Teachers’ Union Teams Up With Steven Brill’s NewsGuard to Flag “Misinformation” for Children

Under the leadership of Randi Weingarten, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has long been criticized by conservatives for its support of far left policies and support for Democratic candidates. Nevertheless, as a union, it is entitled to be political and most unions favor the Democrats due to their pro-union policies. However, the concern over the AFT’s agenda become far greater when it announced that it would team up with NewsGuard to start to flag news sources deemed “misinformation.” NewsGuard is co-founded by Steve Brill who has been accused of bias against Republicans and conservatives. Conservative sites have previously tagged NewGuard as “heavily skewed” in favor of the left. The “misinformation” label has been used extensively by liberal media to kill stories like the Hunter Biden laptop stories as unreliable. Indeed, Brill is under fire for being one of the voices falsely claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely false Russian disinformation. His company will now put “traffic lights” on information for children on what sources they rely upon.

The ratings of NewsGuard have long been criticized by conservative sites as favoring liberal sites like The Nation (with a 93 percent rating) over more conservative sites like Fox News (at 66 percent).

The timing of the announcement could not be worse after the New York Times finally recognized that the Hunter Biden laptop story was legitimate and the controversial emails authentic.

For two years, some of us have been hammered as spreading “Russian disinformation” and false allegations in raising concerns over the raw influence peddling by the Biden family. Steven Brill was one of those voices flagging the story as likely “disinformation.” Brill assured viewers on CNBC that this was likely all untrue: “My personal opinion is there’s a high likelihood this story is a hoax, maybe even a hoax perpetrated by the Russians again.”

The media campaign to bury or block the story worked. The Biden family had long been accused of special dealing and influence peddling. The emails were potentially devastating with references to millions from foreign sources, including shady Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian interests while Joe Biden was Vice President. The media actively participated in shielding the Bidens from the scandal.

In fairness to Brill, he opposed efforts to block the story and did not support moves like Twitter to bar references to the story before the election. (After Biden was elected, Twitter admitted it was a mistake by Democrats then demanded more censorship). I agree with him entirely that the solution is to allow readers to decide by comparing news sources.

However, the interview had an interesting element. Brill’s objections to Twitter and FaceBook killing the story was that they are not qualified to make that decision on what, in his words, is likely a Russian “hoax.”

That is what NewsGuard does in flagging unreliable sources. He is clearly referring to himself as one of those qualified to make that decision. Yet, he was entirely wrong. At the time, many of us were noting that Biden did not deny that this was his laptop, that it was seized by the FBI in an ongoing criminal investigation, and some recipients of the emails had confirmed their authenticity. Nevertheless, Brill still thought it was all a hoax.

Weingarten has declared using Brill’s NewsGuard will be a “game changer” in preventing students from being “misled” by news sources. It may well be. It would allow the AFT and school districts to teach students to distrust certain news sources like Fox News, which is given a lower rating by NewsGuard. (For full disclosure, I appear on Fox as a legal analyst).

Conservative and independent sites continue to bedevil many on the left. The laptop story shows how advocacy journalism is now the norm in many newsrooms. Viewers and readers were told by most media figures, including Brill, that the story was likely Russian propaganda and untrue.

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/03/18/teachers-union-teams-up-with-steven-brills-newsguard-to-flag-misinformation-for-children/

"Ukraine is Pentagon's biggest biomilitary project" - Russia FA minister Sergey Lavrov

https://www.bitchute.com/video/Vh0iGNaAjpmK/

Joe Biden on Israel

https://www.bitchute.com/video/X0xNKqoxY40X/

Grieving mother claims LA County school pushed transgender treatments on her teenage daughter who ultimately committed suicide: 'Why did they play with her life?'

A California mother is speaking out against the government of Los Angeles County, which she claims encouraged her daughter to identify as a male, sign up for transgender treatments, and be put in foster care instead of her mom's house. The grieving mother asserts that her daughter's L.A. County school didn't properly treat her depression, which ultimately may have contributed her to committing suicide.

Abigail Martinez immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador at age 18. Martinez, now 53, had four children, including Yaeli Martinez. Of her three daughters, Yaeli was "the girlie girl in the house," who loved dressing up as a princess and talking about the boys she liked at pre-school, Martinez said.

However, Yaeli was bullied in middle school over her looks. By the eighth grade, she began showing signs of depression, according to her mother. Around the age of 15 or 16, Yaeli started questioning her sexuality.

Earlier this month, Martinez participated in a Heritage Foundation event titled: "Protecting Our Children: How Radical Gender Ideology is Taking Over Public Schools & Harming Kids."

Martinez painfully recounted her daughter's situation, "When she started high school, the doors opened to what she was talking about, like transgender, going to meetings, going to all the support that they think they have for these children … which is not."

"The school counselor was involved, DCFS (Department of Children and Family Services) was involved, LGBT was in there too, trying to 'help' my daughter on the transition of being transgender," Martinez explained. "I was accused that I didn't want to open my eyes since she felt since she was a little girl that she was a boy which was not true. She was not even close to a tomboy … she was the girlie girl in the house."

Martinez asserts that instead of proper treatment for mental illness, her daughter was encouraged to receive hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgery by school staff and an LGBTQ support group.

She remarked, "I knew that the hormones wouldn't work."

The Daily Mail reported, "Yaeli was allegedly told by her trans peers that the only way she could get it paid for by the state was if she was in foster care. Martinez claims Yaeli's trans friend 'coached' her to tell social workers she was abused so the state would pay for her gender reassignment."

Yaeli ran away from home in July 2016 and then told the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) that her mother slapped her in the face.

Martinez emphatically denied the accusations, "I never was abusive to my children. I love my children. I never slapped her. But she was coached by this family what to tell the authorities so they cannot send her back home with me."

A Los Angeles family court judge ruled Yaeli would be placed in foster care, and the mother would only be allowed to have brief and monitored visits. Despite the ruling, Martinez was still able to keep custody of her three other children and could continue to work as a nanny.

Martinez shared text messages sent to her by her with the Daily Mail.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/abigail-martinez-daughter-transgender-yaeli-school

>>15900533

Makes sense