Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

Lack of resistance to Coronavirus lockdowns and mask mandates is the price we are now paying for decades of liberal indoctrination

Posted: May 13, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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I am completely astounded that these Coronavirus lockdowns and mask mandates lasted more than one month, yet alone over a year.  I expected mass resistance by people of all but the bluest states to have put an end to these liberty and economy destroying restrictions way back before last summer. 

Yep it is obvious to everyone reading this that I miscalculated rather badly.  My defense is that I have studied non-revisionist American history in great detail.  I was raised on concepts such as Patrick Henry’s famous quote “Give me Liberty or Death.”  I don’t know about you but I think he would be outraged that in just 246 years almost the entire nation has surrendered their liberty because they are afraid of a disease with a 99.8 percent survival rate.

 Here is another quote, this one by Benjamin Franklin, which has been so ignored by our abysmal educational system that the concept is completely alien to almost anyone over the age of 30:

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Liberty was a concept that was universally cherished and understood by all of the citizens of the United States from before the Revolution until the end of the 1960s.  Liberty is a concept that is not valued at all by the leftists that took over colleges and universities.  They actually despise liberty because it is the exact opposite of the collectivism that they cherish.

The definition of liberty espoused by the Founding Fathers of this nation states that liberty is the freedom of individual to do as they wish as long as they do not hurt others or interfere with the rights of others. Liberty is a concept that is deeply grounded in individualism.  There is no such thing as collective liberty.  Collectivism is the enslavement of individuals to the needs and whims a collective group such as a nation, a race, or a class.

Liberty is deeply rooted in freedom.  It is freedom coupled with the responsibility to do no harm to any other individuals.  It has not been proved scientifically that going maskless and ignoring lockdowns actually harms individuals. Forcing individuals to wear masks and locking down a society are violations of the liberty of those living in the society. 

If the original understanding of liberty was still taught in schools instead of collectivism these liberty destroying restrictions would have ended by the people soon after they were instituted.

For the past several decades school children and college students have been brainwashed into believing that the earth is in eminent danger from the mythical beast known as man caused global warming.  They have been brainwashed into believing the most absurd junk science ever.  They have been brainwashed into believing that no one can ever question anything that is labeled science by a leftist expert.  Decades of climate change indoctrination has left a large majority of the inhabitants of the US unusually susceptible to all of the junk science behind mask mandates and lockdowns.

If we do not come up with a serious plan to tackle the rampant indoctrination that has infected all levels of our educational system these types of liberty and economy destroying restrictions will become the new normal.

Report from Louisiana: Year Round School?

Posted: May 10, 2021 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Year-round school.  A lot of districts do it, but I am not a fan.

Louisiana’s (new) Superintendent of Education is proposing year-round school in our state. I know that there are a couple of schools in our local district that are already doing this, elementary schools mostly, but as a teacher, I must tell you, I don’t think I’d like this.

Here’s the thing. I need that summer to recharge. While most people are under the impression that teachers get “three months off” or “all summer off,” of course that is not the case. I am about to retire after twenty-five years in the classroom, and I can assure you that I’ve never ever had three months off, and I’ve never had a summer where I wasn’t required to do some sort of professional development.

Every five years or so we have some sort of curriculum change that requires professional development…training…inservice; new technology, new gradebook software, new this, new that…all of it requires PD. Time taken out of your “summer.” 

As rewarding as it is, teaching is exhausting work. And really, this isn’t the post where I want to defend the position that teachers are underpaid for what they do, and that yes, we knew what we got paid when we went into the profession. That is for another day.

But year-round school? Nope. Glad I won’t be there for that.

Kids need the break too, you see. Yes, indeed, some of them need school all the time; their life at home might be terrible and maybe they aren’t getting meals and maybe they don’t get enough supervision and sometimes the electricity and water aren’t even turned on.

Schools have become the place to catch all of these issues that are neglected at home. We feed our students breakfast and lunch, teach them sex education, breast cancer awareness and self-examination; we do vision and hearing checks, we help seniors sign up for Financial Aid. We provide jackets and clothing for kids in need and sometimes we pay an electric bill. Schools are now social support service providers and while I love kids and will help any child in need every single time, we have to wonder if this is the job of the school.

Are we losing sight of education?

Most opponents of year-round school suggest that kids need time to be with their families, to go on vacation, Disneyland! Most of the kids I teach can’t even dream of going to Disneyland and have never been on a family vacation; some are homeless and live in hotels. Most of my high school aged students work and they work hard, long hours.

When we shut down for Covid, our kids were working. They didn’t log onto Google classroom every day to do math problems and watch YouTube documentaries; they took advantage of the time to work, make money, pay bills.

Not all of them, obviously, but a lot of them. I know this for a fact.

And so as I consider the proposal of year round school, I am conflicted. I think about these kids; they need some down time, too. They are working, they are trying to survive, they are trying to finish school. Where’s the downtime? Teachers need to recharge, too, and a lot of teachers depend on summer jobs to supplement their salaries.

Schools can provide everything else. Can’t we provide a few weeks with no school?

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and at Medium; she is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Obama and Pritzker exposed as frauds on gerrymandering in Illinois

Posted: May 9, 2021 by John Ruberry in elections, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

Last year former president Barack Obama called partisan gerrymandering “a sneaky way for politicians to consolidate as much power as they can. In the end, gerrymandering means that citizens’ voices are being diminished.” 

A year earlier the governor of Obama’s home state of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, had this to say after the US Supreme Court decided not to get involved in partistan remaps. “As I’ve said since I was a candidate, I will veto any map that is unfair,” Pritzker said. “It’s the right thing to do. We’re going to have to make sure that here in Illinois we’re not gerrymandering, that we’re drawing maps that are fair and competitive. That’s what’s best for the voters of the state, that they have choices when they go to the ballot.” 

Obama and Pritzker are of course both Democrats. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, state Senate minority leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods), pointed out that Obama, while at Illinois’ state capital late in his presidential term, denounced gerrymandering and called for reform. “And this needs to be done across the nation,” the 44th president said, “not just in a select few states. It should be done everywhere.”

Apparently not in Illinois becauses Obama has been silent about stacking the decks in favor of Democrats. The 2010 remap of Illinois congressional and state legislative districts was a travesty of democracy, as was the one after the 2000 Census, both of which were the work of longtime Illinois House speaker and Democratic party chairman Boss Michael Madigan, who was forced into retirement this year as scandals engulfed his inner circle. The state legislature, as mandated by the Illinois constitution, draws new General Assembly and US congressional district maps.

Late last month Pritzker appeared to be backtracking from his stance against gerrymandering.

The most blatant gerrymandering from the most recent remap is Illinois’ 4th congressional district, nicknamed “the earmuffs,” which is pictured above. 

But a quick look at maps won’t tell the whole story. Illinois three largest cities outside of Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, and Springfield, the aforementioned state capital, are each split between two congressional districts. This is not a case of these cities being too large for one district, the average size of a US congressional district is over 700,000, the largest of these municipalities is Rockford, with just under 150,000 residents. 

The current Illinois congressional delegation consists of thirteen Democrats and five Republicans. Mission accomplished, Democrats. That number will change because Illinois, again, will lose a congressional seat. As I’ve remarked before, Illinoisans are voting with their feet by moving out. They are fed up with rampant corruption, high taxes, and an unfunded public worker pension debt crisis that can be solved only by default or hyperinflation. Between the 2010 and 2020 Census counts Illinois lost population–the first time that has ever happened to the Prairie State.

The electoral results are predictable when politicians choose their constituents. Last year 52 of the 118 races for seats in the Illinois House had only one candidate. In the state Senate it was worse–10 of the 20 races had only one person running. The Democrats have veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. 

Twice in the prior decade Republicans led efforts to allow voters to decide to amend the state constitution by having a non-partisan committee draw maps instead of the legislature. Both times what was called the Fair Map Amendment was ruled unconstitutional in a party-line state Supreme Court decision. The lead attorney in the lawsuit to block the amendment had ties to Boss Madigan.

Back to the US Congress. Illinois’ Democratic delegation is lockstep behind House Bill 1, which if made into law, in the process of nationalizing local elections, will mandate independent committees, not state legislators, to take charge of the decennial remaps in all 50 states. But why aren’t Illinois 13 Democratic members of Congress decrying the current remap process here? Because they are phonies, that’s why. Just like Pritzker and Obama. 

The current remapping in Illinois is being performed behind closed doors by Democratic members of the General Assembly using preliminary Census data. Hey Pritzker! Are you aware of this news?

Yeah, I know, in 1990 Republicans drew gerrymandered districts. It was wrong then too.

On Fox Chicago’s Flannery Fired Up this weekend, state Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon) told the host, “We should draw fair, straightforward maps that use official [Census] data and give the people of Illinois a real choice in their elections so people are picking their elected officials and not the other way around.”

Tellingly, because Flannery strives to be fair, he had two Republicans on the gerrymandering segment of his program, but no Dems. I’m very confident that Flannery invited a Democrat to appear but they are either too ashamed to defend their non-transparent remapping–or they know it’s indefensible.

One more time for emphasis.

Six days before his election as governor a St. Louis NPR reporter, Jason Rosenbaum, asked Pritzker, “If you’re governor and they send you a map that is obvioulsy gerrymandered against Republicans would you veto it and why?”

Candidate Pritzker’s response? “I will not sign a bill that is gerrymandered,” adding, “I have been for independent maps for a long time.”

John Ruberry regularly blogs from Illinois at Marathon Pundit.

CDC now stands for Corrupt Democrat Cesspool

Posted: May 6, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Since its founding the Centers for Disease Control was something extremely rare.  It was a government agency that actually functioned reasonably well.  Sadly that is no longer the case.  It is now a corrupt agency that cares more for being politically correct and spouting progressive ideology than science and medicine.  I am not exactly sure when the CDC began its decent but it most likely took place during the Obama Administration.  During that dark period the CIA, FBI, and NASA all became mobs of liberal political hacks.

It quickly became evident as the Coronavirus pandemic unfolded just how little the CDC now cares about medicine and science. The CDC has gone out of its way to embarrass itself with statements that contradict basic tenants of science and medicine.  I know I’m not the only one who noticed.  Check out this statement by Senator Tom Cotton:

The CDC is a thoroughly politicized agency. Most Americans disregard their advice on things like steaks and hamburgers and beers. Increasingly, they should disregard their advice when it comes to school reopenings. Schools need to be open. Schools have been open in Arkansas five days a week, in-person since last August, and it’s been largely fine. That’s been the case all across the country as well. We shouldn’t have a politicized public health bureaucracy like the CDC answering at the beck and call of the teachers’ unions. We need kids back in school, and back in real school, not sitting in a classroom doing a Zoom session with teachers who are not in the classroom. We need kids in schools with their teachers now

This New York Post article highlights one specific issue where the CDC really demonstrated how political it has become.

The American Federation of Teachers lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on, and even suggested language for, the federal agency’s school-reopening guidance released in February.

The powerful teachers union’s full-court press preceded the federal agency putting the brakes on a full re-opening of in-person classrooms, emails between top CDC, AFT and White House officials show.

The emails were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative watchdog group Americans for Public Trust and provided to The Post.

The documents show a flurry of activity between CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, her top advisors and union officials — with Biden brass being looped in at the White House — in the days before the highly-anticipated Feb. 12 announcement on school-reopening guidelines.

Mask mandates are another issue that has demonstrated just how much the CDC has abandoned science in favor of the panic pushed by progressives.  Check out the National Review article CDC’s New Outdoor Mask Guidance Is a Joke

To be clear, the science was overwhelming last year that the risk of outdoor transmission of COVID-19 was low to non-existent. Anybody following the science should have never felt compelled to wear a mask outdoors during the pandemic.

Furthermore, somebody who is fully vaccinated is at minimal risk of catching COVID-19 indoors or outdoors. Earlier this month, the CDC itself reported that out of a universe of 66 million individuals who were vaccinated at the time, just 5,800 got the virus. That’s less than 1-in-10,000.

The idea that the CDC, even in loosening outdoor mask guidance, is still insisting that vaccinated people wear masks in crowded outdoor settings is completely unmoored from science or reason. This is a bungling agency that has made one mistake after another throughout the pandemic.

This Statement by Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota is almost the sort of statement the CDC should have issued if it still believed in science.

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “11th Hour,” Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and former adviser to President Biden’s transition team Dr. Michael Osterholm stated that if you’re fully vaccinated, “you can basically protect yourself and have all the kind of socialization that you want to do.”

[I]f you’re among vaccinated people, party hard, party hard. Invite people over to your house, do family-related things. But get vaccinated. If there was ever a time to want to incentivize people to get vaccinated, it’s now. Because if you do, you can basically protect yourself and have all the kind of socialization that you want to do.

We should be very afraid of the panic porn being pushed by the CDC.  It sets a dangerous precedence.  This article is a stark warning: Totalitarian Elites Want To Extend COVID-19 Lockdowns Forever For ‘Climate Change’

It’s financially unsustainable and morally untenable to involuntarily confine anybody — let alone healthy people — to their homes, and deprive them of opportunities to interact or earn a living. However, when halting what Greta Thunberg called “the fairy-tale of eternal economic growth” is the goal, lockdowns become an enticing tool for ending both capitalism and climate emissions

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