Teachers Unions Gave Guidance to CDC Director on School COVID Restrictions The all too powerful teacher unions have been throwing wrenches into efforts to reopen schools amid the pandemic, making all manner of demands with little regard for the students or parents.
Now we know how they have exerted their influence on public officials, particularly in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
We received 12 pages of records showing the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) influencing the director of the CDC and the White House with their own “embargoed vaccine research,” as well as school reopening policy.
Additionally, the CDC Director states that she used the unions’ language in the CDC’s school reopening policy. (Some of these emails have been previously disclosed.)
We obtained the documents through a FOIA request to the CDC asking for:- All emails exchanged between CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky and email accounts ending in aft.org and/or nea.org.
- All emails exchanged between CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat and email accounts ending in aft.org and/or nea.org.
- All emails exchanged between CDC Acting Associate Director for Communications Abbigail Tumpey and email accounts ending in aft.org and/or nea.org.
- All emails exchanged between CDC Associate Director for Policy and Strategy Robin M. Ikeda and email accounts ending in aft.org and/or nea.org.
The records, some of which had been previously released, reveal:- On February. 8, 2021, Rebecca Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA), emailed Director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, requesting an advance copy of the CDC school-related COVID-19 guidance:
I am writing to request an advance copy of CDC school-related COVID-19 guidance that I understand are to be released this week. We will, of course, keep them confidential until they are public. I want to be prepared for any media or internal questions that come after they are released. Any other information you can offer about the timing of their release is appreciated…. P.S. Our team will be briefing the CDC and White House staff today on our embargoed vaccine research. I will be sure you receive the research memo with our findings after they meet today. - In an email exchange on February 1, 2021, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Senior Director of Health Issues, Kelly Trautner to CDC officials, White House officials, and AFT colleagues, Trautner thanks everyone for the “rich discussion about forthcoming CDC guidance:”
Thank you again for Friday’s rich discussion about forthcoming CDC guidance and for your openness to the suggestions made by our president, Randi Weingarten, and the AFT. We are hopeful that lines of communications will remain open, and that we can serve as a true thought partner as you continue the important work toward safe reopening of schools. *** We crafted the language below using a NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) document, as well as language in some of our agreements with school employers. Thank you for considering it
White House official Carole Johnson forwards Trautner’ s email to Walensky writing, “AFT followed up w suggested lang[uage] on accommodations per your exchange with Randi.”
On February 3, 2021, Walensky replied to CDC, HHS, White House, and AFT officials:
I just wanted to circle back and extend my gratitude for the language you have provided below. Regrets for my delay in reply but I wanted to be certain you knew it is being worked into (with just a few small tweaks) the school reopening guidance. We have also included the executive summary you suggested. Please know that we are listening and working hard to ensure your confidence and partnership in this endeavor.
Within the “language” provided by Trautner to the White House officials, she suggested adding,
Employers should provide reassignment, remote work, or other options for staff who have documented high-risk conditions or who are at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 to limit the risk of workplace exposure. Options for reassignment include telework, virtual teaching opportunities, modified job responsibilities, environmental modifications, scheduling flexibility, or temporary reassignment to different job responsibilities.
Trautner replied to Walensky:
Thank you so much for your responsiveness to the suggestions made by Randi and our team. We are immensely grateful for your genuine desire to earn our confidence and your commitment to partnership. We will pass this message along to Randi. She will certainly be most grateful.
On February 11, 2021, Trautner continued the exchange, emailing Walensky:
Thank you for your continued openness to our suggestions and input. We would like to share some thoughts regarding the paragraph below which was apparently leaked from the imminent guidance on reopening schools: “At any level of community transmission, all schools can provide in-person instruction (either full or hybrid), through strict adherence to mitigation strategies. Recommended learning modes vary to minimize risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in school by emphasizing layered mitigation, including school policies requiring universal and correct mask use. The recommended learning modes (in-person, hybrid) depend on the level of community transmission and strict adherence to mitigation.” It would be great to see the insertion some variation of the following: “In the event high-community transmission results from a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, a new update of these guidelines may be necessary.” We are deeply concerned about likely implications this language will have in schools where strict adherence to mitigation strategies is lacking or is impossible to implement, particularly those schools in high-density, crumbling infrastructure areas, and particularly when community transmission is high. We don't believe that any current research has demonstrated that all schools in those areas can safely reopen. - On March 17, 2021, Trautner emailed Walensky about a call from Weingarten, saying: “Randi is hoping to schedule a call with your folks about reopening issue, including maintaining mitigation protections and what might be needed in the context of higher vaccination numbers.”
- On March 23, 2021, AFT President Randi Weingarten emailed Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Walensky, saying that she had noted the “shift” in CDC’s guidance regarding physical distancing in schools with “keen interest.”
- On March 20, 2021, the CDC issued new “guidance” reducing suggested physical distancing from 6 feet to 3 feet for students.
Weingarten stated:
[A]lthough I was very worried about the implications of the shift, I reserved judgment until we could review the new studies that were presented…. *** [W]e are not convinced that the evidence supports changing physical distancing requirements at this time. Our concern is that the cited studies do not identify the baseline mitigation strategies needed to support 3 feet of physical distancing. *** [W]e conclude that any shift from 6 feet to 3 feet must be accompanied by, at a minimum, universal and correct masking; effective ventilation; thorough cleaning of buildings; regular COVID-19 testing of teachers, staff and students; effective contact tracing and quarantine/isolation protocols; and the availability of vaccines to all people in schools who are eligible. Weakening one layer of layered mitigation demands that the other layers must be strengthened. We strongly urge you, in any discussion of this shift, to forcefully insist on strict and strengthened adherence to the other mitigation strategies…. After months of mixed messaging and misinformation, consistency from our public health officials is a welcome change. But as educators with the expertise on how physical distancing works in schools, we have immediate logistical questions….
Weingarten added a list of questions regarding how school personnel can move about, whether simulcasting lessons was still necessary, and what the government’s mitigation strategies timeline was.- On April 9, 2021, Weingarten emailed Walensky about “Requesting Meeting about Variants,” stating: “On behalf of the AFT we would request a meeting with the CDC on the impact of the Covid variants, particularly what we are seeing in schools and communities.”
Walensky replied, “Dear Randi, Many thanks for reaching out. I’ll connect with my team and work to make this happen.”
What qualifies partisan teachers unions, other than generous contributions to allied politicians, to provide the CDC with public health guidance on reopening schools? The CDC is corrupted by politics and is dishonest when it suggests it is merely “following the science.”
Judicial Watch Seeks Evidence in Lawsuit against U.S. Capitol Police for January 6 Videos
Nancy Pelosi and her U.S. Capitol Police must have something to hide about January 6. Why else would they be hiding evidence from the American people?
Undeterred by their stonewalling, we filed a motion for discovery in our lawsuit against the United States Capitol Police (USCP) for videos and emails and videos concerning the disturbance at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 (Judicial Watch v. United States Capitol Police (No. 1:21-cv-00401)).
Congress exempts itself from the Freedom of Information Act, we brought this case under the common law right of access to public records. The US Capitol Police declined to produce any records about the disturbance, however, arguing that the requested videos and other records are not “public records” and the public interest doesn’t warrant their release.
We asked the court to grant us the ability to gather evidence about the preservation and use of the infamous January 6 videos:
This case concerns whether the public has a right of access to records about what Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has describe as “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history,” “an attack on our very democracy [,]” and “an attack on the peaceful transfer of power.” Speaker Pelosi also has stated, “It is imperative that we find the truth of that day and ensure that such an assault on our Capitol and Democracy cannot ever again happen.” To find out the truth about what took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 and to understand how Defendant United States Capitol Police and other government entities responded on that day, Plaintiff Judicial Watch requested access to certain communications and video recordings. *** (Judicial Watch) therefore moves for limited discovery to seek evidence to prove that the requested records are public records subject to the common law right of access and that the public’s interest in disclosure outweighs the government’s interest in keeping the records secret.
We filed the lawsuit for: - Email communications between the U.S. Capitol Police Executive Team and the Capitol Police Board concerning the security of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The timeframe of this request is from January 1, 2021 through January 10, 2021.
- Email communications of the Capitol Police Board with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concerning the security of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The timeframe of this request is from January 1, 2021through January 10, 2021.
- All video footage from within the Capitol between 12 pm and 9 pm on January 6, 2021
As the Pelosi House seeks the confidential phone and social media records of countless Americans concerning January 6, its U.S. Capitol Police is covering up 14,000 hours of video about what really happened that day. The U.S. Capitol Police should be required to explain under oath its reasons for refusing to turn over even one second of January 6 video to the American people.
U.S. Invests Millions to Bring Racial, Ethnic ‘Equity’ to STEM Education
You will be forgiven if you think operating a computer has nothing to do with race. And you would be wrong, at least according to the leftist-controlled National Science Foundation, which is pushing extremist and racist Critical Race Theory. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the story.Weeks after giving a private college hundreds of thousands of dollars to “identify any existence of systemic inequities” in science, technology, engineering, and math fields (STEM), the U.S. government is doling out nearly $2 million to address racial and gender disparities in high school computer education. The money will come from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which was created by Congress seven decades ago to promote the progress of science, advance national health and prosperity and secure the national defense. With an annual budget of $8.5 billion, the NSF funds more than a quarter of research conducted at American colleges and universities, where theft of intellectual property by Communist China is pervasive. While the NSF is one of the government agencies that has long permitted Chinese Communist scientists to steal billions in taxpayer-funded research, it is also keeping up with the current climate of political correctness. A few days ago, the agency awarded two public universities a total of $1.9 million to “address the historical and current racial and gender disparities in participation in high school computer science education.” The project is part of a broader program called Researching Equity and Antiracist Learning in Computer Science (REAL-CS) that focuses on expanding participation for black, indigenous, “Latinx” (the new, politically correct gender-neutral term for Latino or Latina) and Pacific Islander students by addressing systemic barriers in high school computer science education. REAL-CS is designed to sustain another publicly-funded, “equity-focused” initiative called Exploring Computer Science (ECS) dedicated to “democratizing” the field by increasing opportunities for “traditionally underrepresented” high school students after a study identified disparities along “race and socioeconomic lines.” The recent NSF allocations will go to the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oregon. UCLA, which has its own CS Equity Project, is getting $1,026,000 from the NSF to help prepare teachers nationwide to reach thousands of minority high school students to take “an equity-focused CS course,” according to the grant announcement. The University of Oregon will receive $873,999 to do the same. “Overall, the key goal of REAL-CS is to create the necessary conditions and capacity in high schools that lead to equitable participation of students of color in high-quality computer science classes,” according to the NSF. The agency assures the costly program will create systemic change by increasing the use of racially and culturally inclusive practices, refreshing existing curriculum and supplementary curricular materials with antiracist design tenets, and conducting deep qualitative research nationwide that investigates equity-oriented teacher beliefs and practices. Weeks before awarding the UCLA and Oregon grants, the NSF gave a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania more than a quarter of a million dollars to uncover “any existence of systemic inequities and advancement barriers related to gender, race, and ethnicity in STEM faculty.” The $271,594 grant will fund a project at Bucknell University, which has an enrollment of 3,724, that uses quantitative and qualitative data to develop and implement a plan to remove such barriers. “This project will bring significant insights into issues facing women and underrepresented minority faculty that are unique to STEM disciplines and in a primarily undergraduate institution that strives to enhance diversity in students, faculty and staff,” the NSF writes in the grant announcement. The project is part of a larger initiative called Self-Assessment of Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Equity (AGREE) in STEM Faculty that aims to uncover systemic inequities centered around recruitment, retention, and promotion processes facing women and faculty members underrepresented in STEM disciplines. The NSF has been embroiled in its fair share of scandals over the years. Most recently, the agency was outed along with several others, including the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, for long permitting Communists working in the U.S. to steal scientific research. This was the subject of a scathing U.S. Senate report that determined billions of dollars in scientific research funded by American taxpayers have been stolen by China and the U.S. government has no viable plan to stop the ongoing theft of the highly valued intellectual property, which congressional investigators assure “has contributed to China’s global rise over the last 20 years.” The NSF was also embroiled in a porn scandal years ago in which employees spent significant portions of their workdays watching, downloading and emailing pornography on government computers without ever getting caught.
Until next week …
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