As Mark Levin said Sunday night on Life, Liberty and Levin, your liberty, your speech, your freedom of association, your school districts, neighborhoods and communities — all are under assault right now by the Biden administration and, specifically, the attorney general of the United States.

That would be Merrick Garland, and the Department of “Justice” he leads.

The Coordinated Attack to Suppress Parents and Taxpayers

The First Amendment guarantees Americans the freedom to associate freely and also “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” But today, if you’re the angry parent of a child being indoctrinated to think of himself either as privileged (the oppressor) or victimized (the oppressed) because of the color of his skin, and you go to your local school board meeting and protest that, and maybe you impress someone as being a little too strident — it’s that subjective — you are lumped into the same category with domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh.

“The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Bill Of Rights,” Levin said, “is under attack by the attorney general of the United States, Merrick Garland, and his staff.” We’ve been watching this unfolding drama closely and could not agree more.

Levin notes that Biden’s staff and others at the White House have joined them in “a coordinated attack to try and silence parents and taxpayers, the citizens of this nation who elect their school board, who send their children into these classrooms.” How dare these parents protest the leftist rot that their kids are being force-fed.

Abusing the Patriot Act

We’ve told you about the memo from Merrick Garland to the Criminal Division, the National Security Division, and Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, plus the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys and the FBI, telling them to treat this kind of protest as domestic terrorism, when not one example of violent or threatening behavior was cited.

Through the Patriot Act, which was enacted to fight real terrorism after 9/11 and never intended for this purpose, Garland’s memo opens up parents to being spied on and having their associations tracked. A simple “hotline” phone call can lead to the FBI arriving at their door for an “ambush” interview.

As Levin points out, the memo specifically asserts that “…[constitutional] protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.” I would say that if there is any effort to intimidate individuals based on their views, it is the action prescribed by this memo.

Merrick Garland surely understands that the federal government has no jurisdiction over this whatsoever. With each passing day, it gets harder to believe that this man was nominated to be a Supreme Court justice, and we can thank God he didn’t get a lifetime appointment. Still, we have to deal with him for now, and an organization called America First Legal helping to lead the way.

Investigating Garland’s Abuse of Power for Partisan Ends

Reed Rubinstein, senior counsel for that organization, has written a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz calling for an investigation “regarding potential improprieties related to the October 4, 2021, Attorney General’s Memorandum.” This is just what is called for, and highly recommended reading. You can find it here.

The letter describes discussions with “stakeholders” (National School Boards Association, etc.) held at the White House in early September “regarding avenues for potential federal action against parents” between a key Biden Domestic Policy Council official and White House staff members, and also with “at least one political appointee in the Civil Rights Division” of the DOJ. Concerns were expressed “regarding the potential partisan political impact of parent mobilization and organization around school issues in the upcoming midterm elections.”

Why should anyone be surprised that this is really all about politics? And do they really think that silencing parents is going to help them going into the next election? How out of touch can they be?

According to this letter, it was “in or about mid-September” that work began on AG Garland’s memo. Coincidence? I think not. The letter suggests it was “pre-coordinated.”

Sure, It’s Protected Speech, But Stopping It is a White House Priority

DOJ staff apparently expressed concerns that there was no authority granted for this under federal law (correct), and also that the parents’ protests were constitutionally protected (also correct). But it was said that THIS WAS A WHITE HOUSE PRIORITY. I guess that meant they would just have to find a way to violate these parents’ rights.

The letter goes on; I hope you’ll read the whole thing, as it nails the DOJ on what they and the White House have been up to.

Garland’s Family Profits from CRT

Levin also brought up the attorney general’s startling conflict of interest, which, as you know, is that his son-in-law founded a multimillion-dollar company called Panorama that supplies just the sort of “educational” materials that these parents are protesting!

Make no mistake, “woke” training materials and lecturing are a huge industry, and when you consider the corporate, government and education markets, some grifters — I mean, content creators, are making a freaking fortune from this garbage. Panorama’s materials are already used by 25 percent of the schools in this country. Instead of recusing himself, which he absolutely should have done, Garland signed the disgusting DOJ memo himself.

Here’s the summary at Fox News.

Alan Dershowitz had a strong reaction to Garland’s memo, saying, “I’ll defend anybody who is chilled in their free speech.” He said that sending out letters and calling for FBI investigations was “extreme.” As Newsmax reports, Dershowitz has also come out strongly against race-based teaching in schools, calling it “propaganda” and saying that protests against it should not be considered domestic terrorism.

The organization Parents Defending Education, which we have enthusiastically profiled here, responded that the attorney general “has declared a war on parents.” His conflict of interest regarding Panorama has not been lost on them, either.

In case you missed my comments in the wake of Garland’s memo here they are.

Amazing What FBI Will and Will Not Do

Also, the day after Garland sent his memo, Mollie Hemingway went on Fox News’ Special Report to observe how out of whack the DOJ’s priorities are. “It is just amazing what the Department of Justice and the FBI will do and what they won’t do,” she said. They were “basically nowhere to be found” last year during all the riots that killed dozens of people and burned and vandalized federal buildings, local police precincts and hundreds of American businesses. And now they’re going after parents who are “justifiably concerned about all sorts of things happening in their school…”

America First Legal has it right when they say that for the Biden administration, this is about holding onto political power. But the ill-advised move appears to be backfiring and could be this administration’s undoing. Let it be so.

 

Mike Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas and longtime conservative commentator on issues in culture and current events. A New York Times best-selling author, he hosts the weekly talk show Huckabee on TBN. 

Originally published at MikeHuckabee.com. Reprinted with Permission.