Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Trust ? … Gone !

Remember the good old days when the citizens of the U.S. trusted government officials? Well, it appears that those trusting eras are gone. If the latest quagmire involving parents of school children speaking up at school board meetings and the consequences of this sort of behavior are any indication of the underhandedness and skullduggery of some of our government officials, then our country and the First Amendment are toast. I am tempted to ascribe this most recent behavior solely to the Democrats that are now in power, but certainly this sort of chicanery can well go beyond party lines.

To me the chain of events that I am going to describe borders on the unbelievable, or perhaps I am just a naive soul who has been raised to trust government and government officials. 

From the Washington Examiner:

Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI and the Department of Justice to form a joint task force in October 2021 to investigate threats against school board members after the National School Boards Association (NSBA) asked the Biden administration in a September 2021 letter to investigate parents protesting at school board meetings as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act.

(Referring to concerned parents and domestic terrorists in the same sentence is outlandish enough, but it gets worse.)

Garland issued the memo forming the task force a week after the NSBA sent its letter. After public outcry, the association apologized for sending the letter and withdrew it, as numerous state school board associations announced they were disassociating with the national organization.

Despite the NSBA’s backtrack, Garland said the substance of the letter was still relevant and defended his memo in late October testimony to the House and Senate judiciary committees. (I watched some of Garland’s testimony, and he basically told the committee not to worry as he was committed to follow up on the NSBA’s letter. Under oath, he assured the committees that he would not be using the NSBA’s concern for any nefarious purpose.)

Next comes the hooker … 

In January, emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed that Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona had solicited the NSBA’s letter to the administration.

(So let’s get this straight … the Biden administration’s Secretary of Education, started the ball rolling by convincing the NSBA to write a letter in which they said that they were afraid for the safety of its members. Despite the fact that the NSBA later backtracked on the letter, Biden’s Attorney General felt that he needed to go forward. During the testimony that involved a lot of verbal tap-dancing by Merrick Garland, the Attorney General basically assured the committee nothing would ever come of investigating parents who were merely concerned with the welfare of their children. So it appeared that basically a lot was made of nothing. No harm, no foul!)

(However, to paraphrase Paul Harvey … you ain’t seen nothing, until you hear the rest of the story.)

Still from The Washington Examiner:

“The FBI has opened multiple investigations into parents protesting education policies, including a father who was upset over mask mandates, according to new whistleblower revelations.

The FBI’s activities were publicly revealed in a letter Wednesday, 5/11/22, from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to Attorney General Merrick Garland . The specifics of the FBI’s investigations were disclosed to lawmakers by whistleblowers.”

From this aforementioned letter to General Garland:

“The information we have received shows how, as a direct result of your directive, federal law enforcement is using counterterrorism resources to investigate protected First Amendment activity,” House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) wrote in the letter. Whistleblowers reveal the FBI has labeled dozens of investigations into parents with a threat tag created by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.


The representatives said the information shared by “brave whistle blowers” indicated that the FBI had opened investigations under a previously disclosed “threat tag” that categorized reported threats in “almost every region of the country and relating to all types of educational settings.”

(Hmmm, my trust in government officials is now rock bottom. What the government is essentially saying is, “we do not like concerned parents speaking up at school board meetings. And if you do dare to speak, the odds are that the FBI will be investigating you as a “threat.” Perhaps, more important, did Merrick Garland knowingly not tell the truth while under oath back in October?)

5/14/22

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