school board

see local level takeover (poll watcher/worker)

see also public school bd

see pink pill

see moral panic, CRT

see larger cat local & state takeover. eg

https://theconversation.com/the-made-up-crisis-behind-the-state-takeover-of-houstons-public-schools-128346

school bd pipeline for ppl of color into politics, TX

xian?

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an no lnx

'A boon to far-right extremists': Alarm sounded over new Trump appointee

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 11, 2025.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Jordan Green February 27, 2025

Dan Bongino, the right-wing podcast host tapped by FBI Director Kash Patel to serve as deputy director of the agency, has a history of downplaying white supremacist extremism, the violence committed by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and threats against school board members.

Bongino suggested during a podcast recorded in September 2022 that the FBI under former Director Christopher Wray pursued investigations of “white supremacists who are terrorists” because of political pressure from President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland. He did not mention the deadly Buffalo mass shooting carried out four months earlier that year or dozens of neo-Nazi accelerationist terror plots foiled by the FBI that would warrant such a focus.

“Biden and Garland say, ‘We need white supremacist, domestic violent extremists’ — you know, we learned in the Salem witch trials: If you’re looking for a witch, you’re going to find one, even if there isn’t one,” Bongino said.

The statement was made during an interview with Kyle Seraphin, an FBI agent who was suspended after raising questions about an email from FBI leadership flagging threats against school board members and later separated from the agency after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccination.

“The idea that you could have this file on you about what you’re surfing online — not criminal, maybe untoward, maybe nasty — but the fact that this happened because you showed up at a meeting and said something is really horrifying,” Bongino said.

In a second interview with Seraphin that was published the following day, Bongino ridiculed the agency for tasking agents with following up on leads that flooded the FBI from members of the public days after thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and disrupted Congress’ certification of the electoral vote in the 2020 presidential election.

“You know, I get it — I would have not preferred January 6th turned out differently as well,” Bongino said. “I think any sane person would have. But to take six-figure FBI earners with a set of skills and let them run out all across America taking tips about a guy you met potentially in eighth grade showing up on January 6th sounds a little Orwellian.”

President Trump issued blanket pardons to the nearly 1,600 people charged with crimes related to that Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol, but threats from white supremacist terrorists seeking to cause a collapse of society remain an ongoing concern for law enforcement. Last month, the U.S. State Department named the white supremacist group Terrorgram, whose leaders face charges for soliciting the murder of federal officials among other offenses, a specially designated global terrorist entity.

The mass murder of 10 African Americans in a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2022 underscored the threat posed by white supremacist terrorism, while a car-ramming attack by an ISIS sympathizer that killed 14 people celebrating New Year’s Eve in New Orleans provided a reminder that Islamic extremism also remains a threat. Meanwhile, school shootings in recent months have revealed a bewildering array of motivations that include white supremacy, inceldom and nihilism.

“At a time when the violent extremist threat is as diverse and unpredictable as any time in recent years, unqualified conspiracy peddlers and election deniers are running the FBI,” Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said in an email to Raw Story. “It is a boon to far-right extremists in particular, who will undoubtedly feel emboldened counting senior officials like Patel and Bongino among their compatriots.”

Bongino did not respond to an interview request submitted to the press office at FBI headquarters.

Similar to Jan. 6, when Trump supporters angered by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen wound up turning on the U.S. Capitol police, violent white supremacists often target law enforcement, along with Jews, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.

In one such case, the FBI filed charges against Kyle Christopher Benton, a Washington state man, for unlawful possession of a machine gun, after he posted on social media that he was joining multiple internet chats to encourage other users to commit mass shootings.

In a filing arguing for continued pre-trial detention, the government said that an investigation for domestic violence conducted by the Army Criminal Investigation Division in 2019 revealed that Benton operated social media accounts that promoted white supremacist and antisemitic propaganda. Benton’s partner allegedly told investigators that he wanted to shoot up the “alphabet boys” — a common reference to federal law enforcement — or a local police station.

“At a time when FBI agents are facing calls of retribution following the January 6 pardons, the nomination of a podcast host who has repeatedly promoted harmful conspiracies aimed at delegitimizing the FBI sends a dangerous message,” Lewis said.

During his interview with Seraphin in 2022, Bongino charged that the agency “bought into the hype” that the Jan. 6 attack was an event of the same magnitude as Pearl Harbor or 9/11. He went on to accuse agents of “locking up people for a January 6th insurrection — or whatever, grandma, who trespassed — because you don’t like their politics.”

Bongino and Seraphin’s discussion of Jan. 6 focused on trespassing and other misdemeanor offenses. Still, about 608 out of the nearly 1,600 defendants were charged with assaulting law enforcement or obstructing officers during a civil disorder, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Of those, 174 were charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious injury to an officer.

Emblematic of the administration’s efforts to whitewash the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the webpage detailing the crimes committed on Jan. 6 was taken down shortly after Trump returned to office. But an archived page itemizes the array of weapons rioters used or carried at the Capitol: firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including axes, hatchets, knives and a sword; makeshift weapons, including destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks and stolen riot shields; baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping and reinforced knuckle gloves.

During his appearance on Bongino’s podcast in September 2022, Seraphin outed himself as the source of an email obtained by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). The email from FBI leadership mandates the use of specific threat tags to track “threats specifically directed against school board administrators, board members, teachers and staff.” Jordan, as the then-ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, seized on the email as proof that the FBI was “using counterterrorism tools to investigate parents,” even though the email doesn’t specifically mention parents.

“Essentially, they’re asking to tag these inbound threats,” Seraphin told Bongino. “And we don’t have time for those kinds of threats. We really don’t. In the real FBI, there’s not time for threats from some guy who’s yelling at the school board…. But it’s very difficult to convince me you would say that this is a real threat that exists all over the country….”

“Right,” Bongino agreed. “Worthy of FBI resources.”

The threats were, in fact, real.

In November 2021, the mayor of a small city in Ohio accused school board members in Summit County of “distributing essentially what is child pornography.” The accusation reportedly resulted in dozens of threats from around the country. Although the county prosecutor declined to file charges against the mayor, she issued a statement that “these allegations were false and caused numerous public servants to be victimized.”

In another incident, a woman protesting a masking requirement told the Page County Public School Board in Virginia in January 2022, “My children will not come to school on Monday with a mask on. All right. That’s not happening. And I will bring every single gun loaded and ready to — I will.”

As an indication of the turmoil surrounding COVID-19 restrictions and books addressing sensitive topics surrounding race and sexuality during that period, ProPublica reported that 59 people were arrested at school board meetings across the country from May 2021 through November 2022, most of them charged with trespassing, resisting an officer, or disrupting a public meeting.

In 2023, Garland reportedly told a House panel that the FBI received 22 reports of threats against school officials, and the agency referred six cases to state and local authorities to investigate.

“So, if I have a file on the CT side — the counterterrorism side — for showing up at a school board meeting and saying something — it may not have been appropriate thing to say, but it certainly isn’t a terroristic threat, you could have this big body of information available for you to make a criminal prosecution easier is where I’m going with that,” Bongino said during his interview with Seraphin. “The building blocks are already there.”

In at least one instance, a counterterrorism investigation did bring FBI agents to a parking lot outside a school board, if not into the meeting room.

Steve Friend, a former FBI agent, testified before a congressional panel that he had been tasked with surveilling an individual at a school board meeting as part of an open counterterrorism investigation. Based on the date of the subject’s arrest — Aug. 24, 2022 — House Democrats surmised that the subject under surveillance was one of four members of a Three Percenter militia called Guardians of Freedom who were charged with offenses related to the Jan. 6 attack. (A fifth would be arrested separately at a later date.)

“So, essentially we just documented the license plates of the people that were parking at the school board meeting who were January 6th subjects, or people that were in the parking lot with them interacting that we thought could be in their sphere of influence, and then we left,” Friend testified.

One member of the militia had boasted on social media on July 2021 that he was “continuing to build my 3% army so I can overthrow the federal government,” according to the charging document, and he said that 80 percent of the local sheriff’s office was “on our side,” but he didn’t plan on “ever seeing the inside of a cell.”

Ultimately, the five members of Guardians of Freedom were convicted of various charges related to their conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and received sentences ranging from two years of probation to five months in prison, only to be pardoned last month by President Trump.

Bongino, who worked as a New York City police officer and later for the Secret Service before becoming a podcaster, has never worked at the FBI.

But he expressed disdain for FBI upper management when Seraphin told him a colleague reported to Peter Strzok, the former deputy director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. Strzok, in turn, reported to Andrew McCabe, who served in the role that Bongino now holds—deputy director.

“The trajectory for someone like that is they show up at a field office; they’re there for two and a half years,” Seraphin told Bongino during the September 2022 interview.

“What the hell do you learn in two to three years to be managing cases like yours out in the field?” Bongino scoffed.

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nazi cow 3 24

Republican public schools nominee supports political killings and ‘death’ to Bill Gates

Michele Morrow official campaign photo

Jordan GreenandRaw Story

March 08, 2024

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Michele Morrow, the newly minted Republican nominee for superintendent of public instruction in North Carolina, wishes “death” on Bill and Melinda Gates.

She’s advocated killing people she considers “traitors.”

Despite seeking to oversee public education in a state of 10.5 million people, she is herself a homeschooler.

She has no prior political experience.

She attended the Jan. 6 rally to support Donald Trump’s quest to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

She received candidate training alongside a Proud Boys member.

And yet, Morrow upset incumbent Catherine Truitt in the Republican primary on Tuesday.

ALSO READ: Inside the neo-Nazi hate network grooming children for a race war

Morrow, who rallied for Trump in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, has repeatedly made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, while calling for death to Trump’s political enemies — and to former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and his former wife Melinda Gates for promoting vaccines.

Morrow could not be reached for comment for this story.

In a post on Twitter (now X) on Dec. 29, 2020, Morrow wrote: “I do support death to vaccine mongers like Bill and Melinda Gates.” (Raw Story reviewed the post on Wednesday, but it has since been removed for violating X’s rules. The post has been archived.)

In another post the same day, she wrote: “We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!!!”

Morrow livestreamed herself with other Trump supporters walking to the Ellipse on Jan. 6.

“We are here to take back America,” she said. “We are here to stop the steal. We are here to ensure that President Trump gets four more years.”

Morrow, who has worked as a Christian missionary, exhorted her livestream followers: “We need to fight back with prayer… May the people of God arise. May the Holy Spirit descend on D.C., and may souls be saved. And may the United States once again return to one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”

In the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Morrow rebuked a call by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to prosecute those involved. Four people died during the attack — all Trump supporters — and dozens of police officers were injured.

“We do not condone violence and destruction,” Morrow wrote. Nor will we stand for treason and cowardice. Did anyone offer to talk with those entered? Or only force them out and threaten them? Thousands of us were here in Nov & Dec. We never heard from ANY Congressmen. Now you want to talk?”

Following President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, Morrow took part in the far-right shift towards focusing on public schools as sites for cultural and political struggle.

A post in the private Facebook group Education First Warriors shows Morrow attending a candidate training with a member of the Proud Boys in January 2022. The photo was posted by Sloan Rachmuth, the president of the Education First Alliance.

Proud Boy member John Fischer, who like Morrow would go on to lose a local school board race that year, later attended a rally with other Proud Boys wearing masks and paramilitary gear who harassed patrons at a drag show in Sanford, N.C.

Public schools are 'greatest threat to humanity'

Truitt, who Morrow defeated Tuesday to win the Republican nomination for superintendent of public instruction, has held the post for the past four years.

The person in this position is responsible for developing curriculum and administering state and federal funds in North Carolina K-12 schools.

Morrow’s primary win sets up what’s likely to be a spirited general election fight with Maurice “Mo” Green, formerly the superintendent of Guilford County Schools — the third largest district in the state — who won the Democratic primary.

Green received the endorsement of the NC Association of Educators, whose president declared the election to “be critical to the future of public education in North Carolina” while warning that “anti-public school politicians want to tear down our schools.”

Some of Morrow’s views on public education are outlined in a 2023 Newsmax opinion article that promotes a Christian nationalist vision for education, while claiming that preserving traditional gender roles is a matter of national security.

Morrow wrote that “government-run (read public) schools and medical systems” are “the greatest threat to humanity,” while arguing that removing God “from the classroom, the courtroom, and the public square” is opening “ourselves up to chaos and confusion.”

ALSO READ: Feds gave classified information to neo-Nazi defendant: lawyer

In the same article, Morrow claimed that the American soldiers who liberated France during World War II are being demonized as “toxic.” She also complained that society is “filling our children’s minds with the lie that gender roles are an oppressive, social construct to be rejected” and “telling them that it is ‘heroic’ to block the natural processes of development.”

Green, the Democratic nominee for superintendent of public instruction, is largely refraining from commenting on his opponent.

In a statement to Raw Story, Green said he will work to make the North Carolina public school system the best in the country by advocating for full funding, ensuring staff receives adequate pay and “celebrating the good in public education.”

Morrow, in contrast, has a history of negatively framing public education.

Speaking at a candidate forum during her unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Wake County Board of Education in 2022, Morrow said her children have been educated in public, private and home schools.

“And what worked best for my kids in preparing them to be critically thinking, hardworking and intelligent adults and prepared for entering into the adult world and following and pursuing a career that they are passionate about was homeschooling,” she said.

Morrow added: “I would be more than happy to put my last child, who is in fifth grade now — 10 years old — to put him in the public school system if I believed that the public education system was focused on academic excellence and preparing our children for the career of their choice.”

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/michele-morrow/

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'Seriously concerned': School board may sue new far-right chair with alleged militia ties

York County, Virginia school board chair Lynda Fairman (Image: Screengrab via WAVY / York County)

Carl Gibson

February 21, 2024

A three-member faction on a local school board in Virginia has come under increased scrutiny by both other elected officials and concerned parents, and litigation may be pursued against the board's newest chair.

According to local news outlet WAVY, York County School Board chair Lynda Fairman and two other members — Kimberly Goodwin and Zoran Pajevic — were elected in November 2023 on a far-right "parents' rights" agenda, and have since provoked a "tsunami of discontent" in recent months. WAVY reported that during a recent work session, board members James Richardson and Mark Shafer publicly voiced their opposition to their new colleagues' latest actions, which include allegedly sending a militia group to a local school to record a sex education session.

"What really concerns me, majorly, is that board members have been notified by our board attorney that the board may be liable because of retaliation claims made by the superintendent. This could open the board and division up to possible litigation," Richardson said. "I’m seriously concerned about that."

READ MORE: Far-right 'Moms for Liberty' school board candidates lose races in 5 states

Fairman was accused of sending a militia group to Dare Elementary School last month to film a "Family Life" sex education presentation. According to an online pamphlet, those sessions emphasize abstinence from sex before marriage, argue in favor of adoption over abortion and promote the "benefits of marriage." Richardson noted that he watched a video the group posted in which participants said they were "sent here by Ms. Fairman." However, Fairman strongly disputed the allegations.

"I am not a part of that, absolutely not, and I do not support that name being changed, and that was news to me," Fairman said in response. "... There were several citizens, who when they found out about the Family Life, I asked them 'I said I can't go, can you please go?'”

"[T]hat’s my mistake for how I presented it to them. It was not intended to be that way," Fairman added, saying she had hand-written apology letters to school counselors.

The group in question — York County Poquoson Community Missions (YCPCM) — is led by Yorktown resident Bob Herget, who runs a local pest control business. However, in a video he posted to YouTube that has since been labeled as private (part of which has been uploaded to TikTok), he referred to his group as the "York County Poquoson Constitutional Militia." Herget's Facebook page is populated with content critical of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, clips from various right-wing influencers like Tim Pool and Joe Rogan and content praising former President Donald Trump. YCPCM's website has since been taken down.

READ MORE: Moms for Liberty: 'Joyful warriors' or anti-government conspiracists?

Click here to read WAVY's full report.

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[sign masks harm kids]

an1123

moms for Liberty (M4L), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated extremist group that promotes book bans in schools and opposes LGBTQ visibility in education, suffered stinging losses in school board races across the country Tuesday night.

The Daily Beast reported that the group either directly endorsed or promoted school board candidates in six states — Alaska, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — yet lost a bulk of those races with the exception of two in Alaska. M4L had a slate of candidates win elections in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 2021, but the extreme nature of the group prompted most candidates seeking reelection to ask M4L to not explicitly endorse them. Still, the five Republicans running for the Central Bucks School District that M4L "recommended" voters cast ballots for were swept by Democrats, according to the Beast.

Elsewhere in Bucks County, Republicans running for five open seats in the Pennridge School District — who backed an agenda dubbed "Project Pennridge" that would have required students use bathrooms and play for sports teams associated with their biological sex — were also swept by five Democrats.

M4L-backed school board candidates also lost big in Loudoun County, Virginia, which is a populous suburb in the Northern part of the state. The beast reported that M4L candidates Michael Rivera, Chris Hodges, and Joe Smith all lost, while Deana Griffiths won by just 185 votes. Liberals now hold six of nine seats after Tuesday night's election.

In Iowa, nine M4L candidates lost their bids for school board seats in five different school districts, including Teri Patrick, who is Moms for Liberty's Polk County chapter president. In 2021, Patrick co-signed a letter seeking to criminally charge the district for making two books about LGBTQ issues available in schools. The letter accused the district of "disseminating pornography to our children."

The Beast further reported that M4L suffered major setbacks in Minnesota, with all four candidates backed by the group losing board of education races in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district. Voters instead reelected three incumbents and one newcomer, with none of the M4L conservatives capturing a double-digit vote share. Meanwhile, voters in North Carolina's Mooresville Graded School District rejected M4L-backed candidate Theresa Knight.

M4L's only electoral success Tuesday night came in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) School District, where unofficial results show incumbents Kathy McCollum and Ole Larson in front of their opponents.

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11 23

'Like nothing I’ve ever seen': How education is fueling Pennsylvania’s 'most high-stakes election' yet** - Alternet.org

Education experts are lauding Pennsylvania's upcoming school board elections as the most critical the state has seen in years, Politico reports.

"This campaign is like nothing I've ever seen," ex-Republican and Central Bucks incumbent board member Karen Smith told the news outlet. "I have 50 volunteers who are doing everything from door knocking, to making phone calls, to making signs. The amount of money that’s being spent on this race, the amount of volunteerism is like nothing we've ever seen here before. But then the negativity, the vitriol, the intensity, and the lying is like nothing I’ve ever seen or could have imagined."

Politico reports:

*A venture capitalist put up hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend conservative control of his hometown Philadelphia-area board and support other school campaigns. A Republican political committee is supporting candidates in Cumberland County, a red-leaning area west of Harrisburg where Democrats made gains during recent gubernatorial and presidential elections.

*Local chapters of Moms for Liberty, a national group that's grown into the biggest name in Republican school politics, and the conservative 1776 Project PAC have endorsed candidates in counties throughout the state.

Additionally, the report notes "A recent Brookings Institution analysis concluded Pennsylvania was one of Moms for Liberty’s biggest strongholds outside of Florida and New York, following the group's raucous summertime rally with GOP presidential candidates in Philadelphia."

Nonpartisan group Education Voters of Pennsylvania Executive Director Susan Spicka told Politico, "For children in Pennsylvania, this is the most high-stakes election of their entire lives. Because once you get five people on a school board who are going to operate as a bloc, they can do pretty much anything they want."

However, a local GOP operative told Politico they worry that "some board candidates are running their races in an overly partisan way."

Former Moms for Liberty Pennsylvania state coordinator Lois Kaneshiki said she doesn't think the school board campaigns "should be run like a state house or a state senate campaign."

She added, "If you run them too partisan, you're going to lose. You've got to run them differently, and the left understands this. They are very good at it, and I would say we are not."

Still, Stephen Mass, the GOP school board candidate running again Smith told Politico, "The bad part is we get riled up a little bit too much. I don't know why it's gotten that vicious. The good part is people are paying attention. They should be. It's unfortunate that it's come with a lot of real negativity and divisiveness."

Progressive Change Campaign Committee director of candidate services Hannah Riddle told the news outlet, "We'll learn a lot from Pennsylvania. We'll learn a lot not just on what to expect in school board races next year, but what to expect up and down the ticket as well."

*Politico's full report is available at this link.

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ref

:...{School board elections are set to occur across the country on Tuesday. But few of these once-quiet contests have become as vicious, sophisticated, expensive and injected with dueling endorsements from political committees and national organizations quite like campaigns in the Keystone State.}:

A venture capitalist put up hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend conservative control of his hometown Philadelphia-area board and support other school campaigns. A Republican political committee is supporting candidates in Cumberland County, a red-leaning area west of Harrisburg where Democrats made gains during recent gubernatorial and presidential elections.

Local chapters of Moms for Liberty, a national group that’s grown into the biggest name in Republican school politics, and the conservative 1776 Project PAC have endorsed candidates in counties throughout the state. Progressive organizations, teacher unions and groups linked to federal Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are fighting back through races in State College and big-city suburbs.

All that action has turned low-level school board campaigns in a swing state President Joe Biden and his Republican challenger likely need to win next year into a laboratory for the vitality of education-drenched politics.

“For children in Pennsylvania, this is the most high-stakes election of their entire lives,” said Susan Spicka, the executive director of the Education Voters of Pennsylvania nonpartisan group. “Because once you get five people on a school board who are going to operate as a bloc, they can do pretty much anything they want.”

Conservatives galvanized by Covid-shuttered schools have made book restrictions and LGBTQ student expression into a live wire in this election. A recent Brookings Institution analysis concluded Pennsylvania was one of Moms for Liberty’s biggest strongholds outside of Florida and New York, following the group’s raucous summertime rally with GOP presidential candidates in Philadelphia.

There are problems beyond culture wars, too: This year, a state judge underscored a long-running crisis by declaring Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional.

Now the resources needed to compete in these school board races look a lot like bigger-profile campaigns.

“You need mailers, you need signs, you need training for poll workers, you need Facebook ads, you need websites built — it’s all of that stuff,” said Paul Martino, a venture capitalist who formed a political committee to bankroll school board candidates dedicated to school reopening in 2021.

“2021 was the year it all got changed, and this is the world we’re now in,” said Martino, who this year has used his committees to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in board races throughout the state, but mostly a conservative slate running in a Bucks County district where his wife is also a candidate. “My guess is that we’re going to see a turnout of 45 percent, in an off-year election. Like, nobody sees that.”

Some operatives say Pennsylvania’s school board elections are also testing a new kind of “upballot” momentum, where motivated voters first look to local boards before directing their attention to critical municipal, judiciary and legislative seats higher on the ballot.

“We’ll learn a lot from Pennsylvania,” said Hannah Riddle, the director of candidate services for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is backing local candidates throughout the state, plus Ohio and Virginia, on the Nov. 7 ballot. “We’ll learn a lot not just on what to expect in school board races next year, but what to expect up and down the ticket as well.”

This dynamic is playing out in Virginia’s Loudoun County, where pandemic-era fights over critical race theory and transgender students upended the once-mundane politics of school governance near Washington D.C. Voters are now in line to reshape that school board with help from competing Democratic and Republican party endorsements.

In Ohio, the 1776 Project PAC has endorsed 16 candidates running for office in suburban communities near Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus while supporting conservatives in Kansas and Virginia. Moms for Liberty chapters are also endorsing in Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere on Nov. 7.

Roughly 30,000 board seats are estimated to be up for election in 2023, including races earlier this year that saw mixed results for conservative candidates in Wisconsin, Illinois and other states.

Yet board elections from the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs to smaller central Pennsylvania communities will further test the potency of conservative school politics ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Look to Bucks County, one of the swingiest counties in one of America’s swingiest states, for ample examples.

Conservative board members won a 6-3 majority in the Central Bucks School District outside Philadelphia in 2021. Passionate fights over library book restrictions, curriculum and student gender identity have not seemed to stop at the state’s third-largest school system since.

Following searing public debates, the Central Bucks board in July 2022 adopted a library book policy that limited the presence of “sexualized content” and allowed any district resident to formally challenge library materials “on the basis of appropriateness.”

Board members also began revising prohibitions on school-based political organizing that fall in a way that now bars district employees from showing flags, banners, posters, signs, stickers or similar materials that advocate “any partisan, political, or social policy issue” on school property or during district activities. That includes a classroom ban on Pride flags.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania pressed Biden administration authorities last October to investigate the school district’s “hostile environment” and “overtly discriminatory actions” against LGBTQ students. The Education Department’s civil rights division soon launched an investigation, and the ACLU this year filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Central Bucks teacher who was allegedly disciplined for providing information to the department.

Now Pride flags and book disputes are key flashpoints in the Central Bucks race.

The Stop Bucks Extremism committee led by Republican operative Bob Salera has sent thousands of fliers to voters that reprinted explicit images from titles pulled from school shelves and described a “Neighbors United” slate of five liberal school board candidates as “fighting to keep these books in our middle school and high school libraries.”

Martino told POLITICO he gave Salera’s organization “a seed check” at its launch, in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars he contributed to his own committees this year. That includes Bucks Families For Leadership, which supports five conservative “Central Bucks Forward” candidates.

Bucks Families For Leadership has in turn directed tens of thousands of dollars in spending to consulting and canvassing work from Republican operatives, campaign filings reviewed by POLITICO show, including Axiom Strategies and the Breakwall Group founded by former National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Chris Pack.

Pennsylvania’s largest state teachers union has meanwhile given nearly $30,000 to the Neighbors United slate, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer tally that concluded the Central Bucks race has garnered more than $600,000 in political spending through Oct. 23 — with Democrats scraping together the largest share.

“This campaign is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Karen Smith, an incumbent Central Bucks board member and former Republican now running with the Neighbors United slate.

“I have 50 volunteers who are doing everything from door knocking, to making phone calls, to making signs,” she said in an interview. “The amount of money that’s being spent on this race, the amount of volunteerism is like nothing we’ve ever seen here before. But then the negativity, the vitriol, the intensity, and the lying is like nothing I’ve ever seen or could have imagined.”

Stephen Mass, Smith’s Republican opponent, likened the election’s scrutiny and competition to a “double-edged sword.”

“The bad part is we get riled up a little bit too much,” Mass told POLITICO. “I don’t know why it’s gotten that vicious. The good part is people are paying attention. They should be. It’s unfortunate that it’s come with a lot of real negativity and divisiveness.”

Similar issues have torn at other districts in Bucks County, where more than a dozen districts have Nov. 7 elections scheduled. But at least one local Republican operative worries some board candidates are running their races in an overly partisan way.

“Some people who don’t know what they’re doing and taking advice from longtime political operatives — not only are they not necessarily getting the best advice, but they’re spending a hell of a lot of money potentially for it,” said Lois Kaneshiki, a Republican consultant who founded the Take Back Our Schools PAC, once served as Moms For Liberty’s state coordinator in Pennsylvania,

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October 18, 2023 RWW

Arthur Delaney @ HuffPost: Jim Jordan Again Fails To Pin Down 217 Votes For Speaker.
Robert Downen @ The Texas Tribune: Defend Texas Liberty PAC names new president after leader met with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Ron Filipkowski @ Meidas Touch: Man Who Targeted Hillary Voters With False Voting Info Sentenced to 7 Months.
Justin Horowitz @ Media Matters: Turning Point USA ambassador Morgan Ariel pushes antisemitism, interacts with and defends white nationalists.
Daniel Villarreal @ LGBTQ Nation: GOP school board candidate caught discussing “fire-breathing” lesbians, “grooming.”

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how to ~

https://www.alternet.org/leave-no-seats-uncontested-communities/

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6 23

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d93qd/moms-for-liberty-proud-boys

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alexandra Caballero was already well-known in Miami’s far-right scene as an organizer of anti-mask protests at school board meetings when, in August 2021, she joined the city’s chapter of the extremist “parental rights” group known as Moms for Liberty.

For six months, Caballero told VICE News that she was happy to be a member of the group. Founded in 2020, Moms for Liberty portrays itself as a wholesome, grassroots movement that is focused on protecting students. However, previous VICE News investigations uncovered a pattern of disturbing behavior by the group’s members, who have violently harassed and intimidated parents, school superintendents, school board members, and students who have stood up to them. Caballero took part in many of these protests and harassment campaigns until April 2022.

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Then, things turned sour.

After an argument with the local leader of the chapter, Eulalia María Jiménez-Hincapie, Caballero claims that she became the target of the very same harassment campaigns she’d once taken part in.

But the attacks didn’t just come from Moms for Liberty members, Caballero said; they also came from members of a local Proud Boys chapter. The Vice City Proud Boys were co-founded by former Proud Boy “chairman” Enrique Tarrio, who earlier this month was found guilty of seditious conspiracy by a federal jury in Washington, D.C. The alleged attacks included threats to her business, deeply personal messages referencing past trauma, and false police reports against her.

It’s not just Proud Boys that Moms for Liberty has allegedly gotten involved with, however. A VICE News investigation has uncovered links between numerous Moms for Liberty chapters and extremist groups like the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, sovereign citizen groups, QAnon conspiracist, Christian nationalists, and in one case, with the founder of the AK-47-worshiping Rod of Iron Ministries church in Pennsylvania. Around the country, Moms for Liberty has formed links with extremist groups and militias, which are joining forces with the “parental rights” group at protests and school board meetings, and in turn pushing the already far-right organization toward even more extreme ideology.

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“There's an ongoing campaign by these neo-Nazi groups to radicalize some of these more benign patriot MAGA groups—and it's working because I've seen more Nazi content creeping into posts from Moms for Liberty people recently,” a researcher, who is known as Trash City, and who closely tracks Moms for Liberty activity, told VICE News earlier this month.

The attacks didn’t just come from Moms for Liberty members, Caballero said; they also came from members of a local Proud Boys chapter.

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Earlier this month, a day after former President Donald Trump announced he would speak at the group’s annual summit alongside fellow Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist” organization for the first time.

“The group’s primary goals are to fuel right-wing hysteria and to make the world a less comfortable or safe place for certain students–primarily those who are Black, LGBTQ or who come from LGBTQ families,” the SPLC said in its report published this week.

In an emailed statement to VICE News, Moms for Liberty dismissed the designation as “name-calling” and said “no amount of hate from groups like [the SPLC] is going to stop” what its members are doing.

“The common mission”

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During her six months as a member of Moms for Liberty, Caballero was involved in multiple situations where the group's members collaborated with the Proud Boys, she said, including a school board meeting in October 2021 where a left-wing activist was harassed outside a meeting for wearing a mask.

“The Proud Boys are heavily involved in the Miami chapter of Moms for Liberty,” Caballero said. "Moms for Liberty want to push their agenda with fear, harassment, and intimidation, and they have the Vice CityProud Boys as their foot soldiers.”

The two groups collaborated in Telegram chats, according to screenshots of the groups shared by Caballero and Miami Against Fascism, a group of online researchers who track the activity of far-right extremists in the region.

“They’ll create a Telegram chat group and they'll invite people and they'll do a call to action, and the call to action is usually attacking where the person works, making phone calls, leaving bad reviews,” Caballero said, describing the process of harassment.

“There's an ongoing campaign by these neo-Nazi groups to radicalize some of these more benign patriot MAGA groups—and it's working.”

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In those chats, Jiménez-Hincapie can be seen interacting with Tarrio prior to the revelations in January 2021 that he once worked as a police informant about a decade ago. In one message, Tarrio compares Moms for Liberty to the “gestapo with vaginas.”

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Tarrio was ousted soon after he was revealed as an informant, but Jiménez-Hincapie continued to collaborate with the local Proud Boys chapter, declaring in a message that she was “friends & loyal with Vice City.”

Jiménez-Hincapie also had a relationship with Chris Barcenas, one member of the local Proud Boys chapter who was part of the Proud Boys group that broke police lines on Jan. 6th. Jiménez-Hincapie admitted in a July 2022 Telegram post that they “went out a couple of times” over a period of several months.

Jiménez-Hincapie dismissed her group’s links to the Proud Boys, telling VICE News that “right leaning organizations congregate in common core events for the common mission.” She refused to answer any other questions.

The national office of Moms for Liberty did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including emails with detailed lists of questions about the group’s links to extremists. Caballero also sent a registered letter, viewed by VICE News, informing Moms for Liberty leaders about Jiménez-Hincapie’s online harassment campaigns and close links to the Proud Boys. She said she never heard back from them.

The Miami-Dade chapter of Moms for Liberty has also been fairly successful at accomplishing their goals. Earlier this month, the group took credit for filing the complaint that led to the removalof The Hill We Climb, a book adaptation of the poem Amanda Gorman recited at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, from a school library. The group has also successfully lobbied Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to include one of the liberal school board members in Miami Dade in his list of 14 school board seats he is targeting in next year’s elections.

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After breaking with the group, Caballero said her business was targeted with negative reviews and threatening messages were sent to her employees; Caballero believes, based on messages shared in Telegram groups she was a part of, that the harassment came from Moms for Liberty and the Proud Boys.

Caballero took out multiple restraining orders against Jiménez-Hincapie and others who were harassing her online, and, according to Caballero, only in recent weeks have the attacks subsided somewhat.

Other extremist links

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Across the country, Moms for Liberty chapters have forged close relationships with other far-right extremist groups. When Tonya Dodd posted a picture to Facebook of the first meeting of the Moms for Liberty chapter she leads in Chattanooga last month, she knew almost immediately that she’d made a mistake. “Oops, this was supposed to be on my personal Facebook,” Dodd wrote in a comment under the picture, which remains on the public Chattanooga Moms for Liberty page.

Sitting alongside Dodd and half-a-dozen other members of the Moms for Liberty group is Bobby Bean, a member of the Proud Boys who was at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. His identity isn’t hidden at all in the photo Dodd posted; in it, Bean is wearing a baseball hat with the Proud Boys insignia.

Bean’s presence at the meeting was first spotted by the Chattanooga-based open source researcher known as Trash Citywho has been tracking the close ties between the local Moms for Liberty chapter and extremist groups like the Proud Boys. Now, the researcher, who has seen members of these groups organizing online, believes that the groups are not only coordinating to disrupt school board meetings and harass those who oppose their far-right agenda, but the extremist groups are also beginning to infect the Moms for Liberty members with their own ideology.

Across the country, Moms for Liberty chapters have forged close relationships with other far-right extremist groups.

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In Florida, when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill, he asked Moms for Liberty member Alicia Farrant to speak about her role in getting the book Gender Queer banned from the Orange County School District.

“I knew I could not remain silent, so I partnered with my friendJacob Engels, who is part of the LGB[T] community and also a reporter, who helped me expose the book at one of our school board meetings,” Farrant, who is now a school board member in Orange County, said at the press conference in March 2022.

What Farrant failed to tell the assembled reporters that day was that Engels is a member of the Proud Boys, an acolyte of Roger Stone, and a notorious figure in Florida’s far-right community.

When asked by VICE News about her relationship to Engels, Farrant did not respond. Engels told VICE News that he has never been a member of the Proud Boys and was a journalist “simply documenting the [Proud Boys] organization over the years.” When asked why he was pictured as part of a group of Proud Boys while wearing the distinctive uniform of a black and yellow Fred Perry t-shirt, Engels said:”I have been wearing Fred Perry for years, long before Proud Boys adopted it as a look.”

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The year prior, at a school board meeting in 2021 in Orange County, Florida, some activists said that Moms for Liberty brought in members of the Three Percenters.

“In September 2021 Moms for Liberty did bring some Three Percenters to the school board meeting and it broke out into this huge fight in the middle of the meeting,” Jen Cousins, the founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, told VICE News. “The board left the dias until everybody calmed down. But one of the Three Percenter guys came over and started berating me for shoes because I had rainbow shoe laces.”

Many of the Moms for Liberty members—and at least one leader—also espouse QAnon conspiracy theories. Jiménez-Hincapie openly boosted QAnon conspiracies on her Telegram channel, declaring that she had “followed Q” for years.

Esther Byrd, another Moms for Liberty member, was appointed by DeSantis to the Florida Board of Education last March despite the fact she had tweeted support of QAnon conspiracies and even flown a QAnon flag on her boat in 2021.

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And in Tennessee, the Chattanooga chapter of Moms for Liberty has close ties with a far-right sovereign citizen group known as Tennessee Neighbors for Liberty. Many members belong to both groups, according to Trash City, the local researcher who infiltrated the sovereign citizen Facebook group.

Responding to critics on her radio show last year, Jamie Pappu Hall, who co-leads the Tennessee Neighbors for Liberty group with her mother, denied the group was calling for violence but in the same breath added: “In fact we have people who are ready for war. Because we are in a war of good versus evil. And historically, to win that war, it becomes an actual civil war.”

In the same radio broadcast, Hall denied knowing any Proud Boys and said her group was not aligned with the militia—though she was photographed alongside members of the group who were flashing a white supremacist sign at an anti-trans rally in Nashville last November.

“In fact we have people who are ready for war. Because we are in a war of good versus evil. And historically, to win that war, it becomes an actual civil war.”

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Pappu Hall did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

And in Pike County, Pennsylvania, the local Moms for Liberty chapter has close ties to another extremist group: The Rod of Iron Ministries, the MAGA-loving religious sect that worships with AR-15s, whose leader was tear gassed during the Capitol riot, and which has close ties to multiple other far-right and Christian nationalist groups.

Rod of Iron Ministries, also known as The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, is run by Pastor Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon. The gun-centric religious sect is a spinoff of the much larger Unification Church, run by Moon’s father, whose followers were known as the “Moonies.”

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moon and his supporters began attending school board meetings to oppose mask mandates and school closures.

"I have been fighting Sean Moon's gun cult for 10 years, and now he was in the halls where my kids learn,” Amanda Pauley, a local parent and activist, told VICE News about seeing Moon at a school board meeting, adding: “It was obvious that they were really prepared at this meeting, more so than any other meetings. Every single person had a speech to read. They all walked in at the same time. The whole room clapped and cheered.”

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The crowd responded to Moon’s speech, during which he called America “the least racist country on the planet,” with loud cheers and applause. One man sitting close by leaned over and shook Moon’s hand as he sat back down.

Sean Moon and the Rod of Iron Ministries did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

At the time Moon spoke at the board meeting, there was no Moms for Liberty group active in Pike County, but a chapter formed in November 2022 just weeks after the majority conservative board voted against an effort to ban “pornographic” books in the district. One of the leading members is Kerry Williams, who has close ties to the Rod of Iron Ministries.

Williams attends school board meetings on behalf of Moms for Liberty, and is one of the administrators for the Facebook page for the Pike County Moms for Liberty chapter. She has also spoken at the Rod of Iron Ministries events in the past and has even hosted a podcast for the gun-worshiping church that relayed parts of the church’s Sunday service. During some Sunday services, she can be seen on the altar where she is referred to as “Queen Kerry.” Williams did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

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And just like Moms for Liberty has backed candidates for local elections, the Rod of Iron Ministries is following suit, running handpicked candidates not only for school board elections, but for county commissioner and town supervisor positions.

"My kids have been a target. My son has been called a pedophile and a groomer. He's 17 years old,” Pauley said.

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Pauley is a member of the activist group Red, Wine and Blue, and has been vocal in calling out the activities of Moms for Liberty and other extremist groups in her district. As a result, like the others standing up to the group, she and her family have been harassed.

"My kids have been a target. My son has been called a pedophile and a groomer. He's 17 years old,” Pauley said.

She also recounted an incident a few months ago with her 11-year-old daughter when they were verbally attacked by someone who has campaigned for Moms for Liberty candidates in local elections.

“A mom walked into the shop with her daughter, a little bit older than mine, and said 'Oh look the pedophile queen is here.' She shouted it so my daughter instantly went to the next aisle to hide her face,” Pauley said. “The woman told an older couple to keep their children away from me, that I was a pedophile and groomer. My daughter was hysterical, crying. Pauley said she had seen the same woman at events hosted by the Rod of Iron Ministries.

These connections appear to only be growing. In Florida, Moms for Liberty have been linked to the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs movement; in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania, the group has ties to the far-right**Patriots Network militia; and in northern Kentucky, a local Moms for Liberty chapter brought in Pastor Jon Schrock, who is affiliated with the far-right John Birch Society, to talk to its members about defunding public education.

At the event, Schrock shared the oft-repeated conspiracy that elementary school teachers are pushing critical race theory. Teaching social and emotional learning (SEL) is, according to Schrock, tantamount to emotionally manipulating children. He’s also claimed that math is racist. “Two plus two can equal broccoli,” Schrock said, in a video recording of the presentation viewed by VICE News.

Ultimately, Schrock got around to telling the Moms for Liberty his main recommendation: Pastors should replace teachers in an education system that is rooted in Christian fundamentalism. “Because public school teachers are grooming your kids for sex trafficking.”

Schrock did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

“There is a direct link between Moms for Liberty and other anti-American groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers,” Karen Svboda, the co-founder of Defense of Democracy, an activist group countering Moms for Liberty, told VICE News. “We are concerned that the connections between these groups will go quickly from acts of verbal terrorism and harassment to physical acts of violence. We have seen firsthand that Moms for Liberty will attack people and groups over social media, and these attacks almost always escalate.”

TAGGED:MOMS FOR LIBERTY PROUD BOYS EXTREMISM POLITICS LGBTQ SCHOOLS FLORIDA ROD OF IRON MINISTRIES

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big funder of school bd takeover? patriot mobile?

https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/christian-book-banning/

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10 22 rww

weeks before the Nov. 8 elections, a gaggle of far-right pundits are helping raise money for the 1776 Project PAC, one of the right-wing groups that is investing millions to take over school boards across the country.

The group, founded in May 2021 by activist Ryan Girdusky, has endorsed 300 candidates in November’s elections. While not all far-right school board candidates have been successful, the 1776 Project PAC claims to have won 75 percent of the races it has been involved in so far.

Ben Shapiro, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, and Donald Trump Jr. are all cited in recent fundraising emails from the 1776 Project PAC. Fox News personality Tucker Carlson has also helped the group raise money. Even discredited “Stop the Steal” lawyer Sidney Powell promoted the project in her “Defending the Republic” newsletter.

Like the many right-wing groups using dishonest and harmful attacks on teachers and school board members as a means to undermine public education and build political power, the 1776 Project PAC runs fearmongering campaigns against schools teaching about racism in American history and society. During a Girdusky appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show, the chyron text said the PAC “supports school board candidates who oppose anti-White curriculums.”

The 1776 Project PAC says it campaigns on behalf of school board candidates “that vow to overturn any teaching of the 1619 Project or critical race theoryin their school districts.” Visitors to the project’s website are greeted with a pop-up urging them to “Report a School Promoting Critical Race Theory.”The anti-critical race theory tactic has been embraced widely by right-wing groups and candidates after it was seen as helping Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin win his 2021 election.

The 1776 Project PAC pushes a propaganda claim that has long been central to right-wing anti-public education campaigns: that public schools are infiltrated by anti-American Marxists who are indoctrinating students in left-wing ideology. “All over the country, teachers are brainwashing children to hate themselves and their country,” Girdusky claimed in a fundraising email earlier this year. The letter went on to warn that a generation taught to hate the United States will “surrender our country to Marxism” and destroy it.

“We will also support any type of education reform that promotes a patriotic vision of America and its history,” the group’s website declares.

Not surprisingly, the PAC also traffics in the anti-trans rhetoric that so many far-right candidates have put at the center of their campaigns this year. One fundraising email from March claimed that “what’s worse is that these radical school boards allow, hire, and encourage teachers who have been caught ACTIVELY recruiting children to become transgender.” Among the claims promoted by the group on social media is theludicrous false claim,popular on the far right, that schools are allowing students who identify as animals to use litter boxes to go to the bathroom.

In May, the group had success in Texas, where it bragged that “every single one” of the 15 school board candidates it endorsed had won. In August, the PAC bragged that it was “largely responsible for the massive sweeping wins in Florida,” in which 35 out of 49candidates endorsed by the PAC won their races and created conservative majorities in some major school districts, including Miami-Dade County.

“This is how you win back the country,” gushed Laura Ingraham during an interview with Girdusky, who gave a shout out to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the right-wing Moms for Liberty for their involvement in school board takeovers.

Among the right-wing groups backing the PAC is the American Principles Project, a project of anti-LGBTQ religious-right megafunderSean Fieler,whose contributions have supported an array of anti-equality groups.

Tags: Ben Shapiro Donald Trump Jr. Glenn Beck Laura Ingraham Ryan Girdusky Sidney Powell Anti-LGBTQ Anti-Trans Critical Race Theory Election 2022 School Boards 1776 Project PAC American Principles Project

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an 922

On Thursday, September 8, the Sarasota County Republican Party chose some new poll watchers — and the far-right choices include conspiracy theorist and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and James Hoel, a local leader of the Proud Boys. Journalist Michael Daly decries these choices in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on September 12, slamming them as “a decidedly dangerous normalization of lunacy.”

“Flynn is nationally known as a retired general who has championed the Big Lie about the 2020 election, at one point urging military action to overturn it,” Daly explains. “He is also known for having been convicted of lying to the FBI while he was briefly President Trump’s national security advisor and for having subsequently received a presidential pardon. He has ascribed to various ‘Deep State’ conspiracy theories…. As if that were not scary enough, they also elected James Hoel, a local leader of the Proud Boys.”

Daly continues, “Hoel and fellow Proud Boy Nicholas Radovich were active in the August 23 Sarasota County School Board election that saw a longstanding 3-2 liberal majority become a 4-1 conspiracy minority. Radovich showed up at the victory party in a Proud Boys hat and t-shirt and flashed a White power sign during a group picture. The one reelected incumbent conservative, Bridget Ziegler, subsequently denounced the Proud Boys as a ‘menace.’”

Daly notes that “several people at the meeting” on September 8 “posed for photos with Flynn that were subsequently posted on the Facebook page for Sarasota Watchdogs, which is associated with Hoel and the Proud Boys.”

“The Sarasota Republican Party did not respond to repeated requests for comment,” according to Daly. “Flynn also did not respond to a request for comment. The Daily Beast did get a response from the retired general’s brother, Joe Flynn, who sometimes serves as a kind of gatekeeper for him. ‘F*** off,’ Joe Flynn said in an e-mail. ‘Quote me.’”

Michael Flynn discussed the developments in Sarasota County during a September 10 appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, saying, “As long as I got a breath left in me, I am going to continue to push this message of local action and national impact. And now I, now I wanna be able to tell people when they say, when somebody says, well, (what) are you doing, what are you doing specifically? I'm gonna, I am now part of the Republican executive committee for the Sarasota GOP. And I also am volunteering to be a poll watcher in the upcoming elections, particularly in this county, in the state of Florida.”

Daly points out that Michael Flynn “once called for the military to stage a coup to prevent a legitimate transfer of power as set forth in the Constitution that he has repeatedly sworn to uphold.”

“As kids, we are taught that any American can grow up to become president,” Daly writes. “We now witness proof that the Republican Party has become such a haven for lunacy that even someone who sought to scuttle a presidential election can become a poll watcher.”

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ryan McCarthy @ Vox: Why the redacted affidavit for the search of Trump’s home is so concerning.
Aidan McLaughlin @ Mediaite: Blake Masters Scrubs Abortion Stance From Website as Polls Continue to Show Him Down to Mark Kelly.
David Gilbert @ Vice News: MAGA School Board Candidates Celebrated Victory with Proud Boys Flashing White Power Signs.
Anne Nelson @ The New Republic: A Rare Peek Inside the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
Sophie Lawton & Jacina Hollins-Borges @ Media Matters: Tucker Carlson hosted violent misogynist influencer Andrew Tate. Here are some examples of Tate’s wildly bigoted commentary.
Nathalie Baptiste @ HuffPost: Doug Mastriano Says Discouraging ‘Conversion Therapy’ Is ‘Disgusting.’
Michael Sallah, Jonathan D. Silver, Kevin G. Hall, and Brian Fitzpatrick @ The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Inventing Anna: A Tale of a Fake Heiress, Mar-A-Lago, and an FBI Investigation.

Tags: Andrew Tate Blake Masters Doug Mastriano Tucker Carlson Round-Up Council for National Policy Proud Boys

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rww tag

JUNE 17, 2022 1:53 PM

Jeffrey Clark Tried to Help Trump Overturn the Election. Now Team Trump Has His Back.

NOVEMBER 5, 2021 1:43 PM

Russ Vought—Trump’s Critical Race Theory Guy—Says Virginia Win Proves Political Power of Culture-War Fights

OCTOBER 20, 2021

The Dishonest and Harmful Right-Wing Attack on American School Boards

AUGUST 6, 2021

The Right-Wing Political Machine Is Out to Take Over School Boards by Fanning Fears of Critical Race Theory

JULY 23, 2021

Religious Right Pushes Effort To Whitewash History and Restrict Teaching About Systemic Racism

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/school-board/

evang but parents ~

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https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/qanon-influencers-are-urging-followers-get-involved-locally-and-school

many lnx vod

QAnon influencers are urging followers to get involved locally and with school boards

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM DANIL CUFFE, KAYLA GOGARTY & CLARA MARTINY

PUBLISHED 01/26/22

This past summer, a woman named Anna Desenze -- an anti-masker who has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory -- spoke at a school board meeting in Broward County, Florida. While railing against a school mask mandate, she falsely claimed that “there’s so much science out there that proves that the masks are more harmful than anything else” and that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine can effectively treat the coronavirus. She later made similar claims at another school board meeting in October.

In July, the hosts of the MatrixxxGrooove Show, a show dedicated to QAnon, noted that Desenze was a listener of the show and claimed that they had encouraged her to take action. She’s “actually thanking us for her getting out there,” a co-host of the show said. They also posted and hyped the clips of her school board rants on Telegram.

intheMatrixxx Desenze post2

Similarly, in September, a group of anti-mask protesters disrupted a closed meeting of a California school board, forced it to adjourn, and then voted themselves in as new members without any legal basis. One of the protesters, a man named Derek Greco, was named president of the new (illegitimate) school board.

Days before that meeting, Greco had posted a video on Facebook featuring QAnon show host Scott McKay claiming that he had been texting with Greco and that Greco had invoked a post from “Q,” the central figure of the conspiracy theory, while speaking before a city council meeting. Greco -- who has also posted a video about “the Great Awakening,” a QAnon-connected phrase -- wrote that he had met McKay in June and that he had “forever changed my view on how to address these issues in our local governments.”

McKay in turn posted praise for Greco’s school board takeover, writing, “This is where the war is being fought today.” And on his show, McKay claimed that Greco credited the QAnon show host for his actions at the school board meeting. McKay added that Greco “showed you how it works,” in that “you go after these milquetoast pussies and cowards, the dumbest people in America, on these school boards.” McKay declared, “It’s training ground for the city councils. It’s training ground for the town councils. It’s training ground for these city commissioners.”

CitationFrom a stream of Patriot Streetfighter uploaded on Rumble on September 13, 2021

In November, McKay posted an “update” from Greco about “taking over the school board,” claiming the government had “weaponized law enforcement against parent’s asking questions” and asking for help contacting other QAnon influencers.

Desenze and Greco’s actions appear to be part of an effort among QAnon influencers to get supporters more involved with local office elections and school boards. Michael Flynn, a QAnon-supporting former national security adviser for then-President Donald Trump, seems to have played a major role in spurring the movement, which appears to have already shown signs of impact.

In May, Flynn urged followers in a Telegram post to “get involved,” “take responsibility for your school committees or boards,” and “run for local, state and/or federal office.” He also added that “local action = national impact” (the MatrixxxGrooove Show used a similar phrase when it posted about Desenze at the school board meeting). Over the coming months, Flynn continued to make the case for people to take “local action” for a “national impact.”

Flynn May post

Soon after Flynn’s call in May, attorney Sidney Powell also urged supporters to get involved locally. (Powell advised Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and also has extensive QAnon ties.) During a QAnon conference in May, Powell told attendees that “there are no military tribunals that are going to solve this problem for us” and “it’s going to take every one of us rolling up their sleeves.” She also specifically called for people to target school boards as part of this local effort.

And in July, Lin Wood, another QAnon-supporting attorneyinvolved with Trump’s election efforts and who unsuccessfully ran for chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, called for followers to “live local and take local action” and to “assemble and protest local school boards mandating masks or worse for our children.”

A number of QAnon influencers have since called for local action, such as telling people to go “to your school board meetings and demand they remove mask mandates and critical race theory.”

In August, “QAnon John,” the influencer who organized the May conference that Powell (and Flynn) attended, wrote that Flynn’s call was “VERY important.” An administrator for QAnon John’s group The Patriot Voice urged others to “get loud and in the face of school boards, city councils, county commissioners, [and] state reps.”

Zak Paine, a QAnon show host who participated in part of the January 6 insurrection, urged his listeners to “please consider running for school board,” adding, “Start going to the meetings and once you’re at the meetings, then you can start learning how they do their business and then you can go ahead and run for school board yourself.”

CitationFrom the October 28, 2021, edition of RedPill78

Jim Watkins -- the QAnon-supporting owner of 8kun, the site where Q posted -- argued that Q’s plan was “no more” and agreed with Flynn to “take action locally” instead. A major QAnon forum also added a banner featuring text from Flynn’s May post.

In October, amajor QAnon Telegram channel even posted a link to an article on how to join a school board, calling it “food for thought” because “this nation ain’t gonna save itself.”

QAnon school board link post

The influencers’ calls may be showing signs of impact, with some QAnon supporters claiming they’ve taken action in response. Some wrote that they were “running for school board” or were “in charge of my kids school board now.” Others wrote that they were helping to get “citizens involved on every level...city/county government, election boards, school boards, etc.,” or that they were “going to keep going every month” to school board meetings to attack mandates, noting that sometimes they were one of the few people there. “GhostEzra,” a neo-Nazi QAnon influencer, encouraged followers to run for office; in response, several said that they were “thinking about running for school board” or other offices like city council, including one follower who appeared to be a poll worker who was called as a “witness” by the Arizona state legislature following the 2020 presidential election to push voter fraud claims.

In response to a link shared in a QAnon channel about how to run for school board, users wrote that they “needed this” and asked for “a guide on how to become part of your city council and how to be appointed or elected to your county’s election board” as well. One follower of a QAnon influencer also bragged that she had joined her town council in West Virginia after encouragement from the influencer, sharing a video of herself being sworn in.

QAnon supporter school board post6

Some QAnon shows have also highlighted what they claim are signs of impact. The MatrixxxGrooove Show highlighted a video of a QAnon-supporting follower of the show making false claims about vaccines at a board of supervisors meeting in California and saying that “nothing can stop the awakening of humanity.” The man wrote that he credited the show’s hosts and Michael Flynn “for giving me the courage to do this,” with the hosts on the show urging Flynn to share the video and claiming that they had sent it to his brother. (Flynn did share the video as well, repeating his “national impact” slogan.)

CitationFrom the November 17, 2021, edition of the MatrixxxGrooove Show

Another QAnon show, SGT Report, has also featured an interview with an Ohio man who “read [his] school board the riot act, the legal riot act,” over mask mandates, and the man credited the show for his action. The host said the incident was part of “a great awakening,” and the man invoked Flynn’s “national impact” line for inspiring his strategy.

Video file

CitationFrom a stream of SGT Report uploaded on Rumble on November 17, 2021

There have also been multiple reported instances of school board members and candidates supporting QAnon in Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (While responding to a question about her QAnon posts, the Michigan school board member falsely claimed, “There’s no such thing as QAnon.” She was echoing Q’s call from late 2020 urging followers to stop using the term “QAnon” and to instead deny its existence.) A Rhode Island woman who invoked the QAnon slogan -- “where we go one, we go all,” or “wwg1wga” for short -- formed an anti-critical race theory group to target her school committee and wrote that she planned to “run for school committee.”

Other people who have expressed support for QAnon have also been elected around the country or tried to run for office, such as Tracy “Beanz” Diaz, one of the first people to popularize QAnon, being elected to a position in the Horry County, South Carolina, Republican Party, and QAnon supporter Gene Ho unsuccessfully running for mayor of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The QAnon community’s focus on school boards was also noted at QAnon John’s follow-up QAnon conference in Las Vegas in October. While discussing how attendees could get more involved, the conference’s emcee said, “What's happening in the school boards is magic.” The National Education Association, a labor union, also warned in June about QAnon school board candidates as an increasing issue nationally.

Citation From the "Patriot Double Down" QAnon conference in Las Vegas on October 23, 2021

In addition to the “local action equals national impact” plan, the QAnon community has also embraced a plan called the “precinct strategy” to sign up as Republican precinct committee members -- who are involved with election activities -- which multiple QAnon supporters have also since done. Others on the far-right have also focused on local positions as a strategy for consolidating power and gaining influence in recent months.

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interesting evil perversion so to spk on a YA? novel coming out coming of age bk not on any curric but avail in some schools fuelling CRT school bd BS

they call it child porn when it clearly ain't; eternal bad faith question

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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/amid-public-debate-about-facebook-and-its-harms-company-has-spent-millions-misleading-ads

no lnx many

doc

Fox’s local Virginia “parent” is a former Trump administration staffer — with connections to Republican campaigns and Fox News

Ian Prior served with a top Youngkin staffer and two current Fox staffers in the same Trump DOJ press office

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

PUBLISHED 10/28/21

Fox News has avidly promoted former Trump administration officials as seemingly being just concerned local parents in the network’s coverage of the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election. And in the case of one guest who has frequently appeared or been cited by the network’s hosts, his political connections go far and wide through both political campaigns and even Fox News itself.

Ian Prior is one of many Republican activists, political staffers, and Trump administration alumni who have appeared on Fox News as part of its campaign against “critical race theory.” The network has used the term as a “catch-all” phrase for any right-wing culture war grievances, especially over racial diversity and civil rights, in an effort to mobilize Republican voters for this year’s Virginia elections and the midterms next year.

Prior now leads Fight for Schools, a political action committee launched this year to support “common sense candidates” who oppose “critical race theory.” In addition to his many years in communications for Republican campaigns, he has his own political communications consulting firm and political newsletter.He also worked in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2018, as deputy director of public affairs at the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

And the world of both conservative media and Republican political operatives is a small one indeed. During Prior’s time as deputy director of the DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs under Sessions, his coworkers in public affairs included media affairs coordinator Devin O’Malley — who is now the campaign spokesman for Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin. In addition, two other colleagues were media affairs specialist Kerri Kupec, who this year became Fox News’ Washington, D.C., editor after serving the rest of former President Donald Trump’s term at DOJ under both Sessions and his successor, Bill Barr; and press assistant Kelly Laco, who is now a news and politics editor for Fox News digital content — and who has quoted Prior in at least one article. (The article noted Prior’s DOJ experience, but not the fact that he and Laco were former colleagues.)

screen grab

On Wednesday’s edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy read a statement from Prior, responding to former President Barack Obama’s recent campaign rally for former Virginia governor and current Democratic nominee Terry McAullife — while presenting Prior as simply a concerned local parent who has come to prominence recently.

“Ian Prior, who’s been on this program, he’s one of the parents who’s very concerned about what's going on out in Loudoun County,” Doocysaid, before reading a statement that concluded with the accusation: “It is clear that all the star power coming in for Terry McAuliffe is reading off the same deceptive page of sheet music with talking points designed to deceive people as to what’s really happening in Virginia public schools.”

Co-host Brian Kilmeade then added: “This is real, this is organic, this is not scripted. These are people standing up, Democrats and Republicans standing up for what's happening in their schools.”

Video file

CitationFrom the October 27, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends

The problem is, that wasn’t how Doocy and Kilmeade described Prior even just last week. On the October 19 edition of the show, the Fox & Friends crew highlighted Virginia’s gubernatorial race — and mentioned some of Prior’s other political credentials

“Here’s the thing, what’s going on in Virginia right now, you know, we’ve had Ian Prior on. He used to be at the DOJ during the Trump administration.”

“They messed with the wrong parent,” Kilmeade responded with a smile.

“He’s on the leading edge of the CRT thing out in Loudoun County,” Doocy added. “And he says it’s not just Republicans, it’s Democrats, it’s independents — there are a lot of parents who are very interested in what their kids are being taught in schools.”

Video file

Citation From the October 19, 2021, edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends

Kilmeade later hosted Prior on Monday night’s edition of Fox News Primetime in response to the Obama rally with McAuliffe, but at no time did the program acknowledge Prior’s background in the Trump administration. Instead, he was simply introduced as a “Loudon County parent,” with the chyron also referring to him as “Fight for Schools executive director.” (Kilmeade also made some brief references to Prior’s legal background, remarking that “you tried the cases, you know the legal system,” but no further details were given.)

Video file

Citation From the October 25, 2021, edition of Fox News Primetime

Prior also appeared last Thursday with Fox News host Sean Hannity,during which his background as a Trump administration staffer was also not disclosed. By contrast, Prior had also appeared twice this month on The Story with Martha MacCallum, during which both MacCallum and guest anchor Trace Gallagher cited his experience in the Trump administration. (Though earlier this year, MacCallum had also failed to disclose Prior’s background.)

So it appears that as the Virginia election gets closer, Prior has become less and less of a former Trump DOJ official and more of being just a concerned local parent whose attacks on Democrats are “organic” and “not scripted.”

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an 10 21

attorney General Merrick Garland laughed at a Republican senator's question during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), like every other GOP senator before him, used his allotted time to pepper Garland with questions about an Oct. 4 memo directing the Department of Justice to investigate threats against local school board members after a national organization asked President Joe Biden for federal intervention.

"The National School Board Association sent the letter to the White House and the White House promptly called you and said, 'Sic the FBI on parents at school board hearings, and that's what I mean," Kennedy said. "The White House is the prophet here and you're just the vessel, correct?"

Garland insisted he did not coordinate with the White House on the memo, which he said reflected his own views on protecting public officials from violence and threats while protecting parents' rights, but Kennedy pressed on.

Garland laughed out loud before continuing.

"I'm not -- I signed on this memorandum on my own," Garland said. "I said from the very beginning, I've taken this job to protect the Department of Justice and make independent determinations with respect to prosecution, and I will do that."

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nh register

Opinion: Dark money behind school board conflicts

Christine Palm and Frank Hanley Santoro

Oct. 4, 2021

A woman carrying a sign protesting the teaching of critical race theory arrives at a Board of Education meeting at Central Middle School in Greenwich, Conn., on Thursday June 17, 2021. Members of the group Greenwich Patriots came out to the meeting to urge people to attend and speak at public comment toprotest masking, vaccinations for students and critical race theory..

Schools are the latest battleground in the culture wars. Protests over issues such as critical race theory, masks and vaccines have cropped up all over the state, including in the towns of Guilford, New Canaan, Glastonbury, Haddam, Cheshire, Bristol and Fairfield. The protesters often characterize themselves as concerned parents. This may be partially true, but it is not the whole story. If you dig deep enough, you will find a web of dark money fueling political operatives in so-called “astroturf” groups — those that purport to be grassroots but are in fact formed and funded by hidden corporate and political sponsors. Their agenda has little to do with improving public education.

Protesters have a right to state their opinions (even suicidal ones in the case of vaccine opposition). But as the right-wing agenda increasingly infiltrates small towns, members of local school boards might find themselves portrayed as purveyors of an “increasingly hostile” threat to the community “rooted in Marxism” who will “stop at nothing” as they are “trying to socially replace you.” Those are words from the websites of the Center For Renewing America and its Citizens Renewing America Toolkit.

In fact, hostility against board of education members has gotten so ugly that the National School Boards Association this past week asked President Biden for help from federal law enforcement agencies.In reality, most of these folks are hardworking volunteers who are far more concerned with balancing a budget than they are with a radical agenda — be it on the left or the right. And yet, recently in Haddam, police had to escort board members to their cars following a contentious meeting in which anti-maskers shouted through a bullhorn and drowned out much of the proceedings.

Clearly, something is afoot. Why is this happening suddenly and simultaneously in so many different places around the state (and indeed the country)? Why is the pattern so similar? Why does it seem peculiar to affluent Connecticut towns? Why do some protests turn disruptive? Why pick on CRT, which schools don’t even teach (it’s a post-secondary pedagogical tool)? This doesn’t sound like something that just happened to occur to parents at a local bake sale.

The explanation may lie with Steve Bannon. According to Bannon, “This is the Tea Party to the 10th power,” and “The path to save the nation is very simple. It’s going to go through the school boards.” Before he was pardoned by Trump, Bannon was the guy arrested at sea off Westbrook on a Chinese billionaire’s yacht for allegedly siphoning over a million dollars from a “We Build the Wall” scheme. According to news reports, he was also accused by an ex-wife of objecting to the Archer School in Los Angeles for his daughters because, she said, he “didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”

The phenomenon may also be explained byNicole Neily — the president of Parents Defending Education, whose targets include several Connecticut towns. PDE describes itself as a “grassroots” organization, and Neily once was quoted as saying, “We’re all working moms.” But according to several sources including Sourcewatch, Neily is a veteran operative of the Koch network. She’s not alone. Other astroturf operatives include Russ Vought, a former Trump official whose group publishes the “Toolkit” for taking over school boards; Christopher Rufo, whose anti-CRT activism earned him an invitation to the Trump White House; and Keri Rodriques, who was reportedly paid $388,000 in 2017 and 2018 for her advocacy work. Anti-CRT activity seems a profitable cottage industry for the apparatchiks of MAGA world.

Dark money is hard to ferret out because astroturf groups do not disclose their funders. But some information can be found. Among the sources are MassPoliticsProfs.org, the blog of Diane Ravitch, UnKochMyCampus.org, and a book called “Outside Money in School Board Elections.” Google searches also help. Our information is based largely on these sources.

A picture emerges of a shadowy and labyrinthine network of astroturf groups funded by big money. Funders include the Koch network, Turning Points USA, the DeVos Family Foundation, the Ed Uihlein Foundation, Donors’ Trust, and the Heritage Foundation. Some astroturf groups are local (Connecticut Parents Union). Most are national. Many have happy names like Citizens for Renewing America, the Center for Renewing America, Free to Learn, National Parents Union, Massachusetts Parents United, No Left Turn in Education, Moms for Liberty, and Fight for Schools. Some encourage their readers to report incidents (i.e., spy on teachers).One group calling itself School Board Watchlist models disruptive behavior on its website.

Our point is not necessarily to question the sincerity of the self-appointed disrupters, misguided though they are. But we believe they are pawns in a darker power grab of which they are probably unaware. The next time you hear that public schools are a threat to freedom, it’s good idea to follow the money.

Christine Palm is the state representative for the 36th Connecticut General Assembly District. Frank Hanley Santoro is a former assistant U.S. attorney.

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lnx

phenomenon may also be explained by Nicole Neily — the president of Parents Defending Education, whose targets include several towns. PDE describes itself as a “grassroots” organization, and Neily once was quoted as saying, “We’re all working moms.” But according to several sources including Sourcewatch, Neily is a veteran operative of the Koch network. She’s not alone. Other astroturf operatives include Russ Vought, a former Trump official whose group publishes the “Toolkit” for taking over school boards; Christopher Rufo, whose anti-CRT activism earned him an invitation to the Trump White House; and Keri Rodriques, who was reportedly paid $388,000 in 2017 and 2018 for her advocacy work. Anti-CRT activity seems a profitable cottage industry for the apparatchiks of MAGA world.

Dark money is hard to ferret out because astroturf groups do not disclose their funders. But some information can be found. Among the sources are MassPoliticsProfs.org, the blog of Diane Ravitch, UnKochMyCampus.org, and a book called “Outside Money in School Board Elections.” Google searches also help. Our information is based largely on these sources.

A picture emerges of a shadowy and labyrinthine network of astroturf groups funded by big money. Funders include the Koch network, Turning Points USA, the DeVos Family Foundation, the Ed Uihlein Foundation, Donors’ Trust, and the Heritage Foundation. Some astroturf groups are local (Connecticut Parents Union). Most are national. Many have happy names like Citizens for Renewing America, the Center for Renewing America, Free to Learn, National Parents Union, Massachusetts Parents United, No Left Turn in Education, Moms for Liberty, and Fight for Schools. Some encourage their readers to report incidents (i.e., spy on teachers). One group calling itself School Board Watchlist models disruptive behavior on its website.

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ref bannon

ok but melds w/ vaxx?

wapo no lnx

Opinion: Conservatives think they’ve found their new tea party

Parents and community members protest after a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Ashburn on Tuesday was halted by the board because the crowd refused to quiet down. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

Opinion by Paul Waldman

Columnist

June 24, 2021

The early days of the Biden presidency have been unsettling for many on the right, not only because a Democrat is in the White House making policy but also because conservatives have struggled to find a unifying theme to their opposition. They’ve failed to persuade even their own people to loathe Joe Biden with the boiling intensity they felt for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; their preferred insult is that President Biden is a doddering old man controlled by others, which doesn’t exactly stir one to heights of terror and rage.

But now they think they’ve found the key, the controversy that will bring them back to the glorious days of the tea party, as Politico reports:

Former top aides to President Donald Trump have begun an aggressive push to combat the teaching of critical race theory and capitalize on the issue politically, confident that a backlash will vault them back into power. [...]

“This is the Tea Party to the 10th power,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser who has zeroed in on local school board fights over critical race theory, said in an interview. “This isn’t Q, this is mainstream suburban moms — and a lot of these people aren’t Trump voters.”

Bannon is blowing smoke; there’s no evidence that “mainstream suburban moms” are the ones screaming at their local school boards in protest of an imaginary curriculum their children are not actually being taught.But the comparison with the tea party is instructive, not so much for what the conservatives’ con over critical race theory actually is, but what they’re hoping to turn it into.

The tea party erupted after the election of Obama, and one of its most important purposes was to give paper-thin cover to a mass right-wing panic over a Black man getting elected president. It presented itself as worried about government spending (though it was strangely unconcerned when George W. Bush was ballooning the deficit) and devoted to the principles of the nation’s founding. Substantively, the latter consisted mostly of a bunch of absurd Founding Father cosplay, often in the form of nincompoops running around in tricorn hats.

In contrast, the anti-CRT eruption (it’s far too early to call it a movement) has race right up front; there’s no pretension to a policy agenda other than passing laws forbidding teachers from discussing the existence of racism. In some ways it’s the natural landing point for the right after the Trump presidency: After four years spent worshiping someone who barely tried to hide his bigotry, conservatism has now devoted itself entirely to White grievance, at least for the moment.

One way the anti-CRT effort is definitely like the tea party is that elite Republicans are dashing to the front of the parade. It’s not just semi-fringe white nationalists like Bannon; everyone on the right is getting in on the act. The website of the Heritage Foundation now features a whole section devoted to critical race theory fear-mongering.

And, of course, Fox News was central to both. The network relentlessly promoted the tea party in 2009 when it began, pounding home the message to conservatives across the country that they should get on board; at one point management had to tell Sean Hannity that for him to literally headline tea party rallies was probably going too far. Today Fox has set aside a good portion of its schedule to decrying CRT; according to the liberal group Media Matters, the network mentioned it no fewer than 1,300 times in the past few months. Then as now, GOP elites saw the rage of the party faithful as a tool they could wield for their own benefit, even if keeping it under control might not always be easy.

What particularly excited the tea party’s adherents was the association with righteous principles and rebellion against power; by embracing it you could imagine yourself the heir to a noble tradition dating back to the country’s founding. But if you say the same about opposition to any discussion of the way racism operates in institutions, you’d pretty much be making the critical race theorists’ point for them. Oh, the irony!

That brings us to a critical point of divergence. The tea party was relentlessly focused on Obama, and just as Democrats found eight years later, opposition to the president as an individual can be incredibly powerful. He’s in the news every day, doing things you don’t like; it’s easy to stay mad at him.

That anger sustained itself for two years, which is why Republicans managed a huge wave election that gave them control of the House in 2010. Democrats did the same in 2018, fed by their anger at Donald Trump.

But try to imagine that a year and a half from now, the Republican base will still be so mad about critical race theory that it will swamp the polls and deliver yet another wave election for Republicans. It seems unlikely.

Not that Republicans may not get their wave election; they well could. But it’ll be built on other things the base is mad about. There’s only so long they’ll be able to sustain the rage at critical race theory before it peters out and they have to find a new target.

So this probably won’t be the new tea party, though it might resemble it in some ways. But don’t worry: Right-wing rage is always ready to reignite. Republicans just have to keep finding new sparks.

ok but melds w/ vaxx? or is that his pt?

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/14/2058164/-GOP-gives-Idaho-school-board-candidate-with-long-record-of-antisemitism-its-full-on-embrace

no lnx ,many

School board candidate’s unrepentant antisemitism seems to be a plus for Idaho Republicans

David Neiwert

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 14, 2021 · 5:28 PM PDT

Dave Reilly chats with a potential supporter during a Republican candidate forum in Kootenai County.

David Neiwert

Daily Kos