Fox News Angry About DOJ Investigating Astroturfed School Protests

By Karoli Kuns — October 5, 2021

Fox News' Martha MacCallum and 2024 hopeful Josh Hawley are very upset about the National School Board Association's appeal to DOJ for assistance with domestic terrorism stemming from the organized mayhem of mainstream Republicans looking to destroy public education and the DOJ's response agreeing to investigate.

After playing clips depicting the parents screaming about "critical race theory" as just "angry and concerned parents," Smith and MacCallum put their little blonde heads together to light up their audience with some adrenaline and fury.

Martha: It does remind you what happened with the IRS and certain groups speaking out and suddenly were the subject of audits. In this country you have to be able to believe, profess, argue in favor of whatever perspective you argue in favor of. We have laws about illegal behavior. When it crosses that line, it crosses that line. When it doesn't, no matter whether you're antifa or a parent who wants to speak your mind at a school board, this is the United States of America. You cannot be intimidated and your thoughts cannot be chilled by people who are trying to say, you might want to think twice about showing up at that school board meeting. You might end up on a list. that's what this is.

Let's unpack that crap a little, shall we? First of all, the IRS absolutely should have investigated and stripped those organizations of their tax-exempt status. There is no question about that. And it is those tax-exempt organizations who are now organizing against school boards and stirring up racist parents over the prospect that their little darlings may indeed learn that there is -- GASP -- racism in this country. All the little white children learning that their parents are bigots might be a terrible thing, if it actually happened. But no, it is not actually happening.

This is Fox News' theme o'the day Tuesday, the idea that these righteously angry parents are just expressing themselves and "speaking their mind." They even have a long article about it on the Fox News website!!! In the long article, they quote "concerned parents"!

The first quote comes from Asra Nomani, who they admit is the vice president of investigations and strategy at Parents Defending Education, a group created to attack public education. Massachusetts professor Maurice Cunningham writes:

In order to test the grassroots claim I examined the local organizations PDE claims at its IndoctriNation (get it?) map. Wow—it looks like PDE is blanketing the nation. But it’s fake. Two organizations dominate the “grassroots” network: state affiliates of No Left Turn in Education and Moms For Liberty. Mercedes Schneider showed that Parents Defending Education has yet to attain non-profit status from the IRS. Well, neither has No Left Turn in Education or Moms For Liberty. Both are put up jobs to populate PDE’s map and give the appearance of local support. PDE provides links to the Facebook or websites of their “members” so we can see that most of these groups were formed in March or February 2021, rarely earlier. It’s a set up.

Then we get to "parents" Nicole Solas, who is depicted as "a mom who publicly challenged her school board," and Aliscia Andrews, depicted as just a random "parent and activist."

Oh. Solas is a little more than a mom who challenged her school board. She's being sued by the NEA because she spammed the board with hundreds of public records requests to prove they're secretly indoctrinating children with critical race theory. As for Aliscia Andrews, she is a failed Republican candidate for Congress in Virginia.

Any of us who lived through the Tea Party Summer of 2009 know that these efforts are nothing more than AstroTurfed Republican efforts to keep their base stirred up and angry about....nothing. And they ARE stirred up. When Martha MacCallum talks about "lines to cross" I'm sure she's not remembering THIS mess at a Tennessee school board meeting where parents lost their marbles over their children wearing a mask at school:

Or the Loudoun County School Board meeting that disintegrated into an angry yelling match with conservative blogger Matt Walsh renting a home in the district just so he could speak against the transgender policy and the terrible prospect of any little darlings learning about racism.

Or this school board meeting in Florida, where parents literally threatened the lives of the members by showing up without masks while protesting a mask mandate.

But because Fox News is State TV, it's all about the manufactured outrage intended to serve two purposes: 1) Destroy public education; and 2) Win the midterms for Republicans. It's the same tired playbook they ran in 2009 and it needs to be defeated. That party needs to go the way of the Know Nothings forever and ever.