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
GOP rebels go to war over Biden’s mammoth $98B disaster aid request
FIRST ON FOX: The ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus is calling on Republican leaders to reject President Biden’s $98.4 billion disaster aid request.
In an official position staked out by the GOP group on Wednesday evening, lawmakers are demanding a slimmed-down package covering what is “absolutely necessary,” to be offset with spending cuts elsewhere.
“Congress should not pass a whopping $100 billion unpaid disaster supplemental funding bill — that Democrats will use to cement their own unrelated priorities — in the waning days of Democrat control in Washington right before Republicans take control of the White House and both Chambers,” the House Freedom Caucus statement read.
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“The House should consider only what is absolutely necessary right now to provide critical relief to hurricane victims and farmers, and pay for it with offsets from wasteful spending elsewhere in the government, then wait for President Trump to take office to better manage disaster relief.”
It comes as both House and Senate lawmakers negotiate over how large the disaster aid package should be, and whether it should be attached to an end-of-year federal funding bill that’s critical to avoiding a partial government shutdown during the holiday season.
More than 100 people were killed in North Carolina alone when Helene barreled into the Southeastern U.S. in late September.
Hurricane Milton, another deadly storm, hit Florida and Georgia roughly a week later.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told “Your World” host Neil Cavuto that a $100 billion disaster aid package may be necessary.
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“I believe that we need that disaster supplemental at about $100 billion. There’s nearly an estimate of $50 billion in North Carolina alone,” Tillis said. “It’s going to take years to recover and we shouldn’t be playing games with people’s lives.”
But some fiscal conservatives have balked at the prospect of granting the mammoth-sized federal request without cutting costs elsewhere.
They’ve argued that granting the Democratic administration’s request for such a hefty package would be a reckless move that would further balloon the national debt.
“I’m not going to vote for $100 billion unpaid for. Zero chance,” Freedom Caucus Policy Chair Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital last month.
Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who is not a member of the Freedom Caucus and whose district was hit hard by Helene, told Fox News Digital that he was in touch with House leaders about a disaster aid bill but said details were still being crafted.
Meanwhile Congressional leaders are expected to negotiate on a continuing resolution (CR), a short-term extension of the current government funding levels, by the Dec. 20 partial shutdown deadline.
“We’re looking at a couple of different options,” Edwards said on Wednesday morning. “It may be attached to the CR, it may run parallel to the CR, but it’s very much being constructed right now.”
Asked about Biden’s requested total, he said, “It’s still being built. We’ve got pretty much the bones established, we’re just trying to determine proportionately, how much money we spend in each of the various areas.”
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who discussed disaster aid and government funding with the House Freedom Caucus on Tuesday evening, gave little insight into his plans during his weekly press conference.
“It’s serious, serious damage. But the initial request was $116.5 billion. And what we’re doing right now is the important, methodical job that the House has, to go through really line by line and assess those requests and make sure that they all are actually tied to disaster and not superfluous items and issues that are included,” Johnson said.
Politics
Column: Trump has named a pro-union secretary of Labor, but will she be able to do anything for workers?
Dear readers: Hang on to your hats. I’m about to praise Donald Trump for one of his Cabinet nominees.
She’s Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), who will be the nominee for secretary of Labor.
Chavez-DeRemer has solid pro-labor credentials, a huge departure from the two men who served Trump as secretaries of Labor in his first term. She was one of only three Republicans in the House to vote in favor of the so-called PRO Act, which would significantly strengthen collective bargaining rights. (The measure passed the House in 2019 and 2021 but has been becalmed in committee during the current Congress.)
‘If Chavez-DeRemer commits as Labor secretary to strengthen labor unions and promote worker power, she’s a strong candidate for the job.’
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
During her last electoral campaign she promoted herself as the daughter of a Teamsters union member; that might have been connected to her strong endorsement for the Cabinet post by Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, one of the very few major labor leaders who favored the Republicans during the presidential campaign, to the extent of speaking from the podium at the Republican National Convention in July.
Chavez-DeRemer is a one-term Republican member of Congress who lost her bid for reelection last month to Democrat Janelle Bynum. Her loss wasn’t much of a surprise: Her congressional district has been a solid Democratic stronghold for more than a decade, and she won election in 2022 by only two percentage points.
Labor activists and pro-labor politicians promptly announced support for Chavez-DeRemer after Trump announced her nomination on Nov. 22. Among those making positive noises about the nominee was the staunchly pro-labor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“It’s a big deal that one of the few Republican lawmakers who have endorsed the PRO Act could lead the Department of Labor,” Warren said. “If Chavez-DeRemer commits as Labor secretary to strengthen labor unions and promote worker power, she’s a strong candidate for the job.”
Chavez-DeRemer received an explicit endorsement from Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Her record suggests real support of workers & their right to unionize,” Weingarten tweeted. “I hope it means the Trump admin will actually respect collective bargaining and workers’ voices from Teamsters to teachers.”
The labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute also offered encouraging words, citing Chavez-DeRemer’s support for the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which would protect organizing and collective bargaining rights for government employees.
“While Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer’s support for these needed reforms is encouraging,” EPI general counsel Celine McNicholas wrote, “if confirmed, she will be Secretary of Labor for a president who steadfastly pursued an ambitious anti-worker agenda during his first term in office.”
Another indicator of Chavez-DeRemer’s pro-labor outlook is the bilious reaction from anti-labor conservatives and Republicans to her nomination. Much of that opposition has been focused on her support of the PRO Act. Among other provisions, the act would override state right-to-work laws, racist and anti-union statutes that are common in southeastern and heartland states.
“In this woman’s America, every worker would have to have a boss and pay the union for the privilege of working,” said Grover Norquist, the right-wing anti-tax warrior. The New York Post, a mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch, quoted an anonymous GOP insider labeling Chavez-DeRemer “toxic for so many Republicans.”
Indeed, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) tweeted that he would “need to get a better understanding of her support for Democrat legislation in Congress that would strip Louisiana’s ability to be a right to work state.”
As McNicholas observed, the chief challenge for Chavez-DeRemer if she’s confirmed may be navigating the shoals of an anti-labor Trump administration. During his first term, he turned the Department of Labor into something that more resembled a Department of Employer Rights.
That was especially true under his second Labor secretary, Eugene Scalia —the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had made a career as a lawyer for big corporations resisting labor regulations. (Scalia succeeded Alex Acosta, who resigned as Labor secretary when a furor arose over the solicitous plea deal he had reached with child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 2008 when he was a U.S. attorney in Florida.)
Trump pursued what economics commentator Pedro Nicolaci da Costa called “the most hostile anti-labor agenda of any modern president” in 2019. He overturned an Obama administration rule on overtime pay that eliminated overtime protection for an estimated 8.2 million workers. The Biden administration tried to restore much of that protection, but its effort was blocked by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas.
Through changes to the National Labor Relations Board, Trump reversed the board’s trend toward expanding the definition of “joint employer,” which would have made big franchisers such as McDonald’s jointly liable with their franchisees for violations of employees’ wage and hour rights. He rescinded the Obama-era “persuader” rule, which required employers to disclose their relationships with union-busting law firms.
Amazingly, Trump’s Labor Department fought legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from its woefully outdated $7.25. (The federal minimum wage is still mired at $7.25.)
Among the challenges facing Chavez-DeRemer would be a tough comparison with the labor policies of the Biden administration, who has been the most pro-labor president in decades, possibly ever. In an unprecedented move, Biden walked a United Auto Workers picket line in 2023 while the union was negotiating what became a landmark contract with major automakers.
Trump had tried to counter Biden’s appearance by staging a rally at a nonunion auto parts factory, but it was shortly revealed that some of the workers brandishing signs reading “union members for Trump” and “auto workers for Trump” weren’t actually union members or auto workers.
Promptly after taking office, Biden swept a gang of union-busting Trump appointees out of an important federal labor relations agency — the Federal Service Impasses Panel, which rules on disputes between labor and management involving government union contracts. Trump had stacked the 10-member panel with professional union busters and anti-union ideologues, including corporate lawyers and officials from Koch network-funded right-wing organizations. Eight of the 10 resigned under pressure; Biden fired the two holdouts.
The Democratic majorities Biden assembled at the National Labor Relations Board and Federal Trade Commission drafted and implemented pro-worker policies. The Labor Department revived enforcement of overtime and worker safety laws, which had grown cobwebs under Trump.
Biden didn’t get everything he wanted on the labor front. The Federal Trade Commission, headed by Biden appointee Lina Khan, crafted a rule to ban noncompete clauses in employment contracts, which tend to suppress wages and innovation, but the rule was blocked by another Trump-appointed federal judge this summer just days before it was scheduled to take effect.
The Senate confirmations of two superbly qualified Biden nominees for top posts at the Labor Department were blocked by a Big Business cabal allied with not only Republicans but supine Democrats including Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. (Manchin and Sinema subsequently changed their party affiliations from Democratic to independent, but continued to caucus with the Democrats. Neither will be in the Senate after their current terms end this year.)
Ferocious opposition from business interests forced David Weil, an expert in labor law and all the ways employers cheat their workers of wages, to withdraw his name from consideration as head of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division in 2022.
The same cabal denied confirmation of Julie Su, a stalwart and exceptionally effective advocate for worker rights throughout a professional career that included service as California Labor Commissioner, as successor to Biden’s first Labor secretary, Marty Walsh. Su has been serving as acting secretary since Walsh’s departure in February 2023.
Many Biden administration policies are likely to be rolled back in the new administration, just as Trump in his first term rolled back Obama’s pro-labor policies. These efforts will be test cases for Chavez-DeRemer’s independence from the worst instincts of her boss and his inner circle.
EPI’s McNicholas points to several issues that worker and union advocates will be watching closely. Will she fight to defend the Biden administration’s expansion of overtime eligibility? The Trump administration could act to challenge the court ruling that blocked the expansion, or let it ride. Will she act to preserve the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new standard requiring employers to protect workers from heat-related injuries?
Will she fight any effort to reimplement a Trump-era program that gave employers a free pass if they confessed when accused of wage theft, in which case penalties and damage assessments were waived?
“Chavez-DeRemer should make it harder for employers to steal workers’ wages,” McNicholas argued, “not easier.”
Politics
Video: How Kash Patel, Trump’s F.B.I. Pick, Plans to Reshape the Bureau
new video loaded: How Kash Patel, Trump’s F.B.I. Pick, Plans to Reshape the Bureau
transcript
transcript
How Kash Patel, Trump’s F.B.I. Pick, Plans to Reshape the Bureau
Donald Trump’s pick to lead the F.B.I. has called for firing the agency’s top officials, shutting down its Washington headquarters and has vowed to investigate the president-elect’s political adversaries.
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“I’d shut down the F.B.I. Hoover building on Day 1, and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops, go be cops.” “A man who’s also been with me just about from the beginning. He’s tough, he’s smart. He loves our country and he is a warrior, Kash Patel.” “We are blessed by God to have Donald Trump be our juggernaut of justice, to be our leader, to be our continued warrior in the arena. I am going to go on a government gangsters manhunt in Washington, D.C., for our great president. Who’s coming with me? And we have to take out not just the government gangsters, but the mainstream media, the ones that perpetuated the fake news narratives. We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you.”
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