Government Overreach from Green Mandates to Vaccine Coercion

On August 29, 2022, Kim Monson explores the many faces of government overreach, from school funding battles in Douglas County to the Green New Deal disguised as inflation relief, and the alarming pattern of corporations enforcing vaccine mandates with Derec Shuler, Daniel Turner, and Leslie Manookian.

School Funding and the Money-Follows-the-Child Debate

Start listening at 18:12 – Hour 1

Derec Shuler, director of Ascent Classical Academies, exposes a fundamental betrayal by Douglas County’s reform-minded school board. The board has drafted a $60 million mill levy override and $450 million bond measure that explicitly excludes state-authorized charter schools like his from receiving any funding, despite educating roughly 2,000 Douglas County children.

Shuler points to Arizona, where the entire state now embraces money following the child. Yet in Douglas County, supposedly conservative board members refuse this basic reform principle. The district claims accountability concerns, but Shuler notes they’ve addressed every objection with concrete proposals. The state charter authorizer agreed to act as an oversight agent. Still, the board chose language that funds systems over students.

“We should be funding students, not systems. And I invite parents to learn more about the thousands of kids who are being excluded out of the upcoming tax increase proposals because of control, because of adult issues.”

Derec Shuler, Director, Ascent Classical Academies

The Green New Deal’s Deceptive Rebranding

Start listening at 35:51 – Hour 1

Daniel Turner, founder of Power the Future, strips away the marketing veneer from the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. The legislation, he explains, is simply the Green New Deal repackaged after previous versions failed. Nobody wanted fingerprints on a Green New Deal, so they attached it to the most pressing concern of American families: inflation.

Turner warns about California’s ban on combustion engine sales after 2035 and its ripple effects through Virginia and potentially Colorado. Electric vehicles can be remotely disabled, he notes, giving corporations and government control over citizens’ mobility. The combustion engine represents freedom, the foundation of American road trips and rock and roll songs. That freedom disappears when your vehicle requires permission to operate.

“We’ve never advanced as a society or as a people or as a nation by banning perfectly good things, perfectly good products. And the combustion engine is a miracle.”

Daniel Turner, Founder, Power the Future

Disney’s Vaccine Mandate and the Hostile Workplace

Start listening at 69:24 – Hour 2

Leslie Manookian, founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund, details the organization’s lawsuit against Disney on behalf of Pamela Petroff, a receptionist at 20th TV Animation facing termination on September 6th for refusing the COVID shot. Disney implemented its mandate in April 2022, months after CDC acknowledged the shots don’t prevent transmission or infection.

Manookian describes a hostile work environment orchestrated by supervisor Cara Vallow, who posted inflammatory social media content on the day Petroff received her termination notice. Vallow instructed Petroff she could no longer display the American flag on workplace flyers because it might offend people. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requires employers to accommodate religious exemptions without judging sincerity, yet Disney rejected every accommodation Petroff offered, including testing and masking.

The lawsuit aims to send a message to every corporation in America: vaccine discrimination is un-American, illegal, and will face consequences. Twenty-two state attorneys general and multiple members of Congress have filed amicus briefs supporting Health Freedom Defense Fund’s ongoing mask mandate appeal.

“We have moved over. We’ve crossed over the line. We are no longer, in my view, a free society. We have shifted over into an authoritarian type of a model and a marriage between the state and the corporations, which is what Mussolini defined as fascism.”

Leslie Manookian, Founder, Health Freedom Defense Fund