U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance’s (R-Ohio) measure to ban the Department of Transportation from using federal funds to enforce mask mandates has passed both houses of Congress and now heads to the desk of President Joe Biden (D).
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Schools and universities around the U.S. are bringing back mask mandates and shutdowns as COVID-19 numbers rise, according to public records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Runge Independent School District (ISD) in Texas, Magoffin County (MC) Schools in Kentucky, Lee County School District in Kentucky and Rosemary Hills Elementary School in Maryland are all reimplementing some form of COVID-19 measures, according to public records reviewed by the DCNF. Some universities are reimplementing mask mandates, such as Dillard University in Louisiana and Morris Brown College (MBC) in Georgia, though MBC backtracked on its mandate.
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As public and private institutions resume or consider mask mandates in the wake of a small uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations and new viral variants, an international research collaborative funded by the National Institutes of Health is facing new scrutiny for how it came to publicly downplay its 17 years of research finding that masks make “little to no difference.”
U.K-based nonprofit Cochrane, often described as the “gold standard” of evidence-based medicine, heavily redacted its internal discussions on how to respond to questions about alleged conflicts of interest that may have shaped its March statement deeming the systematic review’s results “inconclusive” without changing its content.
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Several hospital systems in the United States are slowly bringing back mask mandates as fears over COVID-19 reemerge, according to public websites and reports reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
United Health Services in New York, Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center in California, Auburn Community Hospital in New York, UMass Memorial Health in Boston, Massachusetts and University Hospital in Syracuse, New York, have all reinstated mask mandates in the past several weeks, with some requiring staff only to wear masks and others requiring everyone to wear masks, according to public websites and reports reviewed by the DCNF. Moreover, several doctors are calling for renewed masked mandates, despite evidence suggesting that mandates may not be as effective as their proponents claim.
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In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “There’s no reason for you to be walking around with a mask.” But the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) soon changed his stance. Although not 100 percent effective, Fauci said, wearing masks is “a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing.”
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky testified during a recent House committee hearing that, despite the recent release of an international research review that found masks are ineffective against COVID-19 and the flu, her agency’s masking guidance “doesn’t really change with time.”
During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) asked Walensky to explain how the CDC uses evidence to update or change its guidance.
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President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) continued its fight to implement a nationwide mask mandate on airplanes and other forms of transportation in federal court Tuesday, according to Reuters. The DOJ asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a federal judge’s April 2021 decision striking down the mask mandate, according to Reuters. Biden declared that “the pandemic is over” Sept. 18, 2021, and all 50 states and most localities had dropped their own mask mandates by early 2022.
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Boston Public Schools is considering reinstating a mask mandate after the holiday break to minimize absenteeism from COVID-19, the mayor stated in a Wednesday announcement.
The decision is currently under consideration by city officials who fear a rise in COVID-19 cases once students return to the classroom in the new year, NBC Boston reported. Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu stated that a decision would be finalized by the end of the week.
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White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha acknowledged last week what many doctors and scientists have been saying since the start of the COVID pandemic: that “no study … shows that masks work that well” to stop the spread of virus infection.
Jha appeared last week, along with Philadelphia Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole on “The Future of COVID and Public Health,” sponsored by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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Ahead of the holiday break, several schools in blue states are implementing mask mandates in light of the “tripledemic.”
Schools in states such as Pennsylvania, Washington and New Jersey are fearing a “tripledemic” of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza (flu) and coronavirus. To combat the “tripledemic” some schools are considering mask mandates while other states have already asked their students to mask up.
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Two school boards with conservative majorities parted ways with their schools’ superintendents in November, both of whom oversaw the implementation of mask mandates into the fall of 2021.
On Nov. 29, Sarasota County Schools Superintendent Brennan Asplen agreed to step down after the school board criticized mask mandates which Asplen backed, while on Nov. 22 Brevard County Superintendent Mark Mullins, who faced backlash for supporting an extended mask mandate, agreed with the school board to enter into separation negotiations. Both school districts extended their mask mandates into the fall of the 2021-2022 school year.
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The New York City Department of Education has fired another 850 teachers and aides for refusing to comply with its COVID vaccine mandate, bringing the total number of school staff terminated over the mRNA shots that have not prevented the spread of infection to 2,000.
Some 1,300 department employees agreed to comply with the vaccine mandate by September 5 after taking a year of unpaid leave with benefits, the New York Post reported. The department informed personnel they would have to be vaccinated by that date or be “deemed to have voluntarily resigned.”
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The Chief Medical Advisor for President Joe Biden and head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease (NIAID) who was also the face of the America’s COVID-19 response has announced that he will resign from those positions effective in December.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to have led the NIAID, an extraordinary institution, for so many years and through so many scientific and public health challenges. I am very proud of our many accomplishments,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said in his resignation announcement. “I have worked with – and learned from – countless talented and dedicated people in my own laboratory, at NIAID, at NIH and beyond. To them I express my abiding respect and gratitude.”
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The current unpopularity of mask mandates in American school districts has not stopped mask advocates from promoting their return as a COVID-19 mitigation measure, but the research used to justify mandates is facing expanded scrutiny.
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After nearly two years of unprecedented lockdowns, mandates, and other restrictions on daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of graduating high school students are preparing to head off to college without having learned nearly as much as they should have.
The Associated Press reports that such students are about to enter college significantly farther behind the academic standards of previous years, almost entirely due to the pandemic’s forced transition to “online learning,” a shortage of teachers, and mask and vaccine mandates that disrupted school life for millions of students across the country. Such students risk the possibility of being grossly underprepared for the level of work required by college, and could result in a massive spike in college dropouts in the coming years.
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As the school year draws to an end, American universities around the country are reinstating mask mandates.
The University of California Los Angeles sent out an email to its students on May 26, stating that its mask mandate “will go back into effect beginning Friday, May 27 and remain in place through Wednesday, June 15.”
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Voters appear poised to clobber the party that brought us COVID lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, and inflation. Indeed, rising inflation has largely resulted from COVID-related disincentives to work, disrupted supply chains, and blowout spending, along with federal restrictions on oil and gas production. It’s perhaps surprising, therefore, that the Cook Political Report foresees Republican gains in the House of Representatives as being only “in the 15-25 seat range,” while its projections suggest that Democrats have at least a coin flip’s chance of holding the Senate.
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The Biden administration announced Monday it will no longer enforce a federal mask mandate on public transportation, including airplanes. The decision was announced after Federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled that the directive was unlawful, noting that the CDC had not sought public comment prior to its order—issued 14 months ago—and did not adequately explain its reasoning.
Following the court’s decision, four major airlines immediately announced they would drop mask requirements on all domestic flights.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.
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Live from Virginia Friday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks welcomed U.S. Congressman Bob Good to the show to discuss the gender-neutral airline pat-down modifications, southern border surge, and Democrat policy.
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On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is allegedly set to announce an easing of mask restrictions on the national level.
Fox News reports that the updated guidelines will focus less on the overall number of cases, and will instead emphasize a community’s general risk of spreading the coronavirus. As such, current guidelines apply to individuals who live in communities with allegedly “substantial or high transmission.” The CDC claims, without evidence, that 95 percent of all counties in the United States qualify as “high transmission.”
The new guidelines will apparently not apply to most Americans, as the new criteria will factor in hospitalizations with the overall capacity of local medical facilities. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said that the new guidelines will focus more on “enhanced prevention efforts.”
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As school districts start dropping the mask mandates, removing pornographic books from their libraries, and explicitly prohibiting critical race theory, it’s clear that the parent protests are working. School boards, even in progressive bastions like San Francisco, are currently being cleaned out and replaced by more pro-parent members. Moreover, politicians like the governor of Oklahoma are openly instituting a school choice model that would allow for different schooling models and have education dollars follow the student, not automatically go to the school.
Naturally, these developments invite more pushback (sometimes literally so) from those who believe they’re supporting public education. It was fine in the past to let various kooky parents carry on about the evils of teaching Harry Potter or sex ed; school boards and district leaders could simply yawn and carry on as before. However, now that it actually threatens their authority and influence, they can no longer ignore parents’ concerns..
In general, opponents of protesting parents make the same points over and over. They deny that public schools have problems, play semantic games with critical race theory (“it’s just an abstract legal theory taught in law school,” etc.), and accuse angry parents of being misguided racists. In their view, parents who demand a more wholesome and academic experience for their children are actually demanding an exclusively white and privileged experience. And for good measure, they will add an anecdote about a heroic public school teacher changing lives, proving beyond any doubt that public schools are still doing noble work and are essential for a healthy, diverse society.
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In a letter to the House Speaker and Senate President Friday, President Joe Biden extended the national COVID-19 emergency pandemic indefinitely.
“There remains a need to continue this national emergency,” Biden wrote.
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After a group of parents sued Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) for forcing students to continue wearing masks despite Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) issuing executive order banning that practice, LCPS declined to comment on the situation.
Wayde B. Byard, LCPS’ public information officer, told The Virginia Star Thursday that the only comment he could offer was already made by Superintendent Scott Ziegler.
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No, this is not another Qanon or Pizzagate conspiracy theory. It’s a sober recitation of the facts and incidents that can support no other conclusion.
Let’s start with one important stage-setting fact: According to OpenSecrets.org two organizations account for practically all of the contributions made by teachers unions: The National Education Association (about $20 million in 2016) and the American Federation of Teachers (almost $12 million). Both groups — which compete for members, but also collaborate with each other through the NEA-AFT Partnership — are consistently among the organizations that contribute the most money to candidates and political groups. From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high.
Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990, where the Open Secrets’ data begins. Go here for a detailed breakdown of teachers union political giving.
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Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares joined radio host Jeff Katz of The Jeff Katz Show on WRVA, where he expressed his dismay about Loudoun County Public Schools’ (LCPS) current mask mandate policy.
“I’ve gotta admit, that was a pretty astonishing even coming from the Loudoun County administrators,” Miyares said.
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After a large group of students at Woodgrove High School, part of Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS), decided to defy the school’s mask mandate Monday, LCPS has responded.
“This morning 30 Woodgrove students (out of a student body of 1,585) refused to wear a mask. They were asked to move to the auditorium where they could use the Schoology platform to continue their studies,” Wayde B. Byard, LCPS’ Public Information Officer, told The Virginia Star by email. “Teachers dropped periodically in to help students with their work. A lunch period and bathroom breaks were arranged. Several students opted to go home and were allowed to do so.”
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It is hard to know which is more frightening: the Australian radicalism about COVID-19, the Austrian effort to coerce its citizens, or the attitudes of American Democrats who regard extreme sanctions as reasonable behavior toward the supposedly bad people who don’t get vaccinated or wear masks.
Let’s consider each one.
In Australia, the government felt so threatened by the best tennis player in the world that it intervened decisively to block him from entering the country and competing in the Australian Open.
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After inaugurated Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) banned schools from establishing mask mandates on his first day as Virginia governor, four major school districts say they won’t abide by his new rule.
Executive Order Number Two (2022) and Order of Public Health Emergency One banned the mandates.
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A former Planned Parenthood president and public health professional argued in a Thursday op-ed for The Washington Post that the rise in cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant is not a reason to keep schools closed.
Dr. Leana Wen argued “both sides [of the school reopening debate] are wrong,” in her op-ed. “let’s agree that schools are essential and then work to reduce risk to get students back to in-person learning,” Wen wrote.
Wen called it “astounding” that governors in states like Texas, Georgia and Iowa are fighting against school mask mandates and that Florida’s surgeon general is discouraging testing in schools, attributing ” “low vaccine uptake among children” to “rampant right-wing disinformation.”
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Mask mandates do little, if anything, to make the air safer inside airplanes, two major airline CEOs argued before Congress Wednesday.
“I think the case is very strong that masks don’t add much, if anything, in the air cabin environment,” Gary Kelly, chief executive of Southwest Airlines, told lawmakers. Being inside a plane “is very safe and very high quality compared to any other indoor setting,” Kelly said. The air filters on planes turn over clean air every three minutes, eliminating nearly all airborne pathogens, he explained.
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A Missouri newspaper is standing by its recent reporting on COVID-19 mask mandates after it drew criticism from Gov. Mike Parson (R).
“Our story — which included all documents and data supporting it — speaks for itself. We stand behind our reporting,” Editor-in-Chief of The Missouri Independent Jason Hancock told The Star News Network.
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A California congressman is facing backlash for a series of tweets slamming unvaccinated Americans and parents who choose not to vaccinate their children.
“I’m losing my Covid patience [thread]. I’ve tried to reason with the unvaxxed. I’ve directed some to medical pros. I don’t judge but hear them out and steer them to facts. The unvaxxed love to say it’s about choice. But you know who doesn’t have a choice? My 3 kids under 5,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA-15) said on Twitter.
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Glenn Youngkin will be Virginia’s next governor, part of a near-complete Republican takeover of Virginia’s government. In 2022, Republicans will be governor, attorney general, and lieutenant governor. They will also likely hold a two-seat majority in the House of Delegates, although two close races may go to recounts. However, they will not hold the Senate, where Democrats have a 21-to-19 majority. Still, if one Democratic senator flips on a vote, that would create a tie that lieutenant governor-elect Winsome Sears would break. Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), who House Republicans nominated for Speaker, has said that Republicans do have a mandate, but he is also aware of the need to work across the aisle with the Senate.
All that gives political novice Youngkin strong Republican support to launch efforts to fulfill his campaign promises, but also sets him up for serious challenges to get his policies across the finish line. Still, Virginia governors have extensive power to set policy and funding priorities, and Youngkin will also have executive authority, which will allow him to fulfill some key promises without legislative buy-in.
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Destruction of the family has always been at the center of the collectivist project. In chapter two of The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels point out that the destruction of private property will never be complete until the “abolition [Aufhebung] of the family” is accomplished. The dream is perennial among snarling misanthropists. A couple of years ago, an interview in The Nation with a radical feminist explained that if you “want to dismantle capitalism” then you have to “abolish the family.”
It is worth keeping that in mind as the little drama of Merrick Garland versus the parents of America unfolds. I wrote about the attorney general’s absurd but troubling memorandum shortly after it was released on October 4. As all the world knows (but only some precincts of the world admit), Garland threatened to mobilize the entire police power of the state against parents. Why?
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After a judge told a school district it couldn’t require masks for students without a quarantine order, the district reported fewer COVID-19 cases, but it has faced other consequences.
It comes as a member of the Illinois Legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules said there is further evidence the Illinois State Board of Education can’t revoke a public or private school’s recognition status for failing to follow the governor’s mask mandate.
Attorney Thomas DeVore said since securing a temporary restraining order enjoining the Hillsboro school district from mandating masks on children on Sept. 17, cases have gone down.
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Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA) announced on Tuesday that they will hold nationwide protests against Democrat-led mandates for COVID-19 vaccines and masks.
The movement, entitled “Just Say No,” describes mandates as a power move, rather than for public health, and encourages individuals to not comply.
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The ACLU on Tuesday announced it is bringing a lawsuit against South Carolina over its mask policy.
The Palmetto State is one of seven states—along with Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah, and Florida— that have policies in place banning schools from having mask policies. Thirteen states, meanwhile, have laws that mandate masks in schools. The majority of states (30) allow school districts to determine their own mask policies.
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Republican lawmakers are talking about suing the University of Wisconsin over mask mandates and test requirements for those who haven’t received a coronavirus vaccine.
State Senator Steve Nass (R-WI) said he will ask permission to begin legal proceedings if the UW System doesn’t change its mind about coronavirus restrictions by next week.
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The back-to-school mask wars have been heating up for weeks, but the Biden administration just took them to a whole new level. On Wednesday, the president ordered the US Department of Education to use all available measures to prohibit states from banning school mask mandates.
In his remarks, Biden decried the contentious school board meetings that have occurred in districts across the country as parents argue for and against school mask mandates. He indicated that the “intimidation and the threats we’re seeing across the country,” from concerned citizens who oppose mask mandates “are wrong. They’re unacceptable.”
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President Biden is ratcheting up opposition to Republican governors blocking COVID mask mandates in schools, putting in charge the Education Department, which is raising the possibility of using its civil rights arm to oppose such policies.
Biden on Wednesday ordered Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to “assess all available tools” that can be used against states that fail to protect students amid surging coronavirus cases.
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Joe Biden’s Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, admitted to having spoken directly with faculty members from school districts that are defying the law and forcing mask mandates on their students, even if their states have banned such mandates, ABC News reports.
Cardona said that some such schools fear repercussions from the state governments if they continue defying the bans, including in Texas and Florida. “I have had the conversations with superintendents,” Cardona said in an interview on Tuesday. “And they have asked, if this goes in that direction, how do we get support? My message is, open the schools safely; we got your back.”
Cardona had previously sent a letter to several school districts in Florida promising that the federal government would fund the schools directly in the event that Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) follows through on his promise to suspend the salaries of all superintendents who force such mandates onto their students in defiance of state law.
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In Alan Parker’s 1982 film, “Pink Floyd—The Wall,” a young boy’s reality turns into a nightmare. It’s post-war England, and the boy—now in his teens and fatherless—sits in a classroom tuning out his bland math lesson and composing poems instead. The teacher—a pedagogical sadist—mocks the boy, and then proceeds to mete out some good, old-fashioned corporal punishment. The boy winces, and overwhelmed with anxiety begins to see his world as an unbearable nightmare of human oppression.
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As overreach in classrooms by progressive school administrators, nonprofits and the federal government has reached new heights, parents are stepping up to fight back.
Moms for Liberty, Informed Parents of California, EdFirstNC, NJ Parental Rights, No Left Turn in Education and Parents Against Critical Theory are just a few of the hundreds of new parent groups that have emerged across the country in recent months. Many parents have become education activists because of schools’ failure to bring children back into the classroom or their continued imposition of mask mandates.
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With the new school year less than a month away, politicians are not in agreement on whether Virginia state law requires school divisions to impose mask mandates for students, teachers and faculty.
Gov. Ralph Northam said current law requires school divisions to enforce universal mask requirements, but some Republican leaders have accused him of lying and falsely interpreting the law.
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Flight attendants’ and teachers’ unions whose members are on the front lines of disputed Covid safety protocols are ardent enforcers of mask mandates for the public but do not require their members to get vaccinated. Such inoculation is widely acknowledged as the most effective step in stopping the spread of the new Delta variant, while masking is viewed as of secondary importance, and many are highly skeptical of its effectiveness and critical of its inconvenience.
As the Association of Flight Attendants continues to urge federal authorities to allow flight attendants to police passengers for masking – a policy that has led to fisticuffs on some flights – the union has struck an agreement with at least one airline, United, to allow unvaccinated members to fly. American Airlines and Southwest Air say they also do not require their flight attendants or other employees to vaccinate. Flight attendants for both airlines are unionized.
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Last March, I followed the CDC’s advice and got fully vaccinated against COVID-19. I did so more out of a sense of civic duty than any actual fear that I might contract the virus. It was just an easy and scientifically sound way to help slow its spread. Naturally, I was delighted when the CDC finally announced that fully vaccinated people could safely participate in indoor and outdoor activities without wearing inconvenient and clinically useless face masks. Now, the CDC has reversed itself and issued new guidance telling 163.6 million fully vaccinated Americans to put our masks back on. Sorry, no sale.
First, the CDC published no data supporting its bizarre reversal. The Washington Post reports: “In the text of the updated masking guidance, the agency merely cited ‘CDC COVID-19 Response Team, unpublished data, 2021.’” Moreover, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is struggling to produce a plausible explanation. She claimed without evidence on ABC News that “new science” has emerged showing that fully vaccinated people should be masking.
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Democrat and Republican governors alike are promising not to implement new mask mandates as COVID-19 cases rise again.
“All Virginians should consider wearing a mask in public indoor settings where there is increased risk of [COVID-19] transmission, as the new [CDC] guidance recommends. This is not a requirement, but a recommendation,” Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said Thursday on Twitter.
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School districts across the country are beginning to impose mask mandates for all students and staff this fall. Officials in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, DC declared last week that everyone in school buildings will be required to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status.
These school districts are going beyond current CDC guidelines, which recommend masking for unvaccinated students and staff only. Instead, they seem to be embracing the masking stance of the American Academy of Pediatrics which announced last week that all students over age two, as well as staff, should wear masks at school even if they are vaccinated.
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