In the span of less than two months, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has fallen for a very obvious, annually repeated Walmart Hanukkah ham hoax and an annually repeated myth about increased sex trafficking during Super Bowl weekend.
“The Super Bowl is one of many large public events that attract a criminal element who prey on at-risk youth for human sex trafficking,” Weingarten pontificated this week in a press release sent to The Daily Caller.
“Openly discussing the heinous reality of sex trafficking during a national event raises awareness of the problem and hopefully saves targeted, victimized youth,” she also declared. “The AFT is calling on Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and law enforcement and social service agencies in the Tempe, Ariz., area and along the major highways feeding into Tempe to be vigilant during this weekend’s Super Bowl activities.”
Weingarten further suggested that “human sex trafficking,” “a global crime,” “must be handled” partly by America’s public schools.
The Phoenix police department has ramped up its prostitution enforcement operation for the Super Bowl. However, actual empirical evidence fails to support the claim that the Super Bowl is related to a prostitution spike or any sort of human-trafficking increase. (RELATED: Phoenix Gets Serious About Crime Ahead Of Super Bowl By Arresting More Guys Seeking Prostitutes)
In Super Bowl city after Super Bowl city, there has been no noticeable Super Bowl prostitution spike.
“No data actually support the notion that increased sex trafficking accompanies the Super Bowl,” observes Snopes.com, the vital website specializing in urban legends and Internet rumors.
The Village Voice succinctly busted the myth around this time last year when Super Bowl XLVIII occurred at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
“The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women released a report in 2011 confirming that the ‘sporting events bring sex slaves’ story was a myth, one that had been around since the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece,” the Voice explained last year. “It found, too, that many of the anti-trafficking campaigns set around sporting events — for example the 2010 Vancouver Olympics — ‘confused trafficking with sex work and relied on extremely negative imagery about women.'”
Weingarten’s unfounded Super Bowl sex trafficking proclamation follows on the heels of her unfounded — and terribly embarrassing — Facebook post about nonexistent Walmart Hanukkah hams.
In December, Weingarten took time out of her busy workday — for each of which she receives a princely $1,380 or so — to warn America that Walmart is selling “delicious” ham for Hanukkah (at the low, low price of $6.29 per pound).
“Really Walmart? Ham for Hanukah?” Weingarten wrote in a Dec. 2 Facebook post that now appears to have disappeared from her Facebook page. (RELATED: MORON: Teachers Union President Falls For Obvious Walmart Hanukkah Ham Hoax)
The union honcho’s Facebook post was based on an obvious hoax. Snopes.com flatly debunked the claim that Walmart is selling hams for Hanukkah — way back in 2009.
A retailer did offer “Delicious for Chanukah” hams back in 2007. It wasn’t Walmart, though. It was at Balducci’s, a (now-closed) snooty market in New York City, far away from Walmart’s usual flyover country terrain and, in fact, quite close to where Weingarten grew up.
Also last month, Weingarten, who makes $360,000 per year, issued a statement expressing her deep concern about the salaries of American teachers. The labor leader, whose impressive earning power puts her squarely in the top one percent of all Americans, makes about $300,000 more per year than a typical teacher. (RELATED: Teachers Union Fat Cat Lives In America’s Top 1 Percent, Expresses Concern About Teacher Pay)
In June 2014, Weingarten’s AFT swore to appeal a California judge’s decision in “Vergara v. California” gutting the state’s laws regarding teacher tenure and seniority protection. Judge Rolf Treu found that strict rules limiting how teachers are hired and fired disproportionately impact California’s poor and minority students, thereby depriving the students of their right under state law to an equal education. Weingarten argued that “full and fair funding” would turn bad teachers into good teachers and that academic performance would improve if only kids could spend more time in non-academic classes such as “music, art and physical education.” (RELATED: American Federation Of Teachers Vows To Force Crappy Teachers On Poor Kids)
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