Tangle - The school board showdowns.

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland said he would be deploying federal officials across the country to address instances where parents have threatened or harassed educators over issues like mask mandates, critical race theory education and other hot-button topics that are dominating classrooms and school board meetings. The move comes after the National School Boards Association (NSBA), a group representing school board members across the United States, sent a plea to Garland for help, citing a spike in threats and acts of violence against members of school boards. What does this promise mean?Today, we'll take a look at some reactions from the left and right, then my take.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the Justice Department, some school board meetings, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, some of the stuff going on with that that you may have heard about. Before we jump in, as always, I want to get to the quick hits, the news you need to know.

First up, a U.S. Navy engineer and his wife were arrested for allegedly attempting to sell nuclear submarine secrets to a foreign government. Number two, a Texas federal appeals court reinstated the Texas abortion ban after it was struck down by a judge. Number three, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro formally announced his plan to run for governor in 2022. Number four, U.S. officials met with the Taliban in Doha for the first formal talk since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Number five, world leaders from more than 130 countries reached a landmark deal on a minimum global corporate tax rate of 15%. All right, those are our quick hits for the day. Before we jump into today's main topic, I want to address some reader feedback we've gotten in the last few days.

Last week, I wrote that 80 million Americans voted for Joe Biden's agenda, the same agenda now being held up by Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Many readers wrote in and objected to this. Some pointing out exit polling showed many of those 80 million voters who cast a ballot for Biden were actually voting against Trump more than they were voting for Biden. Others noted that Biden wiped the floor with Senator Bernie Sanders, whose agenda is more akin to what Democrats are now trying to pass in the Senate and the House. Some argued that Biden's reconciliation bill is not polling well. While many voters can't even say what's inside it, So it's a bit of a stretch to say 80 million Americans voted for it. All of you are right, actually. If I could rewrite that

sentence or that part of last week's newsletter, I think I probably would. It was kind of meant as, you know, a rhetorical flourish, but became far more literal than I actually intended. I do not think 80 million Americans voted for a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill on top of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. The truth is we're not entirely sure how many Americans support both those things. 80 million Americans voted for Joe Biden for millions of different reasons, not least among them being simple opposition to Donald Trump. Obviously, many millions of those Americans want to see this reconciliation and infrastructure bills passed together, but I'm sure it's not all of them. So your critical feedback is well taken. All right, so that brings us to today's topic,

which is the Justice Department and more specifically, Attorney General Merrick Garland. Last week, Garland said he would be deploying federal officials across the country to address instances where parents have threatened or harassed educators over issues like mass mandates, critical race theory education, and other hot-button topics that are now dominating the classrooms and school board meetings. The move comes after the National School Boards Association, a group representing school board members across the United States, sent a plea to Garland for help, citing a spike in threats and acts of violence against members of school boards. Over the next 30 days, the Justice Department is going

to hold sessions with local law enforcement and devise a plan to respond to the rise in criminal conduct directed towards school personnel. Garland, which prompted his response, more than 20 instances of threats, harassment, disruption, and acts of intimidation were documented, including an Illinois man who allegedly struck a teacher during a school board meeting, a Michigan man who performed a Nazi salute to protest mask mandates, and a letter mailed to an Ohio school board member that said, quote, we are coming after you, you are forcing them to wear masks for no reason in this world other than control, and for that you will pay dearly. Below, we'll take a look at some reactions to the memo from

the left and the right, and then my take. So first up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right says Merrick Garland is overstepping his authority and threatening parents. In the New York Post, Miranda Devine said everyone who thought Garland was a moderate, but now he turns out to be a radical ideologue hell-bent on targeting President Biden's political foes. Garland's ominous memo last week directing the FBI to investigate parents as domestic terror threats was a big mistake, she wrote. He cited no evidence for what he claims is a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school boards. he claims is a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school boards. His memo was a shocking abuse of his office on behalf of left-wing activists who have been using schools as brainwashing factories for future social justice warriors.

It was designed to intimidate parents and stop them advocating for their children. The NSBA letter cited cases including one man arrested in Illinois for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct during a school board meeting, someone in Michigan who yelled a Nazi salute in protest to masking requirements, some trespassing, shouting, and prank calls. Of course, violence or threats are always wrong, but in the few isolated instances of criminal behavior cited, local law enforcement effectively did their job. There is no reason to deploy the heavy hand of the federal law enforcement other than to try and frighten parents into shutting up. In any case,

the NSBA is not an organization that can be taken seriously. It is not impartial, but a left-wing activist outfit which has even embraced some accused of actual domestic terrorism, as Newsweek points out. In 2019, NSBA invited as keynote speaker to its annual conference the former black militant communist Angela Davis, who once was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list over her alleged involvement in the Black Panther murder of a judge. Parents have every right to tell school boards what their children should be taught and every right to be upset when they are ignored. Gerard Baker said Merrick Garland has a list and you are probably on it. Decent people everywhere acknowledge that violence is intolerable, whether perpetrated by Black Lives Matter agitators torching buildings, Trump supporters smashing federal property, or parents who throw projectiles at school board meetings.

But the letter from the NSBA contained barely any evidence of actual violence. any evidence of actual violence. It cited mostly anti-social behavior and threats, and some of the offenses referenced, such as a parent making a mocking Nazi salute to a school board, are, however offensive, constitutionally protected speech. And, as has been widely noted, when acts of violence occur, they can and have been dealt with by local or state law enforcement. There is no federal interest in any of these infractions. All this merely underscores what the real objective of the Attorney General's action was, and we don't need to engage in speculation because it was recently spelled out to us by another leading member of President Biden's party, Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia. In a rare moment of honesty from a politician,

Mr. McAuliffe made clear in a television debate with Republican Glenn Youngkin the Democrats' conception of the role that parents should have in their children's education. None whatsoever. I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach, McAuliffe said. In the National Review, Andrew McCarthy called it a lawless threat against parents. Garland well knows that in the incitement context, the First Amendment protects speech unless it unambiguously calls for the use of force that the speaker clearly intends under circumstances in which the likelihood of violence is real and imminent, McCarthy wrote. Even actual threats of violence

are not actionable unless they meet this high threshold. The First Amendment fully protects speech evincing efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views. As long as such speech does not constitute a clear and imminent threat to do violence, if the individual acts on his or her own views, there is no incitement, and hence no law enforcement interest to vindicate. And in particular, there is no federal law enforcement interest to vindicate. There is no general federal police power. If I threaten to punch my local school board president in the nose, there is a possibility, depending on how serious and imminent that threat appears, that I have violated state law. But there is no possibility whatsoever that the matter is a concern of the Justice Department.

Even if I follow through on that threat, I. Here is what the left is saying about this. The left is arguing that we need to protect educators and argues that this is a huge overreaction to Garland's memo. In the Washington Post, Karen Attia cited Senate Republican Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, who called Garland's letter a dangerous directive that amounted to a McCarthyist effort to silence parents. Harley's Red Scare metaphor is useful to understanding what is happening across the country, only he has it backward. As a Texan, I can say that he completely misses what is happening to educators

in states such as mine, she wrote. In today's chapter of this old story, irrational anxiety over anything resembling diversity, inclusion, and historical accuracy on race in the United States has individuals and groups in Texas creating a climate of fear, intimidation, and surveillance in education. One group emailed Dallas teachers encouraging them to report peers for lessons in critical race theory and predatory gender fluidity. Educators have told me their fears about their names appearing on certain local Facebook groups of parents. One in particular wondered whether it had been a mistake to move to Texas to teach. Joseph McCarthy would have been impressed by it all. It remains to be seen whether federal backup will help prevent school board members from quitting under the pressure, she added. A Nevada school

board member said this summer that the harassment got so bad he considered suicide, and then decided to step down. In Wisconsin last month, a board member resigned after citing his family's safety was at risk, all because he voted in favor of mask mandates. But it's hard to see what will change the real driver of these battles, normalization of surveillance and intimidation of educators coming from the right. I'm glad the federal government is getting involved, but one can only hope that it's not too late. In the Daily Beast, Ruben Navarrete Jr. said Merrick Garland isn't criminalizing parents,

he's protecting school kids. The latest eruption in the overheated culture war over how public schools are run began with a cry for help from a national association tasked with looking out for school board members. school kids. The latest eruption in the overheated culture war over how public schools are run began with a cry for help from a national association tasked with looking out for school board members, and it ended with the hyperventilating right-wingers crying about how Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department are supposedly targeting concerned citizens and criminalizing parents. In a memo released this week, Garland instructed the FBI and U.S. attorneys to meet in the next 30 days with federal, state, and local enforcement agencies to discuss strategies to combat what

the DOJ described in a press release as an increase in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board members, teachers, and workers in our nation's public schools. That's it. It was just a memo, not exactly a sweeping and oppressive edict from King George III. No matter, the folks on the cultural right quickly responded with the modern-day equivalent of the Boston Tea Party. The activists insist that Garland, by unleashing federal agents and federal prosecutors, is treating them like domestic terrorists. This is just the sort of overreaching hyperbolic language that people in both parties use these days. It is meant to attract attention, fuel fundraising, and rally the faithful. It used to be that just talk radio shock jocks

lit these rhetorical fires to create buzz. Now everyone does it. The Attorney General has nothing to explain or apologize for. So what if the nation's top law enforcement officer wants to make a federal case out of protecting school board members and other school personnel?

If this is indeed a national trend, as it appears to be, then that is an appropriate response. And in the Washington Post, Paul Waldman said that Republicans are siding with the angry mob. Republicans in Congress have seen the threat of mob violence and they are going to do something about it, Waldman wrote. They're going to defend the mob, make sure the law enforcement doesn't crack down too hard on it. That's the clear message being sent from up and down the right. Politicians, pundits, and conservative media, in response to a memorandum from the Department of Justice, laying out an effort to address the rising tide of angry threats directed at school boards and education officials. Threats of violence against public officials are now simply part of the Republican repertoire.

Even the people who vote GOP would never threaten their local school principal. Republican politicians know that a number of their supporters would. And one level below that, the furious mob screaming over a lie they've been told on Fox, is seen by those politicians not as a dangerous threat to society, but as an instrument for them to regain power. So they'll do what they can to protect that mob, condemn its targets, whatever they are, and find any excuse they can to portray themselves as the courageous and depressed. The result is likely to be more mobs and more violence. All right, that is it for the right and the left's take, which brings me to my take.

All right, so there are a few things I loathe more than fake outrage, and it's probably one of the things I call out most in this newsletter from the left and the right because they've both gotten so extraordinarily good at it. It is really one of the primary poisons that drove me to create this newsletter in the first place. And this has the faux outrage written all over it. In the last week, I've seen conservative pundits and politicians claim that parents were being labeled domestic terrorists, that they were being criminalized, and that FBI agents were being sent to, quote, silence them. None of this is true. As Ruben Navarrete Jr. wrote, Garland literally wrote a memo. It's one page. You can read it. It's linked in today's newsletter. It's extraordinarily boring. It acknowledges that he received the letter from the NSBA and that the threats are happening and announced that he will convene federal officials to talk about whether they actually need to do anything in response. That's literally it. FBI agents are

not being deployed in the sense that they're being sent after teachers. Nothing has been decided. They're being told that they need to, you know, coalesce with local law enforcement and talk about what they can do or strategize how to control these board meetings. No plan has been released. out what they can do or strategize how to control these board meetings. No plan has been released. No parents are going to the gulag. Everyone just has to take a breath. We don't need Garland to tell us that this is an issue nationally. The idea that there is no actual evidence of these increased threats is both laughable and insulting. Just because there isn't a national database doesn't mean there isn't evidence. Videos are going viral nearly every day of school board meetings descending into chaos

of parents stalking board members as they walk to their cars, showing up at their homes, promising they will pay for the crimes of mass mandates or teaching critical race theory. Open any local newspaper and you will find these school board meeting news reports. You can read three articles I linked to

in today's newsletter, summarizing some of the craziness that's been happening all across the country. I mean, go to foxnews.com. They literally have a whole section that's just tagged with school board meeting drama and evidence. It is a thing that is happening. As many conservatives noted above, the issue should be a matter for local law enforcement. I agree with that. And by most accounts, including Garland's memo, he also does agree with that. The subject of the memo is literally, and I quote, partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to address threats against school

administrators, board members, teachers, and staff. The memo reads in part, quote, coordination and partnership with local law enforcement is critical to implementing these measures for the benefit of our nation's 14,000 public school districts. To this end, I am directing the FBI, working with each United States attorney to convene meetings with federal, state, local, tribal, territorial leaders, yada, yada, yada. He's telling them they should meet together and talk. That's what his memo is saying. As I wrote when Republicans began passing legislation that attempted to ban critical race theory, I do not think the government should be banning things from being taught in classrooms that teachers think are necessary.

I also don't think the federal government should be overseeing school board meetings, and I don't want the FBI surveilling parents who show up on a Tuesday night to chew out their kids' teachers. It's not necessary. Anyone watching these board meetings, though, full of overt threats to do harm to school board members or teachers, must understand that this is not your normal griping over education policy. That means there's a balance to be struck here. It's very possible that Garland rolls out his plans to help local law enforcement better manage what's happening, and then I join the howling crowd

fearful of federal overreach and authoritarian FBI agents silencing parents. Lord knows that it wouldn't be the first time I did that. It's not as if I trust the FBI or have any reason to. The NSBA memo to Garland, which does include words like domestic terrorism and calls for using the Patriot Act to address these threats is a frightening document worthy of condemnation. But that's not Garland's memo. That was the memo from the NSBA, the School Board Association. Garland's memo doesn't mention any of those things, and that's not what he said he was going to do. That's not what he said his plan was. His memo was simply a response to what that School Board memo was. For now, all we know is that educators nationally

are under a constant barrage of threats, harassment, intimidation, all for the terrible crime of trying to do their jobs in an extremely difficult time. In response to this, the attorney general wrote a memo saying he'd convene meetings to facilitate conversations with local law enforcement about what to do. This is not making parents domestic terrorists. It's an attempt to move the ball. We don't know what's going to come of this yet. Let's not overreact. Let's not turn this into something that's worse than it already is. And trust me, it's very bad. We don't need to do that. Please just take a breath. We'll see what happens. All right, that is it for my take, All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to a reader question from today,

which is actually not totally unrelated to today's main topic. Amy from Los Angeles, California wrote in and said, is the bitterness so many of us feel legitimate, or do you think it's being exaggerated by the media and has always been an issue. What do you foresee happening in the long term if the wealth disparity continues to widen? I almost feel like the working class is going to rebel against the elite or ruling class as history tends to show. Or do you think it will just continue forever? Okay, I do not think that the bitterness is being exaggerated by the media. I think it's being exacerbated by the media, which is part of what is so frustrating about a story like today's main topic. As for the wealth disparity, I do think there is a rebellion brewing. I think it's visible if you're willing to see it. Formerly fringe ideas

like reparations and universal basic income have become more mainstream, and with every story about a dysfunctional Congress or an absurdly rich upper-class person dodging taxes or corporations that leave their employees urinating in water bottles during heavily monitored shifts, there is a growing consensus among millions of Americans that they're being screwed over in every direction possible. And they're not always wrong. In my dream world, this rebellion would play out with 95% of Americans voting in elections rather than 60%. But with an increasingly polarized sensational media, a heavily armed populace, and politicians more interested in dividing than uniting,

it's not hard to imagine a world where rebellion is imminent. Historically speaking, though, the wealthy have been extraordinarily adept at both keeping their wealth and suppressing the objections to it. So it's equally easy to imagine the general contours of wealth disparity and this discontent just staying as it is for decades to come. Obviously, neither outcome is particularly encouraging. All right, that brings us to our story that matters for the day. This is something that I have heard a lot about because I have a ton of friends in the entertainment industry. And it's also something that a lot of readers have sent in that we have not covered yet is an important story. but nearly two weeks ago, 98% of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the IATSE,

voted to authorize a strike if the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers doesn't give them a better labor deal. The 60,000 members of IATSE include workers involved in major movies, television shows, and theater performances. Everyone from makeup artists to editors to set designers are preparing the strike, a move that would literally bring Hollywood to a grinding halt. IATSE members are demanding reasonable working hours, rest periods, sufficient health insurance, and a safe work drama, among other things, Vanity Fair reports. Not known for drama, the 128-year-old IATSE has never before authorized the national strike. Its members of the workhorses of Hollywood, many of whom traditionally prided themselves on their toughness and endurance. This story, I would just say, is one of those things that seems loosely tied to politics,

but is quite political and is tied to all of these issues that are wrapped up in today's major political battles like health care and paid leave and minimum wage, things like that. And if this strike goes down, I mean, it is going to be extremely disrupted. It will literally bring the entertainment industry to its knees. So I have no idea what's gonna happen.

It's not my expertise, but we're keeping an eye on it and we will keep you appraised of it. All right, that brings us to our numbers for today. 90,000 is the number of school board members represented by the National School Board Association, which is the group that wrote that memo to Attorney General Merrick Garland. 13,000 is the number of school districts those members are serving in. 1 billion is the number of euros pledged by the European Union to aid Afghanistan and its neighbors. Eighteen is the number of weather-related disasters in the U.S.

over the first nine months of this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information. That number is a little bit less than the total this time last year, but one1 billion is the estimated cost of those disasters, which is actually higher than the cost of the disasters last year. All right, and finally, our have a nice day story. For two years, an elk was spotted in Colorado's Rocky Mountains with a car tire stuck around its neck. After several attempts, wildlife officials say they have finally freed the animal.

The bull elk was first spotted in 2019 by Colorado Parks and Wildlife's CPW about 30 miles west of Denver. On Saturday, a CPW officer, Scott Murdoch, safely tranquilized the 600-pound elk and removed the tire, freeing the elk from two years of carrying the burden around his neck. This story is kind of crazy. They were just seeing videos and images of this elk popping up on cameras placed throughout the forest, and they had trouble tracking it down. They finally did. They got the tire off. It's good news with one small caveat. Unfortunately, the elk's antlers had to be cut a bit in order to remove the tire. So as I understand it, those things take a little while to come back. But CNN has

a great story about it and it's worth checking out. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, I just want to remind you, we need your support to keep this podcast running. In the episode description, there is a link to pledge that support. You could also just help us by subscribing to our newsletter, readtangle.com. You can go there, sign up for the newsletter if you're not already, and just become a paying member, paying supporter. That is just a good way to support everything, the newsletter, the podcast, all the things we're working on.

Yeah, show us some love. We need it. Come on. It's Tuesday. Give us some love. All right. Thanks, guys. I hope you had a great weekend, and we'll see you tomorrow.

Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thank you.