Friday Politics Roundup | Tanks to Ukraine; Memphis police killing; Jeffrey Yass funds new PAC; Central Bucks SD censorship and protest; Pennridge SD imports Hillsdale College curriculum

The U.S. and Germany are sending a whole bunch of tanks to Ukraine as the war continues into its second year. 

Later today the Memphis, TN police will release video of the brutal and fatal police beating of 27-year-old Tyre Nichols. The five police officers who fatally beat Nichols have been fired and are facing second-degree murder charges. 

PA-based libertarian billionaire, Jeffrey Yass, is funding a new poliitcal action committee called “The Moderate PAC” that will target progressive primary challengers in favor of centrist and corporate Democrats. 

Colleges and Universities are starting to hire “Chief Experience Officers” to “ensure that consumers are having satisfying interactions” with the institutions - a practices imported from the corporate world. 

We’re seeing the new censorship policy in the Central Bucks School District in action. A librarian at Central Bucks South high school was told by his principal to take down a quote from Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate Holocaust survivor, because it violated the district’s new ban on advocating “partisan, political, or social policy issues” to students. The principal later reversed his order, but left a chilling effect on speech behind. 

Turns out that Central Bucks is using a conservative Christian law firm with ties with anti-LGBTQ, Christian nationalist organization the Family Research Council. The Family Research Council is recognized as a extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The Pennridge School District school board is seeking to impose versions of the Hillsdale College 1776 curriculum on teachers and students. Hillsdale College is an infamous right-wing, Christian college in Michigan that has been fueling flames of resentment and pushing a whitewashed curriculum in charter and public schools. The president of Hillsdale College, Larry Arnn III, provides a window into the college’s believes. In 2013, he referred to minority students as “dark ones” in legislative hearings; earlier this summer - in the midst of Hillsdale’s partnership to take over charter schools in the state - Arnn told the Gov. of Tennessee that “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country." Hillsdale’s 1776 curriculum was launched in the wake of Trump’s 1776 Commission to push back against the 1619 Project.