How’s everyone’s weekend going? Thanks for spending a portion of it with the Six.
The Progressive Oligarchy in this country are masters of a playbook of governance.
How it works: spend money. Overreach with policy. Spend more money. When problem occurs, deny it, shift blame, then come up with new expensive policy to rid of first problem generated by original policy.
Rinse, repeat, over and over, again and again. An essential ally in snowing over sheepish citizens: zero scrutiny from local press corps who believe it to be a social obligation to copy, paste and re-print any government and public sector dispatches.
Example: At an event held this past week in Chicagoland called the “Mental Health Leadership Summit,” one of the speakers was Dan Bridges. Bridges is the superintendent of Naperville District 203, one of the largest in the state of Illinois.
Above is a picture from his presentation. Notice the “Whatever It Takes” title of the screen slide with the sub-head “Naperville 203 Approach to Supporting the Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs of all Students.”
The Six did not gain access to the slides but we’ll make an educated guess about its contents: there’s likely no reference to the district locking out its 16,000-plus students from in-person learning for a full calendar year, from March 2020-21.
Leave it to oblivious administrators––yet smart messaging agents––like Bridges to believe they must squeeze lemonade out of the lemons handed to them.
”How could our own directives be a cause agent to the social, emotional and mental health needs of our students? We’ll be the ones to steer them back to sunshine and lollipops. Reason for our 18 superintendents to call another meeting!”
It’s straight from the Socialist Playbook: deny there ever was a crisis. Then come up with an expensive publicly-funded solution to affirm their strategy. For the world-building public education ruling class, it’s all fingers and thumbs on whatever escape hatch disconnects them from facing any accountability.
As Wall Street Journal opinion editor Daniel Henninger said this week, “The progressive way of governance is that no policy mistake can change—ever.”
One did change this week with the May 11 dissolution of the federal COVID health emergency.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, never one to let an emergency to waste, gave interviews this week about his contributions to Covid Hysteria (which were quite vast and remain so to this day).
Speaking to the Capitol News Service, Pritzker said, “if one were to look at how Illinois handled the pandemic – and this is kudos and gratitude to the people of Illinois – people did the right thing. And the vast majority of people in Illinois understood what they needed to do. They heard what they needed to do from the experts, and they did it. And the result of that is, to the extent one can use the word ‘success’ here, the result is that we had real success here at keeping people safe and alive.”
Not one semblance of reflection in those words. No admission of missteps such as unemployment relief fraud, the gross miscalculation of data, fabrication of “science” to justify lockdowns, how the teacher’s unions bullied their way into receiving the vaccine first over those most at risk, his illegal use of executive power; the list goes on and on.
He did what a public servant does.
In Illinois and at the federal level, that’s to create messes, deny they exist––or blame others like “MAGA’s”––then hatch new programs.
Why waste time crying over spilled milk when there’s a much more expensive shiny new bottle sitting in a refrigerator somewhere waiting to be opened.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
1. No Plan For Migrant Crisis.
What a gift outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has handed Brandon Johnson. Thousands of migrants are all over the city, sleeping on floors in police stations, and—gasp!—eating expired cheese sandwiches. As written in this week’s lede, no one in leadership wants to accept responsibility and if any, offers a singular quick fix: government handouts. The problem here is local and state officials can’t ignore the migrants like they do their own citizens because it’s not politically prudent to do so. The timing is unfortunate for the hate-has-no-home sanctuarians as the spigot is shut off and there ain’t no money to be had. The Six offers a solution…what about Pritzker’s governor’s mansion? When not hosting 2024 convention junkets, the residence just sits there. It’s got a cool floor plan, plenty of pie, running water (toilets…eh) and servants. If we are truly a “welcoming state” why not open up the Art Institute or Millennium Park? Tent City baby! Come on Chicagoans…let’s do this!
2. A Trucker’s Kidnapping and Perilous Quest for Justice.
With migrant crisis as backdrop, the Six offers the perfect narrative storytelling piece. A dramatic kidnapping scene will suck you into this saga about the fascinating legal industry built around driving used goods from the United States to Central America—and the shadow of illegal activity that lurks at every stop along the way. Excellent writing and illustrations from 5280 mag.
3. Can Joe Rogan Make Austin America’s Comedy Capital?
Whenever we lose our way as a country, leave it to brave and resourceful entrepreneurs to steer us back on track. Scene: Austin, Texas. Spot: Comedy Mothership. Star: Joe Rogan. The ubiquitous opinionist and MMA announcer bought a building in Austin, remodeled it and opened a comedy club. No rules in regards to what can be said (First Amendment abolitionists get preferred seating) but along with grievances, guests must check their phones at the door as the author writes “so that (the comedians) could try out new material without risking online backlash. That gave them freedom to follow in Rogan’s free-range footsteps—which they did, to the delight of the crowd, with jokes about subjects like Lia Thomas, the Ivy league swimmer who took home an NCAA title as a trans woman, thongs, guns, and abortion.” Next trip to Austin, swing by the Mothership. It’s a version of America we need to return to nationwide.
4. Land Ownership Makes No Sense.
So everybody takes up space. Everybody needs land. Yet all the land in the modern world is already owned. New generations are born with "a kind of existential debt,” says this interesting piece via Wired. Private ownership of land made sense so long as it always seemed possible to find more land somewhere. But that is no longer the case. The article writes of the concept of a 19th century concept of Georgism, which calls for the public ownership of all land. We know how the Paramount Network feels about land, having built a business model (the series “Yellowstone” and the 926 spin-off shows) off the idea of protecting the private rights in land ownership. Right now, John Dutton is sipping on expensive age-barreled whiskey and shouting from his porch, “get off my property you stinkin’ varmints!”
5. R.I.P. Metaverse.
An appropriate obituary to Mark Zuckerberg’s billion dollar bet, the Metaverse. The Facebook founder had a vision that the future of social media was all of us wearing headsets and hanging out virtually. As it turns out, people are actually pretty happy staring into flat phone screens. Zuckerberg put about $24 billion into the whole deal. Crazy stat: Decentraland, a $1.3 billion “ecosystem” for people to spend time in the Metaverse, had a reported 38 daily active users. I think the Metaverse will be like 3-D glasses were back in the 70’s and 80’s; a cool novelty people will do on the weekends or on vacation, a diversion from preferred real life experiences.
Before that champagne brunch, just get up and dance. Sweat y’all.
Thanks for reading everybody and Happy Mother’s Day to all mom Six readers.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com
Another week, another excellent commentary, Jon Kerr. These characters are either crafty liars or insane. It is difficult to stomach their jutzpah.