Funded by t-shirt sales? Hell no. Mom's for Liberty is pure astro-turf.
Funded by t-shirt sales? Hell no. Mom's for Liberty is pure astro-turf.
There are about 600 elected school boards across the state of Illinois and Chicago is about to become another one.
I supported an elected school board in Chicago. We were the only school district in the state without one. I went door to door collecting signatures, hundreds of them, and lobbied in Springfield for it.
But having worked as a teacher, a union leader and on contract bargaining in a school district with an elected board I am not unaware of how easy it is for those with an anti-union, anti-teacher agenda and book burners can, with a few deep pocketed funders, take control of a local board.
Which brings me to Mom’s for Liberty.
Mom’s for Liberty is a Florida-based group that is going national. Their meetings attract national Republican presidential candidates. They target teachers, curriculum and inclusion. They are successful in electing their people to hundreds of local school boards around the country.
They claim to be a grass roots organization funded by t-shirt sales.
That’s bullshit. Their money comes from deep-pocketed MAGAs, LGBT+ haters and Christian nationalists.
Their leaders are trained in media manipulation and they are good at it.
Maurice Cunningham in the Tampa Bay Times:
I pay attention when a new “parents” or “moms” group bursts upon the education/politics scene. I exposed the millions in dark money behind Families for Excellent Schools during a 2016 charter schools ballot question campaign in Massachusetts. New groups like Moms for Liberty are just as transparently Astroturf — a group that claims to be grassroots but is actually artificial turf.
The revelation that Moms for Liberty used a sizable chunk of its political contributions to benefit the company of its co-founder’s husband provides at least some insight into how the conservative juggernaut used what appears to be its modest campaign finances.
The Federal Elections Commissions lists three committees associated with the group, which claims 240 chapters in 42 states: Moms for Liberty PAC, Moms for Liberty Inc. Political Victory Fund and Moms for Liberty Action. All three reported zero dollars in contributions or expenditures with the exception of a single $500 donation to Moms for Liberty PAC on Aug. 29 from Ohio resident Matthew Palumbo, whose long political career includes working for former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Olivia Little in Media Matters:
On October 4, Attorney General Merrick Garland released a memo condemning a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” Although Moms for Liberty is not the only factor in this spike in harassment, the group grew in membership during this same time period that school board members across the United States started facing an increase in threats from angry parents and community members.
And more from Maurice Cunningham in the Bucks County Beacon. Go to the link to read about Mom’s for Liberty’s connections to the January 6th insurrection.
Given the M4L’s 501(c)(4) dark money operations have already been established across the nation, including in Iowa and New Hampshire, it’s reasonable to believe these operations will be part of DeSantis’s plan to run for president.