Blog

New York Gov. Hochul: School Mask Mandate Can Be Lifted When ‘Parents Do the Right Thing’ and Vaccinate Their Children

The school mask mandate in New York State can only be lifted after parents “do the right thing” and vaccinate their children, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) suggested this week.

Interim guidance for in-person instruction, issued June 7, 2021, states that masks should be required in school facilities, requiring them to be “worn by all individuals in all classroom and non-classroom settings, including but not limited to hallways, school offices, restrooms, gyms, auditoriums, etc.”

While masks are not required outdoors, schools may choose to require them in such scenarios. 

Currently, there is no end in sight for the school mask mandate. Rather, Hochul is placing the burden on the parents, suggesting the they must get their children vaccinated if they want to return to a state of maskless, pre-pandemic normalcy. 

“If parents do the right thing all over the state, get their kids vaccinated. There will come a time when there’s no reason to wear a mask, that every child is safe. But we need compliance,” she said during an appearance on WNYW’s Good Day New York this week.

“And in some communities it’s stronger than others. So let’s get the kids vaccinated. I don’t have a date. I’m not going to prejudge this,” she said, failing to even offer a rough timeline and suggestion it all hinges on compliance. “There’s no way I can know.”

“I need to know how people are doing, are a lot of people getting vaccinated, or is there an early rush and then it plateaus and then half the kids in the class aren’t protected. That’s what I’m watching. I’m always driven by the numbers. So that’s why I can’t say, ‘on this date, we’re going to do X,’” Hochul added.

Keep reading

Don’t Let Leftists Gaslight You on Critical Race Theory

Chauncey Devega, a race essentialist and staff writer for Salon, insists that Critical Race Theory is a fairytale.  In his recent article, “‘Critical race theory’ is a fairytale — but America’s monsters are real,” Devega insists that CRT is a lie, a damn lie, and suggests everyday white folks are “doing the work of racism and white supremacy” by “[s]upporting Republican fascists who tell evil fairytales about ‘Critical Race Theory.'”

Devega makes his case by bloviating for ten full paragraphs about an old Southern boogieman called the “Goat Man,” a legendary monster that terrorized black communities in North Carolina by gobbling up black American men and boys.  He’d heard this tale as a child from his grandmother, which turned out to be a metaphor for Jim Crow and white supremacy.

Devega wants the reader to know that the Goat Man is not real, but that “real evil takes the form of flesh-and-blood human beings, not ghosts or demons or spectral fiends.”  Trump and his supporters are the real monsters, Devega insists, along with “Republican fascists who tell evil fairytales about ‘critical race theory.'”

He writes: 

Their goal is to reclaim uncontested white power and white privilege over every significant aspect of American society. Their evil fairytales about “critical race theory” or “parental control” are but a means to that end. 

At no point does Devega dare to take a real look at the issues at the heart of the pushback against CRT — at what is happening in school board meetings across the United States.  He couldn’t care less about the growing concerns of parents, teachers, and administrators in K–12 schools or the rest of American society at large.  CRT is a “fairytale” because arrogant race essentialists like Devega say it is.  (For the record, Vox is parroting this same nonsense, as are NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR.)

Keep reading

Biden’s illegal vaccine mandate is about politics, not science

President Biden appears to view Americans not as free citizens but as disobedient subjects. In September, he informed the millions of Americans who remain unvaccinated that “our patience is wearing thin.”

So the president told administrative officials to issue a mandate. Under an order by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), private businesses and nonprofits with 100 or more employees must coerce their unvaccinated employees to get vaccinated, undergo weekly testing or lose their jobs. Penalties can be $14,000 per violation, and they go up from there.

The mandate covers more than 80 million Americans. And it violates the Constitution and other federal laws. That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom is challenging this order on behalf of several groups in courts around the country.

Within a day of the order being issued, a federal court stayed the rule, citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” But the fight is only beginning.

Congress empowered OSHA to protect employees from toxic substances or hazards in the workplace. But, here, the agency essentially defined employees themselves as the hazard. This greatly oversteps its authority. The Supreme Court has said that, if Congress wants to give bureaucrats authority over major questions of “vast economic or political significance,” it must do so clearly. 

Keep reading

Climate Conference’s Carbon Footprint Doubles From Last Summit

The carbon emissions associated with the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow more than doubled from the last time the conference was held, according to a report commissioned by the British government.

The conference, which ends Friday, is estimated to contribute to the emission of around 102,500 metric tons of CO2e, a measure of greenhouse gas emissions, the Scotsman reported. The majority of those emissions came from international flights, as world leaders and delegates flew on private planes to the summit.

Those projected emissions more than double the carbon footprint of the last conference, which was held in Madrid in 2019. That summit only led to the emission of 51,101 metric tons of CO2e.

President Joe Biden and his climate czar John Kerry both attended the conference in Scotland. The president was spotted dozing off during one speech at the summit.

Environmental activists and critics slammed the conference for the gross emissions created by air travel.

Keep reading

Company co-founded by Nancy Pelosi’s son charged with securities fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged a company cofounded by Paul Pelosi Jr. with fraud on Wednesday after learning that two convicted criminals were running the business.

Paul Pelosi Jr., the son of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), was the president and chief operating officer of Natural Blue Resources Inc., an investment company he cofounded that focuses on “environmentally-friendly” ventures.

The SEC charged four individuals with fraud, including former New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya, and suspended trading in the company’s stock. Pelosi owned over 10 million shares in the company in 2009.

Keep reading

The CIA Is Trying to Recruit Gen Z—and Doesn’t Care If They’re All Over Social Media

When you pull up to the CIA headquarters in Langley, you have to shout your Social Security number out the window into a speaker, like when you’re ordering fries at a drive-through. Much like the Union that the Agency was formed to protect, the system, it seems, could be more perfect. But I am willing to do what it takes to get the inside story of how the CIA is recruiting and working with the next generation of spies.

One would think it’s basically impossible to get millennials and zoomers into covert jobs. The youngest of this bunch of young people have spent their entire lives online, some since their parents blasted out their first ultrasound picture as a pregnancy announcement, before they’d even gained sentience. If the whole point of being a spy is that nobody knows who you really are and no one can ever find out, how exactly are you supposed to achieve this level of anonymity when you’ve flung untold reams of identifiable content across the digital world? I intended to find out.

Keep reading