Resist the handouts--there's a chain at the end

From: Americans for Prosperity

 By Gretchen Garrity

School Choice is a misnomer that has been widely shared in the press by advocates—who often work for conservative-ish organizations like Americans for Prosperity, the American Federation for Children, Heritage Action, and the Herzog Foundation. All of these groups advocate for SOME things that conservatives like, but in the background are often proponents of globalist goals that align with UNESCO, the WEF, as well as with government bureaucrats in departments like the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

Some of them are in it for the tax breaks, as well as the malleable, submissive work force they desire for the future. You see their public philanthropic face, but there’s another face you don’t see. Corey A. DeAngelis is perhaps the most recognizable face of the School Choice movement. DeAngelis has recently been exposed as an “expert” at UNESCO’s Inclusive Policy Lab. Although his connection with UNESCO seems to have been scrubbed from their website, Local’s Substack has the information on DeAngelis, as well as this image:

From: Local's Substack

If you’ve ever wondered why schools are implementing SEL and DEI, and CRT—it’s because these divisive agendas actually program our children into ways of thinking and acting that are contrary to our values and culture. These companies, along with DESE, and UNESCO (as well as many, many others) are advocating hard for taking over and controlling education, including early childhood education. The younger the children they can get to, the easier it is to provide docile workers for the multinationals and others that interface with government.

People have been hearing slogans like “Fund students, not systems!” and “School Choice gives parents control of their children’s education!” Unfortunately, our Missouri Legislature just passed SB727, a “school choice” bill that began as a 12-page bill with just four new sections pertaining to educational scholarships, and ended up 167 pages with 44 new sections about elementary and secondary education.

Contrary to what you will hear from those in our legislature who voted for the bill, SB727 does not give parents much choice in how school is done. It does not give all Missouri children a chance to escape failing schools. It is not a true private scholarship program as its proponents want to tell you. It does not protect home school families.

I’ve read the bill. All 167 pages. It’s a turgid mess. Here are a few of the problems with SB727:

--It includes a possible Second Amendment violation by defining a home school as a “school” for the purposes of state law. Read about it HERE.

--According to Missouri First’s Ron Calzone: “This scheme is unconstitutional because it uses tax credits. Yes, senators who supported SB 727 violated their oath of office to “support” the Missouri Constitution.

SB 727 violates:

• Article III, Section 36 of the Missouri Constitution, because it has the effect of “divert[ing]” money from the treasury independent of the appropriation process.

• Article III, Section 38(a) of the Missouri Constitution, which states that “The general assembly shall have no power to grant public money or property, or lend or authorize the lending of public credit, to any private person, association or corporation…”

• Article III, Section 39(5) of the Missouri Constitution because it has the effect of “releas[ing] or extinguish[ing]... without consideration... the indebtedness, liability or obligation of... [a] corporation or individual”.

• Article III, Sections 21 and 23 because the purpose of the bill was changed through amendments, and the final title violates the clear title requirement.”

--School choice is a farce. The presence of DESE in SB727 is a FEATURE and not a bug. As the grassroots activists Shield Maidens said of the bill, “Look up the word "Department" which also means DESE. The "DEPARTMENT" when referencing DESE is used well over 125 times. Read that again…this bill notes the State Department of Education over 125 times. That is NOT getting the government out of our schools.”

--Every private school, FPE (Family Paced Education), charter school, and home school who applies for student tuition scholarships in the program will be subject to oversight by DESE. That may include curriculum (depending on which "choice" is made), testing, and teacher certification. 

DESE--leading local public schools into the Hell Mouth of SEL, DEI and CRT, as well as abysmal academic scores--is going to be given millions of additional taxpayer dollars in order to implement more control through “school choice.”

--A small percentage of Missouri students will have access to the program, even with its expansion. The expansion allows donors to receive more tax write-offs, and to begin to bring private and home schools under government control. The globalists have seen the writing on the wall, and they are going to claw back every student lost in recent years, and more.

--The hierarchy of who benefits from the scholarships include students already in the program and their siblings; students with disabilities who have an IEP; economically-disadvantaged students; students with poor or no English language skills (see pages 4-6 of the bill). Regular tax-paying folks are last in line.

--Most Missouri taxpayers with students will have their tax dollars redistributed to others without getting any benefit at all. The funding of SB727’s provisions are estimated to cost up to hundreds of millions of dollars. Everyone’s taxes will have to go up to fund the expansion. But never fear, donor organizations to the scholarship program will receive tax credits for dollars donated (see page 2-3 of the bill).

Below is an interview by Robb Carter with Patrick Holland of the Missouri FreedomInitiative. They talk about SB727, beginning at the one-hour mark. Patrick does a great job explaining problems with the bill, as well as why legislators passed the bill despite widespread opposition from both grassroots conservatives and public school proponents. It’s not pretty.

The Robb Carter Show Live https://t.co/XU8aCV70lp

— Robb Carter (@TheRobbCarter) April 25, 2024

 Tonight at 6 p.m., lobbyist Camellia Peterson of Americans for Prosperity will be speaking at the Ozark VFW. Providing a free dinner for attendees (you have to sign up HERE. I tried a couple times, but the form just cleared every time I hit "submit"). She will be sharing the AFP viewpoint of educational choice, which says in part, “Families deserve true educational freedom that restores their role as the primary decision-makers in their children’s education.”

Here are the priorities for education that AFP supports:

From: Americans for Prosperity

 

With SB727, which Camellia fiercely and often quite rudely supported in her social media posts, families will be able to “direct education funding on behalf of their children” only as far as DESE will allow, which means DESE will have oversight of that funding and can even take it back. Yes, parents may have to pay back the scholarship if DESE determines the rules are not being followed. 

 

All four points sound so good, but one caveat about “learning everywhere,” is that SB727 flat out says that the majority of home school learning should be in the home (see page 86 of the bill). The bill is FULL of little strings that eventually become a ligature on true educational freedom.

 And because the public schools are seeing stagnation as far as student numbers, they have become willing to pull in students any way they can. The virtual programs offered by public schools are under DESE oversight, too. And the bill reflects that. This dovetails nicely with the globalist view that all students should be under one educational system.

Whatever Camellia shares at the VFW will be spun so hard guests should hold fast to their free dinner. Here’s a portion of the disclaimer about the AFP event:

“By attending this Americans for Prosperity (AFP) event, you irrevocably consent and authorize AFP and its affiliates, employees, related companies, and contractors, to record, film, photograph, broadcast, or otherwise capture during the event and related events your likeness, image, voice, or any other indicia of identity in any media whatsoever and to distribute, use, broadcast, or disseminate into perpetuity such media for any purpose whatsoever without any further approval from or any compensation of any kind to you. The images in all media will constitute AFP’s sole property, and AFP will have the right to use your likeness, image, voice, or other indicia of identity, including, but not limited to, the right to produce, publicly perform, transmit, exhibit, publicly display, print, reproduce, televise, broadcast, transfer, modify, distribute, create derivative works of, and otherwise use for any lawful purpose, in whole or in part, in any location throughout the world through any means or medium or format without limitation, any Subject Matter, all without prior inspection or further consent or approval by the undersigned of the finished product(s) or of such use, together with irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide and royalty-free rights, title and interest in and to any and all results and proceeds from any such use. You further agree that you will not record, reproduce, or transmit from the place of performance, in any manner or by any means whatsoever, any portion of, or the entirety of, any AFP event in the absence of the specific written permission of AFP. AFP retains the exclusive copyright to all materials that may be distributed at the event, unless otherwise noted, and all video or audio recordings of all AFP events. If you or your guests are unwilling or unable to comply with the aforementioned terms and conditions, you may be denied admission to or be asked to leave the event."

It looks like AFP wants extremely tight control of their event. That free dinner comes at a price—you will get one side of the issue and you’ll get it good and hard.

More coming about SB727 and our legislative representatives who did and did not vote for it.

The Power of One

If you want to get a parent or grandparent or taxpayer up to speed about the issues with the Christian County Library, this interview by David Rice is the perfect vehicle.

One Parent Created a Movement

Not only does it give a short history of how Christian County citizen Mary Hernandez de Carl became involved in the movement to bring sanity to the children and teen sections of the library, but how the battle is going. Many very important points are shared.

Our publicly-appointed officials at the library continue to dig in and provide inappropriate materials to children. The staff seem to be creatures of the American Library Association and its chapter the Missouri Library Association. There is a lot of money and power behind the agenda to demoralize our children and destabilize our culture.

One person stood up.

Again, the Christian County Library Board of Trustees meets tonight at the Nixa branch at 6 p.m. Also, the Facebook group mentioned at the end, Pray for Christian County, can be found HERE. Also, We the People of Christian County was instrumental in giving a citizen's a voice in the effort to clean up the library.

Spending Our Money

David Rice writes about the Christian County Library's penchant for spending our tax dollars. This time with MOBIUS, a consortium of libraries (mostly academic) that charges for sharing books and resources. I wrote about it here.

But Rice has information from the executive director of MOBIUS, Donna Bacon. From his article:

"When I was emailing Donna Bacon, she mentioned that the future goals for MOBIUS include bringing Missouri Evergreen libraries into MOBIUS--increasing the costs to the taxpayer duplicating services we dont really need for Missouri Public Libraries."

The tendency to centralize everything under one system is neither good for individual libraries or for the taxpayer. Rice shares the numbers.

Read the whole thing HERE. 

Incidentally, the CCL board of trustees meeting is tonight at the Nixa branch, at 6 p.m. If you would like to speak, you need to get there early and fill out a comment form. Agenda HERE. 

If you don't keep up with your public officials, they tend to spend all kinds of your money. As Rice states, the library is ramping up to ask for yet more money to do renovations.

SB727...

 Compromising has consequences.

Battery Storage Facility Bid Goes Up in Flames

 By Gretchen Garrity

The Christian County Commissioners voted 3-0 on Thursday, April 18, 2024 to reject an application to build a battery storage facility in Ozark (previous article HERE). Fierce opposition from residents located near the proposed facility, as well as other citizens, made the commissioners' decision popular.

The second floor courtroom was packed for most of the meeting, with citizens handing out flyers and information they had gathered. A team from the developer Black Mountain Energy Storage, based in Austin, TX traveled to the meeting to make another pitch to the commissioners. Also, a representative of Show Me Christian County, the development organization of the county spoke in favor of the project.

While the dialog was mostly cordial, citizens were quick to react and call out the Black Mountain team at times. Show Me Christian County President and CEO Kristen Haseltine spoke about a forecasted tax increase for local schools of up to $24 million, which caused Commissioner Brad Jackson to later counter that because the facility would be considered personal property and not real property, a future change in the law (getting rid of the personal property tax) could negate all of the tax windfall.

Kristen Haseltine

Haseltine said, "Whenever this project came about, almost a year ago, we were informed about it and so we started investigating and started looking at it...seeking professional input from, um, across the state. We have even gone to Eaglepicher...in Joplin. They actually produce lithium ion batteries. We have talked with, I think, a minimum of six different utility partners, Liberty included, as well as cooperatives. We've talked to regional, as well as statewide, different groups. So we feel like we have been in lots of conversations, done research...Honestly I'm gonna point out Todd [Wiesehan, Resource Management Director]. Todd has done an amazing job at creating a summary of this project and addressing some of the concerns, and provided all of the resources that he used during his research. Based upon a lot of that research and investigation and everything that we've done, and including--which I'm going to point out--Danny Gray [county assessor] the financial impact as well."

  Haseltine went on to share three main points that attracted Show Me Christian County to the project:
1) Construction jobs
2) Energy Supply
3) Financial impact

Haseltine admitted that the construction jobs (about 100) would be temporary. Additionally, the Black Mountain team admitted earlier in the meeting that there is no guarantee that county residents would see a rise in the local energy supply or a lowering of rates. And, as noted above, if the personal property tax is done away with, the taxes collected would not meet the projection that Black Mountain gave to the assessor.

Presiding Commissioner Lynn Morris kept control of the meeting while allowing everyone to speak. The commissioners had done their homework about the project, and Morris remarked that he had received a plethora of emails and phone calls from concerned citizens.

In an interesting development, the property owner, Stu Stenger of Natural Bridge, LLC, who also owns the land adjacent to the proposed facility, did not appear. Apparently, Stenger has plans to build a housing development on his adjacent property, and Haseltine inferred that if Stenger did not have a problem with the storage facility then citizens could feel at ease.

Later, a citizen who is a real estate appraiser got up to speak (at about the 1:44:00 timestamp) and explained how projects like the proposed battery storage facility could negatively affect property values. At the end, she said, "And I don't agree with that developer [Stenger]. He's gonna have a hard time selling a $500,000 or $600,000 house sitting next to a storage facility and a substation."

Haseltine arose in defense of Stenger, saying that his company had taken into consideration all the variables of locating a housing development near a utility. She also cited the housing shortage and stable local home prices as reasons for going forward with building housing near the battery storage facility.

Commissioner Morris commented about the absence of the developer, Stu Stenger, saying, "I'm a little disappointed. I continue to be that way, from time to time when people who should be at a meeting don't come to the meeting."

Commissioner Bradley Jackson spoke just before making a motion to deny the application for the project. "I don't like having people tell me, 'Think of all the property tax that will be generated for the schools.Think about the schools'. I do think about the schools. I think about them a lot. But the fact that there is a governor candidate that is running on the premise of eliminating the personal property tax, I can't take that into consideration as a revenue source. And I'm not going to be bought or have that threat of money hamper my ability to make a good decision. My citizens are worth more than money."

The motion was seconded by Commissioner Bilyeu, and the vote to deny the application was 3-0.

Video of the proceedings:

At the Crossroads of Niceness

 

By Gretchen Garrity

The Missouri Republican Party is having an internal battle to determine what it looks like in the future. Right now, the big money interests, traditionally conservative think tanks, and private organizations are fighting to maintain the status quo.

What is the status quo?

It's the domination of the big money interests and lobbyists over We the People. These groups have long been influencing our elected representatives in Jefferson City without much opposition. Even the good ones. Let me repeat that: Even the good ones.

Bills that may be unconstitutional from the start, that include loads of shoddy legislation and are added to with amendments that have little to do with the original bill, are common.

Special interests often write the bills. Party machines often strongly encourage representatives to vote one way or another.

These (and other) reasons are why a so-called Republican super majority gets very little done, and what does get done adds more government control and benefits the special interests and not We the People. It could be said that there is not a super majority of Republicans, but a lot of RINOs and Democrats serving as Republicans.

In recent years the Missouri grassroots movement has grown. Politically active citizens are engaging their representatives, circumventing the censorship of the legacy media, and getting the word out.

They read bills, they visit their representatives, they network, and they speak up. This is causing a ruckus, not only with the political machine, but on the ground level. A fundamental disagreement has arisen about how citizens should be conducting their free speech when it comes to their representatives.

One side favors the Ronald Reagan view:

Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of thy fellow Republican." pic.twitter.com/vaujK5bkAa

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) July 12, 2017

What this "commandment" has done is allowed a form of political correctness to run rampant among the ranks. Republicans are urged to not criticize their representatives. Pressure is put on them to tone down their opinions, especially in a public forum. Presenting facts is fine, but citizens are not to be saucy. 

This is terribly dangerous. Just on the face of it, muzzling citizens from calling out their representatives does four immediate things:

• It gives representatives cover for when they vote against the people
• It allows representatives to ignore and shun constituents who dare to criticize
  
• It gives lobbyists a BIGGER voice and influence over our elected representatives
  
• It mutes the voice of the people

Never trust anyone, Democrat or Republican, who doesn't vigorously go after their own party when they're wrong.

Anyone on social media who sides with either party 100% of the time, can NEVER be trusted.

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) April 16, 2024

It allows the political machine to continue strong-arming representatives to vote against the interests and wishes of their constituents.

Further, it encourages division and dissension among Republicans on the ground. Those with influence attempt to use it against others to shut down criticism. This just strengthens the political machine at the Capitol, encouraging more of the same.

Interestingly, lobbyists and representatives are also emboldened to do the very thing citizens are accused of--criticizing those who disagree. Exhibit A:

Regardless of your position on the issue the fact is NO individual or group has tried to scare members and constituents with fear and outright lies more than the posse hiding behind “MO Ed Watch” https://t.co/fZ8PHhd6kj

— Ben Baker (@BenBakerMO) April 16, 2024

I speak now to Christians. There is no 11th Commandment. Either we will have a free and open society in which those within a party can vigorously disagree and engage each other and our representatives on the issues of the day, or we will further lose the freedoms we hold so dear.

Citizens have the right to God-given free speech to call out wrong thinking and wrong acting within their own political party. No more hiding behind Party. It is and has been compromised.

Representatives should be held accountable for their votes, both at the ballot box and in the public arena. If they can't stand the heat, then they aren't fit for office and should step aside. If they prefer the company of lobbyists and moneyed interests, then they are not representing the People.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (The 10th Amendment)

SB727 must be defeated

 CLICK FOR CLARITY.