Roy Cohn was an attorney infamous in the early years of the second half of the last century as the Chief Counsel of Sen. Joe McCarthy's investigative committee which was so mean-spirited and hateful that eventually even Sen. McCarthy's Republican Party colleagues censured him. Later, as a slash and burn, oft-times attorney for mobsters in New York City, a young Donald Trump gravitated to Cohn, and sought him out as a guide and mentor.
A new lawsuit has been filed against the Montgomery County Public Schools, this time from Stephen Miller’s America First Legal. For those who may have forgotten Stephen Miller, I offer this analysis from six years ago. As the Trump Administration proceeded, it became clear that Stephen Miller was serving as Trump's new Roy Cohn. This morning, MoCo 360 published this story on the suit. https://moco360.media/2023/11/22/mcps-school-board-mcknight-and-six-staff-members-sued-by-america-first-legal-group-2-county-residents/
EXCERPT:
David Fishback, the regional leader of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) [Correction: I am not “the regional leader” of PFLAG, and we no longer use the original long name. I am Co-Chair for Maryland Advocacy for the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG.] attended the June 27 rally. He said that the move to allow five more meeting attendees from both sides of the issue was “ill-advised” because of the ongoing tension at the rally.
Fishback said that the organizers of the pro-opt-out rally urged their supporters to step back from rushing the building and said the organizers “acted very responsibly.”
However, Fishback who is a retired attorney, said that the suit’s claim that the school district violated the Open Meetings Act and the plaintiff’s First Amendment rights is “simply incorrect.” He mentioned that the meeting was still available for the public to view online and said that the complaint makes the school district look as if it “were trying to keep people from knowing what was going on” – which he said is not true. [NOTE: I was outside in the area where the protesters were during the hearing, and was listening to the live-stream which the protest organizers were broadcasting, until they cut it off once the testimony of the MCEA president supporting MCPS was being presented. I then switched to my IPhone, and listened to the rest of the hearing. It is important to remember that last spring protesters were disrupting school board meetings across the country, including in nearby Louduon County. The longstanding rule for Montgomery County BOE meetings is that only those those testifying before the BOE speak; there is no audience participation. Most of the speakers at the public comments for the June 27 meeting opposed the MCPS policy here.]
“It’s not unreasonable to conclude that this lawsuit was brought to intimidate MCPS and to run up its legal costs in an attempt to stop MCPS from operating the school system in a manner which is an anathema to right-wing extremists like America First Legal founder Stephen Miller,” Fishback said.
“This is precisely what America First Legal recently achieved in a school district outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, regarding the social and emotional learning curriculum,” he said referencing a recent settlement the AFL reached with West Shore School District in Pennsylvania.
I fear that America First Legal is not just another right-wing legal outfit. Rather, I suspect that it is part of the Trump/Bannon campaign to “crush” – Trump’s spokesmen’s word – all social progress made in the United States in the last 100 years, and, in so doing, to fatally weaken American democracy.
