ANDREW MCCARTHY: The Biden Justice Department’s Lawless Threat against American Parents.
Even as President Biden shrugged his shoulders over progressives’ harassment and intimidation of a sitting United States senator of his own party — a crime under Arizona law — Biden’s Justice Department was running roughshod over the First Amendment, threatening to investigate and prosecute parents for protesting against school boards and teachers who insist on indoctrinating children with the cultural Marxism beloved by Democrats.
On Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum in which he wailed about the “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” Clearing his throat with an empty nod to the inconvenient fact that the Constitution protects “spirited debate,” Garland incorrectly — indeed, outrageously for someone of his experience as a Justice Department official and federal appellate judge — claimed that free-speech principles yield not only to “threats of violence” but also to “efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views” (at least, evidently, individuals not named Sinema or Manchin).
Garland knows this is dangerous nonsense. I personally know that he knows it. He was a high-ranking official in the Clinton Justice Department, which gave me a very hard time — though it ultimately relented — when I proposed charging a notorious terrorist with soliciting acts of violence and seditious conspiracy.
As Christopher Rufo tweets, “They went from “critical race theory doesn’t exist” to “unleash the FBI against its enemies” in less than 90 days.”
“This directive comes mere days after a leftwing organization asked Biden to categorize parents as ‘domestic terrorists’ committing ‘hate crimes,’ Ace of Spades writes. “Still no one looking into antifa’s financing, huh? Oh right — they have first amendment rights to protest that must be absolutely respected.”
Also in Ace’s post:
“How do you do, fellow parents?”