By Ty Rushing with the Starting Line

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Here is a partial screenshot from T…

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Update 2: Courtney Collier with Anti-vax crusader, JFK Jr

UPDATE 1: The candidates supported by this PAC took the least votes and thus both lost the election.

I loved the Meme below when I saw it posted by a member of the current board. We are truly lucky to have these caring individuals sitting as our board members. This is a message of inclusiveness…

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The question in this is if there is any more knowledge that can be gained about policy positions of the candidates, mo…

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Graham Jepsen has been a naughty man. It’s truly hard to square the vision of a professional investment advisor with the types of comments that he has written online.

I would never trust my money to this individual with what I have now learned.

How does he get away with this behavior? I feel this has white privilege written all over it. Others may wonder if he somehow thinks his online actions are pseudoanonymous. They aren’t.

I want to warn you this material is quite upsetting to see. But let's get into it and you can judge for yourself. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, they say. Let’s be clear about these. They’re Graham's replies and comments underneath other people’s post. Graham is “ThePlanner.”

These are beyond upsetting and it’s a sad thing to know this individual invests other people’s money for a living.

But how can we disagree with Greta respectfully, Graham? How would Amy support a student climate activist at NW who received this reply on social media? Or does Amy agree with her husband’s posts?

It's hard to know for sure, but we can observe that almost everyone associated with the two right-wing candidates has a checkered past of making controversial statements on social media.

This is concerning enough for me to refuse voting for Amy unless more of these questions about the social media posts are explained.

But even disregarding those posts, we still have the other issues that Amy supports. The private religious schools voucher program, which will take money away from Waukee Schools. She also supports government book censorship. And she may not support the full equity standards in place at Waukee CSD.

Please I urge Waukee voters to resist such nationally backed candidates with highly ideological goals. Instead, support these local candidates with common sense who will listen to voters.

The first part of the series is here.

https://exposed1.substack.com/p/graham-jepsen

I would never trust my money to this individual with what I have now learned.

How does he get away with this behavior? I feel this has white privilege written all over it. Others may wonder if he somehow thinks his online actions are pseudoanonymous. They aren’t.

As I explained earlier, the candidate’s spouses are important, because it’s a potential warning sign of trouble with Amy or other family members. Nobody, to my knowledge, has asked Amy her thoughts about her husband’s social media posts. What if she does agree with them? Do we want a board member who hates the LGBTQ community? Who doesn’t support true Equity? Do we want someone sitting on our board who advocated for diverting funds from public schools to private religious schools? This seems like a “no brainer” question. But I still run into people who seem to have no issue with this and claim they will vote for these two extremists.

It's safe to say that Amy’s extreme positions (and Tami as well), will toe the line with Moms 4 Liberty. If this is the case we will have two votes against equity standards, against the benefit of doubt in keeping school books in libraries, pro-school vouchers, and angry all the time. Yes angry. Just read some of Tami's blog posts and letters and over time you will see a pattern.

Courtney Collier is a special example of this. She is one of the “gang” with her anonymous fan page called “let the parents decide”. I already made the argument that their own policies take choices away from parents and place them in the hands of government administrators. These new MAGA Republicans that are aligned with M4L are truly scary. They are nuch more authoritarian in nature than the GOP of the past.

This is the outline of their playbook, and it never changes. Express anger of an “other” group. Promote fear of that “other” group among others. Then this group is scapegoated and blamed for everything that goes wrong. This gives the person who’s blaming a pass. Instead of taking full responsibility, like a true leader would do.

Please avoid the two candidates, Amy Jepsen and Tami Rubino on November 7th. Vote for the three listed below as they have ALL committed to fully supporting public schools. They have all forcefully renounced vouchers, book banning, anti-trans restrooms, and all of the other radical right-wing ideas being pushed on this community from the outside national groups.

Part 2 is coming next. In part 2, I will post a sampling of the social media madness of the investment manager known as Graham Jepsen.

https://exposed1.substack.com/p/graham-jepsen-part-2

There are things we really all should know about the candidates. I was struck by Tami's absolute rejection of equity standards described in her letters. She wrote pages of arguments against the equity standards and her personality came through as angry.

Here are some of the screenshots found in past years from Jeff's far right social media platforms. Warning, these are disturbing posts. This is the man that almost got a seat on our school board!

These screenshots, to be clear, are from Tami's husband, Jeff Rubino. Two years ago he was exposed for his very racist and extremist posts on far-right social media accounts.

Jeff advertised their PAC, Warriors and Wolves, on Gab, and received out of state donations. Also, his handle consistently uses the number 88. In white supremacist circles this stands for the 8th letter in the alphabet, “H”, meaning Hile Hitler. It’s impossible to know Jeff's mindset. But when he was called out, he removed the 88 from all of his profile names. But they’re all back now. Why? It appears he didn’t really believe there was an error in his judgement. He just waited sometime after the election 2 years ago and then added the 88 back in. This shows a consciousness of guilt.

Even though these posts are disgusting and very disturbing, the more important questions to ask are those specific to the board candidate Tami. What does Tami think about these racist and extremist posts? She has come out as strongly anit-vax in the past. Shouldn’t this matter in our school board members? Does she condone the racist and extremist posts made by her husband? Is she an election denier also, like her husband Jeff? Does she agree with him that Trump should have been the president? Does Tami Rubino agree with the attempted coup? Has she disavowed the repost shown above of the infamous white supremacist Jared Taylor? These are important matters that have not been addressed and to this day we simply don’t know.

This, in addition to her support for school vouchers, is enough to tip the scales against her, in my mind. Voucher support should disqualify anyone from a public school board position, in my mind.

We need to vote for the candidates who have shown support for equity, librarians, and public money for public schools.

UPDATE: The e-mails in the public domain are attached and downloadable below.

Later, tonight, or tomorrow, this Substack will release all FOIA requested e-mails from Tami to the board or school administration.

These are things we really all should know about the candidates.

Now you have been waiting for the messages between the school administration and Tami Rubino. These are obtained through the Freedom of information act and may not include everything.

I was struck by Tami's absolute rejection of equity standards. She wrote pages of arguments against the equity standards. You can see this by downloading the e-mails at the link below.

Foia 2023

2.35MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The two bottom screenshots, to be clear, are from Tami's husband, Jeff Rubino. Two years ago he was exposed for his very racist posts on far-right social media accounts.

Jeff advertised their PAC Warriors and Wolves on Gab, and received out of state donations. Also, his handle consistently uses the number 88. In white supremacist circles this stands for the 8th letter in the alphabet, “H”, meaning Hile Hitler. It’s impossible to know Jeff's mindset. But when he was called out, he removed the 88 from all of his profile names. But they’re all back now. Why?

The more important question to ask? What does Tammi think about these racist and extremist posts? Does she condone them? Agree with them? Has she disavowed the repost shown above of the infamous white supremacist Jared Taylor?

Later tonight, or tomorrow, this Substack will release all FOIA requested e-mails from Tami to the board or school administration.

These are things we really all should know about the candidates.

So many times the candidates may hope that you only look at their candidate web page, only read their official written answers to questions, or only consider there words face-to-face at a candidate forum.

The truth is this is only what they want you to hear at the time they are trying their hardest to be “electable”.

To really understand the true character, we need to look beyond the pre-planned candidate message and try to discern their true beliefs through their past actions and statements.

This is why I consider this series invaluable in terms of making a good choice for a school board leader.

Please compare her answer above to her verbal response below, given a few months later, before the election. This is her answer when asked directly, face to face with the voters when counting on their vote. It seems like a very careful script she’s reading from. It’s almost like she already knows how unpopular the voucher plan is that she and Moms4Liberty have pushed very hard for in Iowa. Her status as a member of Moms For Liberty is currently unknown.

I haven’t been able to verify if Amy herself is a member, but she definitely seems to tow the line on the consistent national messaging from this and other extremist right-wing groups. Ask yourself if we need more focus on book banning, reporting teachers who don’t tow the conservative ideological line perfectly (like this example here), private and religious school voucher funding, exodus from public schools, underfunding our public schools, and whatever other reactionary priorities these and other national groups such as TPUSA have in mind for our schools.

Also ask yourself, do you want your children to learn real American history, as it really happened? Because TPUSA, Moms For Liberty, and many other extremist right wing groups only want our kids to know the sanitized, mythological version of American history. Amy and Tami will push the same curriculum. The American myth. Our kids are not fragile delicate flowers. They deserve to know the truth about this country, the racism it endured, and even when the truth may be very ugly.

We want our children to feel discomfort at our checkered past. Maybe some will be motivated by this to improve the future. And without this knowledge, of course we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

It is only by FULLY understanding our past history, that we can work hard to avoid repeating our past mistakes. The people who want to repress our collective memory of the past do this for a reason. They want us to repeat it again.

However, these are things we should be deciding on a local basis, and independently at the community level. Not promoting the agenda of national ideological groups such as Moms For Liberty and Kim Reynold’s school voucher plans. “We are stuck with the plan we have” is not an acceptable answer. Amy, what would you prefer to see INSTEAD of this plan? According to your own written statement, you are in complete agreement with the Reynold’s education agenda. Which one is it?

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Part two of this series is right here,

https://exposed1.substack.com/p/amy-jepsen-part-2

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Six districts where right wing candidates are bringing back culture wars to school boards

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I think her past dealings with the board are very relevant, since she is asking for our vote. We deserve to know what business dealings have been discussed This is all public info from FOIA and is in the public interest to know.

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Graham Jepsen's Twitter, https://x.com/GrahamJepsen?t=qq8Py2ex9lknNaMh5XYKMg&s=09. Graham is the husband of the current board candidate Amy.

We have at least one candidate, Tami Rubino, who has direct ties to the national group Moms for Liberty. The entire purpose of Moms For Liberty is to bring ultra-conservative ideology onto our school boards nationa…

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I will write more on that topic soon. The most important thing is that we get a high turnout. Some people without children may think the election isn’t important to them.

But vibrant schools go hand-in-hand with thriving and vibrant communities. This affects all of us. Please vote on Tuesday Novermber 7th.

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