Congress to airlines: Where did all that Covid money go?



Oriana Pawlyk
Sat, November 20, 2021

The wave of airline cancellations that snarled thousands of flights over the past three months did more than strand passengers at airports from Florida to Indiana and points in between.

It also angered lawmakers who had given the airline industry more than $50 billion in pandemic relief money over the last year and a half — based on the carriers’ promise that the cash would help them be ready for travelers' return to the skies. Now Congress is demanding answers about why airlines have been so unprepared for the inevitable upswing in passenger demand, a question with big implications for the holiday travel season that kicks off this weekend.

“There should have been every reason, particularly given the bailout money for the airlines, to prepare for the surge we're seeing now,” Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s representative in Congress, told POLITICO. “This money was for a very specific purpose.”

Norton, who said she has some “buyer’s remorse” for supporting the bailout, is calling for hearings on the topic before the House Transportation Committee — and she’s not the only one. The Senate’s transportation panel is already preparing to grill airlines on the matter in early December.

“The airlines owe Americans better service,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the panel. “In my view, they're failing to keep their side of the bargain.”

Airlines for America, the trade group for major U.S. airlines, said the hiccups carriers have experienced recently "are wholly unrelated" to federal support payments, which was "used exclusively" to keep workers on the job.

"Travelers have been returning to the skies at a rapid pace, and U.S. airlines are working to hire and train new employees and return to service aircraft that had been put in storage in order to meet the growing demand," the group said. It did not respond to a further question about why airlines didn't use the federal money to stay more adequately staffed for the return of demand.

So far, the start of the pre-Thanksgiving weekend has not seen a new surge in mass cancellations — though that could change with the next wave of stormy weather.
Weathering the weather

Southwest last month canceled more than 2,000 flights after what it called an “unexpected air traffic control issue” compounded by weather in Florida that disturbed flight operations. American Airlines had a similar meltdown with thousands of flights canceled over Halloween weekend, also citing bad weather. Spirit canceled more than 60 percent of its flights for roughly three days in August, attributing its snafu to system outages, staffing and the weather.

The airlines involved in this recent turmoil have typically blamed a set of cascading problems that begins with bad weather, which for example has hampered crews trying to fly to the airports where their next assignment begins. Those crews are still on the work clock even during those delays, which means that by the time they're in position, they're sometimes forced to stop for the night because of rules intended to ensure they don't fly tired. And because the airlines lack adequate reserve crews to fill in those gaps, problems snowball from there.

Aviation industry experts are skeptical that weather is always the root cause, though, instead blaming tight crew scheduling and lack of personnel slack in general. For instance, Southwest said its October flight meltdown was over air traffic control delays and weather in Florida. But no other airline that operates out of Florida had such severe problems in the same span.

In an Oct. 21 earnings report, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly acknowledged a personnel crunch at the airline, saying its "available staffing fell below plan and, along with other factors, caused us to miss our operational ontime performance targets."

'What did you do with all the money?'

Last year, as lawmakers began to grasp the nature of the pandemic challenge at the country’s doorstep, Congress enacted the CARES Act, H.R. 748 (116), with a tranche of money for airlines to use to protect their workers — from crews to baggage handlers — from mass furloughs. The idea was to keep employees, many of whom require training and certifications to perform their jobs, in place so that operations could resume seamlessly as travel ramped back up.

“The support our government has entrusted to us carries immense responsibility and an obligation that American Airlines is privileged to undertake,” CEO Doug Parker said in April 2020 following the news that grants were on the way. “It is our privilege to continue flying through the downturn and to be in a ready position as our country and the world return to the skies.”

Ultimately, federal money saved hundreds of thousands of flight attendant, pilot and support jobs. Yet the disruptions experienced over recent weeks are expected to continue as travel climbs. Southwest has already decided to cut flights from its schedule for December and through early next year to try to get ahead of its staffing concerns and avoid last-minute cancellations of the sort that strand passengers.

Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines pilot and a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, the union for pilots at American, said it's not just lawmakers who are frustrated with the way airlines are behaving. He said crews aren't always being managed well, with pilots and flight attendants waiting around after a canceled flight for airline planners to attempt to reschedule them as the clock ticks down on their shift.

He said pilots also want to be able to have a better-planned routine that doesn't devolve into chaos at the first hint of trouble. He noted that the relief funding — $25 billion in grants, and $25 billion more in financial assistance — was supposed to provide a cushion to give airlines the ability to execute flights in a post-pandemic world.

"So we're asking our management team, even before these [travel] events, 'What did you do with all the money?'" Tajer said.

Tajer didn't have an answer, but Norton did. She speculated that it appears that "who really benefited are the shareholders of the airlines — that's one of the reasons that I'm requesting a hearing."

Like Norton, Tajer said he remains dumbfounded as to how these problems could happen knowing the money was there as a protective measure.

"I did interviews everywhere, along with other union groups and the airlines saying, 'We've got to be ready for the recovery, that's why this is important; this is an investment in that recovery,'" Tajer said. "And now here I sit talking about, 'How in the world could you not be ready for this?'"
Congress weighs in

Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has already been probing the issue. Over the summer, she asked airlines for information on the staffing shortages that some experts contend have led to flight cancellations and disarray.

Specifically she has asked for current staffing figures, information about layoffs, buyouts and furloughs, and other statistics that will form the basis of what could be an uncomfortable hearing on the matter when her committee convenes in December.

Congress put strings on its bailout money — chief among them that airlines agreed to stop furloughing or laying off their employees during the pandemic. But John Breyault of the National Consumers League said he suspects that even with that directive, airlines got creative in how they balanced their capacity, avoiding furloughs and layoffs in part by offering incentives for employees to take voluntary leave or retire early. Though allowed under the terms of the legislation, that's contributed to the current staffing crunch, he suggested.

Now, "consumers are really reaping the whirlwind when it comes to delays and cancellations because the airlines don't have the staff to fly those planes," added Breyault, the league's vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud. The nonprofit organization advocates for citizens on marketplace and workplace issues.

In a memo to flight attendants, American Airlines acknowledged that disruptions were caused by past staffing decisions, including buyouts and early retirements that the airline encouraged. The company said another factor was the need to juggle new hurdles, such as peaks in travel demand as more Americans sought out leisure travel for the first time in more than a year.

"As the demand for air travel was slow to return, we offered early outs and extended voluntary leaves," Brady Byrnes, American's vice president of flight service, said in a Nov. 5 internal memo to flight attendants. "Fast forward a few months, and the landscape has changed dramatically. … That's why we're taking steps to minimize disruptions to your work schedule and our customers' travel plans as we gear up for the busy holiday season."

With holiday travel coming up, airlines say they're accelerating efforts to get schedule and staffing right to avoid gaps in the system, including making sure they have enough staff to crew the scheduled flights they have already planned, and creating bonus and pay incentives for overtime work. Byrnes, for example, said American will offer its flight attendants 300 percent pay premium increases for working during holiday peak periods if they don't skip a shift between Nov. 15 and Jan. 2.

A contributing factor is the continuing tight labor market, which has left many industries with a dearth of personnel slack that the pandemic is only worsening, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president and analyst at the Teal Group.

Aboulafia said airlines couldn’t predict when exactly travel would climb out of its pandemic slump back to pre-Covid levels. “Who could have predicted that?”

If airlines had brought on more employees, jet fuel and planes ahead of market demand, it would have plunged them into a financial hole deeper than deficits wrought by the pandemic, Aboulafia said. “By having too little capacity, you're embarrassed, [but] if you get it wrong by having too much capacity, you run the risk of bankruptcy,” he said.

But Norton said this was entirely predictable.

“Any fool could tell that as Covid declined, airline traffic would go up,” she said.
Travel roars back

The trends have been clear, particularly recently. Airline bookings have been on the upswing over the last few weeks, especially with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up. An airline consumer index released last week by Adobe Digital Economy shows bookings from six U.S.-based carriers are 78 percent higher than 2020 levels, and are up 3 percent over pre-pandemic levels.

Airport businesses are also predicting an uptick in need for services such as parking spots and other items, all of which suggest consumer demand is soaring. Another data point is a reported rise in wait times at airlines' call centers.

Airlines’ zeal to return to profitability as soon as possible is skewing how they accommodate consumers, argued Breyault of the National Consumers League.

He said that in a meeting with Department of Transportation officials Nov. 10, his organization called for an investigation into whether airlines are deceptively advertising flights and selling tickets that they can't possibly meet because of limited crews.

Asked about the meeting, DOT responded that it meets regularly with representatives of consumer advocacy organizations, who "often highlight aviation consumer protection priorities for their organizations."

"The Department welcomes this input and considers the perspective of these organizations and other stakeholders in determining what action is in the public interest," a spokesperson said Tuesday.

Between January 2020 and the end of June 2021, DOT received 124,918 complaints concerning refunds, with 84 percent pertaining to mishandling of a canceled flight, according to the agency. “There certainly seems to me to be some shenanigans here that the DOT should be investigating,” Breyault said.

Lawmakers have long been concerned by airline behavior on refunds, especially during the pandemic. On Wednesday, Blumenthal and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) reintroduced a bill, S. 3222 (117), to expand protections for air travelers. The legislation, similar to one introduced in 2019, would provide passengers with fair compensation in the event of airline-driven cancellations or delays and other items.
'Doing the best they can'

Some lawmakers weren't as eager to upbraid airlines for canceled flights, saying they’ve managed as best they can with this unpredictable pandemic and the government’s sometimes patchwork requirements for travel.

“They're dealing with Covid and just like the rest of this country and the rest of the world, it's made life very difficult and much more complicated,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo). Pilots and flight attendants also have additional stressors to deal with, including spiking incidents with unruly passengers.

“It’s not the airlines failing to act. … They are doing the best they can,” he said.

That reasoning won’t satisfy other lawmakers. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the airlines received funding solely because they are a key part of the nation’s transportation infrastructure.

But “if they can’t keep their promises to taxpayers and travelers, Congress should find out why,” she said.

CIA continues to conceal JFK assassination files. But here’s what we do know | Opinion


Jefferson Morley
Sun, November 21, 2021

As a professional journalist who has been reporting on the assassination of John F. Kennedy for almost 30 years, I have long been skeptical about the pursuit of a proverbial “smoking gun” that supposedly will blow open the case of the murdered president. hen When the congressional deadline for the release of the last of the JFK files approached last month, I instinctively advised friends that there would no smoking gun in the released material.

After all, no serious investigative reporter seeks a single piece of evidence to decisively prove some kind of wrongdoing. To the contrary, good investigative journalism assembles myriad pieces of evidence into a mosaic that depicts a granular story of wrongdoing not previously visible to the public and law enforcement. Most prize-winning journalistic investigations do not depend on, or even feature, a “smoking gun” piece of evidence. So why should the JFK assassination story?

As the editor of the JFK Facts blog, I report on new pieces of evidence that filled in blank spaces in the historical record of JFK’s assassination. Think mosaic, not smoking gun.


But when the Biden White House announced late in the evening of Oct. 22 that the last of the JFK documents would not be released until December 2022 at the earliest, I began to rethink my caution. Friday nights are traditionally when the White House press office takes out the president’s smelliest garbage in hopes that the stench will pass by Monday morning. The announcement that the CIA and other federal agencies had delayed compliance with the 1992 JFK Records Act for the second time in four years was a story the White House understandably wanted to go away.
Smoking gun?

The delay struck me — and University of Texas Professor James Galbraith, among others — as a smoking gun in itself. The CIA’s slow-walking tactics are not quite definitive proof of a JFK conspiracy. They do, however, demonstrate that the CIA does not intend to obey a law concerning the assassination of a sitting American president.

The most plausible explanation of the CIA’s six-decade long history of deception, deceit and delay about assassination-related records is the desire to hide embarrassment or malfeasance. If nothing else, Biden’s order on the JFK files indicates that the CIA has a JFK problem: the clandestine service today cannot afford full disclosure about what happened in Dallas a long time ago.

To be sure, there are other possible explanations. Mark Zaid, a leading national security attorney in Washington, suggests that the CIA is hiding legitimate non-JFK secrets. This is possible, if not probable. But the CIA, facing a deadline set by President Trump in October 2017, released no JFK documents of any kind, basically saying, “the COVID dog at my homework.” You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder if non-JFK secrets is all they are withholding.

In fact, JFK researchers know something about what the CIA is hiding. Most of the still-secret JFK files have been partially declassified. In some documents only a paragraph, sentence or single word remains secret. From context we can deduce much about what is still hidden.

A redacted 123-page CIA file on Watergate burglar Howard Hunt, released in April 2018, for example, may shed light on what President Richard Nixon called “the whole Bay of Pigs thing.” Nixon used this phrase as a coded reference to JFK’s assassination, according to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. The Hunt file lends credence to Haldeman’s claim.
Cuba policy

In 1970, Hunt, a leading figure in the failed invasion of Cuba, circulated the manuscript of his memoir, “Give Us This Day,” which denounced JFK’s Cuba policy as weak, if not traitorous. Hunt did not go through the agency’s pre-publication clearance process, a serious breach of protocol. Five documents, comprising eight pages of material, have been removed from the Hunt file with the notation that they can be found in CIA’s JFK files. I doubt these documents include a smoking gun, but they are certainly relevant to the assassination story.

The CIA file of Hunt’s fellow burglar Frank Sturgis has more smoking-gun potential. Sturgis, a long-time resident of Miami, was a soldier of fortune involved in anti-Cuba operations in the 1960s. Accused of involvement in Kennedy’s assassination, Sturgis denied he was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. But behind closed doors, Sturgis boasted to investigators that the FBI considered him a plausible suspect in JFK’s murder. The redacted material in the Sturgis file may shed light on questions about Mafia involvement in JFK’s murder.

These passages concern the agency’s long-running interest in a man named Robert Maheu. He was a corrupt former FBI agent who facilitated the first CIA conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960. In 1971, Maheu shared what he knew of the Castro plots with syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. Maheu’s source, Mafia hitman Johnny Rosselli had hinted that the CIA’s efforts to kill Castro had led to the assassination of JFK. Rosselli, under federal investigation, with the possibility of deportation to Italy, threatened to tell the whole story to a Las Vegas grand jury. The blackmail ploy worked. The agency protected Rosselli from deportation, and Maheu never told the story to prosecutors. Years later, Rosselli, facing a congressional subpoena seeking his JFK testimony, was found stuffed in an oil drum floating in Biscayne Bay before his appearance on Capitol Hill.

Another still-secret file concerns a Miami man named Eladio del Valle. Some of his associates — not conspiracy theorists and not enemies— believed was involved in Kennedy’s assassination. Del Valle was murdered in 1966, a crime that never was solved. David Kaiser, a diplomatic historian and author of “The Road to Dallas,” a scholarly book about Kennedy’s assassination, sought to get access to Del Valle’s CIA records. He learned the Del Valle file was — and is — classified in its entirety.
Aware of Oswald

Then there’s a 338-page file that traces the very interesting career of James Walton Moore, the chief of the Dallas office of the agency’s Domestic Contacts Division in 1963. Moore knew all about Lee Harvey Oswald a year before he supposedly killed Kennedy. In the summer of 1962, Moore learned that Oswald, a former Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union out of sympathy for communism, had returned to Texas with a Russian wife. If the official JFK story is true — if Oswald alone killed the president — Moore was one of a half dozen senior CIA officials who failed to discern the threat he posed.

The CIA has largely managed to keep Moore out of the JFK investigations. He was never questioned about his pre-assassination knowledge of the accused assassin. His personnel file was partially released in 2018. A dozen pages remain redacted in their entirety.

Even more sensitive are the files of George Joannides, chief of CIA covert action operations in Miami. In 1963, Joannides ran a network of Cuban agents, recruited under a program code-named AMSPELL, who generated propaganda about the pro-Castro Oswald before and after JFK was killed. A dozen documents from Joannides’ personnel file in 1963 are still kept secret on the grounds that their release would harm the national security of the United States in 2021.

This claim sounds extreme but I’m inclined to believe it. The release of these records could do real damage to the reputation of the CIA. One heavily redacted memo that I obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit concerns a security clearance Joannides received to participate in a still-undisclosed top-secret operation in the summer of 1963. If that operation involved AMSPELL agents and Oswald’s Cuba activities, the memo will be strong evidence, that certain CIA officers were complicit in Kennedy’s murder.

The CIA partially declassified an 87-page AMSPELL file in 2018. A dozen pages are still hidden from public view. If, and when, they are declassified, these pages may shed light on the CIA cover-up that followed JFK’s murder.

Of course, my educated guesses could be wrong. After all, I cannot see the redacted material. Only top CIA officials know what the agency will — and will not — release in compliance with Biden’s order. The sheer variety of the still-secret JFK files, however, indicates the scope of the agency’s JFK problem today. Six decades after the Dallas ambush, there is a lot of potentially embarrassing JFK material — hundreds of pages worth-- that the CIA is loath to share with the Congress and the American people.

Do one or more of these pieces of the JFK mosaic add up to a veritable smoking gun?

In my opinion, yes, which is why I doubt any significant JFK files will be released in the coming weeks or in December 2022. The CIA, of course, could prove me wrong and dispel all doubts by releasing these files in their entirety at any time. That is not going to happen for one increasingly obvious reason. When it comes to the JFK assassination story, the CIA’s files are smoking suspiciously.

Jefferson Morley, editor of the JFK Facts blog, is the author of the forthcoming “Scorpions Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate,” to be published in June 2022.

UK

New Forest rangers bridle at ‘abusive’ cyclists scaring off ponies during annual count

Telegraph reporters
Sat, November 20, 2021

Cyclists are putting themselves and others in danger by ignoring signs warning them off and getting in the way of the round-up, say agisters - Stuart Martin/Alamy Stock Photo

It is an ancient tradition dating back to the time of William the Conqueror.

For almost 1,000 years, the wild ponies of the New Forest have been rounded up for annual health checks in a countryside custom known as “the drift”.

However, this year’s drift has been disturbed by “abusive” cyclists who have been accused of treating the historic woodland as a “playground”, putting themselves and others in danger by ignoring signs warning them off and getting in the way of the round-up.

Some have even sworn at park rangers telling them to stay away as the round-up is carried out by agisters, the group responsible for caring for the 6,000 ponies that roam the national park.

The beauty of the New Forest is at risk of being destroyed by visitors who do not respect it, the group said.

It has warned that visitors who disobey signs asking them not to use certain areas and paths in the park are startling the ponies and frightening them off.

About 6,000 ponies roam the national park in Hampshire - RichardALock/E+

The group has said taking care of the ponies is important as the grazing animals are what makes the park’s landscape so unique which is the very reason visitors flock to the area in the first place.

Jonathan Gerrelli, the head agister, explained the importance of the round-ups: “The drift is very much an ancient tradition. The act of the animals going out grazing is what has made the New Forest what it is today. They have very much shaped the forest.

“You would not have the lovely grassy lawns or the open heathland without the grazing animals. You would just have woodland and scrubland.

“There is hardly anywhere else in the country where you have large numbers of grazing animals turned out all year round onto thousands of acres of open land, so it is a unique area.”

Mr Gerrelli explained that as the forest attracts increased visitors, it is having a big impact on his team’s ability to properly look after the horses.

He said: “During the round-up, we are getting more issues with people getting in the way and putting themselves in danger and us in danger. By ignoring signs telling them the cycle route is close, some cyclists are getting in the way as you are gathering up herds of galloping ponies.

“It is dangerous and spooks the horses away from the designated route, so we cannot catch them. The forest is a working forest. People look at it as a bit of playground and it is certainly not that.”

Mountain bikers were the biggest problem as they do not stick to cycle routes, according to Jonathan Gerrelli, the head agister - Jordan Pettitt/Solent News & Photo Agency

Mountain bikers were the biggest problem, according to Mr Gerrelli, as they do not even stick to cycle routes and they cannot put signs warning people of the horse round-up all over the forest.

“Although it is great for visitors to come down and enjoy it, they have got to respect it, so we would ask people to take great care and obey instructions. The signs aren’t put up for nothing. They are there for a reason,” he said.

“They don’t mean to do it. It is just ignorance of country ways and the countryside. People need to be more respectful and think a bit more of their actions.

“Everybody thinks ‘it is only just me’, but you have got to think there is 1,000 more only ‘just yous’ coming behind you and doing the same thing.

“It is a constant pressure with the volume of people coming into the forest, which is threatening the very thing they are coming to see.”

The issue first emerged in a report to the Verderers’ Court, an elected group responsible for the protection and conservation of the national park, which noted problems with cyclists and walkers.

In a meeting in September, the court was told: “Unfortunately, a small number of cyclists have caused problems at some drifts by refusing to follow advice. On occasion they have been abusive.

“On the Hilltop drift, some members of the public out walking had seen the notices warning of the drift, but still thought it was OK for them to proceed.”

Throughout the autumn, there are about 40 round-ups in which often more than 200 horses are gathered up for health checks - Solent News & Photo Agency

Damage to fencing in the forest was also raised as a problem, with agisters complaining they had lost half the ponies they had intended to catch on a recent drift due to a lack of fencing.

The court was told: “On the recent Fawley drift, only about 50 per cent of the ponies the agisters aspired to catch were driven in. The remainder got away due to a lack of fencing that has been removed.”

The people of the New Forest have been rounding up their horses since before it was officially created in 1079 by King William I. The drift is seen as an essential part of managing the herd of ponies in the forest.

Throughout the autumn, there are about 40 round-ups in which often more than 200 horses are gathered up for health checks.

They are also fitted with reflective collars in order to decrease the amount of road accidents.

Some regions of Canada were 

global climate hot-spots in October

Scott Sutherland

Sat, November 20, 2021,

Some regions of Canada were global climate hot-spots in October

Following a record-hot September across the southern hemisphere, temperatures across land in the northern hemisphere reached new highs in October. In particular, Canada stood out among other nations last month, logging some of the hottest temperatures in the world.

According to NOAA's October Global Climate Report, last month ranked as the fourth warmest month of October on record for the globe, at 0.89°C above the 20th century average temperature of 14°C.

Global-Temperature-Graph-Oct2021-NOAA-NCEI

Global temperatures for October from 1880 to 2021, as compared to the 20th century average of 14°C. Credit: NOAA NCEI

NASA's records agree, placing October 2021 as fourth warmest. Meanwhile, the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) and Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service have the month estimated as the third warmest, behind 2015 and 2019.

Counting only stations on land, where nearly the entire population of the planet lives, October jumped up into the #3 spot in NOAA's records, at 1.39°C above the 20th century average. Specifically across land in the northern hemisphere — where close to 90 per cent of people call home — October 2021 was the warmest October ever, in the 142 years since record-keeping began.

Two hot spots stood out in NOAA's records last month. Both Central Siberia and the eastern half of Canada logged temperatures far above normal in October. Notably, in Nunavut, northern Quebec, and southwestern Ontario, new monthly records for heat were set.

Global-Temperatures-map-202110-NOAA-NCEI

This map of global average temperatures for October 2021 shows the relative hot spots and cool spots on the planet during the month. The cooler sea surface temperatures across the central Pacific Ocean note the presence of a La Nina pattern there, while eastern Canada and central Siberia are the hot-spots for the globe. Credit: NOAA NCEI

"According to Meteorological Service of Canada, Ontario (located in eastern Canada) had October temperatures that were 3.0–6.0°C above average," NOAA stated in the report. "During October 7–15, several locations across Ontario had maximum temperatures above 20°C."

WHERE DOES 2021 STAND?

Taking the entire year into account, thus far, NOAA ranks January–October of 2021 as the 6th hottest such period on record.

Year-to-Date-horserace-temperatures-202110-NOAA

This graphic compares the year-to-date temperature anomalies for 2021 (black line) to what were ultimately the ten warmest years on record: 2016 (1st), 2020 (2nd), 2019 (3rd), 2015 (4th), 2017 (5th), 2018 (6th), 2014 (7th), 2010 (8th), 2013 (9th), and 2005 (10th). Each month along each trace represents the year-to-date average temperature anomaly. In other words, the January value is the January average temperature anomaly, the February value is the average anomaly of both January and February, and so on. Credit: NOAA

"Looking ahead," the report states, "the year is virtually certain to rank among the ten warmest years on record, with the highest probability of ranking as the sixth warmest year on record."

ROFLMAO

Theranos’ Balwani Wants Marxist Vanity Plate Out of His Trial

Peter Blumberg
Sat, November 20, 2021,

(Bloomberg) -- Former Theranos Inc. President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani says there’s no good reason for the jury in his criminal fraud trial next year to learn that one of his sports cars was decorated with a “DASKPTL” vanity license plate.

Federal prosecutors have hinted they may introduce the plate as evidence to help make their case that Balwani benefited from conspiring with Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing startup, to defraud investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Holmes is on trial now and Balwani faces a separate trial. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Noting that Balwani was independently wealthy before he joined Theranos, his lawyer urged the judge to rule that the “apparent reference” to Karl Marx’s opus “Das Kapital” is irrelevant.

“Whether intended as a heartfelt homage, a casual reference, or an ironic joke, Mr. Balwani’s license plate does not support any element of the charges that he engaged in a scheme to defraud people of money or other property,” his attorney Jeffrey Coopersmith wrote in a Friday court filing, which didn’t make clear whether the “DASKPTL” plate was on Balwani’s Porsche or his Lamborghini.

Coopersmith reminded U.S. District Judge Edward Davila of his ruling in Holmes’s case that prosecutors are free to put on evidence that she enjoyed the perks and benefits of a chief executive officer, but must avoid making “appeals to class prejudice” by detailing specific purchases, brands of clothing, hotels and other personal items.

Column: L.A.'s top Catholic goes off on 'woke' culture, social justice movements

Gustavo Arellano
Sun, November 21, 2021

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in 2016. (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

Earlier this month, Jose H. Gomez, Archdiocese of Los Angeles archbishop, gave a speech to a Catholic conference in Spain where he went verbally medieval on "woke" culture and social justice movements.

Called "Reflections on the Church and America's New Religions," Gomez laid into two of the right's favorite whipping boys with the gusto of a Tucker Carlson. He called such movements "profoundly atheistic ... pseudo religions" pushed on the world by an "elite leadership class" that's using the media to eradicate Christianity.

Those pesky elites, y’all!


The stern speech played well with many Catholic conservatives. But it sure didn't get rousing applause at one of L.A.’s most Catholic of institutions.

That would be the Hippie Kitchen, an industrial building on skid row used by the Los Angeles Catholic Worker to prepare and give away free meals. There, you find a fair share of religious iconography: multiple images of the Virgin of Guadalupe. A giant mural featuring a bedraggled Jesus standing in the bread line among the hungry. And then there's the mural with an angel using his wings to block baton-wielding police officers as they try to disrupt a multicultural picnic.

Volunteer Alan Pulner, front, hugs organizer Matt Harper at the end of his volunteer shift Tuesday at the Hippie Kitchen on skid row. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

You'll also find an LGBTQ flag outside emblazoned with the word “Peace.” A sign above the entrance that said: “Stop the War! Tax the Rich! Serve the Poor!” Murals and posters decrying police brutality, praising diversity, blasting American imperialism.

Gomez’s speech "could’ve been written by a bunch of wealthy, elite Catholics,” said David DeCosse, director of campus ethics programs at the Jesuit-run Santa Clara University. The 60-year-old is spending his fall sabbatical living at the L.A. Catholic Worker’s Boyle Heights home. “This city is throbbing with energy for justice, and Gomez seems determined to judge, not engage or listen.”

The lay Catholic movement practices the Gospel in the way of its late founder, Dorothy Day: a devotion to helping the poor and marginalized. She's on the road to canonization because of her revolutionary ways. But Day, who got arrested during protests for causes ranging from labor strikes to nuclear proliferation well into her 70s, was just as beloved for lashing out at out-of-touch church leaders.

Like Gomez.

This is a prelate, after all, who has presided over an effort by U.S. bishops to try and deny the Eucharist to President Biden, a devout Catholic, because of his support for abortion rights.

Remind me: How many priests who abused children were denied Communion by the Catholic Church?

Gomez actually shouted out Day in his fire-and-brimstone speech, saying she "had a keen sense that before we can change the hearts of others, we have to change ourselves."

His screed didn't mention the quote attributed to Day on a poster at the L.A. Catholic Worker soup kitchen. It overlooked a collection of bulk bins filled with dried beans and bore the words “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system."

Matt Harper is the organizer of the Hippie Kitchen, which feeds the hungry three times a week. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Nearby, Matt Harper did everything from clean floors to stack baking trays to lead one final prayer before the Catholic Worker shut down for the day (the closing thought: "Peace without justice is tyranny"). He then sat down with other volunteers in a shaded eating area prettied with multicolored bougainvilleas to fret about if their work even had a place in today’s Catholic Church.

“Disappointment. Frustration. Hypocrisy,” said Harper, a 33-year-old cradle Catholic who fit the fashion of a woke warrior with his trucker hat, nose ring and small gauges in each earlobe. He laughed nervously, then continued. “As someone who’s in relationship with social justice movements in the city, I was embarrassed and worried about the collateral impact for the work [the L.A. Catholic Worker has] been doing for 52 years."

Ann Boden, 66, handed out razors near the entrance to the facility's eating area.

“Jesus would’ve been supportive of all those movements," the Santa Clarita resident said. Just believing in Christ doesn’t do everything. "You have to take care of people. If you don’t do that, you’re not doing anything.”

It seems that Gomez can't see the rosary for the beads.

In a city with a housing calamity, an out-of-control sheriff, so much fear for the future, and where the COVID-19 pandemic still kills, the leader of the largest Catholic diocese in the United States is whining about "woke" culture. L.A. yearns for a voice to guide us to a better place, someone with moral authority to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

As a Catholic myself who has covered a generation of church leaders who covered up pedophile priests, I've been waiting for a local prophetic voice in my faith who can follow the lead of Pope Francis and inveigh against the rising inequities of our times.

Instead, we have Archbishop Gomez.

Volunteers David DeCosse, left, and Alan Pulner hand out lunch from the Hippie Kitchen on skid row. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

"I'm furious," said Megan Ramsey. She walked up and down the sidewalk next to the Hippie Kitchen to pump out hand sanitizer to anyone who entered. "It pushes away younger people, it goes against the mindset of many. It was just so out there."

While conservative Catholics unsurprisingly praised Gomez’s words, an online petition demanding he apologize to Black Catholics gathered 13,000 signatures. His sin: opining that the millions of people who protested in the wake of George Floyd's murder were actually the evil movements he decried "fully unleashed in our society."

An archdiocese spokesperson said the archbishop wasn't available for an interview because he’s at the biannual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, for which he serves as president. Gomez continued his culture-war words at the conference's Nov. 16 opening public session, saying the United States was losing a national narrative “rooted in a biblical worldview and the values of our Judeo-Christian heritage.”

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez attends a news conference Tuesday in Baltimore. (Julio Cortez / Associated Press)

Gomez has made no qualms about his conservative leanings, much in the mold of his predecessor, Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, who lorded over the L.A. archdiocese over the 1960s and was so reactionary that he ran off a group of nuns for being so darn liberal. He has publicly championed St. Junípero Serra, the Franciscan missionary who created California’s mission system, which modern history now views as an abusive colonization.

The archbishop has also lectured before the Napa Institute, a conservative organization funded by wealthy Catholics who have spent the past decade creating a shadow Catholic society in opposition to Pope Francis, whom they view as too liberal. Their annual conference, by the way, feature wine, multicourse dinners and cigar tastings — because, you know, Jesus was a man of fancy tastes, apparently. It's not like Jesus told the rich they're not going to heaven, or praised the poor or peacemakers on a hill, instead of the luxury resorts where the Napa Institute holds its soirees.

But Gomez's politics stand athwart a Catholic L.A. where social activism is baked into its DNA. Priests have marched at immigrant-rights and anti-war rallies for decades alongside protesters who often carry images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, among other saints. This country’s racial reckoning has brought renewed interest in St. Martin de Porres, the first Black saint of the Americas.

(Pope Francis, by the way, called social justice activists “social poets” and “collective Samaritans” in an October speech while also taking the time to trash “economic elites, who so often spout superficial ideologies that ignore humanity's real dilemmas.”)

These movements "are a spiritually strong space — anyone who spends any time with them can sense that,” Harper said. “My relationship with God has improved with those movements. But because he refuses to engage, he’ll lose the faithful in them.”

The Loyola High graduate and former middle school teacher at archdiocese schools said Catholic Worker volunteers last talked to Gomez in 2018.

Volunteer Jack Hastert restocks a bread shelf at the Hippie Kitchen. 

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“The first thing he told us was, ‘I’ve heard your community always hasn’t gotten along with us,’” Harper recalled. He and other volunteers left the meeting with what they thought was a commitment by Gomez to visit the Hippie Kitchen and walk skid row with them.

Soon after, Gomez invited a Brazilian religious order to hand out free food on skid row. He hasn't responded to repeated inquiries from the Catholic Worker since.

“It just seems like a clear indication we’re not considered,” said 57-year-old Kenneth Baldwin of Santa Monica. “Maybe we’re not the Catholic type that he wants in his church.”

The Catholic Worker will continue, Gomez or no Gomez, since it's an autonomous group with no formal relationship to the L.A. archdiocese. But 26-year-old Mar Vista resident Rick Ley, who has volunteered with the Catholic Worker since 2017, hopes the archbishop might consider that he can learn from social activism.

"I understand what he’s trying to say, but I also think if we’re making statements like that, we need actions to speak as well," he said. "Theology is important, but it’s easy to be caught up in that and become another faction."

Meanwhile, the invitation to Gomez to visit the Catholic Worker's Hippie Kitchen remains open.

“And if he’s happy to come,” added Harper, “I’d be happy to take him to a protest.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Amber Ruffin Gets Emotional Over Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict on ‘The Amber Ruffin Show’


William Earl
Sat, November 20, 2021


Amber Ruffin delivered an emotional statement about the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict at the start of Friday’s episode of “The Amber Ruffin Show.”

The host of the Peacock talk-variety show was on the verge of tears as she addressed the shocking acquittal of the teenager who killed two men and shot another with a rifle at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisc.

Ruffin’s voice quavered at times as she delivered the raw commentary, part of what she described her “responsibility to say things that people need to know that aren’t being said.” She noted that the verdict came in Friday afternoon, shortly before she began taping her New York-based show.

“There are very big obvious truths that no one wants to say on TV, but I will,” she said. “I can’t believe I have to say this but…”

Ruffin trailed off as she fought back tears. She paused for a few seconds before collecting herself enough to speak.

“It’s not OK for a man to grab a gun, travel across state lines, shoot three people and walk free. It’s not OK for the judicial system to be blatantly and obviously stacked against people of color. It’s not OK for there to be an entirely different set of rules for white people,” she said.

Ruffin choked up again and shifted her remarks to directly address her audience with: “You matter.”

“But I don’t care about Kyle Rittenhouse. I don’t care about that racist judge. I don’t care about how f—– up that jury must be. White people have been getting away with murder since time began. I don’t care about that. I care about you. And I can’t believe I have to say this but: You matter. You matter.

“Every time one of these verdicts come out, it’s easy to feel like you don’t, but I’m here to tell you that you do. You matter. You matter so much that the second that you start to get a sense that you do, a man will grab a gun he shouldn’t have in the first place and travel all the way to another state just to quiet you. That’s the power you have. So don’t forget it.”



Ruffin is a fast-rising star in comedy. She gained fame over the past few years as a writer-producer for NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers.” Ruffin gradually became an on-camera regular on “Late Night,” offering a strong voice on politics, culture and social justice issues during the Trump years with such a segments as “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell.”

Last year, Ruffin landed her own weekly late-night perch on Peacock. “Amber Ruffin Show” was renewed for a second season in September, on the heels of nabbing an Emmy nomination for writing for a variety series for its freshman season.

Ilhan Omar tweets support of Amber Ruffin clip slamming 'f----- up' Rittenhouse jury


Kyle Morris
Sat, November 20, 2021, 

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., shared a video to her social media Friday night that claimed there is an "entirely different set of rules for White people" following the "f------ up" Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., attends a bill enrollment ceremony for the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in the Capitol on Thursday, June 17, 2021

. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

"In case you need a reminder," the "Squad" progressive wrote in a tweet, attaching a clip from NBC late-night talk show host Amber Ruffin, who is Black.

ILHAN OMAR CLAIMS BOEBERT 'DEFECATES' CONGRESS AFTER BOEBERT'S 'BROTHER-HUSBAND' DIG


In the video echoed by Omar, Ruffin said, "It's not okay for a man to grab a rifle, travel across state lines, and shoot three people and then walk free."

Ruffin accused the U.S. judicial system of being "blatantly and obviously stacked against people of color" and said it is "not okay for there to be an entirely different set of rules for White people."

"I don't care about Kyle Rittenhouse, I don't care about that racist judge. And I don't care how f----- up that jury must be," Ruffin added. "White people have been getting away with murder since time began."

Addressing people of color, Ruffin said: "You matter so much, that the second you start to get a sense that you do, a man will grab a gun he shouldn't have in the first place and travel all the way to another state just to quiet you."

Jurors in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday found the 18-year-old Rittenhouse, who was accused of killing two people and shooting another during unrest in the city, not guilty on all counts.

Rittenhouse faced a mandatory life sentence if convicted of first-degree intentional homicide.

POSTMODERN BOOK BURNING

How a YA Oral-Sex Scene Touched Off Texas' Latest Culture War


Brian Lopez, The Texas Tribune and Cassandra Pollock, The Texas Tribune
Sun, November 21, 2021



Kathy May was getting her four kids ready for another day at school in late October when she got an urgent voicemail from a friend.

“OMG, OMG, this book,” her friend said, alerting May to a book found by another parent in the library catalogue of Keller Independent School District, where their kids go, called “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe.

“I felt sick and disgusted,” May said, recalling text messages her friend sent her showing sexually explicit illustrations from the book. She was angry that any kid could access that kind of book in a public high school without their parents’ knowledge.

The 239-page graphic novel depicts Kobabe’s journey of gender identity and sexual orientation. Kobabe, who is nonbinary, said it was written to help others who are struggling with gender identity to feel less alone. The book also explores questions around pronouns and hormone-blocking therapies.

“I can absolutely understand the desire of a parent to protect their child from sensitive material. I’m sympathetic to people who have the best interest of young people at heart,” Kobabe, the 32-year-old author based in California, said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “I also want to have the best interest of young people at heart. There are queer youth at every high school — and those students, that’s [who] I’m thinking about, is the queer student who is getting left behind.”

May didn’t read the book, but what she saw — a few pages of explicit illustrations depicting oral sex — was disturbing to her. It took less than a day for May and other parents to get the book removed from the district. May tweeted that same day that after school officials had been notified, the book was removed from a student’s hands.

“Gender Queer” has become a lightning rod both nationwide and in Texas among some parents and Republican officials who say they’re worried public schools are trying to radicalize students with progressive teachings and literature.

Most recently, Gov. Greg Abbott and another GOP lawmaker have questioned the book’s presence in schools. Abbott has called for investigations into whether students have access to what he described as “pornographic books” in Texas public schools. And last month, state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, sent a list of some 850 books about race and sexuality — including Kobabe’s — to school districts asking for information about how many are available on their campuses.

Across the state, books that tackle racial issues such as “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez and “New Kid” by Jerry Craft have been pulled from shelves after parental complaints. Leander ISD removed six books in the spring, including “In the Dream House” by Carmen Maria Machado, which depicts an abusive same-sex relationship with descriptions of sex. Groups of Texas parents, often sharing information on Facebook groups, have mobilized to find books they deem inappropriate and have them banned from the schools.

The drama has unfolded against the backdrop of a national debate over critical race theory, an academic discipline that holds that racism is embedded in the country’s legal and structural systems. However, the label has been used by some Republicans to target a broader concern that kids are being indoctrinated by progressive teachings in schools.

Texas lawmakers passed two laws this year, that they labeled anti-critical race theory, to crack down on how teachers can talk about race in the classroom. And the issue has been in play up and down the ballot — and outside of Texas, including a GOP victory for the next Virginia governor, who campaigned on a pledge to ban the teaching of critical race theory.

“We have a problem and need help. Our district has a ton of leftist teachers, librarians and counselors who push this plus SEL/CRT. It’s literally a district run wild,” May wrote in a tweet thread, where she shared the sexually explicit illustrations from Kobabe’s book. SEL is short for social and emotional learning, and CRT is short for critical race theory.

“Please help us make parents aware of the danger of the cultural changes our society is making, when people say they’re going after our kids, you need to listen, because they are,” she said in her tweet.
The book

The graphic novel “Gender Queer” traces Kobabe’s own experiences growing up, as the author, whose pronouns are e/em/eir, struggled to identify as gay, bisexual or asexual.

At one point in the book, the author compares gender identity to a scale that was tilted toward being “assigned female at birth,” despite Kobabe’s efforts to be seen as gender neutral. The opposite side of the scale had other factors illustrated with lighter weights, such as “short hair” and “baggy boy clothes.” The image included in the book showed a person trying to add heavier weights labeled “top surgery,” “hormones” and “pronoun” to try to balance the scale.

“A huge weight had been placed on one side, without my permission,” Kobabe wrote. “I was constantly trying to weigh down the other side. But the end goal wasn’t masculinity — the goal was balance.”

While there are illustrations of sexual content in the novel, Kobabe said that students need “good, accurate, safe information about these topics” instead of “wildly having to search online” and potentially stumble across misinformation.

Kobabe, who recommends the book to high school students or older, said there are other novels that have been in high school libraries for years about sexuality, relationships or identity. Kobabe also believes “Gender Queer” in particular became a flashpoint because it is an illustrated comic instead of just text, and that it would not have been singled out so quickly had it been released before the era of social media.

“A person can more quickly flip it open, see one or two images that they disagree with and then decide that the book is not good without actually reading it,” Kobabe said. “To people who are challenging the book, please read the whole book and judge it based on the entire contents, not just a tiny snippet.”

But for parents like May, they say their opposition to the novel isn’t about the LGBTQ community. It’s about whether these materials and images are appropriate for children.“The only reason is because they are sexually explicit for minors,” May said.
The parents

When May, a stay-at-home parent, saw the illustrations from Kobabe’s book, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She said she and her family moved from California to the more conservative Texas about two years ago so she was shocked to see the “leftism and progressivism” in Texas schools. They landed at Keller ISD, which is a middle-class, majority white district north of Fort Worth with about 35,000 students.

That day, the images from Kobabe’s book were uploaded to a private Facebook group with thousands of Keller ISD parents by another parent, who also contacted the district about the book.

Within minutes of hearing from that parent, administrators removed it “out of an abundance of caution,” Keller ISD officials said. The district had one copy of the book in a high school library. It was removed “pending an investigation to determine how the book was selected and ultimately made available to students.” Keller ISD officials declined to name which school had the book.

But the Keller ISD parents didn’t stumble upon the book by happenstance. They were on the hunt.

The Tarrant County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit organization aiming to support parental rights in education, had shared a list of books they identified as problem literature in schools. Keller ISD parents took that list and started combing through their own school library databases to find matches.

Kobabe’s book wasn’t on the Tarrant County group’s list, but it popped up as parents searched key words for titles with words like “gender” and queer.”

The group of North Texas parents first started their efforts in September to expunge what they’ve deemed “pornographic” material in Keller ISD after they found out the district had copies of “Out of Darkness,” an interracial love story.

May said the group initially became worried about “Out of Darkness” after an article surfaced in their Facebook group about a Lake Travis Independent School District parent who furiously confronted their school board about it, saying that it promoted anal sex.

The parents have asked for the book to be removed and are awaiting Keller ISD’s response.

Pérez, 37, an East Texas native who wrote “Out of Darkness,” said there is no depiction of the sex act in her book. The passage the parent was angry about was a reference to a female character being sexually harassed verbally by another character. The book itself is a love story between a Mexican American girl from San Antonio and an African American boy against the backdrop of a deadly natural gas leak explosion in 1937 in New London, Texas.

“One of [the book’s] functions is to make us uncomfortable and I think that I’m really alarmed by the notion that discomfort is dangerous because, frankly, I think we should be uncomfortable about aspects of our history,” she said.

Pérez said the problem she has with this movement to remove books from schools is that parents already can specify to teachers and administrators that they don’t want their children to read certain books — without having to ban it for all kids.

“‘Gender Queer’ is the book that matters for some kid — and if it’s not there, it can’t give the sense of not being alone,” Pérez said.

The politics

A day before the book was discovered at Keller ISD, Krause, the Republican representative from Fort Worth, launched an inquiry into certain public school districts over the types of books they have, particularly if they pertain to race or sexuality or “make students feel discomfort.” The lawmaker has said the inquiry could help with compliance with the new anti-critical race theory laws passed this year.

Krause, a member of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus who chairs the House General Investigating Committee, sent out a list of some 850 books, asking that schools identify whether they have copies on campus. Krause has said he will not offer specifics related to how he developed or got the list of books, saying he does not want to “compromise” a pending or potential investigation by his committee.

Krause’s list includes several books on topics such as race, sexuality and puberty, including Kobabe’s memoir. He did not respond to questions about how he was made aware of Kobabe’s novel. Most of the books on the list were written by women, people of color and LGBTQ writers. Some authors whose works appear on Krause’s list say he’s targeting literature specifically created for children and young adults that helps them feel seen and broadens their worldview.

Titles range from picture books like “I Am Jazz” by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings to popular young adult novels such as “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews. Books that could show up on a college syllabus also made the list, including “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot” by Mikki Kendall and “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander.

The Texas Education Agency said in a statement that “TEA does not comment on investigations that it may or may not have opened that haven’t yet closed.”

In an Oct. 29 statement, four days after Krause’s letter to school districts and three days after Kobabe’s book was removed from Keller ISD, state Rep. Jeff Cason, R-Bedford, asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton “to start a statewide investigation” into the novel “and others that may violate the Penal Code in relation to pornography, child pornography and decency laws.” Cason also asked Paxton to look into “the legal ramifications” for school districts that approved such books.

Neither a spokesperson for Cason nor the lawmaker’s office responded to a question regarding how Cason became aware of the book. And the attorney general’s office has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Abbott has asked state education officials to develop statewide standards for blocking books with “overtly sexual” content in schools, specifically citing books by Kobabe and Machado. The governor most recently asked the TEA to investigate criminal activity related to “the availability of pornography” in schools — though it’s unclear why Abbott asked the agency instead of the state’s policing arm.

Heads of the TEA and State Board of Education, in response to Abbott’s request to develop statewide standards, said in statements that they planned to comply.

Christine Malloy, the Keller ISD parent who first alerted the district about her concerns with the book, said they’re happy their work on the issue has apparently grabbed the attention of state leaders.

“The fact that the state governor got involved should show people that it’s an alarming issue,” she said.

But Democrats have criticized the movement as attempted censorship and the latest attack by conservatives on the LGBTQ community and communities of color.

“We should be working to build the most inclusive Texas — not targeting our diverse populations,” said state Rep. Mary González, a Clint Democrat who chairs the LGBTQ Caucus. “It is also highly concerning that these attacks are now being aimed at our education system, which for a long time has been a sacred space for nonpartisan politics.”

Houston Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton, chair of the House Public Education Committee, said in a Nov. 1 letter that Krause’s book inquiry was “at worst … a bald political stunt that callously blurs the distinction between governing and campaigning.” Krause is running for attorney general.
The backlash

But the scrutiny over school library books, which is largely being driven by white parents, is already a nationwide political phenomenon.

Emboldened by the debate around “critical race theory,” while piggybacking off of a furor by many conservative parents over school mask mandates, Moms for Liberty, was founded in Florida in January 2020. It has grown rapidly with about 60,000 members across the country, aiming to “stand up for parental rights at all levels of government.”

Malloy said the pandemic sending kids home for virtual learning gave many parents a better look at what they were being taught.

“2020 is behind it. I think it was a gift,” Malloy said. “It gave us all time to pay attention to what’s going on, what our kids are being taught — what they were seeing.”

Mary Lowe, chair of the Moms for Liberty Tarrant County chapter, said the main focus of her chapter right now is to get rid of sexually explicit books in schools regardless of whether “the content aligns with one sexual preference over the other.”

If parents want to “expose” their children to those kinds of books, they can go to a public library, she said.

The Tarrant County chapter launched around July and has amassed about 1,700 members since, Lowe said.

Lowe said she has meetings with different superintendents in Tarrant County to talk about what they can do to remove these books.

“Moms for Liberty has a strong stance that there are an enormous amount of literary books that are more aligned with academics and expanding the mind without such a heavy focus on sexual content,” she said.

The broader issue, including what’s to come of those statewide standards in the coming weeks, is a concern for some LGBTQ advocacy groups that argue this is just the latest example in a pattern of Republican officials attempting to single out LGBTQ kids in the state — and how that may impact families and workers.

“If you have a kid who’s part of the LGBTQ community, you could have them asking: Is this a safe place for my kid?” said Jessica Shortall, managing director of Texas Competes, a coalition of more than 1,200 Texas employers, chambers of commerce, tourism bureaus and industry association that advocates for equality. “And then you have people who know and love LGBTQ people but maybe aren’t in that community asking themselves: Does this place represent my values?”

Brian Lopez is an education reporter and Cassandra Pollock is a politics reporter at The Texas Tribune, the only member-supported, digital-first, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Disclosure: Facebook has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Tutoring kids who don't need it is a booming business in affluent areas where parents want to stack the deck


Pawan Dhingra, Professor of Sociology and American Studies; Faculty Equity and Inclusion Officer, Amherst College
Sun, November 21, 2021

Many families shell out 0 monthly on private 'learning centers.' 

Beanosity, CC BY-SA

Many relatively well-off parents drive their kids to special activities after school. On top of trips to soccer practices and games or piano lessons and recitals, they increasingly make one more stop: a trip to their local after-school tutoring center.

In most cases these children don’t attend underfunded schools or need help competing with those in affluent districts. Nor are they high school students looking to boost their SAT or ACT scores before applying to college. They are typically doing just fine at their schools or are ahead of their classmates. And yet they get private, long-term tutoring on a regular basis.

I’ve been researching this intensive after-school tutoring, which I call “hyper education,” for eight years. It’s becoming a more common extracurricular activity for children of all ages.

Even if public schools provided the same quality of education for all, which is demonstrably not the case, I fear that this trend is increasing the advantages that the children of affluent families already have over their peers.

Tutoring franchises

Tutoring, of course, has long been commonplace within and outside of American schools to help kids who are struggling to keep up in class. While for-profit tutoring businesses have been in the United States for decades, they have grown over the past two decades in urban and suburban communities alike.

Franchised chains of after-school learning centers, such as Kumon, Sylvan, Kaplan and Mathnasium, operate in over 50 countries. Parents pay these multinational corporations around US0 per month for each child to get math, reading and other kinds of lessons once or twice a week with their own curriculum and homework assignments intended to be more challenging than what is offered by the schools.

While researching for my book “Hyper Education: Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough,” I interviewed more than 100 Asian American and white families with children in elementary or middle school whose kids go to after-school tutoring centers or participate in academic competitions, or do both.

Most live in Boston suburbs, but some reside elsewhere in the United States. Nearly all of these children attend high-performing public schools. I also spent time in after-school learning franchises and interviewed around 30 educators inside and outside the public school system.

Traffic patterns

No longer reserved for Manhattan families angling to get their toddlers and preschoolers into elite kindergartens, more and more families from a wide array of backgrounds enroll their kids in tutoring centers. While there is no hard data yet available regarding exactly how many children are getting this type of instruction, I believe it is safe to say the number is growing as parents with disposable income spend increasing amounts of money on their children to give them ever more advantages.

These educational franchises advertise as serving students not only struggling in academics but also those who are “already ahead in math.”

Business is booming for Kumon, which has seen its revenue grow 60% in the past decade. Mathnasium, one of its top competitors, is one of North America’s fastest-growing franchises.

A mother of children attending public schools in the Boston suburbs observed that one tutoring center is so popular that the town “had to change traffic patterns” to accommodate during drop-off and pickup times.

One center director told me that her growth plan was to open in areas that already have highly ranked school districts, since those families have shown a commitment to education and have the means to pay for more. Another director targeted his advertising efforts to families making at least 5,000 a year in his affluent Boston suburb.

No child is too young to start, it seems. Junior Kumon targets children starting at age three. They teach these little kids how to recognize letters, numbers, patterns and shapes. I even saw a child in diapers who was enrolled at a Kumon center.

Getting further ahead

Parents are keeping their kids enrolled in nonremedial tutoring for years if they feel like it’s getting results.

“We just kind of kept her in the program, because it was working,” the mother of a fifth grader told me. “It seemed like the public school math program just wasn’t anywhere near stretching her capability to do math. So, it felt, like let’s keep doing this.”

Children enrolled in after-school academics can get confused about which kind of learning matters more. For instance, a fourth-grade student mentioned that her regular teacher counted her private math center assignments as satisfying her school homework. That raises good questions about which curriculum was more relevant and conducive to her learning.

Despite this industry’s growth and what parents may believe, the effects of tutoring generally are mixed.

Troublingly, educators believe that the growth of private tutoring is contributing to a sense of academic pressure that can contribute to emotional problems, even for kids who aren’t getting this extra instruction. The students who take classes outside of school “make other kids feel bad, because they’re brighter, more capable, and they do more, and they can do it faster,” a Boston-area elementary school principal told me.

As a result, I’m seeing a growing education arms race, of families feeling pressured to ensure their kids learn enough to be above their grade level and ranked at or near the top of their classes. This is starting at younger and younger ages. Many parents told me they enroll their elementary school children in hyper education simply to “keep up” with those who do.

In 2016, Mathnasium teamed up with the National Parent Teachers Association to help boost student performance in mathematics by hosting math games inside and outside of schools – a step that further embeds for-profit businesses into the public schools. Hyper education is growing. And as it does, it’s seriously changing what it means to go to school and be a child.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Pawan Dhingra, Amherst College.

Read more:

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Eliminating inequalities needs affirmative action


Resistance to school integration in the name of ‘local control’: 5 questions answered

Pawan Dhingra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.