STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 23.39 | Sept. 27, 2024
BIG STORY: Weaver aligns agency with indoctrinator, critics say
MORE NEWS: CoverSC calls for Medicaid expansion in S.C.
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Big ol’ lapdog
COMMENTARY, Brack: Let’s make smarter decisions on climate
SPOTLIGHT: S.C. Clips
MYSTERY PHOTO: Lush scene
FEEDBACK: On elections and executions
Education agency aligns indoctrinator, critics say
By Jack O’Toole, Capitol bureau | A controversial content producer whose videos will soon be available in South Carolina public schools spoke openly in 2023 of his efforts to “indoctrinate kids” into conservative views, according to videos and social media posts.
Dennis Prager, president of PragerU, made the remarks last year at a Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia at which S.C. Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver was a panelist.
Last week, Weaver announced a new partnership to place “high quality, standards-aligned” PragerU videos and lesson plans in S.C. public school classrooms. But critics say the videos are little more than conservative propaganda — a charge that Prager seemed to play into with his remarks at the conference.
In a June 29, 2023, Moms for Liberty keynote address, Prager told attendees that he’d recently asked a group of protesters why they thought he was “despicable.”
“All I heard was, ‘Well, because you indoctrinate kids.’ Which is true. We bring doctrines to children. That is a very fair statement,” Prager said. “But what is the bad of our indoctrination?”
Statehouse Report asked Weaver’s press spokesperson Monday whether Prager’s comments raised concerns for the superintendent. As of publication time Wednesday, the newspaper received no reply.
But S.C. Education Association President Sherry East called Prager’s indoctrination remarks “disturbing” in a Monday interview.
“I’ve reached out to the social studies community and I will tell you they are not happy,” East said. “We absolutely should not be using these videos in our classrooms.”
What is PragerU?
Founded in 2009 by talk-radio host Dennis Prager and his longtime producer Allen Estrin, the Prager University Foundation, or PragerU, is a nonprofit that produces short videos (typically about five minutes) on politics, religion and history. It’s funded by a variety of conservative individuals and foundations, including fracking-billionaires Farris and Dan Wilks, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation.
Despite its name, each page of the PragerU website carries the following fine-print disclaimer: “PragerU is not an accredited university, nor do we claim to be. We don’t offer degrees, but we do provide educational, entertaining, pro-American videos for every age.”
But these videos aren’t like the Boomer-era Schoolhouse Rock videos, such as “How a Bill Becomes a Law.” Rather, PragerU’s videos, which the organization says have racked up more than 9 billion views over the years, feature well-known conservative pundits, professors and celebrities presenting on a host of topical issues, such as “The Good News About Climate Change” and “What Radical Islam and the Woke Have in Common.”
Specific videos that have come under fire from teachers include one in which a cartoon Christopher Columbus tells time-traveling kids that “being a slave is better than being killed,” and another with a cartoon Frederick Douglass who incorrectly teaches children that the United States was early to the cause of abolition.
Another frequently-raised concern involves the video presenters themselves. While most of the site’s 360 performers are widely-respected members of the conservative mainstream — people like Stanford University history professor Niall Ferguson and political columnist George Will — critics say that many others come from the far-right fringe of American politics. Commonly cited examples include:
- Candace Owens: Fired by The Daily Wire after what the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described as “escalating antisemitic rhetoric,” Owens has called Judaism a “pedophile-centric religion that believes in demons [and] child sacrifice.”
- Tucker Carlson: Dismissed by Fox News in 2023, Carlson has been called “the most influential voice in right-wing media.” Now an X-based podcaster, he was widely condemned last month (including by many conservatives) for hosting, and praising, an amateur historian who contends that Winston Churchill, not Adolf Hitler, was the “true villain” of World War II.
- Dinesh D’Souza: Pardoned by President Trump after a felony conviction for making illegal campaign contributions, D’Souza’s 2022 documentary film 2000 Mules alleged that Democrats conspired to steal the 2020 election by using “mules” to stuff ballot drop boxes around the country. After being sued for defamation, the film’s distributor withdrew the movie, publicly apologized for its false claims and settled for an undisclosed “substantial” amount.
- Jack Posobiec: Described by the ADL as an alt-right “conspiracy theorist and author,” Posobiac actively promoted the “Pizzagate” conspiracy, which claimed that a Hillary Clinton-approved pedophile ring was operating in the basement of a Washington, DC pizzeria.
- Kari Lake: A former news anchor and current candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, Lake has promoted conspiracy theories involving President Trump’s election loss in 2020 and her own in the Arizona governor’s race in 2022. In 2023, she was successfully sued for defamation by a GOP election official she accused of fraud.
Other PragerU presenters who’ve raised eyebrows include controversial figures such as Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk, “In Defense of Internment” author Michelle Malkin, and indicted former Trump attorney John Eastman.
Brandon Fish of the Charleston Jewish Federation said he’s troubled by some of the people PragerU has chosen to spotlight.
“The fact that PragerU uses figures like Candace Owens who’ve been documented as putting forward antisemitic ideas is really concerning to us,” Fish said. “We just want our kids to be able to go to schools and not have curricular materials that are attempting to convert them to a different religion or indoctrinate them with partisan ideologies.”
What’s next for PragerU in SC?
In a Sept. 20 statement, S.C. Department of Education spokesman Jason Raven said the agency “continues to work with PragerU to finalize a customized list of resources which will be provided to the public on the Department website and through an existing curriculum portal for teachers.”
To kick off that process, PragerU released a 67-page spreadsheet containing videos it says are “aligned” with South Carolina educational standards. Listed titles run the gamut, from “Why Frog and Snake Never Play” and “The Little Red Hen” to “Income Inequality is Good” and “Was Jesus a Socialist?”
Meanwhile, legislators seem split along party lines on the issue.
“Current school curriculum includes boat-loads of leftwing rhetoric and faith-based philosophy,” Berkeley County Republican and S.C. Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Jordan Pace wrote in a Sept. 16 social media post. “[If] the state is going to have an effective monopoly on education, then Gov’t school curriculum should match the values of the majority of its people. Democracy, right?”
But in a Sept. 20 press conference, Richland Democratic Rep. Jermaine Johnson condemned the new partnership and called on the superintendent to change course.
“Do not indoctrinate our children,” he said. “I’m saying today, I’m demanding today, stop indoctrinating our children.”
According to ACLU of S.C. spokesman Paul Bowers, those seemingly polarized positions aren’t necessarily irreconcilable.
In a Monday interview, he told the City Paper that students can, and should, be exposed to a wide variety of ideas, including the kind espoused by PragerU, only without the seeming goal of indoctrination.
“There’s a thoughtful way to present opposing views and help students draw their own conclusions,” Bowers said. “But what the superintendent is doing is far removed from that.”
- This story was first published in the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
CoverSC calls for Medicaid expansion in S.C.
By Jack O’Toole, Capitol bureau | A new coalition of almost 200 medical, nonprofit and faith-based organizations is calling on the S.C. legislature to join 40 other states in expanding its Medicaid program.
CoverSC, which includes groups such as the S.C. Nurses Association, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston and the S.C. Law Enforcement Officers Association, formally launched with a Sept. 24 Statehouse press conference featuring two conservative Republican North Carolina legislators who support their efforts.
In June, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper told Statehouse Report that more than 500,000 Tarheel State residents had already signed up for the state’s expanded Medicaid program in its first six months. At the Tuesday press conference, N.C. Rep. Donny Lambeth of Winston-Salem and N.C. Sen. Kevin Corbin of Franklin spoke of the strong bipartisan support the program enjoys in their state’s Republican-dominated legislature due to its effectiveness and relative affordability, with the federal government picking up 90% of the cost.
A similar expansion in the Palmetto State would provide coverage for about 350,000 South Carolinians while creating 20,000 jobs and generating $4 billion a year in economic growth, according to Sue Berkowitz of CoverSC and the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center.
“These are families who earn over 67% of poverty [the cutoff line for benefits in S.C.] and their families can’t get health care,” Berkowitz told Statehouse Report. “While our small businesses are hiring people, they can’t afford to offer health insurance, so we do not have coverage even for those people who work.”
Most S.C. Republicans, including Gov. Henry McMaster, have opposed expansion since it was first offered in 2014 as part of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as many called it at the time. But Berkowitz believes that North Carolina’s positive experience with the program could help change minds in the S.C. General Assembly, particularly with strong conservative supporters like Lambeth and Corbin helping to lead the charge.
“They’ve been wonderful, very generous with their time,” Berkowitz said of the N.C. Republicans. “And they’ve pledged to keep talking with South Carolina legislators, because they know that Medicaid expansion would be a gamechanger for so many people in our state.”
But as Lambeth made clear at the press conference, patience and persistence will be key to the process, just as it was in his state.
“Go back again, go back again, go back again, because this is a journey you’re on,” Lambeth told supporters. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”
The S.C. General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene for new business in January 2025.
Big ol’ lapdog?
Nationally award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail always has an interesting take. This week, he takes on the false brouhaha of cats and dogs being eaten by immigrants and mixes it with a thought about U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.
What do you think … love it or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Let’s make smarter decisions on climate
By Andy Brack | If quick-moving but deadly Hurricane Helene has anything to teach us, it’s that monster storms can get anyone, not just people along the coast.
Helene’s horrific landfall in Florida led to a drenching, tornado-laden swath that cut through Georgia and the Carolinas before it dumped water and flooded mid-South states.
It’s a solid reminder that bad storms are intensifying as the climate warms, something climate change deniers will have a hard time refuting as their neighbors discard everything from soggy mattresses to flooded vehicles.
Bottom line: All governments and people need to make smarter decisions in dealing with what’s happening to our climate.
As individuals and families, we can reduce energy use and try to add renewable forms of energy to avoid carbon-rich coal, oil and gas. Switch to energy-efficient appliances. Insulate your home better. Change to LED lightbulbs, if you haven’t already. Walk more. Eat more vegetables, grains, fruits and nuts to lower consumption of meat, which requires more energy to produce. Follow the Rs of conservation – reduce, reuse and recycle. In your yard, create a rain garden to store water. It’s not a tough job to find ideas on ways to save energy. And the bonus is you likely will save money too.
As taxpayers, we can demand local and state governments do more and be smarter about how they spend money for services. Instead of doing things the way they’ve always been done, explore new ideas and invest in new possibilities.
For example, is it really smart in Charleston County to extend an interstate highway on the ground for $2.4 billion of local taxpayer dollars when there’s so much that needs to be done to protect the county from the impacts of increased flooding caused by monster storms like Hurricane Helene or this year’s earlier Tropical Storm Debby?
So it’s encouraging that Gov. Henry McMaster this week launched an effort for the state to do something new about water. It’s now crafting a fresh strategic water effort to ensure South Carolina has a good plan to manage its ground and surface waters in the years ahead.
“South Carolina has been richly blessed with abundant water resources, but with increased demand driven by historic economic development and a booming population, we must take action now to ensure these resources are managed in the best interests of all South Carolinians,” McMaster said. “The formation of WaterSC will unite South Carolina’s top minds and key stakeholders to craft a plan that balances our economic and environmental interests, which will ensure that our water resources are plentiful and that our economy remains strong for generations to come.”
But just as we need to be smarter with how we deal with water in the future, we need to make sure we effectively plan and are smart in dealing with generating power responsibly, not letting South Carolina’s power generators control the conversation in the next legislative session like they tried to do so this year. Our state’s – and world’s – thirst for power has to take into account more renewables and less carbon-based power. We’ve got to reduce greenhouse gasses, not continue 19th century strategies that send climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere.
We’ve got to figure out better ways to get around, grow food, keep the economy strong and build homes – all while maintaining one of the best qualities of life in the world.
Otherwise, we’ll just keep cleaning up from storms like Helene and Debby. And what was it Einstein may have said about insanity? “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Let’s not be insane about what’s happening to our climate. Only we can make changes that will cool the ocean’s waters and reduce the intensity of storms like Helene.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
SC Clips
Statehouse Report is brought to you weekly at no cost thanks to our underwriters. In the spotlight today is SC Clips, an affordable, daily information digest that provides you with the South Carolina news you need every business day. Subscribers receive a daily email news round-up before 10 a.m. that provides a link to each day’s edition of SC Clips.
Each issue (click for sample) provides a concise summary of dozens of the latest newspaper and television reports of news with statewide impact, politics, business and local stories. Readers also are linked to key opinions by South Carolina’s editorial writers.
- Learn more about this great news service that will save you time — which saves you money.
- Get a trial run at no cost.
Lush scene
Where is this in South Carolina and what is it? Send your name, hometown and guess to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s mystery, “Old church,” was a photo submitted by faithful sleuth Barry Wingard of Florence. It showed an old Episcopal church near the Mars Bluff area of Florence County, which several readers identified.
Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas, wrote, “Christ Episcopal Church, a small ‘Carpenter Gothic’ style church with a cruciform layout, typical of the small and isolated rural churches built throughout the south in the 19th century. It served as the Episcopal community church in Mars Bluff for more than 50 years until most of the parishioners began attending the larger St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Florence. Dwindling attendance at the Christ Episcopal Church eventually led to its closure in 1918. The church was later opened and used for Bible classes in the 1930s and for special worship services in the 1940s. It became a mission church of St. John’s in 1950 and a parish church in 2015 when Christ Church joined the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.”
Others who identified the church were: Steve Willis of Lancaster; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; Jay Altman and Elizabeth Jones, both of Columbia; Bill Segars and Don Clark, both of Hartsville; Will Bradley of Las Vegas, Nevada; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; David Taylor of Darlington; and Pat Keadle of Perry.
- Send us a mystery picture. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
You’re right – elections aren’t rigged
To the editor:
Thank you for writing this editorial. I do not believe elections are rigged but now when I hear this constant and ongoing rhetoric that they are, I will be thinking and maybe responding, “So that means the election that put you in office was rigged, right?”
– Judy Millar, Seneca, S.C.
On your common-sense commentaries
To the editor:
Thank you for your common-sense articles.
My current favorite was the one that I think was lock ‘em up and throw away the key. Looks like we’re well on our way to more executions. Most of these folks claim to be Christians. Did they miss “Thou shalt not kill?”
There was a picture of our state senator in our newspaper awhile back claiming he approved of these two things: “pro-life and the firing squad.” Huh?
– Martha Alexander, Seneca, S.C.
Send us your thoughts
We encourage you to send in your thoughts about policy and politics impacting South Carolina. We’ve gotten some letters in the last few weeks – some positive, others nasty. We print non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your thoughts.
- Have a comment? Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com. Make sure to provide your contact details (name, hometown and phone number for verification. Letters are limited to 150 words.
ABOUT STATEHOUSE REPORT
Statehouse Report, founded in 2001 as a weekly legislative forecast that informs readers about what is going to happen in South Carolina politics and policy, is provided to you at no charge every Friday.
- Editor and publisher: Andy Brack, 843.670.3996
- Statehouse bureau chief: Jack O’Toole
Donate today
We’re proud to offer Statehouse Report for free. For more than a dozen years, we’ve been the go-to place for insightful independent policy and political news and views in the Palmetto State. And we love it as much as you do.
But now, we can use your help. If you’ve been thinking of contributing to Statehouse Report over the years, now would be a great time to contribute as we deal with the crisis. In advance, thank you.
More
- Mailing address: Send inquiries by mail to: P.O. Box 21942, Charleston, SC 29413
- Subscriptions are free: Click to subscribe.
- We hope you’ll keep receiving the great news and information from Statehouse Report, but if you need to unsubscribe, go to the bottom of the weekly email issue and follow the instructions.
- Read our sister publication: Charleston City Paper (every Friday in print; Every day online)
- © 2024, Statehouse Report, a publication of City Paper Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!