The Get into College for a ransom scandal

It is a scandal involving rich celebs yes, but it’s much bigger. . .those we know about in today’s stories  “conspired with others known and unknown”. Before it rolls into history (came out on March 13—there’s little being said today) there will be hundreds, and probably a few college presidents.  Someone will be squeezed to tell all.

“American higher education, from the ivy covered walls of Yale and Georgetown to the sun drenched campuses of USC and Stanford, was rocked Tuesday by a federal racketeering case that alleges celebrities and other wealthy parents funneled millions through an Orange County non-profit foundation in return for fraudulent entrance test scores and college admission facilitated by corrupt coaches and athletic department administrators.” https://www.pe.com/2019/03/12/newport-beach-is-at-the-center-of-nationwide-bribery-for-admissions-scandal/

I think the whole College Board/SAT/ACT is a scandal—so many kids get special tutoring, and it’s not illegal, those are valid, incorporated legal companies that do this, but many cannot afford it, and I’m sure some can be bought and stand-ins are used.  https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/sat-act-cheating-scandal-huffman-test-students-13682741.php

And how about the “volunteer” requirement that high schools have and colleges request—supposedly to even the playing field so less academically qualified have something to show.  Ha.  The “best” students also garner that area and need that to get into the Ivy League or the California system.  If it’s “volunteer” why is it required? And the lower or middle class kids who need to work can’t afford to take “free” internships.   What about those students who are shy or have poor social skills, but are good in academics—they can flunk “volunteering.”

And the whole athletic business.  That was one of the biggest outrages in this current scandal, but how many others have done this not connected to this particular named crook William Singer, owner of the Edge College & Career Network and CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation.  Photoshopping faces onto someone else’s body!  Coaches heads are rolling.

In this scandal, millions of dollars changed hands, but what about the kids who can’t attend out of state colleges because it’s too expensive, but illegals can attend? What about those who claim they are 1/32 black or Indian and are bumped ahead of the poor white teen from Appalachia?  This scandal involves people who can afford  to drop $100,000 to get kiddo into Yale or Harvard or Dartmouth, but we have all sorts of “jump ahead in line” from illegal immigration, to “who do you know who can drop your name to  HR” to donating to your alma mater a few years before junior wants to enroll. 

And what about colleges/universities using rich Nigerian and Egyptian foreign students to claim on their “diversity” quota or recruiting black students who could do well at OSU-Marion campus but will flunk out with debt at Yale, just so the school doesn’t get in hot water with government regulations. 

The money game of the higher education system  is a whole lot bigger than this scandal.

Those named:

“The following were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud:

Gregory Abbott, 68, of New York, founder and chairman of International Dispensing Corp., a food and beverage packaging company.

Marcia Abbott, 59, of New York.

Gamal Abdelaziz, 62, of Las Vegas, the former senior executive of resort and casino operator of Wynn Macau resort in Macau, China.

Diane Blake, 55, of San Francisco, an executive at a retail merchandising firm.

Todd Blake, 53, of San Francisco, an entrepreneur and investor.

Jane Buckingham, 50, of Beverly Hills, California, founder and CEO of Trendera boutique marketing company.

Gordon Caplan, 52, of Greenwich, Connecticut, co-chairman of New York-based Willkie Farr & Gallagher, an international law firm.

I-Hin “Joey” Chen, 64, of Newport Beach, California, operates a provider of warehousing and related services for the shipping industry.

Amy Colburn, 59, of Palo Alto, California.

Gregory Colburn, 61, of Palo Alto, California.

Robert Flaxman, 62, of Laguna Beach, California, founder and CEO of real estate development firm Crown Realty & Development.

Mossimo Giannulli, 55, of Los Angeles, fashion designer and founder of Mossimo fashion company (also married to Lori Loughlin).

Elizabeth Henriquez, 56, of Atherton, California.

Manuel Henriquez, 55, of Atherton, California, founder, chairman and CEO of Hercules Technology Growth Capital, a publicly traded specialty finance company.

Douglas Hodge, 61, of Laguna Beach, California, former CEO of investment management company Pacific Investment Management Co.

Felicity Huffman, 56, of Los Angeles, actress.

Agustin Huneeus Jr., 53, of San Francisco, owner of wine vineyards in Napa Valley and listed as co-founder of the Quintessa vineyard estate.

Bruce Isackson, 61, of Hillsborough, California, president of a real estate development firm WP Investments.

Davina Isackson, 55, of Hillsborough, California.

Michelle Janavs, 48, of Newport Coast, California, former executive of a large food manufacturer.

Elisabeth Kimmel, 54, of Las Vegas, owner and president of First Busey, a media company.

Marjorie Klapper, 50, of Menlo Park, California, co-owner of jewelry business.

Lori Loughlin, 54, of Los Angeles, actress.

Toby MacFarlane, 56, of Del Mar, California, former senior executive at a title insurance company.

William McGlashan Jr., 55, of Mill Valley, California, senior executive at a global equity firm TPG Capital.

Marci Palatella, 63, of Healdsburg, California, CEO of a liquor distribution company.

Peter Jan Sartorio, 53, of Menlo Park, California, president and co-founder of Elena's Food Specialties.

Stephen Semprevivo, 53, of Los Angeles, executive at Cydcor, a privately held provider of outsourced sales teams.

Devin Sloane, 53, of Los Angeles, founder and CEO of aquaTECTURE LLC, a provider of drinking and wastewater systems.

John Wilson, 59, of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, founder and CEO of private equity and real estate development firm.

Homayoun Zadeh, 57, of Calabasas, California, an associate professor of dentistry.

Robert Zangrillo, 52, of Miami, founder and CEO of private investment firm Dragon Global.”

Athletics

According to Sports Illustrated, “Among coaches indicted are Stanford's sailing coach John Vandemoer, former Yale women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith, former Georgetown tennis coach Gordie Ernst, current Texas men's tennis coach Michael Center and current UCLA men's soccer coach Jorge Salcedo. Ernst, who is accused of taking multiple six-figure cash bribes to admit fake recruits, resigned without explanation from Georgetown last summer. He is now coaching at Rhode Island. . . Wake Forest volleyball coach William "Bill" Ferguson was indicted in the scheme on the same charges as Vandemoer.”

“Four USC athletics staff members were also charged including the Trojans former women's soccer head coach Ali Khosroshahin, former women's soccer assistant coach Laura Janke and current USC Senior Associate Athletic Director Donna Heinel and water polo head coach Jovan Vavic. Heinel and Vavic were fired as a result.

Mark Riddell, the Director of College Entrance Exam Preparation at IMG Academy, a private college preparatory school and sports academy in Bradenton, Fla., has been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud alongside charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering.” https://www.si.com/more-sports/2019/03/12/college-admissions-recruiting-bribery-scheme-indictments-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin

The Mercury News reports: “In April 2016, Giannulli and Laughlin expressed concerns about their older daughter’s “academic qualifications” for USC after meeting with a college counselor, as detailed in a 204-page federal complaint

But Heinel presented their daughter as a prospective member of USC’s women’s crew team in a meeting with the university’s subcommittee for athletic admissions later that fall.

The daughter posed for a photo on an ergometer, a rowing machine, as part of an elaborate effort to demonstrate her participation in the sport despite no experience.

Giannulli sent Heinel $50,000 days later, and she was admitted.

The following year, Giannulli and Laughlin made a similar effort for their younger daughters. In this instance, they presented her as a crew coxswain for the L.A. Marina Club team and also had a photo taken of her on an ergometer.

In exchange for her admittance, Giannulli again sent Heinel $50,000.” https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/13/four-connected-to-usc-athletics-indicted-in-college-admissions-scandal/

Is AOC real? She’s an actress claims Mr. Reagan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h5iv6sECGU&feature=youtu.be

A casting call? An Actress? A puppet? A scripted front for an organization? Sometimes brilliant, often bumbling? Who's the man behind the curtain? A political operative who's sort of awkward, but very smart and Cenk Uygar of the Young Turks. I've seen this floating around. Take a look and see what you think? And it probably isn't illegal to put up an actress for Congress and tell her what to say.

Trailer for Mr. Reagan. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf1EWeQ7DefD6Ds3KdeQ-uQ

This is socialism. . .

appropriately made famous by The Police, popular rock band of the 70s and 80s

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you.

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you.

Oh can't you see
You belong to me?

The Reparations movement

I'm guessing very few Americans can trace their ancestry to slave owners, either black owners or white (higher percentage of free blacks owned slaves than poor whites), but Democrats will do it by color, after all, that's how they see everything. If they didn't, Barack Obama wouldn't be eligible, Kamala Harris wouldn't be eligible, Ilhan Omar wouldn't be eligible nor Tashida Tlaib (although she might be a descendant of a slaver); and all those Africans who immigrated legally in the 20th and 21st centuries, millions, wouldn't be eligible. More Africans come here in 10 years than the 330,000 who arrived as slaves in the 17th century. Plus all those descendants of Africans and Arabs who assisted in the capture and enslavement several hundred years ago would have to be found and punished.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/whats-problem-reparations?

Men need abortions, too—NARAL

"Women aren't the only people who get pregnant or the only people who need to access abortion." —NARAL.  Only in a Democrat world. The irony is in this article they are referring to transwomen as men who might need abortions. https://rewire.news/article/2019/03/01/women-are-not-the-only-ones-who-get-abortions/

Finland’s government resigns due to failures

I don't understand how governments that resign work. They should just use the adversarial system like ours where one party spends all their time, our tax dollars, and energy trying to undo the last election rather than have an election. It's been awhile (2006) since we've been in Finland, a fabulous country, but I did notice there were 2 health systems. One for the base, usually the low income and young adults (who are basically healthy) depended on that, and then a private pay system which the wealthier, older and well educated use to supplement that. Taxes to pay for this were unbelievable, but education was "free." I was very impressed that the African grocery clerk spoke to me in English and my friend in Finnish--somehow she knew. Their immigrants also need to learn Swedish since that is a 2nd language.

Finns are very thorough and systematic and no immigrant comes in uninvited (although a some Russians do just walk or bike over the border--and because of their history with Russia that's like a small invasion) and it takes about 10 months to be processed. We met (in stores) Vietnamese and Chileans, who were refugees from an earlier time, and we saw Somali youth congregating on the streets of Helsinki. But during the 2015 immigration crisis in Europe, many more were accepted. Even the president shown in this photo took refugees into his own home as an example for the citizens. What if every politician in our country did that? We had 70,000 at the southern border in February--Pelosi and Schumer could take a few. About 1/5 of Finnish refugees who came during the rush, have been sent home, and many who claimed to be children/teens turned out to be adults. Sounds more tidy than the way we do it, where the Democrats in Congress say hundreds of thousands need to be processed in 20 days or they have to be set loose in the general population with a "promise" to return for a hearing on their eligibility. Meanwhile large "family" groups, some with rented children to drop off to be used again and again, cross our borders, and drug cartels use them for cover. But unlike Finland, we don't have a system.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/finlands-entire-government-resigns-after-breakdown-of-agreement-on-welfare-state-reform

At the gym

I used to write a blog about the people I met in coffee shops.  But I gave it up—going to coffee shops.  Now I go to the gym and I see a lot of interesting people, and even talk to some, although I rarely know their names.

Today on the next exercycle there was a woman who is an immigrant. We’ve chatted numerous times. She goes to her “home” country for 5 months of the year, but her adult children were born in the U.S.  “I’m very close to my children,” she told me today.  “We talk first thing in the morning, and later maybe 8-9 times.”   I would like to think I misunderstood that, she having an accent, but I don’t think so.

One older (older than me) man dresses up for the holidays.  This month he’s all about green—hat, tie, shirt, knee socks, neck wear, etc. We chatted a bit one day—he’s also a graduate of the University of Illinois, sometime in the mid-1950s.

The fashions are fascinating.  Some women are perfectly color coordinated—shoes, pants, shirt.  If the women are very young, say 18-25, they might wear shorts, but very few do that. And only those with really fabulous legs.  Some men wear shorts—old guys have really baggy shorts, and if a young man wears tight fitting shorts, he’s probably gay.

One woman has been recommending books for me to read.  She suggested “What Alice Forgot,” which I checked out of the library, and really enjoyed.  She also suggested “Elegance of the Hedgehog,” originally published in French, which I’ve started.  Today she suggested a non-fiction title, “After Emily,”  about the 2 women who organized Emily Dickinson’s poetry. https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018/11/06/emily-dickinson-dobrow  I often see people reading, so I don’t talk to them.  I haven’t had much luck reading on the treadmill, although I do it on the cycle. Most people have their smart phones with them and ear buds, so they are not interested in chit-chat.

I often talk to a very friendly couple who moved to Columbus from California. She’s in excellent shape.  They came here because two of their children live here and their only grandchild.  Her mother is 101 and still lives in California, so she goes there a few weeks of the year.

Another couple I’ve met are also living in Columbus because of their son and grandchild. They actually own 3 homes, and vacation in the summer in Minnesota, and go to North Dakota to ski.  It’s a bit tricky to catch up with them—they are always traveling.

And then there’s Dan.  He has neuropathy, is always in a lot of pain, but struggles in every day using his walker.  He was getting much better, but one day was hit by a car in the parking lot.  Although he had been able to give up his walker a while back, he is now using it all the time.  He’s an inspiration.

Another woman has had her leg amputated; the other day I saw a man using a white cane with another man explaining the machines to him; I’ve seen several people who appear to be recovering from strokes.

I’ve seen a number of members of our church there.  Sometimes so many I think we should have a committee meeting.

Movie night

We don’t see a lot of movies.  The last time we went to a theater, it was sold out on-line, not only for that showing, but the next.  But our daughter recommended a movie when we went out for dinner Friday night, and since I was picking up some books at the library yesterday, I looked for it.

So last night we watched the movie, "Chef," which although it has an awful lot of food prep and f-words in it, is a wonderful story about a boy and his relationship with his divorced dad. Well worth your time. Also a lot about social media, which the son knows how to do, and dad doesn’t.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2883512/videoplayer/vi3075386649?ref_=tt_ov_vi

More and more research is showing how important it is for children to have a relationship with their fathers.  It’s best if they can be in the home, but even ordinary things like rough housing with kids can help their experience later in life, and cut down on crime and improve school performance. And of course, single parent households are more likely to be poor which affects even longevity. https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2019/03/07/why-growing-up-poor-could-hurt-your-brain-in-old-age/?

Oppression Olympics (ala Candace Owens)

"I'm a woman so I'm oppressed; well, I'm a black woman, so I'm more oppressed than you; well, I'm a disabled black woman, so I'm more oppressed than all of you. I'm a disabled black transwoman, so I've got you all beat--I win."

Great video with Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk with Turning Point U.S.A. meeting with Turning Point U.K. Very interesting discussion.  Many of the same problems in U.K. with free speech, open borders, political correctness that we have across the pond.

https://www.facebook.com/realCandaceOwens/videos/818228165180938/?

Candace Owens now has her own show on PragerU.  I think this is her second episode, interviewing the chair of Black Lives Matter.

https://www.prageru.com/video/the-candace-owens-show-hawk-newsome/

Radical feminists are attacking heterosexuality

Ladies, if you ever thought feminists were a bit silly or just out of step, you really need to watch this Janice Fiamengo video.  Second wave feminism has definitely flowed over the edge of sanity. 

Remember when "women's lib" was about women's sexual freedom--to be one of the guys? No more--that's just grandma's day. Now, "normal sex" is violence against women and abuse--even if married, and consent is non-consent. Wonder what the college permission forms men should be signing will look like? What new laws to "protect" women will Congress enact? 

Actually, heterosexuality is what they are attacking. They're again saying, women don't have a clue. 

https://youtu.be/xlVTNVFvryc

Illegal immigration does hurt black and Hispanic Americans

"Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is sizable. The typical high school dropout earns about $25,000 annually. According to census data, immigrants admitted in the past two decades lacking a high school diploma have increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by roughly 25 percent. As a result, the earnings of this particularly vulnerable group dropped by between $800 and $1,500 each year." 

This is the reason blacks and Hispanics are turning to Trump. He speaks to their concerns. They know Trump is not a racist--if he is he's really bad at it.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216

Thomas Sowell on the history of slavery

This is an audio version of Chapter 3 of Sowell's  book, "Black Rednecks & White Liberals". 
He carefully lays out the world history of slavery, including Europeans enslaved, then moves on to explain how Africans were involved in the enslavement and selling of Africans to the Europeans at the ports, who couldn't survive in the interior.  Discusses the practice of castrating Africans to be sold to Muslims as guards for harems. Also notes the black slave owners in the U.S. and Caribbean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrfjUzYvPo
 

Wisdom from Thomas Sowell's book including the other essays:  https://www.conservativebookclub.com/book/black-rednecks-and-white-liberals

• Proof that the peculiar subculture of Southern whites and that of blacks did not result from slavery
• Why the low test scores of some European immigrant children cannot be automatically attributed to their being new to the United States — and hard facts about how some kinds of cultures tend to produce lower mental test scores, whether the people in those cultures are black or white, American or European
• How elements of transplanted Southern culture came to be seen as immutable features of a distinctive “black identity” — despite their mirroring very similar cultural patterns among Southern whites in times past
• Evidence that black pioneers and leaders of the early twentieth century were not just “the cream of the crop” but emerged from a culture very different from that in which most blacks were raised and educated
• How racial barriers erected by “black rednecks” prevented black cultural elites from separating themselves as much as they would have liked from lower-class blacks
• White liberals: how Leftist intellectuals, politicians, celebrities, judges, and teachers have aided and abetted the perpetuation of a counterproductive and self-destructive lifestyle among blacks
• The much-overlooked source of many of the prevailing misconceptions of the histories of both blacks and whites in America
• How white liberals have promoted a conformity of beliefs and affirmations among blacks, with those who hold different viewpoints banished from consideration intellectually and ostracized socially
• “Middleman minorities”: how certain kinds of economic activity engaged in by minority groups increases resentment against them more than their ethnicity
• How the widespread belief that Jews and other middleman minorities have made no productive contribution to the economies in which they lived has often been belied by the decline or collapse of those economies after their departure
• Proof: contrary to liberal myth, for most of history, slavery was not based on racism — and most slaves did not differ racially from their masters
• What the Western world — and the United States in particular — had that made the abolition of slavery possible, while slavery was still taken for granted in the Islamic world and other non-Western societies
• Why modern-day liberal critics are wrong, and Abraham Lincoln was wise not to have made the moral case for the abolition of slavery in the Emancipation Proclamation
• How Leftists scream for slavery reparations from the American government while saying nothing at all about non-Western slaveholding countries past and present, from which no reparations or other concessions can remotely be expected
• Bias: how scholars have long known that slavery was a worldwide institution, going back thousands of years, but this has not led them to provide adequate coverage of slavery outside of Western civilization
• A cardinal and illuminating reason for German cultural predominance in Eastern Europe
• Why the genocide of the Jews perpetrated by Hitler’s Germany is even more chilling than most people realize
• How the differences between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington have been exaggerated by modern-day liberal revisionists for political purposes
• One of the most obvious — and most overlooked and suppressed — reasons for the deficient educational performance of black students
• How putting unqualified people in charge of black colleges and universities for the sake of racial proprieties was a serious setback for the schools, and for the young people who were educated in them
• Revealing details of the decline and academic collapse of Dunbar High School, once an elite school for blacks in Washington, DC
• How the desire of predominantly white colleges to secure a demographically representative student body made lower standards of admissions for blacks virtually inevitable
• Why the magnitude of employment discrimination cannot be reliably measured by the relative numbers of blacks in particular occupations
• Prominent educational “experts” who ignore or dismiss examples of black educational success because they don’t fit in with their ideological agenda

Children need fathers—especially boys

“Telomeres are caps of DNA on the tips of our chromosomes. Think of them like the cap on a bicycle tire or the plastic tips of shoelaces that prevent the laces from fraying. Certain things cause our telomeres to shorten, and when that happens we experience cell dysfunction leading to various health problems.

In the case of boys, nine-year-olds who had no father in the home had telomeres that were 14 percent shorter than those with fathers. When broken down by reason for the loss of the father, the effect was greatest , 16 percent,  in children whose fathers were dead. For children whose fathers were incarcerated, the reduction in telomeres averaged 10 percent; for those whose parents were divorced or separated, it was 6 percent.”

https://www1.cbn.com/healthyliving/archive/2017/07/21/boys-who-grow-up-without-a-father-suffer-greater-health-problems-nbsp

Jordan Peterson and the author of The Boy Crisis, Warren Farrel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akXr2R_l1Wc

Daylight Savings time

Jim tells a familiar story about Democrat friends

At Walkaway on Facebook, Jim wrote: “My best friend has always been a Democrat. We have enjoyed many spirited debates over coffee or beers. In truth they have been more interesting because of our difference in opinion.

I'm a libertarian because of my political persuasion I have often exposed myself to both sides. In the run-up to the 2016 election it became more and more obvious that major news outlets no longer pretended to be impartial. Major headlines read more like something that should have been in the op-ed section.

During a visit home shortly after Trump won the election it had become obvious that politics was becoming a subject we would intentionally avoid. There seemed to be no reason to engage in such conversation. After all I listen to NPR and watched MSNBC and CNN. It was clear that his opinion was whatever the latest talking point happened to be. No independent gathering of facts or questioning of the information presented to him.

I voiced to him my concerns about the effects such propaganda in the media. His reply was something to the effect that you could "lock him in a room with Fox News for as long as you wanted and he would still be a liberal". It was clear that no matter how I presented the information he either was unable to or unwilling to see the truth.

Sadly since then our contact has dwindled away to almost non-existent. As I'm sure you've heard multiple stories similar to this one with family and friends.

It appears as though the propaganda media for the Democratic Party has done a good job of convincing otherwise intelligent people that anyone that disagrees with the current position of the Democratic Party is in some way immoral.(racist, homophobic, bigot, sexist, misogynist, xenophobic, and wealth hoarding Sadist).

I don't know how we can break this on the large-scale but you have my full support.

I walk with you Jim.”

Who is actually endangered?

Wolf numbers in the lower 48 states have rebounded from roughly 1,000 several decades ago to 5,000, and they may be removed from the endangered list, causing progressives to weep and gnash their teeth. Those same progressives cheered for infanticide and late term abortion. Maybe human babies and elderly humans could be added to the endangered list.

The dangerous Ilhan Omar

"Omar was born in Somalia, which she fled with her family at age nine, during the country’s civil war. She spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya until the United States rescued her and her family in 1995. It’s not surprising that she has made her remarkable experience a centerpiece of her political campaigns and public life.

What is surprising is the extent to which her narrative consists of complaints about the intolerance, racism, inequity, and filth that she found when she came to the United States, and since. Gratitude, for the country and the people who saved and welcomed her family, is largely absent from her telling."

Get this woman off that important foreign affairs committee. She and her family were victims of Islamic violence, and she wants the same for us. She's up to no good.

The resolution the Democrats voted for is a joke.  Reminds me of the Democrats during the 1930s who sold out the Jews.

https://www.city-journal.org/ilhan-omar-immigration?

The case for tolerance

"A lack of self-awareness comes as a corollary to intolerance. Intolerant people, in their speech and bumperstickers, advertise their tolerance. They justify their prejudice by projecting their jaundiced fantasy of “the other,” to borrow from the academese used in the report, upon real people who rarely conform to the caricature. We never see ourselves as intolerant because we depict our foes as intolerable." https://spectator.org/do-blame-me-im-from-massachusetts/

To vaccinate or not—guest blogger Mick

We (the Bruces) lost a son, Patrick Howard, in the 1964 measles epidemic—2,100 babies died, and 20,000 were born with congenital rubella syndrome. Mick’s son was born in 1979, his wife had immunity but the children at the day care did not.

“The vaccination debate seems to have created some friction. I am - as I am sure is obvious - not at all in favor of the anti-vax view. It is not hypothetical for me.

In early 1979 my wife and I lived in Copenhagen. Nancy was in the early stage of pregnancy - unknown to us there was a German measles outbreak where we lived. Our elder son attended a kindergarten/pre school and Nancy would go there to pick him up. Nancy had German measles as a child so, of course, it never occurred to us that a problem could occur. It turned out that several children in that daycare did get German Measles - they were unvaccinated - and our unborn child was affected.

Our son, Sean, was born deaf-blind and with a small host of other issues. He was in NICU for 6 weeks, severely underweight when born, heart issues etc.

As he and we grew up together we learned a lot about vaccination and about Congenital Rubella Syndrome.

Sean grew up, at one point we were asked to host a meeting in our home for Children's Hospital for incoming residents/fellows so they could actually come into contact with a CRS adult - because the condition, thanks to vaccination programs is almost unknown now.

Sean will be forty this year. He still lives with us - I have attached a picture my wife took of Sean and myself walking one of our dogs on the dirt road where we live.

We have a lot of fun and Sean has done a lot of travelling a lot of adjusting to new places and he swims incredibly well.

I am writing this not because I want to make this debate mawkish. I am writing it it because I want people to understand that the risks involved in not vaccinating are NOT hypothetical. They are real.”

 

https://fox8.com/2019/03/08/unvaccinated-boy-spends-47-days-in-icu-with-tetanus-and-his-parents-still-refuse-to-get-him-vaccinated/?

The Diversity lottery winner—guest blogger Dimitrii, immigrant from Moldova

“Our family won the visa diversity lottery in 1995. We came to the USA in 1996. Some family was left over in the former Soviet Union country Moldova. In 2000, I asked my father to sponsor a trip to visit my birth country, he said, "No, you must forget that place, they don't care about you. You must keep going to school, learn the language and assimilate here. You are an American in the making now." In 2002, I became a naturalized American citizen.

As a responsible citizen, I paid all my taxes even as a 16 year old working for cash at a deli. Then I went to college. Was a 'blind Democrat' for many years. If it said Democrat, I voted for the candidate. Then something happened. When my father passed away, I dropped out of college, but 2 years later came back and was able to finish. My student loans went up. My classes started to cost more, even though I was going to a CUNY public University in NYC. When I started college George W. Bush Jr. was POTUS. When I graduated in 2012, you all know who was the POTUS. I lost my health coverage when my father passed away, but eventually worked my way to own my own private insurance. Could not keep my doctor. I developed deep psychological problems because I had to start working and building relationships with new doctors. My credit was fairly good, but the APRs went through the roof.

In 2016, with the support of all my family in NY, I was finally told the truth. To research the candidates I want to vote for. Started doing the research and discovered a more loving home, which brought me to discover Conservative values. I actually was always raised conservative, yet I sided with the Democrats, because I was too lazy to look into it. I am pleased to have discovered a side of America which I love belonging to. 2.5 years ago I made a decision to #walkaway and I have not been more confident and more content with my decision. The Democrats indoctrinated me from my elementary school and all the way through college in NY. I will never go back. Thank you for all that this movement and its' supporters do for me and all other proud Americans who chose to #walkaway. God Bless Liberation, God Bless You All, and God Bless United States of America. “  Dimitrii