It’s amazing to me that there’s no one in the Democrat Party sitting near Attorney General Merrick Garland and telling him to stop attempting to undermine the parents of America by sending federal agents after any who appear at school board meetings and raise eight kinds of hell over their children being taught transgenderism and racism.
Is there no one there to tell him that this is a bad idea? Does he really think this is a fight he’s going to win?
More importantly, is he not aware that this is going to set people against the Democrat party in ways they’ve never seen before?
To catch you up, Garland proposed that Attorney Generals on the state level join with him so that they can crackdown on the “threats” being issued to school board members from angry parents furious over their child’s “education. The reason he needs AG’s on the state level is that without them, he doesn’t have the authority to act against them.
As National Review highlighted, the legal authority to act is limited…because there’s no real threat, so they have to go local to get access:
He proposes that the Justice Department and FBI form a “partnership” with “state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement” in order to address threats to school administrators. Why? Because he knows the Justice Department has no legal authority to investigate parents over their dissent against teachers and school boards. The DOJ would need to piggyback on the police power of state and local law enforcement, in blatant violation of constitutional federalism principles that are supposed to keep Washington out of such matters.
Obviously, with the feds unable to validly prosecute even actual threats of violence at the local level, they have no business monitoring what Garland vaguely refers to as “harassment” and “intimidation.” In a free society committed to free expression, we are expected to put up with most forms of harassment and intimidation, even if they are obnoxious and disturbing, as long as they do not pose an immediate threat of forcible harm. And no type of expression gets a wider constitutional berth than public-policy debate.
Garland is trying to cheese his way into the local political debate and shut it down and allow the left’s most extreme ideas to be taught to our children.
The plan is already falling apart at the seams. According to the Daily Caller, state AG’s are beginning to respond and their message is clear; you can shove your request somewhere shadowy and impolite:
“Biden’s Department of Justice is weaponizing its resources against parents who dare to advocate for their children. This dangerous federal overreach imposes a chilling effect on free speech by criminalizing dissent,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in an Oct. 5 release, adding, “I will always advocate for parents and will continue to push back against unprecedented federal overreach.”
In a letter sent to Garland, Schmitt claimed the attorney general had ordered “the FBI, all U.S. attorneys, and other members of the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute parents as domestic terrorists for daring to advocate for their kids.”
Other GOP attorneys general also took aim at Garland’s memo.
“A threat of physical harm against a public official is a criminal act. It is not part of public discourse,” Ohio attorney General Dave Yost told the Daily Caller News Foundation via a spokeswoman. “It is also not a federal case. Unless there is a conspiracy across state lines, or some such, it is not the federal government’s business, any more than a bar fight—and Merrick Garland knows better.”
It’s likely that AG’s on the state level won’t comply with Garland’s request, even if they are friendly with the Democrat Party.
Garland is playing a dangerous game here. He’s effectively telling us Americans that our children are not ours to raise but theirs. He’s telling us that if we try to even argue the point, he’s going to bring law enforcement down upon us.
While there’s little doubt that the more extreme left will be more than thrilled about Garland’s move, everyone else in America will either react with laughter or anger, but it will mostly result in people pulling the lever for Republicans down the line.
Telling an American they can’t decide what their own children learn is an attack on their children, and no parent is going to take that lightly. Garland may as well have asked that local state officials pass out flyers that urge voters to vote out Democrats.
They’ve certainly become insanely hubristic, but even as they do, their popularity continues to plummet. The midterms are going to be a joy to watch.
