News Roundup: Inside the Conservative Campaign to Take Back School Boards from Classroom Closers, CRT Activists

BY JACK CROWE

August 02, 2021

Good morning and welcome to the News Editor's Roundup, a weekly newsletter that will ensure you're up to date on the developments in politics, business, and culture that will shape the week's news cycle — as well as those that might escape mainstream attention.

House Report Names 'Public Face' of China's 'Disinformation Campaign' on COVID Origin

A new congressional report will tie Peter Daszak, the controversial director of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance nonprofit, to the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda campaign about COVID-19's origins.

"We have uncovered strong evidence that suggests Peter Daszak is the public face of a CCP disinformation campaign designed to suppress public discussion about a potential lab leak," states a new report, a copy of which National Review obtained before its planned publication later today, by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The committee's Republicans are releasing the document as an addendum to the COVID-origins report they issued last year. Among other things, this version highlights research from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that viruses can be genetically modified without leaving a trace and that the WIV made unusual security-related procurements the same day that a mysterious virus database was taken off-line. "The preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory sometime prior to September 12, 2019," the report concludes.

Inside the Conservative Campaign to Take Back School Boards from Classroom Closers, CRT Activists

When Jess Bradbury and her husband moved to their home in Lower Providence Township outside of Philadelphia ten years ago, they did it with education in mind.

The schools in the Methacton School District were some of the best in Pennsylvania, Bradbury said, and the district as a whole was well regarded in the state.

Fast forward a decade. Bradbury's eight-year-old daughter is preparing to start third grade, and things in the district have changed. She said the school board is pushing political activism over core academics, hurting its rankings. Textbooks have become political footballs. The district hired a consultant to identify diversity and equity problems to solve. At one point middle schoolers were surveyed about their gender identities, Bradbury said.

Bradbury, a technology professional who'd never even attended a school-board meeting before the pandemic, decided in January that she needed to do something. She now is part of a wave of conservatives across the country -- moms, dads, grandparents, teachers -- who've been energized over the last year by national school debates to run for seats on their school board, hoping to change the direction of local institutions typically dominated by the Left.

Portland Police Can't Find Recruits for Revived Gun Violence Division

As Portland's homicide rate climbs from historic lows, a special police division within the department dedicated to combatting gun violence is having a hard time finding recruits.

The Gun Violence Reduction Team, which the City Council voted to disband last year amid social justice protests and criticisms that it disproportionately targeted people of color, has been reborn and rebranded as the Focused Initiative Team. The new unit aims to reduce violent crime while working with a citizen-advisory board comprised of eleven community members to "identify and dismantle institutional and systemic racism in the bureau's responses to gun violence."

Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler unveiled the team in March, and said the community-driven committee would be responsible for overseeing its direction.

Out of 14 vacancies on the task force, only four police personnel indicated willingness to join, suggesting low confidence in the department's practices among officers, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

AOC Insists: No Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan without $3.5T Partisan Spending Bill

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insisted Sunday that the House should not pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill absent a much-larger partisan spending package, claiming she and progressive allies have "more than enough" votes to kill the former unless the latter passes too.

The comments further conflict with any suggestion that the two bills might be considered on separate tracks, as some Republican negotiators had hoped.

The former bill, a roughly $1 trillion version of the original $4 trillion plan President Biden pitched as part of his "Build Back Better" agenda, includes provisions for transportation, broadband Internet, and clean-water systems. The latter, costing $3.5 trillion, would fund many of the Biden administration's domestic legislative priorities, namely on climate change, health care, and family-service programs.

Susan Collins Criticizes Pelosi for Rejecting GOP Picks for January 6 Committee

During an appearance on CNN Sunday, moderate Republican senator Susan Collins criticized Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to reject two of the GOP picks to join the "bipartisan" panel investigating the Capitol Riot.

"I fought very hard to have an independent, bipartisan, nonpartisan outside commission to look at all of the events of that day and I'm very disappointed that it was not approved. I think it would have had far more credibility than Speaker Pelosi's partisan committee that she has set up," Collins commented.

When the anchor pointed out that Pelosi did appoint two Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, to serve on the committee, the Maine senator replied, "I respect both of them but I do not think it was right of the speaker to decide which Republicans should be on the committee. Normally if you have a select committee, the minority leader and the speaker get to pick the members." Cheney and Kinzinger both voted to impeach former President Trump after January 6.

FDA Signals It Will Expedite Full-Approval Process for COVID Vaccines

With vaccination rates plateauing in certain regions of the country as a new COVID wave triggered by the highly infectious Delta variant spreads, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has signaled it will expedite the process to fully approve the COVID vaccine. A top agency official said Friday that the Pfizer-BioNTech shot will be under accelerated review to earn the designation.

FDA spokesperson Abby Capobianco said the agency is working on "identifying additional resources such as personnel and technological resources from across the agency and opportunities to reprioritize other activities, in order to complete our review to help combat this pandemic surge."

The agency has deployed an "all hands on deck" strategy for this endeavor, Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in an interview. The Pfizer vaccine has so far been distributed under FDA emergency-use authorization it received in December. The company applied for full approval on May 7.

Progressive 'Squad' Members Camp outside Capitol to Protest Evictions

Members of the progressive "Squad" slept outside the Capitol on Friday night to protest the end of the federal eviction moratorium.

Representatives Cori Bush (D., Mo.), Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) camped outside the Capitol after the House left for summer recess without enough votes to pass legislation to extend the eviction moratorium before it is set to expire on Sunday.

"Many of my Democratic colleagues chose to go on vacation early today rather than staying to vote to keep people in their homes. I'll be sleeping outside the Capitol tonight. We've still got work to do," Bush, who has been homeless herself, wrote in a tweet.

Unemployed Tennesseans Sue State, Governor to Reinstate Federal Jobless Benefits

Seven Tennessee residents filed a lawsuit this week against Governor Bill Lee after the Republican pulled out of the federal unemployment benefits program earlier this month, more than two months before it was set to expire.

Tennessee was one of several states to cut off the $300-per-week unemployment bonus early over concerns that it was serving as an incentive for residents to remain unemployed.

"We will no longer participate in federal pandemic unemployment programs because Tennesseans have access to more than 250,000 jobs in our state," Lee said in a statement at the time. "Families, businesses and our economy thrive when we focus on meaningful employment and move on from short-term, federal fixes."

Ron DeSantis Issues Order Making Masks Optional in Florida Schools

Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.) issued an executive order on Friday making mask-wearing optional in the state's public schools after the CDC issued new guidance earlier this week recommending that teachers, staff, and students wear face coverings indoors — even if they are vaccinated.

"The federal government has no right to tell parents that in order for their kids to attend school in person, they must be forced to wear a mask all day, every day," DeSantis said in a statement. "Many Florida schoolchildren have suffered under forced masking policies, and it is prudent to protect the ability of parents to make decisions regarding the wearing of masks by their children."

The governor's office said the directive was in response to local school boards weighing mask mandates because of the CDC's "unscientific and inconsistent recommendations that school-aged children wear masks."

CDC Director: Biden Administration 'Looking Into' Potential Federal Vaccination Mandate

During an appearance on Fox News Friday, CDC director Rochelle Walensky indicated the Biden administration is considering a federal vaccine mandate, as vaccination rates plateau and skepticism persists in certain regions of the country.

When host Bret Baier asked if Walensky supports requiring vaccination on a federal level, she replied, "That's something that I think the administration is looking into. It's something that I think we are looking to see approval of from the vaccine."

"Overall, I think in general, I am all for more vaccination. But I have nothing further to say on that except that we are looking into those policies," she said.

So far only private enterprises, mostly recently Walmart and Disney, as well as local and state municipalities, have imposed vaccine requirements on their employees and some patrons, Walensky noted.