Daily Archives: March 5, 2021

The president of a California teachers union advocating for prolonged, science-denying school closures is facing backlash after videos surfaced of him dropping off his young daughter at an in-person, private school.

In a video posted by a group called Guerilla Momz, Berkeley Federation of Teachers President Matt Meyer is seen escorting his child into an educational facility while wearing a sweatshirt displaying his unions logo and name on Feb. 18. The school, Guerilla Momz claims, has been open and operating since June 2020.

Meet Matt Meyer. White man with dreads and president of the local teachers union, the group tweeted on Saturday. Hes been saying it is unsafe for *your kid* to be back at school, all the while dropping his kid off at private school.

Meyer attempted to justify his actions to Fox News by saying there were no public options for kids her age. He also claimed there are major differences in running a small preschool and a 10,000-student public school district in terms of size, facilities, public health guidance, and services that legally have to be provided while advocating for a safe return to school.

Just one day before Meyer was spotted at the in-person preschool, he lobbied for schools in Berkley to remain closed until all teachers and other district staff members obtain their COVID vaccination, calling it, along with masking and social distancing, the gold standard for reopening. Despite pleas from families and medical experts for the district to reopen according to scientific research, the union led by Meyer convinced the district to keep virtual learning until at least the end of March, which is subject to week-long delays based on when teachers can get vaccinated.

Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech criticized Meyers behavior, explaining that teachers unions around the country are using districts willingness to cave to their counterfactual demands for selfish reasons.

First off, hes wrong when it comes to the differences in this situation, Domenech said. But look again what this whole thing has been. Its been a situation where theyre holding kids hostage across the country in order to try to extract more tax dollars from you, the citizen. Its been this whole game all along this point where not only do teachers feel that they should be able to cut ahead in line, even if theyre young, in order to get vaccinated first, but they also want to be able to extract more money from Washington, money that wont even be spent in order to make these schools safer, but is going to be spent in future years on these different districts. Its all a game, and people I think are frankly waking up to it and realizing that this is something that we shouldnt be allowed to play at dice with our kids.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Self-Serving Teachers Union Head Seen Taking His Kid To In-Person School - The Federalist

Its deja vu all over again. A coalition of government- and billionaire-funded nonprofits has a bipartisan plan for national curriculum goals, this time concerning U.S. history and government. Today this state-led coalition is releasing a major report they hope will get the attention of the Biden administration and state governors to collaboratively enact their vision nationwide.

Remember, these sorts of national plans are supported by people on the right and left, so there can be no need for further investigation or any public questioning. The experts have got this problem all figured out. Your children and the nations future are in their hands. Trust them, these are experts under whose leadership the nations civic and historical knowledge not only hasnt improved but may be at the worst point in possibly all of American history, because of oops, I mean in spite of their best efforts!

More than 300 leading scholars have spent 17 months putting together a roadmap for what and how to teach integrated K-12 history and civics for todays learners. Its a cross-ideological conversation about civic learning and history at a time when our country needs it the most, so dont worry your pretty little heads about anything and let the experts sort it out! What could go wrong?

What, you heard that the Smithsonian is saturating its exhibits and materials with social-justice saturated fake history and forking over good taxpayer money for racist propaganda, and therefore youre a bit concerned about their involvement in this project? Whats wrong with you, the Smithsonian is an old and venerable American institution! Republican senators are putting billions of dollars behind its promotion of cultural Marxism!

Did we mention this project is also bipartisan? The education secretaries for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama are all on board, of course. They presided over a massive decline in U.S. education quality and increase in bureaucracy, so you know its a good idea!

The DC uniparty has just the perfect solution for American kids dangerous ignorance about their nations founding principles, system of government, and history. Its making them into political activists! Its called action civics. Isnt that exciting? Sandra Day OConnor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were big fans. Remember them? So are Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, those models of respect for the U.S. Constitution!

No, kids dont need to know anything to lobby their local, state, and national governments, that would ruin the effect.Everyone knows learning is boring! Whats fun is action! Action civics! You know, like the nation saw in the past year or so, all those refreshing young people protesting in the streets for racial justice.

Thats the kind of civic entrepreneurship were looking for, not the boring conventional entrepreneurship these civic entrepreneurs destroyed to the tune of an estimated $2 billion. Thats old news, just like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Didnt you hear those were written by slaveowners like George Washington to keep black people in chains?

No, what we want is democracy. Thats why this project is called Educating for American Democracy. Out with that old constitutional republic stuff, its so racist. RAY-CIST. Whats new and hip is a living constitution, just like RBG fought for. The Educating for American Democracy Project has a brilliant new report, see, all about why the nations dearth of civic knowledge demands a solution from cooperative federalism, just like Common Core was the obvious solution to the nations shamefully poor-quality math and English education!

Even though this initiative is being created in almost exactly the same way the Common Core rules for math and English were created, this is nothing at all like Common Core. For one thing, it was created by committees of unelected participants funded partially by government and partially by private organizations not subject to transparency laws like open meetings and open records requests. Wait, thats just like Common Core.

But this is NOT, let me repeat, NOT a national curriculum at all. Its only a set of guidelines, lesson plans, curriculum design frameworks, and stuff like that just like Common Core. Um, I mean This is just like Common Core but its totally NOT AT ALL LIKE COMMON CORE. Just trust me, brand-name Republicans are involved. Just like with Common Core!

Why would anyone on the right oppose this almost every single committee for this project includes the one conservative guy we could find to put his name on this thing so we could introduce him to Republicans nervous about this idea. Okay, actually, its maybe 10 conservatives out of more than 300. Theyre not really always comfortable identifying themselves, not sure why, especially since they are paid to be cross-partisan, just like those super-useful Never Trumpers we rent out for special events at a great discount.

Regardless, 10 conservatives would never get steamrolled on a project like this, right? Just ask the five genuine subject-area experts who signed onto the Common Core project and then retracted their support after it in no way resembled defensible curriculum requirements. They werent used and then discarded in a cynical attempt to hide this projects flaws under the veneer of transpartisanship until it was too late. No way. Lefties never do that to conservatives. Ever.

No way action civics will get into place in states and then this project will be cited as the reason for far-left curriculum like that already happening in Massachusetts under the test run for this national project. That was touted as bipartisan, too, and run by the many of same people and organizations that are about to boost this national project.

Too bad, conservatives, you kicked at Leftist Lucys football again, ha! Thanks for playing! We love this game. Kick again, please! Were counting on it.

I mean, Common Core was foisted on states by the Obama administration in exchange for federal funds. Joe Biden was there when that happened, and he would never govern like Obama, now, would he? No way, hes way more aggressive than Obama was! And he yanked that divisive 1776 Commission Report on his first day in office, so you know his U.S. Department of Education supports what is best for children, not all that jingoistic loving your country crap!

Unity in hating America, thats the goal here, and weve almost achieved it. We just need a bit more tinkering, okay, we havent got the formula quite right yet, those insurrectionist Trump voters are clouding Republican senators view a bit too much still. Weve almost trained some to swat them away like gnats. John Cornyn, for sure. Just a few more years of cranked-up indoctrination combined with open borders in Texas, and Beto can finally replace him.

So for the sake of unity, just go along with reinforcing public schools as leftist indoctrination factories. Sing kumbaya with us and none of your precious little public school funds will get threatened. You wouldnt want anything to happen to that money, would you? Its for the children. And civics. Conservatives like civics, right? Pay no attention to all the leftists behind the curtain.

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If You Liked Common Core, You're Going To Love Joe Biden's Civics - The Federalist

Vox charged legendary sweetheart country star Dolly Parton as possessed with a dark side Friday for her refusal to frequently engage in divisive political commentary and for rejecting the progressive-or-bigot binary.

The piece, deceitfully headlined How Dolly Parton became a secular American saint, calls into question whether Parton can authentically love a country struggling with divisions in which she refuses to participate.

Dolly Parton is beloved because she has devoted her career to standing for love. And, usefully, she is willing to be ambiguous about what exactly that love means and how much it includes people that those on different sides of the political aisle consider their enemies, wrote Vox culture writer Constance Grady. But in a post-Trump America, is Dolly Partons love enough?

Grady complains several paragraphs down that Parton possesses a dark side for drawing fans of all political stripes, including those deemed deplorable. Grady calls out Partons insistence on radical love in the aftermath of George Floyds death, which Grady falsely claims was by police shooting.

America in the 21st century is no time for a secular pop saint, Grady wrote. And theres a dark side to Dollys ability to appeal, Christ-like, to all people at all times.

Parton was speaking to Billboard in July 2020 as the country was engulfed in protests following the police shooting of George Floyd. The interviewer asked her what she thought of the movement.

I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen, Parton said. And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!

This kind of deft political quasi-answer is the sort of move Partons been pulling her entire career. She expresses empathy rather than solidarity she understands why people have to make themselves known, even if shes not showing up at a protest herself and she affirms that she loves everybody. And since she loves everybody, of course their lives matter.

In other words, Partons light defiance to succumb to the lefts militant groupthink on social justice, according to the Vox writer, has made the cross-cultural-loving country star an undercover Dixie villain in disguise. After all, silence is violence, even from the 75-year-old woman who decided to wait and allow other high-risk people to receive doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine she helped fund.

Floyds exact cause of death remains unclear, whether it came from a police officers knee or a lethal dose of fentanyl found in his system, as court documents show. What is clear, however, is that Floyd wasnt killed by a police shooting.

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Vox Peddles Fake News That Dolly Parton Has A 'Dark Side' - The Federalist

By Richard Reeb| For the Victorville Daily Press

Last week, I cited an article in the National Review by Charles C.W. Cooke lamenting the continuing liberal attack on freedom of speech, while I argued that speech has a purpose and therefore limits. Cooke identifies himself as a libertarian and, in so doing, deplores censorship, and, in other writings, cautions against government restrictions on the ostensibly private Big Tech oligopoly that also censors speech.

My quarrel with Cooke is not his argument for free speech but his undeserved tribute to the unprincipled liberalism that gave rise to the idea of unlimited free speech. Blessing (not merely tolerating or enduring) the speech of our countrys enemies is neither wise nor good. When liberals successfully argued for such anti-American speech, they effectively licensed it and, thus, legitimized the now central ideas of the political party that wants to change America from a land of constitutional government and individual rights to an overweening government that treats citizens like children in need of constant care.

For all of that, I share Cookes concern for freedom of speech, which, as he rightly demonstrates, is under serious and widespread suppression. Limiting speech is a perilous enterprise, for the same legal limits placed on alleged miscreants can return to plague the inventor, to use an old and wise saying. That is, the same law that shuts down critics may well, following a losing election, be used against those who made the law. In short, genuine impartiality is, to understate the challenge, very difficult to achieve.

The prime example is the nations first attempt at suppressing allegedly seditious speech in 1798. Passed by a Federalist-dominated Congress and signed by Federalist President John Adams, the law literally proscribed so-called hateful speech intended to bring federal government officials into disrepute.

Sound familiar? It should, as that is precisely what cancel culture is at college campuses, corporate offices, media outlets and now government agencies in an untethered crusade against hate speech, meaning speech that allegedly righteous liberals and progressives find offensive. That can go both ways.

No one was more critical of the old Sedition Law than James Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution, in his Report on the 1799 Virginia Resolutions against the law. Unlike his long-time friend, Thomas Jefferson, who condemned that law simply because the First Amendment denied Congress the right to abridge freedom of speech and press (leaving such matters with the states), Madison more fundamentally argued that it threatens that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.

Madison also noted that no persons or presses are in the habit of more unrestrained animadversions on the proceeding and functionaries of the state governments than the persons and presses most zealous in vindicating the act of Congress for punishing similar animadversions on the government of the United States. Madisons lofty speech is clear enough, I trust, that the Federalists were essentially arguing for, to use todays lingo, freedom of speech and press for me but not for thee.

The one saving grace of the Sedition Act, if there was one, was its provision that truth was a valid defense for the accused, as Alexander Hamilton pointed out. But that hardly mattered as the only journalists charged or convicted were Republicans. What happened next is revealing.

The Republicans swept the elections of 1800 and the new President Jefferson pardoned all the offenders. That was necessary, he believed, even though the Act expired when he took office. No sooner did the change in party control occur than one Harry Croswell was charged under New York state law with defaming President Jefferson! He was easily convicted because, under the states law, originally passed in colonial times, truth was no defense at all.

But the final twist came when Hamilton joined Croswells defense team and explicitly argued that truth should be a defense. I never did think that the truth was a crime, he said. Then, at the very next session of the New York state legislature, a bill was enacted to ensure that truth was a defense against accusations of libel or slander. That changed with New York Times v. Sullivan, a subject for a future column.

One final note: The original Constitution did not, of course, include the Bill of Rights, as Madison argued that it would be mere parchment and Hamilton that the state of public opinion was a more powerful force in this respect. The constitutional guarantee did not prevent Congress from passing the Sedition Act, which was discredited not by a judicial decision, but by the results of the next election.

Richard Reeb taught political science, philosophy and journalism at Barstow College from 1970 to 2003. He is the author of Taking Journalism Seriously: Objectivity as a Partisan Cause (University Press of America, 1999). He can be contacted at rhreeb@verizon.net.

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Thinking It Through: Defending the nation of free speech (part II) - VVdailypress.com

Three million students appear to have gone missing since March of last year, according to a new study from the non-profit Bellwether Educational Partners. Those who vanished came primarily among the most educationally marginalized students in the country, an unsurprising statistic given what we know about school closures. A January study from Yale University warned that if schools were to close a full year, high school freshmen in the nations poorest communities would suffer a 25 percent decrease in their post-educational earning potential.

By contrast, their model shows no substantial losses for students from the richest 20% of neighborhoods, a Yale newspaper wrote.

School closures are imposing the longest-lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and its entirely self-inflicted. Millions of students have remained out of classrooms for 12 months and remain at the mercy of power-hungry teachers unions exploiting the crisis for political and financial gain before re-opening, if they ever re-open.

In leftist cities and suburbs across the country, teachers unions are overplaying their hands to resist returns to the classroom, rejecting science finding that in-person instruction can be offered safely to instead demand things that range from priority vaccination to billions of dollars in more funds. Neither is necessary.

Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for the safe reopening of schools, said Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky at a February press briefing. There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely.

Of course, this was well known since before the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

The United States became an outlier as one of the only western nations in the world to shut down schools for an extended period on the excuse of COVID. Meanwhile, school closings have devastated many children. Students have fallen behind socially, academically, and developmentally. In Nevada, a surge in suicides provided a dark illustration of the mental health crisis gripping the nations students and pushed Las Vegas schools to reopen.

The conversation over school reopenings, however, has centered on whats best for the teachers unions as opposed to whats best for the students.The Los Angeles teachers union, which represents teachers in the second-largest district in the country, slammed the states plans to reopen schools Monday as propagating structural racism,

We are being unfairly targeted by people who are not experiencing this disease in the same ways as students and families are in our communities, blasted United Teachers of Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz at a press conference.

Chicago schools only opened this week, after months of the teachers union only agreeing to return to classrooms after securingpriority access to vaccines.

Teachers are in fact, already a priority in the vaccine rollout, yet Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation for Teachers (AFT) representing 1.7 million members told The New York Times Congress must also pass its $1.9 trillion spending bill with $130 billion specifically set aside for schools. According to the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, however, between $53 and $63 billion in funds to re-open schools passed in last years COVID bills remain unspent.

Teachers unions benefit from a unique power dynamic. They negotiate with those they elect, who in turn toss taxpayer dollars to schools that arent open.

Requests for safety in schools is one thing, but constantly moving the goalposts so that district schools essentially never open is unbelievably detrimental to the physical, emotional, and academic health and wellbeing of our students, Schultz said, noting that most private schools began operating normally at the start of the school year while public school districts lagged and continue to lag.

Tristan Justice is a staff writer at The Federalist. Jordan Davidson is an intern at The Federalist.

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It's Time To Re-Open Schools. It's Time To Defund The Teachers Unions - The Federalist

The George Floyd Justice In Policing Act passed the House Wednesday evening 220-212 and will now head to the Senate. While two representatives, Jared Golden of Maine and Ron Kind of Wisconsin, were the only Democrats to vote against the measure, Republican Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas pressed the wrong button and voted yes accidentally.

I accidentally pressed the wrong voting button and realized it too late, Gooden tweeted but deleted it soon after. I have changed the official record to reflect my opposition to the partisan George Floyd Policing Act.

I have arguably the most conservative/America First voting record in Congress! Of course I wouldnt support the radical lefts Anti-Police Act. I have changed the official record to reflect my opposition, Gooden clarified.

The House vote was previously scheduled for Thursday but was moved to Wednesday because of alleged Capitol security threats. The so-called Justice in Policing Act, introduced by Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., is being touted by the Biden administration as necessary to solve systemic misconduct and systemic racism in police departments.

To make our communities safer, we must begin by rebuilding trust between law enforcement and the people they are entrusted to serve and protect. We cannot rebuild that trust if we do not hold police officers accountable for abuses of power and tackle systemic misconduct and systemic racism in police departments, the White House said in a statement.

Section 311 of the act identifies that officers who pull over certain identity groups, such as more black men than black women, will be defined as a prima facie evidence violation. If men are found to speed at higher rates than women in a given region, for example, a police department would technically be in violation of the act. The Justice in Policing Act also calls for racial quotas for traffic stops, pedestrian stops, and interviews. In essence, departments would be forced to deal with all people equitably, which would fundamentally contradict the notion of equal justice in a free and fair society.

The Justice in Policing Act is unlikely to pass through the Senate, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged a week ago.

What the Senate will do is what the Senate will do, but we will send over the bill that has the balance that we have in it, Pelosi told reporters.

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The Sole Republican To Vote In Favor Of The George Floyd Bill Did So Accidentally - The Federalist

The Nasdaq stock exchange amended its diversity plan on Dec. 1 and filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to mandate all companies maintain at least two board members from diverse backgrounds.

Nasdaq recently submitted a proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission focused on diversity of the boards of companies listed on our U.S. exchange, wrote the President and CEO of Nasdaq Adena T. Friedman in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. Our proposal establishes a recommended objective for companies to include at least two board members from diverse backgrounds. We asked that each company disclose anonymous aggregate data self-disclosed by the directors regarding their gender identity, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

If passed by the SEC, any Nasdaq-listed companies that do not comply with the new rules will have to provide an explanation to all shareholders. The plan requires that there is a self-identified female on each company board, as well as someone who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+, according to a statement released by Nasdaq in December.

This proposal and partnership gives companies an opportunity to make progress toward increasing representation of women, underrepresented minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community on their boards, Nelson Griggs, president of Nasdaq stock exchange, said.

While Friedman claims this new proposition is not a quota, it is unclear how forcing companies to adopt racist affirmative action measures, or else risk notifying their respective boards, is not a hard-line stance against meritocracy.

In February, McDonalds announced plans to implement diversity hiring quotas, with the aim of having a so-called equitable representation of men and women employees by the year 2030.

As a world-leading brand that considers inclusion one of our core values, we will accept nothing less than real, measurable progress in our efforts to lead with empathy, treat people with dignity and respect, and seek out diverse points of view to drive better decision-making, President and CEO Chris Kempczinski of McDonalds wrote in a LinkedIn article. Today, I would like to share two goals we have set as we continue to build the strong foundation we need to fully realize our ambition.

Similarly, lawmakers in California approved a bill in August of 2020 mandating that all companies based in the state maintain at least one underrepresented minority board member, and three by 2022 for boards large enough.

Overall, our proposal seeks to demonstrate that, with proper disclosure and clear objectives, companies and investors can create momentum toward an approach to capitalism that offers more opportunity to more people. We believe this can be accomplished through a market-driven solution rather than government intervention, Friedman said.

Across the country, institutions are aiming to destroy the notion of equality for equity. In a tweet right before the November presidential election, now-Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted a video discussing the differentiation of the two, admitting that equity denotes not equal opportunity, but rather equal outcome: a tenet of communism.

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If Nasdaq Gets Its Way, Companies Must Have Two 'Diverse' Board Members - The Federalist