Over the years, I have had many reasons to visit Los Angeles. Frequently, people would ask me if I had met Jackie Goldberg. I had not. They spoke of her with awe as a brilliant public servant who had been a teacher, a member of the City Council, a member of the State Legislature.
Finally, I did meet her a few years ago, and I was blown away by her dynamism and charisma. We met after an awards dinner, supposedly for a 15-minute chat. The 15 minutes turned into an hour and a half. Subsequently I attended a fundraiser to help when she ran for school board. Now she is president of the LAUSD school board, and the district is in excellent hands. Oh, I forgot to mention that she is openly gay and married.
At a recent board meeting, the board discussed parent protests at an elementary school. The parents had heard rumors that the school was promoting homosexual lifestyles. It was anti-gay propaganda. One book had one line referring to the fact that some families have two mommies or two daddies. That’s simply a fact.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Maybe DeSantis should open recruiting booths in California to recruit antigay parents for the fascist army he wants to build in Florida.
“Governor DeSantis announced the Florida State Guard would be reformed in December 2021, and the following year the state legislature approved $10 million to raise a force of 400 soldiers.
“Speaking in June 2022 DeSantis said: “The Florida State Guard will be comprised of Floridians, and it will be assigned to assist and help only Floridians.”
https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-100m-private-florida-army-raises-questions-1786877#:~:text=Governor%20DeSantis%20announced%20the%20Florida,a%20force%20of%20400%20soldiers.
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DeSantis is a serial liar. Less than a year after establishing his Florida militia, he has sent them to Texas to patrol the border where they are apprehending and sending migrants to Texas jails and meddling with federal immigration policy.
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If we as a nation truly support freedom, we should accept all kinds of people, whether we agree with them or not. The government should not be meddling in people’s personal lives under the banner of religion or any other belief. The right constantly accuses the left of government overreach. Yet, it is the right that tries to legislate who people can love, what people can do with their own bodies and what books children can read. Right wing extremists are monumental hypocrites.
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I am proud to say that I campaigned for Jackie Goldberg. I’m very happy and proud that my district is taking a stand for LGTBQ community. I love the fact that one of my schools has a pride flag with the words “Everyone is Welcome”. The principal who put it up is one of the best I’ve ever worked with and highly respected in the community.
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WOW…GO Jackie!
Love her speech.
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Parents do not want groomers and sexual identity pushed on little kids. How hard is that to realize? Kids cannot get tattoos, buy beer until they are old enough. Allowed gender surgery at 12? Keep your pronouns to yourself that’s more privilege than the white thing people say.
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Josh,
Teachers are not grooming students. That seems to happen quite a lot in religious schools. That’s one reason you should be concerned about vouchers. More kids in school with pedophiles.
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The school Jackie Goldberg discussed had an assembly to read a book that contained one sentence noting that some people have two moms or two dads, gave advanced notice to the parents, and allowed the parents to opt out of the assembly. Teaching children that families are not all exactly the same is not pushing sexual identity. Teaching children that some people have one mom or one dad doesn’t make them dream of being single parents any more than teaching people that there are same sex parents makes them LGBT or teaching them that cows moo and pigs oink pushes them to eat bacon cheeseburgers.
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That one sentence is simply a fact.
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This guy is so clueless and self-parodying.
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Yikes, Josh, better keep all kids away from straight white men because they make up over 75% of pedophiles. Over 50% of those in traditional heterosexual marriages. Or how about Catholic priests, baptist ministers, evangelical preachers, and other religious leaders who account for over 25% of child sex abuse cases currently in the court system. Or cops who account for 8%. Don’t forget the dozen Republican office holders charged and convicted of child sex crimes so far this year. (Yes and two democrats). You know who makes up less than a fraction of 1% of all child sex abuse? The LGBTQ+ community. If you’re not targeting your local churches, police stations and anywhere straight white men gather then you don’t care about the children one tiny bit. Psst, the pedos are calling from inside your house of cards. Every accusation is a confession from you miserable, morally bankrupt excuses for human beings.
PS-the guy who created the Q-anon online cult you’re clearly a fan of is a pig farmer and, surprise-surprise, a convicted pedophile too.
PPS-Trump still has a pending court cases for the rape of a tween girl and has openly and proudly admitted on tape to barging backstage in order to catch 15 yr old Junior Miss America contestants in various states of undress. Also on Howard Stern admitted to hitting on underage Paris Hilton and wanting to see her naked. Also his own daughter. Idk. Your heroes are all sex creeps, Josh.
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Magnificent
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Diane and Bob, if I am so lost and clueless prove it. Bet 10,000 combined to my 1,000 TRump will win in a landslide as he did in 2020 in 2024 You have been wrong on everything but can chastise me . YOu were fine with closing down schools, you listen to liars in the media, and you are all hypocrites.
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Trump lost by 7 million votes in the popular vote.
He lost the electoral college.
He sued in 60 courts. Every one of them said there was no fraud.
Even the judges he appointed said he lost fair and square.
He is a sore loser.
Even Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson admitted in emails to each other that he lost.
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lol! Believe what you want. Please watch 2,000 mules which also proved how bad the cheating was. There were probably 10,000 in total, mail-in ballots, drop boxes, dominion, FBI-suppressed laptop, and lied, there was so much corruption your brains can’t handle it. I will laugh when Trump is free again, I hear nothing on the Clinton Sock drawer case, again unhinged hypocrites.
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You want people to call you clueless and then prove it. That causes a bit of a conundrum. Perhaps your calling all educators groomers without proof is proof enough — if that’s what you really want, for us to be as mean spirited as the other side of the debate. Calling you lost and clueless would make people the hypocrites you called them, though, a conundrum indeed. Maybe dumping gasoline on the trash fire caused by the indicted former president who ordered Americans to be tear gassed would be the act of someone lost. Adrift. Grabbed by the p**sy.
Sad.
I’m sure you’re not clueless, Joshua. You can remember person, woman, man, camera, tv. I know you can. You’re surely a good covfefe. So please refrain from calling teachers names. Thanks.
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You are a profoundly stupid, gullible, uninformed, hateful person. Nothing anyone says will convince you of that because you are a profoundly stupid, gullible, uninformed, hateful person.
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This is quite possibly the best speech I have ever heard in my 72 years of life! Thank you so much for sharing this!
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I’m reminded of John Greenleaf Whittier’s tribute to doing the right thing:
“Barbara Frietchie”
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,
The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,
Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain wall,—
Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;
In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced: the old flag met his sight.
“Halt!”— the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
“Fire!”— out blazed the rifle-blast.
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;
She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman’s deed and word:
“Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.
All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:
All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.
Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er,
And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
Honor to her! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall’s bier.
Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;
And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!
Jackie Goldberg shames the bullies who would destroy the civic rights that are ours by birthright in our country. Your admiration of and sense of affinity for her is well deserved, Diane. Brava to you both!
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Christine,
That wonderful poem is included in my anthology “The American Reader,”’which I assembled 30 years ago.
Irony: it is included in the common Core recommended reading list, without my name.
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We had to memorize it and recite it when I was in the seventh grade. Here in Massachusetts, we’ve a bridge named for John Greenleaf Whittier.
We also used a text in elementary school called “Heroes, Heroines and Holidays”, published in 1952, authored by two female historians, Eleanor Thomas and Mary Gertrude Kelty. I’ve come to understand it would likely be banned as too woke, promoting CRT. It fueled my interest in the women’s suffrage movement, particularly in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who, when she learned at her lawyer father’s knee that women were property of their husband, dedicated her life to changing that.
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