Jeff Bartos and his wife Cheryl Bartos recently hosted an event at their home in Merion, on behalf of the Republican candidates running for Lower Merion School Board in the forthcoming general election, on November 2.
Bartos ran unsuccessfully for Lt. Governor in 2018. He is now running for the U.S. Senate, in 2022. The seat that Bartos aspires to is currently held by Pat Toomey, who has announced his retirement from the Senate.
The videos below were taken from a recording of a live stream that was posted on Facebook by Christian Petrucci, Secretary of the Republican Committee of Lower Merion/Narberth (RCLMN).
Bartos is ebullient about the “enthusiasm we are seeing are for judicial candidates and for school board candidates.”
He mentions that Clarice Schillinger and Elana Fishbein are both attending the event.
Schillinger started and now heads up the Keeping Kids In School Pac.
Fishbein is the Gladwyne Mom who was instrumental in setting off the national debate over Critical Race Theory (CRT). She started and now runs No Left Turn in Education.
Until Wednesday (September 1), when Donald Trump endorsed Bartos’ opponent, Sean Parnell, it seemed likely that Bartos did not have to worry about winning the support of Liz Havey, who formerly chaired RCLMN, and is currently the Chair of the Montgomery County Republican Committee (MCRC).
Here’s what Liz Havey had to say about vote-stealing and mail-in ballots.
Until we replace this governor, he’s going to block every single thing that we try to do to put in reasonable precautions that votes aren’t stolen … We can do what the Democrats have done, which is to have low turnout voters come out who aren’t going to go to the polls but will drop a mail-in ballot. We are encouraging them to do it. And one of the things that we’re asking them to do is to let us know that you voted by mail. Because we can track the system. I can’t tell you how many times our office called directly to the county voter services to say “why isn’t this person’s ballot not registered in the Shure System?” If you call us – if you’re concerned, and you call us, we will drive over to the county and figure out what’s going on.”
Pennsylvania Republican Chair Lawrence Tabas also attended the event. Without providing specific examples, he spoke disparagingly of the mail-in voting system. Like Havey, he suggested that Republicans could “take their tool [the Democrats’] that they put in place to beat us, and we’ll use it to beat them.”
Look, we have two legal means of voting in Pennsylvania, right now. Whether you like it or not, it is legal to vote by mail and legal to vote in person. And shame on us if we let the Democrats take advantage and beat us because we’re standing on a principle that will result in defeat. The best way to get rid of a mail-in ballot system that is inequitable, that is unfair, that is structurally defective, is to use it to beat itself. Use it. Win the races next year. Get a governor. And then we can adopt a law that makes sense and is equitable.
Republican School Board Candidate, and Vice-Chair of RCLMN, Christina Fink, spoke about the red-hot topic of Critical Race Theory (CRT). It was Fink, you might recall, who was the center of a controversy at the time of the May 18 primary, that had to do with whether or not she had organized a bus to Washington, D.C. for the January 6 event, as Democrats were claiming.
The fact is, if Fink did not organize a bus, it was not for the lack of trying.
Fink on CRT
Fink said – If you’re going to teach Critical Race Theory, you’d better be teaching the other diverse authors and scholars that say they don’t agree with that. Let’s teach our children the entire broad spectrum of thought on each topic, and they can then choose to go forward in their own life in a meaningful way.
Whether or not CRT is actually being taught in the Lower Merion Schools, is a subject of debate, in and of itself. There is little or no evidence that children in the Lower Merion Schools have heard the words “Critical Race Theory” in the schools. However, there is an argument to be made that some of the Anti-Racism curricula that are being taught by LMSD, are reflective of CRT.
Earlier this year, Fink expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential Election. However, at this event, she did not weigh in on that topic.
It remains to be seen if she would urge history teachers in Lower Merion to present a more even-handed approach as to whether or not the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen.
School Board candidate Travis Kreiser, blamed his daughter’s unpleasant social media experience on LMSD’s “Social Agenda Curriculum.”
Unfortunately, I think the district has kind of lost its way a little bit. The rankings are not what they were 20 years ago. I think that’s because we’ve lost our focus, fiscally and in the curriculum. We can talk academically about a lot of things – things that are in the news like Critical Race Theory and Diversity/Inclusion concepts. But they impact our students in a real way. And I think that that’s what we’ve really got to remember whenever we’re making decisions.
It impacted my daughter in a real way. At the end of her Junior year, she had received a gift from her parents. So she posted a photograph of her with her gift, on social media…What came was about 50 following posts that told her that the post was an example of White Privilege – that she was a horrible person to be posting this photograph – that she had offended various racial minority groups. And this is the by-product of what’s being taught in our schools, and the social agenda that’s being pushed there.
School Board Candidate Brendon Sammon calls for more transparency to avoid corruption.
What I want to try to do is to be more transparent. It kind of undoes that concentration of power that leads to corruption. We’ve seen a lot of this corruption [he didn’t say where we’ve seen this corruption]. And if we care about our children. If we care about what they’re being taught…Critical Race Theory must be taught alongside other theories. I do think there’s some value in that.
Hey Gerry,
I expect you to report the truth as a journalist. Where exactly did I, Christina Fink, as quoted from your article above “Earlier this year, Fink expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential Election.” ??? This NEVER happened. Just because you say it does not make it true. Making such a casual statement about my possibly wanting schools to teach that the election was stolen is ridiculous. Then again please stop spreading lies. I did NOT organize a bus to DC on Jan 6th. I did not go to DC on Jan 6th. As Vice Chair, I put out a note to the party after we were receiving dozens of requests to go to DC but quickly decided not to do it. I did not “try very hard at all” to organize a bus and I personally had no interest in going to DC. You are helping to spread lies. Please retract both of these incorrect statements so that the public can read a honest article. Thank you.
It is a relief to know that you consider that the idea of teaching a more even-handed approach – as to whether or not the election was stolen – “is ridiculous.”
It would be even more of a relief to hear you publicly and unequivocally state that you now believe that Joe Biden was elected President in a free and fair election.
As to whether or not you expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the election or whether you tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to organize a bus trip to Washington, D.C. on January 6, the record speaks for itself.
https://www.thisislowermerion.com/christina-fink-insists-she-did-not-express-doubts-about-2020-election-legitimacy-and-that-she-did-not-try-to-organize-jan-6-bus-trip/
Christina, do you believe that Biden won the 2020 election fairly?