Immediately Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Academics (AFT), testified in entrance of Congress on COVID-19 faculty closures. C-SPAN explains that Ms. Weingarten:
…testified on what affect her group had on faculty closures through the pandemic, earlier than a Home subcommittee. Ms. Weingarten testified that the AFT’s objective “was to have clear steering” from scientists to ensure that colleges to securely reopen. When requested by Republicans about AFT’s communications with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), she stated the AFT met with the CDC on January 29, 2021, to evaluate finest practices for reopening colleges, and the CDC included the AFT’s suggestion about offering cheap lodging for immunocompromised people. Furthermore, Democratic representatives got here to Ms. Weingarten’s protection, saying the CDC consulted with greater than 50 organizations in regards to the difficulty–not simply the AFT–and 95% of colleges had been reopened by the tip of Could 2021, up from about 50% in January.
Through the hearings, Consultant Robert Garcia, who represents California’s 42nd Congressional District (which incorporates Lengthy Seashore and Southeast LA), is President of the Democratic Freshman Class, and who “is proud to function the primary overtly LGBTQ foreign-born member of Congress,” objected to a very foul line of questioning from Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene. He tweeted a video of the trade, with the textual content, “When Marjorie Taylor Greene says that adopted or dad and mom by means of marriage aren’t actual dad and mom, you will be rattling positive I will object.” I transcribed the trade so you do not have to hearken to Marjorie Taylor Greene:
Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene: Are you a mom?
Randi Weingarten: I’m a mom by marriage.
MTG: By marriage, I see.
RW: And my spouse is right here with me, and I am actually glad that she’s right here.
MTG: Ms. Weingarten, I am reclaiming my time, I did not ask you a query. What I would like to speak about is your suggestions to the CDC as not a medical physician, not a organic mom, and, actually, not a instructor both. You had no enterprise advising the CDC what the medical pointers had been for varsity closures. As a result of now we’ve got a nation of faculty kids who’ve suffered due to it. The issue is, individuals like it’s essential to admit that you simply’re only a political activist—not a instructor, not a mom, and never a medical physician.
Consultant Robert Garcia: I simply wish to make the notice that the decorum of the assaults on the witness had been unacceptable that the gentlelady from Georgia simply did. It could be good if we did not assault the witnesses, notably making a choice about whether or not or not she’s a mom. You ARE a mom, thanks for being an important father or mother, thanks.
