Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher said Friday that Democrats “have to answer” for the problems currently plaguing the public school system “because they control it.”
“We live in a prison yard in this country, which is everything is tribal,” he said on his show, “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “And like anything that has to do with schools or education is something really the Democrats have to answer for because they control it. I mean, when you look at the Democratic Convention, it’s like three-quarters of them are teachers. My sister’s a teacher. I’m a big defender of teachers, but what’s going on in schools is outrageous, and somebody needs to answer for it.”
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The panel discussion came after a recent shooting in Newport News, Virginia, where a 6-year-old child brought his mother’s gun into the classroom and shot his teacher. Subsequent reports revealed administrators purportedly downplayed complaints from his teacher, 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner.
The Richneck Elementary School student pulled the 9mm handgun on Zwerner, who is now in stable condition, after allegedly threatening previously to set a teacher on fire. The boy shot the first-grade teacher through her hand and then in her upper chest.
A librarian also told reporters that assaults against teachers, students, and staff were “routine.”
“How did we completely lose control?” Maher asked. “How could any kid learn in this atmosphere when you can’t even survive? And these are all schools. This is not just inner-city schools. I hear this anecdotally from people. We’ve completely lost control of our schools.”
One of Maher’s panelists, Substack writer Andrew Sullivan, said one of the issues is the lack of respect in today’s culture for authority figures.
“One thing we used to tell kids was that there is someone in authority,” he explained. “And, at some point, you have to take note of that person in authority. Children who are taught there’s no such thing as authority — the most important thing is expressing yourself at all times — are never held responsible for anything or constantly being excused for everything, they’re gonna end up this way. They need direction. People need authority.”
Rather than learning basic skills like colors, Sullivan added, children as young as 4 years old are being told by their teachers to choose their “pronouns.”
“Where on earth did that come from?” he asked. “And who told us it was going to be imposed on children? More and more, when you look at this curriculum, it’s all about that stuff. It’s all about identity, it’s all about being queer or trans. Children can’t understand that stuff — not in kindergarten.”
Interestingly, Sullivan, who is homosexual, added, “I don’t want to teach five-year-olds about being gay.”
“I think wait a little bit, and they’ll pick it up, anyway,” he said. “It’s not like they can’t watch the TV. They’re not telling them that, they’re telling them something worse. They’re telling that people can choose to be a boy or a girl or neither or both or something else entirely. That is a lie. You can’t. And it’s done in order to placate certain special interests in Washington, mainly the LGBTQIA+ people who’ve also been captured by the far left. We should say no to this.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) was also on the “Real Time” panel. She said medical schools are pushing this next wave of the sexual revolution: “They’re training these medical students to say that puberty blockers are reversible.”
“And this is coming from the, ‘We’re the science people,'” said Maher, noting Democrats and President Joe Biden’s administration are “all in” on transgenderism.
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