Virginia

Fired-Up Virginia Mom Paddles School Board

Published by Papa Giorgio

Clay Travis and Buck Sexton want you to hear what this fired-up mom had to say at a Virginia school board meeting. You don’t want to mess with this mama bear.

Here is her FULL SPEECH!

Clay and Buck note the author of the Atlantic whom they had on to interview a couple weeks back wrote this in said article:

To our knowledge, the CDC has performed three studies to determine whether masking children in school reduces COVID-19 transmission. The first is a study of elementary schools in Georgia, conducted before vaccines became available, which found that masking teachers was associated with a statistically significant decrease in COVID-19 transmission, but masking students was not—a finding that the CDC’s masking guidelines do not account for.

A second and more recent study of Arizona schools in Maricopa and Pima Counties concluded that schools without mask mandates were more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks than schools with mask mandates. Yet more than 90 percent of schools in the “no mask mandate” group were in Maricopa County, an area that has significantly lower vaccination rates than Pima County. This study had other serious shortcomings, including failure to quantify the size of outbreaks and failure to report testing protocols for the students.

The third CDC study found that U.S. counties without mask mandates saw larger increases in pediatric COVID-19 cases after schools opened, but again did not control for important differences in vaccination rates. The CDC has cited several other studies conducted in the previous school year to support its claim that masks are a key school-safety measure. However, none of these studies, including ones conducted in North Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin, and Missouri, isolated the impact of masks specifically, because all students were required to mask and no comparisons were made with schools that did not require masks.

Therefore, the overall takeaway from these studies—that schools with mask mandates have lower COVID-19 transmission rates than schools without mask mandates—is not justified by the data that have been gathered. In two of these studies, this conclusion is undercut by the fact that background vaccination rates, both of staff and of the surrounding community, were not controlled for or taken into consideration. At the time these studies were conducted, when breakthrough infections were much less common, this was a hugely important confounding variable undermining the CDC’s conclusions that masks in schools provide a concrete benefit in controlling COVID-19 spread: Communities with higher vaccination rates had less COVID-19 transmission everywhere, including in schools, and those same communities were more likely to have mask mandates.

[….]

Other studies—not randomized trials—have looked at the effects of masks in schools, and their results do not support pervasive, endless masking at school. A study from Brown University, analyzing 2020–21 data from schools in New York, Massachusetts, and Florida, found no correlation between student cases and mask mandates, but did see decreased cases associated with teacher vaccination. A study published in Science looking at individual mitigation measures in schools last winter found that, although teacher masking reduced COVID-19 positivity, student masking did not have a significant effect.

Even though the first half of this school year was dominated by the highly transmissible Delta variant, the picture in more recent studies looks similar. In Tennessee, two neighboring counties with similar vaccination rates, Davidson and Williamson, have virtually overlapping case-rate trends in their school-age populations, despite one having a mask mandate and one having a mask opt-out rate of about 23 percent. One would expect a quarter of the students opting out of masking to affect transmission rates if masks played any significant role in controlling COVID-19 spread, but that was not the case. Another recent analysis of data from Cass County, North Dakota, comparing school districts with and without mask mandates, concluded that mask-optional districts had lower prevalence of COVID-19 cases among students this fall. Analyses of COVID-19 cases in Alachua County, Florida, also suggest no differences in mask-required versus mask-optional schools. Similarly, the U.K. recently reported finding no statistically significant difference in absences traced to COVID-19 between secondary schools with mask mandates and those without mandates.

Despite how widespread all-day masking of children in school is, the short-term and long-term consequences of this practice are not well understood, in part because no one has successfully collected large-scale systematic data and few researchers have tried. Mental and social-emotional outcomes are hard to observe and measure, and can take years to manifest. Initial data, however, are not reassuring. Recent prospective studies from Greece and Italy found evidence that masking is a barrier to speech recognition, hearing, and communication, and that masks impede children’s ability to decode facial expressions, dampening children’s perceived trustworthiness of faces. Research has also suggested that hearing-impaired children have difficulty discerning individual sounds; opaque masks, of course, prevent lip-reading. Some teachers, parents, and speech pathologists have reported that masks can make learning difficult for some of America’s most vulnerable children, including those with cognitive delays, speech and hearing issues, and autism. Masks may also hinder language and speech development—especially important for students who do not speak English at home. Masks may impede emotion recognition, even in adults, but particularly in children. This fall, when children were asked, many said that prolonged mask wearing is uncomfortable and that they dislike it……….

(THE ATLANTIC)

Abortion to Just Before [and after] Birth (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio

UPDATED:

BTW, if you didn’t know about this historic moment… that is because — as NEWSBUSTERS notes — the MSM gave it little attention:

  • The big three networks gave just 15 seconds Friday to the largest pro-life annual march in the nation’s capital, this year. While it’s not out of the ordinary for the media to ignore this mammoth event that flies in the face of their liberal narrative on abortion, it is notable that they would hold a near blackout of the event even when President Trump became the first sitting President to attend in the 47 year history of the march….

MEDIAITE said Trump lied at the March For Life in D.C. when he said this [note, I include my response as well in the following pic] (via INFORMATION LIBERATION):

The DAILY CALLER simply responds with the video:

Just remember what Faye Wattleton said, former president of U.S. Planned Parenthood:

“I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.”

Here is the previous post (originally posted January of 2019)

I posted this on my RPT Facebook Page:

Shortly thereafter, a reader posted this short response an a link:

By the by. That article is probably the most many read about the abortion debate. I doubt they would have read “Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood,” or, “Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood’s Founder, Margaret Sanger.” Or “Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments,” or, “The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture.” Neither do they watch or listen to women who survived abortions, like, Gianna Jessen, or Rebecca Keissling. Or listen to presentations LIKE THESE:

Why complicate things with history and facts and debate. But I digress. Here is my response:

Thank you KR. You will note all points of views are welcome here. It keeps me sharp by memorizing stuff because I read it again and write it again. I lead off my “CULTURAL ISSUES” Page (https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/cultural-issues/) with some of my posts on the matter.

Here is my response to Snopes:

The new law still imposes some restrictions on when late-term abortions can be performed, even as it loosens others:

“A health care practitioner licensed, certified, or authorized under title eight of the education law, acting within his or her lawful scope of practice, may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner’s reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.”

It redefines a “person” as “a human being who has been born and is alive.” And many do not know that the same day Roe v Wade was passed, Doe v Bolton was as well. This allows the “health of the mother” a wide variance of meanings. So if a mother see’s here baby has a cleft palate, this causes her undue stress/mental anguish, she is allowed to get a late-term abortion. The mother says that the extra burden of financial strain in having a child causes her undue stress/mental anguish, she can have a late-term abortion. in many states, New York just went all in however.

In the third trimester the law could forbid women to have an abortion, unless the abortion is necessary to preserve her “life or health.” In Doe v. Bolton, Roe’s companion case, the Supreme Court defined the word “health” in such broad terms that it is virtually impossible for a state to protect the unborn. The majority opinion of Doe v. Bolton stated, “The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.”

(Side-note: both women involved in those cases became pro-life advocates and apologized often for their legalizing the killing of babies. “Roe,” Norma McCorvey wrote a wonderful book called “Won by Love.”)

The previous homicide law in New York said “conduct which causes the death of a person or an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than 24 weeks” as a felony offense, has been taken off the penal code by the newly passed legislation. Partial-birth abortions were already at a rate in the late 90’s of 3,000 to 5,000 times annually – nationwide. New York merely removed all restrictions on it.

  • “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.” ~ Faye Wattleton, former president of U.S. Planned Parenthood

Another friend posted at the same time:

The Snopes article doesn’t mention Doe v Bolton, probably because if you add that to the information they give, it is damning to their case.

Snopes might be neutral on urban legends, but the liberal politics of the owners of the site come through with incredible bias on every political article.

So now Virginia is doing the same as New York… Virginia could soon be joining New York in repealing restrictions on abortion, including terminations up until the moment of birth, under the provisions of a bill backed by Governor Ralph Northam and a substantial number of Democratic lawmakers. The Repeal Act, introduced as HB2491 by Delegate Kathy Tran (D-Springfield), would repeal restrictions on third trimester abortions, allow abortion doctors to self-certify the necessity of late term procedures, eliminate informed consent requirements, repeal abortion clinic health and safety standards, permit late term abortions to be performed in outpatient clinics, remove ultrasound requirements, and eliminate Virginia’s 24 hour waiting period.

NATIONAL REVIEW has the transcript for those wishing to read the exchange:

Gilbert: So how late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion if he indicated it would impair the mental health of the woman?

Tran: Or physical health.

Gilbert: Okay. I’m talking about mental health.

Tran: I mean, through the third trimester. The third trimester goes all the way up to 40 weeks.

Gilbert: So to the end of the third trimester?

Tran: Yes. I don’t think we have a limit in the bill.

Gilbert: So where it’s obvious that a woman is about to give birth, she has physical signs that she’s about give birth, would that still be a point at which she could still request an abortion if she was so certified? [pause] She’s dilating?

Tran: Mr. Chairman, you know, that would be a decision that the doctor, the physician, and the woman would make.

Gilbert: I understand that. I’m asking if your bill allows that.

Tran: My bill would allow that, yes.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe Unleashes 200,000 Felons To Vote

Published by Papa Giorgio

US Attorney General Eric Holder recently stated that we must revisit the laws that ban convicted felons from voting. Why? According to a recent study by two professors, Marc Meredith of the University of Pennsylvania and Michael Morse of Stanford, published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, three-fourths of America’s convicted murderers, rapists, and thieves are Democrats. Many states restrict felons from voting; however, there’s a movement afoot to eliminate any restriction on their voting. If successful, we might see Democratic candidates campaigning in prisons, seeking the support of some of America’s worst people.

Walter E. Williams, American Contempt for Liberty (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 2015), 124.

7-in-10 felons register as Democrats.

Just so the numbers are known:

Virginia
Popular Vote:		 TRUMP
1,731,155 (45.0%)		 CLINTON
1,916,845 (49.9%)		 TOTAL
185,690

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has granted voting rights to as many as 60,000 convicted felons just in time for them to register to vote, nearly five times more than previously reported and enough to win the state for his long-time friend, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

McAuliffe sought to allow all of Virginia’s estimated 200,000 felons to vote, but state courts said each individual felon’s circumstances must be weighed. To get around that, McAuliffe used a mechanical autopen to rapidly sign thousands of letters, as if he had personally reviewed them, even as his office was saying the total was 13,000.

Now, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned that McAuliffe — who managed Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign — churned out five times as many letters before the registration deadline than publicly claimed.

Virginia’s recent political history has seen multiple races that were decided by tiny margins. The 2014 U.S. Senate race, for example, was decided by only 17,000 votes, while the attorney general’s race came down to a mere 165 votes.

McAuliffe is a close friend of Hillary and former President Bill Clinton, even personally guaranteeing a loan for the purchase of their Chappaqua, New York, mansion in 1999. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee where he was a prodigious fund raiser….

(DAILY CALLER)

Bubblegum Politics Good for Youth, Killing Small Businesses (Added: California Hates Business)

Published by Papa Giorgio

HotAir nails it!

Since it’s not a web ad featuring a super cool, hipster-celebrity making suggestive analogies about President Obama’s oh-so-dreamy and glamorous political qualities, I doubt it will get nearly the same traffic as Team Obama’s recent Lena Dunham ad — which is most unfortunate, because rather than a cotton-candy, war-on-women appeal to the youths, we actually see the real-world effect that Obama’s policies have had on hardworking, middle-class Americans.

President Obama’s policies have been brutal to the business world, and small businesses in particular. An onslaught of red-tape regulations, ObamaCare, the threat of higher taxes, generally poor economic growth — none of these have been kind to entrepreneurs or owners trying to grow their outfits. Despite the Obama administration’s several showy moves to come to the aid of small business, their vital signs just haven’t picked up, via Bloomberg Businessweek:

The measure estimates employment at independent companies with fewer than 20 employees that use Intuit’s online payroll product. Companies with fewer than 20 workers make up nearly 90 percent private employers in the U.S. …

Companies with fewer than 20 employees have actually shed jobs during the economic recovery; the Intuit Small Business Employment Index was 0.9 percent lower in October 2012 than in July 2009. Moreover, since May, the index has moved in the opposite direction from BLS estimates of overall employment, with Intuit reporting a loss of 10,000 small business jobs in each of the last two months alone. …

Compensation and hours are similarly weak. Adjusting for inflation and seasonality, monthly compensation for all employees (including the owners) at businesses with fewer than 20 employees is 10.2 percent lower than when the president took office.

California is in a worse boat that Virginia, for instance, we [California] have ranked dead last 8-years in a row as far as a business friendly environment goes:

Editorial (OC Register): CEOs rate California dead last for business, again

It was alarming the first three or four times California was ranked last among 50 states for business environment. Now, Chief Executive magazine’s annual ranking, based on a survey of 650 chief executives on taxation, regulation, workforce quality and living environment, again places California dead last, 50th of 50 – for the eighth year in a row.

Eight years in a row ceases to be alarming. It now is a defining status.

[….]

Gov. Jerry Brown insists those who say California is unfriendly to business are wrong. But Mr. Brown, of course, is not the chief executive officer of a private business. He is the top executive of a deficit-burdened, intrusive, bloated government bureaucracy that has perfected squandering other peoples’ money while botching delivery of services such as education and lavishing public employees with unaffordable pay and benefits.

California public school teachers are the nation’s highest-paid, while their students’ performance ranks among the worst. The state’s various unfunded pension and retirement health care benefits promise to bankrupt the already overextended government.

As chief executive opinions go, Mr. Brown’s are considerably less credible than CEO magazines’ private-sector leaders.

“California’s enduring place of perpetual decline continues in this year’s ranking,” the magazine said. “Once the most attractive business environment, the Golden State appears to slip deeper into the ninth circle of business hell.”

The CEOs aren’t alone in their harsh critique. The state got an “F” grade in January from Thumbtack.com and the Kauffman Foundation in a survey of 6,000 small businesses across the nation, and the Tax Foundation ranked California 48th worst on business taxes.

There is little prospect of improvement. Despite finding itself in a hole, state government keeps digging. This week the state Senate Judiciary Committee killed a California Chamber of Commerce-sponsored job-creator bill to protect employers from inappropriate litigation.

Mr. Brown’s Air Resources Board is ratcheting up costly new regulations and preparing an ill-advised cap-and-trade carbon-emissions auction to coerce private energy providers to do things the government’s way. The governor and other Big Government champions also are advancing proposals for the November ballot to extract upwards of another $20 billion per year in taxes.

As CEO magazine’s poll shows, the state’s failings are obvious to business people. But Mr. Brown and California’s other governmental leaders just don’t get it.