New York Post

Merrick at war with America

- Miranda Devine mdevine@nypost.com

Only a fool pokes a mama bear, but that’s Merrick Garland for you.

The attorney general thought to be such a moderate that 20 Republican­s confirmed his nomination turns out to be a radical ideologue hellbent on targeting President Biden’s political foes.

He is injecting himself into the front lines of every culture war, from pregnant “people” to school board meetings.

But Garland’s ominous memo last week directing the FBI to investigat­e parents as domestic terror threats was a big mistake. He cited no evidence for what he claims is a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidati­on, and threats of violence” against school boards.

His memo was a shocking abuse of his office on behalf of left-wing activists who have been using schools as brainwashi­ng factories for future social justice warriors. It was designed to intimidate parents and stop them advocating for their children.

For all his awesome power, Garland has met a force greater than his weaponized Department of Justice: the love of parents for their children.

“Nobody gets between a mama bear and her cub,” says Asra Nomani, a mom and the vice president of investigat­ions and strategy at Parents Defending Education.

“We are not intimidate­d or afraid . . . You are criminaliz­ing parenting, and you owe the people of America a swift apology.”

It took only five days for Garland to issue his memo after an outfit named the National School Boards Associatio­n wrote an inflammato­ry letter to President Biden accusing parents of a “form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

If only Biden could act so swiftly when it came to real national security threats like the one at the southern border.

The NSBA demanded urgent action against parents by the DOJ, the FBI, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, and suggested utilizing the “PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism.”

The letter cited cases including one man arrested in Illinois for “aggravated battery and disorderly conduct” during a school board meeting, someone in Michigan who “yelled a Nazi salute in protest to masking requiremen­ts,” some trespassin­g, shouting and prank calls.

Of course, violence or threats are always wrong, but in the few isolated instances of criminal behavior cited, local law enforcemen­t effectivel­y did their job.

There is no reason to deploy the heavy hand of federal law en forcement, other than to try to frighten parents into shutting up.

In any case the NSBA is not an organizati­on which can be taken seriously. It is not impartial, but a left-wing activist outfit, which even has embraced someone accused of actual domestic terrorism, as Newsweek points out. In 2019, the NSBA invited as keynote speaker to its annual conference the former black militant communist Angela Davis, who once was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list over her alleged involvemen­t in the Black Panther murder of a judge.

The NSBA’s letter cites as evidence of the urgent threat posed by parents a flimsy report by an activist nonprofit which grandly calls itself the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. The report cites former President Donald Trump as a bogeyman in its first line and demonizes as racist legislatio­n in states such as Florida which was brought in after last summer’s violent riots.

In other words, one left-wing activist group citing another leftwing activist group is proof enough for the president to instruct his attorney general to instruct the FBI to criminaliz­e parents trying to stop left-wing activists from hijacking their children’s education.

Parents have every right to tell school boards what their children should be taught and every right to be upset when they are ignored.

That’s the one positive thing to have come out of remote learning: Parents are now more aware of the shenanigan­s in the classroom.

We have heard American moms at school board meetings eloquently reject the perversion­s being forced on their children under the banner of “equity” and “tolerance.” They reject hateful racism disguised as “anti-racism” which divides their children into oppressors and victims.

They reject gender ideology which teaches their children there is no such thing as a boy or a girl.

They reject racial quotas designed to exclude Asian students and unscientif­ic pandemic paranoia which has seen teacher unions keep schools closed and demand children be masked and vaccinated, regardless of their well-being.

Time and again we have seen arrogant school board members turn off microphone­s, shut down meetings and then, behind closed doors, ridicule these parents.

So now the heavy hand of the DOJ has been deployed to silence them.

Good luck with that. The mama bears aren’t shutting up.

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