DOE Opens Civil Rights Investigation Of Superintendent Who Banned LGBTQ Books

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1442783

For context, Granbury is a bigoted shithole of a rural county seat southwest of Fort Worth. You may recall that the county’s elections administrator was forced to resign last year after the local MAGAts decided Trump was frauded out of all the votes instead of just the 82% he actually received.

Granbury is very bad.

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So this bad apple grew on a tree that shouldn’t be propagated?

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What is there about the human psyche that leads or requires us to create an ‘other’ on which to heap opprobrium?

Is it related to the scapegoat phenomenon, in which we create a vessel in a vain attempt to unload those evils in our self we cannot acknowledge? Wasn’t that why we invented Satan?

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Well we can only hope they keep up the yak. Book banning is a bit unAmerican and this redneck superintendent laid it all out nicely. “very very conservative”. He associated conservatism with the bigoted policy which is OK by me.

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Another blue nose who wants to enforce their views on morality on the rest of the populace. Guess what, buddy, not really in your job description. One thing is true, the assholes in Texas are certainly bigger! Our friend @txlawyer is the exception to the rule.

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They’re making their school libraries a place to perpetuate bigotry. It’s easy to push hate at the family dinner table ( but like the song says “don’t forget to say grace” ) if the kids don’t know anything about who you’re pointing fingers at.

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Not just in Texas, in MO the SoS Ashcroft wants libraries to have age appropriate books in the Childrens’ sections of state libraries. Sounds reasonable right? But how will the librarian know the age of the child checking out a book? I was checking out books from the adult section since I was 12.

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Opposition to censorship used to be, and I presume, still is a fundamental value for professional librarians in the U.S. going back to the earliest days. Free access to published information in a public library is a foundational value that is taught in the basic curriculum of the profession and is explicitly linked to the requirements for supporting democratic government.

If you want to see a group of people who are usually very calm and polite become activated, try to control or censor the subject matter that public libraries are allowed to provide.

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No doubt, but why isn’t DoE, and even DoJ also looking at certain Governors for the same reason? Guys like Abbot and DeSatan come to mind.

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This is another form of systemic child abuse against LGBTQ youth.

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Hey, leave my psyche out of this. This is all on the MAGAt id(iots).

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More of these suits, please.

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How does the school board stop bullying when the bullies are on the school board?

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Best way I know how to get kids to do something is to forbid it. It often works with adults as well. I’m guessing Granbury is home to a few sneak-readers.

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Apparently, they think they can take federal funds, and skirt federal laws.

No. You can’t.

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Rumor is, they intend to replace the books removed with classics touting white supremacy, women’s subservience to men, and anti-Semitism, so the kids can be taught the ‘right’ values.

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Worse than Jasper where James Byrd was lynched in 1998? Granbury sounds like a more highbrow better dressed version just located in suburban Dallas/Ft.Worth.
Speaking of Ft. Worth. I always had a fair amount of respect for House Speaker Jim Wright. He seemed very cultured, less provincial and interested in the nation as a whole than a DeLay and the others who came via gerrymandering just a few years later. Unfortunately the ethics charges over his book deal and gifts, unfair or not did him in.

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Hood County was 1% more favorable for Trump than Jasper County was. Either way, lots of Deplorables out there.

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Secretary of State Ashcroft must be checking off his wingnut issues boxes so he can aspire to higher office like his father.

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