Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 336 | Democrats' Lockdowns Do More Harm Than Good

Starting point is 00:00:09 Hey guys, happy Wednesday. Welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone has had a great week so far. We are going to talk about, once again, some of the craziness that is going on in our country and where we stand in the midst of it. Before we get started, I do want to remind you guys. I haven't talked about this in a long time. I had a book that came out back in August. You're not enough and that's okay escaping the toxic culture of self-love. And I am just so incredibly thankful. For all of you who have read it and who supported me, who sent me emails about it, who send me messages about it, it was such a labor of love for me. And then to have the support that I've had from so many of you has just met so much to me. Of course, all for the glory of God.

Starting point is 00:00:56 And I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have written it. If you were looking for a present to get for a woman in particular, it's really geared towards women in your family, whether it is a teenager, I would say 16 is about the age where the target demographic starts for this book and then upwards is as high as you can go in the age range. But if you are looking for a book to get your daughter, to get your sister, to get your friend, to get your mom or your aunts, whomever, then this could be a good option for you. You can go to alibethstocky.com slash book and you can find all of the places where it is available online. Of course, it might be available at your local library as well or your local bookstore or Barnes & Noble. But if that

Starting point is 00:01:47 sounds like something that you are interested in, then I would love for you to get the book. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's not about, it's not about reveling in our lack. It is not about hating ourselves. It is about realizing that our sufficiency, our identity comes from Christ, and that is actually so much more freeing than the self-empowerment mantras that we are weighed down with on a daily basis today. If you have already read the book, it would mean a lot. To me, if you left a five-star review on Amazon, if those, of course, are your true feelings about the book. And, you know, you can just give a brief sentence on why you like to the book and what it meant to you. But I would really appreciate that as well. Thank you guys so much,

Starting point is 00:02:34 again for your support in all of that. Okay, let's get into today's episode. So as you guys know, as the lockdowns are coming in a new wave throughout the country, people are more desperate than ever. Whereas I think that a few months ago at the beginning, we were all kind of willing to do our part and say, okay, this is going to be for a finite amount of time and we're willing to close down our business. We're willing to take a pay cut. We're willing to even be unemployed for a period of time because all of this is going to start back up. And surely the same government who told me to close my business isn't going to abandon me. But that's exactly what has happened to a lot of people in a lot of different states. Thankfully, some states are doing it correctly. They have tried to

Starting point is 00:03:17 balance mitigating the risk of the virus with mitigating the risk of people losing their livelihoods and their mental health deteriorating and kids being held back in their education. But other states just haven't done that so well. And people are crying. out for help. They're frustrated with the arbitrary nature of a lot of these regulations. They're frustrated with the hypocrisy of the leaders that they, a lot of them voted for in the name of compassion and the name of these politicians promising to care for their constituents. And so what you're seeing is a lot of protests, a lot of civil unrest right now, especially in places like New York and California. You've got small businesses. You've got restaurants and schools being

Starting point is 00:04:02 shut down, or restricted in the name of quelling the virus. But like I said, the restrictions are often arbitrary. They're not based on any real data. They're not based on any science that we know of. And the rules aren't abided by by the very people who are implementing them. And that is driving some people to, when I say madness, I don't mean that they're out of their minds, but just such rage-filled, justified, rage-filled, frustration. So in Southern California, people are getting so fed up with the COVID lockdowns and the politicians' hypocrisy that they are protesting in West Hollywood, a boutique called Kitsyn, Los Angeles, went viral last week, and I'll put the pictures up for those of you who are watching on

Starting point is 00:04:48 YouTube for posting pictures of Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom on their windows, declaring then the hypocrites of 2020. This week, the store owner invited the recall Gavin Newsom campaign to park their truck in front of the store to collect signatures. Now, I don't even know the political affiliations of the people who are running this boutique. But whether they're Republican or Democrat, they are frustrated by having their livelihoods stolen from them by the guy who was just caught dining maskless in close quarters inside with a bunch of his rich friends. a bougie restaurant called the French laundry. And Santa Monica, business owners and restaurant owners held a protest outside of the home of Los Angeles County supervisor Sheila Kuhl demanding she votes to undo the outdoor dining ban

Starting point is 00:05:40 she advocated for last week. The reason why they were really upset at Kuhl is because hours after she had voted for this ban, she then went to eat outdoors at her favorite restaurant before the ban went into a fact. And when reporters asked her about this, she said, oh, well, I felt bad for the restaurant, so I just wanted to support them. Meanwhile, she voted to make sure that they are shut down, the outdoor dining that has already been proven to be able to be done safely. She voted to make sure that that is closed down and a lot of these restaurants are going to go under. But after she voted for that, she went to go eat outside at her favorite restaurant. So here is a video

Starting point is 00:06:18 of protesters outside of her home. So, Now let me just say, let me say, these are peaceful protesters. They look like they are, you know, they're in order. I do not advocate. I do not advocate for protesting outside of people's homes. I do not advocate for intimidating public officials, even when we very much disagree with them. I mean, it is intimidation. You're saying that I know exactly where you live.

Starting point is 00:06:55 And if I want to do something to you, I can't. I think it's wrong when BLM does it. and when Antifa does it, when left-wing protesters do it, I thought it was wrong when people were harassing Mitch McConnell outside of his home. And I think that this is wrong as well. I think that there's nothing wrong with peaceful protesting. I think that that is a good First Amendment right, that people should be absolutely free to exercise, whether or not I agree with the content of the protest. This protest, of course, I agree with in a lot of ways.

Starting point is 00:07:22 And I completely sympathize with the frustration that these people are feeling, with the desperation that these people are feeling. Absolutely. So I support them in this endeavor. However, I just, as an aside, I do not think that it is the right tactic for us to intimidate public officials by standing outside of their private residents. I just do not think that is correct. I'm going to put up some photos of some signs that people were holding up while they,

Starting point is 00:07:52 while they were protesting. There is one woman in a mask, and she said, She has two columns on the sign, and one says open, indoor malls, salons, gyms, gyms, minigolf go-karting, and closed, outdoor dining, make it make sense. Then you've got another woman who is holding a sign. I have lost three jobs due to county closures. 700,000 jobs in the food industry have been lost. And so you can understand how people are very frustrated by the duplicitous nature of some of these regulations and how hard this is making their lives unnecessarily. let's remember that restaurant owners, that people who work in the service industry are willing to do whatever it takes to mitigate the risk of the virus as long as they can stay open and feed their families.

Starting point is 00:08:40 I mean, small business owners have more of an interest in making sure that people are not contracting the virus in their business than the state does. I mean, they are going to do everything they possibly can to make sure that their business, their store is not a source of COVID spread. So if that means only letting in one customer at a time, I'm sure they're willing to do that. If that means sanitizing constantly, if that means that people have to wear gloves and masks, I guarantee you, these small business owners are willing to do that as long as they can keep their doors open, as long as they can continue to feed their family. So we have decided somewhat arbitrarily that the lives of people who get COVID and die from COVID, that they matter more than the lives that are lost due to depression and suicide that was

Starting point is 00:09:27 induced either by loneliness and isolation and or financial calamity. I just happen to think that both of those lives matter and that it is the job of the leader to make sure that you are balancing those two risks and that you are upholding the value of those two lives. I want to show you a clip that points out so perfectly the hippocally. of these regulations that leaders in places like California have implemented and how it is hurting the working class, how it is hurting regular people. The protests that I just showed you the clipstep, they were organized by a lady named Angela Marston. She's the owner of the Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill. Her restaurant was, was shut down despite the steps that she took to set up

Starting point is 00:10:15 safe outdoor dining. I mean, she spent a lot of money making sure that. that she was matching the previous regulations to ensure that her, that her dining establishment was safe so that people could eat outside in a way that abided by the law, but also was going to mitigate the risk of spread. But with these new regulations in California, she was told that she also had to shut down outdoor dining. So all of the money and the effort that she spent into making sure she was abiding by the previous regulations, it was all wasted because now outdoor dining is banned. Well, she posted this video showing that there was actually a movie company that was allowed to set up outdoor dining just across the street from her closed business. Here's that video.

Starting point is 00:11:03 So this is my place, the Pineapple Hill Grill and Saloon. If you go to my page, you can see all the work I did for outdoor dining for tables being seven feet apart. And I come in today because I'm organizing a protest and I came in to get stuck for that. And I walk into my parking lot and obviously Mayor Garcetti has approved this, has approved this being set up for, this being set up for a movie company. I'm losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me. And they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio, which is right over here. And people wonder why I'm protesting and why I have had enough. They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive.

Starting point is 00:12:17 My staff cannot survive. Look at this, that this is dangerous, but right next to me as a slap in my face, that's safe. This is safe 50 feet away? This is dangerous. Mayor Garcetti and Gavin Newsom is responsible. for every single person that doesn't have unemployment that says not have a job and all the businesses that are going under. And we need your help. We need somebody to do something about this.

Starting point is 00:13:07 That just makes me, makes you want to cry. You hear the desperation in her voice, the frustration in her voice, this woman who has taken all this time to make sure that her restaurant is safe, who has spent all of this. this money to no avail. And then this, uh, this, this crew, this movie crew is able to set up basically an identical setup of outdoor dining. And they are able to do that legally. Of course, because this is all more about politics and special interests and money for these politicians that it really is about mitigating the virus. Of course, the government officials in California and specifically LA are, are going to count out to hold. I mean, there's too much money there for these politicians and for the state of California

Starting point is 00:13:57 for them to restrict the entertainment industry. And so they're not. Instead, they're going to crush small businesses. Another bar owner said that they spent $10,000 in California to make sure that their kitchen and restaurant were safe, only to be shut down by the outdoor dining ban. So now they're already out that money, which they needed because they've probably lost tens of thousands of dollars over the past few months due to these arbitrary. restrictions and to absolutely no avail. In May, the Washington Post reported that over 100,000 small businesses have closed for good. I'm sure that it is close to 200,000 now not due to the virus, by the way. Every headline says, oh, due to the virus, these businesses have been closed. No,

Starting point is 00:14:43 it's not due to the virus. It's due to the restrictions, even though there's no data showing that these small businesses are spreading the virus or are unable to implement restrictions to mitigate the risk of the spread. And I'm getting it into more of that in just one second and the ridiculousness of it all and the burden that it's placing on average people. But first, I have to take a quick ad break. So with these restaurants and with these small businesses, no one is saying that they shouldn't take restrictions or that there shouldn't be any regulations whatsoever, but that the government should allow people, for the most part, to make their own decisions because these businesses, as I've said so many times, will be responsible.

Starting point is 00:15:35 They have an interest in being responsible. They care about their businesses and even the health of their customers more than the state does. They have an interest in caring about the health of their customers. Or at the very least, if the government is going to place these restrictions on people where their livelihoods are just ruined, the government needs to help out the people whose lives. they are burdening. Nancy Pelosi has refused the White House's offers on a stimulus deal multiple times. So this was in October.

Starting point is 00:16:05 This is according to Business Insider, quote, over the weekend, the White House proposed a $1.8 trillion measure. The White House proposal includes a $400 boost in weekly unemployed insurance, $1,200 direct payments for U.S. adults, and $1,000 payments for each child. The Washington Post reported. Democrats have pushed for a $600. increase in weekly unemployment benefits and $1,200 payments for child dependence as well as substantially more funding for state and local governments. The Democratic proposal also, though it comes up, it includes left-wing policies and left-wing proposals that have nothing to do with the virus

Starting point is 00:16:43 or with mitigating the risk. So there's lots of left-wing pork in there that the Republicans understandably do not want and are not going to let pass. So it's not just a matter of number. the disagreement here. But Pelosi has rejected, time and again, any good compromise coming from the White House or coming from Republicans. For months, Pelosi insisted that a COVID relief bill would have to be at least $2.2 trillion. She turned down, like I said, a bipartisan deal of $1.5 trillion and also Trump's $1.8 trillion deal. But now, interestingly, she has decided that she would support a $900 billion COVID relief bill, which is obviously less than the $1.8 trillion bill that Trump offered in his negotiation.

Starting point is 00:17:35 And she was asked about this. CNN's Manu Raju asked Pelosi if it was a mistake to shoot down the previous compromises, the previous bills. And she became very agitated. She was very annoyed by this question, this question of, okay, why are you supporting a $900 billion deal now, and you rejected the $1.8 trillion deal that Trump offered you a couple months ago. She got very annoyed and said, do not characterize my actions as a mistake. If you want me to answer your question, here's a video of that.

Starting point is 00:18:08 When you said, I'm not going to accept half a low months ago. I'm not going to accept half a low. I'm going to tell you something. Don't characterize what we did before as a mistake, as a preface, to your question. if you want an answer. That was not a mistake. It was a decision and it has taken us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the legislation that we don't want. So we're very pleased at where it is.

Starting point is 00:18:36 And as I say, with a Democratic president committed to a scientific solution for this, with the idea that we will have a vaccine, it's a complete game changer from them. So she basically admits it at the end of that clip. And we kind of spliced together two different parts of her answer, but we'll include the link to the full press conference in the description. But she basically says, look, you know, don't characterize that as a mistake. It wasn't a mistake.

Starting point is 00:19:09 We had other considerations. And the other considerations, she kind of reveals at the end of that is that now they have a Democratic president. And so it's okay if they pass a bill so long as Trump doesn't get the credit. for it. And, oh, because we have a vaccine, now we're able to give people less support than we wanted to do before. The fact of the matter is, she just didn't want to negotiate with Trump. She didn't care that people were suffering. She didn't care that small businesses were being closed down and people's lives were being ruined and families being put in very desperate situations. She didn't want to give Trump any credit for the relief that they very well could have offered. Like I said,

Starting point is 00:19:46 she is now accepting a deal with a far smaller, with a far smaller dollar amount attached to it than the one that Trump offered just a couple months ago. It's all about politics and power, you guys. It's not about taking care of you and your family. And I think that this is also demonstrated through this headline, Ilhan Omar spent millions on her husband's political consulting firm who also received over $600,000 in federal COVID relief. This is from the Daily Wire. Omar's husband Tim Minette owns East Street Group, a political consulting firm. Public records show that East Street Group received nearly $135,000 in paycheck protection program, PPP loans, and $500,000 in economic injury disaster loans. During the 2019 to 2020,

Starting point is 00:20:44 cycle, Omar paid nearly $2.8 million to East Street Group, her husband's company. The Federal Election Commission data shows that Omar's campaign spent $1.6 million on her husband's company from the beginning of 2019 to July 22nd, 2020. In the third quarter of 2020, Omar's campaign spent $1.6 million in total, $1.1 million of which was spent on East Street Group. She cut ties with the company. mid-November after she won re-election. Interesting. She wanted to make sure that there were no perceived issues,

Starting point is 00:21:22 but it does kind of seem a little late for that. She claims that her husband, quote, received no profit whatsoever from the consulting relationship that the firm provided. That is very hard to believe. So even while she was dishing out millions of dollars to her husband's company, he was receiving, his company was also receiving your taxpayer dollars

Starting point is 00:21:41 from the first stimulus bill. While millions of Americans, millions of Americans are suffering unable to feed their families because they can't legally open their businesses despite being totally willing, totally willing and able to operate in a way that is safe. Our elites are raking in funds for themselves and their families. And this is not just exclusive to Democrats. By the way, I think there's a lot of Republicans sitting on their hands not wanting to do anything that really are not hit very hard by the effects of this virus and are being a little. lazy and getting things done for the American people. I do think we see a lot of hypocrisy from the Democrats in that they are the ones that are so pro lockdown and so fearmongering and so anti-small business, it seems that when it comes to

Starting point is 00:22:28 this while simultaneously flouting the rules themselves and are not willing to give the help to the people that they desperately need because of these lockdowns. But look, you've got a lot of lazy and apathetic and hypocritical people in the Republican Party as well that are not standing up for their constituents who need help. So it's not only small businesses, as you guys know, that are being shut down. It's also schools who are being shut down thanks to teachers unions and associations, as well as the Democratic politicians that they're controlled by. And we'll get into all of that in just one second. We've got to take one more ad break first. Okay, let's talk about the latest craziness in our public school system. So there are teacher sickouts going

Starting point is 00:23:21 on in multiple districts around the country. Corey DeAngelis, who is an expert on public education and an advocate for school choice, he reported that Pottsgrove School District was supposed to partially reopen a couple days ago on December 7th, but families found out the night before on December 6th that their schools aren't opening because too many teachers called in sick. Families, as he says, are getting the short end of the stick here because these teachers teachers unions are advocating for sickouts as a way to protest schools reopening. There is an organization called Moore UFT who are described. They describe themselves as the Justice Caucus in NYC United Federation of Teachers.

Starting point is 00:24:08 They publicly, on Twitter, called for a sickout. So called for teachers to call in sick, even though they're not really sick, so they don't have to teach your children. there was a peaceful protest protesting the lockdowns in Oregon. And there was a teacher who drove by and was very angry about this. So I'm going to play this clip. So thankfully we bleeped out the cuss words for you, but she tells these peaceful protesters to kill themselves.

Starting point is 00:25:00 And she calls them derogatory names. And she says, I am a. an expletive teacher. I work at school. Guys, no amount of public school funding can change the fact that these are some of the educators that are teaching your kids. There's a lot of wonderful, wonderful caring educators out there. But there's a lot of educators like this, too, who are indoctrinating your kids. You know, it's so funny. People say, oh, homeschooling parents indoctrinate their kids. Your kids are going to be indoctrinated. Do you want them indoctrinated by that lady or by you who loves them and who cares about them and who knows what they need. Of course. Kids are going to be taught.

Starting point is 00:25:41 They're going to be indoctrinated and they're going to be given certain values in a particular worldview. Nothing is neutral. This lady clearly isn't neutral. This lady is in charge of the education of your kids for eight hours a day. And this is unfortunately representative of a portion of educators, really, whether you're looking at public school or private school. They're so frustrated by the fact that there are people who want to maintain their livelihoods by working, even though the jobs of these public education teachers are protected. Like they are still getting paid with our taxpayer dollars, even if they refuse to go to school. That's not right. I mean, in any other private sector job, you would be fired for that kind of behavior or you would be fired for not going to work. And the science shows as we will get into over and over again that it is actually safe.

Starting point is 00:26:34 to open up the schools and to have in-person instruction. And yet the Chicago Teachers Union tweeted this. The push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny. Really? Well, I would say that the push to keep schools closed in the face of all of the science that we have. Proving the safety of reopening schools is actually rooted in teachers' unions, a longstanding tradition of hating their students. And I know that that's controversial for a lot of people who still are under the illusion that teachers, unions care about teachers and students, they don't.

Starting point is 00:27:12 They care about bureaucracy. They care about themselves. They care about money. They have never cared, well, at least in the past 60 or so years, have not cared about the well-being of their students or else they would abide by what the American Academy of Pediatric says about education. This is according to their website. The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year, so they were saying this back in August, should start with a goal of having students physically present in school. A study by Indiana University finds that their students who attended in-person classes were not more likely to test positive for COVID-19.

Starting point is 00:27:53 So this is according to their site in this particular study. for Indiana University's fall semester, a 13-week period from August to November, students were allowed to attend in-person classes along with safety precautions such as social distancing and mask wearing. IU researchers analyzed data for 70,000 students across all their campuses. They found that there was a negative correlation between the number of credit hours students were enrolled in in the likelihood of testing positive for COVID-19. For each in-person credit hour taken, students were increasingly less likely to test positive for COVID-19. 19. Among students taking one to three in-person credit hours, 8% tested positive. Among students taking

Starting point is 00:28:34 13 to 15 in-person credit hours, 2% tested positive. The university was happy to report these findings to take it as confirmation that their safety measures are working. And so we see that actually the risks of students not going to school in person are greater than them going to school in person. that includes the teachers. We have already talked about a particular study a couple weeks ago that found that the positive rate for teachers who are engaged in-person instruction is not any higher than the positive rate for the rest of the population. And so whether you're talking about the health of the teachers or the health of the students, there's no reason in relation to the virus to not open up these schools. This was reported by the Washington Post, quote, after the U.S. education, system fractured into Zoom screens last spring, experts feared millions of children would fall behind.

Starting point is 00:29:29 Hard evidence now shows they were right. A flood of new data on the national state and district levels find students began this academic year behind. Most of the research concludes students of color and those in high poverty communities fell further behind than their peers. Of course. Of course. Exacerbating longstanding gaps in American education. A study being released this week by McKinsey and co, estimates that the shift to remote school in the spring set white students back by one to three months in math, while students of color lost three to five months. As the coronavirus pandemic persists through this academic year, McKinsey said losses will escalate. Now, again, the Washington Post is going to blame the virus for this. It's not the virus that is to blame.

Starting point is 00:30:11 It is these unscientific shutdowns of the schools. The California Bay Area schools are seeing a spike in failing grades. Sequoia Union High School District reported that, the percentage of students with more than one failing grade this fall, jumped to 29% from 19.7% in 2019. That's a high percentage regardless, but almost a third, almost a third of students this year have at least one failing grade. Mount Diablo Unified School District reported a similar rise in high school students failing more than one grade, 30.66% from just over 19%

Starting point is 00:30:46 the previous two academic years. Sonoma County saw similar spikes, 37% of students across its 10 districts with high schools had at least one failing grade compared to 27% at the same time last year. In Helzburg, Unified School District, the number of high school students with D and F grades at this point in the fall roughly doubled to 39% from 20% in a typical year. Santa Rose City schools are seeing 30% to 50% more F grades this year than at the same time last year. Educators and students are saying that a big part of the problem is that it's

Starting point is 00:31:21 harder for kids to focus on class when it's a Zoom meeting rather than in a classroom, that kids aren't getting as much instruction time through remote learning as they did on campus. Of course, this is obvious. Houston area schools see a spike in failing grades. Some districts reported nearly half of their middle and high schoolers received at least two F grades because they routinely missed class or neglected assignments. and Houston ISD, the state's largest district, 42% of students failed two or more classes in the first grading period up from about 11% in a typical year.

Starting point is 00:31:58 About 25% of middle school students received at least 2F grades about five times higher than 2019 to 2020. The Tri-Cities area in Washington sees spikes in failing grades. At least 20% of Richlands, nearly 4,300 high school students are 4,000. failing a class, the district officials, Washington keeps delaying school openings, they say, due to rising COVID case numbers, they believe the schools and some of these districts actually believe that they can open the schools safely based on the size of the groups that they have and maybe only meeting twice a week. But unfortunately,

Starting point is 00:32:37 the governments in these areas are making that very difficult. Now, finally, after months and months of denying this, Dr. Fauci has said, okay, we should open our schools. Schools have been safely open in in Europe in several parts of the world all year, by the way. But Dr. Fauci and are, quote, scientific and political experts. The powers that be here have said, no, no, no. It's far too dangerous. I'll never forget on MSNBC when the host asked a panel of doctors whether or not they would allow their kids to go back to school. I think this was back in June and July. Every single one of those doctors said, yes, of course. And yet, schools continue to shut down across the country. Here is Nancy Pelosi in July saying that, oh, opening up the schools is way

Starting point is 00:33:23 too dangerous. A large percentage overwhelmingly the teachers want to open up the schools. But it has to be safe for the children. And to be safe for the children, we must attack this coronavirus. We must kill it off. Now, here is what Trump said in July. So what we want to do is we want to get our schools open. We want to get them open quickly, beautifully in the fall. And as you know, this is a disease. It's a horrible disease, but young people do extraordinarily well. And we hope that most schools are going to be open.

Starting point is 00:34:03 We don't want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons. I think it's going to be good for them politically. So they keep the schools closed, no way. so we're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools to get them open. And it's very important. It's very important for our country. It's very important for the well-being of the student and the parents. So we're going to be putting a lot of pressure on open your schools in the fall. So, of course, you can see why Democrats took the position that they did. Why in some ways teachers' unions took the position that they did?

Starting point is 00:34:36 Because it has been a game. It has been a routine for the past 40s. year is to ensure that Trump is opposed on everything he says. But Trump was following the science. Now, the funny thing is, Democrats say that, oh, now we have a guy in office who is following the science. Well, Trump was following the science back in July. And Democrat said that he was wrong and that it was dangerous. CNN ran a headline after he said that saying Trump's mind-bending logic on school reopenings. So data apparently is mind-bending. And as we talked about last week, kids are not only not getting the virus very much, and they're certainly not dying from it. They are very rarely spreading the virus, even to teachers.

Starting point is 00:35:17 And yet, the teachers unions, they protested. They have threatened to go on strike. They are striking in some places right now. They wrote that they would, or they said that they would write their would be obituaries in certain places like Arizona. LA Teachers Union said that they want Medicare for all and to defund the place. police before going back to school. The teachers unions are not in it. They're not in it for the teachers. They're not in it for their salaries. They're not in it for the safety of the schools.

Starting point is 00:35:49 They're not in it for the students. They're in it for themselves. And in other places, it's about the Democratic politicians that are giving into these shutdowns. It's simply about doing what the media, what they know the media will applaud them for. They're scared of the backlash if they don't shut everything down, including the schools to the detriment of the most vulnerable kids, the very kids in these black and brown communities that the Democratic Party says that they care about. They always say that they care so much about income gaps, about success gaps. And yet right now, we are creating gaps between white kids and black kids by shutting down the schools and the Democratic Party, for the large part, for the past few months, have been the

Starting point is 00:36:27 ones advocating for this. And by the way, it's the teachers unions that are that are pushing the curriculum about critical race theory and systemic racism. And they're also the ones pushing for these lockdowns that are disproportionately hurting the black and brown kids for months and years to come, maybe for an entire lifetime. It doesn't make any sense. And that should at least make you question things. Rich kids, kids of politicians, they're not going to fall behind. Their parents aren't going to let them fall behind. There are a lot of different options for these kids. If you have money to be able to make sure that they are staying on track in their education, it's poor children. It's children with single parents who can't afford to quit working, kids who are in abusive situations at home, children

Starting point is 00:37:11 without access to Wi-Fi or a personal computer, kids who can't count on meals at home, kids who are suffering or maybe suffering abuse at home. Those are the kids that are falling behind. Those are the kids that are disproportionately affected by unscientific shutdowns, pushed by the Democratic Party, some in the Republican Party, and teachers unions. There was a report that came out. I think that we have talked about it before, that suicides have surged among youths over the past few months from Atrium Health, the Arizona superintendent of public instruction. Kathy Hoffman talked about the increase in suicides in her school district. In Japan, more people died by suicide in October than from COVID in all of 2020. And it's not just students that this is happening to.

Starting point is 00:37:59 I mean, I know personally some students who are struggling with mental health and who are struggling with isolation. who are struggling with falling behind and just feelings of purposelessness, and hours and hours spent in front of a screen all day that is deteriorating their mental health and just their brain's capacity to think critically and to even process their emotions. I mean, they're really suffering right now, these kids who are missing in-person instruction. Now, some of them have parents who are very present and who are helping them, who aren't suffering as much, but some kids don't. The most vulnerable kids don't. But it's not just these students who are struggling. It's also people who are older. In July, a majority of U.S. adults, 18 and older, said that worry and stress

Starting point is 00:38:39 related to coronavirus has had a negative impact on their mental health up from 39% in May. The University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging asked U.S. adults aged 50 to 80 about loneliness, social interactions, and health behaviors in June 2020. And a large percentage of them said that they felt isolated, that they felt like they had a lack of purpose and a lack of companionship. There was a 90-year-old woman in Canada who chose medically assisted suicide over another round of lockdowns. Her name was Nancy Russell. It's just tragic. NBC reported that more than eight months into the pandemic, the very isolation that is being, that is meant to protect nursing home residents, is actually hurting them. And so all of these arbitrary lockdowns that, by the way,

Starting point is 00:39:31 so many people in power are not abiding by, and we're going to get through that. string of hypocrites in just a second. They're hurting people. They're hurting their minds. They're hurting their souls. They're hurting their hearts. And we just don't care about that. I mean, I do. And I know that there are a lot of Americans do, but the people in power just apparently don't. They just don't care about the whole person. For some reason, they just think that people who die by COVID are important, but people who die by suicide heart. And I just don't, I just don't get it. I just don't get it. And I just want to give us some perspective as well, just a reminder that according to the CDC. The virus has a 99.98% survival rate if you are under the age of 50, a 99.5% survival rate

Starting point is 00:40:15 if you are under the age of 70, and at least a 95% survival rate if you are over the age, if you are over the age of 70. And it's significantly higher than that if you are, the survival rate is significantly higher than that if you are a woman over the age of 70. For whatever reason, men, according to the CDC, are getting hit harder. by this than women. Now, according to the CDC, the flu fatality rate for 18 to 49 year olds in the 2018 to 2019 season was 0.02% which is comparable to other years and is the same for the fatality rate of COVID for that age group. Now here is where there is a disparate impact between the flu and COVID, which is why COVID is regarded as more dangerous and is more deadly than the flu. I think

Starting point is 00:41:02 accurately. You've got a 0.06% chance of dying from the flu if you are ages 50 to 64 and a 0.5% chance of dying from COVID if you get that. So that's still a really high survival rate, of course, but that's a much bigger chance of dying from COVID than from the flu at that age, about nine times bigger. The flu fatality rate for people 65 years old and older is 0.8% and is a Apparently, according to the CDC, about 6% for COVID, which is obviously a huge difference. So there's an average of 0.1% chance of dying from the flu and an average of about 2% chance of dying from the flu if you look at all age groups. But the reason why that number goes from 99.9% survival rate to 98% survival rate, if you're comparing the flu and coronavirus for all age groups, is because of the disparate impact that COVID has on old. people in the United States versus the flu.

Starting point is 00:42:04 For every other age group, the fatality rate between COVID and the flu is actually comparable. Even so, the survival rate is, thankfully, thank the Lord, very, very high for all age groups, which tells us something that seems to be pretty obvious to the average person, to the average Joe like me, not a scientist, not a doctor, not a politician, not a data analyst, always open to be proven wrong on this, not a public health expert, not any of these things, just. an observer of these numbers, just looking at the information. It seems to me that the strategy should be obvious that we protect these older populations that are much more likely to die of this if they get it than they are of the flu,

Starting point is 00:42:45 and that everyone else lives as cautiously and as responsibly as they can, as they would like without shutting down their business and shutting down their whole lives. The message all along, if we're really looking at the science, which a lot of people say that they are, but they're actually not. They're looking at political ideology. If we're actually looking at the science, the message, the strategy should have been, this is a relatively dangerous virus for our older population and for people with XYZ underlying conditions.

Starting point is 00:43:15 Here are the precautions we recommend you take to mitigate the spread to those populations. And hey, when we develop a vaccine, they should say, which I think a lot of people in charge are, we are going to ensure that these people get it first. In the meantime, do these things to mitigate the spread, keep yourself healthy by going outside, by eating well, taking vitamin D, washing your hands, not going out if you have been sick or if you have been around anyone who's sick. I think all of that would have been really smart, really practical. A lot of people would have been a lot less skeptical of the people in power if they had

Starting point is 00:43:51 left those options up to us. And if they had based their restrictions and regulations and suggestions on the data, rather than just having these rolling waves of lockdowns that are actually connected to the special interests that are lining the pockets of these politicians rather than in the interest of the population. Like, I'm okay with the mask recommendations. I have looked at the data. I think that there is, based on the data, there is some help that masks can provide in that. They might, they might prevent the person that is sick from spreading it to someone else.

Starting point is 00:44:27 They're not going to keep you from getting sick. Like if you are around someone else who is sick and you get in, like you get in close contact with them, your mask is not going to help you. But if you are sick, you might, your mask might protect you from getting someone out sick. So I'm okay with the mask recommendation. I understand the mask recommendation.

Starting point is 00:44:49 I'm okay with distancing suggestions. I'm fine with all of that guidance. I think the vast majority of people follow voluntary guidelines because they don't want to get sick and they don't want their family members to get sick. They don't want the people they love to get sick. They don't want to shut down their business. But rather than fearmongering, we have needed people in the mainstream media. We have needed Dr. Fauci to paint a realistic picture of what is going on and make realistic suggestions based on the data that we have. We need politicians to prioritize their public health orders based on actual data and based on the

Starting point is 00:45:21 whole person, like based on what people need education-wise, what people need financially, but they haven't. Democratic and some Republican politicians have bought into this media manufacturer trap that says the more restrictions that you place on the people in your state, the better job you're doing. The more responsible and compassionate you are. And the less restrictions you place, regardless of how many cases or deaths your area has had, you're a bad leader. And according to many in the leftist media, it's okay if these leaders like Whitmer and Cuomo and Newsom and Lightfoot and Schumer and Pelosi, who are all pro-lockdown politicians, break their own rules or allow protests and riots to go on unregulated and uncriticized because,

Starting point is 00:46:01 A, they're Democrats. And B, they took draconian measures to, quote, stop the virus. So these power-hungry affirmation-craving politicians shut down schools. They have forced businesses and restaurants to close, many of them permanently. They've crushed people's lives and livelihoods in a way that does not actually correspond with any science. And they know this. That's why most of them are just living their lives. And I want to read you this list of politicians who have told you that you can't live your life, but have gone on living their own lives despite the rules that they have set for you. This thread was compiled by Mary Margaret O'Lehan, who works at the Daily Caller. So DC Mayor Muriel Bowser traveled to Joe Biden's victory speech in high-risk Delaware and

Starting point is 00:46:50 excused the trip by saying it was essential travel exempt under D.C.'s restriction. So despite the heavy restrictions that she has placed on D.C., she wanted to celebrate Joe Biden's projected victory. Chicago Mayor Lloyd Lightfoot defended her decision to get a haircut despite urging citizens to stay at home in accordance with the state order. Lightfoot, again, Chicago mayor tells people to cancel traditional Thanksgiving plans after celebrating Biden victory in large crowd without a mask. And I will include a link to all of these, by the way. Security footage obtained by Fox News shows a wet-haired news. Nancy Pelosi walking through e-s-salon in San Francisco on Monday at 308 p.m. As she attended her appointment for a wash and blowout, though indoor hair salons in the

Starting point is 00:47:35 California city were currently closed. Photos show a maskless Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, dining indoors at one of the highest-rated restaurants in the world despite his restrictive coronavirus guidelines for the citizens of California. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenny dined indoors in Maryland, a widely circulated photograph shows, though indoor dining was prohibited in Philadelphia. Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia caught maskless at Virginia Beach. He later apologized and said, quote, I was not prepared.

Starting point is 00:48:05 That's funny. I guess he just didn't want to bring the KKK hood that he had posed in several decades ago. De Blasio, mayor of New York City, goes to the gym before a New York governor, Cuomo, shuts all of them down. His excuse was that the YMCA had been a big part of his life. life. And so he needed to make sure that he still exercised publicly even while urging other people not to. Diane Feinstein, Senator from California, she pushed for a nationwide mask mandate. She was seen maskless in public in an airport. New York Democratic leaders caught maskless at

Starting point is 00:48:41 private party despite COVID restrictions in New York. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy confronted by angry protesters for eating outside without a mask, which is not allowed in New Jersey. Jersey. New York Governor Cuomo said that his mother and daughters were coming for Thanksgiving after telling New Yorkers to, quote, stay away from loved ones. After massive backlash, his office told Mary Margaret that Cuomo will be busy on Thanksgiving and won't be home. The governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, who cheered on the massive BLM protests earlier this year, tells citizens to go uninvite family members for Thanksgiving. Denver Mayor Hancock tweeted warnings to citizens to quote, avoid travel 30 minutes before he boarded a flight to travel to his family for Thanksgiving.

Starting point is 00:49:31 San Jose Mayor Sam Laccardo attended a Thanksgiving party with family members who were not part of his own household after telling citizens to cancel big gatherings this year. Los Angeles County supervisor Sheila Kuhl and dined outdoors only hours after voting to ban outdoor dining. California lawmakers traveled to conference in Hawaii despite new coronavirus. destruction is amazing. I want to travel to Hawaii on the taxpayer dime. Pelosi cancels dinner for new Democrats after blowback over coronavirus risk. And so she was going to have, she was going to have a dinner with multiple people seated at tables in D.C. to celebrate the new, the freshman or the new

Starting point is 00:50:14 Congress people. And she got a lot of pushback for that. And rightfully so, she said she was going to do it in a way that was safe. Why can't small business, why can't restaurants run their restaurants? in a way that is safe. Nancy Pelosi. Oh gosh. Now we're just getting into the nitty gritty. This is another story. This one from the Daily Caller.

Starting point is 00:50:34 Nancy Pelosi takes down her mask, wipes her nose, then touches the podium at house members, including Nancy Pelosi, demonstrating the wrong way to wear a mask. And the latest coronavirus hypocrite Mayor London breed of San Francisco dined in a semi-enclosed room

Starting point is 00:50:51 at the French laundry restaurant three days before she banned indoor dining in her city. That is the same restaurant that knew some infamously dined at. A Texas judge pled guilty and paid a fine after violating his own stay-at-home order. Austin Mayor, Steve Adler, flew private to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he filmed himself, telling citizens to, quote, stay home. He says in the video from his time share in Cabo, quote, this is not the time to relax. we may have to close things down if we are not careful. Wow. So you wonder why people are desperate.

Starting point is 00:51:28 Like you wonder why people are frustrated. You wonder why people are angry right now. Because the very rules that are ruining the average citizens life are not being abided by by the people who are placing them on you. So they've placed a burden on people that no one can bear and it's ruined people. It's hurt people. It's killed people in some cases. It's set kids back, who knows how far. In a time when we're talking about inequality and disparate outcome, Students in poor communities and predominantly black and brown communities are watching any hope of graduation in college and a future stripped from them because they don't have their resources or parental guidance to quote distance learn in some of these cases. It is hurt people with special needs, people who live by themselves, who are already suffering from loneliness and depression or elderly population. And yet, for pointing this out months ago, conservatives were called grandma killers, heartless, pro-death, pro-birth hypocrites. for pointing out that the lockdowns and many of the measures are not based on science and are not

Starting point is 00:52:24 taken into account the risks on the other side. The virus is not the only or even greatest threat to our lives, guys. It is a threat. It is. And I have said that from the beginning. I won't deny that, but loneliness is also a threat that is killing people every day. Financial collapse because the government forced your small business of 30 years to close is a threat. People without access in some places to school, to therapy, especially in the early months, to their cancer screenings and checkups, to churches and other community events that whether they realized it or not, we're keeping them alive and whole. These people are suffering. That is a threat, not just individually, but as a whole. People's mental health is deteriorating. People's spiritual state is dire. Their financial state is not

Starting point is 00:53:10 good. I mean, what are we doing based on what information? This should be, the last time that you trust politicians and those who call themselves experts but are really floundering around just like everyone else. This has been a hard year that has been made a lot worse by terrible leadership. And you can see how these lockdown policies are made from a secular materialist worldview, which is what we kind of talked about on Monday when we dissected the telos, the biblical tellos of gender, which holds that human beings, this secularist worldview, that human beings are just material objects. They're just clumps of matter. They can adapt to anything. but it's not true. We have needs. We are communal beings. We actually need social activity. We actually

Starting point is 00:53:53 need to be educated. We need work. We need a purpose. We're not just material objects. We're not just clumps of matter. There are immutable traits of human nature that when they are pressured or when they're neglected, they cause us to falter. That is why, for example, that communism and socialism don't work. The need for work to provide for your own family and for yourself, the drive to procure and to protect private personal property the principles of supply and demand, the need for some level of freedom are all innate. We've seen it in human nature from the beginning. When humans are denied these things, massive suffering and frustration and unrest follow always. That is why the biblical worldview is the most functional worldview. It's the best view on which

Starting point is 00:54:37 societies can properly be built because it accounts for the whole person. It understands human nature holistically. Human beings are made. in the image of God with bodies that are lovingly and purposely made by God, as we talked about on Monday, with minds that are given the ability to reason and discern with souls that will live forever, with hearts that need love and need to be loved that need interaction. We aren't just here. We want to know why we're here. We don't just think, therefore, we are, as Descartes said. We want to know what we are and who we are and whose we are. We are social beings, we are communal beings, we are interdependent beings. We are beings who, without work and intellectual

Starting point is 00:55:15 stimulation and without some sense of purpose, atrophy, both mentally and spiritually. So we constantly live and care for others in a way that takes into account all of these parts of our nature, and government restrictions cannot stop us as the church from doing that. That doesn't mean recklessness and carelessness. It means attending to the whole person the way that Jesus did. In Luke 5, when Jesus healed the paralytic man, he didn't just say, he didn't just say, rise up and walk. He said, your sins are forgiven. So he didn't care only for his body, only for his sickness.

Starting point is 00:55:49 He also cared for his soul. He didn't just want his physical healing, but his spiritual healing too. Certain forms of purported Christianity and secularism don't like to talk about sins. They don't like to even talk about the soul. They'll talk about societal sins like the oppressive patriarchy or systemic racism. but they won't talk about personal rebellion to God in the form of immorality, that we are then called to repentance and salvation through faith in Christ. They are typically viewed these subjects as inappropriate and intrusive, especially when it comes to vulnerable people. And yet we see Jesus,

Starting point is 00:56:25 time and again, get to the heart of the issue, to the dire need that we all have to be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God above all earthly needs that must be met. Both the body and the soul matter. The heart and the mind. The heart and the mind. both matter and the public policy that is being implemented right now are trying and failing, by the way, to protect the body at the expense of the rest of the person. That's not always easy to do, I understand. The government was never meant to be our caretaker. They were never meant to be the shepherd of our souls. They were never meant to be the caretaker of our heart. I understand that. But public policy that is going to affect people in this way has to be

Starting point is 00:57:05 balanced. It has to look at the entire person. And unfortunately, because so much of our government actually comes from the secularist materialist worldview that doesn't see people as made in the image of God within innate human nature that when pressured or denied in some way is going to rebel and is going to become frustrated and is going to become desperate, even sometimes to the point of suicide, because they don't understand that, they're making bad policy decisions. And America is so politicized and so polarized that they're not even able to just base their policy and base their proposals on the data that there's always a million different special interests pulling our politicians in a different direction rather than your personal interest. So please,

Starting point is 00:57:51 do not trust the governments. Do not vote to give them more of your money. I'm talking Republican or Democrat. Thankfully, we serve a God who has never been hypocritical. We serve a God who has never lied. We serve a God who has never betrayed us, who has never stopped thinking about his glory and our good and his glory is our good. And we serve a God who promises to rule in perfect peace and perfect honor and perfect righteousness and integrity forever and ever. And one day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that that Jesus, that he is Lord. And that is what we have to look forward to. And so when we look at the leadership of some of the hypocrites in charge. We can take heart knowing that they are not going to rule forever, that we do our best

Starting point is 00:58:35 to abide by the regulations that are put in place. We do the best to be obedient and submissive citizens unless it causes us to sin. But ultimately, our hope is in the God who reigns. Our hope is in the King of Kings. And that is where our assurance, that is where our peace also comes from. So I know that you're in a hard situation right now. You're feeling desperate. You're feeling alone, you're feeling isolated, you're feeling like you don't know what to do. I pray and I hope that you would cast your cares on the God who cares for you in the true shepherd of your soul, who longs to and promises to provide for you because the government ain't going to cut it.

Starting point is 00:59:15 We can hold our leaders accountable as much as possible and we should use the government for the well-being of our country. But at the end of the day, don't place your hope there. don't place your peace there don't place your assurance there it's going to continue to disappoint you um so i'm continuing to pray for you for all of us who are in those desperate situations i'm continuing to pray for political change in the favor of the well-being of the average american and uh i am i am i am praying that people would turn to god their true caretaker in all of this i remember God is working even when it doesn't seem like it. And I trust that he is. Okay, that's all I have for us today.

Starting point is 00:59:58 We will be back here on Friday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 336 | Democrats' Lockdowns Do More Harm Than Good

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