We finally found the school board candidates who have been refusing to participate in public events or answer to the public! They’re on Fox News!
Maria Dauenhauer and Wendy Imel are half of a bloc of crank candidates running for Bend-La Pine School Board this year. Traditionally, candidates appear at several public events to present their ideas. This crew has refused at every turn. They refused the League of Women Voters, the Bend Bulletin, etc etc.
Well, they didn’t refuse the Deschutes County Republican Party fundraiser and monthly meeting at the Bend Golf Club.
Now, we find Dauenhauer and Imel live on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News. Yes, that Laura Ingraham.
They followed a segment called, “Everything Racist” where Ingraham railed about… broccoli? Carrying on.
The Bend candidates were introduced as “running on a platform of breaking the woke monopoly that’s brainwashing our kids.”
Conversation quickly turned to – what else, it is Laura Ingraham – race and “leftist indoctrination.”
Says Ingraham: “They’re teaching kids not to love America but to immediately suspect America. Are you concerned about that?”
Wendy Imel: “Yes.”
Tired of politics in schools?
Watch the whole exchange on YouTube starting at 34:40. Jump directly there with this link.
UPDATE: The video including this segment was taken down. Since this features political candidates making statements and claims not available elsewhere but which are highly relevant to the public interest, I am reproducing the segment below.
I’ll have a deeper dive into the tangled finances of this crew of conspiratorial cranks soon. Stay tuned.
Update, May 10: ...they're baaack!
The entire slate of crank candidates – minus the guy who is a little too openly hateful for TV – appeared on Fox News again!
The Fox News host closes this segment – which, again, centers on “Critical Race Theory” – with our very not-political school board candidates in Bend:
“Personally, I hope all of you win, take the majority, and make some changes.”
An actual sitting school board member and expert on education policy who is NOT currently running offered to appear on Fox News to correct the record.
Fox News instead chose to selectively quote her during their endorsement of these crank candidates.
It’s a little creepy when you get a look behind the curtain at how Fox News operates! Here, we get to see the meddling and dishonesty and strange pathologies play out in our own community.
It would be fascinating if it weren’t so damaging to our civic life.
The offer to appear on Fox News from Melissa Barnes Dholakia is pictured here. Read her full statement to Fox News below:
“The Bend-La Pine Schools is committed to excellence and equity for all of its students. In a rapidly diversifying and global society, it seeks to ensure curriculum and practices that reflect and honor all of its students and prepare them for their future in our interconnected world. Critical Race Theory has become a “buzzword” used to question and attack the natural evolution of education – it is a theory taught at the collegiate level, not a K-12 curriculum. Our district is working to ensure that our curriculum honors the contributions of all Americans, including those who have been left out of what many may think of as “time honored” literature and history. Through this work, we create school systems that create agency, belonging, and pride for all students.“