Board, Brenda Sheridan,” Fight for Schools Executive Director Ian Prior told Fox News. “We decided that for the chairwoman and the vice-chairwoman, the buck stops with them, that we were going to draft new petitions … We were able to finish those off in 13 days.”

The group says it also has petitions to remove Board Vice-Chair Atoosa Reaser and board members Ian Serotkin and Denise Corbo, all with more than enough signatures to meet the legal requirement to trigger a recall. In Virginia, elected officials can be recalled if a petition to remove them receives a number of signatures equal to 10 percent of the votes cast in the previous election, Fox reported.

Have school boards become rubber stamps for liberals?

The intent to recall all of the board members was expressed during a public comment period at Tuesday’s board meeting.

“By the way, Denise, Brenda, Ian, Atoosa, we are well over 100% of required signatures for the petitions,” Megan Jenkins said, according to Fox News. “So I’m not going to encourage any of you to resign because when you are recalled and removed from office, it will be much more satisfying. See you in court.”

“I have the privilege of telling you that we are finished collecting signatures for your removal,” parent Jessica Mendez said during the meeting.

“I used to think that there was no point in speaking at these meetings,” Mendez said. “There was no point in trying to have a voice because you never seem to listen, anyway. But I had it all wrong. It wasn’t you who needed to hear our voices. It was all those parents, grandparents and neighbors listening at home, horrified at your actions or inactions. They were the ones who needed to hear us, and they were the ones who sign petitions, see you in court.”

Prior said the petitions required a monumental effort.

No Evidence That Closing the Schools Reduced the Spread of COVID-19

“For six months, Fight for Schools has been out collecting signatures in the heat, the cold, the rain and even hail,” Prior said on Monday. “To get 20,000 signatures during that time is a testament to the dedication of our volunteers and an engaged community that wants to see a change on its school board.”

“We are looking forward to the next steps and replacing school board members that are political servants with non-partisan public servants who will put the focus back on excellence in education,” he said.

Sheridan issued a statement in reply.

“My election was a mandate from those who came to the polls — three times — to choose me as their representative. Tuesday’s filing is the result of a fraction of those citizens signing a petition, whether they voted or not,” she said, according to the Post.

But Prior said change is necessary.

“From violating open meetings law to ignoring the school board’s code of conduct to neglecting to keep our children safe, all for her activist causes, Sheridan has been nothing short of a disaster,” Prior said, the Post reported.

“Let this serve as a message to the rest of the board and Superintendent Ziegler,” he said. “We’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere.”

Procedurally, if recall cases go to trial, a judge or a jury rules on the removal of a board member. The board then gets 45 days to appoint an interim replacement and 15 days to schedule a special election, according to Fox.

In addition to issues over student safety, parents have objected to the district embracing Critical Race Theory, as explained Tuesday night by parent Erin Dunbar, who accused the board of using tax dollars to teach “critical theory of the Marxist philosophy,” Fox reported.

“You have activist teachers using to indoctrinate their kids who are at the mercy of their authority,” she said. “That is child abuse. And you have no right to brainwash children into believing that their skin color determines their purpose.”

Senator Cortez Masto has close relationship with nonprofit that says ‘young people need to know’ critical race theory

Nevada Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto praised a liberal nonprofit that has called to defund police and teach critical race theory in public schools.

On Nov. 3, Cortez Masto said she was “so glad” to speak at Battle Born Progress’s annual fundraising event, lauding the liberal group as “incredible advocates for our state.” The self-described “public relations firm of the progressive community in Nevada,” Battle Born Progress has taken a number of radical positions on hot-button issues, including the movements to defund police and teach critical race theory in K-12 classrooms.

In July 2020, Battle Born Progress Called to “save money by defunding” the state’s police presence in schools, adding that “police officers in schools help foster the school-to-prison pipeline.” Roughly one year later, executive director Annette Magnus argued during a Battle Born Progress virtual event that Nevada “should be teaching” critical race theory in public schools because “young people need to know this information.”

Cortez Masto’s close relationship with Battle Born Progress—less than one week after her fundraising appearance, the Democrat held a tele-townhall with the group—could become a political liability as she enters a difficult reelection battle in 2022. According to a 2020 Las Vegas Review-Journal poll, nearly two-thirds of Nevadans oppose cuts to police department funding. In June, meanwhile, a Reno-based school district ditched its plan to enact a “social justice curriculum” for elementary school students amid backlash from local parents.

Neither Cortez Masto nor Battle Born Progress returned requests for comment.

Battle Born Progress advocated critical race theory during an August virtual conversation with No Racism in Schools cofounders Akiko Cooks and Jshauntae Marshall. After Cooks noted she “absolutely” supports critical race theory but is not “yet” focused on including the framework in public school curricula, Magnus said she “like[s] the ‘yet’ part, because that’s exactly right.”

“I mean, eventually, yes, we should be teaching that,” Magnus said. “Young people need to know this information. I would love to have known that information.”

Cooks, whom Magnus said she is “very close” with, is also tied to the defund police movement. According to her LinkedIn, she works as an organizer for Mass Liberation Project NV, which aims to “abolish the criminal legal system as we know it.” The group in 2020 disseminated petitions to defund the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and has likened policing to “terrorism.” 

In addition to Battle Born Progress’s call to teach critical race theory in public schools, the group has attacked Nevada parents who oppose the controversial curriculum. In August, the group tweeted a photo of a mother who spoke against critical race theory at her local school board meeting, calling the woman “another ‘Karen'” who holds “conspiracy-laden beliefs.”

Battle Born Progress has received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a George Soros-funded group that funnels millions of dollars to liberal causes but does not disclose its donors. According to the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s IRS filings, the group gave nearly $6,000 to Battle Born Progress in 2017 and an additional $90,000 to the Nevada nonprofit in 2018.

Cortez Masto has condemned so-called dark money groups like the Sixteen Thirty Fund. In a September press release, she stressed the need to “put power back in the hands of the public” by “getting dark money out of politics.”

Cortez Masto joined the Senate in 2017 after she defeated Republican challenger Joe Heck by less than 3 points. A slew of Republicans have entered the race to unseat her in 2022, including former state attorney general Adam Laxalt and Army veteran Sam Brown.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/incredible-advocates-nevada-dem-praises-group-that-called-to-defund-police-teach-crt/

COLORADO SPRINGS — They admitted it. Now they think they can get away with it.

Three weeks ago, I reported to you on the appalling case of sixth grade student Rylee M., who was pressured by teachers at Chinook Trail Middle School to seal her mask to her face with thick blue painter’s tape. Another schoolmate came forward to describe how those teachers would patrol their classrooms for violators while twirling the tape rolls around their wrists.

Skeptics accused the children of manufacturing the story and of voluntarily putting the tape on themselves. Others, including the Colorado Springs Police Department school resource officer stationed at Chinook Trail, baselessly dismissed the incident as a prank committed by a teacher in “jest.” Gaslighters in the school district and their supporters misleadingly denied that teachers applied the tape directly to victims’ faces — something Rylee and her mom never alleged. By mischaracterizing the actual allegations, public school propagandists deflected attention from the brazen abuse of authority exercised by educators who issued de facto ultimatums that children comply with their directive to use the tape handed to them. Or else.

On Monday, after the district’s three-week-long internal investigation, Chinook Trail Middle School principal Tom Andrew confirmed in a meeting with Rylee’s mom, Stephanie M., that teachers had indeed “directed students to affix a mask to their face with tape” — a cruel measure that only sadists, not sane public health advocates, could embrace. Moreover, the unfazed principal blandly acknowledged, “Yes,” the “students thought they were compelled to follow through” on the teachers’ “requests” (to choke themselves off).

“In short,” the principal told Rylee’s mom in his sing-song scripted voice, “district policy and procedures were broken,” “trust and respect” were “broken,” and “poor decisions” were made. Now, the principal told Stephanie M., it’s time “to move this forward” after “admitting our mistake” and “trust” the administration. The abusers will remain in the classroom with vulnerable 11- and 12-year-olds; any disciplinary measures will be kept “confidential”; and brave Rylee, who has been harassed over the incident, will now be enrolled in online school to keep her safe from the mask bondage bullies.

“It was never our intent,” the anonymous group of “Team 642” tape torturers wrote in a crappy little note to parents handed out Monday night at a meeting closed to the public, “to cause anxiety, fear, confusion, or physical or emotional harm.” Never mind that these petty tyrants wrought all of the above and will be shielded from any transparent punishment. “We look forward to returning to normal and continuing along this learning journey with your family,” the teachers (none of whom have reached out to Rylee or her mom directly) cheerily chirped.

Elitist privilege means always pretending to say you’re sorry without ever suffering consequences for wrongdoing.

Darcy Schoening, parent advocate and town of Monument Board of Trustees member, agrees. She believes “the teachers responsible for this behavior should be fired. Their names should be released. Parents have the right to know WHO is abusing their kids. Protecting the teachers’ identities and disciplinary actions is a slap in the face to parents.”

“It’s sickening to me,” Stephanie lamented as the principal echoed the educrats’ desire to get back out of the public spotlight and “resume normalcy.” She’s not going to let it drop. “I am not going to be quiet,” the work-at-home mom of three young daughters told KVOR-AM 740 radio talk show host Richard Randall this week. “Plenty of parents are willing to step up for their kids.” No doubt about it. The Election Day revolt against K-12 control freaks just demonstrated that parents across the country from Loudoun County, Virginia, to El Paso County, Colorado, to Los Angeles County, California, will not let COVID-era abnormalities hijack their children’s health and freedom.

With Justice Department goons and local cops treating parents protesting at school board meetings like criminals, we know we can’t rely on law enforcement to side with sovereignty-defenders over the State. Remember: Stephanie M. immediately contacted the Colorado Springs Police Department to report the abuse as soon as her daughter told her what happened. They blew her off. Instead, according to creepy public record files I obtained last week, at least three members of the CSPD’s Metropolitan Vice, Narcotics and Intelligence Division/Strategic Information Center passed around my Twitter and Gab posts about Rylee’s case to several CSPD command staff and other individuals whose names were redacted. A CSPD “Intelligence Unit” detective made note of my “2 million (yes, million) Twitter followers” (so what?), and a sergeant falsely claimed I was aware of protest plans at the school (I heard no such information until after administrators shut down the school on Oct. 25 amid an international maelstrom of public scrutiny and press coverage).

It’s getting impossible to “back the blue” when they stand down as antifa and Black Lives Matter attack you for defending law and order, kneel before the altar of George Floyd, enforce junk-science-based COVID-19 tyranny lining the pockets of Big Pharma and Big Government, and spy on you for standing up for parents fighting educational malpractice. Teach your children well.

https://rightandfree.com/news/2021/11/09/our-children-are-not-chattel?utm_campaign=AmEagles&utm_source=AmEagles-20211111&utm_medium=email

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has vetoed a legislative package that would have granted tax credits for contributions to scholarship programs that could help low-income students to have a private school education they may not have otherwise been able to afford.

Collectively, the Senate Bills 687 and 688 and House Bills 5404 and 5405 would create Michigan Opportunity Scholarship Accounts that could be used by families to cover education expenses, including those related to non-public schools, courses, and programs. Michigan residents and businesses who donate to the scholarship accounts would receive a state tax credit equal to the value of their contribution.

Once established, the scholarships would prioritize students most in need, including those receiving free and reduced lunch, those living in foster care, and those with disabilities.

Whitmer, a Democrat, promised last month to veto the Republican-sponsored school choice bills, which the Democratic minority in the state legislature argue would have steered public money into private education.

“Simply put, our schools cannot provide the high-quality education our kids deserve if we turn private schools into tax shelters for the wealthy,” Whitmer said in her Nov. 5 veto message. “The movement to privatize education in this state has been a catastrophic failure, causing Michigan students to fall behind the rest of the nation.”

The Republicans decried the veto, saying that their plan was meant to help students get better educational outcomes after more than a year of school closures and the resulting stress, anxiety, and learning loss.

“Instead of empowering parents to give students—especially students with special needs or from underserved communities—better opportunities to learn and succeed, the governor has again rejected progress for the same old, tired, and failing approach to education, because she is beholden to the teachers’ unions and their generous donations,” said Republican state Sen. Lana Theis, who chairs the Michigan Senate Education Committee, said in a statement following the veto.

The Michigan Education Association (MEA), the state’s largest public sector union representing about 120,000 public school employees, applauded Whitmer’s decision. MEA President Paula Herbart criticized the Republican scholarship plan, characterizing it as an “unconstitutional school voucher.”

Herbart claimed that the plan would only benefit wealthy donors like Betsy DeVos, a Michigan-born billionaire whose tenure as the U.S. Secretary of Education was marked by increased federal support for charter and private schools.

“Michigan voters have resoundingly opposed attempts by mega-donors like Betsy DeVos to enact voucher schemes in our state,” Herbart said. “We value our neighborhood public schools and know that funneling money to private schools does nothing to provide equal opportunity for Michigan students.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer-vetoes-republican-sponsored-scholarship-plan_4095381.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

If a new study coming out of Japan is to be believed, many countries across the world may need to change their strategies for combatting COVID-19.

A team of researchers from Harvard University in Massachusetts, Gakushuin University in Tokyo and Shizuoka University in Shizuoka compared Japanese municipalities that closed down their school systems in spring of 2020 to those that did not, according to study published in Nature Medicine.

The team of researchers conducted the study by examining 847 municipalities in Tokyo and Osaka.

As it turns out, the shutdown of schools did not prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic, their study found.

In fact, the number of COVID cases per 100,000 people between the two groups of municipalities remained exactly the same, regardless of whether or not schools were shut down.

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“We do not find any evidence that school closures in Japan reduced the spread of COVID-19,” one of the study’s authors wrote.

“Our null results suggest that policies on school closures should be re-examined given the potential negative consequences for children and parents.”

“School closures reduce children’s learning opportunities, negatively affect their physical and mental development and make it difficult for their parents to leave for work in the daytime,” co-researcher Dr Kentaro Fukumoto said, according to the Daily Mail UK.

“The central government should carefully consider whether to ask schools to close in the future.”

Should school shutdowns still be used to combat COVID?

This news may come as a shock to many public health experts around the world.

This includes those in the U.S., many of whom have repeatedly called for school shutdowns since the COVID pandemic began.

The Center for Disease Control even went as far as to create a guide for “considerations for school closures” as a method for stemming the spread of COVID.

While the plan did advise against closing schools “early in the spread of a disease,” it did maintain that “waiting to enact school closures until at the correct time in the epidemic” would prove helpful in slowing COVID-19’s spread.

NIAID Director Anthony Fauci has also supported the closure of schools in the past.

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In July of 2020, Fauci said that “It’s been shown that children from 10 to 19 can transmit the virus to adults as well as adults can,” according to CNBC.

While acknowledging that keeping students at home can create “negative consequences,” Fauci further said that schools should nevertheless close down at certain times.

“When you get to the real hot zones, I think you’re going to have to take a really good look and examine the advisability or not,” Fauci said.

“What likely would happen is that you would have parents that don’t want to send their children to school or you’re going to have teachers that not going to want to be there.”

Some Pennsylvania students just got a lesson in how discrimination really operates in American public schools.

A middle school used a video broadcast during school announcements to invite kids interested in flying drones to attend a weekend camp.

There was just one catch — and parents of white students probably weren’t happy to hear about it.

As National Review reported Monday, the Upper Merion Area Middle School’s announcement for the camp, which took place on Saturday, opened with a woman brimming with enthusiasm, followed by video of drone activities pretty much guaranteed to pique the interest of any adolescent.

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Besides it being limited in size — there were only 24 slots available — the program was extremely limited in who its target audience was:

“Here’s the thing,” the woman said. “It is a Black Student Union-sponsored event, so, in order to participate, 1: You must have a signed permission slip to claim your seat.

“Secondly, you must be black, African-American, a person of color in order to participate.”

Check out the video here. The drone stuff is undeniably cool. The uncool, undeniably ugly part comes at the end:

There it is — an actual example of literal “systemic racism” that progressives claim, ludicrously, is everywhere. Except in this case, it’s openly biased against white people.

But Upper Merion Area School District Superintendent John Toleno evidently doesn’t see a problem.

In an email to The Western Journal on Tuesday (a collection of bubbly boilerplate that was apparently being sent for PR purposes to any news organization that raised questions), Toleno noted that the program was simply part of the district’s “ongoing efforts over the past 8 years to give opportunities to groups who are underrepresented in STEM fields with a primary focus on students of Color and students who identify as female. This has been a national focus in the STEM community.”

The modern education mindset is on full display in those few words: jargon like “groups” who are underrepresented”; the obsequious capitalization of the “c” in “Color”; being careful not to say “girls,” just “students who identify as female.”

Walking on eggshells at the same time must be a tough way to live.

Controversial AZ School District Cooperated with Police to Gather Intel on Dissenting Parents: Report

A couple of comments on Facebook communicated the reactions of what were doubtless many, many more people who heard about the video:

One commenter wrote: “This is wrong on so many levels and not at all what I want for my children, and that’s why I’m homeschooling now and by the grace of God, my children will never step foot in another public school — they undo and undermine everything my husband and I teach them.

“Maybe white people should take to the streets and start burning communities down. 😏 I jest, obviously. But this is blatant racism on its face.”

Do you think this is racism against white people?

There aren’t too many other ways to see it. (Liberals love to claim racism over differences of opinion. Don’t expect them to see it where it actually is.)

In his email, Superintendent Toleno stressed that the school district has drone programs open to all students throughout the year. He even noted that this particular program would have accepted white students if not enough black students were interested.

“Please be further advised that if we didn’t get to our 24 student limit with African American students as stipulated in the grant we wrote and were awarded, we would have absolutely opened this up to our entire middle school student population to fill the 24 student seats,” he wrote.

How very gracious. (The email didn’t come out and say whether all of the slots were filled at the event, but it sounds like they were.)

It’s worth noting here that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Upper Merion area, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, is about 72 percent white, about 19 percent Asian, and 6 percent black.

Assuming the school district’s demographics are similar, the overwhelming majority of students who watched that really cool video about drones were told right to their faces that there was a party going on and they weren’t invited.

As ugly as it sounds, there’s no other way to put it: They’re not of the favored race these days.

That isn’t the United States as most Americans of any race understand the country. It’s not the United States the civil rights movement of the 1960s fought for, with Martin Luther King Jr.’s dreams about content of character being more important than skin color.

And it’s not what parents want for their children, as evidenced by the critical role of public education in last week’s election results in Virginia.

But it’s the American public school system today.

Class dismissed.

“How do you think these schoolchildren have felt for the last year?”

Speaking in Zephyrhills on Monday, Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis took aim at both Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers labor union in America, as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci. He pointed out that Weingarten, who had favored keeping schools closed through much of the pandemic, had been found maskless recently, but protested she did so because it was too hard to communicate while wearing a mask. DeSantis fired, “Well, how do you think these schoolchildren have felt for the last year?”

Regarding Fauci, DeSantis asserted, “I do think just the lack of just leveling with the public, I think it’s been very detrimental … I think you’re gonna see people have really, really serious misgivings the next time St. Fauci comes down the pike and says something.”

Speaking of mask mandates for schoolchildren, DeSantis said, “I think the smiles matter, and particularly the young kids. You will actually have school districts that will say, ‘We are relieving mask mandate for high schoolers but we’re keeping them on those elementary.” First of all, I don’t think you should have a mask mandate, period, but the elementary are the ones that need to be able to see the interaction more than anything, cause they’re learning to speak and read and do all that stuff.”

“And it’s absolutely critical. And don’t tell me it doesn’t make a difference,” he continued. DeSantis referenced Weingarten, who had said, “We took them off as people were having a hard time hearing us,” snapping, “Heck, this head of the teachers union who tried to keep the schools closed all last year; she was found maskless, and she said, I took it off because it was too hard to understand each other wearing the mask.”

He fired, “Well, how do you think these schoolchildren have felt for the last year?”

Requirements as common in STEM as in social science

Nearly a fifth of university jobs require diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements that press applicants to express and expound upon their commitment to diversity, according to a new study from the American Enterprise Institute.

The study, from the Educational Freedom Institute’s James D. Paul and the American Enterprise Institute’s Robert Maranto, is the first to empirically estimate the prevalence of diversity statements in higher education, which they say may narrow the research questions that academics feel comfortable addressing.

Using a representative sample of 999 job postings, the study found that 19 percent require a diversity statement; that the statements are significantly more common at elite schools than non-elite ones; and that jobs in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—are just as likely as jobs in the social sciences to require a diversity statement from applicants.

DEI statements have grown more routine in recent years, especially on the West Coast. Between 2018 and 2019, most schools in the University of California system mandated DEI statements for all faculty applicants, with a system-wide task force recommending that the requirements be standardized across UC schools. Such requirements soon made their way east: In 2020, a job posting at the University of Denver asked applicants “how you plan to integrate DEI into your role as a faculty member, including new or existing initiatives you would like to be involved with.”

The last finding surprised Paul, the director of research at the Educational Freedom Institute, who told the Washington Free Beacon it was a testament to the sway of DEI ideology in academia. He and Maranto had hypothesized that the more empirical a field, the less likely it would be to use “soft” criteria when evaluating applicants. But when they actually ran the data, that hypothesis collapsed.

“The most surprising finding of the paper is that these requirements are not just limited to the softer humanities,” Paul said. “I would have expected these statements to be less common in math and engineering, but they’re not.”

This swift march has not gone unopposed. City Journal‘s Heather Mac Donald has blasted DEI requirements as an assault on meritocracy, quipping that Einstein’s groundbreaking research had nothing to do with diversity, equity, or inclusion. Paul agreed, saying it was “concerning” that DEI has begun to “take precedence over merit.” The study notes that at the University of California, Berkeley, more than 76 percent of applicants to a life sciences post were eliminated on the basis of their DEI statements.

Others, like Maranto’s American Enterprise Institute colleague Max Eden, see the requirements as ideological litmus tests, loyalty oaths to a “woke” worldview in which equity matters more than education and free thought.

“Universities are conditioning employment on fealty to an ideology that is inherently hostile to the university’s traditional mission,” Eden said. “If colleges started asking prospective faculty about their patriotism or commitment to American ideals, you can bet there would be a mass outcry about academic freedom.”

Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), echoed Eden’s concern.

“The idea that someone looked at the current crop of professors and said, ‘There’s just not enough political homogeneity’ is remarkable to me,” Lukianoff told the Free Beacon. “I fear that higher education has become a conformity engine.”

That conformity, Paul and Maranto note, “may also result in a narrowing of research questions, with negative consequences for intellectual pursuits.”

The study, which reviewed postings on three popular online job boards, suggests that DEI litmus tests are not aberrational. They are now common at both public and private universities—especially the elite ones, which the study found were 18 percent more likely than non-elite schools to require diversity statements. The authors defined an “elite school” as any college or university in the top 100 of the 2020 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Paul speculated that the market power of such schools lets them be extra ideological. If elite universities get more job applicants, he reasoned, they may “be able to prioritize this ideology without sacrificing anything in quality. They’re in a position to pick and choose, so why not choose someone who toes the line?”

The study emphasizes that the 19 percent statistic is likely a low-ball estimate. For one thing, Paul and Maranto only used the terms “diverse” or “diversity” to identify jobs that require DEI statements; postings that eschewed that language in favor of “equity” or “antiracism” weren’t counted under their coding scheme.

For another, the study only looked at job postings, not job applications. If some applications required diversity statements that weren’t advertised in public postings, Paul and Maranto’s results could be a significant undercount.

“I strongly suspect that if we went through the steps of applying for positions there’d be more jobs with DEI statements,” Paul said. “Our estimate is conservative.”

Komi German, a research fellow at FIRE, argued that the proliferation of DEI statements could ultimately backfire, constraining not just ideological but racial diversity.

“Hiring committees may actually emphasize the political and ideological components of DEI statements to make them more palatable to politically progressive white scholars,” German said. “After all, being white won’t count against them if they can pledge strongly enough their allegiance to DEI.”

https://freebeacon.com/campus/study-diversity-statements-required-for-one-fifth-of-academic-jobs/

Systematic oppression sure pays well.

According to a report from Fox News on Thursday, the University of North Carolina Wilmington paid “The 1619 Project” writer and impresario Nikole Hannah-Jones over $16,500 to speak at a 55-minute event at the school this week.

“Nikole Hannah-Jones in Conversation,” which took place Tuesday, was part of the school’s “Writers Week.” On the university’s events page, it’s described as the “Department of Creative Writing’s annual celebration of the written word” where “authors, editors, students, faculty and the community join in discussions of literary craft and current issues of the profession.”

Hannah-Jones was the keynote speaker for the week. It shouldn’t be surprising that the rest of the speakers also seemed to skew left; of the other participants I knew, New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino and “The House on Mango Street” author Sandra Cisneros were both identifiably liberal. Not that I expected for there to be a panel discussion of Ayn Rand’s work, but it gives one a general idea of what “Writers Week” is about.

It’s Hannah-Jones’ contract for the event that’s drawing some attention, however — particularly the reported $16,570 price tag.

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The university also reportedly paid for her airfare, meals, transportation, and accommodations for two nights.

Just got to Wilmington, NC, for @UNCWilmington Writers Week, checked into my room, and I have to say, y’all know how to treat a gal. 😍 🥃 pic.twitter.com/rqDfwn4uWT

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 2, 2021

“The event consisted of a 40-minute speech from Hannah-Jones and a 15-minute Q&A period,” Fox News reported.

Is critical race theory an issue in America’s schools?

“The contract lists a 15-minute meet and greet with students, but is crossed out in the signed version of the contract.”

This, in other words, puts the event at 55 minutes — over a whopping $300 a minute for someone to peddle the bible of critical race theory, a left-wing school of thought that states America and Western societies are founded on systemic racism.

Because, make no mistake, that’s what Jones’ “1619 Project” is. In the introduction to the project, published in The New York Times, 1619 should be considered “the country’s very origin” because that’s when the first slaves arrived in America.

“Out of slavery — and the anti-black racism it required — grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, diet and popular music, the inequities of its public health and education, its astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, the example it sets for the world as a land of freedom and equality, its slang, its legal system and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that continue to plague it to this day,” the introduction said.

“The seeds of all that were planted long before our official birth date, in 1776, when the men known as our founders formally declared independence from Britain.”

Leftist Pundits Play the Race Card 19 Times in 2 Minutes to Explain Away GOP Blowout

Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize in 2o2o for her introductory essay to the project, although historians noted it was riddled with errors. Beyond the obvious lie of “reframing” our founding to 1619 for narrative reasons, several prominent historians publicly called out the Times and Jones for claims like the American Revolution was actually fought so Americans could keep their slaves.

“These errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing,’” read the December 2019 letter, signed by five prominent historians — including two Pulitzer Prize winners.

“They are matters of verifiable fact, which are the foundation of both honest scholarship and honest journalism. They suggest a displacement of historical understanding by ideology. Dismissal of objections on racial grounds — that they are the objections of only ‘white historians’ — has affirmed that displacement.”

But never mind that. This is all about the narrative. For Hannah-Jones, that narrative could be summed up best with this delightfully race-baiting quote she gave in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in 2019.

When asked if America could change its racial trajectory, Hannah-Jones said: “Whiteness cannot exist without blackness, so until white people are willing to give up whiteness, you will never see an end, really, to racism that is built on antiblackness, and I don’t have hope for that. It is really the oldest American value, and it continues to be so.”

It isn’t that she’s the only critical race theorist profiting handsomely off of oppression via a public university, mind you.

Last November, Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to Be an Antiracist,” was reportedly paid $20,000 by the University of Michigan for an hour-long virtual discussion via Zoom, according to Campus Reform.

That event, the University of Michigan said, was paid for out of the university’s general fund, which “comes from a variety of sources, including student tuition and fees, state appropriations and costs recovered from sponsored research activities.”

In the case of Hannah-Jones, UNC Wilmington told Fox News the money was covered by a “donor-supported fund managed by the department.”

Either way, it’s a nice hustle to have, being so oppressed. Of course, one is left to wonder how many economically oppressed students at these woke institutions might have benefited from that money being used on lowering tuition instead.

An Indianapolis-based public school educator and education journalist has gone viral on social media after he pushed back on the narrative that critical race theory (CRT) isn’t being taught in schools, warning concerned parents to not be deceived and to “keep looking” for its presence.

“When we tell you that our schools aren’t teaching critical race theory, that it’s nowhere in our standards, that’s misdirection,” Tony Kinnett said Tuesday in a video he shared to Twitter. He explained that he works as a science coach and administrator at Indianapolis Public Schools, Indiana’s largest school district that serves about 23,000 students.

“I’m in dozens of classrooms a week, so I see exactly what we’re teaching our students,” Kinnett said, noting that while the schools “don’t have the quotes and theories as state standards,” the teachers are incorporating the concepts of CRT into their teaching of a variety of subjects.

“We tell our teachers to treat students differently based on color; we tell our students that every problem is a result of ‘white men’ and that ‘Everything Western Civilization built is racist,’ ‘Capitalism is a tool of white supremacy,’” he continued. “Those are straight out of Kimberle Crenshaw’s main points verbatim in ‘Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement.’ This is in math, history, science, English, the arts, and it’s not slowing down.”

In June 2020, amid the nationwide unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd, the IPS adopted a racial equity resolution (pdf) to identify and correct practices and policies that may perpetuate racism, which is defined as “a white supremacy system” in which those considered white “oppress” those who are not. It also partly attributed the student achievement gaps to the district’s history of “privileging the prejudice of white parents over the interests of black and brown students.”

“If students of color have lower reading scores, it’s because of inequity,” Kinnett asserted. “Therefore, we take from the white students and give to the colored students. That’s Richard Delgado, straight out of ‘CRT: An Introduction.’”

“Parents, when we tell you critical race theory isn’t taught in our schools, we’re lying, keep looking,” he said at the end of the video.

Kinnett posted along the video screenshots of an email, which appears to show the IPS instructing school principals to tell parents and community members that CRT is not taught in their schools. He also posted slides that are allegedly used in the ISP, including one that explains some of the tenets of CRT.

Kinnett’s call to action comes as controversies around K–12 education, including the teaching of CRT and COVID-19 restrictions on campus, took center stage in many of the state- and local-level elections across the country. In Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Republican Glenn Youngkin, running on a “Parents Matter” platform, defeated former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe who said parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach. In Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and other blue states, school board seats are claimed by candidates who oppose the Marxist ideological indoctrination and support parents’ right to make medical decisions for their kids.

The Indianapolis Public Schools didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

New allegations come to light after explosive bathroom rape case

Virginia’s Loudoun County school district is being rocked by sexual misconduct allegations, with three cases surfacing in recent days.

Loudoun County police on Thursday charged high school counselor Ann Barrett, who allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with an underage student from 2013 to 2015. Loudoun County Public Schools placed Barrett on leave in May after the case surfaced. The counselor turned herself in and was later released on bond.

Police are also investigating a boy at Harmony Middle School who allegedly groped male classmates last week in a hallway.

And on Tuesday, the Daily Mail reported that the 15-year-old “gender-fluid” high schooler who last month was found guilty of raping a classmate in a school bathroom sent nude photos of himself to a girl when he was in the fifth grade. The girl’s parents decided not to seek charges against the boy as long as the school district separated him from their daughter.

Sex crimes in Loudoun County Public Schools gained national attention last month when the Daily Wire reported on that 15-year-old’s two sexual assault cases. In May, the student raped a female peer in a bathroom. District superintendent Scott Ziegler claimed he was not aware of any sexual assault allegations during a June school board meeting, but internal emails showed that he knew of the rape the day it occurred. The perpetrator was transferred to another district high school while investigators processed DNA evidence against him. Last month, he allegedly sexually assaulted another student in a classroom at that high school.

Sexual assaults and other incidents in schools have driven concerns among parents that their children’s safety is being jeopardized by school officials who play politics, Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, told the Washington Free Beacon.

“I think there’s a real sense among parents right now that districts are neglecting basic things like student safety in favor of advancing a political agenda,” Neily said. “And you don’t have to have a letter by your name to be upset by that. It’s a really bad look for people, and voters are unhappy.”

Education issues turned out Virginia voters for Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, who on Tuesday defeated Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin campaigned on greater parental involvement in public education, and McAuliffe tumbled in the polls late in the race after a gaffe during a debate in which he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” The Republican won by a 2-point margin, just one year after President Joe Biden took the state by 10 points.

Students from at least 20 Loudoun County high schools staged a walkout last week to protest the district’s handling of sexual assault cases. More than 2,500 students participated, the Washington Post reported, and some students in nearby Arlington Public Schools participated in solidarity.

Neily said it should not be the responsibility of students to hold school officials accountable for their safety.

“It shouldn’t be incumbent on students to flag this,” Neily said. “What are the priorities of the Loudoun County School Board? What are you spending your time and finite resources on? Because if it’s not keeping children safe, people need to be held accountable.”

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/sex-crime-allegations-rock-loudoun-county-schools/

As the Gateway Pundit points out in a new report, children are actually at a higher risk for dying from drowning, the flu, or from car accidents than they do from contracting the coronavirus. Kids aren’t even forced to take the flu shot, but here we have Pfizer and the FDA, along with other government agencies trying their best to force this vaccine on kids.
In fact, when you look at the data, more kids have been shot this year in Chicago than have died from COVID across the United States.

However, Pfizer sees an opportunity to put more green in their pockets by targeting this massive demographic of potential test subjects (that’s what they are, make no mistake about it) so they are going all in with this new ad campaign.

https://dudepac.com/articles/watch-pfizer-ad-tells-kids-they-ll-get-superpowers-from-covid-jab

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill Thursday to prohibit the federal government from requiring COVID-19 vaccines for children.

Cruz introduced the bill as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

“Parents should have the right to decide what is best for their children in consultation with their family doctor,” Cruz said in a news release.

“My view on the COVID-19 vaccine has remained clear: no mandates of any kind.”

NEW: Sen. Cruz Introduces Bill To Block The Federal Government And Public Schools From Mandating Covid-19 Vaccines For Kidshttps://t.co/nt9bd14m3D

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) November 4, 2021

Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Is Worse Than We Thought: Look How He’s Punishing Unvaxxed Employees

Cruz noted President Joe Biden has repeatedly ignored the medical privacy rights and personal liberties of Americans when it comes to vaccine mandates.

The senator said his goal is to keep the government out of decisions related to a child’s health.

“President Biden and his administration have repeatedly ignored medical privacy rights and personal liberty by pushing unlawful and burdensome vaccine mandates on American businesses, and now they are preparing to push a mandate on kids by pressuring parents — all without taking into account relative risk or the benefits of natural immunity,” Cruz said.

Should kids be protected from COVID-19 vaccine mandates?

“I am proud to introduce this legislation today to ensure President Biden and his administration stay out of decisions related to a child’s health — decisions best left to parents.”

Cruz’s bill will prohibit “the federal government and any recipient of federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and/or the CDC at the state, local, Tribal, or territorial level from requiring any individual aged 18 or younger from requiring a COVID-19 vaccine.”

As a result, school districts would not be able to impose a vaccine mandate for students under 18 without losing Title IV, Part A and Title II, Part A funding.

Under the bill, parental consent would be required for the vaccination of a minor using any COVID vaccine that is fully approved or authorized for emergency use.

On Tuesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky endorsed the recommendation from the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for children 5 to 11 years old to be vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech pediatric vaccine.

DeSantis Pledges Immediate Action Against Biden’s Vaccine Mandate: ‘The Rule’s Going Down’

“CDC now expands vaccine recommendations to about 28 million children in the United States in this age group and allows providers to begin vaccinating them as soon as possible,” the CDC’s statement said.

The statement also noted the effectiveness of the vaccine in clinical trials.

“Vaccination, along with other preventative measures, can protect children from COVID-19 using the safe and effective vaccines already recommended for use in adolescents and adults in the United States. Similar to what was seen in adult vaccine trials, vaccination was nearly 91 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 among children aged 5-11 years,” the statement said.

“In clinical trials, vaccine side effects were mild, self-limiting, and similar to those seen in adults and with other vaccines recommended for children. The most common side effect was a sore arm.”

“Together, with science leading the charge, we have taken another important step forward in our nation’s fight against the virus that causes COVID-19,” Walensky said. “We know millions of parents are eager to get their children vaccinated and with this decision, we now have recommended that about 28 million children receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

“As a mom, I encourage parents with questions to talk to their pediatrician, school nurse or local pharmacist to learn more about the vaccine and the importance of getting their children vaccinated.”

Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds and North Carolina Republican Rep. Ted Budd sent a letter to the Biden administration and House Democrats blasting the party’s plans to reduce funds for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, calling the proposal “a slap in the face” to the black community.

The letter comes as Democrats have proposed an updated Build Back Better spending bill that would reduce HBCU funding but reportedly keeps projects like a $200 million park in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s California district.

“As Democrats remain in disarray and their multi-trillion-dollar socialist boondoggle continues to be massively unpopular to the American people, it is disappointing to see the administration choose socialist pet projects over funding for America’s HBCUs,” Donalds said.

“Any proposed plan to scrap funding to HBCUs in favor of progressive wishlists like a $200 million Pelosi Park, free healthcare and college for illegal immigrants, and billions to monitor Americans’ bank accounts is a slap in the face to the Black community,” Donalds tweeted.

Any proposed plan to scrap funding to HBCUs in favor of progressive wishlists like a $200 million Pelosi Park, free healthcare and college for illegal immigrants, and billions to monitor Americans’ bank accounts is a slap in the face to the Black community. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/fzzWYYXqAZ

— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) November 4, 2021

Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Is Worse Than We Thought: Look How He’s Punishing Unvaxxed Employees

Budd, who joined Donalds in the letter, called the newly revised bill “a slap in the face.”

“As a congressman who has represented and fought for North Carolina’s HBCUs throughout my career, the fact that the Biden White House is reportedly considering paying for their radical agenda by decreasing funding for these institutions is a slap in the face,” Budd said.

Thank you to my colleague from the Tar Heel State, @RepTedBudd, for supporting my letter and funding HBCUs in America. 2/2

Letter here: https://t.co/SZ4M0UAzAf

— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) November 4, 2021

“After years of progress under the Trump administration, I would hope that President Biden can put politics aside and continue robust funding for America’s HBCUs so that every student in America has the opportunity to reach their full potential,” he added.

President Biden has failed the American people.

The best way we can defeat the crises now facing our country is to defeat the Democrats’ Socialist Spending Spree. pic.twitter.com/EMaXuHqJLi

— Congressman Ted Budd (@RepTedBudd) November 3, 2021

Last week, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member and Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso sent a letter to Presidio Trust chair Lynne Benioff related to the issue.

The Presidio Trust oversees the national park project that has been dubbed Pelosi Park after being included in the Democrats’ massive spending plan.

No One Is Sure Who Won the Latino Vote in Virginia, But It’s Not Looking Good for Democrats

The letter requested information about the park’s plan for financial self-sufficiency.

“The Presidio Trust Act states that the Presidio of San Francisco must be financially self-sufficient and should not receive funding from the American taxpayer,” Barrasso wrote, according to Fox News.

“The Presidio Trust’s website further confirms this by stating that the park is managed ‘at no cost to the taxpayers,’” the letter added.

Should Congress pass the spending bill?

Fox News also reported Benioff and other Presidio Trust Act board members have served as major donors to Pelosi’s political campaigns.

Barrasso called it “part of their reckless tax and spending budget legislation.”

Minnesota has seen in the latest school board elections a number of wins by candidates opposing critical race theory and COVID-19 restrictions, including in areas that traditionally vote Democrats.

In Anoka-Hennepin, Minnesota’s largest school district serving some 38,000 students and 248,000 residents, Matt Audette won by a margin of over 30 percent. The only key issue on Audette’s campaign website is preventing the infiltration of CRT, which he said divides students based on their skin color and teaches that the most important aspect of their humanity is not their character, morality, or actions, but their race.

While CRT is not incorporated as part of the curriculum in Anoka-Hennepin schools, the district has partnered with the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center, an organization that promotes “anti-racism education” to analyze and address supposed “systemic racism” and inequity. “The school district did take a side, and they are siding with CRT,” Audette warned. “The use of this equity analysis in our schools will affect staff development, and it will eventually get into the classrooms.”

Instead of teaching “concepts of division and guilt” derived from CRT, Audette said he supports teaching about not only racism, but also achievements and successes in racial equality in the history of the United States. He also supports giving parents “complete access” to curriculum on demand.

A special one-year seat on the Alexandria School Board went to Maureen Eigen, who said in October that she opposes CRT because it “does not empower students of color” and “furthers segregation.”

“I don’t oppose CRT because of any political agenda. I oppose it because it’s not right,” she added.

In Lakeville, Cinta Schmitz narrowly won a special election for an open school board seat. A co-founder of local parental group “Informed Fully-Awake Parents,” Schmitz ran on a platform of allowing parents to make decisions for their kids when it comes to wearing masks and receiving COVID-19 vaccines.

“Keep divisive policies that teach racism and intolerance of people with different ethnic backgrounds or skin colors—whether it’s called CRT or any other equity-related term—out of our schools,” her campaign website reads.

The Minnesota wins could be suggesting a nationwide trend, too, according to the 1776 Project PAC, a political action group with the aim to combat CRT in K–12 education and help elect conservatives to school boards in the United States. The PAC reports that as of Wednesday, 44 of the 58 candidates it endorsed have either won or are leading in their school board races.

The 44 candidates backed by the PAC include 13 in Pennsylvania, with four of them sweeping seats in Perkiomen Valley School District, which serves the powerful Democratic bastion of Montgomery County. Also among them are 11 in Colorado, nine in Kansas, four in New Jersey, three in Virginia, and two each in Minnesota and Ohio.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/candidates-opposing-critical-race-theory-covid-19-mandates-win-minnesota-school-board-races_4086271.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-11-04-3&mktids=93c6962b66e6671462bf9516008cc848&est=GskglK226QK%2FwAESqrA9%2FSZ19OKvGe3O5ULm%2Bv3rVW9zxL3iK7YHQEP23q9U9%2Bx3Ug%3D%3D

TV stations and midsized papers would be eligible for funds

House Democrats have expanded a controversial proposal to subsidize local news outlets, offering in the latest version of their massive spending bill payroll tax credits to newspapers and TV broadcasters that employ up to 1,500 journalists.

The provision, included in a version of the Build Back Better Act released Wednesday, would give payroll tax credits of up to $12,500 for each employee at qualifying outlets. A previous version of the bill set the threshold to qualify for the subsidies at 750 employees. That version also did not propose subsidies for TV broadcasters.

Democrats last week stripped the newsroom subsidy from the bill but on Tuesday quietly added it back in. Democratic leaders revised the bill as Republicans and some moderate Democrats balked at the Build Back Better Act’s $3.5 trillion price tag. The Joint Committee on Taxation said the initial proposal would cost $1.3 billion over the next decade.

The changed version of the bill would allow some of the country’s largest news companies to qualify for the subsidies. The Philadelphia Inquirer, for example, has around 1,000 employees. It is not clear whether local newspapers owned by national publishing companies will qualify for the subsidies.

Republicans have come out against the proposed subsidy, calling it a politically motivated bail out for the Democrat-friendly industry. More than 80 percent of journalists said they were liberal or Democrats, according to one recent study.

“As the Democrats raise taxes and stoke inflation on working families, they’re carving out a special tax gift for their friends in the media, which is the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), a member of the House Ways & Means Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon in September. “Bureaucrats will obviously exploit this clause to ensure that Democrat-friendly outlets receive this present while conservative outlets are excluded. Anyone who believes this program will be administered in a politically neutral way should have his head examined.”

Democrats hope the subsidy will rescue local newspapers, which over the past two decades have seen subscriptions plummet amid a shift to web-based outlets. The number of newspaper employees fell by 57 percent from 2008 to 2020, and more than 1,800 newspapers have gone out of business since 2004.

The proposal comes as public trust in the media is at historic lows. Only 21 percent of Americans said they had “great confidence” in newspapers, according to a recent Gallup survey. Only Congress and big business had lower confidence ratings.

A group of Democratic senators first proposed the newspaper handout earlier this year in a bill called the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. The bill also called for a $250 tax credit to individuals who purchase newspaper subscriptions. The AFL-CIO in September endorsed the act in a letter to Democratic leaders, saying the bailout was needed in order to deal with a so-called information crisis.

https://freebeacon.com/media/house-dems-expand-eligibility-for-1-billion-in-local-news-subsidies/

Obviously, some books are better than others. This is something everyone should understand. A well-written book that tackles profound themes is far more likely to stand the test of time than a poorly written book that deals with superficial topics.

For example, Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” is a literary classic. That’s because it portrays the reality of slavery in the Antebellum South in a way that few other books have done. One cannot read that book without being deeply moved by the injustice of slavery.

However, “Huckleberry Finn” also contains inappropriate language, including a deeply offensive racial slur. As a result, some educators think that this book should not be held in school libraries or used in classrooms. That would be a mistake.

The problem with judging authors of the past by today’s cultural standards is that virtually no one measures up. This is why there is such a push among progressive educators to replace classical literature with contemporary books written by authors who espouse the “correct” ideology using the “correct” words—at least by today’s standards.

One can only wonder whether any authors from this century will measure up to whatever the prevailing ideology is several centuries from now.

At a recent meeting of the Waterloo Region District School Board, for example, the superintendent of human resources and equity announced that the board was in the process of reviewing every single book in school libraries. According to this superintendent, libraries haven’t been removing “inappropriate” books quickly enough.

“We recognize as our consciousness around equity, on oppression work and anti-racist work has grown, we recognize some of the texts in the collections that we have are not appropriate at this point,” stated the superintendent.

Not only is this verbiage typical of the gobbledygook often spouted at school board meetings, but it also reveals a profound lack of understanding of what education is all about. The notion that some books must be censored because they no longer conform to modern cultural standards is the antithesis of helping students become critical readers and thinkers.

It is only by exposing students to a wide variety of perspectives that we can help them become well-educated. The reality is that students are going to encounter ideas that challenge their core beliefs, whether we want them to or not. The only question is whether we want them to grapple with challenging concepts while in a classroom, or whether we think it’s better for them to just try to figure things out on their own after they complete school.

In addition, there is a world of a difference between culling library books due to space considerations and removing books because they might contain offensive material. Obviously, libraries have only a limited amount of space and it makes sense to remove books that no one is reading. On the other hand, it would be a travesty to remove excellent books such as “Huckleberry Finn” solely because they contain offensive language or reflect outdated cultural norms.

This does not mean that school libraries should be places where anything goes. Younger students should not have easy access to books with graphic sexual content, nor should school libraries be expected to stock books that promote blatantly false information (such as the works of prominent Holocaust deniers).

Unfortunately, censorship is becoming increasingly common in schools. For example, there has long been a concerted campaign to remove Dr. Seuss’s books from school libraries and classrooms because these books contain images and statements that are clearly inappropriate by modern-day standards.

However, a better approach would be to use these books as an opportunity for a teachable moment. Students should not only have access to classic literature but they should also be expected to study it and critique it. If students are going to grapple with challenging concepts, it’s best they do so by reading literature that has stood the test of time, and with the guidance of an effective teacher.

Hopefully, school trustees start pushing back against the woke ideology that undermines our kids’ education. There is a whole world of good literature for students to explore. Let’s not shelter our kids from reality.

Censorship is a poor way to promote literacy. If we want students to become good readers and thinkers, they need to read quality literature—including books that challenge their way of thinking.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/censorship-is-a-poor-way-to-promote-literacy_4086091.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Lawmakers say Virginia election results show parents want government out of schools

After education issues proved crucial to Republicans’ upset victories in Virginia, GOP lawmakers are turning their attention to Democratic plans to put the federal government in charge of education.

Buried in the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act is a plan to nationalize preschool programs and place them under the direction of the Education Department. The bill would require governors to submit learning standards for preschoolers for the secretary of education’s approval, which detractors say would further the Biden administration’s reach into public schools across the country.

According to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), the plan to increase federal oversight of preschools is a natural extension of Democrats’ “far-left socialist tax and spending spree.”

“It gives the Biden administration complete control to approve the early education standards being taught to three to four years olds,” Stefanik said at a roundtable Wednesday hosted by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.). She pointed to Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s (R.) successful appeal to parents to show that the Biden administration is “out of touch” with what Americans want in schools.

The Biden administration has repeatedly tried to extend federal control over public education. The Education Department in April proposed a rule to prioritize federal funding for education groups that help schools create lessons for elementary students based on “antiracism” and the New York Times‘s controversial 1619 Project. The Washington Free Beacon reported last month that the White House communicated with the National School Boards Association before the group petitioned the Justice Department to investigate concerned parents, whom it likened to “domestic terrorists.”

Stefanik also noted that Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in September refused to say whether parents were a “primary stakeholder” in their children’s education. The round table discussion was focused on the Biden administration’s attempts to keep parents out of children’s education. Also present were Republican representatives Virginia Foxx (N.C.), Julia Letlow (La.), and Burgess Owens (Utah).

Foxx slammed Democrats for focusing on radical social issues rather than falling test scores.

“If you have a federal takeover of education, what you’re going to have is drag queen story hour instead of a math one,” she said.

Some speakers at Wednesday’s event seemed buoyed by Youngkin’s win over Democratic nominee and former governor Terry McAuliffe, who drew ire for saying parents shouldn’t have a say in what their children learn.

“It’s just the clear optics that McAuliffe had Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation for Teachers union, at his final rally. And then he lost,” Ginny Gentiles, a school choice advocate said. “That is very clear evidence that that power was surpassed by the power of parents who want something different.”

Still, Parents Defending Education founder Nicki Neily warned that Youngkin’s victory will not stop Democrats from attempting to radicalize education.

“As we saw in the House and Senate Judiciary oversight hearings, I do not think they will be walking this back. We are seeing them double down,” Neily said.

None of Virginia’s Democratic representatives responded to a Free Beacon inquiry regarding their stance on the education items in the legislation.

The Build Back Better Act has hit repeated snags on the way to the House floor. Whether or not it comes to a vote, however, Stefanik says the reconciliation bill misses the mark.

“Today’s Democratic Party believes that the government knows better than parents when it comes to what is right for their kids,” Stefanik said. “We know that is not a message that resonates with America.”

https://freebeacon.com/campus/republicans-slam-biden-admin-efforts-to-nationalize-education/

A group of House Republicans are demanding answers from all 93 U.S. attorneys about what steps they have taken since the U.S. Department of Justice issued a memo directing them to potentially crack down on parental protests.

“We are continuing to investigate the troubling attempts by the Department of Justice and the White House to use the heavy hand of federal law enforcement to target concerned parents at local school board meetings and chill their protected First Amendment activity,” the Republicans said in a letter (pdf) sent on Monday to every U.S. attorney in all 50 states and territories.

The DOJ memo, which sparked much controversy since its Oct. 4 release, directs the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to “convene meetings” with state and local governments to address an alleged “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against teachers and school leaders.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland later revealed at a congressional hearing that his department issued the memo after communicating with the White House about a letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA). The NSBA letter characterized disruptions at school board meetings as “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crime,” and urged the Biden administration to invoke counter-terrorism laws to handle “angry mobs” of parents seeking to hold school officials accountable for teaching the Marxist-inspired critical race theory and for imposing COVID-19 restrictions on their children.

“Concerned parents voicing their strong opposition to controversial curricula at local schools are not domestic terrorists,” the Republicans said, adding that state and local authorities are already equipped with legal tools in case any parent actually crosses the line to commit a violent act.

Although the NSBA has apologized for the letter which the DOJ memo was based on, Garland has yet to rescind the order, meaning that his directives to U.S. Attorneys are still in effect, the Republicans said.

They further noted that during Garland’s testimony before the House, “he appeared to have no idea whether the U.S. Attorney meetings he ordered were actually taking place.”

Specifically, the Republicans demand that the U.S. attorneys provide a trove of information, including all documents and communications related to convening meetings in their respective judicial districts in response to Garland’s memo, and the names of all individual employees involved and organizations that were invited to or attended such meetings.

The U.S. attorneys will have until Nov. 15 to hand in those materials.

The letter was co-signed by 19 Republican members of Congress, including Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/house-republicans-demand-answers-from-all-93-us-attorneys-on-doj-memo-targeting-parents_4082477.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton spoke out Tuesday after Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to meet his deadline to provide answers regarding a memo to the FBI to investigate parents.

Cotton made the comments on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” with host Bill Hemmer.

“We’re going to demand answers,” Cotton said.

“[Garland] responded in just four intervening days from the time the National School Board Association sent him this outrageous letter accusing parents expressing their opinions at school board meetings of being domestic terrorists.”

“We’re going to demand answers.” @SenTomCotton comments after AG Merrick Garland misses Senate Republicans’ deadline to provide evidence to support his memo to investigate “threats” by parents against school boards @BillHemmer pic.twitter.com/uoipCfx6qH

— America’s Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) November 2, 2021

Biden Rambles for 37 Seconds, Apologizes for Repeating Himself, Loses Where He Is, Repeats Himself Again

“That’s a land speed record for the government, Bill. As you can probably imagine, these bureaucrats can’t restock the coffee in the pantry in four days, much less issue a nationwide directive siccing the feds on parents who are concerned about their kids’ education,” he added.

Cotton called the situation an obvious act of collusion.

“What happened here is obvious. The National School Board Association in concert with political hacks and the Department of Justice and the White House colluded in advance to issue this letter,” Cotton said.

Should Merrick Garland resign?

“The Department of Justice knew it was coming, and then they sicced the feds on parents. That’s why Merrick Garland should be resigning in disgrace.”

Cotton revealed that the National School Boards Association’s letter has now been repudiated.

“All he’s ever cited is the school board letter and unspecified news reports. I suspect the news reports are the ones cited in the School Boards letter, which the School Board Association has now repudiated, and which used such discredited examples as the parent in Loudoun County, who was angry when his doctor had been raped in a bathroom by a boy dressed as a girl,” Cotton noted.

“The school board then covered it up, because they didn’t want it to interfere with their transgender policy and Pride month. And even more amazingly, they transferred the perpetrator to another school where he assaulted another girl, all because it would have interfered with their woke agenda.”

The news also follows a letter last week sent by a group of 19 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to Garland demanding he rescind the memorandum sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation targeting parents at school board meetings.

House Repbulicans Launch Investigation Into National School Boards Association

The letter came after Garland appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last week.

“Your testimony before the Judiciary Committee last week concerning your October 4, 2021, memorandum targeting concerned parents at school board meetings was troubling,” the Republicans’ letter read.

#BREAKING: Judiciary Republicans demand Attorney General Garland withdraw school board memo.

RT if you think he should! pic.twitter.com/fo6q1MzGFP

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) October 25, 2021

“You acknowledged that you issued the unusual directive soon after reading about the thinly sourced letter sent by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to President Biden and not because of any specific request from state or local law enforcement,” they added.

The letter has not yet been rescinded.

Speaking at a Loudoun County Public Schools Board Meeting, a mother claimed, in a now-viral video, that her young daughter “somberly” asked her whether “she was born evil because she was a white person.”

The mother, whose identity is not clear, claimed in a one-minute speech: “My children now are in private school and are thriving. We had specifically moved into LCPS district because of its great reputation, yet we’ve been chased out of LCPS due to the swift and uncompromising political agenda of Superintendents Williams, Ziegler and the school board that have forced upon us. First it was in early Spring of 2020 when my six-year-old somberly came to me and asked me if she was born evil because she was a white person, something she learned in a history lesson at school.”

She added, “I wish I could return my kids to LCPS; private school’s expensive and I want my kids to be able to walk home from schools with their friends in their own community. I refuse to allow you to destroy our schools. They are not your schools; they are our schools. You all should be ashamed and you should have the moral courage to admit you are wrong and step down.”

The next speaker stated that she was concerned about her 14-year-old daughter, who would be “walking the halls of Broad Run High School, and unfortunately I don’t trust you with her care.” After referencing the case of the male student accused of sexually assaulting a female student at a Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County, she added, “I couldn’t but help notice the rules for this meeting; which state there will be no public access to bathrooms or other facilities inside the LCPS administrative offices. I guess you wanted to make absolutely certain that your restrooms were safe. Resign or be removed.”

Last week, a Virginia court ruled there was enough evidence to find that the teen accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student in a Loudoun County high school bathroom in May “engaged in non-consensual sex.” The Daily Wire reported on October 25:

The teen who appeared in court on Monday is standing trial on two separate cases: one involving a female student at Stone Bridge High School and a different incident in a classroom at Broad Run High School, both in the Loudoun County school district. The teen, who reportedly identifies as “gender fluid” is alleged to have assaulted Scott Smith’s daughter in a girl’s restroom at Stone Bridge while wearing a skirt. Despite indications that he had committed a serious crime, the boy was transferred.

A father of four young daughters spoke later saying, “Your policies are contributing to creating an unsafe environment in the schools. I do not want boys in my daughters’ bathrooms; I do not want boys on my daughters’ sports teams. How can I as a father, trust you as a superintendent and you as a school board to keep my daughter safe at school? Why would I want to entrust you with all of our daughters once they become school age? The answer is I can’t.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/loudoun-county-mom-to-school-board-my-6-year-old-daughter-asked-me-if-she-was-born-evil-because-she-was-a-white-person?itm_source=parsely-api&utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email

AN EPOCH TIMES PROJECT

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

— Declaration of Independence, 1776

The promise of the United States has always been about more than itself. In recognizing that all human beings are created equal, and in defending individual liberty, the United States has demonstrated that self-government is possible.

It has done so while making steady progress toward realizing its ideals so that anyone—regardless of what race they are, whether they are male or female, or where they come from—may pursue his or her idea of happiness.

This has unleashed energy and creativity. America has achieved unheard of levels of abundance and has been a fount of invention, enriching all of humanity.

America’s first settlers traveled here to gain the freedom to worship as they chose, and the United States has all along recognized the importance of “in God we trust.” It has protected spiritual life in order to give its citizens the conditions needed to flourish.

But forces inside and outside the United States now threaten to undo America’s promise.

With the American Promise initiative, The Epoch Times seeks to revitalize America’s principles and traditions while contributing to our nation’s quest to perfect itself.

Main Challenges To The American Promise

Marxist Ideology Challenges America

When KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov spoke of America’s decline, he spoke of a gradual “demoralization” of the nation driven by Marxist-Leninist ideology. While faced with this domestic ideological crisis, America is also facing the threat of China’s ruling Communist Party, which for decades has infiltrated nearly every aspect of our society, in the fields of education, entertainment, politics, and business, among others. Exposing these threats and educating people about them is now, we believe, a critical element of allowing America to realize its promise.

Traditions Under Assault

Our founders believed that our form of self-government was created for a moral people. Traditions have allowed nations to flourish for thousands of years. How do we return ourselves to a path of tradition and righteous principles?

Ideological Education

Our education system is a cornerstone of society. Over the years, however, the idea of striving for excellence has been challenged by post-modernist ideology. If we want our nation to flourish, our children should be well-educated, moral beings.

Constitutional Rights Challenged

Our education system is a cornerstone of society. Over the years, however, the idea of striving for excellence has been challenged by post-modernist ideology. If we want our nation to flourish, our children should be well-educated, moral beings.

https://subscribe.theepochtimes.com/p/?page=american-promise-v1

It has long been policy among Marxist progressives, socialists, and communists to undermine and destroy the family. The reason is obvious: When your goal is to vest all power in the government, any independent organization, such as the family, that retains the loyalty of citizens withholds power from the government. The commitments of families are to its members, not to the government, and Marxists think that this should be forbidden.

The self-proclaimed Marxist Black Lives Matter declared on its website, until it saw fit to scrub it off, that one of its objectives, along with disbanding the police, was destroying the two-parent family. Two-parent families are rare among African Americans, but in spite of poor academic performances, a high level of gang membership, a high level of incarceration, and a horrific rate of violent murder among African American youth, Black Lives Matter’s view is that one-parent families are a good plan. Black Lives Matter thinks that all will be fine (for them) once they take over.

Totalitarian societies such as National Socialist Germany, the Soviet Union, Soviet Eastern Europe, and communist China strived to undermine family loyalties, encouraging family members to inform on one another. Any anti-government sentiment, or even insufficiently strong pro-government sentiment, are grounds for re-education and punishment. Children are taught in government schools to vet their parents, and report them to the authorities if they’re not enthusiastically patriotic.

Kibbutzim in Israel were founded on the communist model. Everything was handled at the community level; nothing was left to the family unit: Cooking was communal, as was eating in the community cafeteria. Children resided and were reared in the community children’s house. But over the next decades, Kibbutzniks slowly had a change of heart, and mothers wanted more time with their children, first weekends, then full-time family apartments. Children, too, when they hit adolescence, were unwilling to reside and dress and undress in front of children of the opposite sex. Eventually unisex overalls were exchanged for clothes suitable for binary gender roles.

The logic of feminism, having incorporated Marxist class conflict for its identity politics, disparages men, marriage, motherhood, and families. What holds the greatest value for feminism is being able to kill unborn children. The feminist goal is not to support the government, but to take over the government, so that females can rule. The family stands in the way, so it has to go.

The two-parent family was the dominant form of the family, in all racial and ethnic groups, during the first half of the 20th century. But by the 21st century, the two-parent family was prominent only among Asian Americans and white Americans, with single-parent families a major percentage among Hispanics, Native Americans, and African Americans.

The two-parent family was also stripped down in both structure and function. In traditional societies in the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, and elsewhere, families were either multigenerational, compound, or extended, with a large number of relatives providing a wider family within which the two-parent family was nested. In the 21st century, two-parent families, not to mention single-parent families, were in many cases on their own. This is largely the result of the spatial and social mobility facilitated and even required by an advanced industrial and post-industrial economy.

The traditional family was the basic productive unit of society, usually engaged in agricultural production. Children provided the necessary manpower to get the labor-intensive, multiple tasks done. Think of an American or Canadian family farm at the turn of the 20th century. Male children also provided the strong arms of the family militia that would defend, if necessary, the members and property of the family. In the 21st century, child labor and military defense are no longer functions of the family.

What remains of the functions of family in the North American 21st century is the establishment of a domestic household and the rearing and socializing of children, usually a small number of children, as they’re financial liabilities rather than assets. Many people under the influence of feminism choose not to marry or to establish a household with others, but instead reside as individuals, which indicates a loss of family households. Many single women decide to have children on their own, forming single-parent households. But children are increasingly under the authority, not of their parents, but of civic and governmental authorities, stripping parents of the child-rearing function.

Educational bureaucrats, school boards, and teacher’s unions engage in collusion to take control of children’s lives, sidelining parents who are purposely kept in the dark regarding what students are taught and how students’ lives are managed. These bureaucrats and officials share the radical ideologies of the extremist faculties of education in which they were trained. Thus, we see bureaucrats, unions, and school boards pushing political ideologies on K-12 students. These include racist “critical race theory” that condemns little white children as privileged oppressors and little black children as victims who have no control over their lives. Schools also push children into “transitioning” from their birth sex to an imagined alternative sex, smoothing the way for puberty blocking hormone treatments and disfiguring plastic surgery, all hidden from children’s parents. Schools now specialize in systemic programs of child abuse.

These educational officials also collude with friendly state and federal administrations, such as the Biden administration, which concur with the radical ideologies and wish to advance them. The point of this collusion among officials and governments is to wrench all children away from their parents, making them dependent on the government, in which the school officials are low-level members. This is a major step in destroying the family and making the government all powerful, smoothing the way to despotic socialism and communism.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-progressives-are-trying-to-destroy-the-family_4076290.html

We’ve all heard the story about the panicked mom summoning superhuman strength to lift a car off her trapped child. I’m not sure if it’s ever really happened, but I am sure that any politician who interferes with a mother’s ability to raise her children with the values she sees fit is playing with fire. The Democrats are holding the matches. Of all the radical ideas they’ve been trying to foist on America, messing with parents on K-12 education may be the one that does them in.

Democratic politicians have repeatedly failed to stand up to the “woke” crowd, the activist radical left wing of their own party. Remember the open borders question in the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debates? The moderators asked all the candidates to raise their hand if they wanted to decriminalize illegal border crossings. Almost every Democratic candidate raised a hand. Joe Biden was elected and took apart the Trump-era border policies that were working, and we now have record high levels of illegal border crossings and record low levels of arrests. Polls now show that opening the southern border isn’t actually popular with regular Americans, and now it looks as if the Biden administration may be walking back its radical open-border position. Most prominently, the White House has announced plans to begin reinstating Trump’s successful “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Democratic politicians around the country got caught up in the “defund the police” movement as well. It’s hard to find something crazier than open borders, but getting rid of police is a new level. Are there police abuses? Do we need police reform? The answer is, of course, yes. But only a crazy person thinks getting rid of the police is a real answer. Now that crime is going up, Democratic politicians across the country are starting to reverse course.

These are clearly wacky ideas. It’s hard to imagine the thought process that caused leading Democrats to promote them. Regardless, Democratic politicians’ unwillingness to stand up to the insanity in their own party has clearly hurt them in the polls. Hispanic voters, independents and even suburban moms are getting turned off by the ideological, radical strain driving the agenda. It seems that even after scalding their hands on the hot stove, Democrats are coming back for more punishment. This time, they are helping the radicals screw around with children’s education.

The things happening in American schools are truly scary. Despite the left’s desire to keep it quiet and the liberal media’s desire to whitewash it, parents are catching on — and they are not happy.

On race, school districts around the country are normalizing racism. Corporate media will tell you otherwise. The New York Times asserted definitively just this morning that “conservatives have … falsely claimed” divisive critical race theory is bleeding into schools. You’ll find similar gaslighting at NBC, The Washington Post and several other left-wing media companies.

Meanwhile, a teacher in New York City made headlines when he complained about students and teachers being broken up by race for “anti-racism” training, wherein they were taught that “objectivity” and “individualism” were white attributes. A school in Cupertino, California, asked third graders to “deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their ‘power and privilege,'” according to City Journal. And, finally, if critical race theorists aren’t trying to indoctrinate children, why is the country’s leading critical race theory guru hocking an “Antiracist Baby” picture book for infants?

There are countless examples. Kids may not be learning the “advanced legal theory” graduate schools offer, but it is clear to anyone who has not had a significant psychological break from reality that these concepts are downstream from that theory, and schools are adopting them.

Contrary to the views espoused by Martin Luther King Jr., these concepts are teaching students that race defines us. They are teaching kids to judge others based on race. As usual with the left, this insanity is packaged to sound nonthreatening. They call it “critical race theory.” You shouldn’t. Just call it racism. That’s all it is.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a product of the segregated South, most eloquently pushed back on the insanity this week: “One of the worries that I have about the way that we’re talking about race is that it either seems so big that somehow white people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past — I don’t think that’s very productive — or black people have to feel disempowered by race. I would like black kids to be completely empowered, to know that they are beautiful in their blackness, but in order to do that I don’t have to make white kids feel bad for being white.”

That’s all there is to it. That’s America. Outside of the radical left and a few crazy racists on the fringe, most Americans share Rice’s vision. Parents should certainly have the right to instill these American ideals in their children. I wouldn’t want to be the one getting in their way.

The second area of radicalization in our schools concerns the LGBTQ agenda. Two recent headlines highlight the insanity in our schools going on in the name of tolerance. First, in Loudoun County, Virginia, a young girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by a male student with a skirt on in a female bathroom. The school district allegedly attempted to cover up the assault and instead arrested the young girl’s father when his complaints were viewed as endangering the school’s bathroom policies. Second, teachers in Broward County, Florida, brought elementary school kids to a gay bar for a field trip. There are so many things wrong with this. Who takes elementary school kids to any bar for a field trip? Who thinks teaching kids that young any of this in school makes sense in the first place? It’s literally insane.

Democrats may have made mistakes on the border and with policing, but there’s a good chance that the school issues dwarf even those within the electorate. Parents have the right to teach their children their own values. That’s a concept almost everyone agrees with. Yet, to date, the Biden administration’s only response to parents’ growing concerns was a Justice Department memorandum that equated concerned parents with domestic terrorists. That’s a decision they are very likely going to regret.

https://rightandfree.com/news/2021/10/29/democrats-may-regret-messing-with-americas-moms?utm_campaign=AmEagles&utm_source=AmEagles-20211102&utm_medium=email

As of this writing, the school board associations of at least 11 states have withdrawn from the National School Boards Association.

I hope the number will rise to 50.

As many readers will know, the NSBA, a left-wing lobbying group, made headlines a couple of weeks ago.

Merrick Garland, attorney general of the United States, cited a letter from the group to the White House complaining about parents who had the temerity to vigorously criticize their local school boards for attempting to insinuate the Marxist teachings of “critical race theory” into schools, foisting virtue-signaling mask mandates on students, and injecting noisome gender-identity politics into primary and secondary schools.

The vocal criticism of those parents, the NSBA letter said, was “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

In response, Garland quickly issued a memorandum instructing the FBI and other DOJ entities to create a “Partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.”

What threats?

The NSBA cites a score of incidents, but almost all involve nothing more than parents loudly criticizing members of their school board. A good example is this splendid performance by a parent called Simon Campbell, a Brit who understands the American Constitution much better than many Americans.

One example where there was violence involved Scott Smith, who was tackled by police, arrested, and found guilty of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Smith claimed that his daughter had been raped by a “gender fluid” boy who entered the girl’s bathroom wearing a skirt.

At first the school denied that anything happened.

We now know that Smith was right and that the boy in question not only raped his daughter but then, having been quietly sent to another school, went on to sexually assault another girl.

The NSBA, panicked by the criticism and defections, issued an apology.

They didn’t really think “or at least they are no longer prepared to say” that parents who criticize school board members are “domestic terrorists” who are guilty of “hate crimes.”

But I suspect that this effort at damage control will fail. It is too little, too late.

Garland’s breathtaking memorandum was subject to instant and scathing criticism.

And remember, Merrick Garland was supposed to be a “moderate.”

When Barack Obama toward the end of his second term proposed him for the Supreme Court (for the seat that eventually went to Neil Gorsuch), even many conservatives rallied round to tout his credentials, talents, and impartiality.

It turns out that the Republicans who kept him off the Court were right: he was a left-winger masquerading as a moderate.

We got to witness exactly what sort of partisan operative he is during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s sometimes blistering cross examination of Garland last week.

Especially noteworthy were the exchanges between Garland and Senators Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Tom Cotton.

Among other things, Senator Cruz pushed the Attorney General on the interesting fact that his son-in-law is the founder and president of Panorama, a multimillion-dollar company that sells critical race theory and related ESG (environmental, social, and governance) materials to schools around the country.

Was Garland’s son-in-law, Senator Cruz wondered, likely to be enriched by more schools hopping on the critical race theory bandwagon, a predictable result of the Department of Justice’s threat to sic the FBI on parents who objected to the prospect of their children being indoctrinated.

All concluded their remarks calling on him to resign.

Tom Cotton found a silver lining, “Thank God you are not on the Supreme Court.”

Far from repudiating his memorandum, the Attorney General repeatedly reaffirmed it. He himself worked on it. He said, “It reflects my view. I stand behind it.”

Which leaves us where?

I very much doubt that Merrick Garland will resign, at least not until Republicans retake the House and the Senate in fifteen months.

In the meantime, we are left with an Attorney General who is happy to mobilize the police power of the state to quash dissent.

Sure, he says he is in favor of the First Amendment, and he repeatedly stressed that he was only trying to protect school officials against violence.

But the “violence” at school boards is parents yelling ridicule at the board members, behavior they are entitled to engage in.

The journalist Chris Bray put his finger on our predicament in a thoughtful article at his substack about (in part) what is happening at school boards.

“The trap in our own moment,” he writes, “is that, first, governments have in many cases entirely stopped listening, as officials signal with growing clarity that they regard all grievances to their right as inherently without merit.”

Bray continues: “You express a grievance, and the school board orders the police to clear the room (and the police, incredibly, always do). But, second, resistance is coded as domestic terrorism at the first sign of raised voices, even if Merrick Garland pretends to be coy about the maneuver.”

Bottom line: “If you don’t resist, you won’t be heard; if you do resist, you’re a terrorist and a criminal and FBI SEARCH WARRANT—GET ON THE GROUND.”

You can ask Mr. Smith about how that works.

Bray concluded: “The game is that everyone takes their turn and then, whatever moves any players make, you lose.”

Maybe there is a silver lining here, too.

Despite the best efforts of the regime media to bury stories like the Attorney General’s police state memorandum, the word is getting out and people are angry and getting angrier.

The Obama administration was able to paint the Tea Party as a bunch of Bible-thumping rednecks and “deplorables.”

In fact, the vast majority were ordinary citizens: business men and women, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, doctors, even some teachers and lawyers.

But the campaign of vilification worked. The Tea Party was declawed, rendered irrelevant.

The strategy backfired, though, because those millions of people did not go way. They voted en masse for Donald Trump in 2016.

That is something that the agents of the administrative state might wish to keep in mind.

With every passing day, legitimacy drains from the Biden administration.

Terry McAuliffe will lose the Virginia Governor’s race on Tuesday.

Republicans will retake the House and the Senate in 2022.

You know what will happen in 2024.

It won’t necessarily be Trump, but it might be.

And if it isn’t it will be someone equally obnoxious to the Left.

Hold on, it is going to be a wild ride.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/garland-attempts-to-silence-opponents-but-they-will-vote_4080672.html

My three boys were in Virginia public schools from the beginning of their education. But no more. At the end of last year, after seeing exactly what was being taught and how little my schools prioritized education, I pulled them out. It is a sacrifice: I now have to pay tuition for my two younger children and am homeschooling my oldest child. It’s worth it.

More and more, parents are waking up to the reality that the public school system is broken. They aren’t just failing to teach kids basic skills; the public schools are misusing the trust that is placed in them. What’s worse, school boards and administrators are pushing political agendas and harming children in the process.

Many citizens still don’t know what’s going on. There is a reason why: Schools lock the public out, and the media supports it. They’ve even colluded with social media mobs to torment parents who try to speak up. Informing the public is an uphill battle.

Consider this: It recently came to light that numerous Virginia high school libraries stock a graphic novel (a genre geared to preteens) that includes extreme and violent sexual content. Parents understandably objected.

But this isn’t a case of parents trying to prevent their child from learning the facts of life or griping about the depiction of routine romantic or sexual situations. This is pornography.

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A parent brought the existence of this book to the attention of the Fairfax County school board and read sections of the book out loud, revealing the obviously inappropriate content. The school board pulled the book from the libraries and is reviewing whether it should continue to be carried.

It’s nice that they have temporarily removed these books, but parents deserve more answers. Who included this book in the library in the first place? Are they reviewing what else is being featured in libraries? Is anyone being held accountable for exercising such poor judgment?

Independent Women’s Voice created an advertisement to raise awareness about this issue, which included images from the book. The ad was rejected as too explicit to run during the 11 p.m. hour on television in Virginia. Think about everything you see on TV and imagine what it takes for a television station to decline to run an ad that late at night.

Parents and citizens should be asking one question: Why are our schools so much less protective about what high school students as young as 14 are exposed to than TV stations catering to adults?

Will more parents start pulling their children from public schools?

This isn’t the only problem with Virginia schools. Students routinely endure race-obsessed classes, are given surveys that ask intimate questions about their sex lives, are treated to absurd lessons that tell them a British accent is a microaggression and form of racism, and are forced to watch misleading videos about Christopher Columbus in anticipation of “Indigenous People’s Day.”

Many parents woke up to the fact that something is very wrong with our schools last year when classes went virtual. Parents logged their kids into class and were surprised by what was being taught. As private schools quickly and safely resumed in-person learning, the public schools remained closed for most of the year.

We now know that our kids suffered tremendous learning losses during virtual learning, as well as from mental health issues due to the isolation and long hours spent staring at screens.

Since in-person classes resumed, safety has arisen as a major concern. For example, Loudoun County parents just found that school officials failed to report a violent sexual assault that occurred in a school bathroom, and that the student assailant was placed in another Virginia public school and went on to attack another girl.

Why was this student back in school just a few months after this first attack? Why weren’t parents alerted of the first attack? How many other incidents have Loudoun County school officials failed to report? Disturbing footage of violence in other schools has also been posted on social media. Are Virginia schools committed to actually providing students with a safe environment, even if it is at odds with their political narratives?

Young Not Stupid: While McAuliffe Brought in Dem Heavyweights, Youngkin Unleashed Ingenious Secret Weapon

Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAulliffe recently said he doesn’t “think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” and as governor, he actually vetoed a bill that would have required schools to give parents more information about sexually explicit content covered in schools. Now administration officials in Washington are seeking to label concerned parents domestic terrorists.

What’s going on here? Why is the left demonizing parents and suggesting that we somehow aren’t supposed to be our children’s chief advocate responsible for ensuring that they grow to be healthy and responsible adults?

Public school officials need to remember that they work for parents and that their top priority should be to provide kids a safe environment in which to learn. That’s not happening in Virginia schools. Until that happens, parents will continue to do as I did — pull their children out of the public schools. And it will be worth it.

Way back in 1967, in that brief window of time between the media’s notice of the sexual revolution and its dawning awareness of second wave feminism, Hollywood made a movie called “A Guide for the Married Man,” which celebrated the joys of (male) adultery. Nowadays Tinseltown may practice it but doesn’t (usually) preach it; then it did both.

In one segment the mentor of a prospective adulterer answers the question of what to do if you are caught in the act by your wife by saying: “Deny, deny, deny.” There follows a vignette in which a man so caught does just that—until his partner in sin gets up, dresses and leaves.

“What woman?” says the husband.

“The one who just left,” says the wife.

“When?” says the husband.

“But, Charlie …” says the wife.

“What?”

“Aren’t you even ashamed of yourself?”

“Why?”

“Because of … Charlie?”

“What?”

“What would you like for dinner?”

Deplorable as the whole idea of such a movie is, there is a deep wisdom in this scene, which is this: when it ceases to be possible to catch someone in a lie, it also becomes impossible for that person to lie.

So long as the liar, like Charlie, holds the whip hand and therefore is powerful enough that it is impossible for anyone else to require him to admit to his lie, it’s not a lie.

The principle is basically the same as that expressed by the 16th century poet Sir John Harington:

“Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason?

“For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

I tried to make a similar point, as you may remember, two weeks ago in this space, when I wrote that a lie that everybody knows to be a lie is no longer a lie but a kind of functional truth, since our knowledge that it’s a lie can reveal to us the truth.

It’s at that point, anyway, where those of us without the power to force an admission of lying can only shrug our shoulders and say of the liar, “Well, I guess he’s only expressing his truth.”

The examples I gave in that earlier column were taken from the collected works of President Joe Biden—most egregiously the obvious lies that the American evacuation of Afghanistan was “an extraordinary success” and that a $3.5 trillion spending bill would actually cost “zero.”

Of course, the power of the president to lie with impunity is not a constitutional one but is conferred upon him by the media, whose own greatest power is the power to ignore.

Applied to presidential lying, this power to ignore and therefore not to expose the lies means that, even if everybody knows they are lies, they can continue to function as truth—the president’s truth.

Despotisms have always functioned in this way, but usually through the despot’s direct control of the media. In America today the situation is somewhat different. The media’s power to ignore or to promote as truth the lies of the ostensible autocrat is assumed voluntarily and without constraint or fear of punishment.

Why should that be? I don’t know, but it suggests to me that it is not, under the Biden-style of despotism, the executive which is in control of the media but the media which is in control of the executive.

That would fit, too, with the sense that many of us have that, nasty as the old Joe Biden could be at times, the nastiness of his administration is no more all his own work than anything else that’s happened over the last nine months.

We caught a glimpse this week of how the process of collaboration between the media and Democrats in power to set the administration’s agenda works. The notorious letter from Attorney General Merrick Garland to the FBI, as reported in this space three weeks ago, setting up a task force to investigate as potential “domestic terrorism” any complaints by parents about left-wing curricular or other changes to public schools affecting their children turns out to have been not quite what it seemed at the time.

It was a result of collaboration between Garland and a few left wingers at the National School Boards Association, from which numerous state boards have since dissociated themselves, and was based at least in part on an incident in Loudoun County, Virginia, last June.

Then an aggrieved father, Scott Smith, was tackled by police and arrested at a school board meeting after complaining that his 15-year-old daughter had been raped in a girls’ restroom at Stone Bridge High School by a boy taking advantage of current left-wing orthodoxy to pose as a “transgender” girl.

On that occasion, Scott Ziegler, the Loudoun County school superintendent proclaimed that, “To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms,” adding on the authority of Time magazine that “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist.”

This was a lie on both counts. The Daily Wire reported two weeks ago that numerous allegations of sexual assault at the school had not been reported, as state law requires school authorities to do.

That, apparently was why “we don’t have any record” of such assaults. They didn’t trouble themselves to make one.

Then, on Monday, the “transgender” predator was convicted of assaulting not only Smith’s daughter but another girl at another school to which he had been transferred later as a potential embarrassment to Stone Bridge’s transgender restroom policy.

At this writing, Superintendent Ziegler still has his job. Deny, deny, deny certainly seems to have worked for him.

And, although the National Association of School Boards has since repudiated its own letter calling for investigation into “domestic terrorism,” Attorney General Garland still has his FBI task force to investigate it, as he informed the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 27.

Joe Biden still has his job too, though now we have a better idea than we did nine months ago what that job is. It’s to cover up left-wing lies by playing the role of doddering old Uncle Joe who doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time anyway. You could call it type-casting.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/political-lies-that-cant-be-refuted_4080255.html

Terry McAuliffe repeatedly claims that Critical Race Theory has never been taught in Virginia’s public schools.

At the same time, the Virginia Department of Education recommends “We Want to Do More Than Survive,” a book by Bettina L. Love, which explicitly pushes CRT. A Fox investigation revealed the book had been pushed on all school stakeholders since March 2020.

Somebody’s lying.

Traditional Marxism pitted the bourgeois, those accused of hording wealth and resources, against the proletariat, the laborers who made all the wealth possible to begin with. Curious as to why the Marxist Resolution hit a brick wall in Western Europe, the Frankfurt School developed Critical Theory and birthed Cultural Marxism.  CRT is a particularly wretched form of Cultural Marxism.

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CRT zeroes in on Whiteness, specifically white males, as the culprit and non-Whites, specifically Blacks, as the oppressed. The goal is the same under either banner: divide and conquer.  It’s one of the oldest Marxist strategies in the book.

Bettina L. Love’s magnum opus, “We Want to Do More Than Survive,” drips with hatred. The book is littered with spiteful passages, such as “teachers spirit-murder children” because “their vision is impaired by hate, racism and White supremacy.”

I had know idea the teachers at the school down the street were all such vile creatures.

Love goes on to claim that teachers “will never understand how they are being fooled by White supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia and classism.”

Should kids be taught to judge one another by the color of their skin?

I guess only evil, stupid people stoop to becoming teachers? Who knew?

It sounds to me like Love, ironically, is the one guilty of the attempted spirit-murder of anyone who reads this litany in praise of  hate.

Are Terry McAuliffe and Bettina L. Love Marxists? If so, they may or may not know it or care. What matters to them is cashing in on the pandemic of hate-mongering while they can.

They’re not alone.

Some of the most rabid CRT supporters claim they are not, in fact, critical race theorists.  Ibram X. Kendi, the “anti-racist” conman who makes piles of money teaching racism, claimed he was not a critical race theorist in an interview with Joy Reid, as reported by The Federalist.

Family Donates to School Board Candidate That Opposes CRT, Major Newspaper Outs Them in Sick Way

Kendi’s book, “How to Be an Antiracist,” has been placed on numerous recommended reading lists, including one for sailors in the U.S. Navy.

Two weeks earlier Kendi claimed in a podcast interview with Slate that “critical race theory is foundational to to to being Antiracist.” Sorry, Ibram, but you can’t have it both ways. It violates Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction.

Why all the contradictions and lies?

Sooner or later the cat was going to get out of the bag. CRT teaches kids to judge people not on the content of their character but on the color of their skin.  The plain truth is CRT teaches kids to be racists.

Parents, to put it mildly, don’t like this.

Could that be why McAuliffe keeps denying that CRT is taught in Virginia?  Is he trying to distance himself from reality by canceling truth? He may just end up canceling himself.

CRT and other Marxists campaigns attempt to reshape history and poison the minds of the people, especially the children.  When a philosophy like CRT begins to implode, as must all reality-denying doctrines, people do all sorts of strange things.

Who can blame them? After slogging around in the pit of unreality for so long, they no longer know what is real.

Last Thursday, the Cincinnati Enquirer published a piece regarding school board candidates’ use of the cash-transfer app Venmo for donations, which may potentially violate Ohio state finance law, given that it went into personal accounts.

The article involved candidates for the Lakota Local School District board of education; the district, in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, is one of many which has seen a pitched battle over whether critical race theory is being and should be taught in its schools.

The piece would have mainly been a boring one — it didn’t identify either of the candidates facing questions about their financing, Darbi Boddy and Russ Loges, as being anti-critical race theory.

However, in a painful lapse of journalistic ethics, the Enquirer decided they would leave a donor’s home address visible on a screenshot of the Venmo transactions page, essentially doxing them.

INBOX: The Cincinnati Enquirer just doxxed a middle class family from West Chester over the school board issue. Here’s a redlined screenshot of the main page on their website. pic.twitter.com/lljGbM4VGZ

— John Ashbrook (@JohnAshbrook) October 29, 2021

Study: Americans with J&J COVID Vaccine 3.7 Times More Likely to Develop Blood Clots Than Average Person

“The Cincinnati Enquirer just doxxed a middle class family from West Chester over the school board issue,” political strategist John Ashbrook tweeted.

According to Fox News, the images were later taken down from the Enquirer’s website — although conservatives were outraged.

Should newspapers be allowed to dox people in this way?

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” said J.D. Vance — author, Ohio senatorial candidate and Cincinnati native.

“I’d expect national journalists to harass families, but not our local paper.”

Another Ohio GOP Senate candidate, former Ohio Republican Party chair Jane Timken, noted these were the same kind of activist parents being called “domestic terrorist[s]” by certain groups.

This is absolutely unacceptable. I’d expect national journalists to harass families, but not our local paper. https://t.co/lClNzizfWM

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) October 29, 2021

Labeled a ‘domestic terrorist’, doxxed by the media – THIS is what concerned parents are dealing with when they’re just trying to exercise their right to free speech, have a say over their children’s education, and protect their kids.

Absolutely unacceptable. https://t.co/N6TjlExrfX

— Jane Timken (@JaneTimkenOH) October 29, 2021

New Investigation Debunks Pathetic McAuliffe Lie That ‘CRT is Not Taught in VA Schools’

Gannett, which owns the Enquirer, noted the screenshot was erased from the article quickly after it garnered online attention — but offered an odd excuse for revealing the family’s address.

“The cropping of the promo image was corrected immediately although campaign donations are public record,” a Gannett spokesperson said, according to Fox.

This is indeed accurate. There a lot of things you do that are public record — that also shouldn’t be amplified to the world by the biggest media source in Cincinnati, or in any other city. Most people don’t seek that information out, but the Enquirer served it to its readership on a platter. That they can’t see the problem there is just as disconcerting as the fact they amplified it in the first place.

The story in its original form is available on Archive.is with the screenshot in place. The image is thoroughly unnecessary to the story. The two individuals mentioned are running for three open seats on the Lakota board, and while their sympathies aren’t mentioned in the story, they aren’t a mystery to voters or to Enquirer writers Erin Glynn and Madeline Mitchell.

Furthermore, given the tenor of school board debates, the decision to use the screenshot — and not vet whether or not the addresses or names were visible — is a mistake that can’t just be wallpapered over by saying, “yeah, but it’s public record.”

From the sounds of things, Boddy and Loges should have been more careful in terms of how they accepted campaign donations via Venmo. The article can serve as a warning to parent activists — dot your I’s and cross your T’s when it comes to campaign finance.

However, the story quickly became a major newspaper’s decision to dox donors in a contentious campaign and then hide behind a public record defense. That reasoning is inexplicable, particularly given how little the screenshot contributed and the obvious utility of the information for bad actors. This is doxing and targeting, plain and simple. The Cincinnati Enquirer needs to acknowledge that.

Loudoun County’s sheriff rejected a request by the school district’s superintendent to dramatically ramp up the law enforcement presence at a pair of school board meetings in August, newly released emails show.

Scott Ziegler, the superintendent for the Virginia county, asked the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) for three deputies to be inside the administration building for the Aug. 10 and Aug. 11 meetings, the emails show. He also requested a “K-9 explosive sweep,” a five-person “Quick Reaction Force,” undercover deputies, and another team “stood up and on standby at nearby location.”

Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman rejected the request, according to one of the emails.You May Also Like

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Chapman informed district officials that there would be no uniformed officers inside the building where the meetings were taking place nor would there be a law enforcement presence on campus.

Officers would be “in the area” in case they needed to quickly respond to a call, he said, according to a report on a discussion between district officials and the sheriff’s office conveyed to Ziegler in one of the emails.

Chapman said he was motivated not to approve the requests because the school board made a number of decisions without consulting the sheriff’s office, including deciding to limit public comment for a previous June 22 meeting and hiring a security firm with a metal detector.

“LCSO has been made to appear as the muscle for school board and work at the school board’s direction,” Kevin Lewis, a district official, told Ziegler in the call summary. The sheriff also said he believed citizens should have a right to address the board and that the board was being dismissive of people with whom they disagreed.

The documents were obtained by the Fight for Schools PAC and published by Fox News.

An LCSO spokesman confirmed to The Epoch Times that the conversation took place.

“The concerns raised by Sheriff Chapman was regarding the request for extensive resources and security measures that were not deemed necessary based on intelligence gathering for that meeting,” he said in an email.

He also said that the sheriff’s office does and continues to provide security for the school board meetings.

“For safety and security reasons, we cannot share law enforcement sensitive operational plans in regards to public meetings but we can assure residents that we allocate the appropriate level of resources based on the nature of the public meetings and the intelligence developed prior to each meeting,” he said.

The school district did not respond to a request for comment.

The northern Virginia county has become the epicenter for tension between parents and school board members seen across the nation in recent months.

Members have been vocally challenged in recent meetings on proposed policies like one that would let children who identify as a sex different than the one they are born with use various bathrooms. That policy was eventually approved, even though most parents who publicly testified opposed it.

Ziegler claimed in the June meeting that the district had no record of assaults happening in bathrooms, which was factually untrue, according to an email recently disclosed by district officials. He has said he misunderstood the question and is defying calls to resign.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/loudoun-county-sheriff-rejected-superintendents-request-for-explosive-sweep-quick-reaction-force-at-board-meeting_4077191.html

The New Hampshire School Boards Association (NHSBA) announced Thursday that it has withdrawn from the national organization following the group’s efforts to target parents.

The National School Board Association (NSBA) recently sent a letter to the Biden administration’s Department of Justice that described the actions of parents protesting policies such as critical race theory or COVID-19 rules as the equivalence of “domestic terrorism.”

“This email is to inform you that NHSBA [the New Hampshire School Board Association] has decided to withdraw its membership from the National School Boards Association, effective immediately,” NHSBA Executive Director Barrett Christina wrote. “NSBA’s recent actions have made our continued membership untenable.

The NSBA wrote Sept. 29 (pdf), “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat.”

The letter added, “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

Following the NSBA’s letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a memorandum to the Federal Bureau of Investigations to direct investigators to address the “disturbing spike” in harassment involving school board members by parents.

The controversy led lawmakers in Washington to discuss the matter with Garland this week. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee blasted the attorney general after he failed to rescind the letter or apologize regarding the matter.

“Thank God you’re not on the Supreme Court,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told Garland. “You should resign in disgrace.”

The NSBA has since apologized for its letter.

“On behalf of the NSBA, we regret and apologize for the letter. To be clear, the safety of school board members, other public school officials and educators, and students is our top priority, and there remains important work to be done on this issue,” the NSBA wrote last Friday.

“However, there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for some consultation on a communication of this significance,” the letter added.

Despite the apology, the damage has already had negative consequences nationwide.

In addition to New Hampshire, state school board associations in Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania have already withdrawn from the NSBA.

Three additional states, Alabama, Florida, and Kentucky, have also announced they are considering a departure from the national organization.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/new-hampshire-school-boards-association-leaves-national-organization-over-parent-controversy_4076004.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-30-2&mktids=197bd0f40b606ed83674b637f3e6b8c2&est=p712C%2Bt5HdNCPTGox7o3OwoBpXN0rGmvp9cxsrk91vmgG71oQ%2FAFRa6%2F2NbGnguREA%3D%3D

$100 million well spent

In the manner of a terrorist organization accepting responsibility for an atrocious attack on civilians, the Lincoln Project and a Democratic operative claimed credit for a bizarre performance of neo-Nazi cosplay on Friday as the Virginia gubernatorial race enters its final stretch.

Speculation swirled almost immediately after an NBC News reporter on Friday posted a photo of five dispirited young people, dressed in white shirts and khakis, holding tiki torches in front of Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus in Charlottesville, Va. One of the “white supremacists” was an African American.

Their costumes were intended to evoke the “Unite the Right” rally in 2018, when white supremacist groups gathered to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Despite the pouring rain, the cosplayers did not break character even as curious bystanders snapped photos.

“These men approached @GlennYoungkin’s bus as it pulled up saying what sounded like, ‘We’re all in for Glenn,'” NBC 29 reporter Elizabeth Holmes wrote on Twitter, the popular social networking website. The reporter’s post was subsequently promoted by a campaign staffer for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe. Media experts instantly recognized the situation as “obviously a [Democratic] stunt,” but neither the McAuliffe campaign nor the Virginia Democratic Party would admit to paying hapless youngsters to get drenched in the name of social justice.

The Lincoln Project, a Democratic super PAC whose senior members are widely suspected of enabling the sexually predatory behavior of  disgraced cofounder John Weaver, claimed credit for the amateur stunt after a Vice News reporter identified one of the Democratic operatives holding an unlit tiki torch in the rain.

“Today’s demonstration was our way of reminding Virginians what happened in Charlottesville four years ago, the Republican Party’s embrace of those values, and Glenn Youngkin’s failure to condemn it,” the Lincoln Project wrote in a statement. Democratic operative Lauren Windsor also posted a statement alleging she had worked with the Lincoln Project to “coordinate today’s Youngkin action in Charlottesville.”

Professional media observers were not entirely convinced by the Lincoln Project’s admission of guilt. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lincoln Project simply agreed to take responsibility after the fact as a favor to the McAuliffe campaign,” wrote Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The Lincoln Project, which raised almost $100 million in the 2020 election cycle, has faced criticism after one of its founding members described his desire to transform the super PAC into a vehicle for “generational wealth,” while others have used the windfall to pay off back taxes, mortgages, and other debts.

Oh, and speaking of skinheads, here’s a photo of the Lincoln Project’s senior leadership:

A majority of American parents are unaware that China, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are among the top financiers of U.S. universities and are worried that foreign cash is influencing what their children are taught in the classroom, according to a recent poll.

Nearly 60 percent of those interviewed in the September poll said they were not aware that the countries are major donors to U.S. universities. The poll was commissioned by the Lawfare Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that tracks campus issues.

Qatar’s presence in the U.S. academic system was concerning to parents when they learned about the small Gulf nation’s deep ties to Iran and terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Taliban. Eighty-four percent of those surveyed said American schools should publicly disclose their ties to Qatar and explain how the money could be coloring the in-class agenda, according to the poll, which surveyed 2,009 adults last month and was provided exclusively to the Washington Free Beacon.

While extensive foreign funding of American universities has raised alarms in Congress and among advocacy groups such as the Lawfare Project, ordinary American parents are not aware of the issue. This is partly because American schools do not publicly disclose their funding and in many cases try to hide their ties to adversarial nations like China. Foreign countries see the U.S. academic system as central to their propaganda efforts, including anti-Israel initiatives. In the case of countries such as China, they seek to steal cutting-edge research. More than 80 percent of those surveyed said Congress should enact legislation requiring schools to publicly account for every foreign donation.

Around 70 percent of those surveyed said they were concerned that foreign donations influence teaching and research priorities. In Qatar’s case, the country has spent billions running propaganda efforts in at least 28 American universities, generating concerns these donations run afoul of U.S. law. With anti-Semitism and anti-Israel attitudes increasing on many American campuses, foreign money has helped foment these movements, including at the University of North Carolina and Duke University—both of which have been embroiled in a long-running controversy over Qatar’s funding of programs critics see as anti-Semitic.

“The public wants full transparency on what Qatar is funding in American schools, and Congress must demand it,” Brooke Goldstein, the Lawfare Project’s executive director, told the Free Beacon. “Parents have a right to know what foreign governments are teaching our children.”

China’s funding for American universities remains the top concern for parents, with 70 percent expressing worry about Beijing’s presence at U.S. schools. Around 65 percent expressed similar concerns about Saudi Arabia, followed closely by Qatar with 57 percent of those surveyed.

More broadly, there was a 50-50 split between those who support foreign funding of schools and those who oppose it altogether.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/most-american-parents-unaware-china-saudi-arabia-qatar-are-major-donors-to-us-universities/

A bill that would introduce party labels into local school board elections is advancing through Tennessee’s state legislature.

House Bill 9072, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Scott Cepicky, would allow political parties to nominate candidates for school board membership and school board candidates to campaign as a nominee or representative of a party.

Under the existing state law, school board elections in Tennessee must be conducted on a nonpartisan basis, meaning that one who seeks a position on a board will not appear on the ballot as a Democrat, Republican, or member of another political party.

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The original version of the bill had sought to make partisan school board elections mandatory, but it was amended so that elections don’t have to be partisan. It passed the Tennessee House on Friday morning in a 52–39 vote.

“If the local parties don’t want to do it, they don’t have to. It’s totally permissive and wouldn’t be mandated across the state,” said Cepicky, reported Chalkbeat Tennessee.

The effort comes as controversies around public school boards, including the teaching of critical race theory and COVID-19 restrictions they put in place, continue to make national headlines. According to Ballotpedia, this year so far has seen at least 84 school board recall efforts against 215 board members, nearly triple from the previous year.

While opponents of the proposal argue that school boards elections should be made less, not more political, supporters say that a partisan ballot helps voters get a better sense of where each candidate stands on key issues.

“Our job is to provide as much transparency in the voter box as we can so that people have an idea of the level of expected performance from the people that they send to represent them,” Cepicky said, reported The Tennessean.

According to a 2020 survey by Education Next, Democrats have more favorable views toward increased school spending, the Common Core standard, and the effect of teachers’ unions on schools, while Republicans support school choice programs and basing part of the teachers’ salaries on how well their students learn.

A more recent survey by Morning Consult highlights the partisan divide on critical race theory. Nearly 80 percent of Republican participants said they view critical race theory negatively, compared with 7 and 46 percent of participants identifying Democrats and Independents, respectively. Republicans are also found to be more likely to describe the ideology with stronger words, such as “a Marxist proposal to indoctrinate children by blaming white people for everything.”

In Florida, a similar bill was proposed in September by state Sen. Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. It is currently being considered in three state Senate committees.

The Orange County School Board in Florida removed a speaker from a board meeting after the man read a sexually explicit passage from a book that was available in local school libraries.

In a video recorded on Oct. 26 by a member of the Orange County chapter of pro-parental rights group Moms for Liberty, a man was ordered to be taken out of the meeting chamber by a police officer after he read from the 2019 graphic novel “Gender Queer: A Memoir.”

“I’m going to read a passage of a book that’s floating around in your schools that has been banned from many other schools,” said Jacob Engels, the speaker who was removed, according to Orange Observer. “As a member of the LGBT community, the fact that this is floating around for children as young as ninth grade is concerning.”

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Engels then read a scene from the book depicting sexual acts before board chairwoman Teresa Jacobs asked him to stop, saying that he was “out of order.”

“If you don’t stop now, we will remove you from the chamber,” Jocob said. She then ordered the man’s removal as he continued to read.

Other community members in the audience can be heard protesting the interruption. “Our kids are reading this,” one man said.

“The language he just read is inappropriate in the forum,” Jocob explained.

“Then why it is appropriate for schools?” asked a woman.

“I understand the contradiction here,” Jocob replied, noting that neither she nor the board were aware of the book. “We will look into it, and I do hope the book is removed. OK? And if not, we’ll be back here having this conversation again, but I can guarantee you, I did not know that book was in the library.”

The school district later confirmed to the Observer that they have taken down all four copies of “Gender Queer” in three of the district’s 22 high schools.

“At this time, the book is not on library shelves and is under review,” the district said in a statement. “If anyone has a concern about materials or books found in our media centers or in our classrooms, Orange County Public Schools has a process in place for parents or guardians to submit a form to the school principal to address a concern.”

The graphic novel, created by California-based cartoonist Maia Kobabe, sparked a controversy earlier this week in Virginia, when conservative advocacy group Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) tried to run a 30-second TV ad containing the same sexual scene that Engels read. Local Virginia TV stations, including ABC, CBS, and NBC, have reportedly refused to air the ad, citing federal law which prohibits airing pornographic images.

“It’s shocking that images, and even some words, that federal law prohibits TV stations to share with adults are the same images being shared with Virginia students with no accountability,” said Victoria Coley, vice president of communications at IWV.

The book was available in schools in several Virginia districts, including in Fairfax, Loudon, and Arlington counties, according to IWV.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/speaker-removed-from-florida-school-board-meeting-after-reading-sex-scene-from-school-library-book_4076041.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The Chicago City Council has approved $35 million dollars to pilot a universal basic income program in one of the largest efforts of its kind in the nation.

The newly approved budget will give $500 each month to 5,000 low-income families under the program promoted by Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

“I am beyond excited to announce the passage of the most progressive and forward-looking budget in our city’s history,” Lightfoot said in a statement.

“As we move away from the pandemic, we must use this opportunity and once-in-a-lifetime funding to address the economic and emotional pain it has wreaked on our communities. This budget, complete with a historic number of investments and policy prescriptions, will meet this moment and help us fulfill our responsibility to uplifting and empowering our residents,” the mayor added.

Local civic leaders hailed the program’s passing as an effort that will “change and save lives.”

“The $500 monthly payments to 5,000 Chicagoans included in this budget will change and save lives,” Richard Wallace, founder and director of Equity and Transformation, said in a statement Thursday.

“A Chicago guaranteed income pilot offers a tangible step toward a more equitable city. It is Lincoln Park saying to West Garfield Park: I see you; I see the high rates of unemployment; I see the income gap; and I am going to do something about it,” he added.

Former Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson added her support last month in the effort leading to the program’s approval.

“As a former Mayor, I know budgets are never easy, and striking the right balance is always the goal. This budget begins that process, with its substantial investments in youth, mental health, community development, arts, and other human service functions,” Freeman said in a statement.

“At the same time this budget acknowledges that city debt and public safety cannot be ignored.  I commend Mayor Lightfoot for the strides in this budget proposal and look forward to a participatory process that addresses challenges like universal basic income, continued small business investment and reimagining public safety,” she added.

But not everyone approves of the new basic income program. Some are concerned the no-strings-attached approach has no method to help people beyond a temporary fix.

Bruce Meyer, the McCormick Foundation Professor at the University of Chicago, told local WTTW-TV earlier this year that the blanket program doesn’t really help long-term.

“It just sends people checks, whereas what you really need given the diversity of problems people face, is a social worker to figure out what people really need, and to get them to job training or to child care or drug treatment or in the end you may say for certain people, just cash is really what they need,” Meyer said.

“If you don’t have someone interacting with individuals, then you don’t get the right things to people,” he added.

Michael Faulkender, who served as an assistant treasury secretary for economic policy during the Trump administration, also told The Washington Post the plan could continue to hurt the city’s job shortage.

“There are still millions of low-skilled jobs out there, and you have small business owners who can’t find workers to join their companies,” said Faulkender, who teaches finance at the University of Maryland. Proposals like the one in Chicago feed the “process of reducing the willingness of people to participate in the workforce,” he said.

Chicago Southwest Side Alderman Raymond Lopez also pushed back against the plan. “Listening to some of the speeches today, I feel like Christmas has come early,” he said, calling the budget “grossly out of balance” in remarks at the budget meeting.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chicago-passes-budget-with-one-of-nations-largest-universal-basic-income-programs_4074686.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Government assistance programs and policies are contributing to the decline in employment activity among able-bodied Americans, according to a new study by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Republicans.

The study, titled, “Reconnecting Americans to the Benefits of Work,” published on Wednesday, seeks to understand why fewer prime-age Americans are part of the nation’s workforce.

While noting that declining wages, technological change, and international trade all play a part in the decline in employment activity among able-bodied Americans, JEC Republicans said that “government programs and policies have likely made work less attractive for these Americans.”

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The study found that the United States has experienced an unprecedented rise in disconnected prime-age workers over time.

For men, this trend dates back half a century, with their labor force participation rate falling from over 97 percent in 1955 to 89 percent before the pandemic. For women, receding workforce participation began in the last two decades.

The decline in prime-age labor force participation has been mostly voluntary, the study notes, with just 12 percent of inactive, prime-age, able-bodied men stating that they wanted a job or were open to work. Among men who said they are not working due to reasons other than disability, retirement, education, or homemaking, 41 percent personally receive government assistance.

“If more men are genuinely choosing to stay home with the kids, go to school, or retire early, policymakers should not be concerned. However, government policies may be tipping the scales toward inactivity and away from work,” the study notes.

“Policymakers should take note if would-be workers’ inactivity is indeed enabled or encouraged by poorly structured government benefits or made more likely by unnecessary barriers to work,” it adds. “This is likely the case for the 41 percent of primeage men who personally receive government assistance and are inactive for reasons other than disability, retirement, education, or homemaking.”

JEC Republicans also noted that a growing number of Americans were receiving government assistance “despite improving pre-pandemic economic conditions.”

“The share of working-age Americans living in households between the 20th and 50th income percentiles who receive safety net benefits increased from 20 percent to about 30 percent between 1998 and 2014. This growth in safety net benefits likely makes non-work more attractive and has contributed to declining labor force participation,” they wrote.

The study noted a decline in labor force participation and earnings after government assistance programs such as housing assurance, Medicaid, and the introduction of the food stamp program in the 1960s and 1970s.

“More recent evidence following the Great Recession shows how the expansion of safety net benefits undermined the rewards to work, creating employment losses and delayed economic recovery,” the study adds.

The study focuses on multiple government assistance programs in the time period before Congress passed three massive stimulus packages in an effort to support the economy and help Americans through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additional government spending is currently being pushed by the Biden administration, which has said it has secured a new $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act framework for economic and climate change spending that has yet to pass the Senate.

The bill is a revised and reduced version of the $3.5 trillion social spending bill unveiled at the beginning of the year that was blocked by key moderate Democrats who refused to allow such an increase to the national debt.

The new stimulus package has been praised by Democrats such as Sen. Tammy Baldwin, (D-Wis.) for helping working Americans get back on their feet.

But further stimulus support has also been criticized by Republicans including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the ranking member of the JEC Republicans.

“As the number of Americans who receive government assistance has grown, more Americans have voluntarily left their jobs,” Lee said in a statement to Fox News. “Congress’ plan to spend an additional $3.5 trillion to provide households with new subsidies and fewer incentives to work would only make things worse.”

JEC Republicans suggest approaching the current declining employment situation with a three-pronged approach: removing barriers to work such as burdensome regulations, removing financial disincentives to work such as those in social-safety net programs, and bolstering incentives and increasing the attractiveness to work, such as a government-funded wage subsidy to increase workers’ take-home pay.

“Reconnecting inactive workers to the labor force will require careful consideration of poorly-designed federal benefits, wide-ranging regulations that exclude would-be workers from the labor market, and labor laws that restrict employee freedoms to work on their own terms,” the study says.

“Ultimately, work is a means of promoting wellbeing, not an end in itself. Improving connections to work and increasing the attractiveness of work, particularly among those most at risk for idleness or isolation, can significantly improve the economic, social, and mental well-being of disconnected Americans.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/government-assistance-programs-and-policies-contributing-to-employment-decline-among-able-bodied-americans-study_4075743.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Mason became the second city in Ohio to criminalize abortion within city limits after a tense city council vote on Monday evening.

Located 25 miles northeast of Cincinnati, Mason, with a population of about 30,000 people, voted to ban abortions after four out of seven members of the city council supported the ordinance, which goes into effect in 30 days.

Mason now becomes the 41st city in the country and the second one in Ohio to offer “sanctuary for the unborn,” an initiative started by a Texas nonprofit. There are currently no abortion clinics in the city, but supporters of the ordinance say that this will ensure no facilities are set up in Mason.You May Also Like

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There was a split between Republicans who believe in banning abortions and those who don’t, which was unexpected, according to Council member T. J. Honerlaw. Honerlaw, along with Tony Bradburn, Mike Gilb and Mayor Kathy Grossmann voted in favor of the ordinance, while council members Ashley Chance, Diana Nelson, and Josh Styrcula voted for abortion rights.

“I’m here to protect life. For me it’s a fundamental issue. If the foundations be destroyed, what do we have left,” said Vice Mayor Gilb at the meeting. “I’m not just here to decide how bright the street lights should be or where the next roundabout goes. Those things are certainly important issues, but they’re not as fundamental as protecting life.”

“America has a legal system in place to create order in our country. We must follow and abide by that system,” Nelson, who has served on the council for five years, said. “The supreme court has made a ruling on abortion, regardless of one’s opinion on abortion, creating local laws that contradict with federal laws is illegal and unconstitutional.”

There were demonstrators from both ends of the aisle displaying fierce support with banners that read, “Protect the Unborn,” and “Bans Off Our Bodies.” Speakers were allowed to voice their opinions while some constituents shouted to vote out the members who supported the ordinance.

The ordinance makes it illegal for anyone in Mason to “aid or abet” an abortion, including the possession and distribution of abortion-inducing drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol. Violators can be punished with up to 180 days in jail or $1,000 in fines. There are no penalties for someone seeking an abortion.

Exceptions include dangerous, disabling, and life-threatening situations for the mother, and accidental miscarriages.

While Kersha Deibel, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, said to AP that the Mason ordinance opened up the city to “public ridicule, promised boycotts, and costly litigation,” Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, said that this decision by the city council was a “a stand against the violence of abortion and for the protection of women and babies.”

Other smaller Ohio cities like London in Madison County and Celina in Mercer County are also considering implementing similar measures, and banning abortions within their city limits.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/city-council-votes-to-make-mason-ohio-a-sanctuary-for-the-unborn_4075906.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Democrats dressed up as white supremacists in a last ditch attempt to smear Republican Glenn Youngkin.

n what quickly became a political stunt gone wrong, Democratic strategists have been accused on social media of posing as white supremacists while standing next to Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus.

Social media sleuths were quick to notice that the only people interacting with images promoted by an NBC reporter were Democratic Party political operatives. The photos were retweeted by far-left activist Adam Parkhomenko, as the public began to notice that one of the men posing as a fake Republican white supremacist bore a striking resemblance to Virginia Youth Democrats’ Finance Director, Camden Layton. 

To be clear:

Virginia Democrat operatives dressed up as Neo-Nazis holding tiki-torches today to smear their opponent and attempted to pass it off as actually happening

— Jack Posobiec  (@JackPosobiec) October 29, 2021

Another woman in the same series of photographs was fingered as potentially being Colleen Wachenfeld, who boasts about having flipped Arizona “blue” on her Twitter profile. Wachenfeld quickly changed her LinkedIn handle to “C W” shortly after the photos started to be questioned by users on Twitter. 

In response to tweets alleging that Parkhomenko was part of the “false-flag” attempt to associate moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate Youngkin, Parkhomenko said of user Alec Sears, “As I have said on the record: he made up a lie about me and is spreading that lie around the world. He claims to have receipts that don’t exist because his tweet is based on a lie. Delete your f***ing tweet you a**hole.”

Sears – himself a political consultant – has not deleted the tweet. It is unclear from an extensive search who Parkhomenko spoke to “on the record” as the tweets were only posted by Sears shortly before he responded with this threatening tweet. 

A Word of Warning on That Fox News Virginia Poll: Don’t Be Complacent.

The Democratic Party of Virginia was quick to deny official involvement with “events outside of the Youngkin campaign bus,” attempting to pivot to a discussion about Charlottesville, where a handful of left-leaning Neo Nazis once paraded pretending to be conservatives.

Twitter users continued to flood the thread with information linking the faux-white supremacists to McAuliffe.

On Thursday, a Fox News Poll found Youngkin pulling ahead of McAuliffe among Virginia’s likely voters. McAuliffe received forty-five percent (45 percent) to Youngkin’s fifty-three percent (53 percent).

The irony regarding CRT is that is actually white supremacy. If they believed in what they preach, shouldn’t they kill themselves to serve “the greater good?” [US Patriot]

On Friday morning, supposed “white supremacists” clad in white button-down shirts greeted Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s bus with tiki torches. Leftists immediately claimed they were Youngkin supporters showing their true colors.

“To my fellow Virginia residents: please vote against this blatant display of racism, hatred and intolerance,” NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

“Please vote FOR a kind, welcoming, diverse Virginia. Please vote @TerryMcAuliffe for governor. Because #JusticeMatters.”

deleted, but the List comes for all, @glennkirschner2.

✍🏼✍🏼✍🏼 pic.twitter.com/Oq9kmg7YAd

— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) October 29, 2021

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

But as the morning went on, other Twitter users began to notice the “white supremacists” were not Youngkin supporters at all. Instead, they appeared to be former Democratic staffers in the state of Virginia.

Virginia Young Democrats financial director Camden Layton and Democratic Party of Virginia staffer Colleen Wachenfeld were among the alleged participants in the stunt.

OMG LOL Va Dems did *not* just send a black man to play a ‘white supremacist for Youngkin’ 😬 pic.twitter.com/h0SZujvKX1

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) October 29, 2021

🚨 I am now confident that we have identified the woman in this group of political actors as Colleen Wachenfeld, with @vademocrats. pic.twitter.com/qySknRSUrd

— Alec Sears (@alec_sears) October 29, 2021

BREAKING: Financial director for Young VA Dems has gone private after being exposed for posing as a white supremacist pic.twitter.com/fbCbafIiZf

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) October 29, 2021

Looks like they found the black “white supremacist”

and his account is also locked pic.twitter.com/m8DBH1Z91n

— Ames (@RestingTwitFace) October 29, 2021

Pro-Abortion Biden Says Pope Francis Told Him He Is a ‘Good Catholic’ and to ‘Keep Receiving Communion’

After being exposed, Wachenfield took it upon herself to rebrand, privatize and even scrub some of her social media accounts.

pic.twitter.com/0vERbo4qoR

— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) October 29, 2021

WARNING: The following tweet contains language some readers will find offensive.

Holy sh*t

Colleen Wachenfeld rebranded her Twitter account handle several times after being exposed for posing as a neo-Nazi pic.twitter.com/DhltQl7mhF

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) October 29, 2021

LinkedIn profile has been scrubbed, including “Tracker/researcher at Democratic Party of Virginia” pic.twitter.com/g2z7M8P7yC

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) October 29, 2021

Many Republicans saw the stunt as a last-ditch effort for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, who is falling in the polls ahead of next week’s gubernatorial election. Conservative pundit and strategist Greg Price called the actions “desperate.”

Terry McAuliffe’s campaign was feeling so desperate at their terrible poll numbers that they made a bunch of their staffers dress as white supremacists and condemned them to being memes for the rest of their lives.

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 29, 2021

Later on Friday, The Lincoln Project attempted to take credit for the stunt in a statement. The group claims to be dedicated to “protecting democracy” by fighting against former President Donald Trump and “Trumpism.”

“Today’s demonstration was our way of reminding Virginians what happened in Charlottesville four years ago, the Republican Party’s embrace of those values, and Glenn Youngkin’s failure to condemn it,” the statement said.

“The Youngkin campaign is enraged by our reminder of Charlottesville for one simple reason: Glenn Youngkin wants Virginians to forget that he is Donald Trump’s candidate. We will continue to hold Glenn Youngkin accountable. If he will denounce Trump’s assertion that the Charlottesville rioters possessed ‘very fine’ qualities, we’ll withdraw the tiki torches. Until then, we’ll be back.”

It is unclear whether the Democratic staffers coordinated with The Lincoln Project to perform the stunt. Judging by their social media reactions, the staffers weren’t nearly as proud to take public responsibility for their participation.

There are essentially two main explanations for the event. Either the participants were actually trying to fool people into believing they were Youngkin supporters, or they were trying to politically harm him by dressing up as white supremacists. In both scenarios, their actions are still reprehensible.

Youngkin has a real chance to win the governorship in Virginia next week, and that scares the life out of Democrats both in the state and around the country. If they think gimmicks like this one are going to help change that, they are sorely mistaken.

It was just another suburban school board meeting like the thousands of others that regularly take place around the country.

A typical meeting with the school superintendent and some staff, the board members probably facing the room, perhaps a microphone for comments from the public, and federal agents and a helicopter circling overhead.

Wait — what?

While a lot of attention has been focused on the Loudoun County, Virginia, school district and its cover-up of a girl’s rape, shady things have been going on in neighboring Fairfax County, another upscale suburb of Washington, D.C.

Parents arriving at a Fairfax school board meeting last week were greeted by unmarked federal government vehicles and a helicopter shining a searchlight down on them, according to Stacy Langton, a mother of six who attended the meeting.

Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

Went to @fcpsnews #schoolboardmeeting last night. Heavy #Fed presence. Unmarked fed vehicles, @DHSgov vehicles, even helicopter circling overhead with spotlight on Moms & Dads. All on the night #DOJ Merrick Garland testifies. A little over the top, no?@SebGorka @AsraNomani pic.twitter.com/aUh2QuhaT3

— Stacy Langton (@StacyLangton) October 22, 2021

“This is something that is incredible in America and it’s, you know, ridiculously un-American,” Langton told Fox News.

“Honestly, I have paid a heavy price because of what I said at my school board meeting on Sept. 23 about the pornography and the pedophilia that I found in my son’s high school — at Fairfax High School.”

Langton said she has been harassed since participating in a “very peaceful, uneventful” protest last weekend at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington.

“Since the DOJ protest on Sunday … my family has been receiving daily threats,” she said. “So I have threats against my children by name, I have been followed in my car with my children in my car. … They know where I live, and I don’t know who’s putting somebody up to this, but it’s obviously meant to intimidate me.”

On Oct. 4, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo advising the FBI and U.S. attorneys to be aware of threats against school officials and school board members. He said the Justice Department is “steadfast in its commitment to protect all people in the United States from violence, threats of violence and other forms of  intimidation and harassment.”

Merrick’s memo followed the now infamous letter to President Joe Biden from the National School Boards Association likening parental protests to “domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” The NSBA later rescinded and apologized for the letter.

School Board Endangers Children of Parents Who Speak Out

After being grilled by Republican lawmakers during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Garland reiterated his intention to mobilize federal agents against perceived threats to school boards.

Regarding the alleged threats against her, Langton could only speculate.

“It could be it’s the DOJ, it could be it’s [Terry McAuliffe’s] campaign people because I know this is suddenly all about the election here in the state of Virginia, it could be the school board, it could be the LGBTQ community. I know there are a lot of people who are very unhappy about what I said at the school board meeting.

“I don’t know why people have a problem with what I said because I don’t know who is in favor of pornography in their children’s school. This isn’t a political issue, and even the liberals shouldn’t be happy that there’s porn in the schools.

“So I’m not getting a lot of sleep right now. Nobody’s sleeping in my house because we can’t be sure that we’re safe.”

Langton speaks quite articulately, but one correction might be offered.

Among leftists, everything is political.

Everything.

Ever since the National School Board Association issued an open letter to President Joe Biden which essentially branded parents who protest mask policies, critical race theory and transgender bathrooms as “domestic terrorists,” it’s become abundantly clear that school boards aren’t particularly thrilled about this new rip-roaring form of American populism coming from concerned parents.

The organization has since had to walk back its inflammatory suggestion, as member groups around the country have been pushing back, but not before the Department of Justice has taken up the cause. It appears that plenty of school boards are still very disgruntled that tax-paying parents want to show up and let them know exactly what they think about infusing COVID tyranny and leftist indoctrination into public school curricula.

One Minnesota school board has gone way, way too far, however.

Alpha News reported this week that residents of Mankato, Minnesota, who might want to point school board members to, say, COVID-19 case rates among children or to read aloud from pornographic novels they’ve found in the school library, will have to state their home address before they participate in the public portion of the meetings.

No, really.

Watch: Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong

On Oct. 18, Jodi Sapp, Mankato Area Public Schools board chair, detailed the new rules, which include the disclosure of one’s home address, a ban on addressing board members directly or discussing any issues not on the agenda for the meeting, and — oh yeah — if anyone cheers, claps, or even hollers, by George, she’s shutting the public forum down at once.

“Effective tonight, open forum participants are prohibited from calling out or addressing any individual school board or school district staff member. If this occurs, open forum will be closed,” Sapp stated during the meeting that evening. “Beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.”

“Crowd noise, or any sort of grandstanding during open forum, including applause, talking, hollering or any outburst will result in open forum being closed,” she also said. “Further, beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum participation will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.”

As Alpha News noted, this effectively dictates that the public will not be allowed to address any topics the board hasn’t already decided are kosher and that individual members of the board will be shielded from any direct public criticism during board meetings.

Have school boards gone full tyrant?

Perhaps Sapp has observed from afar the fate of Loudoun County board member Beth Barts, who recently stepped down amid efforts to remove her from office over her alleged involvement with a left-wing parents’ group that was compiling lists of local parents who opposed the LGBT and “anti-racism” policies the board was attempting to pass.

Additionally, the Mankato board is now openly requiring that any parents that speak during the public portion of their meetings dox themselves prior to giving comments.

“Each speaker is asked to state his or her name and address for the record. Failure to do so will result in an individual not being allowed to speak,” Sapp stated during the meeting as reported by Fox News.

According to Alpha News, this appeared to be the first time such a policy was put in place. A meeting on Sep. 20 requested no such thing from members of the public.

Disturbingly, as the Minnesota-based outlet reported, one man initially refused to state his home address but finally acquiesced, turning away from the microphone in the hopes that it wouldn’t be captured and broadcast to online viewers of the meeting.

VA Mom: Helicopter Circled Overhead as Parents Arrived at School Board Meeting

However, “Sapp was sure to restate his exact address into her microphone so all could know where he lives,” they noted.

The stringent new requirements for members of the public came after an Oct. 4 meeting during which fewer than 10 people spoke to the board for roughly 25 minutes altogether.

“The majority of this time was used by community members to speak out against the district’s mask mandate and policy on staff vaccination,” Alpha News noted. “Some speakers’ remarks were followed by modest applause, much to the chagrin of Sapp, who appeared uncomfortable in the face of criticism.”

On Oct. 18, Sapp credited these people, whose behavior she derided as “unacceptable,” as being the reason behind the new regulations.

I’m sorry, even if these people had been heckling, shouting, and knocking chairs over during the previous meeting, what sane person thinks that forcing members of the public to disclose their home address is an acceptable means of maintaining decorum during a school board meeting?

This is not only petty and vindictive, it’s highly disturbing. Tax-paying members of the public certainly ought to be able to publicly address the board of the local school district they’re required to support without worrying that some nutjob could easily come and find them and their family while they sleep at night.

How is it remotely sensible or acceptable to risk the safety of every single member of a person’s family, including their own children, because you’re irritated that people don’t like mask policies and vaccine requirements?

Besides, if we’re supposed to believe that parents who hate masking, critical race theory and transgender students are basically domestic terrorists, wouldn’t it put any members of the public who spoke out in support of these policies at serious risk at the hands of these maniacs?

This is exactly the kind of subtle tyranny that’s being implemented across the country, from private employers to the federal government to classrooms and everywhere in between.

Sure, no one is forcing you to take the vaccine, but you’ll lose your job if you don’t. Sure, no one is forcing your child to adopt the ideology of critical race theory, but they’ll be alienated by their peers and told in class they’re a racist if they don’t repent of their whiteness.

Sure, no one is banning you from speaking out against local school board policies, but just go ahead and tell everyone where your kids sleep if you’d like the opportunity to do so.

What’s next? I shudder to imagine.

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All across America, parents are fighting back against school boards. They are getting more and more outraged that our public schools would defy their concerns and teach their kids a revisionist version of our history. Parents have spoken up, confronting these liberal-controlled school boards.

Biden struck back by having the DOJ brand these parents as criminals. But that hasn’t stopped patriotic parents from fighting for their children’s educations. And in Republican-controlled Texas, they are taking steps to take out one poisonous form of curriculum.

From The Hill:

The chairman of a Texas state House committee tasked with conducting investigations is launching a probe into books that school librarians keep on their shelves in the wake of a measure the legislature passed earlier this year to bar teaching of critical race theory in public schools.

Texas state government is launching investigations to probe the kinds of books available on public school shelves. They are searching for anything that teaches the previously barred “critical race theory” curriculum being pushed by Democrats in our schools.

Texas banned this kind of teaching in the classrooms. But it’s possible that schools found loopholes by putting these books in their libraries. Teachers and liberal librarians could easily encourage kids to read these books on their own, circumventing the law.

Critical race theory has been widely panned by many historians and conservatives. Many believe the ideology twists American history by branding our founding fathers as villains over slavery and other issues. It removes the merits of our leaders and the incredible work they did to found the United States.

Many, including leaders like Ben Carson, fear how this teaching can warp the minds of millions of young people. At least in Texas, their leaders are taking the steps to eliminate this toxic teaching and restoring accurate, honest historical curriculum.

But in many other states, parents have to fight to get their voices heard. Meanwhile, the DOJ and the media branding Americans for simply speaking their mind. The only way CRT will fail is if Americans refuse to back down.

Key Takeaways:

• Texas state legislature is investigating to take CRT books from school libraries.
• The state banned the teaching of “critical race theory” and is ensuring it isn’t in the libraries.
• American parents have fought school boards to remove this teaching from schools.

Source: The Hill

Luke Rosiak’s report in The Daily Wire is further evidence that Democrats are pro-corrupt school boards and anti-parents. This should be a clear sign that Virginia needs Glenn Youngkin as governor to protect children.

The report from Luke Rosiak, a highly regarded investigative reporter, in The Daily Wire is quite disturbing. It details a cover-up of alleged sex crimes against a 12-year-old student in Fairfax County. Democrat Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was a senior advisor to a law firm which is actually fighting against the victim. Please share this story as it should have a significant impact on the governor’s race and reinforce how we need to have control over our children’s education system.

-Newt

https://www.gingrich360.com/2021/10/28/newt-gingrich-audio-update-more-evidence-that-mcauliffe-is-against-parents-and-students/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Thursday%20-%20October%2028%20General&utm_content=Thursday%20-%20October%2028%20General+CID_b1c70ed144421cf9b7a5cda24126b31a&utm_source=Newsletter

Public schools attempting to indoctrinate children with woke ideologies have been a problem for years. But Broward County, Florida, is reportedly taking things to a whole new level of crudity.

On Wednesday, Broward County school board member Sarah Leonardi tweeted pictures of a field trip she took Wilton Manors Elementary students on. The problem was the destination of the field trip was a gay bar.

“I was SO honored to be invited to chaperone @WiltonManorsES’s field trip to the incredible Rosie’s!” she wrote. “The students and I had a fun walk over and learned a lot about our community!”

I was SO honored to be invited to chaperone @WiltonManorsES’s field trip to the incredible Rosie’s! The students and I had a fun walk over and learned a lot about our community! A huge thank you to @RosiesBnG for hosting this special field trip every year! pic.twitter.com/A3rpMbyUJP

— School Board Member Sarah Leonardi (@bcpsleonardi) October 27, 2021

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

In one picture, young students in masks can be seen outside the bar with three adults. Another image shows the young children sitting at tables inside the gay bar.

On its online menu, Rosie’s has items such as “Naked Sweaty Lovin’,” “Smack My Cheeks and Make ‘em Rosy Sauce,” “Miley Highclub” and “Beet Your Brains Out.”

Doesn’t that sound like a nice, family-friendly establishment?

Seeing children at a bar like this is disturbing in any capacity, but the fact that it appeared to be a school-sanctioned event was even more grotesque. Many users took to Twitter to express their concern.

A school in @browardschools district took elementary age kids to a gay bar on a field trip today pic.twitter.com/kfRgzPJwSO

— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) October 28, 2021

Sodom and Gomorrah called, they’d like an investigation https://t.co/NDZnarwiGP

— Kenzo Frank The Evangelist (@FrankTheKenzo) October 28, 2021

When are we going say ENOUGH? https://t.co/DFniOSGj8v

— Wanderer (@sharrij) October 28, 2021

Watch: Sen. Hawley Destroys AG Garland in 92 Seconds, Catches Him Red-Handed on Loudoun Rape Case

In her tweet, Leonardi suggested the gay bar field trip was an annual event. One can only hope this exposure will spare future students from such gross mistreatment.

Previous actions from the Broward County school board suggest the body is on the political left. For example, the board voted in August to enforce a universal mask mandate despite a ban on such mandates by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, WPLG-TV reported. (The board later voted to make masks optional at the district’s high schools.)

Unfortunately, sexually charged school events promoting an LGBT agenda are becoming more prominent. On Oct. 15, Burlington High School in Vermont hosted a drag show during halftime at a high school football game.

VT: Burlington’s high school homecoming drag show leaves LGBTQ+ students with mixed emotions.

Principal Lauren McBride waited near the field, her walkie-talkie crackled: “They’re coming out, and they look fabulous.”

Child abuse.

Gender confusion.

At a public school. pic.twitter.com/btqXJBXYf0

— Dalton (@DaltonReport) October 17, 2021

Abuses like this are the reason parents are becoming more involved in their children’s education. They are also the reason why politicians like Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, who said parents should stay out of education, are falling in the polls. Meanwhile, students in China have reached the top of the world charts in reading and math performance.

Parents care about what their children are being taught, and they have every right to do so. If woke educators keep pushing leftist ideas on their students, the effects will almost certainly be felt in future elections.

The event “Defending Freedom in American Education,” held by a non-profit organization in Georgia on Oct. 23, addressed how parents can oppose Critical Race Theory (CRT), eradicate the harmful indoctrination, and preserve American values and principles in schools.

“We are vocal. We are loud. We are tenacious. We must be heard. But we are civil. We respect the rules of society and legitimate authority. We will not stand down. We are the majority—patriotic Americans who believe that a fair and just society can only be achieved when malleable young minds are free from the indoctrination that suppresses their independent thought,” said the organizer, Dr. Elana Fishbein from No Left Turn in Education.

Fishbein founded No Left Turn in Education in the fall of 2020 after her son was taught CRT at his Pennsylvania elementary school.

At the event, Fishbein said the first step is understanding the dangers of CRT and how it has infiltrated our culture through school curriculums, and that the goal of No Left Turn in Education is to empower parents to fight back.

CRT started in the mid-1970s in the writings of various American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman. It was revisited by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s.

CRT claims to study racism in society, and it presents racism as the root problem for a wide variety of social ills. In recent years, it has been endorsed by many in academia as well as U.S. civil-rights thinkers, seeking to examine the intersection of race and legal justice, or as an approach to racial justice.

Dr. Carol Swain, a best-selling author, pointed out that the current goal of leftist educators is to extend CRT into the 5–12 school system, from its well-established perch in U.S. colleges and universities, with the aim of diminishing American pride.

Paul Lott, the founder and president of the National Society for the Advancement of Black Americans told The Epoch Times “that the statistics show there is no discrimination in America.”

“Average white poverty went up in 2018,” he said. “The statistics comparing 1959 to 2018, show white babies were three times more likely to remain poor than black babies in America. … If racism was happening, this would never have happened.”

He also said he believes that this notion of race-based inequity is bred by the Hollywood media pushing these assumptions of fact on young people.

A recent lawsuit, handled by Southeastern Legal Foundation, challenges mandatory student segregation being exercised in Illinois schools. It’s said the white students and non-white students are separated from the same teacher and receive different curriculums.

Kimberly Hermann, general counsel of Southeastern Legal Foundation, advised parents of children who were being forced to accept divisive concepts based on race, to pursue legal help. She also said she believes that history should be taught in school and children should be educated with love, kindness, and caring for each other instead of hating each other.

An NBC News analysis earlier this year found at least 165 local and national groups have arisen, seeking to “disrupt or block lessons based on race and gender.”

A Minnesota school board is facing criticism because of new policies for public comment sessions at its meetings, including requiring that commenters state their home address in order to speak.

The Mankato Area Public School Board updated its open forum guidelines earlier this month, but only sparked controversy recently after video footage of an Oct. 18 meeting was shared on social media. During the meeting, parents and community members were told they must give their full address before they could speak for three minutes.

“I just want to remind everybody this is a business meeting of the school board, it is not a meeting that belongs to the public,” chairwoman Jodi Sapp told the audience before the open forum segment began.

She went on to read out the guidelines, stating that each speaker will be asked to state his or her name and address for the record, and that failure to do so will result in an individual not being allowed to speak.

The new rules also banned “calling out or addressing any individual school board or school district staff member.” If it occurs, the open forum will be closed, and the violator will not be allowed to participate in future open forums.

“Crowd noise, or any sort of grandstanding during open forum, including applause, talking, hollering or any outburst will result in open forum being closed,” Sapp added.

One of the public commenters was a Mankato man who identified himself as John Wicklund. When Sapp asked him to reveal his address, he replied that he “would rather not,” saying that he had suffered from “property damage, eggs, and everything else” by “fun people and their friends.”

After Sapp repeatedly pressed Wicklund for his precise home address, the man turned away from the microphone and gave his address in an attempt to avoid potential harassment. Sapp then restated that address using her microphone so that all could hear where he lives.

Mankato’s new policies were first reported by Minnesota news site Alpha News, which noted that rule was apparently not enforced or did not exist before October, since public forum participants were not asked to “dox themselves” at a Sept. 20 meeting.

The policies caused widespread criticism on social media, with many people questioning whether it is legal for the board to make such requirements, or whether the rules should also apply to board members themselves. The website of the Mankato school board currently doesn’t disclose each member’s home address.

The controversy comes amid a nationwide debate over parents’ role in their children’s upbringing and education. While advocacy groups like Parents Defending Education call for more parental involvement in local school districts’ decision-making process, the National School Board Association requested federal law enforcement to help handle what it described as “angry mobs” of parents who allegedly threaten the safety of teachers and school officials.

The school board did not respond to request for comment on the public forum policies.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/minnesota-school-board-demands-parents-announce-their-addresses-in-order-to-speak-at-meetings_4073972.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

“General Garland, you have weaponized the FBI and the Department of Justice. Your U.S. attorneys are now collecting and cataloging all the ways that they might prosecute parents … because they want to be involved in their children’s education.”

That’s how Sen. Josh Hawley challenged Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday as Garland testified before a Senate committee regarding the Justice Department’s interest in parents protesting against school boards.

“It’s wrong,” Hawley said. “It is unprecedented, to my knowledge, in the history of this country, and I call on you to resign.”

There may be headaches around the country today for the people who repeatedly facepalmed during Garland’s testimony.

Hawley zeroed in on Garland in front of a large photograph of police arresting Scott Smith, the angry father whose daughter was sexually assaulted in a school restroom in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Former CNN Cameraman Exposed as Alleged Congressional Hitman – ‘I’m Coming for Him’

The Republican senator grilled Garland on a letter from the U.S. attorney for Montana that he said called for the prosecution of parents speaking out against school boards.

The letter followed an Oct. 4 memo from Garland calling upon federal law enforcement officials to develop plans to respond to “threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” That memo had come days after the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Joe Biden comparing school board protesters to domestic terrorists.

“Now, you testified last week before the House that you didn’t know anything about [the Smith] case,” Hawley said.

“I find that extraordinary because the [NSBA] letter that you put so much weight on — the letter that’s now been retracted — it cites this case. … There’s a news article cited in the letter. It’s discussed in the letter, but you testified you just couldn’t remember it.”

Do you think Garland should resign?

Hawley had Garland backed into a corner. Either he hadn’t done his due diligence before signing off on the Oct. 4 memo, or he had lied to Congress about being unaware of the Loudoun County incident.

“Maybe this will refresh your memory,” Hawley continued. “Do you think people like Scott Smith — do you think parents who show up to complain about their children being assaulted ought to be treated like this man right here?” Hawley asked, pointing to the picture of Smith being pinned to the floor by police.

Garland countered by saying that parents who show up at school board meetings are protected by the First Amendment.

“Do you think that they ought to be prosecuted in the different ways that your U.S. attorneys are identifying?” Hawley shot back.

Garland answered, “If what they’re doing is complaining about what the school board is doing — policies, curriculum, anything else that they want to — as long as they’re not committing threats of violence, then they should not be prosecuted, and they can’t be.”

Sen. Hawley Calls for Resignation of Biden’s Secretary of State and Defense

But Hawley said some of his Democratic colleagues at the hearing had repeatedly compared parents protesting at school board meetings to “criminal rioters,” a charge Garland denied.

“Oh, really?” Hawley replied, picking up a piece of paper and apparently reading a quote from it. “‘These people are just like the folks who came here on Jan. 6 and [were involved in] the riot at the Capitol’?”

Garland, perhaps suddenly recalling comments by Democrats, replied, “I don’t think that they were referring to the picture that you’re showing there”

“Well, I certainly would hope not. They were referring to parents who go to school board meetings. Mr. Smith is a parent who went to a school board meeting.

“I’ll leave it at this. General Garland, you have weaponized the FBI and the Department of Justice. Your U.S. attorneys are now collecting and cataloging all the ways that they might prosecute parents like Mr. Smith because they want to be involved in their children’s education and they want to have a say in their elected officials.

“It’s wrong. It is unprecedented, to my knowledge, in the history of this country, and I call on you to resign.”

Despite challenges from Hawley and other Republicans, Garland said Wednesday that he will continue to mobilize federal officials against threats to school boards, according to U.S. News & World Report.

“True threats of violence are not protected by the First Amendment. Those are the things we are worried about here. Those are the only things we are worried about here,” Garland said.

“We are not investigating peaceful protests or parent involvement in school board meetings. There is no precedent for doing that and we would never do that. We are only concerned about violence and threats of violence against school administrators, teachers, staff.”

Of course, violence is increasingly becoming whatever leftists say it is (as in the “silence is violence” line from Black Lives Matter).

Hawley is right — Garland should resign.

And here’s a suggestion: Think about sending the video of Hawley grilling Garland to your representative or senator as a primer on what many of us expect of those representing us in Congress.

Thank you, Sen. Hawley.

A Texas House committee is investigating school library books in the wake of a new law that bans the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in public schools.

State Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on General Investigating, wrote on Oct. 25 to the Texas Education Agency and a group of unnamed superintendents, notifying them of the inquiry.

In the letter (pdf), Krause said a number of school districts across the state have recently removed books from libraries and classrooms after receiving objections from students, parents, and taxpayers. The letter cites five incidents as examples, which mostly involved concerned parents who complained that certain books are sexually explicit or teach CRT.

“In accordance with the Committee’s jurisdiction and my authority as Chairman, I am initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content,” he said.

Attached to the letter is a 16-page list (pdf) containing more than 840 books, published between 2021 and as early as 1969. It includes titles that are popular among social and racial justice activists, such as “Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” and “How to Be An Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander, and books about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Also on the list are books focused on transgender, gender identity, homosexuality, adolescent sexuality, pregnancy and abortion, including those discussing the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade. It also includes “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore, likely because of the graphic novel’s portrayal of homosexual characters.

Specifically, Krause asked school districts to report on how many copies of each listed book they possess, and how much money was spent on those books.

Krause further asked that school districts identify any other books that cover topics including “human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or HIV or AIDS, sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law,” or contain material that might violate the anti-CRT law by conveying that students are inherently racist or sexist or should feel guilt because of their sex or race.

The school districts will have until Nov. 12 to respond to those questions, according to the letter.

The initiative faced almost immediate opposition from Texas’s teachers’ unions. In an Oct. 26 statement, Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina said Krause’s letter “smacks of a witch hunt.”

“This is an obvious attack on diversity and an attempt to score political points at the expense of our children’s education,” Molina said.

Molina was joined by Zeph Capo the president of Texas American Federation of Teachers, who called the move “akin to the Red Scare” and a waste of taxpayer’s dollars.

It is unclear what Krause is planning to do once the school districts provide him with the information. The Epoch Times has reach out to his office for comment and will update this article accordingly.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-house-republican-investigates-school-library-books-about-race-sex_4072228.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Denouncing efforts by the National School Boards Association to demonize parents who demand a say in the education of their children, the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday announced they will investigate potential collusion between the Biden administration and the National School Boards Association.

A rising tide of parental anger has been building across America as schools boards have jammed mask mandates, critical race theory, transgender activism and assorted other far-left extremist indoctrination tactics down the throats of children.

In response to defiant parents refusing to be pushed around any longer, Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this month issued a memo saying that the Justice Department will now intervene on the side of school boards against parents.

#BREAKING: Judiciary Republicans launch new investigation into the National School Boards Association. pic.twitter.com/O4xGUmrNFQ

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) October 27, 2021

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

Garland’s memo implied that parents who speak up against White House and teachers union-backed policies are a threat to society.

Garland’s policy came in response to a demand from the National School Boards Association that parents learn their place.

“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” the group wrote in a letter.

The school boards association has since issued an apology for the reference to domestic terrorism, but not the general tenor of its attack on parents.

Is the Biden White House anti-parent?

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a scathing letter to the National School Boards Association on Wednesday announcing the launch of their investigation into the organization’s war on parents in partnership with the White House.

“We are investigating the troubling attempts by the Department of Justice and the White House to use the heavy hand of federal law enforcement to target concerned parents at local school board meetings and chill their protected First Amendment activity,” the letter thundered.

Noting that the group’s letter denouncing parents produced the knee-jerk reaction of Garland’s memo, the letter added that Garland told the House panel that the letter’s wild claims were the basis of his anti-parent memo.

Merrick Garland tells @ChuckGrassley he will not dissolve school board task force even though the National School Boards Association apologized for the “domestic terrorism” letter that seemingly prompted Garland to create the task force

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 27, 2021

‘WJ Live’: After Student Walk-Out, Loudoun County Parents Demand School Board Resignation

“The Biden Administration seemingly relied upon the NSBA letter — which it coordinated in advance with the NSBA — as justification to unleash the full weight of the federal law enforcement apparatus upon America’s parents,” the letter read.

“Parents have an undisputed right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, including expressing concerns about the inclusion of controversial curricula in their child’s education,” the House Republicans wrote, noting that the school boards association appears not to recognize that.

“Unsurprisingly, the NSBA’s September 29 letter to President Biden never once mentioned ‘parents’ or parents’ role in their children’s education — although its subsequent apology memorandum purported to value the ‘voices of parents.’ Concerned parents are absolutely not domestic terrorists and, to the extent actual threats exist, local law enforcement — and not the FBI — are the appropriate authorities to address those situations,” the letter read.

“Parents cannot tolerate this collusion between the NSBA and the Biden Administration to construct a justification for invoking federal law enforcement to intimidate and silence parents using their Constitutional rights to advocate for their child’s future.”

The letter called for a release of all the documents from the group and the Biden administration that were germane to its demand that parents be restrained from publicly advocating for their children.

The letter also asked whether, in light of its new-found claim that it values parents, “the NSBA will urge Attorney General Garland to withdraw or rescind his October 4 memorandum.”

The letter was signed by Republican Reps. Jim Jordan, of Ohio; Steve Chabot of Ohio; Louie Gohmert of Texas; Darrell Issa of California; Ken Buck of Colorado; Matt Gaetz of Florida; Mike Johnson of Louisiana; Andy Biggs of Arizona; Tom McClintock of California; Greg Steube of Florida; Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin; Thomas Massie of Kentucky; Chip Roy of Texas; Dan Bishop of North Carolina; Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota; Victoria Spartz of Indiana; Scott L. Fitzgerald of Wisconsin; Cliff Bentz of Oregon and Burgess Owens of Utah.

While students in U.S. public schools are being taught that math is racist, Chinese scientists say they have built two supercomputers that dwarf the capabilities of anything currently available in the West.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported the Chinese researchers claimed one of the supercomputers is one million times faster than the nearest competitor, Google’s Sycamore.

Further, they have produced a second, even faster one that “uses light photons to achieve never-before seen results.”

“According to the research team, the light-based Jiuzhang 2 can calculate in one millisecond a task that would take the world’s fastest conventional computer 30 trillion years,” the Post said.

“The team’s findings are detailed in two papers published in the peer-reviewed academic journals Physical Review Letters and Science Bulletin.”

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

The communist China state-run Global Times reported, “It’s the first time that China has reached quantum advantage in a superconducting quantum computing system.”

Helen Raleigh — an immigration policy fellow with the Centennial Institute in Colorado who was born and raised in communist China — tweeted in response to the Post’s report: “While American public schools are teaching kids that math is racist, Chinese scientists have built 2 quantum computers which can calculate in one millisecond a task that would take the world’s fastest conventional computer 30 trillion years.”

While American public schools are teaching kids that math is racist, Chinese scientists have built 2 quantum computers which can calculate in one millisecond a task that would take the world’s fastest conventional computer 30 trillion years. https://t.co/06LoyVOxj7

— Helen Raleigh (@HRaleighspeaks) October 26, 2021

On the education front, Chinese students outperformed their American counterparts the Program for International Student Assessment in 2018.

Should Americans be concerned about China’s advanced technology achievements?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development administered the test to 600,000 15-year-olds across 79 countries, assessing reading, math and science skills.

Students from four provinces in China — Beijing, Shanghai and the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang — earned the highest level 4 rating in all three subjects, while America students ranked level 3 in reading and science and level 2 in math.

U.S. students scored lower in math than most European countries, as well as Singapore, Japan and Korea.

Big Think reported, “Socio-economic background did play a role in the test scores, accounting for 12 percent of the variation in reading performance in each country, on average. But the results also showed that the poorest 10 percent of students in China still outperformed the OECD average.”

Warner Bros. Betrays BLM with Shocking Airbrush Change to China’s Posters for ‘Dune’

While America should be focused on getting back to basics — reading, writing, arithmetic — the emphasis in education of late seems to be on race.

It, of course, is the left’s constant obsession, at the expense of everything else.

The California Department of Education is in the process of revising its K-12 mathematics curriculum framework to promote “equity.”

Williamson Evers — director of the Center on Educational Excellence at the Independent Institute and who served as an assistant secretary of education during the George W. Bush administration — sent up the red flares in a May opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal.

He noted that the framework recommends eight times that teachers draw lessons from the document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction,” also published in May.

“This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of ‘white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,’ including a focus on ‘getting the right answer,’ teaching math in a ‘linear fashion,’ requiring students to ‘show their work’ and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter,” according to Evers.

“Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity,” the manual says.

The document also dives directly into the political, encouraging teachers to, “Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist and racist views.”

Would that be the same capitalism that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system conceived by man?

Even China, while it maintains a one party communist political rule, began adopting capitalist principles in the 1980s, leading to its meteoric economic rise.

The Oregon Department of Education is also promoting a course for teachers based on the “Pathway” document.

Watch out! Bad ideas that start out west have a way of drifting east.

Abraham Lincoln made a famous prediction concerning America’s future: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Certainly promoting critical race thinking, even in mathematics, tears at the fabric of American society.

Our concern should not be focused on China and its apparent development of these supercomputers; it should be on the Leftists in the U.S. and what they are doing to undermine our nation’s future and make us noncompetitive.

America fell behind Soviet Russia briefly in the space race in the late 1950s and early ’60s, then leap-frogged them to the moon.

We can do the same with China and supercomputers or anything else that matters, but only if we stay true to the principle of giving people an equal opportunity to fully exercise their gifts and achieve excellence, instead of lowering expectations for all in the name of achieving equity.

Parents group fires back, says DOJ memo designed to suppress dissenting parents

Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Oct. 27 that it was appropriate for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to send a memo to school boards despite a National School Boards Association (NSBA) decision to withdraw its letter comparing parent protesters to domestic terrorists.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Garland attempted to distance the DOJ’s memo from the NSBA letter.

“All it asks is for federal law enforcement to consult with, meet with local law enforcement to assess the circumstances, strategize about what may or may not be necessary to provide federal assistance, if it is necessary,” Garland said, in response to questioning from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The memo, he said, “alters some of the language in the letter that we did not rely on and is not contained in my own memorandum. The only thing the Justice Department is concerned about is violence and threats of violence.”

After the NSBA letter and DOJ’s memo were issued, Republicans in Congress said the Biden administration was trying to quash parental dissent against the teaching of controversial subjects, including the quasi-Marxist critical race theory.

Republicans have said the DOJ should withdraw the memo since the NSBA retracted and apologized for its letter last week. The original letter referred to protests against school board members and likened such actions to domestic terrorism, asking the DOJ to use the Patriot Act.

“I think all of us have seen these reports of violence and threats of violence—that is what the Justice Department is concerned about,” Garland said on Oct. 27. “That’s the reason that we responded as quickly as we did when we got a letter indicating that there was violence and threats of violence with respect to school officials and school staff.”

Real and concrete threats of violence against school officials “are not protected by the First Amendment,” he said. “We are not investigating peaceful protests or parent involvement in school board meetings.”

The follow-up apology letter issued by the NSBA “does not change” its concern about the threat of violence, Garland said, telling Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) that the DOJ directive merely addresses whether any federal laws were being broken.

Without providing any concrete examples or data, the attorney general’s memo issued earlier in October said there has been a “disturbing spike” in threats of violence, harassment, and intimidation against teachers, school board members, and other educators. In a separate statement, the DOJ also announced the creation of a task force that would deal with such threats, which includes the agency’s National Security Division.

In response to Garland’s testimony on Oct. 27, Parents Defending Education head Nicole Neily said in a statement that a “number of people across the country” were terrified by the DOJ memo. The memo also suppressed parents from attending meetings and voicing their concerns “because they feared a knock at the door by the FBI,” Neily said.

Garland confirmed during an Oct. 21 House Judiciary Hearing that the basis for the claim of a “disturbing spike” in threats was based on the NSBA letter—not on law enforcement intelligence or academic studies.

But the NBSA has since distanced itself from its initial letter.

“On behalf of the NSBA, we regret and apologize for the letter,” the group’s Oct. 22 letter said. “To be clear, the safety of school board members, other public school officials and educators, and students is our top priority, and there remains important work to be done on this issue.

“However, there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for some consultation on a communication of this significance.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ag-garland-defends-memo-targeting-parents-after-nsba-letter-is-withdrawn_4071931.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

As Republican Glenn Youngkin insists that the election for governor of Virginia is all about parents and their children, to President Joe Biden, it’s seemingly all about Donald Trump.

Biden name-dropped the former president 24 times in 17 minutes Tuesday during a campaign stop to help Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia, according to the New York Post.

Youngkin has made the race a dead heat, leading to an onslaught of big-name Democrats coming to Virginia in hopes of energizing their voters in the Nov. 2 election.

Biden’s jabs at Trump were part of a Democratic strategy to paint Youngkin as a wild-eyed Trumpist who would bring the kind of chaos witnessed in the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion to the sedate liberal mainstream of Virginia voters.

Biden said “extremism can come in many forms,” including “the rage of a mob” and “a smile and a fleece vest,” according to Yahoo.

‘Identifiable Harm’: Biden Kills JFK File Release, Issues Baffling Statement

One of Youngkin’s campaign trademarks is a fleece vest.

Youngkin has Trump’s support, but given the highly divided nature of the state from its liberal enclaves around Washington, D.C., to its more conservative counties, Youngkin has decided on a campaign strategy that does not include using Trump as an in-person speaker to rally the Republican vote.

However, Biden pictures Youngkin as a Trump loyalist.

“I ran against Donald Trump. Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump,” Biden said.

Will Democratic scare tactics work this time around?

“He (Youngkin) won’t allow Donald Trump to campaign for him in this state. He’s willing to pledge his loyalty to Trump in private; why not in public? What’s he trying to hide? Is there a problem with Trump being here? Is he embarrassed?”

During his speech, Biden was heckled by protesters concerning the Line 3 pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Wisconsin.

“This is not a Trump rally; we let them holler,” Biden said

Biden, along with former President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, are trying to energized Democrats.

Youngkin has turned away from the traditional political name game and has been strong in his focus on recent in-state controversies, including sexual assault accusations at Loudoun County Public Schools.

Report: Trump’s New Social Media Platform to Have Feature That Will Make It Immune to Cancel Culture

He also has backed parents who oppose certain books in schools that discuss sex in explicit detail. That has pitted him against McAuliffe, who has backed schools against parents.

What’s it like to have Terry McAuliffe block you from having a say in your child’s education?

This mom knows – she lived through it. Watch her powerful story. #VAgov pic.twitter.com/u8EjmMQX0n

— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) October 25, 2021

“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision,” McAuliffe said in a debate against Youngkin, according to the New York Post.

“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Youngkin, however, said the upcoming election will define if parents will be relegated to second-class status.

“Virginians have a moment to stand up, not just for the future of Virginia’s kids, but for America’s kids. And that’s why this race is so important to everyone right now,” he said, according to Fox News.

“The nation is watching because they recognize that when Virginians stand up and take a state that has been blue and elect a Republican governor, it’s going to make a statement that’s going to be (heard) not just around the country, but around the world.”

The parents of a Leon County school student have filed a lawsuit against school officials for violation of parental rights in an effort to stop enforcement of the district’s transgender-affirming “guidance” for their minor-aged daughter that was kept secret from the parents.

The Plan

As reported by The Epoch Times in August, January Littlejohn of Tallahassee, Florida, was horrified to discover that school officials held a secret meeting with her 13-year-old daughter to discuss how the school would accommodate her decision to be acknowledged as non-binary and use an alternate name at school. The plan made it clear to staff that the parents were not “aware and supportive of their child’s gender transition.” Therefore, while the school psychologist/social worker, principal, assistant principal, counselor, student teachers, substitute teachers, and the child’s peer group were allowed to know what was going on, the use of “privacy when speaking to parents” was listed as one of the “considerations” that “must be accounted for in implementing this plan.”

According to the Leon County School District’s Transgender/Gender-Nonconforming Student Support Plan—filled out during a Sept. 8, 2020, private meeting and first obtained by The Epoch Times—a “checklist” was used to record the child’s new non-binary status, “preferred name,” and “preferred pronouns.” The child also determined which bathroom she preferred using and that she would “be comfortable rooming w/either sex” on overnight school trips. This opened the door to having the 13-year-old girl rooming with teenage boys without her parents’ knowledge.

Through the series of emails and meetings between January and Jeffrey Littlejohn, their attorney and Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna—which followed the discovery of the secret meeting—Hanna eventually conceded in a May 24, 2021 letter addressed to Mary McAlister—lead counsel for the Littlejohns—that “there was no basis to exclude” the parents from the private meeting. In the letter—also obtained by The Epoch Times—Hanna also said “a revised Q&A specific to the Littlejohn’s concern was provided to the administrators reiterating the directive to promptly contact parents of students who identify as LGBTQ+.” In conversations with the Littlejohns, Hanna further admitted the passage of H.B. 241, the Florida Parents’ Bill of Rights, “changed everything” in this matter.

Leon County Schools Equity Officer Kathleen Rodgers also told The Epoch Times in August that the district was “working to put together a more detailed policy to be more inclusive of the Parent Bill of Rights” and that “a committee” would meet “in the next few weeks to tweak policies and begin the process to present them to the School Board for adoption.”

The Broken Promises

“We have been meeting with the district for over a year and we were holding faith in what the superintendent was telling us,” January Littlejohn told The Epoch Times the day after the lawsuit was filed, “They said ‘you’re absolutely right, you should have been included,’ and ‘from here on out parents will be included.’ We thought that hiring attorneys would let them know we were serious and that passing the Parents’ Bill of Rights and having that signed into law would be enough.”

However, while the Littlejohns believed their July 1 meeting with school officials and their attorney went well—just after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Florida Parents’ Bill of Rights into law—the passage of time found nothing had changed.

While the Littlejohns requested to see the promised revised policy from the Leon County School District, all they found was that the school had pulled the old guide from the internet.

Despite Hanna’s assurance that parents will be included in important decisions being made for their child, it has become very clear that Leon County school officials are maintaining their policy of keeping everything secret.

“That was a huge red flag for me that they weren’t adhering to what was promised at the meeting,” Littlejohn said “and I became very concerned that we were being dragged along and they were not going to make good on their word. So we filed the lawsuit.”

The Lawsuit

According to Littlejohn, school officials continue to insist that they are following school guidelines, which are to protect the privacy of the children. However, their lawyer insists school officials are twisting the definition of the word “privacy” to push their own agenda.

“When we say ‘private,’ these school officials are taking the position of ‘keeping things private from parents,” Vernadette Broyles, president and general counsel at Child & Parental Rights Campaign Inc. in John’s Creek, Georgia, told The Epoch Times. Broyles is one of the attorneys representing the Littlejons in their lawsuit.

“We have no quarrel in protecting children’s privacy from a third party,” Broyles explained. What they do have a problem with is when school officials take the position that the decisions they make that affect the mental health and well-being of someone else’s child—like the decision to identify as something other than their sex, what bathrooms the child will use, and where they sleep on a field trip—should be kept secret from parents.

“Those are profoundly impactful decisions and they’re taking a position of saying they cannot share it with parents,” Broyles asserted “and that is a distortion of the concept of privacy of a child to keep such information from the child’s parents.”

According to Broyles, the individuals named in the complaint filed on Oct. 18 are Hanna and Rodgers. Broyles said the Leon County School Board was also named in the suit because they have reason to believe the board had “some complicity and knowledge of what was going on.”

The complaint alleges that the Defendants “violated Plaintiffs’ fundamental rights by implementing a protocol and training district staff to conceal from parents information regarding their children’s assertion of a discordant gender identity,” and “violated Plaintiffs’ fundamental rights by directing staff to deceive parents by using the children’s birth name and corresponding pronouns in the presence of or communication with the parents while using the children’s new chosen name and pronouns at all other times.”

‘Common Sense Things’

According to Broyles, they are asking for “some very common sense things.” They want the school to formally rescind the old guidance they had on the website, specifically the directives to “intentionally deceive parents by using the child’s given name and pronouns when the parents were around or when speaking to parents” and to “revert to using the assumed identity of the child” once the “parents were out of the way.”

“That is unconscionable,” Broyles said.

They also want a new policy drafted that makes it clear, “whenever a child expresses confusion about their gender identity or their sex that parents would be immediately notified because it is a health issue.”

In addition, “no meetings will be held and no actions will be taken until school staff and/or officials have first spoken to the parents and obtained their permission and their participation in these decisions.” They also demand that “any new policies be implemented through school board notification and voting.”

“That’s a big issue,” Littlejohn noted, explaining that many schools are able to keep parents in the dark about what is going on in their children’s schools by calling these procedures “guidance” rather than “policies.”

“We’re seeing around the country where these kinds of “guidance” are being implemented through back channels, decided somewhere in private conversations and then put in place not through the public school boards, which are accountable to parents and the community,” Littlejohn explained.

Asked if they believe the implementation of “guidance” through “private conversations” suggests there is an intentional violation of Florida’s Sunshine Laws, Broyles said the possibility is obvious.

“We suspect there is but we decided not to focus on that because those types of violations typically have a short statute of limitations and limited remedies,” Broyles explained. “This is a bigger picture. This lawsuit is about protecting the fundamental rights of parents to raise their children without the interference of government officials so we have focused on the guarantees under the Unites States Constitution, the Florida State Constitution, the protections of the Florida Parents’ Bill of Rights, and other Florida statutes.

“This is not just a Florida thing,” Broyles insisted. “This is a national agenda to drive a wedge between parents and their children because somehow public school officials have taken the position and have somehow come to believe that they know better than parents and that children are nothing more than the mere creatures of the state. This case is to establish that children belong to families and that parents are the rightful adults to be making these decisions about what’s in their child’s best interest.

“I want to be very clear about something,” Broyles added, “affirming a child’s discordant gender identity is a significant mental health and medical decision that affects the well-being of children with potentially life-long consequences. To affirm a child’s discordant identity is a treatment decision to a complex mental health issue that schools are not qualified to make. Parents must immediately be involved in such decisions. So this case is about establishing the rightful place of parents to make those decisions and that’s what protects children.”

The Secret Game of ‘Guidance’ Versus ‘Policy’

“This issue of ‘guidance’ versus ‘policy’ is really significant,” Littlejohn reiterated, sharing that she had watched a conference hosted by Equality Florida “that specifically told the schools, administrators, guidance counselors, and all of the attendees to implement guidance, not policy because you don’t have to have any input to do that.”

When they call it “guidance” rather than “policy” Littlejohn said school officials “can effectively train teachers, put on seminars, webinars and implement these procedures without ever having to go through the school board to get public comment.”

“It’s all done very much in secret from parents,” Littlejohn said, explaining how she had found “these same exact LGBTQ non-conforming guides” in many other Florida school districts including Broward, Dade, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Orange, Pasco, Hillsborough, and Alachua.

“And these were just the ones I researched,” Littlejohn noted. “I didn’t have time to research all the counties in Florida yet but it’s very easy to find these guides and it specifically states to keep this information from parents because outing a child to the parents could result in abuse or homelessness.”

Quisha King, the mother whose speech opposing critical race theory before the Duval County School Board went viral, produced a video warning parents that what happened in secret with the Littlejohns could also be happening to their children in Duval County.  In the video, King reads directly from the Duval County Public Schools’ “Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender & Questioning LGBTQ+” Support Guide (pdf), which instructs any teacher or school administrator who is asked about a child’s chosen status by a child’s parent to provide the following “appropriate response”:Based on policy and federal guidelines, I cannot divulge whether your child and I have had any such confidential conversations, as even students are legally afforded rights of privacy.

The guide further instructs that “upon notification of a transgender or gender non-conforming student’s status,” school staff should complete a support plan, just like the one filled out by the Littlejohn’s daughter in secret meeting with school officials, “in collaboration with the student and parent/guardian (if aware) to provide guidance to school staff on how to support the child at school.” The guide also provides a “reminder,” that “a student’s gender identity should never be disclosed without their consent even to a parent or guardian.” As it reads on the booklet cover, this guidance is to be practiced in “every school, every classroom,” with “every student, every day.”

“That’s devotion, honey,” King told The Epoch Times, clarifying that this means it applies to all Duval County children in kindergarten through twelfth grade. “They even have in the guide how to talk to kindergartners about this.”https://www.youtube.com/embed/fYbeqhTYvTA?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque

“They put this out there under the umbrella of civil rights, privacy, and anti-bullying,” King explained. “But I don’t understand why we have to cater to one specific group. Nobody should be bullied. No one should be harassed. Why do we have to have LGBTQ signs everywhere as if they’re a special group? It should just be ‘we don’t tolerate bullying or harassment of anyone,’ period.”

The ‘Mishandling of This Situation’

“While we seldom comment on pending litigation, we have seen that the district openly acknowledged their mishandling of this situation and apologized for the matter,” Christina Pushaw, press secretary for DeSantis told The Epoch Times.

This is not the first time Leon County has been in the legal hot seat. On Oct. 12, Leon County was slapped with a $3.57 million fine for violation of state law prohibiting vaccine mandates for government employees and for firing 14 who refused to comply. They have until Nov. 5 to pay the penalty.

“The district should take every step necessary to get a firm grip on its school operations and hold accountable all those who permitted this ridiculous situation to occur,” Pushaw stated further. “Governor DeSantis has always stood strong for parents’ rights and will continue fighting to protect parents’ rights to make health and education decisions for their own children.”

“The Leon County School Board has admitted their mishandling of the situation and apologized to the family,” Brett Tubbs from the communications office for Florida Department of Education Director Richard Corcoran, told The Epoch Times, “however we must hold those who permitted this situation to occur accountable. The Leon County School District must take every step necessary to fix this situation. Governor DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) have fought for the rights of parents and will continue to do so when making health and education decisions for their students. FDOE has been extremely clear that elected officials cannot pick and choose what laws they follow and that parents have the right to make personal and private health care and education decisions for their families.”

The Epoch Times reached out twice to Hanna for comment. He did not respond.

The Epoch Times also reached out to Rodgers.

“We do not comment on open litigation,” Chris Petley in the communications office replied.

The Epoch Times also reached out twice to Leon County School Board Chair Georgia “Joy” Bowen (District 5). She did not respond.

For parents who want more information on their rights regarding transgender indoctrination in Florida schools, Broyles suggests: Navigating the Transgender Landscape School Resource Guide.

“A group of four attorneys and three educators created this guide to be an antidote to the propaganda with which activists have flooded our schools,” Broyles said. “It is filled with medically accurate information that was reviewed and endorsed by fourteen medical professionals. ”

“They are really pinning the child against the parent and that’s what was so profound to me,” Littlejohn said. “There was not just one person in the meeting with my daughter but three school officials had her in a room, by herself, completing this guide with her and this is being done, not only in our state but all over America. This is a really significant issue happening that parents are in the dark about. Parents need to find a voice and stand up for parental rights before they’re completely gone.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/florida-parents-file-lawsuit-for-violation-of-parental-rights-to-stop-secret-transgender-affirming-guidance_4061814.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-27-2&mktids=8fad7d3c419cbc705c54928a13445e7d&est=mR7%2FgqUJckBC0Sm04dfAOxjruxWCH97pdvLTENDkU6VHLJS6VjTB%2ByTpwMkHQbrohA%3D%3D

Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy condemned Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Biden administration over Garland’s letter to the FBI targeting parents protesting at school board meetings.

Kennedy made the remarks in an interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“Merrick Garland is the vessel here. The prophet is President Biden in the White House. Merrick Garland’s not going to back off until the White House tells him to back off, and all of this was instigated by the White House,” Kennedy said.

“Most parents don’t believe that babies can be white supremacists.” @SenJohnKennedy previews the questions Attorney General Merrick Garland will face during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the DOJ’s probe into ‘threats’ against school boards @BillHemmer @DanaPerino pic.twitter.com/c7W4hA8sKV

— America’s Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) October 27, 2021

This 5-Year-Old Tweet from Hillary Clinton Just Resurfaced, And It Reminds Everyone Why She Wasn’t Elected

Kennedy said the issue is really about parents’ love for their children.

“You don’t have to be a Latin scholar to figure out what this is all really about. It’s about parental love. My late father used to tell me when I was a kid. He’d say, ‘Son, you’ll never know love until you have a child.’ And he was right,” the congressman said.

Kennedy also criticized critical race theory.

Should children be taught the tenets of critical race theory?

“Most parents want what’s best for their children. They don’t want their children to grow up to hate. They don’t want their children to grow up to be racists. And that’s what critical race theory teaches,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy argued that there is a clear distinction between teaching children American history and imposing a worldview that labels people racist from birth.

“Should our kids learn about slavery and Jim Crow in school? Yes. Should our kids be taught about the Tulsa Massacre? You bet,” Kennedy said.

“But should our kids be taught that white babies are born bad and black babies are born hopeless and can’t make it without the help of the government? That’s drivel,” he added.

“Most parents know that. They don’t want that because they don’t believe it. Most parents don’t believe that babies can be white supremacists. And that’s really what this is all about.”

Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing comes after 19 Republicans on the committee sent a letter to Garland on Monday demanding that he rescind an Oct. 4 memorandum targeting parents protesting at school board meetings.

Senator Dubs Biden’s Afghanistan Debacle ‘The Mona Lisa of Incompetence’

Garland had previously testified before the committee regarding the controversial memo.

“Your testimony before the Judiciary Committee last week concerning your October 4, 2021, memorandum targeting concerned parents at school board meetings was troubling,” the Republicans’ letter read.

Garland’s memo was sent to the FBI after the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Joe Biden characterizing vocal parents as domestic terrorists. The NSBA later apologized for the letter.

Loudoun County, Virginia, parents have a clear message for their school board and superintendent: It’s time for them to go.

At a meeting Tuesday night, parents demanded the Loudoun County School Board and Superintendent Scott Ziegler resign, according to Fox News.

This comes after an uncovered email showed the superintendent knew about a May 28 sexual assault in a high school girl’s bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt but didn’t disclose it when asked at a school board meeting regarding transgender bathrooms.

That student, who was transferred to another school in Loudoun County, was accused of a subsequent sexual assault on Oct. 6.

On Monday, the now-15-year-old boy — who the parents of the victim said described himself as “gender-fluid,” according to WUSA-TV — was convicted of all charges in the May 28 case.Trending:‘Identifiable Harm’: Biden Kills JFK File Release, Issues Baffling Statement

The school board meeting came just hours after The Washington Post estimated 2,500 students walked out of Loudoun County schools in protest of the alleged sexual assaults.

“You are so concerned with pushing race and gender that you sacrificed our children,” Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County GOP Women’s Club, told the board on Tuesday. “A girl was sexually assaulted in May, and you all knew about it. The predator was put back in schools to sexually assault another girl. You all should be fired.”

“We demand the resignation of Scott Ziegler,” Alicia Brand said.

Amanda Shallott, meanwhile, told the board that “LCPS protects rapists” and said the school board “covered up the assault” and that “Ziegler lied about it.”

“I call for immediate resignations of Dr. Ziegler and any of you that had knowledge of the rape this spring,” Shallott said.

Another father called upon Ziegler to “end the mockery you have brought on this great county.”

Loudoun dad calmly told the school board to resign tonight and “end the mockery you have brought on this great county” pic.twitter.com/DlTwuHwszO

— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) October 27, 2021

“You have buried a sexual assault to protect your precious 8040 policy,” said Carrie Michon, a grandmother of schoolchildren in Loudoun County. “Every last one of you, resign!”

The 8040 policy is the district’s guidance regarding transgender students, including what facilities they can use.Related:‘Loudoun County Protects Rapists’: Students Walk Out After District Reportedly Covered Up Rape

“All students are entitled to have access to restrooms and locker rooms that are sanitary, safe, and adequate, so that they can comfortably and fully engage in their school programs and activities. Students should be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their gender identity,” the pertinent part reads.

The Virginia Department of Education requires similar guidance on transgender students for all schools, although there’s a subtle difference in its model policies: “Schools frequently maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms or other facilities for males and females. Students should be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their consistently asserted gender identity.” [Emphasis ours.]

This may not necessarily be a distinction without a difference; “consistently asserted” would entail, at some level, a higher bar to use the facilities of the opposite sex as opposed to mere “gender identity.”

Whatever the case, Loudoun County’s policies passed in August, according to CNN.

In June, the New York Post reported, Ziegler said “we don’t have any records of assaults occurring in our restrooms.” Yet, as the email revealed, he’d been notified of the May 28 case on the day it happened.

At that same meeting, the father of the victim in the case — Scott Smith — was arrested after he confronted district officials and a scuffle with police ensued.

Ziegler apologized for his comments at the June meeting last week, calling them “misleading” and saying he thought the question was “about the process, the experiences of students, and plans for transgender students and bathroom use during that discussion.”Should the Loudoun County School Board resign?Yes No
Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

“You just had hundreds of Loudoun County students walk out in protest because they feel unsafe in schools,” local mom Erin Smith said at Tuesday night’s meeting. “Did any of you even respond to this email on May 28 from Dr. Ziegler? Was that email alarming to anyone?”

Smith was referring to numerous protests at Loudoun County schools earlier in the day:

Here is the walk out of students at @LCPSOfficial Broad Run High School in Loudoun County. Students in support of recent sex assault victims in the District including this school & asking for safer schools. @7NewsDC #7NewsITeam #Loudoun pic.twitter.com/CdZjqTBIdK

— Scott Taylor 7 News I-Team (@ScottTaylorTV) October 26, 2021

Video sent to me of the walkout at Riverside HS pic.twitter.com/NKYpsVWWTH

— Drew Wilder (@DrewWilderTV) October 26, 2021

Video from the Loudoun County walkout this morning pic.twitter.com/8TUN3INOvu

— Logan Ratick (@Logan_Ratick) October 26, 2021

Smith also had choice words for school board Chairwoman Brenda Sheridan, who had said parental anger had much to do with the upcoming Nov. 2 gubernatorial election.

“We’re not here to impact elections, Brenda,” she said, adding they’d be back. “Get comfy because we are not going away.”

Loudoun County has been ground zero for parents revolting against school boards that have lurched too far to the left and don’t feel accountable to the parents whose children they teach.

The revelation that the superintendent knew about the sexual assault, refused to disclose it during a school board meeting and is now claiming he misunderstood the question has simply ignited the powder keg — particularly now that the convicted perpetrator has been accused of another crime.

The Loudoun County School Board and its superintendent need to listen to their students, parents, and constituents: It’s time to go. They’ve done enough damage.

The Missouri School Boards Association board of directors announced Monday it was withdrawing from the National School Boards Association due to the NSBA’s letter likening parents to “domestic terrorists,” among other reasons.

“This decision was not made lightly,” MSBA executive director Melissa Randol wrote in a letter to its members.

“The National School Boards Association, through its recent actions, such as its letter to the White House, has demonstrated it does not currently align with MSBA’s guiding principles of local governance.”

“We also believe that no school board member or educator should ever have to endure threats of violence or acts of intimidation against themselves or their families for making these difficult decisions,” Randol added.

“However, attempting to address that issue with federal intervention should not be the first step in most cases, and is antithetical to our longstanding tradition of local control. Further, the use of inflammatory terms in the NSBA letter is not a model for promoting greater civility and respect for the democratic process.”

No Woke Agenda in Court: Rittenhouse Judge Says Rioters Can’t Be Called ‘Victims,’ Approves This List Instead

“The National School Boards Association, through its recent actions, such as its letter to the White House, has demonstrated it does not currently align with MSBA’s guiding principles of local governance.” pic.twitter.com/U19n4K5Pky

— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) October 26, 2021

In a Sept. 29 letter to President Joe Biden, NSBA president Viola Garcia and interim executive director Chip Slaven wrote, “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat. The National School Boards Association (NSBA) respectfully asks for federal law enforcement and other assistance to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation.”

The two cited COVID policies and “propaganda purporting the false inclusion of critical race theory within classroom instruction and curricula” as stirring angry confrontations and protests at school board meetings.Do you think other states should follow Missouri’s and Ohio’s lead?

“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” Garcia and Slaven argued.

“As such, NSBA requests a joint expedited review by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Homeland Security, along with the appropriate training, coordination, investigations, and enforcement mechanisms from the FBI,” they added.

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum less than a week later saying, “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.

“The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate,” Garland added.

The AG directed the FBI to convene meetings nationwide to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.”

Loudoun Parents Must Sign NDA-Like Docs to See Radical Curriculum Forced on Own Kids: Report

On Friday, the NSBA board of directors issued a memorandum apologizing for its Sept. 29 letter, saying, “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

“We should have had a better process in place to allow consultation on a communication of this significance,” the memo added.

Statement: Ohio School Boards Association trustees vote to leave national school boards group https://t.co/XfPFbuIk1F pic.twitter.com/TN5JEzcn8s

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) October 26, 2021

On Tuesday, the Ohio School Boards Association joined its Missouri counterpart in terminating its membership with the NSBA, also citing the Sept. 29 letter to Biden.

Loudoun County, Virginia, continues to find itself at the center of controversy.

The county’s school board is already in hot water after recent reports revealed its members had seemingly covered up a rape allegation. A boy has since been found guilty of sexually assaulting a female student in one of the school district’s girls’ restrooms. The board falsely said it had no knowledge of such a case before voting in August to allow males to use girls’ restrooms.

Concerned parents say progressive ideas have entered Loudoun County school curricula and are currently being taught to children enrolled in the district. They continue to protest at school board meetings in hopes of pressuring the district to remove the controversial teachings from classrooms.

Now, it appears that parents in Loudoun County are required to sign non-disclosure agreement-style documents in order to see exactly what their children are being taught, including a curriculum called Second Step Programs.

According to documents reportedly obtained by the Daily Caller, parents who wish to review the program must sign a form agreeing not to “broadcast, download, photograph, or record” the curriculum “in any manner whatsoever.”

Bombshell: Judge Makes Swift Ruling in Controversial Loudoun County School Bathroom Sexual Assault Case

Additionally, the district’s agreement with Second Step says the curriculum is “not subject to traditional Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws,” according to the Daily Caller.

The Second Step Programs utilize a teaching style known as social-emotional learning and are promoted by the left-leaning non-profit Committee for Children. According to the organization’s website, SEL is “fundamental to achieving social justice.”

Many of the controversial ideas found in critical race theory and left-wing gender theories appear central to the Committee for Children’s agenda.

Speaking with The Western Journal on Tuesday, James Lindsay — a leading expert on, and critic of, CRT and other far-left academic philosophies — broke down what exactly SEL is.

“Social-Emotional Learning started off trying to help emotionally troubled kids learn to deal with those issues so they could have better educational attainment, and it worked. It’s basically a psychological intervention that can work in the right cases and right circumstances,” Lindsay told The Western Journal via email.

Should school districts be allowed to hide what they’re teaching children?

However, problems with SEL began to arise when organizations like the Committee for Children started utilizing its practices “in uncontrolled, non-therapeutic environments (classrooms) by underqualified teachers without licenses to practice psychology,” Lindsay wrote.

In his view, this should be criminal.

These novel forms of SEL are referred to as “transformative SEL,” Lindsay said.

“These programs mirror the educational programs put in place by Mao in China during the Cultural Revolution and are wholly damaging to children. They’ve also adopted Marxian themes and methods, hence ‘transformative,’ and are used to groom children into Marxian views on sexuality and also Critical Race Theory,” Lindsay wrote.

Teachers Union Pres Backing McAuliffe Promotes Article Claiming Parents Have No Right to ‘Shape’ What Kids Are Taught

Scott Mineo, leader of Loudoun County’s Parents Against Critical Theory group, told the Daily Caller he found the district’s lack of transparency about the SEL program suspicious.

“LCPS is partners with Southern Poverty Law Center, Racial Equity Tools, and Learning for Justice (SPLC), all of which have copyrighted material, however, LCPS freely provides access to these materials,” Mineo wrote in an email to Loudoun County Public Schools.

“Why is there such a double standard when parents want to review Second Step SEL material in its entirety?”

Logic seems to have been thrown out the window in today’s culture and society.

The Babylon Bee, a hilarious satirical news site, does not seem so far-fetched nowadays with headlines like “Finally: San Francisco To Require Proof Of Vaccination To Poop On The Sidewalk” or “Oh No! Someone Replaced Joe Biden’s Copy Of The Constitution With A Copy Of ‘1984’.” Sounds legitimate honestly.

Then we have Democratic former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is in a very tight race with Republican Glenn Youngkin, denying the existence of pro-life female CEOs.

He said to the Virginia Chamber of Commerce last week that, “There’s not a woman CEO in America that wants to go to a state where someone’s banning abortions.”

‘Identifiable Harm’: Biden Kills JFK File Release, Issues Baffling Statement

Could he or his staff not do a Google search on this one? There are plenty of CEOs, who also happen to be both pro-life and women, who would love to set up shop in a state that bans abortion. You’re reading the words of one right now.

I founded And Then There Were None in 2012, a ministry that helps abortion workers leave their jobs and find new, life-affirming ones. I founded ProLove Ministries in 2019 as an umbrella organization to stand in the gaps in the pro-life movement. I’m a CEO who lives in Texas because it is the great land of freedom and the first in the nation to effectively ban nearly all abortions.

I exist, Mr. McAuliffe. And I’m not the only one. Marjorie Dannenfelser, Cheryl Bachelder, Kristan Hawkins, Melissa Ohden, Janine Marrone, and Jeanne Mancini are all leaders of their respective organizations and are pro-life. Imagine that. Being a woman in charge of an organization and being pro-life. They do exist after all.

I understand that abortion is a huge, divisive issue in politics. I worked at Planned Parenthood for eight years and can attest to the urgency of both sides wanting to hold power in government.

Do you think McAuliffe will win his election?

But flatly denying the very existence of women in influential positions who hold the view that all life is precious and should be protected? At best that is ignorance; at worst, willful deception.

Abortion is almost always a big deal come election season, and this year, it is perhaps all the more crucial given the Texas law that bans abortion once a heartbeat is detected in the fetus, which is around six weeks.

In Virginia, abortion looms large as it should. Abortion ends the life of an innocent unborn baby and often harms the woman in emotional, physical and spiritual ways. It is the most imperative human rights issue of our time.

According to CNBC, McAuliffe is spending an extraordinary amount of money attacking his opponent for his pro-life stance.

“Three of McAuliffe’s most expensive ads, which cost from $510,000 to $922,000 to produce and run, have attacked Youngkin for his abortion stance,” the outlet reported. The ads have already run more than 1,100 times.

Roe v. Wade Perverts Justice the Same Way Nazi & Soviet Courts Perverted Justice to Kill Millions in the Name of Equity

Polling also indicates McAuliffe’s support among suburban women is less than enthusiastic, which is problematic for him since it’s these women who have typically put candidates in his party into office.

Monmouth University Polling Institute president Patrick Murray attributes this lack of enthusiasm due in part to “a shift in key issues important to these voters and partly to dampened enthusiasm among the party faithful.”

Well, when you directly insult pro-life women and indirectly insult anyone who holds actual facts in some sort of relevance, what can one expect?

Terry McAuliffe is betting on the idea that Virginians cannot fathom a female CEO who is also pro-life. He’s wrong, obviously, but it’s up in the air whether his denial of reality sinks in with the women of Virginia come voting day.

The Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA) board of trustees has voted to cut ties with the National School Board Association (NSBA) over the latter’s attempt to have federal agents police school board meetings across the country.

“The Board of Trustees’ decision was prompted by NSBA’s recent letter to President Joe Biden requesting federal intervention at local school board meetings,” OSBA Chief Executive Officer Rick Lewis said Tuesday in a press release (pdf).

The letter in question (pdf), which was sent on Sept. 29, urged that federal law enforcement step in to handle “threats or actual acts of violence” against school leaders, alleging that “angry mobs” of parents who sought to express opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and the teaching of critical race theory have been “inciting chaos” during school board meetings.

“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crime,” the NSBA argued in the letter, encouraging the federal government to invoke laws designed to counter terrorism, such as the PATRIOT Act, to address the alleged threats.

The Ohio school board group said they were not consulted by the national federation about the crafting of the letter, nor did they agree with the letter’s content.

“We were not informed of or asked for any input into the creation of the letter sent to the president,” Lewis said, adding that while it’s important to keep parental and community discussion at school board meetings free from violence and harassment, such interference should be dealt with at the local level, not by federal officials.

“We believe the letter from NSBA leadership demonstrated how out of touch the national association is with the concerns of local school boards and the principle of local control. Because of that, OSBA no longer sees the value of continued NSBA membership,” he said.

The announcement comes after the NSBA walked back its widely criticized message, saying that “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

“We should have had a better process in place to allow for consultation on a communication of this significance,” the NSBA said. “We apologize also for the strain and stress this situation has caused you and your organizations.”

The OSBA is the latest in a string of state school board organizations that have reevaluated or ended their membership in NSBA over the letter. According to statements collected by advocacy group Parents Defending Education, as of Oct. 21, 21 state chapters have distanced themselves from the national organization, with most of them clarifying that they were not consulted about the letter.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ohio-school-board-group-severs-ties-with-national-organization-over-domestic-terrorism-letter_4069437.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

A 15-year-old boy at the center of a controversy surrounding transgender school bathroom accommodations in Loudoun County, Virginia, was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting a girl in the girls’ bathroom in May — a decision sure to bring new attention to the hot-button topic.

“I found the facts sufficient to support the charges,” ruled Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court Chief Judge Pamela Brooks after a two-hour hearing, according to WTOP-TV. The teen had been charged with one felony count of forcible sodomy and one felony count of forcible fellatio.

In court, the victim said the two were “just friends,” but that she had “hooked up with him” — engaged in sexual acts — two times in the weeks before the attack took place.

On May 28, the boy — then 14 — texted the victim, asking her to meet him in the girls’ bathroom. The Washington Post reported she told the court that when she got there, he threw her to the floor and forced himself upon her.

She would report the assault to the school and was questioned by investigators from the sheriff’s office the same day. However, the defense tried to argue the encounter was consensual and noted the girl hadn’t told investigators about her two previous encounters with the boy.

‘Identifiable Harm’: Biden Kills JFK File Release, Issues Baffling Statement

However, the victim maintained she “never” gave permission or consent for the May 28 encounter.

“He flipped me over,” the victim told the court, according to the Post. “I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me.”

The incident ignited a firestorm over transgender policy after the father of the girl who was assaulted, Scott Smith, was arrested at a June 22 Loudoun County School Board meeting after progressive activist called his daughter a liar, according to a report last month by the Daily Wire. Smith had said the boy in the case identified as “gender fluid” and was wearing a skirt at the time of the attack.

After a shouting match ensued, a deputy grabbed Smith’s shoulder. When Smith pulled away, a tussle began and the father was arrested. Loudoun County lead prosecutor Buta Biberaj — who also assisted the prosecutor in the sexual assault case involving Smith’s daughter — was seeking jail time for Smith over a disorderly conduct misdemeanor charge stemming from the meeting.

Are transgender policies making schools more dangerous?

While that’s a controversy in its own right, the case became a flash point over new Virginia Department of Education transgender policies that require, among other things, that “Access to facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to a student’s gender identity shall be available to all students.”

“All students are entitled to have access to restrooms, locker rooms, and changing facilities that are sanitary, safe, and adequate, so that they can comfortably and fully engage in their school programs and activities. Schools frequently maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms or other facilities for males and females,” the policy reads.

“Students should be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their consistently asserted gender identity. While some transgender students will want that access, others may want alternatives that afford more privacy. Taking into account existing school facilities, administrators should take steps to designate gender-inclusive or single-user restrooms commensurate with the size of the school.”

Loudoun County had adopted a similar policy, although it wasn’t in place at the time of the May 28 assault. A statement from the family, however, noted that the district had “formalized the policy regarding restroom use that was easily exploitable by a potential sexual assailant,” according to WUSA-TV.

While the Smiths say the perpetrator of the rape defined himself as gender-fluid, mainstream media accounts didn’t confirm this and referred to the defendant as male. However, the Post’s report confirmed the boy was wearing a skirt at the time of the assault.

Sodom & Gomorrah High: Woke School Stages Obscene Drag Show During Homecoming Football Game

“The defendant did not testify during the trial, but prosecutors played interviews he gave detectives investigating the case during which he acknowledged ‘messing up’ and said he did not intend to perform one sex act with the victim and said he stopped once he realized he was hurting the girl,” they reported.

“The defendant initially told detectives the second sexual act did not occur, but later said it may have happened briefly and accidentally when a knee-length skirt he was wearing got caught on his watch as the pair were fumbling around in the bathroom stall.”

The controversies don’t end there. The boy, now 15, is accused of allegedly assaulting a girl in a different school on Oct. 6, where he was being electronically monitored. A hearing to determine the boy’s guilt or innocence in that case is scheduled for Nov. 15, WTOP reported.

It later emerged the superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools had been notified of the first attack on the day it happened.

According to an Oct. 15 WTOP report, Scott Ziegler, the superintendent, said that while the school system “complied with our obligations” under Title IX regarding the sexual assault of students, he said the district’s processes were “insufficient.”

Bill Stanley, a Republican state senator and an attorney for the Smith family, hailed the court’s judgment in a statement.

“We are greatly relieved that justice was served today,” he said, according to WTOP. “No one should have to endure what this family has endured, and now their focus is completely upon their daughter’s health and safety as she progresses forward with her life.”

The family, which is suing the school district, said in a statement they “stand stronger than ever in moving forward to ensure that those responsible in the Loudoun County School system are held accountable, so that this may never happen again to anyone else’s child.”

And yet, so many facts about this case indicate it very well might. Neither the Virginia Department of Education nor Loudoun County Public Schools appear willing to take a second look at their transgender bathroom policies.

If another culturally and politically inconvenient attack, they’re likely to be just as loath to learn from it. Parents who vent their anger at school board meetings will arguably be treated with greater venom than Smith.

The verdict may bring justice. Wisdom, however, remains a long way off.

Appointment is the latest indication of the Biden administration’s collaboration with the group

The Department of Education earlier this month tapped the president of the National School Board Association to serve on a federal board that tracks student progress, the latest indication of the Biden administration’s collaboration with the group that compared parents to domestic terrorists.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Oct. 13 appointed National School Board Association president Viola Garcia to the National Assessment Governing Board, which develops the tests used to track student achievement across the country. Garcia was behind a Sept. 29 letter urging President Joe Biden to have the FBI monitor school board meetings for potential violence. The Department of Justice formed a task force on Oct. 4 consisting of the FBI and Justice Department’s national security and civil rights divisions, sparking outrage from parents groups who say the administration is trying to stifle parents who oppose mask mandates and left-wing curricula.

Garcia’s position on the board could raise questions about whether the appointment was linked to her advocacy work at the National School Board Association. Emails reported by the Washington Free Beacon show Garcia coordinated with the Biden White House and Department of Education in the weeks before releasing the controversial letter. “These are troubling times. NSBA has been engaged with the White House and the Department of Education on these and other issues related to the pandemic for several weeks now,” Garcia wrote in an Oct. 2 email obtained by the group Parents Defending Education.

The National School Board Association apologized for the letter on Friday, saying there was “no justification” for the language comparing parents to terrorists. Other emails showed that some National School Board Association directors were upset with Garcia for issuing the letter without the board’s input. One director said that the letter’s reference to parents as domestic terrorists inflamed tensions at local school board meetings.

Garcia’s tenure on the governing board began on Oct. 1, according to a Department of Education press release.

Congress established the National Assessment Governing Board in 1988 to set policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the so-called Nation’s Report Card. Part of the board’s mission is to draft the questions used on the assessment and to use the results of the test to propose policies to the Department of Education.

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/school-board-association-president-got-federal-post-after-infamous-letter/

Not exactly America’s priority.

The White House has released a fact sheet detailing their National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality as part of the ‘Gender Strategy Report’. The document comes as part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan, and is broken down into ten interconnected priorities.

The report comes during a time of multiple national crises as supply chain failures are forcing the price of goods to soar, disproportionately impacting women and children. Coupled with the ignorance and downplaying of inflation, it would appear that the White House is leaning on the prevarication of buzz-word friendly rhetoric, instead of focusing on issues that are drastically altering the lives of all Americans.

Their areas of “intersectional” focus include:

1. economic security;
2. gender-based violence;
3. health;
4. education;
5. justice and immigration;
6. human rights and equality under the law
7. security and humanitarian relief
8. climate change
9. science and technology; and
10. democracy, participation, and leadership.  

Despite the term “human trafficking” being mentioned twenty-one (21) times in the report, the term “border” only receives two mentions.

Reports found 125,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the southern U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in January, the highest number since records began. There are still no official plans for Biden to visit the U.S. southern border, or do anything to mitigate the vast numbers of women and children being trafficked into the country for slave- and sexual-labor purposes.

Many priorities in the Gender Strategy Report fall in harsh opposition to laws in Democratic-run states like California.

CA state leadership classifies domestic violence, rape of an unconscious or drugged person, and various other assaults against women as “non-violent.” Under Assembly Bill 109 and Proposition 57 in California, individuals who have committed such acts are eligible for early release. New offenders are to receive relaxed sentences, with many unable to be arrested or tried for such crimes in the state.

Who is Eric Zemmour? France’s Tucker Carlson Electrifies the Presidential Race.

The White House has not commented on whether their gender manifesto will override the rulings of California’s legislature.

Kay Smythe contributed to this report.

REVIEW: ‘Robert E. Lee: A Life’ by Allen C. Guelzo

I guess only a handful of people know where to find Robert E. Lee nowadays—or rather his most famous likeness, the bronze equestrian statue that for more than a century sat high atop an obelisk rising from a traffic circle on a broad, leafy avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Last month, a large crane was brought in to haul the thing down. Workmen hired by the state sliced the bronze Lee into pieces and boxed them up. Onlookers cheered. The governor of the commonwealth—a man named Ralph Northam, who has proved himself to be a creature not previously thought to exist in nature, a phlegmatic demagogue—was there to make certain he received proper credit for his brave, unbending opposition to human slavery. As the workers trucked the boxes off to an undisclosed location, the governor grinned like a minstrel.

No need to get sentimental about it, but the decapitation and dismemberment of Lee in the onetime capital of the Confederacy felt like the end of something, something big. The statue isn’t simply gone, it’s hidden away, with the implication that it may never again be exposed to general view—certainly never again as a public emblem. Its removal marked more than the end of the years-long controversy about statues honoring the men who fought on the wrong side of the Civil War. Just as likely we’ve reached a terminal point in how we are allowed to talk—and perhaps, in time, to think—about the signal event of American history.

Much of this talk, to put it mildly, lacks historical rigor. The dwindling number of die-hards who cling to the myth of the Lost Cause see slavery as contingent to the war, while the much larger number (far and away a majority) see slavery as the only reason the war was fought. Both sides avoid complication because they use history as a platform for moralizing. Robert E. Lee himself appears either as a marble saint or an ogre of staggering villainy.

We could all take a lesson from perhaps the greatest living historian of the period, Allen C. Guelzo, whose biography of Lee has just been published. In addition to his magisterial achievements in such books as Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President and Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, Guelzo is one of the few academic historians who doesn’t mind being associated with the political right. He’s been a longtime contributor to National Review and the martyred Weekly Standard, and is now affiliated with the James Madison Program at Princeton.

I don’t know Guelzo’s view of removing the Lee statue from Richmond, but I imagine he would disagree that Lee’s status as (to use the go-to phrase) a white supremacist or even as a slave-owner is sufficient reason to expunge him from the rolls of public honor. Tossing down the memory hole every American who comforted himself with notions of racial superiority would leave us with a lot of shredded family albums, not to mention the empty plinths and abandoned historical sites. In every age some number of geniuses have risen above the default prejudices and moral evasions that their friends and neighbors absorb without thinking. These inoculations are rare, however; consider, to take one contemporary example, our almost unanimous tolerance for the industrial torture of animals for the sake of cheap food. No, for Guelzo, Lee’s great offense was not his invidious and (among his peers) universally held ideas about race but an actual, definable, objective crime, and the crime was treason.

Guelzo’s Lee is a man in full: genteel, cruel, loving, intolerant, generous, neither the hero of 19th and 20th century hagiographers nor the figure of unalloyed evil preferred by our contemporaries. But at the heart of the portrait here is the unforgivable crime. As Guelzo reconstructs it, Lee’s treason developed from three sequential decisions made over as many days in early 1861.

After a long and notable career, Lee was one of the most admired military men in the country when the fuse of secession was lit. It was no surprise that Abraham Lincoln, scarcely more than a month into his presidency, wanted to elevate Lee to field commander of the Federal army. (Lincoln’s choice in generals as the war dragged on has been much criticized, but his first one showed he knew what he was about.) Lee met with Lincoln’s intermediary, Francis Preston Blair, and told Blair that he was “devoted to the Union.” Indeed, Lee said, if he had the power he would free every slave in the South to keep the country united.

And yet… “He did not know how he could draw his sword upon his native State,” Virginia. In Richmond the state legislature was still formally undecided on whether to join other southern states in secession. The first of Lee’s fateful decisions was to turn down Lincoln’s offer, hoping that he could somehow stay neutral, even as Virginia stayed neutral, on the assumption the coming unpleasantness would stop short of war. Yet neutrality also made his place in the Army untenable, leading to the second decision, to resign his commission. And the logic of these two decisions pointed inevitably to the third, after Virginia voted officially to secede. When the legislature summoned him to Richmond, he traveled in civilian clothes, but he agreed to assist in organizing the state militia’s response to any “invasion” by the federal government. He would “devote myself to the service of my native state,” he said, “in whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my sword.”

“Thus did Robert E. Lee,” writes Guelzo, “irrevocably, finally, publicly [turn] his back on his service, his flag, and ultimately, his country. All of this was done for the sake of the preservation of a political regime whose acknowledged purpose was the preservation of a system of chattel slavery that he knew to be an evil and for which he felt little affection and whose constitutional basis he dismissed as a fiction…. It would, in the end, cost him nearly everything ….”

Guelzo’s reconstruction of Lee’s turn to treason is meticulous, comprehensive, and fair, a master class in historiography. Lee’s present-day detractors will likely think it’s beside the point, at least for their purpose, which is to place Lee beyond the pale on the basis of his racial views alone. Lee is often described as a traitor today, even among the left, but never as the primary charge in the indictment; his betrayal usually is featured almost as an afterthought, the cherry on top of his inequity, like condemning Charles Manson for his terrible table manners. In the catalogue of evils nowadays, treason, all by itself, ranks pretty low. The Richmond crowd cheering the removal of the Lee statue probably couldn’t work up much righteous anger against Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden.

The relative indifference to treason is a symptom of our intelligentsia’s weakening devotion to the nation state. “In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of globalism,” Guelzo writes, “the notion of treason has acquired an antique feel.” This is a weakening indeed. As Guelzo notes, for all its faults, the nation-state works (imperfectly) as a stay against ethnic, dynastic, and religious mischief of the kind that put Europe in a state of perpetual warfare until the 18th century. “To wave away treason as a crime is to put in jeopardy many of the benefits the nation-state has conferred in the last three centuries.”

Guelzo’s judgment of Lee, balanced as it is, should discomfit conservatives no less than liberals, especially anyone on the right willing to gloss over Lee’s crime against our country in favor of his undoubted martial virtues or some magnolia-fragranced image of agrarian heroism. Most impressive of all, Robert E. Lee: A Life injects learning, subtlety, and even compassion into a debate that has more often been characterized by ignorance, simple-mindedness, and sanctimony. It is Guelzo’s bad luck, and ours, that the debate has been settled by intellectual bullying and brute force, just when we needed his contribution most.

https://freebeacon.com/culture/a-matter-of-treason/

This is part 21 in a series examining education in the United States.

When it comes to education policy, the Biden administration is making the radicalism of the Obama years look mild by comparison.

The goal is to ultimately replace parents with bureaucrats and “experts” to facilitate the indoctrination of America’s youth. That transformation is accelerating.

Not only are the education system and America’s children being weaponized against America, federal law enforcement is now being weaponized against parents who speak out about it.

If left unchecked, catastrophe awaits. However, the more monstrous the federally directed abuses in schools become, the more outraged Americans join the fight.

The future of the nation is literally on the line in this issue. The outcome of the battle between who will raise children—government or parents—will determine the fate of America.

Parents, Get Out of the Way

The attitude toward parents in Washington has long been hostile. Hillary Clinton famously claimed in 1996 that it “takes a village” to raise children. What she really meant, of course, was a government village.

In fact, during the Obama years, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan publicly called for some children to be in government “boarding schools” 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Others should remain in school, including “after school programming,” for 12 to 14 hours each day, he declared.

A policy document (pdf) drafted by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services called for home visits by government officials and argued that parents could be “equal partners” with government in the rearing of their children.

But as fringe as those totalitarian views may sound to normal people, the extremism has now been taken to a whole new level under the current administration.

When Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona if parents should be the “primary stakeholder” in the education of their children, it would have been easy to spit one’s coffee on the floor.

“Stakeholder”?! What?

Of course, parents should never be viewed as mere “stakeholders” in the education of their children, “primary” or otherwise. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, “stakeholder” is defined as “one that has a stake in an enterprise” or “one who is involved in or affected by a course of action.”

To call a mother or father a “stakeholder” in one of the most important facets of their child’s life is like calling a pilot of a private plane a “stakeholder” in whether his plane will land successfully or not. Technically it’s true. But it’s an outrage nonetheless.

Mothers and fathers should be in charge of their children’s education—not bystanders or “stakeholders.” This has been the case in virtually every human society for millennia. It’s also what the Bible clearly prescribes.

But the Biden administration, by contrast, does not believe parents should have any say in the “education” of children.

Cardona could not even bring himself to concede that parents should be the “primary stakeholders” in their children’s education.

“I believe parents are important stakeholders,” Cardona responded to Braun’s question, adding that “educators” also “have a role in determining educational programming.”

Indeed. That’s a nice way of saying: Parents, get out of the way, the Biden administration and its “experts” know better what and how your child should learn. More on that later.

Democrat Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAullife, who wisely sent his children to private school, famously put it this way in a debate in September: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Targeting Concerned Parents as ‘Terrorists’

As if matters could not get any worse, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, responding to an outrageous letter from the National Association of School Boards (NASB) painting concerned parents as possible “domestic terrorists,” decided to sic the FBI on moms and dads.

Among other concerns, Garland cited (pdf) “harassment” and “intimidation” by parents against the people brainwashing their kids with critical race theory (CRT), Marxist ideology, gender confusion, hyper-sexualized propaganda, and more. No examples of actual, legitimate threats were cited.

One of the examples of the supposed “threat” cited by the NASB was Scott Smith. What sort of dangerous domestic terrorist was Smith? Well, he was arrested for “disorderly conduct” while trying to tell the school board about his daughter being allegedly sodomized by a male pretending to be a girl in the girls’ restroom under the federally supported “transgender” dictates on bathrooms.

The other examples are equally outlandish: a ticket for “trespassing,” a nasty letter, a “Nazi salute” to protest mandatory face masks, somebody describing the school board as “Marxist,” and similar horrors requiring the might of the federal beast.

This is, of course, not about actual threats or violence, however. It’s naked intimidation of parents who are struggling to make their voices heard.

It’s also the political weaponization of federal law-enforcement in a way that’s unprecedented in American history. In fact, most parallels involve totalitarian dictatorships rather than civilized and free societies.

Fortunately, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state and local leaders are working to protect children in their jurisdictions from this outrageous abuse by the Biden administration. But it’s not enough to stop the freight train of evil being pumped into local schools by Washington.

The irony of treating desperate moms and dads as terrorists after pretending not to see months on end of actual domestic terrorism from rioters and looters burning down major American cities and even police precincts defies belief. Welcome to the “new normal.”

Even the former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, Kevin Brock, has warned that the FBI should ignore Garland’s Orwellian directive.

After sparking a firestorm of criticism and alarming Americans across the political spectrum—and after being rebuked by state and local school boards nationwide—the NASB reluctantly apologized.

But nobody with a brain believes for a second that the education establishment would not sic the FBI and Homeland Security on angry parents if it thought it could get away with it.

Targeting State and Local Leaders, Too

Not long before announcing that the FBI and the Department of Justice would be employed to bully and intimidate parents, the Biden administration announced “civil rights” investigations into state leaders that refused to force children to wear masks at school against their parents’ wishes.

The threat, made by Cardona, invoked the communist understanding of “rights” to claim that everyone has a “right” to a government “education.” As such, states that do not force all children to wear face masks are somehow violating the supposed “rights” of some children to an education.

Yes, seriously. This is the so-called logic of the people who have usurped control over “educating” your children for you.

When Florida and other states sought to limit the ability of local school boards to force masks on children against their parents’ wishes, the Biden administration also vowed to send COVID stimulus money to local officials who defied their state government and state law.

Before that, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a video urging children confused about their gender to report their local communities to the feds if government schools did not fully bow down to the “transgenderism” madness being pushed on America from D.C. and Hollywood.

The video, which featured transgender Health and Human Services bigwig Dr. Rachel Levine and senior officials from the Department of Education and the DOJ, gave multiple websites for children to get the feds involved in protecting their “rights” to use opposite-sex bathrooms, play on opposite-sex sports teams, and more.

The message was clear: Trust Biden, not your family or your community. And if anyone interferes with your supposed “right” to shower or relieve yourself or wrestle with members of the opposite sex, team Biden will unleash the fury of the weaponized federal machine.

So far there has been no federal intervention to protect the rights of Scott Smith’s daughter, though.

The Biden Agenda: CRT

At the top of Biden’s “education” agenda is using the education system to further divide parents and children, as well as the nation, while weaponizing impressionable youngsters in the war against their own country and its institutions.

Earlier this year, for example, the Department of Education proposed a “regulation” to inject even more Marxist race-mongering and CRT into public schools nationwide.

Under the scheme, the feds are bribing schools with “grants” and “incentives” paid with U.S. taxpayer money.

Among other elements, the administrative edict creates “American History and Civics Education programs” designed to radically change the teaching of history and civics. Between statements on “systemic racism” and “anti-racist practices,” the nature of the changes being sought is easy to discern.

Indeed, the Department of Education actually cited the debunked “1619 Project,” a fake history narrative addressed in part 17 of this series, as one of the inspirations for the effort.

The New York Times’ propaganda version of history, which has been ridiculed even by left-wing historians for its errors, turns U.S. history on its head. It paints the first nation in history founded on the premise that all are created equal—the first nation where abolition of slavery took root—into a uniquely evil nation with racism and slavery supposedly in its very “DNA.”

Also cited by the Education Department for the proposed regulation was the work of Ibram X. Kendi, one of the premier proponents of CRT and author of books such as “Anti-Racist Baby.”

Among other ideas, Kendi advocates a “Department of Antiracism” that would serve as an unelected racial dictatorship with power to overturn any law or rule it dislikes.

To qualify for the Education Department funding, state and local “education” officials would have to incorporate the administration’s extremist ideologies into the classroom—evil ideologies that divide children by “race” for sinister purposes while teaching a twisted (and false) version of American history and government.

Almost 40 U.S. senators and tens of thousands of citizens in official comments blasted the scheme’s overtly anti-American extremism.

Only after that massive outcry did the administration backtrack even slightly and remove some of the most outrageous language and references. But the somewhat scaled-back rule was still implemented, and the vision remains clear despite the attempted obfuscation.

To illustrate just how committed the administration is to this poison, in early October they appointed political activist Precious McKesson to a senior post at the Education Department. McKesson is a strong advocate of CRT, and she even recently expressed her support for teaching all children about the alleged “systemic racism” of America.

Ironically, perhaps, Garland’s son-in-law’s company reportedly supports CRT teaching in government schools, sparking concerns about a potential conflict of interest in the decision to sic the feds on parents.

The O’Biden Agenda: Centralize and Get Them Young!

The proposed $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” abomination that Biden and congressional Democrats are trying to ram through Congress without the support of a single Republican is packed with “education” gimmicks, too. If approved, the descent into collective madness will accelerate.

One of the major schemes Biden and his handlers are trying to get through, this time with the “Reconciliation” bill, is a $200 billion program for universal pre-kindergarten. The goal: Get all of America’s children into government indoctrination programs even earlier.

Under the proposed plan, which may be rammed through Congress on a partisan vote with no filibusters allowed, all children in America ages 3 and 4 would receive federally directed, tax-funded “pre-K” through government schools.

None of this should be surprising. During the Obama years, the same warped view of “education” and parents reigned in Washington and throughout the monstrosity improperly referred to as the nation’s “public education” system.

Common Core, for example, was used to cement national standards into place using bullying and bribes from the stimulus slush fund.

And lest anyone think this was actually about “improving” education, the federal government funded a study showing “significant negative effects” on grade 4 reading after the standards were put in place. Less than one third of the victims of government school at grade 8 are proficient in core subjects, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reveals.

But academic achievement was never really the goal. Under Obama and Common Core, parents and elected school boards were out, while D.C. bureaucrats and special-interest groups funded by billionaire profiteers were in.

The plan succeeded wildly, with parents nationwide unable to help their children with “Common Core” math while states and school districts struggle for breathing room in the straitjacket of the national standards.

Also under Obama, federally funded so-called Full-Service Community Schools revealed perhaps the most brazen attempt to sideline parents in American history. These federally backed institutions, which are now scattered across the nation, promise to handle the dental health, mental health, nutritional needs, and much more for every child in their “care.”

It would be more honest to refer to these institutions as “parental replacement centers,” but of course those behind the agenda would never be so honest.

As explored in part 10 of this series, this federal usurpation of authority over families and schools accelerated rapidly under Obama. It’s now reaching a climax under Biden. And it has resulted in the absolute decimation of whatever may have once been decent in America’s disastrous “education” system.

From the 1960s’ Supreme Court opinions imposing humanism and ousting Christianity to the federal funding that eventually paved the way for control over standards and so much else, Washington’s influence over schools has been toxic from the start.

Under Obama and now Biden, the globalization of the indoctrination system described in part 9 of this series also came out of the closet, with Obama’s Education Secretary referring to the U.N. education agency as his “global partner” in the process.

Indeed, Common Core’s own architects and proponents bragged that the controversial standards were aligned with “international standards” even as training for “global citizenship” became ubiquitous.

This is about more than the government simply brainwashing your children. This is about removing you from the picture almost entirely so that the forces of wickedness, perversion, and tyranny can poison your children’s minds and souls unimpeded by pesky parents.

As this series has documented extensively, this was always the goal of the “education” establishment going back to the Utopian and even socialist architects of the system: communist Robert Owen, collectivist Utopian Horace Mann, and socialist–humanist luminary John Dewey.

Obviously, attending school board meetings to express concerns is not a viable strategy for protecting children. In fact, it may even lead to harassment and intimidation from the politicized and disgraced FBI. It may be worth doing, but it will not save your children.

While it’s critical for parents to be involved and for state and local government to resist the Biden administration’s escalating attacks, the only true long-term solution is an exodus from the government’s indoctrination system.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/pushing-parents-out-biden-administration-further-weaponizes-education_4052344.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

When the 65th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution against Russian communists was commemorated on Oct. 23, Andras Pongratz of Scottsdale, Arizona, was among those speaking to thousands in Budapest about the importance of that time and the reasons for their uprising.

You’d never know it by looking at the short and stocky, bespectacled silver-haired man, but he was among those to throw the first brick, per se, that would help crack the foundation of communism when he was 17 years old.

For the last three weeks, the 82-year-old Pongratz has been in Budapest. He was invited to his homeland by the Hungarian government for commemoration ceremonies. They will remember the bright autumn day when thousands of the younger generation protested in the streets, bombed Russian tanks with Molotov Cocktails, shot at soldiers, and briefly became victorious in their quest for freedom over rigid communist rules.

Pongratz helped a large crowd of people knock down the statue of Joseph Stalin, viewed as a symbol of hatred in Hungary’s Heroes Square in Budapest on Oct. 23. After an attempt to pull it down with large cables failed when the cables snapped, a student at a nearby welding school brought his welder. Pongratz used it to cut the Stalin statue off at the knee, and much to the sheer joy of the protesters, it toppled with a resounding thud.

Out of frustration and fury, Pongratz, some of his siblings, and a younger generation led a protest that boiled over into slightly more than two weeks of fierce battles. The ’56 Revolution that the Russians quashed by Nov. 10, resulted in 2,500 deaths of Hungarians and 700 Red Army soldiers. In the wake of the revolution, 200,000 Hungarians fled their country, and about 30,000 Hungarian refugees emigrated to the United States with the help of relatives and sponsorship.

They came to the United States for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and individual freedom. They simply wanted a better life and to escape the horrors of  Communism, something some of the freedom fighters and refugees believe is creeping into America.

Pongratz could not be reached for comment for a 65th-anniversary interview as he was following an itinerary in Budapest, but in past interviews, he always has beamed with pride for what he and his fellow Hungarians accomplished, albeit for a fleeting moment.

It all started with Hungarian college students and young adults marching in the streets. As the crowds grew and ripped out sickles from Hungarian flags, sentiment grew in front of the radio station and Parliament building and they shouted their demands for freedom. Then, soldiers on the roof of the Parliament building began shooting down into the crowd. Fierce fighting followed for nearly the next two weeks with the Hungarians initially gaining the upper hand.

The Russians thundered back into Budapest with a vengeance on Nov. 3, and took back the country. The communists targeted those who participated in the revolution for arrest and many with execution, so thousands of Hungarians didn’t waste any time in making a run for the borders to escape their homeland.

Pongratz’s son, Eddie Pongratz, 51, of Tucson, said that remembering October 23 is very important to his father, and to his family.

“The pictures that were taken during that time don’t show everything,” Eddie Pongratz added. “The effects of communism were much worse than that. It’s obvious that with everything going on here in the United States, the administration and outside forces are trying to push us into communism.”

Andras and all eight of his siblings came to the United States in the wake of the revolution with their mother. Their father died in Hungary from illness in 1956.

Andras’ older brother, Gergely Pongratz, who helped re-assemble the canon in Budapest’s Corvin Square that destroyed 15 Russian tanks, died of a heart attack in Budapest in 2005 on the grounds of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution Museum he started.

In the wake of the ’56 Revolution, Andras Pongratz made it to the Austrian border in a three-day trek before coming to Boston. After a harsh blizzard in 1978, Pongratz moved to Arizona for its much warmer climate.

In a past interview, Pongratz said, “When we gained the advantage over the Soviets, the fighters celebrated as if they had finished the revolution.”

Eva Mitterman, 81, of Greenville, Ohio, remembers the actions of her husband, George’s actions as a teenager during the ’56 Revolution in Budapest. George Mittermann, who died about two years ago at age 89, fought in the streets of Budapest against the Russians.

Armed with only a Molotov cocktail, Mittermann was approaching a Russian tank in the street. The turret opened with an arm coming out of it, waving a Hungarian flag. After Mittermann let his guard down, a Russian soldier emerged from the turret, firing many shots at Mittermann. A bullet went through Mittermann’s leg. Bleeding profusely, Mitterman was so charged with adrenaline, he continued running at the soldier in the tank and threw the Molotov cocktail down the turret. He assumed the soldier was burned inside.

Mittermann carried the scar from the gunshot wound the rest of his life, but never regret.

“We hated communism,” Eva Mittermann said. “We wanted to live in freedom. Living under communism is no good. Our sons, Frank and George Jr., know the importance of what their father did to fight for our freedom.”

“It seems like the government here is trying to control us more,” Eva Mittermann added. “They are telling us, ‘you must do this’, ‘you can’t do that’. They have started controlling us through the pandemic.”

But as far as the ’56 Revolution, it wasn’t necessarily just the fighting and shooting in the streets that were critical to Hungary pulling off its short-lived victory.

It also was roles people played behind the scenes that proved critical to Hungary’s efforts for the greater good. The Hungarians were in it together.

Andras Dobo of Beavercreek, Ohio, a suburb southeast of Dayton, was 19 years old and working in an amplifier station for the telephone company in Budapest.

Like any other day, Dobo went to work on Oct. 23. As his workday continued, the protests developed into the revolution and major battles for the next several days. The uprising drew immediate international attention, and the world stood by and watched.

“As much as we could sabotage the military lines, we did,” Dobo, 85, said. “To interrupt the communication of the communists trying to call in to see what was happening, we would unplug the phone lines,” Dobo, 85, said. “When we did that, they’d call in on another line and wonder what was happening. We would just tell them it likely was because of something happening outside.

“When our review board would come back and examine the wires and the u-plugs, they would just say something must’ve been wrong with the lines,” Dobo added, “They didn’t know any different. We had food and water, and were able to stay and work at the phone company while everything was going on.”

After the Russians regrouped and returned to Hungary with more tanks, weapons, and soldiers in strategic points, Dobo saw how hopeless Hungary’s situation was. After consulting with his parents, Dobo decided it was best to leave the country.

“It was just a hopeless situation,” Dobo said. My father disagreed with me and said I should stay,” Dobo said. “My mother said ‘maybe there’s better opportunities elsewhere. I looked toward the West and the Uited States because it was a place known for freedom.”

Dobo left Hungary in late November, 1956. He was walking with a group of people who were stopped by a guard by the Austrian border. The guard wondered if they had anything they could give him, and Dobo gave him a wrist watch he had inherited from his aunt.

Dobo first came to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for an engineering job, but in the early 1970s, Dobo and his wife, Janet, moved to Dayton, Ohio, after he accepted a job offer to become an engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.

“I was lucky to come to Dayton,” Dobo said. “At a time when various ethnic groups were fading, Dayton still had a fairly active Hungarian community.”

“In retrospect, looking back on 1956, I think what was most important was that we crushed all the political views of the communists, their ideology,” Dobo said. “But it wasn’t permanent.”

Despite the disruptions currently happening in the United States with the uncertainty surrounding the recovery from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, workforce shortages, gas prices skyrocketing and supply chain issues, Dobo doesn’t believe the U.S. is slipping toward a socialist or communist government.

“I don’t see any similarities whatsoever,” Dobo said. “I still believe Capitalism is solid.”

Tommy Patay, an industrial chemist who left Hungary to get away from communism and settled in Cleveland in 1967 , believes that the current administration is pushing the United States toward communism. “Very fast,” he said.

Patay’s uncle, Karoly Balla, fought for Hungary in World War II. He later was executed by the communists because he wasn’t conforming to their ideology and rules after they took over the country, Patay said.

For the last 38 years, Patay has been a baker and has owned Tommy’s Pastry Shop in the west Cleveland suburb of Lakewood. He believes the best way to hold Communism at bay in the United States is to beat it at the ballot box at election time.

“If we don’t,” he said, “the United States will only have the remnants of Democracy.”

Emory Bogardy, a retired mechanical engineer who also is a prolific watercolor artist in Cleveland, also left his home and family in Esztergom, Hungary, near Budapest following the uprising. He and a group of others armed with guns, crossed the Danube River in a boat and made it into Austria.

The Hungarian Catholic church owned millions of acres of land in Hungary, and his father was the second-highest in command in overseeing it.
However, the Communists took over all of the land during their regime.

“The Catholics were the big enemy to the communists,” Bogardy said. “If anything, communists hated freedom of religion.”

As far as the United States moving toward a Communist government, Bogardy believes that the people who oppose communism outnumber those who support it and ultimately would stop it from happening in the U.S.

“The best thing to do is vote certain people out of office,” Bogardy said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/at-anniversary-hungarian-revolution-some-refugees-see-communism-creeping-into-u-s_4065888.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

In the United States, a sharp rise in the number of children identifying as transgender has alarmed some parents. As these numbers rapidly grow, three mothers share the warning signs of transgender indoctrination.

The Child Transgender Numbers Explosion

A study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics released in May 2020 showed nearly 10 percent of high school students in just one school district identified as gender-diverse. That 10 percent figure is far higher than past estimates, such as a 2017 government survey of U.S. high school students, in which only 1.8 percent said they identified as transgender. While some studies suggest the higher rate of suicide and attempted suicide among transgender children is related to non-affirmation, other research shows that the higher rate of suicide and attempted suicide among adolescents with gender dysphoria is more related to their know history of other psychiatric diagnoses and self-reported emotional and behavioral problems. While the study called The Trevor Project—widely cited by those who push the affirmation-only approach to avoid self-harm—does show that a significant number of transgender youth admit the heavy use of drugs and alcohol, the study did not explore or provide any statistics regarding the preexistence of other psychiatric diagnoses or self-reported emotional and behavioral problems among the participants.

The Social/Mental Vulnerabilities 

While each of the three families in this story come from different backgrounds and live in different states, each of their newly self-identified transgender children have some things very much in common. They are all in the same age group, they are all socially awkward, and all have been diagnosed with some form of social or psychological disorder.

Vera Lindner of Los Angeles, California, told The Epoch Times “the trans bomb was dropped,” into her world a year ago when her daughter was 14 years old. Her daughter, now 15, had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Disorder. She suffers from depression, anxiety, insulin resistance, and obesity. Her daughter was also diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

Dee, of Clover, South Carolina has a 17-year-old daughter who was indoctrinated at the age of 15. Her daughter has been diagnosed with pre-adoption trauma.

A concerned mom in Augusta, Georgia, who is a single parent, spoke to The Epoch Times under the condition of anonymity using the pseudonym Mary. She said her son made his transgender announcement in November 2020. While not formally diagnosed with any specific disorder, she “had him tested when he was younger for being on the [autism] spectrum and he fell in the gray zone.”

“They could not say yes or no,” Mary added. “He has always been a bit socially awkward and quirky.”

How it Began

Another commonality is the way each child was drawn down the transgender path. It all began with online connections who introduced them to the transgender world through various social media groups.

The trans-transformation of Vera’s daughter started when she began identifying as a lesbian and started watching a lot of YouTube videos like “What do lesbians look like?” and “Who is the ‘most lesbian’ from among this line-up?” Then came the “unrequited love for a butch-lesbian girl who was the first one to self-identify as a ‘trans-boy.’”

“This individual was the ring-leader, very aggressive,” Vera explained. “Also, very tech-savvy.” The “trans-boy” set up multiple Discord groups for the group her daughter had been introduced to, with channels such as “vent,” “general,” “art,” “LGBT” and specifically, “NSFW” where they were posting male nudes and pornography for each other to watch.

According to the Urban Dictionary, “NSFW” is “internet slang” for “Not Safe For Work” or “Not Safe For Wife” and is “used for a fandom of some sort when people want to discuss and share the sexual and porno side of the fandom.”

“At the same time,” Vera added, “they all got into TikTok and Instagram and started watching trans-related content—vile, stupid narcissistic young adults posting rotten material on these platforms.”

The subject matter of these posts centered around such things as, “you are trans if you…,” “you have been playing a role of a girl all along but you are not a girl,” and posed questions like “do you feel like a girl?”

For Dee’s daughter, everything started when “a friend who had decided she was trans a year before took her down the proverbial hole and taught her what to wear” and exposed her to lesbian pornography.

Through the social media platforms Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok, her daughter watched videos  about “trans-men” and “how to get testosterone.”

As with Vera’s and Dee’s daughters, Mary’s son spent hours on social media sites consuming hard-core, graphic pornography sent to him by his new, online trans peer group that evades parental controls by classifying the content “cartoons.”

The Drastic Transformation

By the time Vera’s daughter was in eighth grade she “was so hyper-fixated on LGBT that she was incapable of speaking about anything else besides LGBT” and she “cycled through orientations of lesbian, pan, queer, until finally she dropped the trans bomb shortly after turning 14.” Soon after, she “cut her hair, started wearing boys’ clothes, bought men’s underwear” and “demanded a binder.” She also wanted to get a “supplement from Amazon for increasing testosterone,” which she refused to purchase for her, and to see a “gender doctor,” which she refused to take her to.

Where Dee’s daughter had once been a “happy, seemingly well-adjusted and mature,” child who “excelled academically, she quickly became “disobedient, contentious, contemptuous and untruthful.”

Where she once appeared as a normal teen-aged girl, she now “presents as a boy wearing dark colors, hoodies, and occasionally wears a binder” and she has “Cut off her beautiful hair and tries to pass with a man bun.”

Mary said she was shocked at her son’s trans declaration as there was “no prior behavior that would indicate any of this.”

As with Vera’s daughter, Mary’s son became “obsessed with talking about trans issues.” She said “all talks revolved around it,” and “he demanded puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.”

Mary said the transformation of her son started after he “found friends who were also declaring non-binary and transgender status and they began providing him with “their old girl clothes.” He quickly went from “cautiously” wearing a skirt to “full-on cross-dressing” and he “became noticeably irritable and rude,” a characteristic she said was “extremely out of character” for her son. During one manic episode, she said her son began screaming at her to look at him to recognize that he is “a girl now.”

“It was very disturbing and frightening,” she said.

The Fight to Reclaim Their Children

Because her daughter was “going through a mental breakdown upon dropping the trans bomb,” Vera and her husband decided not to take away her electronic devices. To mitigate the destructive influence of social media, they did purge her accounts of all transgendered contacts. They also stopped sending their daughter to her therapist, who had started “casually talking about testosterone and encouraging transition.”

Her daughter’s PCOS is being managed with meds and she has a daily regimen of light exercise. She has started tenth grade in a charter school and is making new friends. Still, the therapy that has had the most positive impact on her daughter has been volunteering on family farms.

“She adores animals,” Vera said, “so we adopted two kittens in addition to the dog we brought with us. Being around animals and kind people has helped her rebuild her self-esteem. We also go for walks daily. Her depression is much better, definitely in remission. So is the eating disorder. Here, she is connecting with real humans and hearing their real-life stories.”

For Dee—because “there’s too much being shared at high school at lunch and during breaks”—parental monitoring of her social media accounts, a summer job, increased volunteer work to get her off social media, and new social circles has had only marginal improvements on her daughter’s behavior. But she isn’t giving up.

Fearful and overwhelmed by the sudden changes in her son, the decision was made by Mary to send her son to stay with his father. During those next three weeks, she began to dig into his online history and many changes have been made. Since her son’s return from his father’s home, she has taken away his electronic devices and has three layers of parental control on his phone. She uses Circle and Bark apps to monitor the phone’s screen-time and frequently checks with her internet provider for controls they provide. Despite her efforts, she said her son still manages to find “a lot of gender-bending in obscure corners of the internet.”

“His attitude is slightly better,” she said. “I have taken him to a new therapist that is not affirming. I am not sure how much that has helped so far though. The previous therapist was terrible and made things go from bad to violent with the blind affirmation model.

Their Greatest Fears

Vera fears that her daughter will be taken by Child Protective Services because she is “not affirming,” She also fears that her daughter will be influenced by her friends to take hormones or worse, to have irrevocable surgeries. “She has made tremendous progress in healing her mental illnesses and I don’t want her to slip back,” Vera said.

Dee also fears that her daughter will “medicalize and embark on a course of surgery that will cause irreparable damage to her body.”

“And I fear she will latch onto her ‘glitter’ family and become estranged from us,” she confessed.

Mary in Georgia also fears that her son “will begin medicalization when he turns 18” and that “he will ruin his body and his life in search for happiness that is promised to him” but “will only result in his ruination mentally and physically.”

“He will become a forever patient of the pharmaceutical and medical industry and dwindle his dating pool down to nothing and he will be alone,” she grieved.

Who’s to Blame?

Although a self-described “lifelong” liberal Democrat, Vera blames former President Barack Obama “who got bought with the millionaire transvestites’ money” and the liberals “who parrot trans slogans” and “allowed this ideology to infiltrate so deeply the American society and families.”

She blames the “friends who dragged” her daughter into the trans world, and the school lockdowns that left home-bound, isolated children “hanging on their phones all day long to be immersed into this cult.”

“And I blame myself,” she confessed, “for not doing deep reading on this whole trans-thing years ago. I immersed myself only after she dropped on us the trans-bomb, unexpectedly.”

Dee also blames “the friend who dragged” her daughter into this, “and social media, which uses algorithms to shove the trans-agenda into her online world.” She also blames her daughter’s three therapists, “all of whom affirmed her and treated her like a special unicorn.”

Primarily, Mary blames the tech industry.

“They know the danger this technology poses to our mental health and the influence it has especially on young vulnerable people,” she said. “I blame them for not having stronger walls against pornography when kids can easily click an ‘over 18’ button.”

She also blames the pharmaceutical and medical industry who “blindly affirm this and push drugs and surgeries on kids” and therapists who use suicide statistics to pressure them into affirming their child’s irrational decisions yet give no thought to the idea that the child may deeply regret those choices and “take their life after the transition.”

New Paths Require Wise Feet

“To all despondent parents who just got blindsided by this,” two mothers offer some advice.

Vera: “Read as much literature as possible, both affirmative and also trans-critical. Be familiar with the propaganda and lies so you can rebuff them. Nothing substitutes for knowledge and information.”

Mary: “Cut off electronics/online activity, be vigilant about parental controls and monitoring. Be cautious and not confrontational and keep communication lines open and encourage critical thinking.  Give them as much love as possible but also be firm as the parent. Get them outdoors and back in nature and into the world like through volunteering, extracurricular activities, if they’re old enough getting a job.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/parents-warn-of-their-children-being-subjected-to-transgender-indoctrination_4055029.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-23-3&mktids=e434c7c98af422b7709077803a056f47&est=dqfEsyY6Ou52zv1D2KXyHsDCd42jJ9ZMBz%2BGy%2FSy3hYY%2FYGSswoNrXhs1Pk4lGBd%2Fg%3D%3D

Those who control our institutions and both parties, the commanding heights of the economy, politics, and culture, comprise an elite with shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and power. They dominate universities, media, education, big business, big sport, and Hollywood.

Some scholars such as Charles Murray and political commentators such as Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson have come to use the term “ruling class” or “new ruling class” of this pan-institutional and bipartisan elite. They define class as a matter of power and attitudes, differences in access to government and education, habits, and tastes. In contrast, Marxists saw the central divide as one between owners of capital and those who worked for them—capitalists and wage-workers or, in previous class societies, between slaves and slave-owners, or feudal lords and serfs.

America’s Ruling Class

The political philosopher, former senior intelligence official, and critic of the main schools of foreign policy Angelo Codevilla died in a traffic accident on Sept. 21, 2021. In addition to his books, articles, and speeches on statecraft and the foreign policy establishment, Codevilla provided an influential conservative analysis of the central class divide in the United States. He published a brilliant and prescient essay (and later book) in 2010 that laid out his view of America’s ruling class.

Codevilla emphasizes the power and attitude of the new ruling class—its conviction of its own moral and intellectual superiority and its utter contempt for the rest of society.

The ruling class, so understood, is not defined by its ownership of capital or wealth. “What really distinguishes these privileged people demographically is that whether in government directly or as officers in companies, their careers and fortunes depend on government,” he wrote. They vote Democrat and “draw their money and orientation from the same sources as the millions of teachers, consultants, and government employees in the middle ranks who aspire” to be members of the ruling class and identify with what they take to be the grievances of the oppressed.

Party and Class

Democrats are the party of the ruling class, Codevilla argues, and the Republicans are their junior partner. Writing in 2010, he sees the mass of voters as unrepresented and voiceless. Most Democrat voters see their party as representing them well, but that’s true of only a minority of Republican voters. There’s no party that represents and defends the views and values of the majority—patriotic, putting the United States first in global economic and political matters, avoiding unnecessary and unwinnable wars, with a foreign policy that strengthens our friends and weakens our adversaries rather than the reverse, and that’s consistently supportive of family, faith, and tradition.

As Codevilla put it in 2010: “In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans—a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents—lack a vehicle in electoral politics.”

This divide and party difference persist in 2021, as reflected in the growing distrust of legacy media and other institutions. Only 6 percent of Republicans, and 16 percent of all Americans trust TV news, according to a July Gallup poll. About one in five trusts newspapers. Relentless and gratuitous hostility towards President Donald Trump contrasted with sycophantic coverage or suppression of negative news about his successor in the White House (as in the Hunter Biden laptop scandal) no doubt account for much of this suspicion by Republicans and independents. Except for high bipartisan trust in the military and small businesses, the parties differ markedly on other institutions. Republicans have much more trust in the church and police.

The election of Trump in 2016 suggested the possibility of weakening the Establishment Republicans and turning the party into one that puts the country’s national interests first (as other countries do) and is socially conservative.

Moving the party and country in a direction that reflected the views and values of most Americans ran, as expected, into fierce and unrelenting hostility within the administrative state, the media, the rest of the ruling class, and not least, from Establishment Republicans.

There are formidable obstacles to sustaining a third party in the American system, so conservative Republicans focus today on maintaining the support of working people, not least that of black and Latino families. Part of the task is to hold off attempts of the globalist and socially liberal old guard to regain control of the party. If those attempts fail, some former party leaders and Never Trumpers aim to sabotage the Republican Party’s electoral efforts, supporting the Democrats or a third party in order to teach ordinary people a lesson.

Attitude

The ruling class, Codevilla argues, “grew and set itself apart from the rest of us by connection with ever bigger government, and above all by a certain attitude.”

As he says, “Whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.”

In terms of education, cultural tastes, and disdain for ordinary people (the working class who, in Obama’s memorable phrase, “cling to guns or religion”), the “educated” class is less diverse than ever. It aims to improve society, not by empowering ordinary people, but by managing them in their own best interests. This typically requires ever more centralized control of the state, with new or expanded programs and regulations.

The recent threat by Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the FBI against concerned parents who challenge school boards is just one of several examples of recent abuse of federal power in ways not envisaged by the original legislation and that seem to contravene the Constitution.

The Potter and the Clay

In short, the attitude of the ruling class to those outside it is essentially that of potter to clay. But the potter in this case disdains and despises the clay even as it seeks to shape and control it to conform to its own desires.

This attitude, seeking to limit democracy and to enhance instead the rule of experts and professionals, was common to the Progressives in the last century. As Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton and then of the United States, put it, “I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.”

The current administration’s method illustrates this attitude. By using regulations and massive programs of increased debt and spending, the ruling class reserves to itself control over the economy and increasingly over more and more areas of everyday life.

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Yale Law School professor: “Please correct the record — I would not want to have to do it for you.”

Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken on Monday promised an investigation into the controversy surrounding Trent Colbert, the second-year law student and Federalist Society member who sent a lighthearted email inviting classmates to his “trap house.”

Gerken vowed not to “act on the basis of partial facts reported out in a charged media environment”—though dozens of primary-source documents corroborating the incident have emerged—and announced that Yale Law School deputy dean Ian Ayres would “assess the situation” and “help us think how best to move forward.”

It is unclear whether administrators will issue an apology for their conduct along the lines of the one they drafted for Colbert, as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has proposed.

Yale Law School told the Washington Free Beacon that Ayres’s investigation would not result in any further action against Colbert. “As our statement last week made clear, this is protected speech,” said Debra Krozner, the law school’s managing director of public affairs. “It will not lead to any action against the student.”

Gerken’s announcement comes in the wake of widespread outrage over the administration’s aggressive handling of the incident and its tendentious response to news reports about it, including from two prominent Yale Law professors who lambasted the university’s official statement.

That earlier statement, released Oct. 13 in the wake of a Free Beacon report about the process to which Colbert had been subjected, denied that the second-year law student faced “any disciplinary investigation” or action over his email.

The denial sparked fierce blowback from two Yale Law School professors who lambasted the dishonesty of their own university. One of those professors, corporate legal scholar Roberta Romano, threatened to “correct the record” if the law school did not do so itself. The administration’s actions toward Colbert, Romano wrote Krozner, are “in direct and total conflict with what you stated,” noting that the school’s diversity director had made “a sly threat” about the student’s career.

“Please correct the record,” she added. “I would not want to have to do it for you.”

Another Yale Law professor, who asked to remain anonymous, said the initial statement was “appallingly disingenuous and full of falsehoods.” Yale Law School “stated ‘no student is investigated or sanctioned for protected speech,'” the professor told the Free Beacon. “It’s hard to square that statement with the Dean of Student Affairs summoning a student for questioning in response to allegations by other students, with the Diversity Director ominously warning the student that if he doesn’t apologize his admission to the bar could be threatened, or with the Law School sending a message to the entire second-year class condemning the student’s email as ‘racist.’ If all that isn’t an ‘investigation,’ then it’s even worse—a pronouncement of guilt without investigation.”

The outrage has bubbled over into other elite universities. Keith Whittington, a legal theorist at Princeton and a member of the Academic Freedom Alliance, said Yale Law’s actions were “highly inappropriate and completely incompatible with maintaining a free speech culture in a law school.”

“There is no question that such actions send a chilling message across the student body and convey clearly that the law school is a hostile environment for conservative students,” Whittington told the Free Beacon.

The imbroglio started when Colbert, a member of the Native American Students Association and the Federalist Society, invited classmates to a happy hour cohosted by the two groups. In a Sept. 15 email, he announced that Popeyes chicken would be served at his “trap house,” a slang term for a place where people buy drugs.

The message elicited nine discrimination complaints in under 12 hours, according to administrators, which prompted Associate Dean Ellen Cosgrove and Diversity Director Yaseen Eldik to summon Colbert to a series of meetings in which they pressured him to apologize for his email—with Eldik going so far as to imply that Colbert could face trouble with the bar if he didn’t apologize. When Colbert didn’t send a written apology drafted by the administration, Cosgrove and Eldik emailed the second-year class about his initial message, which they characterized as “pejorative” and “racist,” adding that the administration condemned it in “the strongest possible terms.”

The student complaints emphasized Colbert’s membership in the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group that Eldik said was “oppressive to certain communities.” Those complaints intensified after the Free Beacon published audio of Eldik’s meeting with Colbert: Between Oct. 17 and Oct. 18, several students sent law school-wide emails denouncing Colbert and the Federalist Society, which one student group characterized as “violent.”

“The pooled legal knowledge of our membership cannot name every [Federalist Society] decision that has harmed our communities,” Yale’s Dred Scott Society wrote in a 2,555-word email on Oct. 18—”a testament to the extensiveness of this violence.”

Colbert’s actions, the society members continued, “are yet another example of the way that [Federalist Society] members attempt to weaponize discourse against the very people trying to have conversations in community with him”—conversations Colbert says were only initiated after the student complaints had been filed.

“Trent’s narrative of being a victim of cancel culture based on his membership in [the Federalist Society] attempts to both diminish the harm that he caused and erase the role that his own actions played in causing the harm in the first place. “

The president of the Black Law Students association, Marina Edwards, likewise rejected the idea that Colbert had been “cancelled.”

“Black students did not attempt to cancel Trent,” she wrote in an Oct. 17 email to the law school. “Calling out someone who behaves irresponsibly toward historically marginalized communities, regardless of their own identity, is not an act of oppression; it is an act of love and compassion for those whose lives are daily ripped apart and trampled upon by systems (and people) of oppression.”

Edwards did not respond to a request for comment.

If students are not attempting to cancel Colbert, they are attempting to remove him from his position as a student representative. In response to “concerns surrounding Trent Colbert’s conduct,” the law school’s student government said in an Oct. 16 email that it drafted an entirely new set of procedures for removing student representatives. It remains unclear whether the student government will use those procedures against Colbert.

Another student group, the First Generation Professionals at Yale Law School, sent an email on Oct. 18 to “affirm” Edwards’s message and “condemn the racist email sent by Trent Colbert.” The group said it “recognize[d]” the “harmful impacts” of “hostile media coverage” on black students and thanked Eldik for attempting to “educate Trent and repair harm within the [Yale Law School] community.”

The emails from Edwards and the Dred Scott Society also invoked the concept of “dialogue” pioneered by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian Marxist who praised Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution as “the most genial solution” to “oppressive” pedagogy.

“Critical dialogue is about holding space for positive growth and change,” Edwards wrote, citing “Freirian praxis.”

But, the Dred Scott Society clarified, “to engage in dialogue, we must all hold all of the cards.”

Fwd a Message About the Media Coverage in the Recent Days by Washington Free Beacon on Scribd

Fwd a Message About the Med… by Washington Free Beacon

Fwd a Reflection on the Federalist Society and Dialogue From the Dred Scott Society by Washington Free Beacon on Scribd

Fwd a Reflection on the Fed… by Washington Free Beacon

Fwd FGP Board Statement on Critical Dialogue at YLS by Washington Free Beacon on Scribd

Fwd FGP Board Statement on … by Washington Free Beacon

Update 8:15 p.m.: This piece has been updated with some corrections to the Scribd documents.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/convulsions-at-yale-law-school-administrators-do-damage-control-as-faculty-members-slam-schools-dishonesty/

At its roots, communism is an ideology that strives on the capitalization of extremists. Under communist rule, moderates are not allowed to exist. You either support the communist revolution or risk being labeled as an enemy of the people.

This idea of dividing and conquering can be seen in successful communist revolutions throughout history. Whether it’s Russia, China, or Cuba, communists followed the same steps to turn a population against one another.

They first identify an issue to be used as a vehicle to gain supporters and call for a violent revolution. They then polarize that issue, forcing people to choose sides. By eliminating the middle, only the extremists of either faction remain. Conflict will inevitably erupt between these factions, weakening the established systems and allowing communist dictators to seize power.

When Lenin incited the Russian Revolution in 1917, he categorized people into two categories. There were those who supported his revolution and those who did not. There was no middle ground. If you were moderate, you conflicted with the revolutionary ideals and were marked for destruction. A brutal 6-year struggle ensued, resulting in an estimated 7 to 12 million deaths. But when the dust settled, Russia was ruled by a communist dictatorship for the next half-century.

This trend of using violence and destruction as a tool has been seen in other communist revolutions as well.

During Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China, extensive campaigns wiped out intellectuals and scholars who were seen as a threat to communist teachings. Red Guards, a name given to the paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong, began to organize “struggle sessions” and purges across China. These were designed to root out and eliminate any threats to Mao Zedong’s unquestioned rule.

During this time, moderates and opponents of the party were sent to “re-education” camps. Mao’s Red Guards faced off against “rebel groups” across China. And traditional Chinese culture, one of the longest in history, was almost completely wiped out in a few short decades. But as with every communist revolution, after millions of deaths and years of suffering, the people do not become free but are instead trapped under communist tyranny.

Communism claims to build a “heaven on Earth,” but what it delivers is little more than a glorified prison. From the years of violence and destruction, people become conditioned to obey the party without question. And that is the ultimate goal of communism, not to create a utopia but to subject people to its tyranny.

But what led to this destructive belief? How did its violent revolutions begin? And how is it that communism continues to find popularity? In this special series exclusively on Epoch TV, award-winning investigative reporter Joshua Philipp uncovers the dark origins of the communist ideals that we see today.

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Among the many brilliant insights of the great Thomas Sowell is the following gem:

“Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area—crime, education, housing, race relations—the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.”

Here, I want to provide a brief personal history that highlights the “education” aspect of Dr. Sowell’s insightful quote.

In my lifetime, I’ve personally experienced four education fads, each of which has, in my opinion, had a negative impact on the American educational system. The first of these four is the “new math” that was popular when I was in elementary school.

Roughly speaking, the goal of the new math was to skip over tedious parts of the subject, and go directly to a deeper understanding and appreciation. Apparently, the theory was that if a student first loved math, then he or she could fill in the missing details later.

While this might sound good, the results were disastrous. Math is a subject that requires a step-by-step approach, and without the facility to efficiently perform the basics, the next rung on the mathematical ladder is beyond reach.

Fortunately for me, my father instinctively realized the folly of the new math and insisted that his kids learn the basics, such as memorizing multiplication tables. Without that push from home, the technical fields that have served as my career would surely have been off-limits from a very young age.

Next, we fast-forward to my graduate school years, which coincided with the era of “calculus reform.” Historically, calculus is a “weeder” class that eliminates a sizable proportion of students who plan on going into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. In the silly terminology of the day, reformed calculus was supposed to be a “pump” rather than a “filter” for the STEM fields. Again, this might sound good, but in practice it was largely a failure.

One of the ideas of reform calculus was to increase the use of technology—such as graphing calculators—which has certainly happened. However, calculus reform lost its way when it attempted to address social aspects of learning.

For example, it was claimed that “cooperative learning” was crucial, as students from certain successful demographics tended to spend a higher percentage of their study time in groups, as compared to less successful demographics. The educational faddists conveniently overlooked the fact that success in calculus was far more strongly correlated with the number of hours spent studying, as opposed to the fraction of that studying time that was “cooperative.”

My next experience with educational faddism occurred when my older son started elementary school. We were living in Maryland at the time, and that state decided to go all-in on the “whole language” approach to teaching reading.

Whole language was essentially a recycled version of new math, but for reading. Students were not taught phonics, and the theory was that at some point, they would magically grasp how to read by simply being read to—somewhat akin to becoming a violin virtuoso by taking a music appreciation course.

The predictable problem with the whole language fad is that many students never reach the point where the magic occurs. I would wager that most students who did learn to read well under the whole language regime did so because parents ignored the school curriculum and taught their children outside of the classroom, using proven techniques. That was certainly the case for my son.

Reading comprehension scores plummeted wherever whole language was adopted, with disadvantaged students being hit the hardest. Whole language was such an epic fail that there was no papering over the problems it created, and it was soon abandoned in all but name.

My fourth personal experience with an educational fad occurred when my younger son started middle school. We were living in that most faddish of all states, California, and the “Common Core” was the latest fad that was going to save American education.

One of the tenets of the Common Core is that virtually all students should learn at essentially the same pace. Obviously, this is a problem for students who are not in the middle of the pack.

As a result of the Common Core, my son learned absolutely nothing in his math class during his sixth-grade year. Literally, everything that was taught, he had already mastered in fifth grade. Parents were up in arms, but nothing was done until the following year, which was too late for those students who had a year of their education sacrificed for a daffy egalitarian theory.

What is the current state of educational faddism? It would be nice if the education establishment reflected on their repeated failures and decided to henceforth focus on proven teaching strategies, emphasizing the benefits of hard work and sacrifice, and leave the magical thinking to Harry Potter. Unfortunately, from my perch in higher education, I can say with certainty that such is not the case.

The current effort to twist history to serve a political narrative (the “1619 Project”) is appalling, and even worse is “critical race theory,” which is little more than a bizarre recycled version of communism, with “race struggle” substituted for class struggle. The attempt to define math as inherently racist is another strange and counterproductive fad.

Such examples show that the education establishment has completely gone off the rails, as these latest fads are not even designed to improve American education—all that they could possibly claim to “improve” is the level of indoctrination that students face.

It is encouraging that many parents today sense that things are amiss and they are starting to fight back by putting pressure on school boards. Hopefully, there will be enough resistance to stop the education faddists before they do more harm.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/educational-faddism-then-and-now_4048271.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram