US Attorney General Merrick Garland is finally stepping in to deal with the hundreds of threats made by screaming Trump cultists against school board members, educators, and administrators over "critical race theory".
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday directed federal authorities to hold strategy sessions in the next 30 days with law enforcement to address the increasing threats targeting school board members, teachers and other employees in the nation’s public schools.
In a memorandum, Garland said there has been “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools.”
To address the rising problem, Garland said the FBI would work with U.S. attorneys and federal, state, local, territorial and tribal authorities in each district to develop strategies against the threats.
“While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” he said.
The action is in response to an urgent request last week from the National School Boards Association. The group, which represents school board members around the country, asked President Joe Biden for federal assistance to investigate and stop threats made over policies including mask mandates, likening the vitriol to a form of domestic terrorism.
The association asked for the federal government to investigate cases where threats or violence could be handled as violations of federal laws protecting civil rights. It also asked for the Justice Department, FBI, Homeland Security and Secret Service to help monitor threat levels and assess risks to students, educators, board members and school buildings.
The group’s letter documented more than 20 instances of threats, harassment, disruption, and acts of intimidation in California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio and other states. It cited the September arrest of an Illinois man for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct for allegedly striking a school official at a meeting. In Michigan, a meeting was disrupted when a man performed a Nazi salute to protest masking.
“We are coming after you,” a letter mailed to an Ohio school board member said, according to the group. “You are forcing them to wear mask — for no reason in this world other than control. And for that you will pay dearly.” It called the member “a filthy traitor.”
I'll give you one guess as to how the Right-wing Noise Machine is covering this:
The permanent victimization mindset of the right has been awaiting the Biden administration's entrance into the fray with feverish glee. They know now that they can sell Garland protecting school board members and teachers from threats as "Biden's Gestapo Targets Concerned White Parents" and that will be the rage mindset well into 2022 election season.
There's a reason fascists incite violence from the citizenry and then call it a noble revolution of the people. It's worked for decades in countries around the world, countries that are now ruled by authoritarian monsters of various degrees, but they all have one thing in common: they style themselves as a necessary evil to prevent "the enemy" from gaining power.
January 6th has now become hundreds of smaller fires burning in every school board in America. The fight for institutional white supremacy rages around the country, the granddaughters and grandsons of those who lynched Black folk in the South to stop school integration 70 years ago and busing 40 years ago are the ones leading that charge today.
This was always the plan.
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