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April 9, 2022April 24, 2022

Nikole Hannah-Jones Says CRT Controversy Boils Down To A Choice Between Education Vs Indoctrination

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Nikole Hannah-Jones with host Chris Wallace on CNN Plus’ “Who’s Talking To Chris” Show

Nikole Hannah-Jone appeared on CNN Plus’ “Who’s Talking To Chris” show, for an extensive interview that covered her award-winning 1619 Project and the Critical Race Theory(CRT), both of which have made her enemy #1 for right wing culture warriors. This was a very interesting, and quite informative interview, which Yours Truly strongly suggests that you watch in its entirety for proper context.

However, if for whatever reason you are unable to watch the entire interview because you are too busy watching reruns of, idk, “Keeping Up w/The Kardashians” or what have you, just cut to the chase and go to the 12:50 mark, where host Chris Wallace asks Nikole to explain the difference between her 1619 Project and CRT. Nikole’s response not only answers the question as to the distinction between the two, but also very importantly, gets to the heart of the entire CRT “controversy”, which in a nutshell, boils down to a choice between education v indoctrination. If you miss everything else in this extensive interview, don’t miss this part.

Nikole Hannah-Jones on the differences between her 1619 Project and CRT(video at 12:50 onwards): “There are not related. I have read Critical Race Theory(CRT), and I do believe in many of the arguments of CRT which is simply saying, 60 years after the end of legal discrimination, after we outlawed discrimination by law, why do we still see so much inequality in our society? The 1619 Project is journalism that looks at history, and uses history to explain our society. They aren’t the same thing, but as we know, they have become code. CRT has become code for anti-racist teaching, for a desire to say we shouldn’t talk about this past. If you look at the[GOP] bills Chris, you’ll see they are talking about a patriotic education, or don’t teach divisive concepts. I don’t know about you, but if this were happening in China, and we were seeing laws prohibiting the teaching the bad parts of China’s history because it made people feel bad, or the Chinese government was dictating that you had to teach a patriotic, undivisive history, we would know that that was authoritarianism, but somehow because it’s in America, we are okay with that. I don’t send my child to school to get a patriotic history that never makes her feel uncomfortable. I want her to be challenged, I want her to be exposed to ideas that are outside her comfort zone. That’s how someone actually gets an education, and that’s the opposite of indoctrination. To be challenged is the opposite of indoctrination.”

Bottom line folks, as Nikole succinctly lays it out, the entire CRT debate boils down to whether we want to educate our children, or indoctrinate them, and it appears TrumpGOP, which is supposedly opposed to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and other authoritarian regimes around the world because “they indoctrinate their masses”, has chosen their exact style of indoctrination when it comes to CRT. It’s really that simple!!

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You may reach the author via email at administrator@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com

May 20, 2021June 16, 2021

Trump-Tied Dark Money Group Brags About Drafting Voter Suppression Laws

*Heritage Action’s Executive Director Jessica Anderson addressing a group meeting*

A leaked video obtained by Mother Jones, shows the shocking extent to which a Trump-tied dark money group, Heritage Action For America, is secretly engineering the recent spate of voter suppression laws in Republican-led states. This bombshell revelation, even though not quite surprising, should be a call to action for voting rights activists nationwide, and a reminder to Congressional Democrats, of the dire need for passage of HR1-For The People Act.

In the leaked video, Jessica Anderson, a former Trump administration official and now Executive Director of Heritage Action For America, can be heard talking to a group of donors in Tucson Arizona in late April, and admitting to conduct that leaves absolutely no doubt to any reasonable person, that her group is engineering the voter suppression laws currently springing up in Republican states across the country. She is essentially bragging to the donors about how Heritage Action is drafting voter suppression laws currently being enacted by Republican-led state legislatures.

She can be heard telling the donors, “Iowa is the first state we[Heritage Action] got to work in, and we did it quickly, and we did it quietly. Honestly, nobody noticed.”(see video at 1:05). No reasonable person presented with Jessica Anderson’s “nobody noticed” remarks, can ever conclude that Heritage Action went into Iowa with a mission other than sneaking through a voter suppression law.

Other alarming statements by Jessica Anderson to the GOP donors include;

“At the end of the day, the bill that Governor[Brian] Kemp signed, and the Georgia legislature marshalled through had eight key provisions that Heritage recommended.” (see video at 1:11)

“We are working with these state legislators to make sure they have all of the information they need to draft the bills. In some cases we actually draft them for them, or we have a sentinel on our behalf, give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from the bottom up, type of vibe.” (see video at 1:32). This is by far, the most damning part of Jessica Anderson’s presentation. She basically admits that Heritage Action is writing voter suppression laws for the states, and faking their grassroots appeal.

It also bears pointing out that this same Trump-tied dark money group, is also in the forefront of lobbying Congressional Republicans into blocking the HR1-For The People Act, currently being pushed by Congressional Democrats, which among other things, seeks to vastly expand voting rights for all Americans.

Bottom line folks, it appears Heritage Action is the vehicle Trump Republicans are using to push their voter suppression laws targeting minority voters. Voting rights activists in Texas and other emerging purple states, where the voting rights battle is already red hot, must come up with effective strategies to confront Heritage Action and other such right wing anti-democracy groups. Yours Truly is not an attorney, but is reasonable enough to know that some of the statements Jessica Anderson made to the GOP donors, can be very useful in federal lawsuits against these Republican voter suppression laws.

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June 12, 2020June 4, 2021

Handy List Of Iowa GOP State Senators Mad About Record Voter Participation Due To Mail-In Voting

Iowa witnessed record voter participation in its June 3rd primary elections as a result of a provision that allowed the secretary of state to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters due to the covid-19 pandemic. The noble goal of this provision was to save Iowa voters from going into crowded polling centers which would have increased their chances of contracting the virus. Given the ease and convenience of voting by mail, Iowans voted in record numbers, much to the delight of democracy lovers. Well, it turns out republicans were not happy with the record voter participation. They quickly moved in the Iowa state legislature to prevent universal voting by mail in the November elections–a clear cut effort at voter suppression.

On 6/10/2020 a bill that prohibits Iowa’s secretary of state from mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters for the November general elections passed the Iowa state senate by a vote of 30-19. Needless to say, all the 30 state senators who voted for this voter suppression bill were republicans. Because this is one of the most brazen acts of official voter suppression to date, we have no choice but to name and shame these 30 GOP state senators using our famous “handy list”.

Here’s a handy list of the 30 shameful Iowa GOP state senators who are mad that mail-in voting allowed record voter participation in the June primary elections, and are on a mission to prevent that from happening again this November.

Bottom line folks, there’s no longer any doubt that the unpopular policies of the republican party are increasingly turning it into a marginal/regional party. Republican party leaders have long realized that their only chance of clinging to power is to make sure as few people as possible vote, especially minorities who traditionally vote against them. Where, as here, we witness such a brazen attempt at voter suppression by elected officials, we have no otherwise but to loudly call them out.

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September 9, 2019September 9, 2019

Joni Ernst Wants To SECRETLY Gut Social Security

At a recent town hall Sen Joni Ernst (R-IA) told attendees that Congress needs to meet “behind closed doors” to address social security. It is no secret that Republicans have long harbored plans to gut the popular social program over concerns that it is ballooning the federal deficit. It is Sen Ernst’s suggestion however that Congress needs to hold deliberations in secret that caught many people’s attention. She went on to say that if discussions are held in public, people will accuse her of “throwing grandma off the cliff” which in itself is a dead giveaway that she prefers cuts to social security, but she doesn’t want the voters to know–certainly not as she heads for reelection in 2020.

We saw similar tactics from Republicans during the 2018 midterms where privately they advocated for the entire scrapping of Obamacare but publicly maintained that they favored Obamacare’s preexisting conditions provisions. This is at best voter deception by Republicans because they are essentially asking people to vote for them first then tell them what their policy proposals are afterwards. It is supposed to be the other way around–stating what your policy proposals are and then letting voters decide whether they like them or not.

Given Sen Ernst’s statement on social security one can only assume that she wants cuts to the social program, but she intends to let Iowa voters know what specific cuts she wants only after they reelect her in 2020–a total travesty.

Bottom line folks, Democrats must do a better job of holding Republican feet to the fire. There are myriad issues where voters totally agree with Democrats but Democrats don’t aggressively prosecute their cases to the electorate. This issue about social security cuts is a prime example. Whoever Joni Ernst’s Democratic challenger is needs to go out there and tell voters in no uncertain terms that Sen Ernst intends to cut their social security but is afraid to tell them to their faces. This video of her saying exactly that would make it really hard for Sen Ernst to defend herself. If by some miracle Sen Ernst wiggles her way out of these comments, then the prospective Democrat should pull out this other video by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying the same thing. Boom–Dem U.S. Senate seat from Iowa!!

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