Bathroom Fascism and the School Voucher Scheme Stooges

The Stir!

Join hosts Kasey Helton, Jace Arledge and Ella Nikitin as they discuss local news including allegations from MI State House Rep. Bob Bezotte (MI-50) from his wife who is filing for divorce after 52 years that he was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive toward her throughout their marriage, and the disturbing story of a tenured Hartland Consolidated Schools teacher who she says was so harassed by a local group of rightwing activists that included a woman running for Harland school board next year, that she was essentially forced to take a 12 week medical leave for her own mental health reasons.

After missing a signature deadline back in 2022, The Let Michigan Kids Learn campaign, which started on Facebook during the pandemic, withdrew two petitions to create a ballot referendum that would have taken public dollars and siphoned them into private schools through a socialized welfare program for the economically advantaged known as school vouchers. The petitions from the group, heavily funded by DeVos family and other billionaire interests, withdrew the petitions in the wake of the Michigan Legislature flipping to Democrats.

The likely plan prior to that was to have the Republican-controlled Michigan legislature approve legislation to bring in vouchers and thereby bypass a historically unpopular ballot referendum altogether and avoid a veto from Gov. Whitmer. A similar voucher scheme that went to a referendum failed miserably in the early 2000s, another effort the DeVos's and their billionaire friends - with help from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - poured millions into. Vouchers are a historically unpopular idea that has been rejected by voters here in the state, but that doesn't stop the billionaires from trying to figure out new ways to shoe-horn this issue on the public using deceptive tactics that hide what they're really all about.

But what does any of that have to do with Angela Yarber, the woman who is running for Hartland school board, and her husband Alex and their friends who helped harass this teacher off of her job? Tune to find out, and remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE for all the local and statewide news and no BS commentary in Livingston County and beyond.