Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist and The Epoch Times Senior Editor-at-Large Roger Simon in-studio to discuss Attorney General Merrick Garland’s war on parents against Critical Race Theory and his familial ties to the curricula’s publishers.
Leahy: We are in studio with us the newest all-star panelist and my very good friend from Los Angeles, California and via Manhattan and Dartmouth, Roger Simon. Roger, you’ve got a piece coming out. Can you give me advance notice about this story in The Epoch Times?
Simon: The title of the piece is, Thank God Merrick Garland Didn’t Become a Member of the Supreme Court.
Leahy: We were talking about this yesterday on the phone, and I agree with that. You told me the title, and I was already forming the idea in my mind. And the person we have to thank for that is…
Simon: Mitch McConnell.
Leahy:Â Mitch McConnell.
Simon: I hate to say because I’m not a fan of Mitch McConnell. (Leahy laughs) And yesterday he did something very wrong with the debt ceiling. But in this one instance, he saved America from a lot of pain.
Leahy: This Garland guy is terrible, terrible. He’s a political apparatus using the power of the federal government to sick the FBI and investigators on regular average, everyday Americans like Williamson County parents who were posting things like Critical Race Theory.
Simon: Who are protesting things like Critical Race Theory in the schools. It’s now becoming a crime to Merrick Garland, who seems like he’s running the KGB and not the Justice Department.
Leahy: Yes. There’s another story about his connection to CRT. I’ll tell you it in about a minute. But I want to hear Chris Butler at The Tennessee Star has been covering Williamson County school board issues. Here’s his first report.
(Chris Butler clip plays)
A Nolensville mother says Williamson County school system official suspended her two children indefinitely because they wouldn’t wear their COVID-19 masks at Mill Creek Middle School.
That mother, Kristin Bennett , cites the work of an industrial hygienist who says masks are ineffective and even cause harm when worn over long periods of time.
Bennett’s children may only return to school if they agree to wear a mask or sign a religious exemption. Williamson County school system spokeswoman Carol Birdsong said Wednesday that she could not discuss the student’s disciplinary issues.
Mask wearing within a school system was optional until another Williamson County family filed a lawsuit citing the Americans with Disabilities Act. Reporting for the Tennessee Star and the Tennessee Star report, this is Chris Butler.
Leahy: So there’s Chris Butler telling us about the authoritarian Williamson County School District using the excuse, by the way of this lunatic federal district judge who said parents can opt-out.
Nothing says individual liberty like a forced mandate from a federal district judge appointed by Barack Obama. I don’t remember if he’s Barack Obama or George W. Bush but what’s the difference these days?
Simon: Not a lot. Not a lot. Here’s the other thing about Williamson County. If you’re out there listening to the show right now and you’re a member of the Chamber of Commerce there, I’m going to give you a big Bronx cheer fellow because, after three years in Nashville, I still remember how to do it.
And here’s the thing. The Chamber of Commerce is bragging about the schools of Williamson County all over the United States of America to get people to move to Williamson County while at the same time, they’re allowing those schools to be destroyed by essentially Communist propaganda. That sounds excessive.
Leahy: I don’t think it is.
Simon: And the fact is that these people at the Chamber of Commerce are functional illiterates. They should read about what they’re actually doing to the children.
This is no idle threat and I’m the senior editor at large of The Epoch Times and have a fairly large written audience across the whole country of people who might want to move to Williamson because they have good schools. I will disabuse them of that notion in print.
Leahy: The reputation has been the best public school system in the state of Tennessee, which is a pretty low bar. Let’s be honest, right?
Simon: Yes, it’s a bar anyway.
Leahy: It’s a bar. But I will say this also that I’ve seen reports that the basics, and we’ll get somebody from Williamson County on to comment on this and they basically say no comment to us all the time because they don’t like us because we report the truth and they want to cover the truth up.
But I don’t think all of the basics are being covered in Williamson County. I think their scores have been declining significantly over the past couple of years because they’re all teaching Critical Race Theory.
They’re saying we don’t teach Critical Race Theory. Except you look at the curriculum, it sure sounds like Critical Race Theory to me.
Simon: If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck as they say.
Leahy: I’ve got something for you. Are you ready? Are you ready? Here we go. The New York Post has a story. You will find this very interesting. Remember Merrick Garland? This is all a political setup.
The National Association of School Boards writes a letter to Garland and says, oh, the school boards are unsafe because they’re being attacked by parents. Well, no evidence.
The guy that wrote that letter is a left-wing political hack who used to work for Governor Robert Wise, the left-wing former Democratic governor of West Virginia. It’s all political setup. This was all planned.
Simon: This is not the great Robert Wise who directed the movie The Sound of Music.
Leahy: A different guy. So anyway, so this is a political setup, and Merrick Garland, a left-wing hack, if ever there was one, the attorney general has now got the Federal Bureau of Investigation going after moms who say you shouldn’t be teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools.
They’re not going after unvetted Afghan refugees. Oh no. They’re not looking for terrorists. They’re not looking for illegal aliens that are murdering people.
Listen to this from The New York Post parents group. Attorney General Garland has a conflict of interest with Facebook and Critical Race Theory. Have you seen this one?
Simon: Yes.
Leahy: Well, let me read it then, so I’m not giving you a surprise here, but it is interesting to me. Attorney General Merrick Garland is under scrutiny after a parent’s group revealed that his daughter is married to the co-founder of an education company funded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that allegedly employs Critical Race Theory in its work according to the report.
The disclosure comes as the attorney general announced on Monday that the FBI will help investigate the accounts of alleged threats against teachers and school board members in response to Critical Race Theory being taught in schools.
His daughter, Rebecca Garland, is married to Xan Tanner, the co-founder of Boston Bay’s Panorama Education, a company that collects social and emotional data from students in grades K-12, Fox News reported.
Simon: By the way, that material is also in my article coming out in The Epoch Times.
Leahy: Ah ha!
Simon: I’m not that slow off the mark. And the name of the company that does this is Panorama.
Leahy: Panorama.
Simon: And it is across the country, but it’s also here in Tennessee and has been used by Penny Schwinn.
Leahy: The commissioner of education, appointed by Bill Lee! The Berkeley graduate.
Simon: Yes. Yeah, well, they’re good Berkeley graduates, by the way, but not her. I mean, people use the name Berkeley as a sort of a curse word, but it’s not. I mean, it’s a gigantic institution and, yes, there’s a lot of wacko stuff going on at Berkeley. But it’s not all that.
Leahy: As Normani, the vice president of investigations, who is a friend of ours at Parents Defending Education. I know them. You got Noah Pollock who is there. No relation to Joel from Breitbart. And Nicki Neely. She’s fantastic.
She opposed the Justice Department’s enforcement actions. She tweeted about the connection. Merrick Garland, she said, has declared a war on parents.
His daughter is married to the co-founder of Panorama Education, which is under fire for its wait for it… multi-million dollar contracts with school boards. Ahhh. He’s got to recuse himself from this.
Simon: It’s part of Woke, Inc. actually. There is money being made. My favorite quote from H.L. Meklkin is “when somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”
Leahy: It’s totally about the money.
Simon: So there are people out there making money off of Critical Race Theory, which is essentially a racist theory.
Leahy: They’re totally racist. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News.
Simon: I’m shocked.
Leahy: I’m shocked. I’m shocked. The only relationship is from Facebook. The Facebook or the Panorama people said the only relationship between Panorama Education and Attorney General Merrick Garland is that Panorama’s co-founder Xan Tanner is Attorney General Garland’s son-in-law. That’s a conflict of interest right there.
Simon: Absolutely.
Leahy: Recuse yourself! Oh, no, he won’t do that. This is the problem. Rule of law. Rules for thee, not for me.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
