by Kerry Dougherty

Tired of masks? Me too. But this is important.

Imagine how hard the teachers’ unions must have lobbied their indentured Democratic servants in the Virginia State Senate to get seven who voted to end forced masking of school children on Tuesday to vote against the same exact bill on Wednesday.

It passed without their votes, of course. But their bizarre behavior needs to be highlighted.

And never forgotten.

Who caved? John Bell, Loudoun County. John S. Edwards, Roanoke. Ghazala Hashmi, Richmond. Janet Howell, Fairfax. Richard Saslaw, Alexandria. Lionel Spruill, Chesapeake. And Scott Surovell, Fairfax.

Which Dems stayed strong? Chap Petersen of Fairfax, of course, the driver behind this move to end mask mandates. Joined by Lynwood Lewis of Accomac and Joe Morrissey, Richmond.

https://twitter.com/Dunnavant4VA/status/1491420057729069060?s=20&t=pPWlvtZKzTPohKK8gZFeWQ

We’ve written reams about the damage done to students by forced masking. Sorry if you’re bored by the topic.

Kids matter. They can’t vote and they don’t have loud voices. If we don’t fight for children, who will?

Frankly, people who spew toxic nonsense like “kids are resilient,” “my kids don’t mind masks,” “masks work” or “masking kids protects the elderly” are tiresome. They’re either too old to remember what it was like to be a child or too lazy to change the channel from MSNBC.

They ignore the 300% increase in children with speech problems. They ignore the social and psychological damage being done daily to the most helpless members of our society. They ignore established milestones of childhood development, which depend on seeing faces and healthy social interaction. Most of all, they ignore data showing children to be at little risk of serious complications from Covid-19.

For the knobturners braying that masks can come off some time in the future when infection rates plummet even more, I’d like to point out that infection rates soared with masks ON. Viruses don’t care about your stupid cloth masks. And an N95 only works if it fits perfectly and is changed regularly.

Frankly, I’m done with America’s mask cultists.

SB 739 will next go to the House of Delegates where it will easily pass. Then it heads to Gov. Glenn Youngkin who says he will quickly sign it into law.

“I promised that as governor, Virginia would move forward with an agenda that empowers parents on the upbringing, education, and care of their own children. I am proud to continue to deliver on that promise,” Youngkin told The Washington Post. “This vote also shows that school boards who are attacking their own students are stunningly detached from reality.”

It seems that if the governor adds an emergency clause to the bill, it will go back to both houses where a simple majority can approve it and the law will take effect immediately.

Ordinarily it takes a larger majority to activate a law before July 1, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here.

This IS an emergency. Children are being harmed daily by feckless school boards who don’t understand or care about students.

Shoot, liberal enclaves like New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Oregon will have masks off kids’ faces in the coming weeks.

This needs to happen now in Virginia.

Once face masks are optional in schools pressure needs to build on the Biden administration to remove mask mandates from commercial aircraft.

Regulations that require 2-year-olds to keep masks on their little faces during flights have wreaked havoc on the airline industry and made travel absolutely miserable for young families.

Tired of hearing about masks? Me too. Let’s fight to lift all of the inane mandates so we can move on.

This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.