This cretinous figure is a major reason why millions of American kids needlessly fell behind academically and suffered psychologically over the last year, having worked extremely hard to prevent her members from having to show up to work and do their jobs. She did so in direct defiance of the science, while throwing her moneyed influence around to actually impact the Official Science, only to reject parts of it when her preferred excuses were overruled by real data. With kids stuck in failing remote learning, she flaunted her untouchable position within the constellation of Democratic special interests, flying around on jets for "essential" union meetings. And now she wants credit for schools reopening next academic year, as the jig is finally up. It's shameless and brazen and despicable. But American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten isn't done yet. She's making a bunch of demands about what would constitute a "safe" reopening in the fall:
To this day, even after delivering a big speech May 13 saying, "There is no doubt: Schools must be open. In person. Five days a week," Weingarten has continued to attach caveats and conditions that make the fall a doubtful enterprise for those public school families who live in areas where teachers unions hold heavy influence. She still wants reduced class sizes, maximal masking, distance-educating carveouts for teachers still scared to teach in class, and extra district/state monies in addition to the federal bonanza. She still warns darkly about variants, and says stuff like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recent masking relaxation for vaccinated people "portends a potential surge of the virus."
As she spreads her greedy, anti-science propaganda while trying to convince people that she's truly a re-opening heroine, Weingarten is still distorting facts and embracing conspiracy theories. Here's a misleading claim, targeting the Republican governor of Texas:
Last week a study conducted by the CDC found that masks were a key factor in stopping the spread of COVID. This is another reckless and dangerous move from the Governor of Texas. https://t.co/IGv3xRoiGo
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) May 25, 2021
That's...not exactly what the study found:
The new study comes from Georgia and compares COVID-19 infection rates across 169 K-5 schools. Some schools required teachers, staff and sometimes students to wear masks; some did not. Between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, researchers found that infection rates were 37% lower in schools where teachers and staff members were required to wear masks. The difference between schools that did and did not require students to wear masks was not statistically significant.
Masks on kids made no statistical difference. Because kids are overwhelmingly safe from bad COVID outcomes by virtue of being kids. There's a reason schools were not super spreaders, a fact that Weingarten has labored to obscure and downplay in order to keep her fear-based racket afloat, actively and knowingly harming children in the process. Meanwhile, "masks on adults do make a difference — or did, I should say, since this study was conducted last winter before the vaccines were widely available," writes Allahpundit. "But now that they are widely available, now that teachers everywhere have had a meaningful opportunity to get vaccinated, now that the CDC has said vaccinated adults can remove their masks indoors, what’s left of this study?" Exactly. The study is obsolete, and it didn't even show what Weingarten suggested it did. Good work. Worse, Weingarten appears to have embraced the debunked ravings of a disturbed and fully discredited fake "whistleblower" in Florida. Why? What choice does she have? She doesn't have a good answer for why Florida schools were open all year long with no significant problems because that empirical reality exposes the abusive scam she and her union have been running elsewhere across the country. So she has to pretend that Florida is lying about its data, citing a familiar, deranged source for her misinformation:
In a Twitter direct message exchange with journalist Samuel Bravo in March, Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, endorsed the theory that Rebekah Jones was fired from her position as a health department dashboard manager last year because she refused to artificially lower the state’s reported COVID deaths...“The person who organized the data for COVID was Rebekah Jones,” Weingarten wrote in a series of direct messages to Bravo. Weingarten wrote that Jones was fired from the Florida health department because “she told the truth.” “As I understand it, she was transparent on Covid cases and she was fired. Then she continued privately and her computer was seized in a police raid,” Weingarten said.
Those direct messages are here, and Weingarten is standing by the crackpot theory to this day. Jones is a discredited crank whose breathtakingly dishonest grift has been exposed as such on multiple occasions. One story chronicles her sordid history of arrests and lies. The definitive Jones takedown was written by Charles Cooke, and it's a must read. Do so, then click back here and remind yourself that one of the most powerful Democratic special interests in the country is relying on Jones' brazen lies to help justify her own indefensible scheme: Locking struggling children out of classrooms for a year for no defensible reason. The Florida experience destroys Weingarten's story, so she's clinging to nonsense to try to discredit the Florida experience. A top Florida Democrat has confirmed that the "faked data" allegation is pure garbage, yet it persists because some people simply cannot process the loss of that lie. I'll leave you with this, via this very special lady and her team of unionized teachers who seem to think they've suffered and sacrificed in some unique way during the pandemic, the tone-deafness of which is off the charts:
"Teachers are tired; they are exhausted. We have to find a way to repair and nourish them as well as families in terms of attracting and retaing our teaching force." @rweingarten
— AFT (@AFTunion) May 21, 2021
I'm actually quite interested in "the blame game," actually, though I'd understand why some people are rather keen on memory-holing the disaster they caused.
UPDATE - Local CBS News has also debunked the Jones conspiracy theory, to which Weingarten is subscribed. Perhaps this news affiliate could send the video to headquarters for the team at 60 Minutes for review?