Author Archives: Dana Pico

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A cure worse than the disease

My good friend Donald Douglas has, Alas! cut back on his posting, but he did have this one important pass-it-on post!

Public Schools Are Losing Their Captive Audience of Children

Posted by AmPowerBlog 10:33 AM

At Reason.

But see this, from L.A.T, a couple of weeks ago, “L.A. Unified will not give Fs this semester and instead give students a second chance to pass.”

And this passage especially is killing me, about the push-back against the “no fail” policy:

In April, L.A. Unified prohibited failing grades for the spring semester and also determined that no student’s grade would be lower than it was on March 13, the final day of on-campus instruction. At the time, many teachers and some principals complained that the policy undermined student motivation and some reported a subsequent drop-off in student effort. 

Stocks surge. Retail rises. Unemployment continues to decline. Post-election markets set record highs while online shopping contributed to recovery. How did this month fare overall? 

Such concerns resurfaced Monday during a faculty meeting at a high school in the San Fernando Valley, according to an English teacher who did not wish to be identified because she was not authorized to speak.

“Yes, it’s COVID time,” the teacher said. “But this soft bigotry of low expectations — including us being banned from demanding students ever comment with their voices or actually show themselves on camera during Zoom — will indeed help our low-income students stay on the bottom of the pile of learning.”

A high school principal from a different campus was more supportive. Given the unprecedented crisis, the principal said, students who earn A’s and B’s should get to keep them but that the only other grade handed out should be a pass. This principal — who also was not authorized to comment — requested anonymity…

Astonishing, really.

Notice how everybody speaks off the record, obviously so they won’t face the guillotine.

There have been plenty of stories about students falling behind during the ‘remote instruction’ pushed by COVID-19:

Schools confront ‘off the rails’ numbers of failing grades

by Carolyn Thompson, Associated Press | December 6, 2020

The first report cards of the school year are arriving with many more Fs than usual in a dismal sign of the struggles students are experiencing with distance learning.

School districts from coast to coast have reported the number of students failing classes has risen by as many as two or three times — with English language learners and disabled and disadvantaged students suffering the most.

“It was completely off the rails from what is normal for us, and that was obviously very alarming,” said Erik Jespersen, principal of Oregon’s McNary High School, where 38% of grades in late October were failing, compared with 8% in normal times.

Educators see a number of factors at play: Students learning from home skip assignments — or school altogether. Internet access is limited or inconsistent, making it difficult to complete and upload assignments. And teachers who don’t see their students in person have fewer ways to pick up on who is falling behind, especially with many keeping their cameras off during Zoom sessions.

Well, color me shocked! Many students are keeping their cameras off during Zoom sessions? When a 9-year-old Louisiana student was suspended after a teacher reported seeing a gun in the boy’s bedroom during a virtual class, yeah, I can see why some families might choose not to have the cameras on. The school board refused to remove the idiotic suspension from his record.

There could be other reasons as well. Perhaps a student is still in his pajamas, or his hair is all funky looking because he hadn’t showered that morning. Given that the students seeing increased failing grades have been ‘disproportionately’ poor, maybe, just maybe, the students are living in homes where their rooms don’t look very good. Would a fourth or seventh grader be embarrassed if his bedroom had peeling paint or wallpaper? Yeah, I’d guess so.

So, what do we have? Students receiving twice and thrice as many failing grades, in schools that haven’t banned failure:

The increase in failing grades has been seen in districts of all sizes around the country.

At Jespersen’s school in the Salem-Keizer Public School district, hundreds of students initially had not just Fs, but grade scores of 0.0%, indicating they simply were not participating in school at all. In New Mexico, more than 40 percent of middle and high school students were failing at least one class as of late October. In Houston, 42% of students received at least one F in the first grading period of the year. Nearly 40% of grades for high school students in St. Paul, Minnesota, were Fs, double the amount in a typical year.

Yet teachers, and their unions, have been protesting plans to return to in-classroom instruction.

We have, of course, noted Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) forcing both public and private schools to close to in-class instruction through at least January 4, 2021, and possibly beyond.

Let me be clear about this: students are losing an entire year of education due to the government’s response to COVID-19. In Kentucky, Governor Beshear has prioritized vaccine for teachers, which would “give the school district ‘a path’ to return to in-person learning for the first time since the pandemic began in March,” but even that depends upon when the teachers could get the immunizations. The Centers for Disease Control noted that:

All but one of the COVID-19 vaccines that are currently in Phase 3 clinical trials in the United States use two shots. The first shot starts building protection. A second shot a few weeks later is needed to get the most protection the vaccine has to offer.

And that:

It typically takes a few weeks for the body to produce T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes after vaccination. Therefore, it is possible that a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or just after vaccination and then get sick because the vaccine did not have enough time to provide protection.

How long between the initial shot and the booster?

Both the Moderna and the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines require two shots: a priming dose, followed by a booster shot. The interval between Moderna doses is 28 days; for the Pfizer vaccine, it’s 21 days.

So, if teachers get the initial shot on January 4th, they wouldn’t receive the booster shot until January 25th with the Pfizer vaccine, and February 1st for the Moderna. But there’s more:

The Pfizer vaccine showed efficacy of 95% at preventing symptomatic Covid infection, measured starting from seven days after the second dose was administered. The vaccine appeared to be more or less equally protective across age groups and racial and ethnic groups.

The Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19, measured starting from 14 days after the second dose. The vaccine’s efficacy appeared to be slightly lower in people 65 and older, but during a presentation to the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee the company explained that the numbers could have been influenced by the fact there were few cases in that age group in the trial. The vaccine appeared to be equally effective across different ethnic and racial groups.

So, now we’re up to February 1st before those receiving the Phizer vaccine are protected, and February 15th with the Moderna. That’s another entire month of in-person classes missed. Will Governor Beshear, or other state Governors around the country keep schools closed until then?

You can count on one thing: that’s what the teachers’ unions will want!

Both vaccines seemed to reduce the risk of severe Covid disease. It’s not yet known if either prevents asymptomatic infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Nor is it known if vaccinated people can transmit the virus if they do become infected but don’t show symptoms.

There is a double-edged sword here. Teachers who are immunized might still carry the virus, and be able to transmit it; no one knows if this is the case yet. The Herald-Leader story noted that:

According to information from the state, (Fayette district spokeswoman Lisa) Deffendall said, “all district employees will be eligible for vaccination; contractors who don’t have direct contact with students are not eligible. Only those on the roster will be eligible for vaccination during the educator distribution period due to the limited availability of the vaccine.”

That means that district employees could pass on the virus to contractors, even if those contractors do not have contact with students.

An important point: none of the vaccines have finished testing on, and been approved for, children. The vaccines might protect the teachers and other school employees, but they aren’t going to protect the students, and that means they won’t stop the virus from being transmitted from home to home.

If you believe that the various Governors have been right, and that the virus is so serious that the schools must be closed to in person instruction, there’s no way we can expect Governors not to keep the schools closed.

Anthony Fauci, the grossly overhyped director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, claimed that even with the vaccines, if the coming vaccination campaign goes well, we could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and “normality that is close to where we were before” by the end of 2021.

(He) said on Wednesday (December 9, 2020) that that estimate is dependent on significant numbers of Americans being willing to be inoculated with one of several vaccines in various stages of development. If 75 percent to 80 percent of Americans are vaccinated in broad-based campaigns likely to start in the second quarter of next year, then the U.S. should reach the herd immunity threshold months later. If vaccination levels are significantly lower, 40 percent to 50 percent, Fauci said, it could take a very long time to reach that level of protection.

“Let’s say we get 75 percent, 80 percent of the population vaccinated,” Fauci said. “If we do that, if we do it efficiently enough over the second quarter of 2021, by the time we get to the end of the summer, i.e., the third quarter, we may actually have enough herd immunity protecting our society that as we get to the end of 2021, we can approach very much some degree of normality that is close to where we were before.”

We’re talking well over a year since this started, well after the end of the 2020-21 school year. The end of the 2019-20 school year was ruined, and the guy to whom so many decision-takers listen is warning that this entire school year might be shot as well.

At some point it needs to be asked: is the cure worse than the disease? At least a year of real education will have been lost, and possibly more, to go along with the millions and millions of people thrown out of work and hundreds of businesses which have been bankrupted by our reaction to this virus.

Our constitutional rights to freedom of peaceable assembly have been trashed, our right to freely exercise our religious beliefs have been trampled upon, our people have been prohibited from attending weddings and funerals and some Governors have even tried to ban Thanksgiving and Christmas family dinners.

Human beings are social animals; we need social contact, we need to interact with other people; that’s why solitary confinement in prisons is such an effective, and awful, punishment. But Our Betters have decided that isolation, that solitary confinement — remember: many people do live alone — is part of the solution to COVID-19. In essence, state Governors have decided that the way to save human lives is to not let us be human beings.

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Mitch McConnell to allow Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees a vote He said he will treat the nominees better than Chuck Schumer treated President Trump's

Perhaps Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) greatest claim to fame was his preventing President Barack Obama from filling the Supreme Court seat previously held by Antonin Scalia by refusing to allow committee hearings or a floor vote on Merrick Garland, the ‘stealth’ moderate whom the President had nominated. Senator McConnell kept that seat vacant until Donald Trump was in office, and the seat went to much more conservative Neil Gorsuch.

The Democrats waxed wroth, and tried to filibuster Judge Gorsuch’s nomination, but that was hardly the first time they tried it: they also filibustered the nomination of Samuel Alito, and though there was no filibuster attempt against Clarence Thomas, his nomination squeaked through by a bare 52-48 margin. Other than Chief Justice John Roberts, who received 22 negative votes, the Democrats have made a significant effort to block every Supreme Court Justice appointed by a Republican President who is currently sitting on the Court: filibustering Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed by a bare 50-48 vote and Amy Coney Barrett was filibustered as well, and confirmed 52-28 with all Democrats voting against her.

In contrast, Sonia Sotomayor was easily confirmed, including nine Republican votes, 68-31, and Elena Kagan had five GOP votes on her way to a 63-37 confirmation vote.

President Trump’s cabinet nominations also received heavy Democratic opposition, and had the Democrats had the Senate majority, they’d probably all have been rejected.

So, it was with some surprise that I read that Senator McConnell was going to allow floor votes on the incoming President’s cabinet nominations:

McConnell says he will allow Biden’s Cabinet nominees a hearing

Max Berley, Bloomberg News | December 21, 2020

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he will allow President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees to get consideration by the upper chamber.

Biden’s nominees “aren’t all going to pass on a voice vote, and they aren’t all going to make it, but I will put them on the floor,” McConnell said in an interview with Scott Jennings, a conservative commentator, published Monday in the Louisville Courier-Journal in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky.

In the interview conducted last week, McConnell said he didn’t intend to “bring the administration to its knees” the way he said that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., did by requiring cloture votes for many of President Donald Trump’s nominees to overcome filibusters.

There’s more at the original, but let’s face facts: it doesn’t matter whom Joe Biden nominates, they’re all going to be purveyors of bad policies. Reject one, and someone else just as bad will replace him.

There is a simple tactic the GOP could use to signal disapproval of the incoming President and his policies: Republican Senators could vote “Present” on confirmation of all but the worst of the worst, which would not block the nominees from confirmation but which would not signal approval either.

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Perhaps there would be more Catholics in the pews if we had more Catholics in the priesthood

There’s a significant debate among the Catholic faithful concerning whether former Vice President Joe Biden, who claims to be a life-long Catholic, but supports an unlimited abortion license, should be given the eucharist if he approaches for communion.

Well the Reverend Mark R. Hession, now 62, delivered the homily at the late Senator Edward M Kennedy’s (D-MA) funeral Mass, and said that he was the Kennedy family’s pastor on Cape Cod. I’m surprised that they didn’t make him a monsignor for that!

Priest who gave homily at pro-abort Ted Kennedy’s funeral charged with rape, indecent assault of a child

In 2009, the Boston Globe dubbed Hession the Kennedys’ ‘family priest on Cape Cod.’ During his homily at Senator Kennedy’s funeral, Hession emphasized that he had been the deceased’s pastor.

By Dorothy Cummings McLean | Friday, December 18, 2020 | 9:47 AM EST

BARNSTABLE, Massachusetts, December 18, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic priest who gave the homily at pro-abortion Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral has been indicted for rape and indecent assault on a child.

Father Mark R. Hession, 62, a priest of the Fall River Diocese and the former pastor of Our Lady of Victory in Centerville, MA, where Kennedy’s Cape Cod funeral was held, was the subject of a “secret” grand jury indictment in Barnstable last Friday, Hyannis News reported. The full charges were two counts of rape, one count of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14, and one count of witness intimidation.

A statement from the Fall River Diocese underscored that Hession has been “suspended from actively priestly ministry since 2019” and thus has not been able “to present himself as a priest in public settings.”

According to NBC Boston Channel 10, Hession was put on leave after complaints by some adult parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Seekonk that he had sent them “inappropriate communications.” Hession left the parish in 2018 after it was revealed that he had used funds from its budget to fund personal expenses.

There’s more at the original. But this good priest, who said of Senator Kennedy, “My vision, like yours, can’t encompass the totality of his life. My memories seen through the lens of a Catholic parish priest are about how one person, one man, a husband, a father, a public figure, a Catholic, and a citizen, tried to meet the tests of the kingdom of Matthew’s gospel,” was (allegedly) raping children under 14, and (allegedly) a thief as well.

None of the articles I found on this story noted whether Fr Hession was molesting boys or girls, but the John Jay Report studying sexual abuse by Catholic clergy between 1950 and 2002 found that 81% of the victims were boys.

So, what does it say that Senator Kennedy’s pastor, who stated that he was “confident” that the late Senator had entered heaven, who was at least willing to look the other way concerning the Senators open and flagrant support of abortion, appears to himself have been less than a paragon of virtue himself?

One wouldn’t have expected Fr Hession to speak ill of the dead at a funeral Mass, so that is, in one way, a bit less than strong evidence. But if Fr Hession ever attempted to counsel his parishioner on his views of, and Senatorial votes for, abortion, we do not know of it. If the Distinguished Gentleman from Massachusetts had ever been denied communion by his parish priest, we’d certainly have heard that; it would have been huge news.[1]Thomas Tobin, the Bishop of Providence, requested then-Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), Edward Kenney’s son, to stop presenting himself for communion due to his support for abortion.

I recently learned that my previous parish, St Joseph’s in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, has been consolidated with Immaculate Conception parish, in the tourist trap section of town. St Joseph’s, with a church which would seat over 500 parishioners, usually had around 100 on Sundays, but the Diocese of Allentown apparently saw the two parishes as not serving enough parishioners each, and consolidated the parishes. St Joseph’s Regional Academy, the parochial school, was closed down in 2018.

How much, I have to ask, is due to declining numbers of active Catholics, and how much is that decline due to a Church which has tolerated homosexual activist priests, and priests who happily present the Host to vigorously pro-abortion politicians?

Is it possible, just possible, that the Catholic Church in the United States would see more actual Catholics in the pews if they had more actual Catholics serving as priests?

References

References
↑1 Thomas Tobin, the Bishop of Providence, requested then-Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), Edward Kenney’s son, to stop presenting himself for communion due to his support for abortion.
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Conservative school administrators forced to resign over social media posts The only shocking thing is that The Philadelphia Inquirer printed the story

William F Buckley, Jr, famously said, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” The Pico Corollary to that would be that where liberals get concentrated into greater numbers, they channel their offense into actions against those with other views. And there are no more concentrated pockets of liberalism than in our public education systems. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

School administrators say they were forced to resign over conservative Facebook posts

by Maddie Hanna | December 18, 2020 | 6:36 PM EST

Two former administrators at Montgomery County public schools are suing their school districts, alleging that they were illegally forced out of their jobs over Facebook posts criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement and Democratic politicians.

Ashley Bennett — a former special education supervisor at the North Penn School District who appeared Thursday on Tucker Carlson Tonight — and Amy Sacks, a former elementary school principal in the Perkiomen Valley School District, said the districts violated their First Amendment rights, retaliating against them for comments made on their personal Facebook pages.

In Bennett’s case, she said she was forced to resign after a June 24 post that criticized Black Lives Matter, in the wake of national protests over the police killing of George Floyd. “I’m just trying to figure out WHICH black lives matter,” said the post, which someone else wrote but Bennett shared. “It can’t be the unborn black babies — they are destroyed without a second thought.” The post accused the movement of harming Black police officers, and media outlets of ignoring “black on black violence.”

I’m not a teacher or education professional, but I’ve certainly said the same things. The outrage over the killings of George Floyd, a convicted felon with a history of armed robbery and drug use, who was high on fentanyl and methamphetamines when caught passing counterfeit money generated a summer of Mostly Peaceful Protests™, and the left fêted Mr Floyd as though he was some kind of saint, when he was nothing but a criminal and a deadbeat dad. The Professionally Offended™ were outraged when two Philadelphia Police officers shot and killed Walter Wallace, even though body cam footage clearly showed the mentally unstable Mr Wallace approaching them with a raised knife. More Mostly Peaceful Protests™ occurred, and the story was in the Inquirer for days.[1]A site search for Walter Wallace returned 94 articles in the Inquirer.

Yet, just last week, the Inquirer ran an article telling us the names of the then 466 people murdered in the City of Brotherly Love,[2]In the seven days since that article was published, that number has increased by ten, to 476. because nobody other than their families and friends knew about them. Helen Ubiñas wrote:

The last time we published the names of those lost to gun violence, in early July, nearly 200 people had been fatally shot in the city.

Just weeks before the end of 2020, that number doubled. More than 400 people gunned down.

By the time you read this, there will only be more.

Even in a “normal” year, most of their stories would never be told.

At best they’d be reduced to a handful of lines in a media alert:

“A 21-year-old Black male was shot one time in the head. He was transported to Temple University Hospital and was pronounced at 8:12 p.m. The scene is being held, no weapon recovered and no arrest.”

That’s it. An entire life ending in a paragraph that may never make the daily newspaper.

Realistically speaking, a lot of the victims didn’t even get that much of a blurb.

Back to the original story:

While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that public employees can express opinions on matters of public concern — in 1968 upholding Illinois public schoolteacher Marvin Pickering’s right to criticize his school board’s spending on athletics in a letter to the editor — North Penn argued that case might not apply to Bennett’s post.[3]Marvin Pickering v Board of Education of Township High School District 205, 391 U.S. 563 (1968).

“There is no clearly established body of case law as to whether the Pickering test shields from censure a teacher’s social media post dismissing Black Lives Matter as nothing more than an expression of hate for the United States President, denying the existence of systemic racism, and invoking ‘destroyed black babies’ and ‘black on black crime,’ ” the district said in the filing.

Note that the school district, in its legal filing, cites “the existence of systemic racism” as a given, as though it is not a subject up for debate. “(I)nvoking ‘destroyed black babies’ and ‘black on black crime’” is apparently an actionable offense, as though “black on black crime” isn’t a serious issue, and as though black women having abortions at nearly five times the rate white women do is not the truth.

I have said it before: We need to stop pretending that #BlackLivesMatter, because in the City of Brotherly Love, it’s very apparent that they don’t.

In Pickering, the appellant was fired for statements the school board claimed were detrimental to the functioning of the school system itself, namely a letter to the editor arguing against a tax increase for the schools. In the cases at hand, the statements made on social media had nothing to do with the operation of the schools, but were comments on the general political questions of the day, during a very political year. Were these private schools, then yes, those schools would have every right to fire the school administrators, because the First Amendment protects Americans against government action. The schools which went after Ashley Bennett and Amy Sacks were public schools, which are unquestionably part of the government.[4]In Pennsylvania, school districts have independent taxing authority, as fifteen years of my property tax bills unfortunately reflected.

While both cases were originally filed separately in state courts, in Montgomery County and Philadelphia, they have been consolidated and are now filed in federal court. This should probably be a good thing, but only time will tell that.
_____________________________________
Cross-posted on RedState.

References

References
↑1 A site search for Walter Wallace returned 94 articles in the Inquirer.
↑2 In the seven days since that article was published, that number has increased by ten, to 476.
↑3 Marvin Pickering v Board of Education of Township High School District 205, 391 U.S. 563 (1968).
↑4 In Pennsylvania, school districts have independent taxing authority, as fifteen years of my property tax bills unfortunately reflected.
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Rights delayed are rights denied — again!

As I noted in Rights delayed are rights denied, Governor Andy Beshear’s executive order closing all public and private Kindergarten through 12th grade schools had been expeditiously appealed, but the Supreme Court sat on the case. Now, in Danville Christian Academy v Beshear, the Court did just as I guessed it would: it let the case go moot.

On November 18, the Governor of Kentucky issued a temporary school-closing Order that effectively closes K–12 schools for in-person instruction until and through the upcoming holiday break, which starts Friday, December 18, for many Kentucky schools. All schools in Kentucky may reopen after the holiday break, on January 4. . . . .

The Governor’s school-closing Order effectively expires this week or shortly thereafter, and there is no indication that it will be renewed.

Uhhh, yes, there is! Governor Beshear has already ‘recommended’ that schools delay opening another week, until January 11th, and while he did not make that an order, quite possibly because he knew it would impact the case and it contradicted his own Court filing, he is now free to make it an order.

Under all of the circumstances, especially the timing and the impending expiration of the Order, we deny the application without prejudice to the applicants or other parties seeking a new preliminary injunction if the Governor issues a school-closing order that applies in the new year.

In other words, the Court would entertain a new case, should the Governor issue another executive order, but all of that takes time, and money. With Christmas break about to start, the Governor could easily wait until Saturday, January 2nd, to issue another executive order. Since the Sixth Circuit’s order is the current precedent, a trial judge would have to deny another request for a stay, then it be appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which would almost certainly rule the same way, followed by an application to the Supreme Court, and how many weeks more would the free exercise of religion and freedom of assembly be denied to the people of the Bluegrass State?

In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito noted that the delay was not the fault of the appellants:

(I)n my judgment, it is unfair to deny relief on this ground since this timing is in no way the applicants’ fault. They filed this action on November 20, 2020, just two days after the issuance of the Governor’s executive order. And when, on November 29, the Sixth Circuit granted a stay of the order that would have allowed classes to resume, the applicants sought relief in this Court just two days later, on December 1. It is hard to see how they could have proceeded more expeditiously.

Justice Neil Gorsuch also dissented:

Nor should a Governor be able to evade judicial review by issuing short-term edicts and then urging us to overlook their problems only because one edict is about to expire while the next has yet to arrive. Come January 4, a new school semester will be about to start, and the Governor has expressly told us that he reserves the right to issue more decrees like these if and when religious schools try to resume holding classes. Rather than telling the parties to renew their fight in a month, asking the Sixth Circuit to resolve the case now, under accurate legal rules, would be better for everyone—from the parents who might have to miss work and stay home should decrees like these be upheld, to the state public health officials who might have to plan for school if they are not.

Courts have a broader equity at stake here too. In their struggle to respond to the current pandemic, executive officials have sometimes treated constitutional rights with suspicion. In Kentucky, state troopers seeking to enforce gubernatorial orders even reprimanded and recorded the license plate numbers of worshippers who attended an Easter church service, some of whom were merely sitting in their cars listening to the service over a loudspeaker.

Recently, this Court made clear it would no longer tolerate such departures from the Constitution. We did so in a case where the challenged edict had arguably expired, explaining that our action remained appropriate given the Governor’s claim that he could revive his unconstitutional decree anytime. That was the proper course there, as I believe it is here. I would not leave in place yet another potentially unconstitutional decree, even for the next few weeks.

For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. I would grant the application, vacate the Sixth Circuit’s stay, and remand the matter for further consideration under the proper legal standards.

As Justice Gorsuch noted, the Court could have vacated the Sixth Circuit’s stay, and then the expiration of the Governor’s order would have been forced to stay expired. If the Governor wanted to close religious schools again, he’d have to go at it differently.

I will admit it: I had higher hopes for Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh and Barrett on this case.

Of course, the vast majority of students in the Commonwealth attend the public schools, over which the Governor indisputably has authority. If the Governor wanted to close down the public schools, he could do so. Since it was only the religious private schools seeking relief, the Governor’s order would also apply to secular private schools.

As I wrote previously, I do not trust Governor Beshear: with the Supreme Court having dismissed Danville Christian Academy’s case as moot, I have very little doubt that Mr Beshear will once again enact executive orders restricting religious private schools. He has already indicated, as noted above, that he believes the schools should stay closed yet another week, and he could issue an order to that effect without any fear that the Supreme Court would invalidate it, because of the time factor.

I am hoping that the General Assembly, which will begin the next session in January with Republicans holding veto-proof majorities in both chambers, will amend KRS 39A to greatly limit the Governor’s ’emergency powers’ in a way which will both protect all of our constitutional rights from such orders and limit what executive authority he has to issue such orders to a brief time, requiring consent from the legislature for any extensions.
_______________________________________
Cross-posted on RedState.

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Well, wahhh!

A few articles in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer caught my eye. In the first, it seems that college professors in the Keystone State are having a tough time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Educators hurt when their students are hurting’: College faculty experience rising rates of stress, burnout due to COVID-19

by Bethany Ao | December 16, 2020 | 5:00 AM EST

Donald Wargo, an associate professor of economics at Temple University, in his home office in Radnor. Photo by Jessica Griffin, Philadelphia Inquirer staff photographer. Click to enlarge.

When Temple University transitioned from in-person classes to virtual in the spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Wargo knew immediately that he had to reassess his goals for what he wanted his students to accomplish.

As virtual classes continued into the fall, Wargo, an associate professor of economics, tried to capture the atmosphere of an in-person classroom to the best of his ability — using icebreaker questions at the beginning of the semester to engage freshmen and assigning students to Zoom breakout rooms for small discussions. But it has been difficult to recreate that learning environment, he said.

“It’s our job to get students to learn,” said Wargo, who also serves on the executive board of Temple’s American Association of University Professors chapter. “And when our students are stressed from other things like social isolation or living at home that interfere with their learning, we are stressed.”

While the early days of the pandemic were undoubtedly hard for college faculty members as they dealt with campus closings and uncertainty about the fall semester, research shows that burnout rates and anxiety are still increasing 10 months later due to worsening student mental health and increasing fears of job loss.

There’s more at the original.

I do not know Professor Wargo’s salary, but, according to Glassdoor:

The typical Temple University Professor salary is $156,901. Professor salaries at Temple University can range from $137,463 – $175,610. This estimate is based upon 5 Temple University Professor salary report(s) provided by employees or estimated based upon statistical methods. When factoring in bonuses and additional compensation, a Professor at Temple University can expect to make an average total pay of $156,901.

While I normally don’t include photos from the Inquirer, because I try to minimize content to avoid plagiarism concerns, I did in this article. The photo shows Dr Wargo, in his home office in Radnor, a ‘Mail Line’ suburb of Philadelphia. The photo, taken from the outside, shows Dr Wargo in what appears to be a nice, glassed in sunroom, working remotely from his home. While I don’t know his address, and would not publish it if I did, and do not know what the estimated value of his home is, according to realtor.com, there are currently 160 homes for sale there, with a median listing price of $797,500. Radnor has a recent median average sale price of $916,500.

The area isn’t exactly poor.

Professors aren’t exactly underpaid, and are normally considered among the elites of our society, and, yes, there have been some job losses:

In addition to student mental health issues, a number of colleges and universities around the country have announced staff cuts and layoffs as a result of COVID-19. In October, five universities in Pennsylvania’s state system announced that they would lay off more than 100 full-time faculty. In September, Rutgers University eliminated dozens of adjunct positions, citing “unprecedented pandemic-related economic pressures.”

But, try as I might, my sympathy for the elites is somewhat limited by other news:

Retail sales fell 1.1% in November, biggest drop in seven months

by Joseph Pisani, Associated Press | December 16, 2020 | 11:20 AM EST

NEW YORK — Americans held back on spending during the start of the holiday shopping season, a troubling sign for retailers and the state of the U.S. economy.

U.S. retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 1.1% in November, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. It was the biggest drop in seven months, and a steeper decline than Wall Street analysts had expected.

The report points to a weak start to the all-important holiday shopping season, which can usually account for a quarter or more of a retailer’s annual sales. It is also another sign that the pandemic is slowing the U.S. economy as retailers face tighter restrictions and people stay away from stores.

The Commerce Department on Wednesday also revised October’s report, saying that retail sales fell 0.1% that month, instead of rising 0.3% as it previously reported. Retailers had tried to get people to shop early, with Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart and others offering holiday deals in October.

There’s more at the original. But, imagine that: with a high unemployment rate, and all of the economic restrictions that governors like Tom Wolf (D-PA) have instituted to fight COVID-19, can anyone really be surprised? People living from paycheck-to-paycheck, in an economy in which government officials can simply order their jobs shut down, might be a little more conservative in their spending habits. And the people who have lost their jobs don’t have money to spend for Christmas, not when they are worried about putting food on the table and keeping the heat on during the winter.

Black Friday was also a bust. Typically one of the busiest shopping days of the season, shoppers mostly stayed home after health officials warned people not to shop in person, and retailers followed suit by putting their best deals online. Half as many people shopped inside stores this Black Friday than last year, according to retail data company Sensormatic Solutions.

I’m shocked, shocked! that people stayed home after the government told them it wasn’t safe to go to stores.

Gov. Wolf’s COVID-19 restrictions will decimate small businesses across the state | Opinion

Jennifer Stefano, For The Inquirer | December 16, 2020 | 9:15 AM EST

At Vecchia Osteria in Newtown, Bucks County, oversized Christmas balls hang from the ceiling and lighted garland frames each entry way. Dozens of tables sit empty, waiting for customers who won’t be coming. The only signs that the business is still open are three large, brown takeout bags under a framed portrait of actress Sophia Loren.

Owners Pasquale and Anna Palino and their young children immigrated from Italy in 1999. After a decade working the kitchens of Italian restaurants around Philadelphia, Pasquale opened Vecchia. Today, all five children, along with their two sons-in-law, work the business seven days a week. Earlier this year, they managed to survive the first round of Gov. Tom Wolf’s COVID-19 lockdowns. But the governor’s latest litany of restrictions — including a three-week indoor dining ban during the industry’s busiest time of year — threatens to destroy the American dream they spent a lifetime building.

“We are losing money every single day,” says Anna, a breast cancer survivor. The eatery, she points out, has lost not only regular, dine-in customers, but also income from holiday parties, catering, and gift cards sales that make the holiday season especially important for restaurants. The Palinos want to stop the virus from spreading, and say they follow every health rule. But they, like many, believe it is individuals taking personal responsibility, not government mandates, that will be required to stop the spread.

Pasquale and Anna have 30 employees who rely on them to earn a living. That’s why their family decided to keep paying all their employees and not to take any income for themselves. But how long can that last, they wonder?

There’s more at the original, but remember: those thirty restaurant employees are, if they are like the vast majority of restaurant employees, making at or near the minimum wage. They aren’t like Professor Wargo, nice and comfortable in his Radnor home, with, one would hope, some decent savings from his six-figure salary.

This is a lesson for the good professor and his colleagues. Yes, some of them are worried about their jobs, though relatively few have lost them. Rather, when colleges go virtual, it’s not the professors who lose their jobs, but the custodians who keep the buildings clean, the maintenance staff not needed because the buildings aren’t being used, the cooks and other service personnel in the cafeterias, where few people are now eating. Those are the people who were making far less than the professors, and those are the nameless ones who are losing their jobs. I have no idea how Dr Wargo, or any other individual professor voted, but what we do know is that college professors donated seven times more to Joe Biden than they did to President Trump. The elites, it would seem, wanted to vote for politicians who would put other people out of work.

For their own good, of course! The displaced workers might wind up out on the streets, homeless and jobless, but hey, they’ll be less likely to catch COVID, right?

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Some good news from the Supreme Court on Freedom of Religion But we still need more

I have frequently harped on written about Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) attack on religious freedom by closing down private religiously affiliated schools, and noted that the Supreme Court has still not acted upon Danville Christian Academy’s appeal of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Governor’s orders.

Danville Christian Academy’s case is facially different, because the Governor’s orders close down all schools, public and private, and are thus not treating the private or religious schools differently from the public ones, and that may be why the Supreme Court has not issued an injunction based on Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v Cuomo.

However, there is some good news from the Court today, as documented by Amy Howe in SCOTUSblog:

Justices revive religious groups’ attempts to block COVID-related restrictions in Colorado, New Jersey

by Amy Howe | Tuesday, December 15, 2020 | 3:21 PM EST

The Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed out a pair of lower-court rulings that had permitted states to enforce COVID-related restrictions at worship services. The two brief orders from the justices instruct the lower courts to take another look at religious groups’ challenges to restrictions in Colorado and New Jersey – and this time, the justices indicated, the lower courts should decide the challenges in light of the Supreme Court’s Nov. 25 ruling that lifted New York’s COVID-related limits on attendance at worship services.

Tuesday’s orders are further evidence of the broader impact of the New York ruling, which the justices have now invoked three times in three weeks to tell lower courts around the country that they should be more solicitous of religious groups seeking to worship without restrictions during the pandemic.

In the Colorado case, the justices threw out an Aug. 10 order by a federal district court that denied a request by High Plains Harvest Church, a small church in northern Colorado, to bar the state from enforcing capacity limits. Justice Elena Kagan dissented from Tuesday’s order, penning a brief opinion – joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor – in which she argued that the case was moot because Colorado has already lifted the limits at issue.

There’s much more detail at the original, but one thing is becoming increasingly clear: thanks to the replacement of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett, there is now a Supreme Court majority which strongly believes in freedom of religion, at least as far as activity in church is concerned. There may be less of that strong belief when it comes to religious schools.

Thanks to Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we now have a Supreme Court majority that actually believe in the Freedom of Religion.

As an update to my article noting that the Court’s inaction on the Danville Christian Academy case, while Governor Beshaer’s response included the claim that his order was “a time-limited executive order that is set to expire in just four weeks,” January 4th, he has now “recommended” that in-person classes not be resumed until January 11th. With the case about to go moot — the Christmas holidays will be beginning in less than a week, and regularly scheduled classes wouldn’t resume until January 4th anyway — the Governor has not yet made it an executive order, so, presumably, it would not change his filing in the case.

But I do not trust Governor Beshear: if the Supreme Court dismissed Danville Christian Academy’s case as moot, I have very little doubt that Mr Beshear would once again enact executive orders restricting religious private schools. I am hoping that the General Assembly, which will begin the next session in January with Republicans holding veto-proof majorities in both chambers, will amend KRS 39A to greatly limit the Governor’s ’emergency powers’ in a way which will both protect all of our constitutional rights from such orders and limit what executive authority he has to issue such orders to a brief time, requiring consent from the legislature for any extensions.

That is what the Republican leadership have promised. However, a Supreme Court decision that religious schools are also protected under the First Amendment would provide relief for religious schools across the nation, where action by the General Assembly would protect only Kentuckians.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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Using the Freedom of Speech and of the Press to condemn other people’s Freedom of Speech

My good friend William Tech’s website, The Pirate’s Cove, has as it’s blog tagline, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” That’s the important part of the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” What part of “no law” is so difficult to understand?

Well, some very good people in Minnesota are very upset that the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech and religion of people they despise. From The Washington Post:

Facing a First Amendment fight, a small Minnesota town allows a White supremacist church

By Kim Bellware | December 14, 2020 | 6:00 AM EST

The nation’s ascendant White supremacy movement and small-town bureaucracy collided in rural Minnesota last week when a city council vote over a zoning permit made the 273-person city of Murdock the latest First Amendment battleground.

The Murdock City Council voted 3-1 during a virtual meeting Wednesday to allow the Asatru Folk Assembly to turn the run-down church it purchased in July into its first “hof,” or gathering place, in the Midwest. The looming presence of the obscure Nordic folk religion, widely classified as a White supremacist hate group by extremism and religious experts, promoted months of pushback from concerned residents.

The group purchased a building, and were planning to use it for a legal purpose. The Mayor and City Council didn’t like it, but them not liking it did not mean the city government had any right to block a legal assembly.

Some, naturally, argue that the First Amendment should not cover such a group:

Murdock’s issue underscores the deficiencies with the First Amendment and exposes a lack of neutrality in who it really protects, argued Laura Beth Nielsen, who chairs the Sociology Department at Northwestern University and wrote the 2004 book “License to Harass: Law, Hierarchy and Offensive Public Speech.”

“Right now, every local government is broke trying to deal with coronavirus. The idea that you would arguably subject yourself to a costly lawsuit — what town would want to do that?” Nielsen said. “But letting these organizations flourish and take root is scary, especially if you’re the Black or the Jewish family in town.”

She said Murdock’s individual battle is taking place in a broader legal and social environment where, “in the universe of the First Amendment, White people tend to win.”

White people tend to win? Surely there was little more offensive speech than that of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who called Judaism a “gutter religion.” He was condemned for that, but not fined or imprisoned, because his speech, no matter how vile, is protected by the First Amendment. The Reverend Al Sharpton has uttered plenty of anti-white and anti-Semitic bovine feces, but his statements, too, have, and deserve to have, the protection of the First Amendment. I do not have to like Messrs Farrakhan and Sharpton to believe that they have freedom of speech just as much as I do.

There’s a bit of irony in all of this, because Professor Neilsen is exercising her freedom of speech and freedom of the press to complain that other people’s freedom of speech and of peaceable assembly is “scary.”

The city council in Murdock, Minn., voted December 9 to grant a permit that allows the Asatru Folk Assembly, which has been identified as a white supremacist group, to gather at an abandoned church it bought. (Renee Jones Schneider/AP)

There’s much more at the Post original, with statements by other people, but I want to point out the final two paragraphs:

Nielsen, the Northwestern sociologist, noted that cities routinely restrict the First Amendment over issues it prioritizes, such as anti-pandhandling ordinances or obscenity laws.

“Even though the First Amendment is supposed to operate in this neutral way, when you dig in, hate speech against racial minorities is protected; harassment of women is protected,” Nielsen said. “In the big picture, the First Amendment is reinforcing who already has power.”

span style=”font-family: Georgia;”>To be fair, there is no quotation from the good professor that she believes the First Amendment should somehow be restricted; whether she says anything like that in any of her books, I do not know. But I do know that restrictions on speech, were they allowed, could condemn my website, given that our published Stylebook is not supportive of homosexuality and does not accept ‘transgenderism.’ With the incoming Administration of Joe Biden, RedState, where I frequently cross-post, could be shut down by the government for the many articles there which claim that the Democrats engaged in massive fraud and stole a presidential election they did not legitimately win.[1]I would note here that none of my articles make that claim.

When freedom of speech or the press is limited, the ox which gets gored depends on just who has the power to gore it.

The First Amendment has been used to protect many things I do not like: the American Nazi Party’s march in heavily Jewish Skokie, Illinois, the Westboro Baptist Church’s protests at the funerals of American soldiers, in Snyder v Phelps (2011), or the flag burning case, Texas v Johnson (1989), but it was right to protect those offensive actions. The First Amendment protects The Washington Post’s right to print Professor Neilsen’s objections. There are many things I’d rather not see voiced or printed, but it would be far, far worse for the government to have the power to ban them.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

References

References
↑1 I would note here that none of my articles make that claim.
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Rights delayed are rights denied

We have thrice previously noted Governor Andy Beshear’s executive order closing all public and private Kindergarten through 12th grade schools, and Danville Christian Academy’s legal actions to enjoin enforcement of that order against private religious schools. While the private religious initially won, the Governor appealed to the Sixth Circuit, and the appellate court agreed with him, leaving the religious schools closed.

That was two weeks ago. An application for a stay was filed with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday, December 1st, and several subsequent motions have been filed, but today is Monday, December 14th, and the private religious schools’ constitutional rights have been held in abeyance for two full weeks now.

Two weeks, during Advent, a highly important time of the year for Christians. Being December 14th, there’s only a week of school left this year before closure for the Christmas holidays. If the Supreme Court does not act, immediately, there will be no operative decision from the Court on whether the Governor’s orders have violated our First Amendment rights to freedom of peaceable assembly and free exercise of religion, because the Governor’s order expires before school would normally resume in January. However, there is nothing currently preventing Mr Beshear from extending his executive order past January 4th.

The Governor claimed that his order was “a time-limited executive order that is set to expire in just four weeks,” as though it is somehow permissible to suspend our constitutional rights for a limited period, though he continues just two sentences later to say that he could, “if necessary,” extend the order beyond the current January 4, 2021, expiration of the executive order. The appellants responded that, even now, Mr Beshear is attempting “to lift the injunction prohibiting him from closing Kentucky’s houses of worship,” so that he can order churches closed as well. We have previously noted that the Governor wants all churches to be closed down, but the four Catholic bishops in Kentucky have decided to continue public worship.

Our authoritarian Governor just hates to be defied, and he’s trying to get the injunction in Maryville Baptist Church, Inc. v Beshear lifted so that he can order churches closed, as he did last spring.

COVID-19 is serious, and has been fatal in a small percentage of cases, but the threat to our Constitution and our rights is far, far greater, and the Supreme Court needs to slap down such attempts.

As we have previously noted, Republicans hold veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, and GOP leaders have stated that they intend to rein in the Governor’s emergency powers under KRS 39A, but, while that would be welcome, and should happen to prevent future abuse, the Supreme Court needs to say, and set the precedent, that our explicitly stated constitutional rights cannot be simply set aside because the government, any government claims to have a good reason to do so.