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Aug. 16, 2021 - Epoch Times
18:01
Supreme Court Allows for Arrest of Texas Democrats Who Don’t Show Up at Capitol | Facts Matter
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Good evening.
Over in Atlanta, the principal of an elementary school made an interesting choice.
She segregated the kids based on race.
She had different classes as well as different teachers for black kids versus the white kids.
Meanwhile, over in Oregon, their schools have taken a slightly different approach.
In order to help communities of color, the governor there just signed a new bill into law, this one right here, which will allow high school students to graduate without proving that they can read, write, or do math.
And lastly, two days ago over in Texas, the state Supreme Court there ruled that the Speaker of the House does in fact have the authority to arrest and detain Democrat lawmakers who fled the state in order to block voting on an election bill.
Let's go through it all together.
This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
And today, let's begin our discussion with a little story.
Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk, conducting my usual business in the afternoon, when suddenly I noticed an alert on my computer.
YouTube had informed me that they had deleted one of my videos for what they called medical misinformation.
I almost couldn't believe it, and so I went through my videos, I went through the content tab on the back end of YouTube, and indeed, it was right there.
Deleted.
Removed from the system.
Now, I do all of my own research, and I write all of my own scripts.
And so what I did is I went back and I reviewed what I said in that episode.
And after I re-read it, I found it to be 100% factual.
The video reported on how the FDA added a warning to both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, informing consumers that there is a small risk of developing heart inflammation.
That video, it contained no opinion on the subject, and it only presented statements from the FDA, the CDC, as well as from the FDA commissioner, Ms.
Janet Woodcock.
I mean, if that's considered medical misinformation, well, I don't know what to say.
Now, I appealed that decision to YouTube, and eventually, actually, the video did get restored.
But this is the reality of what it's like to publish videos here on YouTube.
You're always walking a fine line.
You're essentially always walking on eggshells.
And even though in this case our video was eventually restored, we have lots of other videos that were deleted and they never came back.
Now, you can find all those videos over on Epic TV, which is exactly why we created that platform.
Because no matter how benevolent the YouTube censors think they're being, which at least I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume they have good intentions behind this type of censorship, regardless, they are creating an environment where speaking about facts is borderline not allowed.
In fact, just the other day, Rand Paul, who is both a medical doctor as well as a sitting member of Congress, he had a second video taken off of this platform as well.
That video, by the way, was a speech that he gave on the Senate floor.
I mean, if that's not constitutionally protected speech, I honestly don't know what is.
And so, all this is to say that if you're tired of the censorship as well, just like I am, then I would consider checking out Epic TV, because we built it as a platform where we can publish awesome content without even having to think about the censorship.
On there, you will find awesome full-length documentaries on everything from how Ron DeSantis handled the pandemic, to Wall Street's ties to the Chinese Communist Party, To the communist subversion of America and many other awesome topics.
Also, all of the Epoch Times video programs are on there as well, such as the Larry Elder Show, Real Talk with Wayne Dupree, American Thought Leaders, Schools Out with Sam Sorbo, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, Counterpunch with Trevor Loudon, as well as, of course, our program, Facts Matter, and on there we publish exclusive content as well as full-length interviews that, again, frankly, due to the extreme levels of censorship here on YouTube, I do not publish on this platform.
If you want to check out Epic TV, the link tool will be right there at the very top of the description box.
I really hope you check it out.
And now let's really move on over to Atlanta.
You know that weird feeling when you go to visit your child's elementary school only to learn that the kids are being segregated by race?
Well, hold on a moment, you might say.
This is 2021.
That doesn't happen anymore.
Well, in at least one elementary school over in Georgia...
It does.
In fact, a mother has just filed a complaint against her daughter's elementary school, alleging that they were segregating black kids in order to give them what they said was more opportunity.
This mother's name is Kyla Posey, and here's what she said during an interview with a local news channel over in Georgia.
We have lost sleep over this, trying to figure out why would a person do this.
She further said that she was stunned when she learned that Mary Lynn Elementary School was segregating classes based on the race of the children.
And she said that this policy was put in place and condoned by the principal of the school, a woman by the name of Sharon Briscoe.
Here's how the mother explained her feelings when she found out about this policy.
It was disbelieved that I was having this conversation in 2020 with a person that looks just like me, a black woman.
It's segregating classrooms.
You cannot segregate classrooms.
You can't do it.
Now, the way that this mother found out about this policy in the first place was that she went to the principal and she requested that her daughter be placed into the classroom of a certain teacher, because she thought that that particular teacher was a good fit for her daughter.
However, the principal informed her that this was impossible.
Here's how the mother described the conversation.
The principal said, that's not one of the black classes.
And I immediately said, what does that mean?
I was confused.
I asked for more clarification.
I asked, we have those in the school?
And she proceeded to say that, yes, I have decided that I'm going to place all of the black students in two classes.
So just to reiterate, this principal, who herself is a black woman, she decided to segregate this elementary school.
The black kids could only be placed into two specific classes with specific teachers, while the white kids were placed into six different specific classes with a different set of teachers.
The principal said that this segregation would give the students more opportunities.
However, when this mother insisted that her child be placed in a classroom alongside white students, the principal pushed back, and she told her that her child would be isolated because, after all, it wasn't a black class.
Here's the mother's opinion on this matter.
My community, had they known about this, would probably be extremely upset.
Not just the black parents, but also the white parents.
And because of all this, Ms.
Posey has now filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.
According to her lawyer, by conducting segregation, the school is violating federal law.
Here's what the lawyer said on this matter.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that you cannot treat one group of people differently based upon race, and that is what is going on at Mary Lynn Elementary.
Now, according to Fox News, the Atlanta Public School District has confirmed that they probed these allegations and they took what they called appropriate actions, although they did not actually elaborate what those were.
Here's what the school district said in a statement.
Atlanta Public Schools does not condone the assigning of students to classrooms based on race.
The district conducted a review of the allegations.
Appropriate actions were taken to address the issue, and the matter was closed.
Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to both the Atlanta Public School District as well as to the Department of Education for comment on this case, but we have yet to hear back.
However, what's interesting to note is that this whole episode is taking place just two months after the Georgia Board of Education passed a resolution which said that students should not be taught about critical race theory in the classroom.
Back then, which is again just two months ago, here's what the governor of Georgia tweeted out.
I applaud the state board of education voting today to prevent critical race theory from being taught in our classrooms.
This dangerous anti-American ideology has no place in Georgia schools.
If you'd like to learn more about the school segregation happening over in Georgia, I'll throw a link into the description box below this video to a story so you can dive deeper into the subject.
And all I ask in return is that you take a quick second to smash that like button.
Because obviously, it goes without saying, that videos that are like this, talking honestly, factually, and transparently about what is happening in this world, are routinely censored, throttled, or sometimes outright removed by big tech giants like YouTube.
However, when you smash that like button, you are forcing the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide.
Now, while we're in the topic of schools, let's move on over to Oregon.
And while some schools are addressing the race issue by segregating their classrooms, Oregon is taking a different approach.
Just two days ago, it was announced that the governor of Oregon signed a new bill into law which will allow high school students to graduate without proving that they can read, write, or do math.
This bill, which is officially called Senate Bill 744, it says this in relevant part, quote, Now you might be asking yourself, why is this bill exactly necessary?
Well, according to Mr.
Charles Boyle, who is the governor's aide, he told a local newspaper out in Oregon that suspending the proficiency requirement will benefit people of color.
Here's what he said.
Oregon's black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, tribal, and students of color, leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards, along with expanded learning opportunities and supports.
Now, specifically, what this bill actually does is it suspends the graduation requirements for the next three years while a review is being conducted.
That review is going to be carried out by the Oregon Department of Education, and according to the text of this bill, officials there must identify, and this is a quote,"...the causes of disparities that have resulted from the requirements for high school diplomas in the state, and whether the requirements for high school diplomas in the state have been applied inequitably to different student populations." The bill further states that the education department should use a process that is equitable when developing recommendations for changing the requirements for a high school diploma, which they will now have three years to do.
Now the Oregon Education Association, which is the largest teachers union in the entire state, they supported this move.
In fact, on their website, it says that they have worked for years to eliminate the essential skills test, claiming that the test can However, at a public hearing back in March, Mr.
Duncan Weiss, who was a member of the Board of Education when the essential skills requirement was first adopted, he thought that this was a bad idea.
Here's what he said: "While the essential skills requirements weren't review, as do all aspects of the diploma, they should not be jettisoned at the outset.
These requirements, which have been in place for a decade, were established through a long, consultative process by the State Board." On the flip side, though, a woman who wrote a letter to the panel, She actually agreed with getting rid of these requirements, saying that the testing also leads teachers to teach how to take a test, rather than teaching them how to think, how to analyze information, or how to problem solve.
Our children deserve better.
If they have passed the classes required for graduation, additional testing is just a way of keeping people from achieving their potential, not helping them in any way.
Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to the governor's office for comment on this new bill, but we have yet to hear back.
Regardless, if you would like to hear more about the story, including if you'd like to read the full text of Senate Bill 744, I'll throw those links into the description box below this video for you to check out, which once again is the description box right below that like button, which I hope you take a moment to smash.
And now let's move on over to Texas.
Where the state's Supreme Court just ruled that it is in fact legal to arrest Democrat lawmakers who have fled the state.
Let me just repeat that.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled that the Speaker of the Texas House does have the authority to arrest and detain Democrat lawmakers who fled the state in order to block voting on an election bill.
Now, to give you a bit of background on this whole issue, in case you haven't been following it, back in May of this year, the Texas State Senate approved a fairly sweeping election integrity bill.
Among several other things, this bill would grant more power to poll watchers by giving them better access to the inside of polling areas, it would establish new penalties against election officials who will restrict poll watchers' movements, and it will allow judges to void the outcome of an election if the number of fraudulent votes could have changed the results.
However, after passing the Senate, That's because,
unlike other states, which require only a simple majority of lawmakers to be present in order to have a quorum and start the legislative session, The Democrats' reasoning behind taking this course of action was that,
according to them, this election integrity bill was actually designed to suppress minority voters and And so they created a situation where the vote couldn't even take place.
Now again, that was back in May, so about three months ago.
However, just last month, there was a repeat performance.
What happened was that Greg Abbott, who is the governor of Texas, he's a Republican, and he called a new special legislative session.
The special session would have lasted for a period of 30 days, and its main agenda was to get the election bill passed into law.
Here's what Governor Greg Abbott said after calling for the special session.
Even the Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives agree that as it concerns mail-in ballots, that is an area where improving the mail-in ballot system is a way to achieve greater election integrity.
So what Texas is doing is we're making it easier to vote by adding more hours in early voting than we have in current law, but also making it harder to cheat with regard to mail-in ballots.
However, that is not what wound up taking place.
Instead, what actually happened was that the Texas House Democrats, they literally fled the state.
That's right.
In order to break the quorum, they got on a private, chartered plane and flew to Washington, D.C. Here's what part of a joint statement from these Texas Democrats said.
We are now taking the fight to our nation's capital.
We are living on a borrowed time in Texas.
We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans and all Americans from the Trump-Republicans' nationwide war on democracy.
And these Democrat lawmakers have now been MIA for about four weeks.
However, it looks like they will now be facing consequences.
That's because the Speaker of the Texas House, Mr.
Dade Fellon, he is invoking his authority to have these lawmakers arrested.
But the question is, can he actually do that?
Well, it looks like he can, because as we already mentioned, according to the rules of the Texas House, at least two-thirds of the chamber must be present in order to conduct business.
However, that same rule then goes on to say that if there are absent lawmakers for whom no sufficient excuse is made, the House members who are still present, they can vote to have those absent lawmakers be sent for and arrested wherever they may be found.
And so, exactly one month ago, Texas House Republicans voted in favor of tracking down these absent Democrats and potentially arresting them if they weren't willing to comply and come back.
However, the Texas House Democrats filed a lawsuit against these arrest warrants.
And just a few days ago, a state district judge named Brad Orishia, he's a Democrat, he voted in favor of the Democrats.
He issued an injunction against their arrest.
Here's what this district judge said as a part of his ruling.
Texas law does not provide for the physical confinement of lawmakers who have committed no crime.
However, the House Republicans appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court, arguing that compelling the attendance of its members is a prerogative given to the House by the Texas Constitution.
And, as of two days ago, the Supreme Court voted in their favor, meaning that the court recognized that the Speaker of the House does indeed have the authority to both detain and arrest lawmakers who failed to show up at the Capitol in order to break quorum.
And after this decision was made, the office for Governor Greg Abbott released this statement.
On the flip side, though, House Democrats released an opposing statement decrying this decision.
Here's what part of that said.
It is no surprise that Republican Governor Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Fallon We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
Although, according to local media reports, some Democrat lawmakers have started to return back to Texas.
And thus far, it's unclear whether any of them have either been arrested or detained.
If you would like to read more about this Texas drama, I'll throw a link into the description box below this video to a story where you can go deeper.
And lastly, I'd like to make a quick announcement, although it's something that's been happening for a little while now.
This show is now available over the air on a television network.
That's right.
If you have ever heard of NTD Television, they're a phenomenal cable news channel.
They now carry Facts Matter on their 7.30 p.m.
Eastern time slot.
Now, NTD is actually a sister media to the Epoch Times, and they're awesome.
They carry the stories that are vitally important to the future of this country.
You can think of them as sort of an alternative to the CNN, Fox News, MSNBC stranglehold on cable news.
They talk about stories in a way sort of like how we do it.
That doesn't spin the facts.
They talk about what's happening.
They discuss the facts without having to shoehorn some kind of a false narrative into it.
They're a phenomenal news channel, and they are growing.
They're now available in 32 different states throughout the country.
And if you'd like to check out whether you get their coverage, you can go on over to ntd.com forward slash TV and type in your zip code and see whether you get the channel.
And if not, you can actually reach out to your cable provider and request it.
They actually do listen.
Also, by the way, they are on Roku and Apple TV.
And so even if you don't have satellite or cable, you can still watch them on those two platforms.
Again, that link is ntd.com forward slash TV.
I'll actually throw it into the description box below this video so you can check it out.
And now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while YouTube still allows it.
Also, hit that notification bell so you can be notified of any new videos as we release them.
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And then lastly, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times.
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