Over the weekend, we saw more reporting about the unbelievable stories that some medical professionals on the front lines in red states are telling mainstream news reporters:

THREAD: I just spent 3 days with frontline workers at hospitals in a part of Appalachia where hospitalizations have more than doubled in the last month. But hospital staff say many in their hard-hit communities still don’t believe COVID is real. Misinformation is rampant.

— Dasha Burns (@DashaBurns) November 28, 2020

From at least the summer, if not the late spring, I’ve been sounding the alarm on the critical need to reopen schools. It’s perhaps a strange wheelhouse for a homeschooling mother to find herself in (which I’ve been told by a number of editors who refused to run pieces on the topic), but one that I’ve occupied because I’m not just a mother, but a former kid. If I grew up during this time with the same circumstances I did as a child, my life would have turned out very differently. My single mother would have been at work a full day and left me alone at home, and I can tell you one thing: I definitely wouldn’t have been logging into “distance learning” on my own. I would have lost at least a year of my education and instead sat around watching television and engaging with Internet content that would have stolen my innocence along with it.

I have a number of friends in the foster care world, and I also know that while my circumstances would have been far from ideal, they would have been a walk in the park compared to the abusive and neglectful situations millions of American kids are facing right now.

In our homeschool, we are studying poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow this term. I have never been a huge fan of poetry, and yet, this poem today nearly brought me to tears.

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

The first generation of Tea Party protests were, unlike media depictions, filled with happy warriors pushing the country towards more fiscal responsibility. It involved crowds of flag-waving Americans who cleaned up every bit of garbage they may have created in the process of protesting across the country. The next round of protests by conservatives will look nothing like the last; they will be angry, deeply angry, and you won’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out why.

Over the course of the last day, a few things have happened. First, student loan “forgiveness” plans, which are really bailouts for college-educated Americans, have been floated by progressives, including Biden himself.

In one of the most costly public relations nightmares in history, a feel-good progressive PR blogpost from Target cost them tens of millions of dollars after Americans across the country decided to boycott the company when they declared that anyone could use the bathroom of their choice. It was meant to be a tip of the hat to the progressives but blew up in their faces as Americans declared that under no circumstances did they want to use a mixed-sex bathroom in public. This one blog post turned into years of negative headlines for Target and certainly damaged their bottom line significantly enough that the chain decided to start installing private bathrooms instead of walking back their policy and risking another backlash.

And now, they’re facing it a PR crisis all over again, once again at the hands of the transgender issue. A Twitter user with less than 2,000 followers complained that the chain carried the book “Irreversible Damage” by Abigail Shrier about the transgender craze taking hold of America’s daughters. In response to one complaint from one small Twitter user, Target pulled the book off its digital shelves:

It’s not March anymore. I feel like that’s something we need to keep reminding ourselves of. We have endured eight months of this pandemic, and we’ve learned a lot about how the virus spreads, how to treat those made seriously ill, and what the economic and social effects of lockdowns are. But not only that, we also know how wholly ineffective lockdowns are in slowing the spread of the virus.

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, and we apparently are still living in March, where we know none of those things, but especially not the last. As the virus is peaking nationwide and our own numbers are creeping uncomfortably upwards (though nowhere near the dangerous levels we’re seeing in the Midwest and in the central part of the country) our county executive has decided to roll us back to “Phase 1” of our reopening, effectively writing a death sentence for any number of businesses like gyms and restaurants who now pushed back to 25% occupancy from the 50% they were at before this week. Statewide, we were rolled back from 75% capacity to 50%.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the nice Senator from Utah. Unlike most Republicans, I always have and always will. He’s so nice. He means well.

That’s why he lost.

I’ve said for a long time that even liberals should stop trying to be woke enough, because there is no such thing as woke enough. Last week brought that reminder to a group of unsuspecting women trying to put together a convention for some sort of sci-fi fan content (I may be wrong about what it actually is, because truthfully I have no idea, even after it was explained to me). After months of work, which included spending significant time trying to find “diverse” speakers and presenters, those in charge of the convention put out an open call for some:

Reality star Kim Kardashian has landed herself in some hot water after taking a large friend and family trip for her 40th birthday after taking COVID precautions in order to do it safely:

40 and feeling so humbled and blessed. There is not a single day that I take for granted, especially during these times when we are all reminded of the things that truly matter. pic.twitter.com/p98SN0RDZD

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) October 27, 2020

Today the New York City Mayor’s Office announced that like it’s doing with restaurants, soon storefronts will be doing business outside. Just in time for the balmy months of winter, famously temperate and mild in the Northeast United States.

NEW: @NYCMayor is launching the "Open Storefronts" initiative, modeled after Open Restaurants, which allows other businesses to sell their wares outside.

— katie honan (@katie_honan) October 28, 2020

As we’ve watched government edicts around the country force millions of small business owners into bankruptcy, I keep wondering the same thing: Where are the lawyers?

We have by no means defeated the COVID pandemic, nor is it an unserious situation (hospitals in El Paso and across Utah are at capacity), but this isn’t March, either. We know how the virus is spread and we know safe ways for almost all businesses (outside of perhaps bars) to operate. Nevertheless, we’re seeing millions of storefronts remain closed for business, or under such draconian limits that turning anything resembling a profit is impossible.

From New York to California, we’re learning that authorities aren’t content with telling people how to behave in public or what to put on their faces… no, now they’re telling Americans what they can do in their own homes.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom is setting tight parameters about how Americans can celebrate Thanksgiving in their own homes.

Last night, the CEO of Expensify sent out an email to all of their ten million customers about the vital importance of voting for Biden. Their customers are… not happy.

I sent an email to the CEO of @expensify pic.twitter.com/RmdRM55m43

— Daniel M. Rothschild (@danrothschild) October 23, 2020

It’s a rhetorical question, we know why progressives aren’t pushing hard for schools: Donald Trump and his administration are in favor, and therefore they must be against. No matter that women are dropping out of the workforce at an unimaginable clip, at-risk children are even more at-risk, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is becoming a Grand Canyon-sized hole.

Given all of this, one would think that the Democratic nominee would be pushing for schools to reopen, because the “science” is becoming increasingly clear: Kids are not at risk, kids do not spread the virus, and millions of kids’ academic and emotional futures depend on in-person schooling.

Remember all of the lectures we were the recipients of during the #MeToo era from Hollywood and our media betters? Hollywood, you know, the place where Harvey Weinstein was on the prowl; and the media, where folks like Jeffrey Toobin were still well respected after … well, I’ll let the Daily Mail tell it:

Toobin has been married to his Harvard classmate Amy McIntosh for 34 years. They have two daughters. But that didn’t stop him having a decade-long on-off affair with 13-years-younger fellow lawyer Casey Greenfield.

I have a number of friends with kids in public schools who are starting to say the quiet part out loud: Why aren’t our kids in school and at what point will they be transitioning to in-person learning? If you dare say that around teachers or administrators and you’ll be asked why you want to kill them, but more and more parents in my social circles are asking it anyway.

I’ve been long in favor of reopening schools; the science is quite clear on the fact that kids aren’t super spreaders. There was yet another study today about New York City that showed that the in-person opening didn’t lead to anything resembling a spike; the New York Times reports,

For the last several weeks, New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have set their aim on the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn and Rockland county for unique punishment amid the coronavirus pandemic. As time passes, we’re seeing just how much the targeting is for reasons other than public health.

Figures.

Turns out Cuomo's maps for shutting down Jewish neighborhoods – which are supposed to be based on science, but were drawn up inside his office without epidemiologists – follow contours of county roads. So either they're political or the COVID -19 virus knows geography. https://t.co/c2i1SUDHwP

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) October 18, 2020

Twelve days after it reopened for indoor dining (the only possible kind of dining, given its location inside of Grand Central Station), the famed Grand Central Oyster Bar has closed of its own accord. The New York Post has the story,

“We were only doing 3 percent of the revenues we ordinarily do at this time,” the chef added. Early on the Oyster Bar decided against providing takeout because commuters were not coming into Grand Central and nearby office towers were similarly devoid of people.

As with every controversial issue in America, the battle over today has become an exhausting battle between two poles: on one side, those who want to maintain our observance of Columbus Day, and the other, those who want to shift today’s holiday into “Indigenous People’s Day.”

It’s a false choice. Why can’t we celebrate the Discovery of the Americas Day, with all of the assorted implications that discovery wrought? We live the lives we do, and the world is better off, because Europeans landed on our shores. Columbus wasn’t the first to “discover” America, but he opened the door to its colonization.

Over the last few weeks, there has been a resurgence of COVID in the New York City area. While nowhere near the levels that left hospitals working non-stop for weeks in March and April, the spike in cases has concerned officials who are still reeling from the worst of the COVID losses nationally. They decided that the Orthodox Jewish community was behind the spread, and so, they have decided to wage war on the entire community.

HAPPENING NOW: New York City police officers forcefully dispersing Jews who gathered outside to celebrate the Sukkot holiday. pic.twitter.com/r7hYwJZKVT

— SV News 🚨 (@SVNewsAlerts) October 6, 2020