Liberal Activist & Media Claim CCSD Board Member Threatened A Trans Teacher, It Was A Lie
Post & Courier Used Single Activist's Lie As Source In Targeted Attempt To Force The Board Member To Resign, Here's The Truth.
A recent headline on the front page of the Post & Courier’s daily paper, which was also posted on their website & social media reads as follows:
Charleston School Board Member Asked To Resign Amid Transgender Talk, Alleged Threat
The article written then proceeds to tell a story about a leftist activist, Adrienne Lett, who works for the the County of Dorchester claiming that Ed Kelley, a current elected member of the board of Charleston County School District,, decided to tell a crowd of around 150 people, including elected officials, that he would show up on the doorstep of a trans teacher with a gun if that teacher told the students in his own childrens’ classroom that she was trans.
This, of course, is a blatant lie. But, what else could you really expect from a leftist who snuck into a conservative meeting with the sole intention of finding something to get mad about?
Many people in South Carolina with common sense know better than to believe much of what the Post & Courier writes, after all it's a publication which basically whores itself out to the highest bidding woke corporations for ad revenue and consistently manipulates the truth in order to push a political agenda. We have pointed out their frivolous falsehoods many times at The Overton Report, but the latest example of highly questionable "journalism" from the cesspool that is the P&C writer's room really takes the cake.
Adrienne Lett, the accuser, had initially begun recording the Moms for Liberty meeting, but apparently stopped when it was announced that recording was not permitted (Or, because the meeting wasn’t as inflammatory as she hoped, who knows what the real reason may be. After all, she lied about a school board member threatening to shoot a teacher to the media without the slightest bit of hesitation.)
The single source that the P&C used for this article uses her social media to pontificate about various political issues of which she seemingly has little understanding. Whether it is calling for the legalization of anabolic steroids, stealing traffic cones when she's bored, or speaking during statehouse public comments, proving to those in attendance that she has a complete misunderstanding of what "comprehensive sex education" is, or misrepresenting the argument over abortion in the United States, Lett, an employee of Dorchester County government, has proven herself to be a leftist activist with a willingness to say whatever might benefit her political position, even when it isn't true. You can see examples of her social media videos by clicking here.
One of the attendees at this event who discount Lett’s claims is Mike Lawrie, a constituent board member with CCSD. He not only refuted the lie told by Lett, but had a poignant take on why The Post & Courier would run with such a frivolous, unfounded claim.
Lawrie says: “I see it as…a smear job they’ve been waiting to do on both Ed (Kelley) & M4L (Moms For Liberty). What they are reporting is absolutely not what he said.”
He went on to say, “He jokingly thanked a dad for not overreacting to a grown adult’s misconduct with his elementary school child.”
So, what really happened?
Ed Kelley spoke to a crowd of invite-only parents and citizens from Charleston County. He referenced a situation that has been unfolding in an elementary school classroom in Charleston County School District. A teacher told her 8 and 9 year old students that they would need to refer to her as “Mr.” beginning the following day. This led to a conversation about trans ideology which we can only describe as wholly inappropriate for children to take part in. One of the children went home and told her father about the incident, seemingly traumatized, asking if she, too, would wake up one day and find herself to have become a boy. The father took the right step, and made a complaint to the school district.
After telling the crowd this anecdote, Mr. Kelley then expressed his admiration for the parent handling the situation so well. According to Mr. Kelley’s own statement, he then told the crowd, “I applaud this father for making the right choice to write an email instead of pick up a gun.” Others heard the same thing.
We actually reached out to multiple people who attended this meeting to get a better understanding of what happened, and we were not surprised that every single one of them refuted Lett’s claims. We were, however, shocked that the Post & Courier ran with such a shaky story built solely on the word on a single leftist activist with no evidence, and 150 other witnesses that refute the claim, including State Representative Matt Leber, who told us:
“I was in the front row as Ed was speaking…Ed said ‘I’m grateful that this parent did the right thing, instead of possibly doing something stupid like going and getting a gun,’ or something to that effect”
When asked if there was any way someone could have taken Mr. Kelley’s words to be a threat, in good faith, Representative Leber continued:
“No, not in good faith. This woman (Adrienne Lett), I believe, came to that meeting looking for something she could report on, she found nothing, so she created something whole-cloth.”
Others have echoed the same sentiment. Every single attendee we spoke with (and there were many) basically told us the same thing. Ed Kelley said nothing that could possibly be construed as a threat of any kind, and nearly all of them believe that the Dorchester County government employee came to the event looking for something to jump on. They also seem fairly certain that the reason she made this up was to help facilitate an organized smear campaign against Kelley, as evidenced by her attempts at recording, and the fact that two agitators who were present alongside her had been kicked out of the meeting earlier that evening. Add to that the fact that just hours before the meeting, the author of the article in question had published a separate article geared at attacking Ed Kelley, and the reality of the situation begins to fall into place.
You can hear more about their statements and the statements of others, such as Tara Wood, the chairwoman of the Charleston chapter of Moms for Liberty on our podcast which airs on Big Patriot Radio Mondays at 6pm, and which will be posted right here on our Substack later in the week.
We have repeatedly seen how the media will manipulate the facts of a situation to fit an agenda, if not outright lie to push that agenda. Taking a single, politically motivated person’s word as evidence worthy of a state-wide, front page newspaper article is bad practice on its own. But when that unproven claim consists of something so egregious as accusing a school board member of threatening to shoot a teacher, well, that is beyond the pale. It seems almost actionable to me.
I hope you join us at The Overton Report in calling for the immediate correction of this politically motivated hit piece from The Post & Courier against this public servant. I also hope that you remember things like this when you are taking the word of corporate media when it comes to their reporting on political issues.
They are extremely biased, they hate conservatives, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to discredit them. They have done it to me, they have done it to Moms for Liberty and they have now attempted to do it to Ed Kelley. If you don’t stand up against it now, it will most definitely be you they come after next. And, as they have proven, no matter how egregious the claims, liberal corporate media not only don’t need the accusations to be sourced correctly, the claims can be FLAT-OUT FALSE. MSM doesn’t care, as long as they get to hurt one of their political enemies.
This is the pattern, though, of the “local” corporate media in South Carolina as a whole, but especially in the Charleston area.
It's time for that to change.
(You can read Ed Kelley’s entire statement at the bottom of this post)
The Post and Courier is narrow minded when reporting on Trans issues. They are reflexive and reductive and lack any nuance.
Their reporting in this instance was careless. They have taken a new board member "to the cleaners" based on an allegation from an unhinged woman (have you seen her instagram account?).
We need journalism, not rumor mongering.
We need credible sources, not big booty allies of the trans community.
I subscribed to the Post and Courier for 20 years but stopped 6 months ago.
I need info that is unbiased, not propaganda.