#AG Merrick Garland is at war with American families: Devine

Only a fool pokes a mama bear, but that’s Merrick Garland for you. 

The attorney general thought to be such a moderate that 20 Republicans confirmed his nomination turns out to be a radical ideologue hellbent on targeting President Biden’s political foes. 

He is injecting himself into the front lines of every culture war, from pregnant “people” to school board meetings. 

But Garland’s ominous memo last week directing the FBI to investigate parents as domestic terror threats was a big mistake. He cited no evidence for what he claims is a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school boards. 

His memo was a shocking abuse of his office on behalf of left-wing activists who have been using schools as brainwashing factories for future social justice warriors. It was designed to intimidate parents and stop them advocating for their children. 

For all his awesome power, Garland has met a force greater than his weaponized Department of Justice: the love of parents for their children. 

“Nobody gets between a mama bear and her cub,” says Asra Nomani, a mom and the vice president of investigations and strategy at Parents Defending Education. 

“We are not intimidated or afraid . . . You are criminalizing parenting, and you owe the people of America a swift apology.” 

It took only five days for Garland to issue his memo after an outfit named the National School Boards Association wrote an inflammatory letter to President Biden accusing parents of a “form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” 

If only Biden could act so swiftly when it came to real national security threats like the one at the southern border. 

The NSBA demanded urgent action against parents by the DOJ, the FBI, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, and suggested utilizing the “PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism.” 

The letter cited cases including one man arrested in Illinois for “aggravated battery and disorderly conduct” during a school board meeting, someone in Michigan who “yelled a Nazi salute in protest to masking requirements,” some trespassing, shouting and prank calls. 

Of course, violence or threats are always wrong, but in the few isolated instances of criminal behavior cited, local law enforcement effectively did their job. 

There is no reason to deploy the heavy hand of federal law enforcement, other than to try to frighten parents into shutting up. 

In any case the NSBA is not an organization which can be taken seriously. It is not impartial, but a left-wing activist outfit, which even has embraced someone accused of actual domestic terrorism, as Newsweek points out. In 2019, the NSBA invited as keynote speaker to its annual conference the former black militant communist Angela Davis, who once was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list over her alleged involvement in the Black Panther murder of a judge. 

The NSBA’s letter cites as evidence of the urgent threat posed by parents a flimsy report by an activist nonprofit which grandly calls itself the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. The report cites former President Donald Trump as a bogeyman in its first line and demonizes as racist legislation in states such as Florida which was brought in after last summer’s violent riots. 

In other words, one left-wing activist group citing another left-wing activist group is proof enough for the president to instruct his attorney general to instruct the FBI to criminalize parents trying to stop left-wing activists from hijacking their children’s education. 

Parents have every right to tell school boards what their children should be taught and every right to be upset when they are ignored. 

That’s the one positive thing to have come out of remote learning: Parents are now more aware of the shenanigans in the classroom. 

We have heard American moms at school board meetings eloquently reject the perversions being forced on their children under the banner of “equity” and “tolerance.” They reject hateful racism disguised as “anti-racism” which divides their children into oppressors and victims. 

They reject gender ideology which teaches their children there is no such thing as a boy or a girl. They reject racial quotas designed to exclude Asian students and unscientific pandemic paranoia which has seen teacher unions keep schools closed and demand children be masked and vaccinated, regardless of their well-being. 

Time and again we have seen arrogant school board members turn off microphones, shut down meetings and then, behind closed doors, ridicule these parents. 

So now the heavy hand of the DOJ has been deployed to silence them. 

Good luck with that. The mama bears aren’t shutting up.

It’s deja vu on Rikers

With five jailhouse suicides this year, the inhumane conditions at Rikers Island are a stain on this city’s conscience. But prematurely releasing inmates to commit more crime, as Gov. Hochul has done, is not the answer. 

Rikers was a basket case in the 1990s and was fixed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s correction commissioner, Bernie Kerik. 

In the mid-90s the jail housed 22,000 inmates, compared to 6,000 today. There were 150 stabbings and slashings a month, according to Kerik. 

Over the next six years, this was his record: a “93% reduction in inmate violence, 72% reduction in ‘Serious Use of Force’ incidents, 33% reduction in overtime spending, 31% reduction in staff sick abuse, 48% reduction in assaults of staff, 164% increase in searches conducted, 50% increase in weapons seized, [and] reduced medical waiting times, from up to six hours, to one hour,” he said in an e-mail. 

Even The New York Times was impressed: “An Iron Hand at Rikers Island Drastically Reduces Violence” was the headline in November 1999. 

Kerik made a hellhole safe, clean and orderly. You’d think the city would ask him how to do it again.

“Lucky” break$ 

It was disconcerting seeing abortion enthusiast Nancy Pelosi receive such a warm welcome from Pope Francis at the Vatican last week. You can only hope she confessed her alleged sins, some of which were alluded to in a “Watters World” investigation on Fox News on Saturday. 

“The Pelosis got a million dollars’ worth of Tesla stock right before Joe Biden announced electric-car incentives,” said host Jesse Watters. “Just before Congress was set to pounce on Big Tech, Mr. Pelosi exercised options on Google’s parent company, Alphabet, making an easy $5.3 million . . . In March, Paul Pelosi exercised $2 million worth of Microsoft options, just two weeks before [it] got a $22 billion contract to equip the US Army with high-tech headsets.” 

Maybe it’s just lucky timing, but it looks bad and Nancy Pelosi ought to explain it.

Life’s a beach, Joe 

“If Biden would have just gone to the beach, just take it easy, enjoy the surf, he’d have a great border today.” Donald Trump on target in Iowa Saturday night.