A judge said Thursday he will fine Cyber Ninjas, the contractor that led Arizona Republicans’ 2020 election review, $50,000 a day if the firm doesn’t immediately turn over public records related to the unprecedented inquiry.
The judge found Cyber Ninjas in contempt for its failure to turn over documents, which two Maricopa County judges and the state Court of Appeals have ruled are subject to the public records law.
The $50,000 daily fine imposed by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah far exceeds the $1,000 levy suggested by a lawyer for The Arizona Republic newspaper, which filed the public records lawsuit in 2020. Hannah said the lower amount would be “grossly insufficient” to coerce Cyber Ninjas to comply with his orders.
A lawyer for Cyber Ninjas, Jack Wilenchik, said the company is insolvent, has laid off all employees, including former CEO Doug Logan, and can’t afford to sift through its records to find those related to the audit.
Hannah said the $50,000 daily fine would begin accruing on Friday and warned that, if necessary, he will apply the fine to individuals, not just the Cyber Ninjas corporation.
“The court is not going to accept the assertion that Cyber Ninjas is an empty shell and that no one is responsible for seeing that it complies,” Hannah said.
He said there’s been no evidence submitted showing that Cyber Ninjas is actually insolvent and noted that millions of dollars were donated to the election review. He also said the company could comply for very little cost by turning its records over to the Senate and allowing legislative lawyers to determine which must be publicly released.
Wilenchik maintains Cyber Ninjas is not subject to the Arizona public records law because it’s a private company. Trial and appellate judges have disagreed, ruling that the documents must be released because the firm was performing a core government function on behalf of the Senate. The Arizona Supreme Court declined to take the case on appeal.
Wilenchik has asked to quit as the Cyber Ninjas lawyer because he hasn’t been paid, but Hannah refused to approve until new local attorneys are in place to represent the firm. Two out of state lawyers, Jonathan Miller of Georgia and Mike Smith of Michigan, said they’ll represent Logan as the former CEO, but Hannah said they couldn’t participate in the hearing until they’re given temporary approval to practice in Arizona.
Hannah’s refusal to release Wilenchik prompted a tense exchange in which the lawyer said the judge has “shown an intemperate attitude towards me and my firm” and was biased against conservatives. He vowed to appeal.
A spokesman for Cyber Ninjas, Rod Thomson, declined to comment on the judge’s ruling. He confirmed that the company no longer has employees and said “Cyber Ninjas is being shut down.”
The review began with a sweeping subpoena issued by Senate Republican leaders in late 2020 as Trump and his allies searched in vain for evidence to support his claim the election was stolen. The subpoena demanded access to all 2.1 million ballots, the machines that counted them and troves of digital election data from Maricopa County, home to 60% of Arizona voters.
Senate President Karen Fann hired Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based company with no election review experience, to lead what she described as a “forensic audit.” Logan previously worked with attorneys and Donald Trump supporters trying to overturn the 2020 election and appeared in a film questioning the results of the contest while the ballot review was ongoing.
A second public records lawsuit filed by the watchdog group American Oversight is seeking similar records.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp on Thursday denied Wilenchik’s request to withdraw from that case as well. He said he won’t consider granting the request until, at a minimum, Cyber Ninjas turns over records and Logan gives a deposition.
“The Court and the public would be denied prompt and reasonable resolution of an important public matter,” Kemp wrote.
Since the Cyber Ninjas now claim it is insolvent and not even a real company in response to the court’s monetary contempt sanctions order, the Arizona Republicans who hired them should personally pay the sanctions bill AND reimburse Arizona tax payers. https://t.co/mW60RhUONB
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) says he plans to introduce a bill that would overturn a vaccine mandate for school kids in D.C., which is more than 1,100 miles from the border of the state he actually represents in the U.S. Senate.
In a press release from his office sent Wednesday, Cruz said the bill would seek to nullify the vaccine mandate approved by the D.C. Council in late December, which requires students eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine that is fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to get inoculated by Mar. 1, though enforcement would not begin until the start of the 2022-23 school year.
“These mandates, we’re seeing them all over the place. You know, we’re seeing them in schools. It is amazing how many Democrats are willing to try to force parents to get their kid vaccinated,” said Cruz on Tuesday in an interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.
“I’ll tell you, the District of Columbia — the school board — voted to force every child in D.C. to get vaccinated,” Cruz continued. “I’m introducing this week legislation in the Senate to reverse that order. Under the Constitution, the District of Columbia is under the authority of Congress. The school board has no right to force you to get your five-year-old vaccinated. If you want to vaccinate your kid, vaccinate your kid. But if you don’t want to, who are these petty authoritarians trying to make this decision for you? And sadly, it’s a pattern we’re seeing across the board.”
In the interview Cruz mistakenly said the school board approved the vaccine mandate, correcting himself in his press release, where he said “the bill passed 11-1, with only one member of the City Council voting against the measure.” No member voted against the measure; Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8), who says he has received the vaccine but does not want to force others to do so, voted “present.”
“Immunizations are the best defense against some of the most common and sometimes deadly infectious diseases. They are necessary to prevent an outbreak among unimmunized children and children and adults who are unable to receive immunizations, similar to those measles outbreaks that have occurred in other jurisdictions and forced the temporary closure of schools,” says D.C. Health in its Immunization Attendance Policy.
According to D.C. data, 20% of the city’s 5- to 11-year-olds have already received one or both doses of the COVID vaccine. About 67% of kids aged 12 to 15 have received at least one dose, as have 65% of kids aged 16 to 17.
This isn’t the first time Texas has messed with D.C. Last August, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) introduced a bill that would prohibit D.C. from instituting a vaccine mandate for businesses, which Mayor Muriel Bowser later did. (It will take effect Jan. 15.) Their bill has not moved forward in the House, and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said at the time she would not allow it to.
“Congressman Fallon is from Texas. It’s interesting to me how these ill-conceived bills to restrict the rights of D.C. to govern itself always come from members of Congress with no ties to D.C.,” she said in an August statement. “D.C. has a right, based on the science, to do what it can to protect our residents.”
Cruz’s bill similarly has little chance of clearing the Senate, then the House, and then being signed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat. But it still drew opposition from some local officials.
“It’s another infringement on our autonomy as taxpayer citizens,” said Bowser at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
“I hear they say ‘don’t mess with Texas,’” tweeted D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine. Same rule applies here: Keep your hands off D.C. Deferring to local officials is a basic concept of federalism, a principle on which our country was founded.”
“Vaccines save lives. Vaccine requirements are common in school. Standing in the way with cases as high as they’ve ever been and with a clear difference between being vaxxed and not, is beyond reckless,” added Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6). “One year after Jan. 6, don’t you think you’ve done enough harm, Senator?”
Cruz and D.C. have clashed in the past. In 2013, the government shutdown spurred by Cruz’s opposition to the Affordable Care Act also shuttered the D.C. government, because it is considered to be federally funded. (This is despite the fact that the city raises its own revenue to fund operations.) A few years later, he managed to get a bill passed blocking a D.C. law that banned discrimination based on reproductive health decisions. In 2018, he unsuccessfully tried to block D.C. from enforcing the ACA’s individual mandate.
Cruz is up for re-election in 2024, though D.C. residents will be unable to vote for or against him.
Investigators with the Knoxville Fire Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), have determined that the fire at the Planned Parenthood in Knoxville was purposely set. The KFD says the individual or individuals who started the fire have not been identified yet.
On Friday, investigators offered a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to the successful prosecution of the person or persons responsible for the suspected arson.
Investigative authorities believe the Planned Parenthood fire was intentionally set. If you have any info related to the fire, call 1-800-762-3017 or email KFDArson@knoxvilletn.gov
The fire took place on Dec. 31 at around 6:39 a.m. and while no injures were reported the fire did completely destroy the building. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the investigation due to the political nature of the building.
“KFD’s firefighters worked tirelessly last Friday to extinguish this fire, and our fire investigators, with assistance from ATF, TBI, and Knox County fire investigators, have worked meticulously over the last week and will continue to investigate this fire,” said Fire Chief Stan Sharp.
At this time, KFD is asking anyone with information about the fire to call 1-800-762-3017 or email KFDArson@knoxvilletn.gov. There is a reward of up to $10,000.00 for information that would lead to the prosecution of anyone involved in any criminal activity related to this fire. All calls are confidential.
The Planned Parenthood in Knoxville (my sole source of heath care for 3 years) was burned to the ground on New Year’s Eve. It’s officially been ruled arson. Please donate to @PPFA if you can. East Tennessee desperately needs PP. https://t.co/VV3MKa53gO
WATCH: “He says the fire brings him no joy.”@6News interviewed @PastorKenTCAPP by the ashes of the Knoxville clinic he rails against, which also took a shotgun blast this year.
He happened to post “Fire. Absolutely” on Facebook the night BEFORE🧐
Law enforcement officers from around the country attended and supported last week’s rally in support of President Trump that sparked a riot.
As of today, at least 26 sworn members of U.S. law enforcement agencies from at least 11 states have been identified by law enforcement agencies and local reporting as attendees of the Jan. 6 rally in support of President Trump that sparked a riot at the U.S. Capitol. [Update, Jan. 25, 10:00 a.m., Eastern time: One more law enforcement officials has been reported as having attended the rally, bringing the total to 39 individuals from 17 states.] Beyond that tally, several former law enforcement agents attended the rally, and still more current law enforcement officials are under investigation for making statements in support of the rally.
A review of police attendance and support appears below and is also available in this spreadsheet,* which will be updated as more information becomes available. These specific law enforcement agents have not been tied to white supremacist movements.
And yet, it would be inaccurate to say that white supremacists have merely “infiltrated” law enforcement, a word used in a recent hearing on white supremacy and policing in the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee. American policing is rooted in white supremacy: many contemporary police departments originated as patrols dedicated to terrorizing and capturing enslaved people. Other antecedents of modern policing extend farther back in history to the ”oversight” of Native peoples. The main function of policing is to protect the interests of the ruling classes, and in the context of a society built on racial capitalism, that means the crosshairs of police officers focus on non-white communities. With this history in mind, the fact that police flocked from all over the country to attend the Trump rally merely shows how white supremacy is embedded in the very function of policing itself.
David Ellis, the police chief in Troy, New Hampshire, attended the rally, but told a New York Magazine reporter that while he condemned the assault on the Capitol, “there’s a lot of Trump supporters that are awesome people, like me.”
The Bexar County sheriff’s office in Texas is investigating Lieutenant Roxanne Mathai’s attendance. She posted a photo of rioters on the Capitol’s balcony after they’d made it past the police, writing as the caption, “and we are going in… in the crowd at the stairs… not inside the capitol like the others. Not catching a case lol.” Mathai typically has 70 to 80 employees under her command.
The Zelienople Borough Police Department (near Pittsburgh) is investigating Officer Thomas Goldie’s attendance. One photo shows him wearing a hat that appeared to say, “Trump MAGA 2020 f— your feelings.”
Sheriff Chris West of Canadian County, Oklahoma, attended the Trump rally. West denied breaking any laws, but two posts from a deleted Facebook account that appeared to belong to West read, “I’m okay with using whatever means necessary to preserve America and save FREEDOM & LIBERTY… I want several in Congress… in prison, or worse.”
The New York Times reported that a man named Jeff told a reporter that he was an off-duty police officer in York County, Pennsylvania. “There’s a lot of people here willing to take orders,” he said. “If the orders are given, the people will rise up.” The York Dispatch is working to confirm this report with local police departments.
The Seattle Police Department has placed two officers who attended the rally on administrative leave.
The Franklin County sheriff’s office in Kentucky reassigned detective Jeff Farmer after he attended the rally. Farmer has denied participating in the riot or in any violence. Local public defenders wrote a letter to Sheriff Chris Quire alleging that Farmer has made multiple social media posts expressing “disbelief in systemic racism and unconscious bias,” that he “resigned from the Versailles Police Department ‘in exchange for no further pursuit of criminal charges against him,’” and further that he “has been involved in many cases which reflect targeting and racial profiling.” Farmer was named Deputy of the Year in 2019.
Sergeant T.J. Robertson and Officer Jacob Fracker of Rocky Mount, Virginia, have been placed on administrative leave after photos emerged of them inside the Capitol. “There was no fighting with police officers,” Robertson said in reference to the Capitol police on Jan. 6. “The door was wide open and police officers were actually handing bottles of water out to people that came in.” In a Facebook post, however, Robertson wrote: “CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business … The right IN ONE DAY took the f——— U.S. Capitol. Keep poking us.”
Philadelphia police detective Jennifer Gugger has been reassigned pending an investigation into her attendance. Until last week, she served in the department’s Recruit Background Investigations Unit, and the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “until recently, [her] Facebook profile photo was a reference to the QAnon conspiracy movement.”
The police force for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, in Philadelphia, is also investigating seven officers who reportedly attended the Trump rally.
The New York Police Department said one police officer who attended is under investigation.
The Anne Arundel County Police Department, in Maryland, has suspended an officer with pay who reportedly attended.
The Charles County sheriff’s department, also in Maryland, is investigating the attendance of a corrections officer, who is presumably employed by the sheriff.
One Kentucky state trooper has been reassigned as the agency investigates his attendance.
Arkansas State Police told the Arkansas Times that two troopers requested leave time to attend the Trump rally.
According to Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, two Capitol police officers were suspended and at least 10 others are being investigated regarding their behavior during the Trump riot. One of the two suspended officers wore a MAGA hat and “started directing people around the building”; the other posed for a selfie with a member of the mob. A House aide told CNN that “as many as 17 officers” with the Capitol police department are under investigation.
Several former law enforcement officers also attended the rally.
Jurell Snyder, who was a police officer in Oakland, California, gave an interview to CBS affiliate KPIX explaining his participation and his support of the rioters. “What do you think is worse,” he asked KPIX’s Joe Vazquez, “storming the Capitol with a flag or committing treason against your country?” During his tenure as a police officer, Snyder killed one person in 2007 and another in 2013. Several current Oakland police officers expressed support for Snyder’s radical views on Facebook, and the department is investigating its members’ potential support for radical far-right movements.
Butch Conway, former sheriff of Gwinnett County, Georgia, attended the Trump rally but denied participating in any illegal activity.
The watchdog group Documented reported that the Rule of Law Defense Fund—the 501(c)(4) arm of the Republican Attorney Generals Association—issued robocalls encouraging supporters to attend the Trump rally. Many officers who did not attend the rally expressed their support in statements or social media posts.
Notably, John Catanzara, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, made several comments to NPR affiliate WBEZ echoing Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. “They’re individuals,” he said. “They get to do what they want. Again, they were voicing frustration. They’re entitled to voice their frustration.”
In Arizona, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb denied Trump’s responsibility for the violent white supremacist attack. At an event outside the state Capitol on Jan. 6, Lamb said, “I don’t know how loud we have to get before they have to listen to us and know we will no longer tolerate them stripping our freedoms away.”
One Secret Service officer is under investigation for making a Facebook post in support of the rally. “Good morning patriots! Yesterday started out beautiful and as usual Antifa soured the mood and attacked police and an Air Force veteran was murdered,” the post read. “It’s OFFENSE time finally!!”There is no evidence that anti-fascist activists were involved in the riot.
In Kansas, a lieutenant with the Sedgwick County sheriff’s office voiced his support on Facebook. “If you are a police officer in Washington, D.C., or a federal officer working in the Capitol, remember that the people in these rallies are on your side,” Jason Gill wrote. “Remember your oath before your orders.”
Sheriff Dallas Baldwin of Franklin County, Ohio, fired a civilian public information officer for writing a Facebook post that criticized Capitol police for failing to stop the Trump riot from breaching the building. “If this was a BLM protest, we’d be seeing tanks and mass casualties,” the PIO wrote. “White privilege at its worst.”
A complete list of law enforcement statements in support of the rally is available on this spreadsheet.
*Editor’s note: The author independently compiled the data herein and created the spreadsheet.
Because of faulty results in drug testing at state prisons, including Attica, prisoners were placed in solitary confinement, a report found.Credit…Steve Russell/Toronto Star, via Getty Images
New York’s prison system unjustly penalized more than 1,600 incarcerated people based on faulty drug tests, putting them in solitary confinement, delaying their parole hearings and denying them family visits, the New York State inspector general said in a damning report released on Tuesday.
The arbitrary penalties were meted out across the state over an eight-month period in 2019, while the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision relied on improperly administered drug tests made by the company Microgenics, the report found. The tests led to “rampant false positive” results for buprenorphine, an opioid used to treat addiction, as well as synthetic cannabinoids.
“This stands as a heartbreaking example of how the absence of transparency can undermine due process and basic human rights,” Lucy Lang, the inspector general, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
The department started using the tests in January 2019, the report found. The manufacturer’s directions specified that a positive result should be confirmed with a second, more sensitive test, but officials neglected to do so as a matter of policy. Instead, they simply carried out the same test a second time to confirm the results.
The rate of positive tests immediately spiked, but the department failed to address widespread concerns among prisoners, their families and advocates that many of the results were false positives, the report found.
The report cited several examples of the grave consequences the tests had for prisoners. One woman at Albion Correctional Facility, near Rochester, N.Y., who had never tested positive for drug use during her two years in jail, suddenly tested positive for synthetic cannabinoids.
As punishment, she was confined to her cell for 40 days and placed in solitary confinement for 45 days. She lost her prison job and privileges like recreation time, receipt of packages and phone use for months. She was also denied visits with her three children.
The report also accused Microgenics representatives of presenting false or misleading information to prison officials. A review of internal company documents revealed that even ingesting over-the-counter antacids and the sweetener Stevia could potentially lead to false positives, but the company failed to disclose those possibilities, the report said.
The report faulted department officials for deciding to forgo the second test and found that a sales representative from Microgenics had exerted undue influence over the process.
It also found that the contract with the company most likely violated procurement guidelines and that the department “did not perform due diligence when contracting with Microgenics for its drug testing systems, failing to understand that such tests were merely preliminary screening tests.”
During the eight-month period, more than 1,600 prisoners were punished over drug tests statewide, including 140 who were subjected to solitary confinement, leading to complaints across the state, Ms. Lang said.
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Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, an advocacy group, brought the concerns of four incarcerated people who said they had been disciplined based on false positives to the department in June 2019. Later that summer, the department sent six positive test samples from other prisoners to another company for retesting, and five came back negative.
The department then brought its findings to the office of the inspector general. It later moved to expunge more than 2,500 disciplinary records that were based on the faulty drug tests.
Karen L. Murtagh, the executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, said the impact of the penalties was difficult to overstate.
“The psychological and physical damage caused by solitary confinement, the loss of family visitation, the lack of proper programming, lost work-release and educational opportunities, all of which help combat recidivism, adds to the ledger for which we as a society need to take account,” she said.
Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, an advocacy group that seeks to dismantle the prison industry, said the report illustrated the problems inherent in allowing private companies to profit from incarceration. She called for further review of prison contracts.
In a statement on Tuesday, the department noted that its staff had cooperated with the inspector general’s investigation and adopted all its recommendations, which included ending solitary confinement in response to drug tests and improving drug-test training and data collection.
Microgenics is a subsidiary of Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts-based company. In a statement on Tuesday, Ron O’Brien, a spokesman for the company, said the instructions clearly state that the drug tests are only preliminary and that a more specific, alternative chemical method must be used to obtain a confirmed result.
“We have complete confidence in our product and, when it is used as directed, have no reason to believe there is any issue with its accuracy,” Mr. O’Brien said.
He added that the company had conducted its own investigation and did not believe that any Microgenics representatives provided “any intentionally false or misleading testimony” at disciplinary hearings, as alleged in the report.
The drug tests have spurred several lawsuits, including a federal class-action suit filed by Prisoners’ Legal Services and the law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel in 2019. The following year, Letitia James, the New York attorney general, filed suit on behalf of the Department of Corrections against Microgenics in Albany, alleging breach of contract. The lawsuit is pending.
The department now uses a preliminary drug screening test known as the Premier Biotech Bio-Cup, and positive results are confirmed using a second method.
Ms. Lang, who was appointed inspector general in the fall, said that more than half the complaints her office receives involve the prison system.
“We are directing resources toward addressing those complaints as proactively as possible,” she said.
Karen Zraick is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. @karenzraick
Ted Cruz is a coward. He can’t defend his wife. He can’t defend his state. He can’t defend his country.
A man attacks Ted Cruz’s wife. What does Ted Cruz do? He becomes a sycophant for that man.
His state is ravaged by a winter freeze leaving millions without power and killing hundreds. Ted flees Texas to Cancun where it’s nice and warm and there are beach resorts and daiquiris.
Ted Cruz’s country is attacked. Instead of defending his country, Ted supports the terrorists.
Sometimes Ted pretends he’s tough. Like when Donald Trump attacked his wife, he called Trump a sniveling coward. Trump also accused his father of murder. Later, Ted becomes a surrogate and defender of Trump. We’re not supposed to remember Trump attacked Ted’s family.
When Ted fled Texas for a beach resort in Cancun, he went back to Texas immediately and went into the GOP Photo-Op Recovery…
The Fed has it backwards. Wage increases have not caused prices to rise. Price increases have caused real wages (what wages can actually purchase) to fall.
Prices are increasing at the rate of 6.8% annually but wages are growing only between 3-4%.https://t.co/Vk3TsAjN63
By the way, just four large conglomerates control most meat processing. Half of the recent rise in grocery prices is from meat products — beef, pork, and poultry.
The major draw of the Republican Party is never having to defend horrible behavior.
Complete hypocrisy? Cronyism? Corruption? Treason? Sexual assault? Obvious bad faith?
Not one problem.
Make no mistake: Trump's coup is still ongoing. The attacks on our democracy have only worsened since last year's attack.
The choice now is between saving our democracy or saving the filibuster. Whichever way it goes will be Joe Biden’s most enduring legacy. pic.twitter.com/fHNrKyyUo1
Conservatives want to break public schools and disrespect teachers, 75% of which are women. This is all on brand for their misanthropic fascist policies. They want corporate charter schools to take taxpayer dollars to make crony shareholders rich.
Pay teachers. Fund education. Protect schools.
For all the TERFs out there who keep telling me I don't look like a woman because I have a big forehead…
Most of the anti-trans you don’t look like a woman is based not on any science but on personal preferences of what individual people think is attractive or not attractive to them. I have posted pictures that are easy to find of trans people who you wouldn’t even think are trans because they look like what people have traditionally accepted as that gender. That is why letting young people use puberty blockers is so very important, other wise people are left with an adult body that is not representative what they are. Puberty blockers are not harmful, widely used for many conditions, and complete reversible.
Russia, Belarus, and other CSTO members send ‘peacekeeping forces’ and now we have orders to murder protestors without warning.
Henry Payne loves to make fun of anything having to do with public safety. The cartoonist openly shows contempt for: Public schools, people who attend public schools, teachers, and learning. With cases rising, everyone is home sick anyway. Might as well remote learn. Can only hope all the kids have the means to connect to the remote learning websites. Scottie
is this a conspiracy … or possibly the truth? How deep does thee greed go? Scottie
So incorrect, it is an out right lie that the misleading right wing media gets away with because they know their followers don’t check. How many Americans could find Kazakhstan on a map? I’m putting the over/under at 2%.
NEWS FLASH – The government of Kazakhstan has not “resigned!!” As a matter of fact, Kazak police and armed forces have been joined by Vladdy’s troops with orders to shoot – without warning!! As usual BADwyn gets his “facts” WRONG!!! I’m thinking Al is upset that Trump didn’t have Russia invade the USA to keep Trump in power.
Prices are determined on supply and demand….
U.S. gas price, December 2012: $3.310 / gallon.
U.S. gas price, December 2021: $3.307 / gallon.
Gas prices declined long term during Obama’s second term, but trended upward under Trump, who intervened in the market to protect his supporters (Texas and Russian oil companies). This trend was reinforced by the Biden economic recovery. Apparently Goodwin would prefer to throw 15-20 million Americans out of work than return to the normal gas prices of a decade ago. Because, you know, Biden must be blamed. Scottie
After lawmakers passed a law about how racism was to be taught in Texas schools, Essence Preparatory in San Antonio was sent back to the drawing board.
BY MATT BARNUM, CHALKBEAT
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Akeem Brown, the superintendent of Essence Preparatory Charter School in San Antonio. The school, which focuses on an anti-racist curriculum, has encountered pushback due to anti-CRT legislation in Texas. Credit: Anthony Francis for Chalkbeat
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
A planned San Antonio charter school was on the verge of winning final approval from the Texas Education Agency last August when a final set of requests arrived.
Among them: The school needed to scrub its website and application of a quote by “How to Be an Antiracist” author Ibram X. Kendi.
In documents obtained by Chalkbeat, the agency indicated that the proposed school, Essence Preparatory, had included “statements, authors, or written works” violating a new Texas law that limits how race and slavery can be taught. But that law does not bar specific authors, and the quote does not appear to run afoul of any portion of the law, suggesting that Texas has gone beyond the text of the statute to keep schools from referencing an author whose work is controversial.
“This is more clear evidence of what anti-book-banning advocates have been warning for months now,” said James Tager, research director of PEN America, a group that opposes censorship. “It is going to be used — and, in fact, is being used in cases like this — to ban specific books or authors.”
Essence Prep’s experience sheds new light on how laws opposing “critical race theory” are being used and interpreted behind the scenes. Texas’ enforcement also had practical consequences for the school, costing it both money and time.
“That took almost three months away from us in prepping and setting the stage for the scholars that we will serve,” said founder Akeem Brown. “We’re playing catch-up.”
Brown, who is Black,had long dreamed of starting his own school. While working for a city council member in San Antonio, he saw the area’s anemic college-readiness rate and began talking to parents and students about what they wanted to see in a school.
“He spoke about empowering people through knowing their race and their lineage,” said Dre Daniels, a parent who met Brown at the barbershop where Daniels cuts hair. “When the parents and the school can be on the same level, the learning never stops.”
In early 2021, Brown submitted a nearly 500-page application to the state, promising high academic standards, culturally responsive teaching, and a focus on learning about public policy. Included in the application was this quote from Kendi: “The opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is antiracist.”
The plan won high marks from the Texas Education Agency, which recommended the school be granted a charter.
By June, when the Essence Prep leaders appeared before the State Board of Education for a final approval, the state had been consumed by a debate about critical race theory. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had just signed a bill limiting discussions of race; he later approved a slightly revised statute, which is now state law.
Under that law, schools cannot award course credit for “political activism” or work for organizations focused on public policy advocacy. They also cannot teach that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States.”
“We are compelled to offer a culturally competent curriculum,” Brown told the state board members in June. “But I do want you to know that we will serve our students following the law of the state of Texas.”
Two days later, the board voted 11-3 to approve the charter.
Brown believed then that he could start focusing on making the school a reality. “When I walked out of that building to head back to San Antonio, that’s all I kept thinking in the car — that that part of the process was over,” he said.
It wasn’t. Days after the school was approved, the chief of staff for state Rep. Steve Toth emailed TEA Commissioner Mike Morath and his staff a draft of an op-ed sharply criticizing the agency’s approval of Essence Prep. Toth spearheaded the state’s first anti-critical race theory law, which he has said was prompted by parent concerns that curriculum choices were making white students feel guilty because of their race.
“Unlike other charter schools who focus solely on academics, Essence Prep’s goal is to promote Critical Race Theory and community activism,” wrote Toth in the op-ed, which was never published but was obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.
After changes to its website and charter application, Essence Prep was granted its charter in October 2021 and plans to open in August 2022. Credit: Anthony Francis for Chalkbeat
“Promoting ‘antiracism’ in the classroom would mean teaching that the system of government in Texas, designed to protect economic freedom, is racist,” Toth continued, noting that Essence Prep’s website quoted Kendi. “Instead of stopping critical race theory, the Texas Education Agency furthered it.”
Toth’s office did not make him available for an interview or answer questions about his involvement.
Soon, concern about the Kendi quote made its way to Essence Prep. In August, Brown received an email from a TEA official saying the school needed to make a series of changes in order to receive its final charter approval.
The website and application would have to remove certain “statements, authors, or written works.” That was apparently a reference to Kendi, as TEA cited a page in the application that quoted him and no other authors. Essence Prep would also have to define the word “anti-racist” on its website and clarify sections of its application that emphasized community action and engagement in public policy.
A spokesperson for TEA did not make Morath available for an interview or answer detailed questions about the handling of Essence Prep’s application.
“During the annual application process, TEA reviews all charter applications for alignment with state and federal laws,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Any conflicts between the applications and law are required to be remedied.”
Brown says he doesn’t believe that the school’s citation of Kendi violated the statute. “I just think it offended those supporters of the law,” he said.
But Essence Prep ultimately removed all references to anti-racism from its website and application. The school was granted a charter in October and plans to open its doors in August 2022.
Publicly, TEA has shared little about how it is enforcing and interpreting the new law. In November, it released a document that quoted from the law but did not address some of its ambiguous aspects, like what it means to teach controversial topics “objectively.” Some educators in Texas and elsewhere have acknowledged self-censoring for fear of violating the statutes that have cropped up across the country.
In this case, by referring to “authors or written works in violation” of the law in its letter to Essence Prep, TEA appears to be suggesting that certain writers are out of bounds in the state’s public schools. The current law bars schools from “requir[ing] an understanding of the 1619 Project,” but otherwise does not single out authors or texts.
Joshua Weishart, an education law professor at the University of West Virginia, said Texas had overstepped. “TEA lacks a statutory basis for instructing Essence charter school to remove the quote in their application,” he said.
Tager of PEN described TEA’s move as striking. “This is a state body saying our interpretation of the bill means you cannot refer to specific authors when developing your educational vision,” he said. Schools could reasonably interpret this to mean that Kendi’s work is barred from curriculum too, Tager said.
For his part, Brown says he believes TEA required these changes to deflect political pressure and allow the school to open. “I don’t blame the good people of TEA,” he said. “The problem was the political climate.”
Still, Brown said, the delay meant that a bond deal to finance a permanent building fell through because the school lacked an approved charter. Essence Prep is still finalizing a bond and now expects to pay a higher interest rate. The school also racked up thousands of dollars in extra legal fees, according to a bill shared with Chalkbeat.
But the school is moving forward, and some parents have expressed continued support.
Alshanic Bledsoe, a home health nurse in San Antonio, is eager to send her 5-year-old daughter to Essence Prep once it opens. “Racism is definitely something that’s learned,” she said. “So anti-racism is something that has to be learned. It has to be taught.”
Despite what Republicans say, what happened on January 6, 2021 was a terrorist attack on our nation. It was an insurrection. It was an attempt to destroy our democracy. It was an attempt to overturn an election they lost. It was a coup attempt committed by white nationalists. It was an effort to install Donald Trump as a fascist dictator. One year later, Republicans are mocking the remembrance.
GOP strategist Karl Rove said Republicans need to display their patriotism by offering “no absolution for those who planned, encouraged and aided the attempt to overthrow our democracy.” Unfortunately, Karl…Republicans aren’t patriots anymore. Only two Republicans marked the occasion in the House chamber yesterday, Liz Cheney and her father, former vice-president Dick Cheney. While Rove is one corner calling out his party to reject terrorists, people like Tucker Carlson are making excuses for them.
Don’t I wish. How I feel after going back and forth on right wing media. Scottie
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Rich people have every advantage given to them. If not given, they just avoid the rules.
This is no way to judge others who don’t have all those advantages and shameless greed.
Wanting your tax dollars to pay for your needs and the needs of your community is normal.
Don’t let the rich and spoiled fool you into thinking this is greedy. Their opinions are shit.
Their view is simple: Republican Presidents have unfettered power, Democratic Presidents have no power. See the eviction moratorium, which suddenly became illegal after Biden took office, and "Remain in Mexico," a discretionary Trump policy that they forced Biden to maintain. https://t.co/aUXuEYSx1D
Again, it's key to understand that formal instruments of power are used to the same end as informal intimidation. Bogus "election audits" are used to threaten election officials. In WI, a former Judge who declared the election was stolen is threatening to jail election officials. pic.twitter.com/nwg8Fqf7MC
I've been studying election administration on and off for almost two decades. The concerted attack we are seeing now on local election officials is new. 2/ pic.twitter.com/hib9pyHivq
The mob literally stabbed cops with Trump flags. Tried to murder Pence.
The Big Lie was made by morons for morons.
No surprise conservatives could not stop said morons from completely taking over the GOP.
This is where we are. Republicans give no respect, so they deserve no respect.
Just goes to show ‘law and order’ and BlueLivesMatter was always bad faith. A con
The GOP sure is pissed about Biden “politicizing” their attempt to destroy the Republic as we know it in an effort to placate their bloated orange Führer
Funny story. Mr. I am so important I don’t have to follow the vaccine rules above was given an OK by the event organizers to attend with out being vaccinated which was required by all other participants. How ever when he got to Australia the country said nope. No vaccine you quarantine as they have a strict vaccine to enter policy. They wouldn’t bend it for Mr. thinks he is more important than the rules. Last I knew he had been ordered to leave, but this morning I read he is bitching about the conditions at his quarantine quarters. Still I like the comeuppance. Scottie
The failure of the Biden admin to 1) anticipate the need for rapid tests and 2) procure them and make them freely available is their single biggest Covid screw up. https://t.co/4gCnu76run
The unvaccinated would rather stay on the Titanic. Why would they ever hurt the ego of the ship? Why would they get in a lifeboat if they don’t know where it was made? [Even though they had been using lifeboats their entire life]
Conservatives with Covid trying to eliminate preventative Covid policy
I can’t think of a more apt image to describe the climate situation than a gas powered leaf blower being used to clear snow from the sidewalk. pic.twitter.com/qneXDrFcqT
Such woke, which is a right wing word for being sensible, to not use state resources to ruin the lives of the poor and POC. Things that are crimes because of history and tradition like cannabis criminal laws used to arrest and destroy the lives of mostly black people. The DA’s are simply not prosecuting the breaking of laws on the books for what is legal in more and more places. Think of the laws still on the books in many right wing states like anti-sodomy laws that even though they could apply to both opposite gender sex and same gender sex was used to target gay people. Those laws are still on the books despite being unenforceable so DA’s wouldn’t prosecute anyone for breaking them. This is what the right is so angry about and trying to use to get their cut members enraged. Scottie
Bragg memo in. The Manhattan DA will no longer prosecute: ▫️selling more than 3 oz of weed ▫️turnstile hopping ▫️trespassing ▫️resisting arrest without an underlying charge for the arrest ▫️prostitution (can seek approval for solicitation) ▫️obscenity ▫️adultery pic.twitter.com/PonoybxqNm
This is what the right wing is so enraged over. I wonder if it is because less black people will be put in jail for things white people are mostly not arrested for? Racism? Scottie
Yes because inflation and Covid are just a problem in the US. Really the pandemic is just in the US. The right wing seems unable to understand the US is not the entire world, that the US is just another country among many. In case these people don’t get it, Biden doesn’t control the entire world and even in the US he is not a dictator, like tRump tried to be. Scottie
So, I guess it’s not okay for teachers to want to work in a situation where they’re unlikely to bring Covid-19 home to their families? Teachers are people also and they have the same needs as everyone else, despite the constant attempts to belittle them. Far too many people including those in government do not see teachers as educators but as child sitters so workers can park their kids with them so they can work to make profit for the businesses and wealthy. Scottie
I have resisted posting this one because the right is so over the top trying to insult this woman. I think she is correct, they are sexually obsessed with her. Yes she has criticized DeathSantis for the Covid polices in Florida. And yes she was in Florida not wearing a mask. Oh my gods and dogs, right? Wrong. She was out side eating and drinking, something that it is accepted that you would have your mask off. Get real people. Even inside she couldn’t eat or drink through the mask. The right is so scared of her, she is really smart and she is a women. That threatens them. Scottie
I saw a meme today pointing out that kids have been displaced… during a war… in the winter… and had to move to a foreign nation… with a new language to learn… and missed two YEARS of any kind of school at all. And come out just fine.
However, it’s not impossible to learn remotely. It’s done all over the world in places where it’s impractical to have school (the Australian Outback, for instance). Stanford University runs a very well respected online high school. Many working people take online classes for college degrees. It’s a question of training, expectations and attitude. Maybe we need to rethink what school is for. Scottie
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Scottie's Playtime 
U.S. gas price, December 2012: $3.310 / gallon.
U.S. gas price, December 2021: $3.307 / gallon.
Gas prices declined long term during Obama’s second term, but trended upward under Trump, who intervened in the market to protect his supporters (Texas and Russian oil companies). This trend was reinforced by the Biden economic recovery. Apparently Goodwin would prefer to throw 15-20 million Americans out of work than return to the normal gas prices of a decade ago. Because, you know, Biden must be blamed. Scottie