Free Republic

Some of the people most strongly associated with promoting lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have recently sought to recast their positions. Examples include Anthony Fauci, former leader of the federal COVID-19 response, teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Fauci seemed eager to shirk responsibility for the lockdowns when talking to The New York Times last week. “Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did,” he said. It was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that produced the lockdown recommendations,...

When the former secretary of state and C.I.A. director Mike Pompeo, a man who had dealt firsthand with autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, described Randi Weingarten as “the most dangerous person in the world” last November, it seemed as though he couldn’t possibly be serious. Weingarten is 65 and just over five feet tall. She is Jewish and openly gay — she’s married to a rabbi — and lives in Upper Manhattan. She is the longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, which is not even the country’s biggest union of public-school educators. (The A.F.T. has 1.7...

On Wednesday, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten appeared in a House hearing held by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to discuss the impact of school closures due to COVID-19. In the hearing, Weingarten was pressed about the union’s influence on the federal government during this decision making process throughout the pandemic. In her opening remarks at the hearing, Weingarten claimed that in-person learning was the driving force behind the decisions made during the pandemic about school closures and re-openings. Once questioning began, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), who is a doctor, asked Weingarten if AFT...

American Federation of Teachers comrade-in-chief Randi Weingarten recently asserted in a national newspaper that “Republicans are destroying our public schools. Teachers and parents must fight back.” Talk about pots and kettles. With a rogue person like Weingarten, it’s always about hyper-partisan politics and a faux “fight,” not the children or public education at large. She clearly will never apologize for the incalculable damage she and her allies did to vulnerable children in recent years with lies and will continue destroying them. Weingarten deems anyone who dissents an “extremist,” wishing to put “their political vendettas and ideologies ahead of children’s education....

Teachers union boss Randi Weingarten ripped into Americans critical of public education, accusing them of advancing an “extremist scheme” to replace government-run schools with private, religious, online, and homeschools. Speaking to the National Press Club this week, Weingarten — whose American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the second largest teachers’ labor union in the nation — targeted the DeVos, Bradley, Koch, Uihlein, and Walton family foundations for their criticism of public schools. “The Betsy DeVos wing of the school privatization movement is methodically working its plan: Starve public schools of the funds they need to succeed,” Weingarten said. “Criticize them...

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten told an audience in Washington, D.C., that “private, religious, online and home schools” are an “extremist scheme by a very vocal minority of Americans” that lead to the “bullying of the most vulnerable among us.”

WASHINGTON — A top White House ally plans to paint Republicans’ focus on issues around race, gender and sexual identity as part of a GOP strategy to undermine public education as White House officials debate how forcefully to engage in the so-called culture wars dominating the right. In remarks prepared for the National Press Club on Tuesday, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is expected to say state and local laws that ban certain types of books or restrict what can be taught in the classroom are “fueling hostility and fear” and aren’t serving students, parents or teachers, according...

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis has signaled that he will make a priority of passing a long-debated proposal that would prevent teachers from having union dues deducted from their paychecks. DeSantis supported the proposal Monday during a speech in Orlando, describing it as “paycheck protection legislation.” The Florida Education Association and other teachers unions backed DeSantis’ Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, in the Nov. 8 election, with Miami-Dade County teachers union leader Karla Hernandez serving as Crist’s running mate. DeSantis also has battled unions in recent years about issues such as reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. During what was described...

The nation’s largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), declined by at least 59,000 members during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) disclosure reports. The NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union, lost 40,107 members while the AFT, the nation’s second largest teachers union, declined by 19,078, according to the DOL reports. The decline comes as public schools added 95,000 educators from September 2021 to 2022. ... The decline in the NEA’s membership leaves the union with 2,496,627 million educators, the lowest union membership since 2006, 74...

In 2021, the two largest teachers’ unions in the country collected over half a billion dollars from their members, and almost all of their political spending went to leftist causes. While 57 percent of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) membership is either Republican or independent, nearly 100 percent of political spending of the $575 million in dues was funneled into far-left politics.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten is in Ukraine this week to meet with Ukrainian students and teachers and “to offer solidarity and support” to Ukrainian students and teachers “amid heinous attacks on Democracy,” according to the AFT website. The Ukrainian teachers union, the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers, invited the AFT reportedly, “to bear witness and call attention to the effects on children, families and educators and the impact of Russia’s attacks on democracy and democratic institutions.” “Woke up this am to reports of disgusting Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Lviv & other cities,” Weingarten...

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), is in Ukraine. Miguel Cardona, the Secretary of Education in the Biden Shipwreck, is worried about contraception for children. Your children were kept out of school for two years. Their reading and math scores are in the septic tank. This is not an accident or incompetence. And not us let forget that the Attorney General Merrick Garland considers complaining parents to be domestic terrorists. The elites of our country are intentionally destroying your children. You cannot sit this one out. Randi Weingarten (AFT) had the gall to Tweet that she...

Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job. The top four public labor unions in the U.S. lost more than 200,000 members since the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job, a new report shows that. The Commonwealth Foundation released the report, which found that the top four public labor unions – AFT, AFSCME, NEA, and SEIU – lost nearly 219,000 members altogether since the Janus v. AFSCME ruling. “The Janus decision to end forced...

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten admitted to sharing a false tweet claiming that certain books were banned in Florida on Sunday. The list, posted by an account called "Freesus Patriot," claimed that Florida has banned books such as, "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "A Wrinkle in Time." The account also tweeted that they would not reveal the source of the list. Weingarten was re-elected to lead the AFT in July, making it her eighth term as AFT president. Weingarten replied to another tweet pointing out that the list was "made up" and said that she should have...

On January 28th, 2022, Matt Hoover of the CRS Firearms YouTube channel was taken into custody by U.S. Marshalls after the ATF sought and obtained an indictment against him. He is charged with helping to sell and distribute machine guns illegally by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. This case is little-known outside of the Second Amendment community, but its result will have big repercussions. Let’s get into the weeds and explore just what is happening. Prior to being arrested, Matt Hoover entered into a business deal with Kristopher Ervin, the owner of a business called ‘Auto Key...

A survey of nearly 4,000 K-12 teachers in Texas found that most do not want to be armed while in class or be expected to intercept a gunman at school, according to the state’s teachers union, which released its survey results Wednesday. The Texas American Federation of Teachers sent an online questionnaire to its 65,000 members, which include public school teachers, support personnel and higher education employees, a week after an 18-year-old gunman killed 21 people — including 19 children — at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Soon after the shooting, Texas Republicans said the solution could be arming teachers....

Executive Summary The political Left often criticizes—and the mainstream media frequently report on—the network of center-right nonprofits funded by billionaire entrepreneurs Charles and David Koch. But few politicos know of a left-wing leviathan in Washington, D.C., with a reach rivaling that of the Koch network. This study by the Capital Research Center documents a shadowy web into which nearly $600 million flowed in 2017, the most recent year for which data are available. Operating under the aegis of “philanthropy,” this network is housed in and staffed by a for-profit, privately held consultancy called Arabella Advisors, LLC. Arabella manages four nonprofit...

Whatever she thinks she’s doing, American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten isn’t helping her members with such over-the-top extremism as claiming that things like Florida’s new parental-rights law are “the way in which wars start.” Yes, she actually argued on a podcast that parents and politicians worried about some teachers and school staff seeking to indoctrinate kids are just pushing “propaganda” and “misinformation.” “We’re not indoctrinating,” she said. “We’re not grooming. . . . What we’re doing is making sure we educate kids. We keep them safe. We keep them welcome. And we teach them how to think, not...

Nineteen organizations demanded Congress investigate the Orwellian partnership between leftist website ratings firm NewsGuard and the anti-parent American Federation of Teachers. A coalition of education and tech policy groups, led by Fight for Schools, warned in their letter to Congress: “Given the rise of political intolerance within academic institutions and censorship from the tech industry, we are alarmed by this partnership and its implications for core American values in our schools.” The letter stipulated that “we are calling on Congress to investigate this partnership, including its origins, its intentions, its applications, and the broader issue of biased and conflicted so-called...

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientist says the agency sending a draft of its school reopening guidance to a powerful teachers union was unusual. “It’s uncommon,” said Dr. Henry Walke, who directs the CDC’s Center for Preparedness and Response. It’s also not common for the CDC to incorporate line-by-line edits from outside groups into its guidance, according to Walke. The career government scientist was speaking in February to staff members on the House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Portions of the interview were released on March 30. Earlier releases show that the CDC used...