{"id":2005,"date":"2017-02-09T07:59:52","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T13:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2017-02-09T07:59:52","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T13:59:52","slug":"virginia-teachers-political-rant-republicans-caught-tape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/02\/virginia-teachers-political-rant-republicans-caught-tape\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia teacher\u2019s political rant against Republicans caught on tape"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This is what is happening in America\u2019s high schools:<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\nVia Instapundit, the <a href=\"http:\/\/committedconservative.com\/2017\/02\/08\/caught-tape-va-teachers-political-rant\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Committed Conservative<\/a> explains what\u2019s going on:<\/p>\n<blockquote>The students in this class, to my understanding, were primarily freshman. For those of us who have High School kids, we certainly understand how impressionable they can be. Notice, this teacher begins discussing the importance of \u201cchecks and balances\u201d in our country. No one disputes that. She then says that \u201cthe Republicans, which are in the majority in the Senate, the House \u2026 and everything else, have decided to do what they want.\u201d By this she infers that the GOP has upset the checks and balances she says are in the Constitution. She then claims that while the committees, like \u201cclubs\u201d have rules, the Republicans decided on that day to \u201csuspend the rules and do what they want.\u201d Of course, the key to her view of this GOP malfeasance is when she explains to the students that republicans can do this because the \u201cdemocrats weren\u2019t there today.\u201d<\/p>\nNowhere in this description of events does she give her students context about the committee, its rules, or far more importantly, why the democrats were not there that day. In fact, if you listen to the tape closely, she almost misspeaks by telling the truth that the democrats, in political protest, refusing to attend the committee hearing to prevent a vote. Instead, she tells these 13, 14, and 15 year-olds that the democrats just weren\u2019t there, and so the republicans changed the rules on them, as if they waited until they went to lunch to steal their Twinkies.<\/p>\nAs this teacher describes our political process, the republicans said, \u201clet\u2019s just throw out the rules and do what we want.\u201d She later tells the students, \u201cthat\u2019s exactly what they did.\u201d She then lets the kids know she gets her description from \u201creading the news \u2026 the real news.\u201d She doesn\u2019t tell the students what the real news source is, nor does she explain her statement about real news versus fake or false news. Her very powerful statement to those kids is unmistakable. Her message was harsh. I am giving you the news \u2026 from a trusted source and through a trusted source. I am telling you, the republicans unfairly changed the rules today when the democrats were away to do what they want and to eliminate our system of checks and balances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nBy the way, the students in this class were mostly freshmen:<\/p>\n<blockquote>In the situation described above, the teacher leaves out the critical fact.\u00a0 How does she not tell these kids that the minority refused to participate in the hearing.\u00a0 The minority did not have the votes to stop the nominee, and it ran out of rules and procedures for delaying the vote.\u00a0 Accordingly, without the votes to stop the cabinet appointment, the democratic senators on that committee and others decided not to show up.\u00a0 They did this to try to stop the vote and deny the President a cabinet by effectively shutting down the committee work.\u00a0\u00a0 The rule that was changed was the rule requiring a certain number of Senators on the committee to be present in order to have a quorum and call a vote.\u00a0 Without that change, the minority would have abused the rules and denied the vote.\u00a0 Not a single slice of this information was shared with the young students in this class.<\/p>\nLikewise, this teacher might have noted that of the prior four presidents, they all had most of their cabinet set within 14 days of Inauguration. Bush 41 had 9 of 14.\u00a0 Clinton had 13 of 14.\u00a0 Bush 43 had 13 of 14, and Mr. Obama had 12 of 15 nominees approved.\u00a0 After 18 days, with an all GOP majority, Mr. Trump still didn\u2019t have 11 of his 15 cabinet members.<\/p>\nMind you, undoubtedly many kids in this class have parents who are republicans, or the kids may themselves identify with the republican party.\u00a0 The teacher essentially tried to paint them as part of a group that cheated the democratic Senators, changed the rules, and effectively destroyed the checks and balances this teacher described to her class.<\/p>\nWhen I first heard the tape, I thought perhaps that the teacher was simply ignorant or misinformed. \u00a0\u00a0That is, so incredulous was I that it occurred to me that this person may not fully understand any of this process, in which case she is at fault for setting out an example without sufficient knowledge.\u00a0 However, after my second, third, and 20th<\/sup> listen, it was obvious from the tone, the intentional slip up in the description, and the way the entire issue was framed that this was pure, political, misinformation.\u00a0 This teacher meant to misinform students and to denigrate any student who would align with people who would cheat our checks and balances.<\/p>\nI was not present in this room when the class continued.\u00a0 Is it possible she cleared all this up afterwards?\u00a0 Sure, but I don\u2019t think so because of the way she misrepresented the facts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIs this what America\u2019s high schools have become? \u00a0When you sent your kids to school, do you expect them to be actually taught wrong things? \u00a0Do you expect the teachers to malign the values you have instilled in your own children?<\/p>\nWe can\u2019t let this continue to happen in America.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is this what America’s high schools have become?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2673,"featured_media":2006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Virginia teacher\u2019s political rant against Republicans caught on tape<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is this what America's high schools have become?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/02\/virginia-teachers-political-rant-republicans-caught-tape\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Virginia teacher\u2019s 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