I’ve often warned the rise of the authoritarian Left is the central challenge of our time. The authoritarian Left got in our face again this week, but people are rising up – we’re not going to take it anymore.
On Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland instructed the FBI to work with local officials to investigate parents who challenge local school board policies. His memo came just five days after the National School Boards Association wrote a letter to Joe Biden asking him to marshal a wide array of federal forces against parents who speak out against the leftist takeover of the public schools. The letter in effect called parents domestic terrorists. The letter also falsely claimed schools are not teaching critical race theory, perpetuating a Big Lie the Left has been telling for weeks, now. The fact of the matter is teachers rallied in 22 cities to support CRT and a teachers union adopted a plan to spend big bucks to oppose parents trying to get CRT out of their schools.
The reaction to the Attorney General’s memo was swift and broad-based. A parent’s group said, “It is shameful that activists are weaponizing the U.S. Department of Justice against parents…. This is a coordinated attempt to intimidate dissenting voices in the debates surrounding America’s underperforming K-12 education—and it will not succeed. We will not be silenced.”
A conservative group said the Justice Department’s move is “designed to scare parents, to punish them for speaking out for their children, and to shut down First Amendment protected speech and assembly…. Of course, no teacher or public official should face the threat of violence, but by the same token, no parent should face [government] profiling and FBI investigations for standing up against the racist indoctrination of their children.”
A legal foundation said, “The Biden administration’s use of the awesome power of government to investigate, stifle, and silence criticism is the hallmark of totalitarian tyranny.”
Governor Ron DeSantis promised to defend the free speech rights of Florida citizens against the feds.
Radio hosts called on local law enforcement not to cooperate with the feds. The case has not been made for federal intervention; nothing has been cited that can’t be handled by local and state law enforcement officers. That’s actually a good point. It’s standard constitutional doctrine that state and local officials cannot be commandeered to enforce federal government policies. If the feds want to harass parents for their political beliefs, they should have to do it all on their own.
A civil rights veteran pointed out it’s the parents who need protection from the school boards, not the other way around. School boards have shut down public comments and cleared the room when concerned parents speak against them. Teachers unions research dissenters and put parents on enemies lists. State PTA associations disband local PTAs that aren’t on board with all the woke craziness being shoved down students’ throats.
The authoritarian Left has lost the argument on critical race theory, so now it’s resorting to intimidation and coercion. If they can make money doing it, so much the better, right? It turns out that Merrick Garland’s daughter is married to the co-founder of a firm that sells controversial data mining and social-emotional learning services to public school districts. So, if you follow the money, the Attorney General just instructed the FBI to investigate parents who might pose a threat to the financial well-being of his own family. Well, well, well, the swamp is deep and wide – who knew? But it’s like Lily Tomlin says, no matter how cynical I get, it’s never enough.
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