Politics
Oklahoma measure seeks to make school district superintendents an elected position
Oklahoma will consider a new measure to make the role of school district superintendent an elected position in response to a spate of controversial situations involving scholastic leaders, Fox News Digital has learned.
There have been allegations and news reports about several issues: the refusal to remove “pornographic books” from school libraries, the dismissal of a teacher for failure to comply with a COVID-19 face mask mandate, and media coverage of “nothing [being] done” in response to reports a school football coach was bragging about sexual conquests with parents.
In 2021, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt called firings of mask-averse teachers “preposterous” and said their talents are needed more than ever.
“This is about a school district not following state law — this isn’t a debate about masks,” he said, after the Oklahoma City district reportedly fired multiple educators, adding the state previously banned such firings.
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In February, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Schools Ryan Walters — who is an elected official himself — threatened to lower the accreditation of Edmond, Oklahoma, schools if it didn’t remove the books “The Glass Castle” and “Kite Runner” from its high school libraries.
Walters called the inaction “subversion of accountability,” though Edmond’s superintendent said the state lacked authority to remove the books based on a 1997 district policy.
In another case, in Edmond, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz from neighboring Texas, among others, blasted videos showing a portion of a school fundraiser wherein students were licking each other’s toes.
In a public statement, school officials appeared to celebrate the event:
“This afternoon, Deer Creek High School announced a grand total of $152,830.38 raised for Not Your Average Joe Coffee, an organization created to ‘inspire our community by including students and adults with intellectual, developmental and physical disabilities,” school staff wrote.
“All participants in the assembly were students who signed up for the game(s) they played ahead of time. No Deer Creek faculty or staff participated in any of the games during this Clash of Classes assembly,” a portion of the latter part of the statement read.
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Walters called the fundraiser “filth,” and Cruz said it was “child abuse.”
In another district on the Arkansas line, now-former Muldrow Superintendent Leon Ashlock resigned after driving drunk and crashing a school vehicle on Creek Turnpike. Two 100-proof bottles of cinnamon schnapps were found in its console, according to KOCO.
Walters told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that a case involving a school’s response to an athletic director’s criminal exploits with a student also drew his attention.
“Even in a conservative state like Oklahoma, where voters have overwhelmingly made clear they want the radical progressive policies of the left out of public schools, we continually see superintendents defying their will, ignoring their concerns, and refusing to take action necessary to improve education outcomes while protecting Oklahoma children,” Walters said.
“This has to end.”
“And, the best way to do that is by requiring superintendents to be elected by the voters.”
Walters called the legislation a common-sense solution to efforts to improve education for Sooner State children.
Walters previously made headlines when he led his state in becoming the first to appropriate funding toward supplying a Bible to each school. The official said the move blunts “woke curricula” and provides students a “historical document” that the founders used to form their government.
Politics
Trump nominates Harmeet Dhillon, Mark Paoletta to key posts, backs KC Crosbie for RNC co-chair
President-elect Trump on Sunday nominated Harmeet K. Dhillon as the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department.
Trump said Dhillon has consistently protected civil liberties throughout her career, including taking on Big Tech for censoring free speech, representing Christians who were not allowed to pray together during the COVID-19 pandemic, and suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their employees.
“Harmeet is one of the top election lawyers in the country, fighting to ensure that all, and ONLY, legal votes are counted,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia Law School and clerked in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.”
“Harmeet is a respected member of the Sikh religious community,” he added. “In her new role at the DOJ, Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws FAIRLY and FIRMLY.”
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Trump also wrote in a separate post that Mark Paoletta will return as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget.
In the role, Trump said, Paoletta will work closely with the Department of Government Efficiency to cut the size of “our bloated government bureaucracy and root out wasteful and anti-American spending.”
Trump called Paoletta a brilliant and tenacious lawyer, crediting him with working to advance his agenda in the first term, while leading the charge to find funding to build a wall at the southern border.
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Mark is a partner at the law firm Shaerr Jaffe LLP and a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America.
“Mark has served as a Chief Counsel for Oversight and Investigations in Congress for a decade and was a key lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991,” Trump wrote. “Mark is a conservative warrior who knows the ‘ins and outs’ of Government – He will help us, Make America Great Again!”
And finally, Trump announced that KC Crosbie is running to become the next co-chair of the Republican National Committee to replace Lara Trump.
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“Lara, together with Chairman Michael Whatley, transformed the RNC into a lean, focused, and powerful machine that is empowering the MAGA Movement for many years to come,” the president-elect said. “Thank you for your hard work, Lara, in MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The incoming president also said Crosbie has helped “real” Republicans get elected across the U.S. and would make a tremendous co-chair.
“KC will work on continuing to ensure a highly functioning, fiscally responsible, and effective RNC that makes Election Integrity a highest priority,” Trump said. “KC Crosbie has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Co-Chair of the RNC!”
Politics
Security contractor can seek damages from CNN over Afghan war profiteer report
A judge ruled Friday that a security contractor can seek punitive damages against CNN over a November 2021 report about war profiteers who charged Afghans who were trying to leave their country after the U.S. military withdrawal.
The contractor, Zachary Young, said CNN destroyed his business by including him in a segment by chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, which focused on how Afghans were being charged high prices by evacuation services.
The report used the term “black market” in an onscreen graphic and in a spoken introduction. Young, the only person mentioned by name in the segment, said the report gave the false impression that he was involved in illegal activity and exploited “desperate Afghans.”
Florida Judge William S. Henry had previously ruled that Young’s actions did not violate any laws and that he never took any money directly from Afghans. Young’s company sought corporate sponsors to pay for assistance in leaving Afghanistan.
“Sufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jury could find with convincing clarity that Defendant acted with actual malice,” Henry wrote in his ruling.
If the case goes to trial, a jury will be asked to determine if CNN journalists acted with actual malice, defined as the publication of false information with reckless disregard of the truth.
A CNN representative declined comment on the case.
Marquardt’s story, which first aired on “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” reported that “Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.”
CNN removed the term “black market” from the web version of the report after Young complained, and the network issued an on-air apology on March 25, 2022, clarifying that he was not involved in illegal activity. But Young said the network fell short of a full retraction of the story.
A two-week jury trial has been scheduled for Jan. 6. If it goes forward, CNN’s journalists and producers will have to give public testimony on the internal workings in the news organization, some of it potentially embarrassing.
Evidence in the case includes text messages from CNN journalists describing Young as a “s—bag” and “a—.” There was also a text that said “we gonna nail this Young mf—.”
There are also emails from editors raising questions as to whether the story was ready to air. (The segment got approved after going through the network’s vetting process).
Politics
'Gov't knows best': Biden admin breaks Obama record for filling Federal Register with most regulations
President Biden’s administration has filled up the Federal Register with more pages of regulations than any other president in history, breaking President Barack Obama’s record.
As of last week, on Dec. 3, the Biden administration set a new federal record for the most Federal Register pages filled in a single year – 96,088. The number puts the administration on pace to fill more than 100,000 pages by the end of its term.
The record was previously held by Obama, who, in the final year of his second term, filled 95,894 pages.
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The Federal Register, which is published by the National Archives and Records Administration and overseen by the Office of the Federal Register, is a daily publication of new and amended federal regulations.
“Federal Register page counts are a highly imperfect gauge of regulatory burden. Biden’s milestone, though, still underscores the expanding scope of federal intervention,” said Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., fellow at the Washington-based nonprofit the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “The record-setting 2024 Federal Register provides a stark reminder of the scale of the regulatory state, and it ain’t even done yet.”
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During the final year of President-elect Trump’s first term in office, the Federal Register saw its fourth-largest number of pages filled. However, Crews said that number was likely inflated by efforts to eliminate rules that require agencies to issue new ones, as well as emergency COVID-19 pandemic measures. Meanwhile, during Trump’s first year in office, 2017, there were fewer pages added to the Federal Register than anyone since Bill Clinton in 1993, Crews pointed out.
Shortly after entering the Oval Office in 2017, Trump issued Executive Order 13771, which initiated a new federal rulemaking process requiring that for every single regulation added by the Trump administration, two must be taken away. The result of this was net cost savings throughout Trump’s first term, Crews said.
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Trump has signaled that he will expand his deregulation efforts during his second term, pledging to erase 10 regulations for every new one added.
Machalagh Carr, director of the Center for Legal Action at the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce, told Fox News Digital that with the incoming Trump administration “a new day is dawning and help is on the way.”
“For the last four years, [the Biden administration] has done their very best to strangle American free enterprise with a blizzard of unworkable regulations and mandates,” Carr said. “The political appointees calling the shots in the Biden administration have a hostile view of the innovators and companies that power our economy and believe that government knows best.”
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for both Biden and Trump, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
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