South Carolina Teacher’s Lesson on Racism Shut Down by School District

Cancel culture is in full force.

This time, an Advanced Placement language class in South Carolina was barred from discussing Ta-Nehisi Coates’s famed book Between the World and Me because of a new state law that prohibits classrooms from genuinely talking about race.

Teacher Mary Wood had planned to teach her class the book as part of the class’s preparation for the argumentative essay portion of the A.P. test. Writing to the district, Lexington-Richland School District Five, Wood explained that she taught the same book the previous year without any issue, reports South Carolina newspaper The State.

While preparing for the book, Wood played two short videos for the class, one depicting pretty elementary metaphors for structural inequities throughout American history and another that explores manifestations of systemic racism like mass incarceration and predatory loans. The videos detailing historical and social facts of America were apparently too much for a couple of students.

“These videos portrayed an inaccurate description of life from past centuries that she is trying to resurface. I don’t feel as though it is right because these videos showed antiquated history. I understand in AP Lang, we are learning to develop an argument and have evidence to support it, yet this topic is too heavy to discuss,” one student said.

Sample reading lists for such high school courses have included “heavy” texts including The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Night by Elie Wiesel, and George Orwell’s 1984.

“I was incredibly uncomfortable throughout both videos, and was in shock that she would do something illegal like that,” another student wrote. “I am pretty sure a teacher talking about systemic racism is illegal in South Carolina,” they added.

Not exactly. South Carolina lawmakers passed a motion that prohibits state funds from going toward the narrow teaching of ideas like “an individual, by virtue of his race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive.” The teaching of how structures like law and policy have contributed to long-standing and ongoing racial inequity and inequality does not necessitate the teaching that individual people are inherently oppressive individuals.

Nevertheless, The State notes, far-right legislators sued a neighboring district for apparently violating the ban; the suit is still in court.

In Wood’s case, school officials warned that since “there is proposed legislation up for discussion and voting currently,” they “need to cease this assignment.” As in, proposals not even enshrined in law are casting a chilling effect on more holistic teaching in our schools.

In a letter addressed to Superintendent Akil Ross and the school board, Wood said the “lack of clarity” from the district, and the school’s kicking her to the curb, has left her feeling unsafe, spurring her to install a security system at home.

“In this culture, EVERYTHING may be considered controversial,” Wood wrote. “To prevent conversations about experiences which exist outside of heterosexual, caucasian norms is both biased and discriminatory and completely antithetical to the development of critical thinking and civil discourse, which is the entire point of an AP Lang course.”

“There is an odd juxtaposition where we are trusted to protect students from armed intruders but subject to ridicule from community members who proclaim we are indoctrinating children,” Wood said to The State. “Until we cease to lend a space for vilifying teachers, more of us will leave the classroom.”

Wood’s case echoes that of Wisconsin teacher Melissa Tempel, who has been set to be fired for publicly complaining about her school district banning her students from singing Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus’s song about rainbows and unity.

Longtime Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak is preparing to retire after what will be an illustrious 41-season career on the hit American game show. But you may want to tap the brakes on pouring one out for the familiar face. Turns out when he wasn’t busy adorning our television screens, he was on the front lines of advancing a right-wing agenda.

Sajak has for decades advanced causes that have rejected the teaching of American history, peddled out-of-touch climate denial, and dished out corporate favors while villainizing spending money on the people who need it.

Sajak has served as a board member at prominent conservative institutions, like the Claremont Institute, which of course, has fueled election-denialist claims surrounding the 2020 election. After Donald Trump refused to concede, Claremont fellow John Eastman did his best to help him try to overturn the election.

In 1999, Sajak attended the institute’s Lincoln Day Dinner, alongside other prominent conservatives, such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In his remarks at the exclusive black-tie affair, Sajak lamented how “these days, particularly when it comes to teaching our young, in terms of American history, the rules have been changed,” complaining that “political correctness and other notions” have “watered down” some of history’s “more significant people and significant events.” (This very same Claremont Institute has complained about education that confronts economic and racial systems of power that have influenced the arc of American history.)

At another Claremont event in 2007, Sajak delivered remarks at a special award ceremony for Iraq and Afghanistan invasion all-star Donald Rumsfeld.

In 2002, Sajak delivered a commencement speech to Hillsdale College, a private, conservative, and self-described Christian school in Michigan. The school is among the few colleges in America that has wholly rejected government funds (including federal student loans) in order not to be subject to Title IX requirements, like standards in responding to sexual assault or banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In a commencement speech at the lavishly funded echo-chambered campus, Sajak spent most of his time on a screed against Hollywood for lacking “diversity of thought” and having “[b]ias against Big Business.” Hillsdale welcomed Sajak to its board of trustees the following year, and he rose to chair the board in 2019.

Beyond delivering speeches at an array of illustrious events, Sajak has published his own works too. In a piece for the National Review in 2010, the right-wing host asked whether it was a conflict of interest for public employees to vote in elections.

He’s also spread the wit to Twitter. In one tweet in April 2014, he came out as straight, tweeting: “Damn the career consequences! I’m hereby proclaiming my heterosexuality!”

The next month, Sajak tweeted, “I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends.” Throughout the month, he tweeted out other hits, like “I suggest grabbing bunches of those plastic produce bags and taking them to checkout stand,” and “Prediction: Next big ‘cause du jour’ will be Plants Rights. No joke! (Can see posters now: Ficus have feelings, too!).”

All this context would then make it less surprising, for example, that Sajak would appear photographed with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Other than smiling alongside someone who has called for a “national divorce,” spread conspiracy theories about 9/11 and Jewish space lasers setting forest fires in California, and expressed support for fatal violence against Democrats, Sajak has also donated money to the Young America’s Foundation, which had paid vicious Islamophobe Robert Spencer for a special event.

All that to say: Don’t be in too much of a rush to pour one out for Pat Sajak.

Starbucks has banned Pride decorations in stores halfway through Pride Month, the company’s workers union claimed Tuesday. If true, it would be a stunning cave to far-right anti-LGBTQ fury—but the coffee chain denies that any such policy is in place.

There has been a wave of ultra-conservative pushback against companies that express support for equal rights. It started when Bud Light did a campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in March, but things really kicked off when Target displayed its Pride swimwear collection. Target said it would pull back its Pride merchandise in response to the outcry.

“For the last two weeks, Starbucks workers have taken to social media to report that the company is no longer allowing Pride decorations in-store,” the Starbucks workers’ union tweeted.

But Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said there has been no change to corporate policy regarding displays for Pride or any other heritage month. “We unwaveringly support the LGBTQIA2+ community,” he said in a statement. “There has been no change to any policy on this matter and we continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate with their communities including for U.S. Pride month in June.”

“We’re deeply concerned by false information that is being spread especially as it relates to our inclusive store environments, our company culture, and the benefits we offer our partners,” he added.

Starbucks has always adopted a pro-LGBTQ stance, at least in public. This year, they even partnered with artist Tim Singleton to design a series of special Pride-themed tumblers. But according to the union, workers in stores in at least 21 states were told that all Pride decorations must come down—even in unionized stores, where Starbucks normally argues it can’t make sweeping changes without first discussing it with workers.

Starbucks Workers United told The New Republic that workers at a store in Massachusetts were told they couldn’t decorate because there weren’t enough “labor hours” to decorate and run the store. Some employees were told decorating was a safety concern: in Georgia, workers were told it was unsafe to be on ladders to hang a Pride flag. In Oklahoma, workers were told Pride decor was considered unsafe because of recent attacks on Target.

Employees at a Maryland store were told that some people felt excluded by Pride decorations. Posts on Reddit that did not indicate location showed that other workers were also told some customers considered the Pride decor exclusionary. 

The union also noted that this would not be the first time Starbucks has failed to stand up for LGBTQ people, including its own employees. In October, some trans Starbucks workers found that their health benefit plan had changed, forcing them to pay out of pocket for certain treatments and causing them to lose access to certain providers, according to Starbucks Workers United. Trull told The New Republic in a separate conversation that Starbucks health care policy has not changed.

It would be understandable for Starbucks to suddenly grow wary of overt Pride displays, considering how bad the right-wing rage has become. Target stores in five different states received bomb threats over the weekend and had to be evacuated.

But there had been no such fury directed at Starbucks.

This article has been updated.

Representative James Comer on Tuesday admitted again that he has no basis for his investigation into President Joe Biden.

The Kentucky Republican has led the months-long probe into the Biden family but has been unable to provide any actual evidence linking Biden or his son Hunter to any wrongdoing. Most recently, Comer had threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress if he didn’t hand over a document Comer claimed would prove some of the allegations. House members were finally allowed last week to see a redacted version of the FBI document, which includes an unverified allegation of audio recordings of Biden and Hunter Biden accepting a bribe.

When asked Tuesday morning on Newsmax if the recordings were legitimate, Comer hedged. “I can confirm that the recordings were in the 10-23,” Comer said, referring to an FD 10-23, a form the FBI uses to note unverified information from confidential sources.

Newsmax host Rob Finnerty pressed him to confirm the recordings were real, and Comer replied, “I can confirm they were listed in the 10-23 that the FBI redacted. We don’t know if they’re legit or not.”

After lawmakers saw the redacted version of the form, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said it contained information about Hunter Biden’s time on the board of Ukrainian oil company Burisma Holdings. She also said that the information alleges two unnamed members of the Biden family accepted a $10 million bribe to remove former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in 2016 to stop a probe into Hunter Biden’s role at the company (a narrative first pushed years ago by Donald Trump, and one refuted by Ukrainian prosecutors and activists).

Comer said he and Senator Chuck Grassley were allowed to see an unredacted version of the form. Grassley called Monday for the FBI to release the unredacted version of the 10-23, claiming it mentioned 17 audio recordings of Biden and Hunter Biden accepting a bribe from a Burisma executive.

Comer also accused the FBI Tuesday of not investigating these claims. Except the FBI did: The bureau, alongside a U.S. attorney appointed by then-President Donald Trump, reviewed the bribery accusation when it was made in 2020 and found it to be unsubstantiated.

Republicans have repeatedly admitted that they have nothing of substance against the Biden family. Grassley even went so far as to say that the party isn’t “interested in whether or not the accusations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not.” But they have begun to turn up the heat in recent weeks, particularly as the federal indictment against Trump seemed to draw closer.

Just a few days ago, before the details of Donald Trump’s second indictment were released, Nikki Haley joined many Republicans in lambasting the unseen charges as phony, as dangerous. But on Monday, three days after the indictment was unsealed, the 2024 presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor finally sang a different tune.

“If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security,” Haley said on Fox.

Here was Haley just days ago, for context:

Still, Haley anchored herself in the generic conservative attack on the FBI and Department of Justice (not for anything related to their histories targeting civil rights leaders, for instance, but for actually getting it right by going after one of the more prominent serial criminals of our time). She insisted that “two things can be true at the same time,” that the agencies have “lost all credibility with the American people” and that if the charges against Trump are true, he was “incredibly reckless.”

“My husband’s about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger, if you are going to talk about what our military is capable of or how we would go about invading or doing something with one of our enemies,” Haley continued. “And if that’s the case, it’s reckless, it’s frustrating, and it causes problems.”

Haley also pointed out that this is the second, and potentially third indictment Trump faces, hedging her concern about Trump’s never-ending list of crimes with electability for the general election.

It ain’t much (and it’s not honest work), but Haley’s comments are now among the strongest of the 2024 primary field, let alone the Republican Party more broadly. It’s refreshing that someone running against Trump is remembering that she is in fact running against Trump. The other handful of candidates might do well to remember the same. All the candidates have very little chance of winning as it is. Why not at least lose with a smidgen of dignity? If nothing else, their narrow chances increase ever so slightly if they don’t waste all their time and limited campaign air dismissing the litany of very real criminal charges against their main opponent!

A former adviser to Donald Trump said Monday that the indictment against the former president is already bad enough that it should end his political career.

Trump was indicted last week (for the second time) for his alleged mishandling of classified documents. John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser, noted to CNN that while he doesn’t know the exact material Trump allegedly kept, he was familiar with the type of documents Trump had access to.

“They did go to absolute, the most important secrets that the United States has, directly affecting national security, directly affecting the lives and safety of our service members and our civilian population,” Bolton said. “If he has anything like what … the indictment alleges, and of course the government will have to prove it, then he has committed very serious crimes.”

“This is a devastating indictment,” Bolton continued. “This really is a rifle shot, and I think it should be the end of Donald Trump’s political career.”

Trump was charged with a total of 37 counts for keeping national defense information without authorization, making false statements, and conspiring to obstruct justice. The investigation revealed that Trump had kept hundreds of documents and stored them everywhere, such as on the stage of the Mar-a-Lago ballroom and in a bathroom. He also reportedly showed the documents off to people who did not have security clearance, such as a representative of his PAC and members of staff.

Since Trump left office, Bolton has repeatedly criticized him for how he behaved during the presidency. But it’s worth noting that Bolton firmly had Trump’s back while he was a Cabinet member.

The most powerful House Republican in Congress says it’s OK Donald Trump hid top secret government documents in his lavish resort’s bathroom, because, well, at least the door locks.

“Was that a good look for the former president to have boxes in a bathroom?” a reporter asked Kevin McCarthy.

“I don’t know,” McCarthy started, glancing up in sardonic thought. “Is it a good picture to have boxes in a garage that opens up all the time? A bathroom door locks.”

Kevin McCarthy’s remarks follow the second indictment of the already twice-impeached and liable-for-sexual-abuse former president. Trump was indicted for taking boxes upon boxes of classified government documents upon leaving the White House and subsequently mishandling them. He repeatedly refused government appeals to return the documents, flouting subpoenas and eventually forcing the government to conduct a search in his swanky Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

In the search and investigation, it was discovered that Trump hid the documents everywhere from a Mar-a-Lago ballroom to a bathroom, and showed off the secret documents (from agencies like the CIA, Defense Department, and NSA) to a representative of his PAC as well as staff members.

McCarthy’s comments were in reference to classified documents from the Obama administration found in President Joe Biden’s home garage earlier this year. Biden, like Mike Pence who also found classified documents in his possession after leaving the White House, has cooperated with government efforts to retrieve them. Trump definitively has not, and was actively involved in both removing the documents from the White House, and in showing them to an array of individuals without government clearance.

Beyond the marked differences between Trump and other former White House occupants, the comparison between a garage door and bathroom door itself is obviously meaningless. If it needs to be spelled out: Bathroom doors generally lock with a simple click from the inside. Anyone who might have had a vested interest in taking a peep at a CIA or NSA document wouldn’t have too much trouble getting through a bathroom door. Garage doors may actually be a degree more secure, but you don’t see Hakeem Jeffries making the comparison McCarthy is anyhow—because it’s dumb!

McCarthy’s remarks followed similarly sophomoric ones from Senator Lindsey Graham. Some seven years after warning “if we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it,” Graham took to the Sunday show circuit to snarl and stutter at ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, refusing to definitively say it was wrong for Trump to take and hide secret government documents.

Meanwhile, other Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and do-nothing Representative Tim Burchett are going even further, calling to literally defund the Department of Justice.

The Ohio State Supreme Court delivered a partial blow to an ongoing effort to make it harder for Ohioans to pass constitutional amendments—which would directly affect things like abortion rights.

Republicans have set up a $20 million taxpayer-funded August election to raise the threshold for constitutional amendment elections to a whopping 60 percent, rather than a straight-up majority.

But on Monday, the court ordered the state ballot board to update proposed ballot language that inaccurately summarizes the Republican-led effort.

Since 1912, voters have just needed a simple 50-plus-one majority to add an amendment to the Constitution. Now Republicans want to raise that number to 60 percent, allowing a smaller minority of voters to stop any potential amendments from passing.

The effort is widely seen as an effort to head off a likely November ballot initiative to codify Ohioans’ right to an abortion. Also, next year, Ohioans will likely vote on raising the state’s minimum wage.

Four states—Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Michigan—voted by simple majority to affirm abortion rights just in the past year. Two others, Vermont and California, voted above the 60 percent threshold. Nevada and Nebraska meanwhile both voted in simple majorities to raise their minimum wages.

Advocacy group One Person One Vote filed a lawsuit in late May, arguing that the ballot language for the effort was misleading and biased.

The court’s majority opinion, written by its four Republicans, found two errors in the ballot language. For one, the ballot summary is titled, “Elevating the Standards to Qualify for and to Pass any Constitutional Amendment.” The court found the use of “any” to be inappropriate, as the proposed change only applies to amendments proposed by the public. Amendments from lawmakers can be passed with a 60 percent vote from the House and Senate, or through a constitutional convention.

Another error found by the court is that it incorrectly explains the minimum number of signatures amendment campaigns need to collect from each of Ohio’s counties. The ballot summary language says 5 percent of eligible voters from each county would need to sign on to the campaign, but the actual amendment’s language says it’s 5 percent of the number of votes cast in each county during the most recent gubernatorial election.

The court’s three Democrats dissented from the majority, finding that the ruling didn’t go far enough. Justice Michael Donnelly found the word “elevating” in the title to be “plainly prejudicial” and said it “should not be part of the title.” Opponents of the amendment have argued the word is misleading, as if the amendment is about security, rather than about what it really does, which is to make the threshold for democracy higher.

Justice Jennifer Brunner wrote another dissenting opinion, saying the ballot language ought to clearly describe the difference between the new standards for amendments posed by citizens and those brought by lawmakers.

“The incongruous impact of these changes is clear: [State Issue 1] would make it onerously oppressive for citizens to amend the Ohio Constitution through the initiative process, but it would leave unaffected the General Assembly’s ability to propose amendments that serve its interests at elections established to fulfill its own desires,” Brunner wrote.

Meanwhile, One Person One Vote has another lawsuit out against the effort the court still has to rule on. The group argues that Republicans set the August election in complete violation of their own recently passed law that broadly outlawed August elections.

Meanwhile, mail ballots for the August election go out on June 23. The court-ruled language changes must be made, and the court must rule on this second legal challenge, in less than two weeks.

Republicans are livid that Donald Trump was indicted, slamming it as a political attack and the greatest injustice of all time. Their proposed solution? Defund the Department of Justice.

Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett accused the department Monday of being overly politicized.

“This has been the modus operandi … for the Department of DOJ to use this kind of tactic,” he told Newsmax. “I think it’ll continue until we get their attention. We need to bring them down before the committee, and if not … we need to start talking about cutting their funding.”

Republicans have previously proposed defunding the Department of Justice—a call led by Trump himself. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also threatened in March to withhold her vote for government funding legislation unless it included spending cuts that would hamper the criminal investigations into Trump.

Representative Jim Jordan too has proposed cutting funding for the Department of Justice and the FBI because both agencies are investigating Trump. Jordan chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee and is overseeing an investigation into the alleged weaponization of the FBI.

It’s shocking, though, to see Republicans dig their heels in despite the mountain of charges against Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president was unsealed on Friday, and Trump has been charged with a total of 37 counts for keeping national defense information without authorization, making false statements, and conspiring to obstruct justice.

Beyond that, he has already been charged with 34 counts of business fraud in New York, found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and sued for defamation twice more. And Trump is still under investigation by Smith and separately by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis for his alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

But sure, the Justice Department is the one that needs to be kept in check.

As one-third of the nation comes out of an ominous smog from rampant wildfires, tens of thousands of dead fish washed up along the Texas Gulf Coast.

And unless we change, there’s more where that came from.

Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Kills and Spills Team Region 3 said Sunday that the mass fish deaths were caused by “a low dissolved oxygen event” brought about by rising temperatures, with the Gulf menhaden species being the most impacted. “If there isn’t enough oxygen in the water, fish can’t ‘breathe,’” the agency said, noting that such events are more common in the summer, when temperatures increase.

That’s not to imply that such an event is common generally.

Patty Brinkmeyer, a 17-year employee of Quintana Beach County Park, told CNN she has only seen such an event three times, and this was “by far the most” dead fish she’s ever seen float ashore.

Brinkmeyer’s observation is not surprising. According to NASA, 2022 was the warmest recorded year for earth’s ocean temperatures and saw the highest sea levels. In other words, the effects of global warming are not abstract or to be observed over decades; the misery is already here.

“Often before a kill event occurs, fish can be seen trying to get oxygen by gulping at the surface of the water early in the morning. Some fish may also be lying on the bottom or at the edge of the water,” the Texas Kills and Spills Team said.

Officials explained that it was a “perfect storm” for such a tragic event to occur. For one, once water temperature rises above 70 degrees, it becomes more difficult for fish like menhaden to receive enough oxygen; cooler water holds more oxygen than warmer water. For another, the area had been experiencing “little wave action” for the past three weeks; oxygen can enter water through “surface mixing,” or when air meets the water through the crashing of waves. Finally, photosynthesis can bring oxygen into the water, but recent overcast days slowed down the process, leaving less and less free oxygen in the ecosystem.

“There was NO evidence of a chemical release of any kind, so please put those theories to rest and do not spread misinformation. The Brazoria County Parks Dept., nor [Texas Parks & Wildlife] has any interest in covering for the chemical industry if a spill of any kind were to happen,” officials assured. “We are in the business of protecting the environment and creating safe spaces for the public to enjoy nature.”

Such a philosophy is one America and the world more broadly will have to adopt, if we aim to protect the plant and animal wildlife already dying and the broader natural ecosystem we too are a part of, not separate from.

“It appears the last of the fish have washed in. The most recent are deteriorated to the point of being shredded skeletons,” park officials reported on Sunday.