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You may have heard the phrase parents rights.

It sounds unobjectionable of course parents should have rights which is probably why its become the term of choice for the conservative effort to ban books, censor school curriculums and suppress politically undesirable forms of knowledge.

When House Republicans introduced a bill that would require public schools to notify parents that they are entitled to access course material and lists of books kept in school libraries, they cited parents rights as the reason.

Thats what today is all about: Its about every parent, mom and dad, but most importantly about the students in America, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said. Several Republican-controlled states have either proposed or passed similar measures.

The official name for Floridas infamous Dont Say Gay bill, prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity, is the Parental Rights in Education Act. And the states Stop WOKE Act short for Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees, which outlaws any school instruction that classifies individuals as inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, was framed, similarly, as a victory for the rights of parents.

By signing this legislation, which is the first in the nation to end corporate wokeness and Critical Race Theory in our schools, we are prioritizing education, not indoctrination, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuez said in a statement. We will always fight to protect our children and parents from this Marxist-inspired curriculum.

It should be said that this movement for parents rights in Florida has empowered certain parents to remove books, films, even whole classes that threaten to expose their children to material that might make them uncomfortable. In Pinellas County, for example, a single complaint about the Disney film Ruby Bridges about the 6-year-old girl who integrated an all-white New Orleans school in 1960 led to its removal from an elementary school.

In his 2021 campaign for the Virginia governors mansion, Glenn Youngkin made parents matter his slogan, and he has asserted parents rights in his effort to regulate the treatment of transgender children and end divisive concepts such as critical race theory in schools. His early moves included new history standards that removed discussions of racism and downplayed the role of slavery in causing the Civil War.

And at this moment, Texas Republicans are debating a bill backed by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that, according to The Texas Tribune, would severely restrict classroom lessons, school activities and teacher guidance about sexual orientation and gender identity in all public and charter schools up to 12th grade. Texas parents, the Tribune notes, already have the right to remove their child temporarily from a class or activity that conflicts with their beliefs or review all instructional materials. This bill would further empower parents to object to books, lessons and entire curriculums.

Parents rights, you will have noticed, never seems to involve parents who want schools to be more open and accommodating toward gender nonconforming students. Its never invoked for parents who want their students to learn more about race, identity and the darker parts of American history. And we never hear about the rights of parents who want schools to offer a wide library of books and materials to their children.

Parents rights, like states rights, is quite particular. Its not about all parents and all children and all the rights they might have.

The reality of the parents rights movement is that it is meant to empower a conservative and reactionary minority of parents to dictate education and curriculums to the rest of the community. It is, in essence, an institutionalization of the hecklers veto, in which a single parent or any individual, really can remove hundreds of books or shut down lessons on the basis of the political discomfort they feel. Parents rights, in other words, is when some parents have the right to dominate all the others.

And, of course, the point of this movement the point of creating this state-sanctioned hecklers veto is to undermine public education through a thousand little cuts, each meant to weaken public support for teachers and public schools, and to open the floodgates to policies that siphon funds and resources from public institutions and pumps them into private ones. The Texas bill I mentioned, for instance, would give taxpayer dollars to parents who chose to opt out of public schools for private schools or even home-schooling.

The culture war that conservatives are currently waging over education is, like the culture wars in other areas of American society, a cover for a more material and ideological agenda. The screaming over wokeness and D.E.I. is just another Trojan horse for a relentless effort to dismantle a pillar of American democracy that, for all of its flaws, is still one of the countrys most powerful engines for economic and social mobility.

Ultimately, then, the parents rights movement is not about parents at all; its about whether this country will continue to strive for a more equitable and democratic system of education, or whether well let a reactionary minority drag us as far from that goal as possible, in favor of something even more unequal and hierarchical than what we already have.

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Opinion | What the Republican Push for Parents Rights Is Really About - The New York Times

Even before they had taken control of the House, House Republicans were promising payback.

Using the powers of the various congressional committees that they would soon take over, ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus members, led by Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, were pledging investigations of everything: the Biden familys business practices, Hunter Bidens laptop, the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, alleged government bias against conservatives, and the Biden administrations border policies.

But so far, these investigations seem to be flopping. They dont seem to be sticking in the public consciousness. They havent uncovered page one news about Hunter Bidens laptop, or about the origins of Covid-19, or about a supposed government conspiracy to silence conservatives on Twitter. A bit more than two months into Republican control of the House, plenty of these investigations are well underway. Hearings have been held, letters sent, witnesses summoned, and hours spent appearing on Fox News.

The House GOP investigations also arent making the presidents reelection campaign untenable many Democratic operatives suspected that was their goal and they dont seem to be damaging the president as many Republicans had hoped.

Of course, its still early, and in the more than year and a half before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans could still weaponize their committee investigations into better political cudgels. A handful of additional hearings are on the calendar, but more remain unscheduled. If Republicans had hoped to establish the same kind of cloud of confusion and innuendo that they did during the Obama years to tarnish the presidents reputation and hurt Hillary Clintons presidential hopes, they have yet to achieve that with Biden.

New polling provided to Vox by the progressive research group Navigator further demonstrates this trend: Half of American adults believe Republicans are overreaching in their oversight of the Biden administration, up from the 46 percent who said so in a February poll and the 30 percent who said so in January. The number who view the GOPs investigations as a form of overreach is also rising among political independents, while Republican support for the investigations is remaining steady.

The presidents approval rating remains virtually unchanged (though its trended up since the midterms). House Republicans continue to be tremendously unpopular. And more Americans today see the House GOPs oversight investigations negatively when compared to when they took control.

The big reason these investigations dont seem to be breaking through is pretty simple: They just arent that popular, and never really were. And its not just Navigators polling that shows Americans arent very receptive to whatever comes out of these hearings. Since January, a series of Pew, NBC, and Public Policy Polling surveys have shown that most Americans dont see these investigations as priorities for Congress, or would rather Republicans spend less time pursuing these lines of inquiry in favor of addressing more tangible, everyday issues (first among them being inflation and the cost of household goods).

For example, when Pew Research asked Americans in mid-January how they felt about the GOPs new focus on investigating the Biden administration, the answers were pretty definitive 65 percent worried Republicans would focus too much, while 32 percent thought they wouldnt pay enough attention. Even Republicans were split closely; 42 percent of Republican adults said they thought Republicans would focus on oversight too much, compared to the 56 percent who feared lawmakers wouldnt go far enough.

Navigator also found that a plurality of Americans dont see these inquiries as serious, good-faith efforts at oversight including 38 percent of independents who think they are political stunts.

Navigators chief of polling, Bryan Bennett, told me that in the runup to and aftermath of the midterms, Republicans may have misjudged just how much to play up their proposed investigations, and made a strategic error hyping up the investigations that are of least interest to Americans.

In Navigator voter focus groups in Wisconsin, Virginia, and Texas, voters seemed most open to investigations into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, China-US trade practices, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But those arent the investigations that House Republicans have prioritized. The panel investigating the origins of the coronavirus, for example, has only met once, earlier in March, and a second hearing is scheduled for Tuesday (scrutinizing school closures). The Foreign Affairs Committee, which is investigating the Afghanistan withdrawal, meanwhile, has sent letters to the State Department requesting more information and held one hearing on the fall of Kabul, but it did not have any witnesses from the executive branch testifying. Meanwhile, James Comer, the chair of the oversight committee, has spent hours on Fox News pushing the committees investigation into Hunter Bidens laptop and the Biden familys business practices. Theyve held one hearing already and have more planned.

These hearing topics, Bennett said, are the ones that independent voters are most likely to view with disdain and distrust. The reasons that were cited for that included that there was kind of this broad perception that it was seen as being like a revenge list or a tit-for-tat, or a get even list, and that it wasnt really particularly focused on the priorities that people want Congress to focus on.

Comer has also managed to become Republicans standard-bearer for investigations, assuming the role of chief White House congressional antagonist on Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News. But the decision to take on that role also poses a problem not many people know him outside of conservative circles, and scrutiny into his past has dredged up old allegations of abuse of a girlfriend and a shady track record of political maneuvering. (Comers office did not respond to a request for comment.)

Beyond the general unpopularity of these investigations, Republicans have some other structural and political obstacles. Democrats are not letting these probes go on unanswered, a lesson from the Benghazi investigations during the Obama years. A collection of Democratic and progressive groups, like the Congressional Integrity Project, are working hard outside of government to paint these Republican investigations as illegitimate and the investigators as abusers of congressional power.

The White House itself is also proactively responding to various Republican lines of attack with frequent conversations with reporters, led by Ian Sams, the White Houses chief spokesperson on these investigations. Sams and the White House Counsels office have also gotten ahead of other potential vulnerabilities, like the discovery of classified documents at Bidens home and private offices, by preemptively briefing reporters and blasting out clips and quotes of Comer, Jordan, and other Republicans talking about the political nature of these investigations.

Theres also a problem of novelty and nicheness. Many of the subjects that Republicans have pledged to investigate dont feel fresh or new. Hunter Bidens laptop and his business dealings were a 2020 matter; the Afghanistan withdrawal and coronavirus pandemic feel like years-old issues; and the questioning of social media companies and alleged government bias against conservatives are issues that may only truly resonate with the most partisan, internet-pilled Republican voters.

The oversight committee, especially, may simply be picking too many targets to pursue its also investigating the conditions of January 6 defendants in the DC jail, the capital citys legislative work, the impact of progressivism on the military, pandemic relief fraud, and coronavirus school closures, among many other things.

The American public is already tired of these, Brad Woodhouse, a senior adviser to the Congressional Integrity Project, a group of Democratic operatives, told me. I understand theres some support within the Republican base, but the American public writ large are already tired of these extreme tactics.

There are also real questions about productivity: The committees simply havent held that many meetings, and none have featured people who have enough of a high profile to garner attention beyond niche conservative spaces. I havent seen a single guy sweating under the bright lights, Fox News host Jesse Watters complained in early March. Are we gonna drill down on anything? Are we going to see anybody squirm and cough up the truth or at least plead the Fifth or something, so that we can start showering these goons with subpoenas? Where are the bombshells? Have the investigations even started?

Donald Trump himself is also sucking up the energy and attention of the political press and the American public. As his presidential campaign blunders on, and a number of federal, state, and local investigations into his dealings with campaign money, classified documents, liability for January 6, and potential obstruction of justice continue, he has reinforced himself as one of Democrats best tools for diverting attention from the House investigations.

Finally, Republicans will also face a longer-term problem of political inertia. Given how unfavorably the public has been viewing these probes so far, they have limited time to change opinions, Bennett said. The longer that you have these kind of [negative] ratings, the more entrenched that view is going to become, and the harder its going to be to recover.

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Why House Republicans investigations are flopping - Vox.com

The economy, moreover, is a ripe political issue. Yes, unemployment remains astonishingly low, but inflation is still rampant and hopes of a soft landing are beginning to diminish. Wages have grown but havent kept pace with rising prices. The economy remains phenomenally unequal. And Republicans have a very recent example of exploiting a weird, mixed economy for electoral gain: Back in 2016, Donald Trump won the election in part by hammering the fact that millions had been left behind by economic changes wrought by globalization, promising to bring back millions of jobs, and grow the economy by 4 percent. That message resonated, particularly with voters who lived in areas where the economy was struggling and in the industrial Midwest.

None of that happened, of coursein office, Trumps economic agenda was mostly bog-standard GOP policy (tax cuts for corporations and the rich) with a tariff or two thrown in. Nevertheless, his platform in 2016tariffs, rolling back globalization, bringing back manufacturing jobsworked as catnip for the GOP base. Republicans have since abandoned it.

A big reason why is that Donald Trump managed to turn Republican voters away from the old GOP economic agenda of lowering taxes on the rich and gutting everyone elses earned benefit programs without ever fully replacing it with anything that resembled the populist vision he briefly touted on the hustings. Trump made it clear that rolling back Social Security and Medicare was not a winning electoral argument. Republicans have listened, and have made half-hearted, dishonest pledges to protect those arguments. But this promise has merely slid next to a contradictory onethat the party will reduce the deficit and balance the budget.

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Why Republicans Abandoned Their Economic Message - The New Republic

The House Budget Committee has announced a Wednesday hearing called the Fiscal State of the Union.

Well be watching to see if House Republicans will finally come clean with the American people about their tax welfare for the rich and which cuts theyd impose on the middle class, including in red states.

Ironically, this Fiscal State of the Union comes after House Republicans have released proposals with gigantic tax giveaways to the super wealthy and big corporations that would add over $3 trillion to the deficit.

Also ironically, the hearing is being held in opposition to President Bidens Invest in America budget, which would cut the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over ten years thanks to cutting wasteful spending on rich special interests and having them finally pay their fair share.

President Bidens budget would continue two trends hes leading: bringing jobs back from overseas and making health care more affordable for families across the country.

Unfortunately, Republicans haveshownthey want to kill thousands of manufacturing jobs and cost millions of Americans their health coverage disproportionately in red states.

Before the actual State of the Union, President Biden pledged he would release his budget to the American people and called on Republicans to display the same transparency.

He honored his promise, but House Republicans have repeatedly delayed their budget while sending contradictory messages about whether they will even release one at all.

An exception is the House Freedom Caucus, which released a budget vision thatdoes not reduce the deficit and,by repealing the Inflation Reduction Acts climate investments, would be a windfall for China and killtens of thousands of manufacturing jobsPresident Biden iscreating in red states.

In the meantime, the House Republican Conference claims they will break with their long history of attempting to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits (which wellbelieve when we see).

But as David Leonhardt becomes the latest to point outthis morning, following those restraints would mean they need to make devastating cuts to the Affordable Care Act and to Medicaid, which would especially target Americans in red states.

So on Wednesday well be watching without holding our breath to see if House Republicans finally let their budget plan out of the shadows, and if that plan is in line with their proposals so far of exploding the deficit with tax welfare for the rich, killing manufacturing jobs in red states, and costing millions of their constituents their health care.

Andrew Batesis the White House Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser.

A foreign sojourn to the United States by the Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazovic, has taken place yet again during a historic juncture. With the country bracing itself for the second round of the Presidential election, which according to the Prime Minister,passed smoothly and without any hint of tensions, Abazovic has taken upon himself

EDT 9:30 AM President Biden receives the Presidents Daily Briefing 2:30 PM President Biden EDT hosts the SBA Womens Business Summit Briefing Schedule 1:00 PM Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

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White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates slams House ... - The Pavlovic Today

Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios

The future of abortion is in limbo in North Carolina, where thousands of women have flocked since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Why it matters: With a functioning supermajority in the legislature, Republicans have made restricting abortions beyond the state's current 20-week ban a top priority.

What they're saying: "Allowing for abortion up to 20 weeks" is not acceptable, SBA Pro-Life Americas Southern regional director Caitlin Connors told Axios in a statement. "And doing nothing to change that existing law is not acceptable."

What we're watching: North Carolina's state House, where abortion restrictions will live or die. While Republicans in the Senate have the luxury of a supermajority, House Republicans need one Democrat to vote with them.

Meanwhile: Some anti-abortion groups are pushing Republicans to only back legislation that bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected a proposal many believe doesn't have a shot at becoming law.

What's next: In recent days at least one of those anti-abortion groups has read the writing on the wall, sources tell Axios, and expressed openness to a 12-week ban, so long as the legislation includes other provisions that could help reduce abortions, like incentivizing adoption.

The bottom line: That shift could help the legislation get unstuck, but bill filing deadlines are rapidly approaching.

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NC Republicans are at an impasse on abortion restrictions - Axios