A Texas teacher has been charged with child endangerment after she allegedly placed her COVID-19-positive son in the trunk of her car, KPRC 2 Houston reported.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that the teacher, Sarah Beam, was charged after her son was found in the trunk of her car while they were at a COVID-19 testing site run by a Texas school district, the news outlet reported.
She allegedly placed her son in the trunk of her car to avoid being exposed to the teen, who she told authorities had COVID-19. She allegedly told officials that the two were there to do additional testing for her son.
Officials first became aware of the incident after a noise coming from the trunk was heard by a witness, and the trunk was later unhatched by the Texas teacher, KPRC 2 Houston reported.
The witness then contacted police after Beam was reportedly told that the teen needed to be removed from the trunk and placed in the back seat, or else she would not receive a COVID-19 test.
The teen later left the trunk and entered the back seat, according to surveillance footage that officials were able to access, the news outlet noted.
The police department for Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District said a warrant for her arrest has been issued, KPRC 2 Houston reported. She is on administrative leave by the school district.
It was not immediately clear if Beam had a lawyer representing her.
The Hill has reached out to the school district, the school district’s police and Harris County District Attorney’s Office for comment.
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.
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
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
COPY LINK
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.”
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
“Child luring incident!” read the warning that appeared last Friday on several Teaneck, New Jersey, social media pages.
“A man in a car pulled up and tried to get a child in around 11 am on 12/31/21,” it said. “You can clearly hear the child say, ‘I do not accept rides from strangers,’ and ‘no’ several times before walking away. Then the driver laughed and said, ‘I will follow you then’. Teaneck police have already been informed and are looking for any information on identifying the child, so please reach out to Teaneck police asap with any information.”
The post was accompanied by footage from a Ring camera, the popular security cameras watching over much of suburban America. It showed a boy walking down a quiet street when a car slows down and someone talks to him.
If you listen very closely—more closely than you would have to listen to hear a worm breathe—perhaps you can make out the boy defying the driver. (“Clearly hear the child” seems to overstate it.) Then someone in the car adds, “We have candy!”
“I said, ‘Don’t put it on the site! I bet you a dollar it’s nothing,'” recalls Keith Kaplan, a Teaneck town councilman who runs the Teaneck Today website in an unofficial capacity. But another one of the site’s administrators, his friend, Deputy Mayor Mark J. Schwartz, pressed publish—and the news went viral.
“Then it was on, like, 10 different Facebook groups within ten minutes,” says Kaplan.
The police got right on it.
But it took a few days for Debra Passner to notice it—and gasp.
“Oh my God, oh my God!” she recalls telling her husband. “Because there was a video of our car and our son!”
The Passners had been at a family celebration with their 14-year-old, who wanted to leave early (as 14-year-olds often do). He started walking home, with his parents’ blessing. Later, when they were driving home themselves, they saw him on the street and slowed down to offer him a ride.
“My son, being a wiseass, says, ‘I don’t take rides from strangers,'” Debra Passner recalls. So she leaned over and called out, “Don’t you like candy? We have candy!”
When their son shook his head, his father said, “Okay, then I’ll follow you.” But moments later, they drove on.
Once the Passners saw this online, they immediately called the police. “You could hear they were trying not to laugh,” says Debra Passner. The Passners also posted under the video that this was their child, and no one should worry.
The police paid a visit, were satisfied with the Passners’ story, and issued a press release stating: “Detectives identified the child and the suspects in the vehicle and determined that the child and the individuals in the vehicle were family members and no attempted luring had occurred.”
This got shared online as well. “But then of course there’s all the better-safe-than-sorry comments,” says Kaplan, who recalled two similar times his town erupted in fear, only to learn nothing nefarious was going on.
Once was when some men in a van spoke to a child. They were out of town painters who couldn’t find an address. Another time a woman gave a child a note. Kaplan can’t recall the details, but it too was nothing.
Why was he so sure that this incident would turn out to be something mundane?
“Because experience tells me it’s not the best use of people’s time to go up and down streets with people standing on them if you want to find children to abduct,” he says. “If it were, I would likely have offloaded one or two of mine.”
I had a lot of fun putting this one together today. Lots of topics and discussions with right wing cult members on right wing media cartoon sites. Even with the 5 day and growing plumbing problem disaster. Enjoy. Scottie
Labor value is stolen from workers and given to shareholders. Their record profits is your misery.
Corporations are private tyrannies. They expect your total subordination.
Workers must unite and demand better conditions and wages.
wait a second I was told there were labor shortages and supply chain issues that was causing prices to rise, but now corporations are seeing their biggest profit margins since the 50s? well I'll be darned! https://t.co/PqMlgIGuhC
It’s a special interest group that broadcasts predetermined narratives and coordinates with the Republican Party.
Just a casual reminder that Joe Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes. That's roughly the population of the entire country of Bulgaria.
Btw, you're not the party of the working class if not a single member of your party voted for the expanded Child Tax Credit. pic.twitter.com/jMiKrCnouH
Trump destroys everything he touches. All who touch Trump die. The circular firing squad will continue. All to protect the ego of the most mediocre silver-spooned asshole in history.
People say the Jan 6 insurrection failed. But did it really?
—There have been no consequences for Trump or co-conspirators in Congress —71% of Republicans think Biden’s win was illegitimate —Voter suppression laws are sweeping the US
People need to know just how close this came and how many / who were involved in the prior planning to over throw valid election results because they did not like the will of the people! Scottie
If you’re still criticizing Garland after this speech — where he specifically lays out WHY the “big fish” haven’t been charged yet, I would have to question your motives.
Like I’ve said from the start: DOJ is doing their job, and they won’t stop until it’s done. https://t.co/0iTQhzZfrZ
“What is clear is the effect of protests. Locally-oriented demonstrations significantly reduce the number of Black and Latino deaths by police.” https://t.co/B49UTiZgjB
The media depends on narratives. They know negative news is clickbait. When something does not fit their narrative, something positive, they will refuse to report on the positive.
Just a reminder that Abbott destroyed inventory of their #COVID tests this past summer when sales dwindled. The company thought the tests were worth less than the space to store them 😞https://t.co/ZB2FepNAem
It depends on the environment and the emphasis put on the remote learning. Kids today spends hours online and can recite the minutia of every game they play, every tick tok they see, every music video, movie, and so on. They do learn online. It is just they are learning what they want. School work has to be given that priority and made to keep their interests, just like in schools. If kids are in an environment where they are not comfortable or have connection issues or they are just allowed not to view the lessons then they wont learn. Scottie
Is it any wonder that the number of cases, the number of hospitalizations and the number of Covid-related deaths are all proportionately higher in red states? Which also happen to have lower rates of vaccination… The smart people are taking precautions and abiding by health and safety regulations in order to do their part to help prevent the spread of the pandemic! Scottie
The filibuster rule has been modified many times over the years. In fact, the Senate started out with no filibuster rule at all. Moscow Mitch stole the goal post to pack the courts with unqualified judges and Supreme Court Justices. McConnell had no problem changing the rules so he could stack the judiciary. They had no problem changing the rules to raise the debt ceiling. Now, our democracy hangs on the vanity of one (expletive) Democratic senator. Meanwhile, where’s the line between being a “conservative” cartoonist and a supporter of those who would destroy our democracy and Putinize America? There’s a term for a professional whose services are enjoyed by criminals and traitors. Scottie
Most experts are expecting this wave of Covid cases to crest and recede in weeks (as opposed to months like other variants) and that cases will start dropping again within this coming February or so. Also, most of these cases thus far are either mild or asymptomatic (particularly if the patients are fully vaxxed) and the ones who are seriously ill from Covid aren’t vaxxed. Yes, that’s cold comfort to those who are pulling back because of the rise in cases. But this too shall pass. Hopefully, by mid-2022 or so, we can largely move on and then turn our attention to the midterms. I am hopeful that the Democrats can bounce back (if there’s a major turnaround in the case situation) and they can widen their majorities in both houses. History, though, is on the side of the party currently not in the White House gaining seats in both houses in midterms (the last time was 2002). But, even if that happens, the GOP could end up playing the foil to Biden the way earlier GOP majorities played the foil to Clinton and Obama. Both Clinton and Obama saw their parties lose control of the House and Senate in 1994 and 2010. But that didn’t stop either President from winning reelection in 1996 and 2012. Scottie
Please note that in the preamble to the constitution the reasons given to create the new country / constitution. One of those is to promote the public welfare. To take care of the people. That includes the health of the people. The government has the responsibility to create polices and rules that help people live together in a communal society. That is why we have things like traffic rules / laws for example. For society to work there has to be rules, not everyone can do what ever they like regardless of how it effects others. Scottie
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of …
Conservatives want things to JUST STAY THE SAME… and for EVERYONE TO FOLLOW THE (my) RULES… and for (my) AUTHORITY TO BE HONORED. Qublican response to every problem all the time: TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH AND MORE CULTURE WAR! People should be given the opportunity to be what they are. It must be really unpleasant to have to live your life pretending to be something else. Scottie
A pack of KN95s that I got for $15 a month ago is now $50 on Amazon. Right before children are being forced back to school. During the covid peak. While hospitals are overflowing. What’s happening right now is a deeply immoral, profit driven humanitarian crisis.
There is something seriously wrong with an economy that enables the world's richest man to add $28 billion to his wealth in a single day while more than 50% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
A guilty conscience needs no accuser. These racists feel uncomfortable for a reason.
Yes, Noah, this is America. And so is every slave auction, every public lynching, every act of terror, every dispossession of indigenous Americans. All of American history is America. We can engage with that history or continue to cherry pick rosy episodes to make us feel better. https://t.co/ioN3PlbcF6
— Mark K. Gradoni is Striking (@_Snarkaeologist) January 5, 2022
This extremist Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act not once, but twice, in the last decade. We need to do two things: We need to eliminate the filibuster to restore voting rights, and we must rebalance the Supreme Court to defend our democracy.
Idiot anti-vaxxers add a massive burden to our health care system. They don’t care how abusive they are to nurses and doctors.
Funny how they believe in science/medicine when their rhetoric leaves them for dead.
Because so many are denying the virus and the public safety measures are sending their kids to school with the virus the situation changes daily, sometimes hour by hour. The disruption is hard on kids and families. If we are not going to increase the funding to have large areas where the kids can spread out and be together safely then we need to go back to full time remote learning. It can be done and needs to be done. We simply have to pay for caregivers to watch over their children or a group of children spaced out properly. It is all about the priorities the US has. Scottie
End their tax-free status!
Elon Musk will blame his failures on everyone except himself.
This is pure made up misinformation. This is the same party that blamed Biden for not getting more Afghans out when we left. The border is secure, the US is not being over run by brown people. The brown people are already here and they are collectively the majority of the country or will soon be. It is normal and OK. This country has whole towns dying because the people are moving away, but now this is the perfect time to reinvigorate these towns with new people. With work from home and other measures jobs can return. Kids will be stay instead of moving away. People this large country is not full. Scottie
Same response as the cartoon below. Scottie
Don’t you love right wing misinformation propagandist like Rivers? The Republicans are the ones who tried to scramble our Democracy on Jan 6th. The Republicans did the insurrection, the riot at the capital on Jan 6th. They did not succeed in getting their way and keeping power, this time. So they implemented more destruction to democracy by enacting voter restrictions and gerrymandering to keep the other party voters from using their right to vote. How anyone even the right can see the above cartoon and not realize how backwards it is confounds me. Scottie
Same response as below. Scottie
Oh the fickle right. Remember when they did not want testing. In Florida they still don’t. They don’t want anyone to know we have Coronavirus in Florida, so they can get those tourist to come here. They want cruise ships to stop testing and just go with sick people. Florida and those places with Republican governors want the system back to the way it was before Covid so the money flows for them. The wealthy donors are not getting as much profit and they want that. The Governors shut off unemployment to force poor workers to return to virus infected work places at the same time they passed laws giving companies immunity if a worker catch Covid working for them. The point is our lives and the money we would have to pay if hospitalized do not matter to the wealthy Republicans. To the Republican leaders like DeathSantis you are nothing but a clog, a gear to be used and when ground down too much then thrown away. Life doesn’t have to be this way. The people should expect more.
But to the tests and why we are having a shortage I already addressed this. People attended gatherings during the last two holidays. A lot of tests were used at the parties and even a lot more after as people tried to figure out if they were safe at these parties and after. Many found out they were positive when tested requiring more testing. The businesses that want to open at full capacity need tests to do so. They are buying a lot of the supply. Because the suppliers were not prepared for a huge increase it will take them a while to catch up but in the meanwhile they are loving the increased profit. Think of the toilet paper shortage, it was not that toilet paper was not being made, it was that people suddenly started hording car / truck loads of it. Some then tried to price gouge selling it. But Biden never gave a time frame for the tests, only that the government would pay for them and send them out. It is a gimmick anyway, one test is not helpful. Scottie
Complete bullshit and lies. Flat out lies. This is again the right wing attempt to deny reality and try to force the world / the US back to the way it use to be. Give it up, this is the normal now and should be. They really give their viewers deadly misinformation. Scottie
The state of education in this country is past ridiculous. Maybe it would help if administrators listened to the teachers and understood they were concerned about returning to a job where there is little protection for the teacher, and by proxy, the teacher’s family and loved ones. Once again, blame the union for trying to provide living wages and benefits for workers instead of the employers who use and abuse the employees. I’ve known teachers, and more and more of them are leaving the profession because the pay is low, the children do not get engaged, parents are hostile, and they need to teach to Bush the lesser’s no child left behind program, which enriches the pockets of giant test companies. Two of ours are our healthcare and school systems. Before the pandemic there were stories of teachers living in their cars because they were renting their apartment / house so they could make enough money to eat! Once the pandemic hit it got worse. Many schools are now limping along with numbers of teachers, security, food workers, custodians on health leave while they recover from COVID. And there are no substitutes for any of these people. Teachers in some districts are asking that their schools return to remote learning until the “viral tsunami” passes and quarantined staff return. In many places if their needs are not met they will quit. And then who will work in schools?
Whether or not they “like” teachers, they certainly vote for people who enact laws designed to destroy public education for profit. The path they want to tread is exactly the same path they forced the public hospital system down in the 70’s. I think we all know how that turned out. This is exactly the same. Privatize the schools to keep from raising property taxes is EXACTLY THE SAME TACTIC as privatize the hospitals to keep your county taxes low. We’ll wind up spending ten times as much for less. That’s where this road ends. Some of us are old enough to remember public hospitals in remote counties. And we even remember the tactics undertaken to ensure they’d be “unprofitable”.
When she was shot Babbitt was on video crawling through a window she had just helped break out to gain access to a hallway they were not allowed into that had members of congress in it. The right wants to make her a hero and has much in the way they made Rittenhouse a hero. Facts don’t matter to them. Babbitt was judged by the left on what she was doing, and she was an imminent threat of death or serious body injury to the congresspeople. Floyd was not committing a crime at the time he was killed, he was not a threat to anyone at the time he was murdered and what he was being detained for was not a death penalty offense which cops don’t have the authority to carry out. The cases are not equal in any manner. The funny thing it is the right that insists on judging everyone on their past, just like they did the people killed by their new hero Rittenhouse who had no way to know the past of those he killed. Scottie
If I thought for a moment that Ol’ Al was actually interested in resolving the conundrum of how to do best for kids while in the midst of a pandemic, I’d almost like this cartoon. Except for the idiocy of “allowed” a gender identity. Believe me or not, kids know their gender within months of becoming aware of themselves as being part of the family “pack”. They may not… probably won’t… be verbal about it, and they may very well play dress up to see how it works for them; the canonical example being the kid in a tutu and cowboy boots. Well. Anyway, I’m sure that Al isn’t at all interested in that. He’s on a mission to make liberals seem as stupid and wrongheaded as possible, in every way possible, always. Too bad it only works on people who are already convinced of that. 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