Attorney General Merrick Garland siccing the FBI at the behest of the alarmingly powerful National School Board Association on concerned parents for speaking out against leftist indoctrination, boys in the girls’ bathroom, and abusive mask mandates is like a parody of authoritarianism. This clown world tyranny comes down from the top of the federal government:

Biden’s White House was in discussion with the National School Board Association in the weeks leading up to the NSBA sending a letter demanding federal law enforcement crack down on the alleged harassment of school officials, emails show.

The emails show the school board group drew on conversations with White House staffers in drafting the letter.

This letter equated parents speaking out on behalf of their kids at school board meetings with “domestic terrorism.”

The bad guys are in charge. Prying lowlifes like Biden and Garland out of power is only the beginning. Tens of millions have been brainwashed by the leftist media/education establishment into voting to put them there. The cancer goes deep.

The NSBA letter also called for the Biden administration to invoke the Patriot Act, which Congress passed to deal with terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Under Democrat rule, powers allowed to the federal government to defend against al Qaeda will instead be used against us.

The Biden administration’s closeness with teachers unions is facing fresh scrutiny after Garland’s memo announcing a new crackdown on the [supposed] harassment of school officials.

Readers will recall that under Biden, these unions have dictated Covid policy to the politicized CDC. Joseph Stalin himself could not outflank teachers’ unions on the left.

On a tip from Varla.

Despite the catastrophic effect they have had on education, Teachers unions remain in control of it due to their symbiotic relationship with the corrupt Democratic Party, which prevents them from facing accountability and even kneecaps competition in exchange for a steady flow of campaign cash raised through union dues. Teachers unions are so powerful under Democrat rule that they dictate Covid policy to the CDC, so that it prioritizes the convenience of teachers. As the Left veers ever further off the rails into radicalism, teachers unions remain at the vanguard.

Last week the National Education Association, which represents 3 million educators, held its national convention. Delegates approved various measures that do not bode well for American education, as the Wall Street Journal observes:

One calls for the union to support and lead campaigns that “result in increasing the implementation of culturally responsive education, critical race theory, and ethnic (Native people, Asian, Black, Latin(o/a/x), Middle Eastern, North African, and Pacific Islander) Studies curriculum in pre- K-12 and higher education.”

Anyone who is not white qualifies for racial praise. Critical race theory is a Marxist weaponization of postmodernism, focused on demonization of Caucasians.

The delegates also directed the NEA to lobby for “professional development around cultural responsiveness, implicit bias, anti-racism, trauma-informed practices, restorative justice practices and other racial justice trainings” for “all school employees.”

Not even the school janitor will escape indoctrination on the evils of the white race. But the main point is to brainwash children. That’s what schools are for, under leftist rule.

Another delegate-approved measure calls for the union to issue a study criticizing “empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.”

As children struggle to make sense of the bizarre terminology, adults will snicker at the absurdity of leftist fever swamp ideology. But the next generation will regard it as objective truth. Already, there are grown adults who regard this malevolent lunacy as having some kind of validity. Such people run the government, the media, and worst of all the schools.

American heroes are to be vilified, marginalized, and eventually erased, because they embody “empire” and “white supremacy.” In their place, children will be taught to revere leftist antiheroes — like a violent career criminal who died of a fentanyl overdose while resisting arrest:

Another approved statement asks the union to “join with Black Lives Matter at School and the Zinn Education Project” to hold a rally on George Floyd’s birthday, honor other victims of police violence, and promote “a national day of action to teach lessons about structural racism and oppression.”

The reference is to Howard Zinn, a communist who propagandized against America by recasting our history with the USA as the villain throughout.

And don’t forget the call for the union to share resources for “decolonizing the curriculum” with educators to use in the classroom.

To “decolonize” is to purge of anything that leftists associate with Western Civilization.

Lincoln predicted that America would be destroyed from within. Teachers unions may prove him right.

On a tip from Varla.

The liberal establishment has done nothing but encourage political violence by radical groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa. As no doubt intended, this violence has continued to escalate. Politicians who don’t toe the leftist line may be subjected to intimidation at their homes. For now, we are still mainly at the graffiti stage:

Charleston Police are investigating vandalism at the South Carolina home of Rep. Nancy Mace over the Memorial Day weekend where her property was spray-painted with profanity and anarchist symbols.

Mace, R-S.C., discovered Monday morning that her house, front steps, sidewalk and street were defaced with black spray paint. The vandal or vandals wrote several statements, including “F–k you Nancy,” “all politicians are bastards,” “no god, no masters,” “pass the pro act” and three Antifa symbols.

Mace is raising two kids in this house as a single mother. Even if the threat of violence is not as explicit as the white powder recently sent to Rand Paul, the intent to terrorize couldn’t be clearer.

As usual with Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and their independent emulators, the thuggery calls for broader thuggery to be imposed by Big Government. The vandal demanded Mace support the tyrannical PRO Act, which would throw tens of millions of Americans out of work on behalf of Big Unions:

After California passed Assembly Bill 5, Lisa Rothstein lost a big piece of her income. She works as a freelancer in various roles, including a cartoonist, copywriter, and advisor. AB 5 requires many independent contractors to be reclassified as employees, preventing clients from hiring her. She is not alone. In fact, AB 5 has robbed thousands of contractors across California of their incomes.

What’s more, AB 5 may no longer be confined to the Golden State. Congress is considering the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO) Act—legislation that would create a similar law at the federal level. If passed, it would have severe implications for the 57 million Americans who call themselves freelancers, as well as millions of other traditional workers who would lose their right-to-work protections.

Biden unsurprisingly supports it. He made it clear in advance that he wanted to abolish freelance employment on behalf of his corrupt union financers, destroying any number of lives. People voted for him anyway.

On a tip from TCS III. Hat tip: Hot Air.

One reason the post-Covid recovery has stalled is that Democrats have resisted reopening schools so that people can get back to work, despite there being no reason for schools to have been closed in the first place. Some object to Biden’s handlers allowing notoriously work-adverse teachers unions to help write the CDC guidelines on reopening schools. But by following the unions, our rulers were following the science — or at least, the pseudoscience.

Kelly Trautner is Senior Director, Health Issues at the American Federation of Teachers. She is also…

…a certified yoga teacher and “Registered Karuna Reiki Master” (meaning she had mastered Stage III of Holy Fire of the pseudoscience which includes “healing past life issues” and “clearing cellular memories from the DNA”)…

Trautner called for teachers with “increased risk” for the ChiCom virus to be excused from the classroom. Based on CDC materials, this would qualify most teachers to stay home.

The CDC’s guidelines told schools to offer “remote work” options to teachers with “high-risk conditions that place them at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19”. A possibly narrower group, but seemingly incorporating the core proposal from Trautner and the AFT.

Trautner’s input was forwarded to the CDC by Carole Johnson, one of Biden’s three pandemic response coordinators, indicating that it was to be taken seriously. Regarding Carole Johnson’s background,

Johnson had been the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Human Services. Johnson’s tenure in the scandal-plagued Murphy administration, which had forced nursing homes to accept infected coronavirus patients, and whose state-run veteran homes had become death factories, had been controversial…

But at least she has a master’s degree in government, so she knows all about healthcare.

As for Kelly Trautner’s educational credentials,

Trautner, in addition to her energy healing skills, also has a BA in political science from Marshall University and a JD from Capital University. … It’s not clear what scientific or medical qualification Trautner has on health issues.

We see again that “follow the science” is liberalese for “follow the authoritarian dictates of clueless bureaucrats,” and that rule by leftists is rule by kooks.

On a tip from ABC of the ANC.

It’s about the science, our rulers bark. Except when it is about sucking up to unions. If schools still aren’t open, it isn’t because of science, even if the CDC is involved. It is about teachers unions:

The American Federation of Teachers lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on, and even suggested language for, the federal agency’s school-reopening guidance released in February.

The powerful teachers union’s full-court press preceded the federal agency putting the brakes on a full re-opening of in-person classrooms, emails between top CDC, AFT and White House officials show. …

The lobbying paid off. In at least two instances, language “suggestions” offered by the union were adopted nearly verbatim into the final text of the CDC document.

The CDC, like the rest of the federal government, has been dragging its feet on students returning to school, despite the insignificant Covid risk and the hardship caused to students and their parents, who unlike many teachers would like to get back to work.

Health experts are aghast at the politicization of even the CDC.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco who has written extensively on coronavirus, called the CDC-AFT emails “very, very troubling,”

“What seems strange to me here is there would be this very intimate back and forth including phone calls where this political group gets to help formulate scientific guidance for our major public health organization in the United State,” Gandhi told The Post.

As confirmed by his influence-peddling to our communist Chinese adversaries, Joe Biden is all about pay to play:

The AFT and its affiliates have long been one of the most reliable and deep pocketed donor constituencies of the Democratic party, dropping almost $20 million to elect party members during the 2020 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Even liberal shill Jake Tapper sounds fed up with the corruption.

In a widely viewed CNN interview on Feb 14, anchor Jake Tapper grilled [CDC director Rochelle] Walensky and demanded to know why the guidelines would allow schools in areas with high coronavirus community spread — know as “red zones” — to opt out of in-person reopening, noting that 99% of US kids fell within those areas, according to a CNN analysis.

“Can you point to any scientific reason for students in the United States not to return to in person classes tomorrow?” Tapper demanded several times.

There is only one reason, and it isn’t scientific: unions. They have bought and paid for the Democratic Party, as we see in the war on freelance work. To keep the money flowing, Biden openly panders to them.

On a tip from ABC of the ANC.

Cooking the Great Reset omelet will require breaking a great many eggs. That is, imposing leftist dominance on every aspect of everyone’s lives will require throwing millions of people out of work. Biden and his radical handlers have no qualms about doing this:

On Thursday, US Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said gig workers should be classified as employees, not independent contractors, a move that could deal a huge setback to gig companies.

If forced to reclassify drivers as employees, companies like Uber and Instacart would need to pay for employee benefits such as unemployment insurance and health insurance for millions of Americans.

The list of goodies employers are required to provide is likely to grow with every year Democrats are in power.

In theory, providing all manner of benefits to everyone sounds wonderful. In practice, forcing companies to shoulder the enormous burden Big Government has placed on having regular employees would destroy millions of jobs. Unlike the government, businesses cannot confiscate or print money, nor can they indefinitely operate at a loss. When it is not feasible to meet bureaucrats’ requirements, the job disappears.

That is of no concern of the government, which has been paying people so much not to work that businesses are having a hard time reopening after the lockdowns because employees can make more by staying at home watching Netflix.

The main point of abolishing freelance work is to pander to unions, which shovel massive amounts of dues money into the Democrat Party and which cannot stand the thought of workers who are not under their control. Increased unemployment is an added benefit, because people without jobs tend to be dependent on the government and therefore likely to vote Democrat.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated in 2017 that 55 million people in the US were gig workers, or about 34% of the US workforce. This workforce, typically made up of people hired to complete a single project or task through an online marketplace, was expected to grow to nearly half the workforce as of last year.

Potentially all of these people could be coercively thrown out of work by the Biden Administration. Those gig jobs that can go overseas will. Other jobs will cease to exist. This illustrates why the cost of Big Government is vastly greater than the $trillions it confiscates in taxes every year.

Federal plans to crush freelance workers mirror California’s catastrophic AB5. That tyrannical law threw countless Californians out of work. Thankfully, it was partially repealed through the passage of Proposition 22. The maniacs comprising the Biden Administration are in no mood to learn from California’s mistakes.

On a tip from Bluto.

On behalf of members of teachers’ unions everywhere, Alissa Piro of San Marcos High School in California lets her students know just what she thinks of parents who want her to drag her lazy behind into the classroom and start doing the job she is no doubt overpaid for:

Key quote:

“[I]f your parent wants to come talk to me about how I’m not doing a good enough job in distance learning based on what you need as an individual? Just dare them to come at me. Because I am so sick to my stomach of parents trying to tell educators how to do their job.”

Fox News provides background:

Piro, who teaches English, appears to be referencing an ongoing lawsuit launched by a coalition of parents against Gov. Gavin Newsom and six North Country school districts seeking eased COVID restrictions and an accelerated return to physical classrooms, though local unions say doing so would constitute judicial overreach. …

The video was filmed by a family member of a student in attendance, and was shared to a private Facebook group aimed at reopening schools in the district, before being obtained by Fox News. After over a year of remote learning, the district recently agreed to a hybrid model which allows students to attend in-person learning two days a week. The local union reportedly voted to keep the hybrid model for the duration of the school year, outraging parents and students anxious to return to in-person instruction.

By now it should be obvious why even the leftist FDR opposed the existence of public sector unions.

Considering that Reagan managed to fire striking air traffic controllers, it would be a cinch to give the boot to any schoolteacher who demands to be paid without doing their job — and that job entails in-person classroom instruction. Despite this woman’s absurd assertion that her skill level is comparable to a physician’s, she would not be hard to replace. But that would require leadership.

Jazz Shaw writes,

We have the CDC and HHS saying that transmission rates of the virus in schools are quite low and can be managed. Teachers are being allowed to jump the line to be vaccinated all around the country. Too many parents are at the end of their ropes and too many students are falling behind at an alarming rate. Everyone is ready for this to be over. And the only thing standing in the way are the teacher’s unions.

Actually, that’s not the only thing. The larger obstacle is Big Government, which is run by Democrats who pander to the pernicious unions that pour dues money into their campaigns.

On a tip from TCS III.

If anyone could more perfectly personify teachers’ unions than Sarah Chambers, who defended pointless school closures from a beach in San Juan while indulging in “yummy seafood mofongo,” it would be Berkeley Federation of Teachers President and coronavirus hypocrite Matt Meyer, who has been caught on video dropping his 2-year-old off at a private preschool for the in-person instruction that public school students have been denied, thanks to unions and the Democrats who are owned by them.

Compliments of guerillaMomz:

Can’t a white guy in dreadlocks and a hoodie be brought up on charges of cultural appropriation?

Fox News reports:

The Berkeley Unified School District reached a tentative agreement with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers earlier this month to reopen public schools in March and April, contingent upon staff members receiving COVID-19 vaccinations.

By March, they mean March 29. Most grades would not open until mid-April at the soonest.

Meanwhile, teachers identified as high-risk individuals who document that they have condition’s [sic] on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s high risk list, who live with someone who has those conditions, or who is a caretaker as defined by a medical professional for someone with these conditions, will be allowed to continue to work remotely.

The CDC list is extensive. Is someone in your household obese (almost half the population supposedly is)? If not, does someone smoke, or have high blood pressure? Then you shouldn’t have to come to work.

These schools never should have closed. The only reason they are not already open is that powerful unions prefer teachers to do a minimum of work for a maximum of pay.

On a tip from Henry. Hat tip: College Fix.

A major aspect of the Democrat plan to achieve total power is to drive as many Americans as possible out of work. If the coronavirus lockdowns and push to more than double the minimum wage didn’t convince you of it, maybe the PRO ACT will:

U.S. House and Senate Democrats have reintroduced the PRO ACT, a sweeping pro-union bill that would wipe out right-to-work labor laws in 27 states.

Unions don’t want anyone working who isn’t in a union. Democrats want to please the unions, because that is where a lot of their money comes from.

The bill would make it illegal to permanently replace striking workers, adopt California’s ABC Test to give union officials the power to force tens of thousands of independent contractors into unions, shut down Big Labor’s competitors by granting special powers that enable union bosses to drive merit-shop companies out of business, reinstate the Obama-era “persuader rule” that makes it more difficult for employees to hear both sides before getting the chance to vote on unionization, and the Obama-era “joint employer” standard which allows for increased litigation, among many other provisions.

Democrats also want as many Americans as possible out of work, because that increases their power over us.

The PRO Act … would kill jobs and economic growth, the National Right To Work Committee argues. Its calculation of job growth in right-to-work states is double that of growth in forced-unionism states, and the average family living in a right-to-work state has $4,258 more to spend in after-tax real income.

A family that can support itself is a family that does not need Big Government and that may resent Big Government’s encroachment on the liberties that until recently defined us as Americans.

[O]ther groups like the International Franchise Association argue the bill will wipe out small businesses, including franchises.

After what Democrat governors inflicted on them during the lockdowns, not many small business owners will be voting blue. They are slated for destruction. This will please mega-corporations like Amazon, which like unions shovel money at the Democratic Party.

Driving unemployment into the stratosphere is not a bug; it is a feature. Democrats long to regain the power they had under FDR; unemployment averaged 18% during his first 8 years in office.

Today’s Democrats will never relinquish power, once they have gotten their hands on it. That’s why they plan to pack the Senate, abolish the Electoral College, and pass HR1. It is why they will deliberately hamstring the economy.

On a tip from Varla.

The tens of millions of Americans who work independently are on notice. Liberals do not approve of independence and plan to put a stop to it.

Among this year’s Super Bowl commercials, Dolly Parton made one for Squarespace, in which she paid homage to the hard work of entrepreneurs, freelancers, and gig workers who don’t settle for existence as corporate or bureaucratic drones. The ad features a reworked version of her song “9 to 5”:

NBC News is enraged:

Rather than paying homage to the spirit of the original song, which made no bones about the exploitative nature of the daily grind, the commercial for Squarespace features a tinny ode to the side hustle. Its office workers are portrayed as being overjoyed to continue working after hours, their side hustles are painted as freeing, fun and fulfilling, and the song itself encourages them to “be your own boss, climb your own ladder.”

It’s a perfect storm of gig economy propaganda.

Praising hard work and independence — qualities that built the country — is now wrongthink.

Parton’s silvery voice is being used to promote the false virtues of working overtime, when so many gig economy workers are barely scraping by and the tech companies who employ — but misclassify — them are raking in boffo profits. The gig economy is a wretched alternative to a stable paycheck and proper benefits, and efforts to paint it as a matter of “independence” or “being one’s own boss” downplay how hard it is for so many gig workers to make ends meet. The lack of a safety net has become even more apparent thanks to the increased demands and dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic Parton herself has helped combat; delivery drivers, grocery shoppers and other gig workers have become a lifeline to so many, and yet they remain stripped of the protections and dignity they deserve.

Now we really are in the realm of propaganda — of the Marxist variety. Work is slavery. Those who work are victims who need the “protection” of Big Government.

Dolly Parton is then denounced for having betrayed workers for the sake of money like a lousy capitalist.

The appalling piece was written by Kim Kelly. “Her work on labor, politics and working-class resistance” has been published in various leftist publications, according to her bio.

The attack on independent workers is all about pleasing powerful unions, which believe that if you can’t be unionized you shouldn’t be allowed to work.

The Blaze notes that Kelly isn’t alone:

• Slate’s pop culture writer and editor Hilary Hughes chided Parton for the same reasons, saying the ad “diminished one of the most potent, and beloved, messages behind her own work while dressing it up as a tribute.”

• Newsweek published an analysis calling the commercial “disturbing” and full of “propaganda” that reflects “an insane ideology.”

• And Jessica Bennett — a New York Times editor at large who covers women and culture — didn’t like the commercial’s theme, either, saying it ignores the present reality of “American women” who now “deal with ongoing job losses, economic challenges and just plain fatigue.”

The Luftwaffe used to soften up countries with a bombing campaign before ground troops invaded. Similarly, the media may be launching a propaganda barrage against independent work before the Biden Administration declares it illegal on behalf on its Big Union benefactors.

Legislation to this effect has already been inflicted in California with AB5, throwing countless people out of work. A similar bill has passed the House. Biden supports this new extreme of tyranny.

In addition to pleasing unions, banning independent work during a time of high unemployment would increase the public’s dependence on handouts from Big Government. That’s why it might happen.

On a tip from Varla.

Patriots gasped in horror when Time gloated over the left-wing cabal, headed by Mike Podhorzer of the AFL-CIO, that effectively rigged the 2020 election. But union types organizing elitist conspiracies to thwart the will of voters is not entirely new. This appeared in RedState in November 2016:

The Democracy Alliance (aka The DA) is a left-wing organization that was founded in 2005 and considers itself “the largest network of donors dedicated to building the progressive movement in the United States.”

The group is filled with about 100 multi-millionaires and billionaires who are required to pony up at least $200,000 each year to participate in the group, according to the Daily Caller.

Although it was originally co-chaired by then-SEIU Executive Vice President Anna Burger, SEIU’s current president Mary Kay Henry now serves as the group’s Vice Chair.

After Hillary Clinton’s defeat, the DA met at the pricey Mandarin Hotel in DC to plot a response.

While the three-day conference began Sunday night and is closed to the press, Politico obtained a copy of the agenda …

Along with the SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry and the AFL-CIO’s Karen Nussbaum presenting at the conference, according to the agenda, sessions are being hosted by the SEIU, AFSCME, UFCW and CWA unions, as well as numerous other left-wing organizations.

The good news is that this country is not run by Joe Biden, or by the condescending propagandists who present us with the “news.” The bad news is, it is run by oligarchs who have to rule from the shadows because they could not withstand public scrutiny without inspiring a rebellion.

Democratic elections are degenerating into theater. The purpose is to stage the illusion that we consent to what is being done to us. Elections are counterproductive if our rulers cannot control who wins. After 2016, they resolved not to tolerate any more backtalk from voters.

Many have wondered why the liberal elitists running Time admitted to the rigging of the 2020 election. As good a theory as any is that they were inspired by the recent Senate runoff elections in Georgia, which allowed them to take full control of the federal government. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both terrible candidates, likely would not have won if not for conservatives staying home to protest election fraud.

This is what leftists want. The fewer patriots vote, the less interference is required. Short of civil war, there is nothing we can do but remain engaged, no matter how overpowering the smell of corruption.

On a tip from Christine S.

Even statist icon FDR opposed public sector unions such as teachers’ unions. They create a situation where the employer and the employed are on the same side against the customer, namely, the taxpayer who has to finance unaffordably generous packages in exchange for increasingly subpar education. Teachers’ unions are insatiably greedy, pathologically lazy, astonishingly arrogant, and radical left in their politics.

The ChiCom virus has provided public school teachers with an excuse not to work. Despite the low risk of acquiring COVID-19 from children and the failure of online learning, teachers throughout the country have refused to enter the classroom on the grounds of the virus.

In Chicago:

In-person classes in Chicago Public Schools are canceled again Thursday as the district tries to hammer out a deal with the teachers union to avoid a strike by employees who are refusing to return to schools.

Rather than teach, some of the teachers have been spending their time on interpretive dance:

Meanwhile, in Florida:

The Broward School District has scoured Facebook pages of teachers working remotely to catch them partying, traveling and failing to wear masks at a time the educators say COVID-19 makes it too risky for them to return to campus.

One teacher is pictured at her daughter’s destination wedding in Jamaica. Another attended a political rally for Joe Biden. Others were pictured with cocktails in restaurants or enjoying a Disney or beach vacation with family or friends.

Broward Teachers Union, which opposes teachers being required to get back in the classroom and do their jobs, rages that the district has been “spying” on the teachers.

If you like Big Labor, you will love the Biden’s Handlers Administration:

Twitter users spotted something familiar on the credenza behind President Joe Biden as he signed executive orders Wednesday on his first official day in the Oval Office. Among the family photos was a bronze bust of famed labor leader Cesar E. Chavez. …

His presence in the Oval Office isn’t the only connection the [United Farm Workers] has to the new administration. Chavez’s granddaughter Julie Chavez Rodriguez was picked as director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Biden making a show of being beholden to unions reinforces the alarming possibility of a national ban on freelance work. Democrats have already passed legislation in the House. This would throw far more people out of work even than Biden’s plan to impose a $15 minimum wage. Lives would be destroyed by the tens of millions, but unions want it, so it might happen.

Too bad Biden’s handlers aren’t interested in what Chavez had to say about illegal immigration, which also drives up unemployment.

On a tip from Wiggins.