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.
STATE SCHOOLS CHIEF BILLS KAMALA HARRIS $474M FOR EDUCATION COSTS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
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.
LANDMARK BILL TARGETS HIDDEN FOREIGN FUNDING IN SCHOOLS AS OFFICIALS WARN OF CCP INFLUENCE
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
Analysis: Assad was a brutal dictator. Will Syria's new leaders be any better?
WASHINGTON — The stunning overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad by Islamist rebels half a century after his family took power raises an old question when it comes to regime change in the Middle East: Will the new governing forces behave any better than those that have been deposed?
“The Assad regime has fallen,” President Biden declared Sunday from the White House. “It’s a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria.”
“It’s also a moment of risk and uncertainty, as we all turn to the question of what comes next,” Biden said.
In a matter of weeks, the rebels achieved what the United Nations, the U.S. and other Western powers long tried but failed to do. The Russian government announced late Sunday local time that Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow and were being given asylum, Russian state news agencies reported.
Decades of brutal rule by Assad has left Syria fragmented ethnically, religiously and politically. The victorious insurgency is also divided. The leading group, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, known as HTS, traces its roots to the terror organizations Islamic State and Al Qaeda but claims to have reformed.
Long concerned about HTS taking power, Washington continues to designate it a terrorist group, which will complicate any dealings with it.
The rebel victory also scrambles regional relations. It deals a major setback to Assad’s allies Iran and Russia while boosting Turkey, which backed the HTS and will probably be Washington’s main conduit to Syria’s new leaders.
The U.S. backed a different rebel group, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, a Kurdish militia that helped defeat Islamic State but that Turkey considers a terrorist group.
Clashes between the SDF and Turkish-backed factions were already being reported on Sunday.
Israel, meanwhile, is glad to see the departures of an Iran-backed Assad but not exactly thrilled at having Islamist leaders next door. The country was already bolstering a buffer zone along the border between the Israel-controlled Golan Heights and Syria and joined in the bombing of a small number of sites inside Syria.
By any measure, the immediate future of Syria will be an unstable and potentially violent melange of competing groups, intense jockeying for power and settling of scores. Among worst-case scenarios are a deepening civil war or the conversion of the once-wealthy and now devastated country into a haven for militants such as the Islamic State.
After 24 hours monitoring what the White House called the “extraordinary” developments in Syria, Biden convened his National Security Council Sunday for updates and planning before speaking to the American public.
“We will remain vigilant,” Biden said, pledging to keep militants at bay and “do whatever we can to support” the Syrian people “to help restore Syria after more than a decade of war and a generation of brutality from the Assad family.”
By contrast, Donald Trump, who becomes president in about six weeks, said on his social media platform that the U.S. should “stay out of it.” “This is not our fight,” he said.
Similarly, as president in 2019, he declared that “someone else should fight” in Syria and in a much-criticized move ordered the withdrawal of most U.S. troops posted there, clearing the way for Turkey to move in and attack the United States’ Kurdish allies.
Several hundred U.S. troops remain in Syria, officially to counter any resurgence by Islamic State.
There are other looming issues, however, that might demand a U.S. role, officials said.
Syria will need huge amounts of humanitarian aid, especially if some of the millions of citizens who fled as refugees during the last decade of war begin to return to the ruins of their former homes.
Also, critically, U.S. officials expressed concern about Assad’s large stockpiles of armament, including missiles and chemical weapons, that could end up in the hands of the rebels. Assad notoriously used chemical weapons on his own people to put down rebellion and dissent.
Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, voiced support for Assad after a 2017 visit to Syria. She said she doubted U.S. intelligence reports that he had used chemical weapons inside his country.
For many ordinary Syrians, however, the principal concern is how minorities will be treated. Some, like the Alawite Shiite Muslim faction to which Assad’s family belonged, as well as some Kurds and Christians, are seen as having colluded with the regime. Most of the rebels are Sunni Muslims.
The first government to congratulate the opposition victory in Syria was Afghanistan’s radically conservative and repressive Islamic Taliban.
Ahmed Sharaa, the bearded commander of HTS, has sought to portray the group as a reformed and more moderate faction than its past associations suggest. He has preached tolerance and pluralism, although his rule over Syria’s Idlib province where HTS has held sway only displayed the most minimal version of such policies. Christians, for example, have been allowed to attend church.
“These sects have co-existed in the region for hundreds of years,” he told CNN in an interview last week as the rebels were advancing toward Damascus. “No one has the right to erase another group.”
He promised a “transition to a state of governance and institutions” and even suggested HTS could disband having achieved its military victory.
That would be a very unusual transition in the Middle East, where players who gain power tend to hold on to it.
The Assad regime began in 1970 with Bashar’s father Hafez. With an insidious intelligence service, routine imprisonment and torture of dissidents and iron-fist control of media and public speech, the Assads maintained a ferocious and violent control of the Syrian population.
The Arab Spring protests of 2011 led to a brutal crackdown and eventually a civil war that killed an estimated 500,000 people.
Assad remained in power with military help from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed political and military faction based in Lebanon. Over the last year or so, those three allies all lost their ability to defend him.
Russia is overextended in its nearly three years of war in Ukraine. Iran has been battered by Israel from outside and dissent and economic turmoil on the inside. And Hezbollah has been vastly weakened by Israeli assassinations and bombardments.
It is expected that Syria’s new leaders will close the Russian air base and port on the Mediterranean coast. Iran has lost a large portion if not all of its land and air routes to Lebanon and Hezbollah, its proxy there.
In his speech Sunday, Biden claimed some credit for the recent turn of events in Syria, as uncertain as its future may be.
“Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East through this combination of support for our partners, sanctions, diplomacy and targeted military force when necessary,” he said.
Politics
Blue state faces spike in migrant sex crimes as top city pledges resistance to Trump deportations
Massachusetts has seen a spike in illegal migrants arrested for sex offenses over the last several months as the state and city of Boston have pledged to resist President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations.
Since August, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officials have arrested 26 illegal migrants in the Boston area for sex crimes against children ranging from child rape to sexual assault to distributing child pornography.
Many of these migrants were previously removed from the U.S. only to later illegally re-enter the country.
As recently as Dec. 3, an illegal migrant, Adrian Patricio Huerta-Nivelo, 25, was removed by ICE after it was discovered he was wanted for rape of a minor in his home country of Ecuador.
ICE NABS ANOTHER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN MASS. CHARGED WITH CHILD SEX CRIME, AS GOV SNUBS TRUMP DEPORTATIONS
Nivelo’s removal came just a day after the Boston City Council unanimously voted to reaffirm a 2019 measure restricting Boston police’s ability to cooperate with ICE in deporting illegal migrants. The measure seeks to protect immigrant communities from “unjust enforcement actions” and restricts Boston police’s ability to cooperate with ICE and bans police from keeping migrants in custody for possible deportation unless there is a criminal warrant.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has also vowed that state police would “absolutely not” assist Trump in the mass deportations operation.
Despite this, a spokesperson for Healey denied that Massachusetts is a “sanctuary state,” telling Fox News Digital that “as a former prosecutor and attorney general, the governor believes violent criminals should be deported.”
Boston officials have been largely silent on the series of sex crimes against residents in the city. Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, and the Boston City Council did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
MIGRANT ACCUSED OF VIOLENT CRIMES ARRESTED BY ICE AFTER MASSACHUSETTS COURT REFUSED TO HONOR DETAINER
November
Boston ICE officials arrested six illegal migrants for sex crimes against children in November.
One of the most recent arrests, announced by ICE on Dec. 5, involved a 46-year-old Honduran national named Salvador Castro Garcia, who is charged with indecent assault and battery of a child under 14.
Garcia was previously deported in 2001 but then re-entered the country at an unknown location and time. ICE took Garcia into custody on Nov. 21 after he was released on bail by the Brockton District Court.
In addition to Garcia, Boston ICE ERO officials arrested Felix Meletz Guarcas, a 45-year-old Guatemalan national, on Nov. 20 after he was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault of a minor.
‘SANCTUARY’ CITY MAYOR VOWS SHE WILL DEFY TRUMP’S MASS DEPORTATION PUSH: ‘CAUSING WIDESPREAD FEAR’
According to an ICE statement, the Rhode Island Department of Corrections refused ICE’s request to hold Guarcas in custody, forcing agents to make a dangerous arrest in a public parking lot. ICE is currently holding Guarcas in custody pending a hearing before an immigration judge.
On Nov. 18, Boston ICE officials arrested Belardis Tapia Gonzalez, a Dominican national charged with second-degree child molestation-sexual assault, and Alexandre Romao De Oliveira, who was charged with rape of a child in his home country of Brazil.
Billy Erney Buitrago-Bustos, a 42-year-old Colombian migrant, was arrested by ICE in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Nov. 15 after being charged with rape of a child by force, statutory rape, and aggravated rape against a minor.
On Nov. 12, ICE arrested Guatemalan illegal migrant Mynor Stiven De Paz-Munoz, 21, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, after he was charged in Massachusetts with rape of child by force, rape of a child and indecent assault and battery against a minor.
October
Boston ICE ERO arrested three illegal migrants for child sex crimes in October.
Officials arrested Andre Tiago Lucas, 36, from Brazil, on Oct. 31. Lucas fled his native country after being convicted of the rape of a 13-year-old child.
Two more migrants – Colombian national Mateo Hincapie Cardona, 28, and 20-year-old Guatemalan national Selvin Alex Galvez-Mejia – were arrested by Boston ICE ERO on Oct. 29 and Oct. 18, respectively.
Cardona is charged with enticing a child under 16, distribution of obscene matter, and lascivious posing and exhibiting a child in the nude. Mejia is charged with rape and indecent assault and battery against a minor.
September
Boston ICE officials arrested nine illegal migrants charged with sex crimes against children in September.
Maynor Francisco Hernandez-Rodas, a 38-year-old Guatemalan national, was arrested by Boston ICE ERO on Sept. 20. He was charged with forcibly raping a Massachusetts minor.
Within a single week, seven illegal migrants – Abraham Malpica, Sept. 13, Angel Gabriel Deras-Mejia, Sept. 12, Enrique Alberto Ortiz-Brito, Sept. 12, Felix Alberto Perez-Gomez, Sept. 11, Gean Do Amaral Belafronte, Sept. 11, Jefferson Jerome, Sept. 11, Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo, Sept. 10, Elmer Sola, Sept. 10 – were arrested by Boston ICE officials for sex crimes.
On Aug. 1 Jorge Luis Castro-Alvarado, 28, Guatemala, was arrested after raping a Massachusetts resident.
August
In August, six illegal migrants – Akim Marc Desire, 18, Haiti, Warley Neto, 24, Brazil, Elmer Perez, 49, Guatemala, Cory Bernard Alvarez, 26, Haiti, Marc Kervens Beauvais, 34, Haiti, Jackson Bento-Pinheiro, 35, Brazil – were arrested by Boston ICE for sex crimes against children.
Politics
A trade war under Trump would bring major losses for California agriculture, experts warn
As President-elect Donald Trump vows to impose tariffs on imports from China, Mexico and Canada, economists are warning that a retaliatory trade war could cause major financial damage for California’s agriculture industry.
In an analysis published before the presidential election, researchers examined potential scenarios of tariffs and retaliatory measures, and estimated that if a significant trade war occurs, California could see the value of its agricultural exports reduced by up to one-fourth, bringing as much as $6 billion in losses annually.
The experts at UC Davis and North Dakota State University said some of the most vulnerable commodities include pistachios, dairy products, wine and almonds, all of which are exported in large quantities to China.
“The worst-case scenario is pretty bleak,” said Sandro Steinbach, director of North Dakota State University’s Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies. “Basically, tariffs are harmful to U.S. agriculture, and to California agriculture in particular, because they will invite tariff retaliation.”
The researchers analyzed three scenarios of potential U.S. tariffs, two of them based on proposals floated by Trump and his campaign. They wrote that if the Trump administration were to impose large tariffs under the most extreme scenario, retaliatory measures by other countries “would have a ripple effect across the state, from the large almond orchards in the Central Valley to the small family vineyards scattered throughout wine country.”
Steinbach co-authored the research with UC Davis emeritus professor Colin A. Carter and North Dakota State doctoral researcher Yasin Yildirim.
They noted that California’s farmers previously experienced financial losses during Trump’s first administration, when the adoption of U.S. tariffs in 2018 prompted China to retaliate with tariffs on American agricultural goods. That hit California’s exports of major farm products, bringing losses for growers of walnuts, almonds and other crops.
The researchers said farmers in the Midwest received significant federal subsidies to cushion the blow in 2018 and 2019, but that California farmers were largely left out of the government compensation.
“If a new wave of aggressive protectionist policies is enacted, California’s agricultural exports could face similar consequences — up to $6 billion in annual losses — especially in key industries like pistachios, dairy, and wine,” the economists wrote.
“Rather than pursuing policies that invite global retaliatory measures, the United States should work toward more balanced trade agreements that protect domestic industries without sparking harmful trade wars,” they said. “All countries involved in a trade war lose, and California agriculture simply cannot afford another trade war.”
The research was published by the University of California’s Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.
The researchers studied one scenario in which the U.S. would impose a 10% import tariff on all goods from every country. They also examined an extreme scenario in which the U.S. would impose a 60% tariff on Chinese goods and a 10% tariff on imports from all other countries.
More recently, Trump has promised to impose 25% tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico, and also an additional 10% tariff on imports from China.
“The scale of a potential trade war and subsequent retaliation is considerably larger than we have seen before,” Steinbach said.
The extent of the economic damage for California’s agriculture industry, and for producers of different crops, will depend on which approach Trump takes, Steinbach said. For example, if large U.S. tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods trigger retaliatory measures by those countries, California sellers of processed tomatoes would be hit especially hard because they depend on those countries to buy more than half of their exports.
In addition to the immediate losses the industry would face in a trade war, the costs of the disruptions probably would be lasting, Steinbach said, as foreign competitors take a larger market share and as uncertainty leads investors to put less money into California agriculture.
“We have climate uncertainty already. We have water policy uncertainty,” Steinbach said. “And if you add now an additional layer of trade and tariff policy on top of it, why would I want to invest a large amount of money into producing agricultural commodities?”
The researchers said farming areas in the Central Valley and Southern California are especially vulnerable to economic damage. They projected that five counties — Fresno, Kern, Tulare, Merced and Imperial — probably would bear the brunt of the losses in a trade war, accounting for 53% of the estimated total losses.
A majority of voters in each of those five counties voted for Trump in the election.
In the case of pistachios, the crop is considered especially vulnerable because China accounts for a large share of California’s exports. Growers have also planted vast new pistachio orchards over the last decade, dramatically expanding production as they have sought to capitalize on the lucrative crop.
The researchers said that in a worst-case scenario, pistachio exports alone could suffer annual losses of up to $1 billion.
Other commodities that are projected to see substantial declines in exports include hay, walnuts, rice, beef, grapes, oranges and cotton.
Agriculture uses much of the water that is diverted and pumped in California. But Steinbach said the potential effects on farms’ water use, both regionally and statewide, are uncertain and will depend on a complex mix of factors.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has strongly criticized Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada. During a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego County on Thursday, Newsom described the planned tariffs as a tax that would boost food prices for Americans and add to inflation.
“Don’t think for a second this won’t impact you,” Newsom said.
The governor said that California will be affected more severely than any other state, and that farmers and ranchers “will be impacted disproportionately if these tariffs go into effect.” He said that’s before considering Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who are a large portion of California’s farmworkers.
“I hope we could all agree the impacts on this region and your pocketbook will universally be felt regardless of your politics,” Newsom said. “That’s a betrayal that needs to be revealed to those that embraced and supported this agenda. That betrayal is taking place in real time. You are being betrayed by these policies.”
Trump’s transition team responded in a written statement, saying the president-elect’s policies will benefit all Americans.
“President Trump has promised tariff policies that protect the American manufacturers and working men and women from the unfair practices of foreign companies and foreign markets,” Trump transition team spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in the statement.
Shannon Douglass, president of the California Farm Bureau, said in an email that the state’s agriculture business “has faced significant challenges due to past trade disputes.”
“We advocate for fair trade practices and urge the federal government to prioritize policies that protect and strengthen the viability and sustainability of our nation’s agricultural sector,” Douglass said.
The plans for tariffs bring additional uncertainty for almond growers who have already been struggling because of declines in prices over the last decade. Some of those declines resulted from the last round of retaliatory tariffs imposed by China in 2018.
This year, almond prices have begun to increase again.
“The market’s rebounding. It’s coming back. Growers are still hurting,” said Jake Wenger, general manager of the Salida Hulling Assn., which runs an almond-hulling plant in Modesto. “This year, people should at least be able to pay their bills, but I do know of growers that have had to sell off some of their land to pay bills, to pay debts, just to stay in business.”
Wenger said there are about 110 growers in his co-op, but he hasn’t heard anyone voicing concerns about tariffs.
“I don’t think anybody’s that worried,” he said. “There are going to be some changes, yep, but we’ll see what happens, what changes do come, and we’ll roll with the punches, like farmers always do.”
Keith Schneller, the trade policy advisor for the Almond Board of California, said the almond industry “continues to support reducing barriers to trade.”
“We are following these discussions,” he said, “but until the next administration’s agriculture and trade policy positions are more defined, it is difficult to know what the implications might be for California almonds.”
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