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'Failing at your job': Texas high schoolers shred their school board over proposed book-banning initiative
January 25, 2022
On Tuesday, at a meeting of the school board for Granbury, Texas just southwest of Fort Worth, students from the high school lined up to speak out against a controversial "book review" policy proposed by right-wing activists that would effectively let members of the board ban books in school even before a review.
"GISD Communications Director Jeff Meador stated: 'School library books have been under heavy scrutiny over the past several months as investigations are ongoing by the Texas House General Investigating Committee chaired by State Rep. Matt Krause as well as the Texas Education Agency as directed by Governor Greg Abbott,'" noted the Hood County News in a report last week. "Meador said that 'like every school district in the state,' the GISD is currently reviewing all books in the district’s schools to determine their educational value and age appropriateness."
But the students themselves were having none of it at the hearing.
"I feel this new book banning bill is irresponsible, ignorant, and even dangerous," said one sophomore. A junior agreed, saying, "I just want to emphasize who is upset about this book ban, and it's not just delinquents who want to read smut. It's honor students who want access to the full extent of their education."
"The job of the superintendent and the school board is not only to protect the students in this district, but to make them feel like they have a place in this community," said Kennedy Tackett, a senior who spearheaded the petition against the policy. "But I gotta tell you, from what I've seen so far, you are failing at your job."
Abbott has ordered schools to review books in their curriculum and library for supposed pornographic and politically controversial content, a move experts have warned is a backdoor way of forcing teachers to stop discussing racial and sexual orientation issues in class. He has followed this up with a proposed "Parental Bill of Rights" that would essentially force an audit of every teacher's curriculum and allow any parent to veto teaching anything.
Watch below:
Granbury ISD sophomore speaking out against books being pulled off of school library shelves. pic.twitter.com/MHPL8MNrAD— Christopher Tackett (@Christopher Tackett) 1643123067
Granbury ISD junior, speaking out against the school district looking to remove books from the shelves of school libraries pic.twitter.com/7zzhEr27CM— Christopher Tackett (@Christopher Tackett) 1643127376
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Mike Lindell’s attorneys defiantly skip meetings and refuse to turn over evidence in Dominion lawsuit
January 25, 2022
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's attorneys are refusing to participate in court-ordered meetings or hand over discovery material in a $1.3 billion defamation suit filed against him by Dominion Voting Systems.
"In a filing submitted to the judge Monday night, the other lawyers in the case say that Lindell's lawyers stopped showing up to meetings designed to hash out a schedule for the case the day after Dominion's lawyers served them with a request for documents," Insider reported Tuesday. "The filing was signed by attorneys representing every other party in the case, including Dominion, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and Smartmatic."
Dominion is suing Lindell — along with Trump attorneys Powell and Giuliani — for spreading false conspiracy theories about its voting machines related to the 2020 election.
In September, US District Judge Carl J. Nichols ordered all of the parties to meet to hash out a schedule for discovery and other motions.
"But, after attending a few scheduling meetings, Lindell's lawyers informed the others on January 6 that they didn't want to participate in the scheduling conferences anymore," Insider reported. "Lindell's lawyers said they're planning to appeal Nichols's rejection of their motion to dismiss all the way to the Supreme Court, and that they wouldn't participate in discovery until then."
In related news, Dominion's attorneys said in a motion Monday that they do not believe the voting machine manufacturer will be able to reach settlements with the defendants.
"Given the devastating harm to Plaintiffs, the lack of remorse shown by Defendants, and the fact that many of them continue to double down on their lies, Plaintiffs do not believe any realistic possibility of settlement exists," Dominion's attorneys wrote.
Don Herzog, a University of Michigan law professor, told Reuters: "There's no particular incentive to settle with Giuliani or Powell, and it's not just the sadistic glee of making their lives miserable by forcing this to continue. It's that almost always, the party settling will stipulate in its terms of settlement: I don't concede that I did anything wrong. And unless they're nuts, what the corporation wants out of those two is exactly the acknowledgment that you did something wrong. So for them, there's a pressing interest to go to trial and make them lose."
In their filing, Dominion's attorneys asked Judge Nichols to set a deadline of Sept. 29 for discovery, with a trial anticipated in 2023. However, Giuliani and Powell have argued that a trial should not begin until May 2024 at the earliest.
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'There's a reason they play him on Russian state TV': Nicolle Wallace burns Tucker Carlson for pro-Putin rants
January 25, 2022
"There’s a reason they play him every night on Russian state TV," said MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on her Tuesday show about Fox host Tucker Carlson.
The comments came after Carlson's latest rant in support of Russia and Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian state television in which he just asked "questions" about why siding with Russia in its dispute with Ukraine was wrong.
"Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine?" Carlson asked. "They're both foreign countries that don't care anything about the United States. Kind of strange."
Carlson then questioned why the United States belongs to NATO, the military alliance that Putin has relentlessly sought to weaken.
"It's not the first time Tucker Carlson has openly embraced dictators," Wallace said of the Fox personality. "He's been vocal in his support for Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. Last week, he announced he'll be broadcasting from that country for the second time in a year."
Wallace had her own questions for Carlson, demanding to know why a Fox host is so committed to tearing down America and embracing Putin and other dictators.
The guests suspected it was about television ratings or appeasing former President Donald Trump.
See the video discussion below:
Why does Tucker pick Russia over America www.youtube.com
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