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Democrats Are Stubbornly Clinging to the Masking of Children
Townhall.com ^ | February 17, 2022 | Jenny Beth Martin

Posted on 02/17/2022 5:29:16 AM PST by Kaslin

All over the country last week, Democrat governors and mayors engaged in their own Olympic-level gymnastics to flip and twist their way to ending COVID-inspired mandates – except, oddly, in some states, mask mandates for children in school. Science has shown children to be the very least likely to become seriously infected, or to become hospitalized, or to die. The endless masking of children begs the question: What science are these Democrats following?

Science has shown masks are harmful to children’s mental and emotional well-being. Masks have contributed to learning loss and speech impediments – to say nothing of breathing problems.

With an ever-growing number of scientists and research papers demonstrating the harms caused by masks, what’s behind so many Democrats’ decisions to keep mask mandates in place for school children?

It turns out it isn’t science at all. It’s politics. What’s behind it is the teachers unions, that’s what.

The last ten days or so have seen a rush by Democrats from west coast to east, from California’s Gavin Newsom to New Jersey’s Phil Murphy and many in between, to dump mask mandates as fast as they can. Was it because of science? Yes, but not medical or health science. As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor of the Senate Monday, it was because of “political science” – that is, Democrats have concluded there is political peril ahead for those officeholders who were cheerleaders for the lockdowns and endless masking. Democrats are now scrambling as fast as they can not only to abandon these reckless and nonsensical policies, but to rewrite history and pretend they were never on that side of the argument in the first place.

Yet many Democrats are stubbornly clinging to the masking of children.

Democrat governors in New York, California, and Illinois – states with the three largest school districts in the country (New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) – all announced plans in recent days to terminate mask mandates for businesses and other indoor spaces, but said they would leave in place mask mandates for schools and licensed child-care centers.

Explaining her decision to maintain mask requirements in schools, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, “Kids are in a very concentrated setting. And also, adults can make their own decisions. Children still need adults to look out for their health.”

Implicit in her statement is that the adults who will make those decisions to look out for children’s health are not the children’s parents, but school administrators, teachers, officeholders – in other words, the self-designated “experts,” the very same people who got just about everything wrong during the lockdowns.

Hochul seems to pay as much attention to the science as she does to political trends. Parents don’t want to be treated as an adjunct to a so-called “expert” in the rearing of their children. (See: Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s stunning upset loss after saying, in essence, parents should take a back seat to the teachers unions.)

Worse, Hochul’s explanation sounds like an excuse, a diversion, because what she is really doing is deflecting attention from what she does not want to acknowledge as the real reason she and the other Democrat governors are dropping mask mandates everywhere other than schools – the demands of the teachers unions, the most powerful element in the modern Democratic Party base.

Appearing last week’s on one of the most important propaganda centers of the modern left – MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” – American Federation of Teachers union president Randi Weingarten was asked about unmasking children. She responded, “I am in favor of an off ramp on masks. The real issue becomes, is the spread low enough so that there’s no dissemination and transmission in schools?”

Zero transmission in schools? That’s Weingarten’s position? We can end the mask mandates for children when we achieve zero transmission in schools?

That’s simply absurd.

On the other hand, it’s helpful, in a way. It creates a very bright line distinction between belief systems – on the one hand, you can side with the teachers’ union chief who insists that children remain masked until we achieve the impossible, while on the other hand, you can side with everyone else who’s ready to recognize that the coronavirus is here to stay, and we’ll learn to live with it without harming our children by forcing them to wear masks in perpetuity.

Elections are about choices, and campaigns are about contrasts. Weingarten’s position creates a very clear contrast, that’s for sure. Will Democrats who want to win in the fall stand with Weingarten – or with the parents?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: children; maskmandate; masks; maskwearing
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1 posted on 02/17/2022 5:29:16 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
. Kathy Hochul said, “Kids are in a very concentrated settingCAMP

Needed fixing; no use leaving everyone guessing...

2 posted on 02/17/2022 5:34:37 AM PST by Migraine
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To: Kaslin

Almost no one wears masks here now in Texas Hill Country, just outside of Austin. Went to an RTB meeting Saturday morning on UT campus and about 13 people wore masks and about 100 didn’t. Probably the same people who wear masks often, due to cancer treatments and immune disorders, not covid. I loved seeing all those beautiful faces! Went to church last Sunday and not one mask. People were shaking hands, hugging. There was a Pot Luck Luncheon and everyone stayed and had a delicious meal and lively conversation. The pastor said they are not a political church but they plan to get involved in city politics (Leander Tx) because of the BLM and CRT and trans-fluid gender studies there in Kindergarten!


3 posted on 02/17/2022 5:35:21 AM PST by NEBO (If Joe Biden could carry a coherent conversation I'd suggest he go on Rogan to hash this out!)
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To: Kaslin

Democrats promised the so-called “teachers” they’d never have to work again. The abuse of the children is just part of that.


4 posted on 02/17/2022 5:41:27 AM PST by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: Kaslin

Like they cling onto every other bad policy theyve created...ever.


5 posted on 02/17/2022 5:45:15 AM PST by MrRelevant
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To: Empire_of_Liberty

The karens know it’s hard to make most grown men wear masks, but kids, they can bully kids into wearing masks. Learn to submit peasant! You have to start training your serfs when they’re young.


6 posted on 02/17/2022 5:47:41 AM PST by ozarker
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To: Kaslin

Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’

from George Bernard Shaw’s 1905 stage play Man and Superman.

One positive side effect of the Covid is that everyone can see that there are an alarming number of nuts infesting public education. The cure is to defund public schools. School choice is the vehicle.


7 posted on 02/17/2022 5:47:51 AM PST by DeplorablePaul (s)
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To: Kaslin

The Democrats are teaching the children how to be obedient to government.


8 posted on 02/17/2022 5:49:22 AM PST by Dan in Wichita
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To: Kaslin

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

Vladimir Lenin


9 posted on 02/17/2022 5:50:28 AM PST by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: Kaslin
FTA: "Democrats are now scrambling as fast as they can not only to abandon these reckless and nonsensical policies, but to rewrite history and pretend they were never on that side of the argument in the first place."
Just like how they pretend they were never the party of Jim Crow, how 'bout dat!
10 posted on 02/17/2022 5:50:44 AM PST by Impala64ssa (If a liar's pants really did catch on fire CBC, ABC, CNN and MSNBC would be more fun to watch)
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To: Kaslin

“What science are these Democrats following?”

The science of Karl Marx


11 posted on 02/17/2022 5:51:37 AM PST by xenia ("In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." George Orwell)
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To: DeplorablePaul

Your post reminded me of a mandatory course I took in high school in the 70s called “Americanism vs. Communism”.

Curious, I did a little research and sure enough just like I thought it was “canceled” back in the 80s (ironic right?).

Once again however according to this link my supergovernor Ron DeSantis strikes again!

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/09/mandatory-americanism-vs-communism.html


12 posted on 02/17/2022 5:58:36 AM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave)
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To: Kaslin
Weingarten’s position creates a very clear contrast, that’s for sure. Will Democrats who want to win in the fall stand with Weingarten – or with the parents?

It's on full display, Weingarten and the teachers unions own the Democrat Party lock stock and barrel and tell them what to do and when to do it. Teachers unions and the teachers under their spell are not focused on education as their #1 priority. Politics is #1, Benefits is #2, light work schedules is #3, job protections for life is #4, teaching kids is #5.

13 posted on 02/17/2022 6:22:39 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: Kaslin

https://www.yahoo.com/news/brand-toxic-dems-fear-extinction-052403735.html

Dems brand is so toxic in the small towns.


14 posted on 02/17/2022 6:31:41 AM PST by oneandfinished
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To: Kaslin

A Republican state legislature could pass a bill requiring state-funded teaching employees be masked in all indoor settings other than personal residences.

The teachers would scream bloody murder.


15 posted on 02/17/2022 6:32:01 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: Migraine
The masking of kids is about the continued use of fear to cow the public to accept the lie that kids not only need to be masked, but also need to be vaxxed.

Big Pharma desperately needs the kids vaxxed because when their emergency use authorization expires they will be exposed to litigation related to the enormous amount of debilitating and fatal reactions to their experimental poison. However, if their "vaccine" is deemed safe, effective and necessary for children they receive the same kind legal protection that had been provided by their EUA. It ain't about the science, it's about the $$$!!

16 posted on 02/17/2022 6:35:39 AM PST by McBuff (To be, rather than to seem)
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To: McBuff

That’s as good an explanatory theory as any; and it’s better than most.


17 posted on 02/17/2022 6:40:24 AM PST by Migraine
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To: Kaslin
Masking a child is abusing that child.

Notwithstanding their inability to act as decent, responsible adults because of their continuing irrational fear, their irretrievable ignorance and their visible cowardice and cruelty, that these people -- these school board members, these school administrators, these "teachers" -- continue to deliberately (and, with some of these individuals, the do so with a noticeable air of smugness, self-righteousness and even a touch of enjoyment) inflict physical pain and psychological damage on America's children.

Until the onset of public mass hysteria in 2020, how would our formerly moral, responsible, free society have dealt with people such as these who abuse, if not literally endanger children on a regular, often daily basis ... who are repeat offenders ... who are pathological, cruel child abusers? Where are the fathers who allow this -- in some cases, even encourage this repeated abuse of their children? Some do take action ... but far too many American parents ... far too many American women and "men" know it is happening and see that it is happening but do nothing to stop the abuse ... throughout more than two years of their children's lost childhood they do nothing.

It is disgusting.

18 posted on 02/17/2022 6:45:09 AM PST by glennaro (Do not live your life in irrational fear. Live unmasked, unvaxxed, untested; unbullied and unafraid.)
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To: Kaslin

Democrooks have one policy. You vill obey!


19 posted on 02/17/2022 7:08:27 AM PST by JayAr36 (Just watching the demise of America.)
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To: Migraine
That’s as good an explanatory theory as any; and it’s better than most.

It's a theory that Robert Kennedy, Jr has frequently expressed. I can't remember the name of the law he cites, but there is a law on the books which shields vaccine makers from litigation if their vaccine is deemed necessary for children.

20 posted on 02/17/2022 8:16:32 AM PST by McBuff (To be, rather than to seem)
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