I’m very glad to see that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s plan to engage federal, state and local law enforcement to intimidate parents who protest the actions of leftist schools boards is being met with the overwhelming furious backlash it deserves. One commentator said this might be the straw that broke the camel’s back (sorry for triggering any animal lovers) for the Democrats’ dwindling hopes in the midterm elections. This is such an outrageous assault on the most basic rights of all citizens to engage in free speech and protest, and of all parents to have a say in how their children are educated, that the outrage cuts across all political and racial lines.
To be clear: I'm not defending anyone who makes actual physical threats against school board members. But Garland cited no examples of actual threats to justify this. Instead, his statement included vague and overly broad terms such as “harassment” and “intimidation,” which signals that this is really an abuse of power designed to chill free speech. He also offered no justification for literally making a federal case out of these hypothetical threats, which are already covered by laws and police on the local level. The only reasons to federalize this are to assert more control in picking targets and to ramp up the intimidation factor (ironically, Garland is the one who seems to be guilty of attempting to harass and intimidate people.)
Here’s a round-up of just some of the reactions to this Orwellian abuse of power:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted Garland for “weaponizing the DOJ by using the FBI to pursue concerned parents and silence them through intimidation,” adding, “Florida will defend the free speech rights of its citizens and will not allow federal agents to squelch dissent.” His spokeswoman also called it “despicable and un-American,” saying, “Florida law enforcement is perfectly capable of responding to crimes in Florida, and we have never heard the FBI suggest otherwise. However, disagreement is not harassment. Protest is not terrorism, unless it involves rioting, looting, and assault, like some of the left-wing protests of summer 2020.”
Speaking of that, while the DOJ and FBI busy themselves with surveilling Trump voters and intimidating concerned parents, murders took the biggest spike in history in 2020, nearly 30 percent (thanks, all you police-defunding blue state Governors, mayors and city councils!)…
And while the FBI is ignoring that, they’re also doing virtually nothing about actual violent terrorists and anarchists like Antifa, as long as they’re on the left.
Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2021/10/a-furious-backlash-to-biden-garland-plan
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