Merrick Garland Abusing Office To Get Rich... Say Stupidest People On The Internet

You probably think of Merrick Garland as the milquetoast Attorney General sitting on his pockets as armed mobs of white folks claim “oopsie” over the whole “violently storming the Capitol” thing. But you’d be WRONG!!!!

Wake up, Sheeple!

Merrick Garland is entering the endgame of his years-long plan to abuse his power for personal gain! He had to endure being nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States while the Senate breached its basic constitutional duty to “advise and consent” by refusing to ever hold hearings for a year. Then he had to get lucky that an equally milquetoast Democrat managed to win office and hand him the reins of the Justice Department. Then… THEN… his big plan could come to fruition.

As you might expect, Merrick Garland is crooked and trying to make a fast buck on the public’s dime. No… he’s not taking bribes from criminal defendants. No… he’s not selling pardons. Nor is he taking kickbacks from contractors or trading on the ample insider information his office affords.

No, he’s getting rich the only way a corrupt government official possibly could… by promoting Critical Race Theory!

Because teaching 4th graders a relatively obscure law school model of judicial analysis is where the real money is.

If this sounds fucking stupid, it’s because it is. But that isn’t stopping Fox News, NY Post, Forbes, and more from running with it because their reporters have strapped their tin foil hats on tight enough to give you THE REAL STORY.

What is all this nonsense? Glad you asked! Garland’s son-in-law, Xan Tanner, is the co-founder of Panorama Education, an educational consultancy tied to the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. The group is one of those “run education like a business” organizations that bring “studies” and “benchmarking” into schooling. For a price. How much? Forbes will have you know that it cost one relatively affluent suburban school district $288,750! Over five years.

So less than the cost of one teacher.  *Cough*

At the risk of blaming the messenger, the whole reason we have organizations like this is part and parcel why we have the latest U.S. News and World Report disgrace — a ranking of public elementary schools — instead of a functional education system. America refuses to let the Department of Education develop comprehensive guidance when there’s a private contractor willing to play districts off each other to pay for the good guidance. And so everyone ends up paying a “private sector” surcharge to enrich investors for hiring basic survey designers.

Can we take a second and just let it melt in that a magazine — that pretends to be about “news” — has created a ranking of public schools in a country that functionally reauthorized segregation almost 50 years ago? Because that is something.

I DIGRESS!!!!

So Garland’s son-in-law’s company may be a well-meaning if unfortunate side effect of America’s broken education system, but what it is not is some sort of secret profit engine for Merrick Garland. Bill Barr dumped his fail-son of a son-in-law into a cushy, publicly funded White House job. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to think that Tanner — whose business was already booming, mind you — is exploiting openings from Garland? How?

The argument — I cannot make this up — is that the DOJ’s plan to investigate crazy people threatening school board members over (mostly) COVID vaccines and mask policies amounts to a conflict of interest designed to protect those same school board members from scrutiny over the creeping Critical Race Theory they’re bringing into schools at the behest of this random education consultancy.

That this whole conspiracy rests on the inevitably true premise that anti-maskers are the same people lathered up about Critical Race Theory kind of underscores that the anti-vaccine dipsticks aren’t so much conscientious objectors as naked political hacks willing to latch onto whatever stupidity tumbles out of Tucker Carlson’s mouth after he finishes his fascination with Nikki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls.

Let’s just try to follow Fox on this:

Stephen Miller, America First Legal founder and former adviser to President Trump, told Fox News that it is important to look into any “ethical conflicts” stemming from Garland’s personal family financial interests.

Is Garland trying to prosecute people who object to Panorama? Or even districts who specifically work with Panorama? The answer is no. Not at all.

Let’s see what else Miller cooked up while freebasing Ivermectin.

“AG Garland ordered the DOJ to use its vast national security powers to target parents who object to Critical Race Theory being forced onto innocent children. It is therefore exceptionally urgent that the Department disclose all records pertaining to the Garland family’s financial interest in Critical Race Theory and any and all ethical conflicts that arise from that financial interest,” said Miller.

America First Legal has submitted a comical FOIA request to get to the bottom of this conflict. If they can find “Critical Race Theory” within 1000 words of “school board” in any context other than “wow, these knuckledragging loons are making a FOIA request saying we looked into school board threats because of critical race theory” it will be a miracle.

But dumb people gotta dumb people:

“Merrick Garland has declared a war on parents,” Asra Nomani of Parents Defending Education (PDE) tweeted in response to Garland’s memo. “His daughter is married to the cofounder of @PanoramaEd which is under fire for its multimillion contracts with school boards. At @DefendingEd, parents sent us tips. We raised the alarm. Now Garland is trying to silence parents.”

You might ask: does Panorama even do anything with Critical Race Theory? The answer is no, because elementary school students are not 2Ls. What Panorama does sell are surveys that gauge the “social and emotion climate” of school districts and make recommendations about how to best reach students. Panorama’s whole thing is stuff like “lets build a software platform so parents and teachers can instant message each other notes about how Billy doesn’t understand his science homework.” Which would, again, be a noble endeavor if it weren’t just profiteering off an arms race between affluent school districts.

Here’s Forbes, the — and I say this with a whole shaker of salt — “responsible” outlet reporting on this issue:

The capital raised, along with the changing political landscape, likely helped Panorama grow from 400 school systems in 2017 to 1,500 systems today – a nearly four-fold increase in business.

“Likely” is carrying a lot of weight there, buddy. Because “the capital raised” did help the company grow. The only reason to throw “likely” in there is to grease the sentence to accept the unwarranted “educational replacement theory” trope. I love a good adverb, but the whole skill of deploying an adverb is realizing when it’s there for emphasis, or pacing, or general style, and when it’s there to cover up a bad argument. Apropos of nothing, the Forbes article uses a lot of adverbs.

Derrick Bell was my Con Law professor, so I defy any of these dipshits to define Critical Race Theory. For my sins, Forbes actually tried.

Critical race theory usually teaches that America, its supporters, and her institutions are inherently racist and discriminatory, and that race is used as a social construct to oppress and exploit people of color.

Most of the Above the Law audience are lawyers who are rolling on the ground already, but if any non-attorneys stumble upon this article, this definition is akin to showing the movie Cars to a child and then asking them the correct ignition timing on a 1955 Bel Air Chevrolet, with a 327 cubic-inch engine and a four-barrel carburetor?

Which is to say they wouldn’t even know enough to understand that it’s a bullshit question.

Critics say the terms “social-emotional learning” and “culturally responsive training” introduce controversial ideas about race and identity that are associated with critical race theory.

Critics may say that. No one else does.

Because the few “social-emotional learning” and “culturally responsive training” questions identified in any of these articles as “problematic” boil down to asking students, “Are you discriminated against in school?” That’s a question that schools should be asking anyway. Because “not being discriminated against in education” is different than “Critical Race Theory” and, make no mistake, the former is the actual law of the land.

At least until the end of this Supreme Court Term.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.