For a certain hick, I know...

 

The Power of One

If you want to get a parent or grandparent or taxpayer up to speed about the issues with the Christian County Library, this interview by David Rice is the perfect vehicle.

One Parent Created a Movement

Not only does it give a short history of how Christian County citizen Mary Hernandez de Carl became involved in the movement to bring sanity to the children and teen sections of the library, but how the battle is going. Many very important points are shared.

Our publicly-appointed officials at the library continue to dig in and provide inappropriate materials to children. The staff seem to be creatures of the American Library Association and its chapter the Missouri Library Association. There is a lot of money and power behind the agenda to demoralize our children and destabilize our culture.

One person stood up.

Again, the Christian County Library Board of Trustees meets tonight at the Nixa branch at 6 p.m. Also, the Facebook group mentioned at the end, Pray for Christian County, can be found HERE. Also, We the People of Christian County was instrumental in giving a citizen's a voice in the effort to clean up the library.

Connections

 

 

From: MSBA

 

By Gretchen Garrity

 David Rice writes about Ozark School Board Member Patty Quessenberry, who has served on the board for 27 years--and she's running again. Quessenberry is also the president-elect of the Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) about which you can read here, and watch below:

 

Rice writes: "Mrs. Quessenberry’s loyalties are not to you. At the very least, she is loyal to the MSBA which is buried in DEI and wants to increase school debt so they can make their Bank overlords happy. Is it possible her loyalties are to the businesses and organizations that stand to make the most money off the district? Even if all she gets out of being a board member is a massage to her ego, is it worth so many students failing?"

Rice shares the crux of the matter--that low academic scores are the elephant in the room that school boards avoid talking about at all costs.

Because of professional relationships, as well as the policies and guidelines pushed by groups like the MSBA and the Missouri Association of School Administrators (in connection with DESE), academic scores have taken a nosedive, as well as the mental and emotional health of students and staff. Also, these organizations are associated with lending organizations (like Raymond James and Stifel) that stand by to help school districts (taxpayers) get into debt through never-ending bonds for school construction projects, renovations, etc. Both Raymond James and Stifel are associate/business members with both the MSBA and MASA.

Citizens should check into the relationships with these professional organizations and how they work with local school districts to pass bonds and keep the taxpayers in perpetual debt above and beyond the tax levies. Follow the money.

Citizens must not lose sight of the abysmal academic scores. For parents and taxpayers the Return on Investment (ROI) is not there, but for financial organizations it's a never-ending windfall of taxpayer dollars.

The organizational relationships that school board members and candidates have has a lot to do with the decisions they make on the local level. Vote accordingly on April 2.

The Problem with Friends

 

From: Ozarktigers.org

 

By Gretchen Garrity

The oft-repeated line that the Missouri Legislature has a Republican super majority is a terrible hindrance to the truth of the matter. When some Republican legislators vote, on average, about 50% of the time with the Democrats, that is not a super majority of Republicans. 

That is called the Uniparty. And the Uniparty's interests do not align with the vast majority of citizens in Missouri who vote (often vainly) for Republicans who hopefully represent their interests.

This is also a problem on the local level with school boards and other elected offices. Uniparty influence easily reaches down to locally-elected positions. How else are their vast interests going to be implemented in local schools, health boards, city councils and libraries?

Citizens need to awaken to the understanding that the candidate or official you have known for years, who attends your church, whose business you frequent, or whose children go to school with your children, may not be the best person for the local school board or city council.

It is vital that you become educated on how they view the world, how they will or have vote(d), and what organizations and individuals they are affiliated with. For instance, the Chamber of Commerce is not what it used to be. It has been co-opted by globalist interests that seek to implement worker programs in the schools. They are more interested in worker bees than an educated populace.

Many local schools are deeply intertwined with the local chambers of commerce. School board members, past and present, and even superintendents are members of the local chamber of commerce. They represent the public/private partnerships that purport to have a mutually beneficial relationship that helps students as well as the chamber. 

Think.

The chamber is a business-oriented entity. It desires what most benefits businesses in the area. Do the benefits of a culinary program outweigh the negative aspects of turning a school into a business that churns out workers and not educated citizens who can reason and determine their own future?

There are plenty of culinary schools around. Why start a program in a high school? Ask yourself the hard questions. Who benefits most from a bunch of kids that know how to work in hospitality, typically a relatively low-income career? Why aren't schools turning out kids who can read well, write well, and do mathematics? The scores are awful in many local districts, yet programs that ultimately benefit business are an expanding focus. Why?

On a similar note, David Rice has written an excellent article about Dustin Kirkman, a candidate for the Ozark School District School Board. Rice asks some important questions and he exposes some important information. His article deserves to be shared around.

From his article: "Dustin Kirkman has made questionable statements about schools, has supported two men who had felony charges against them (and in Christian County, they received a slap on their wrists), and belongs to an organization that does good and services, but leans left and doesn’t believe in absolute truth. Even the ancient Greeks understood truth better than Rotarians seem to understand it."

Incidentally, there will be a radio spot at 91.1 FM KSMU tomorrow at noon (March 19, 2024) with Ozark School Board candidates sponsored by the Informed Voter Coalition (Show Me Christian County).

Moses the "Superintendent"

 

Detail of a 19th-century wood engraving by Frederick Richard Pickersgill

David Rice does a great job of exposing the worldview of Nixa School Board candidate Megan Deal, who recently spoke at a local meeting. It is vitally important to understand where candidates are coming from.

They can say many right things, they can be Christians, they can be articulate and pleasant. But if their basic understanding of the world is not in line with your values as a voter, you have a decision to make.

In order to really get at their true opinions, you have to spend time digging. Rice does that. He's showing the reader what the press will not--the truth.

From his article:

"[Megan Deal] spoke alongside other school board candidates and she talked about the emotional and mental health needs of the students who are being overlooked by the system. In other words, she claimed she was looking for the marginalized children in schools. 

She seems to be focused on her narrowly focused project of finding the students during relaxed times at school (like lunch or transitioning from classroom to classroom). She thinks the board should be there speaking to the students during those periods and learning from the overlooked (marginalized) students.

She also spoke about being like Aaron to Moses, trying to lean on her Christian background for her candidacy. She referenced Exodus 17:12-13, when Aaron and Hur lifted Moses’ arms so that God’s power could still work through him. She described the school board trustees as the Aaron to the Superintendent’s Moses."

Read the whole thing here: Can we Trust Megan Deal to be a Nixa School Board Trustee?

Benefit Packages and NGOs, oh my!

 David Rice has written an excellent article regarding questionable benefits packages and payouts in the Ozark School District. Also a great exposure of the NGOs that have undue influence on school districts, robbing them of local control.

From the article: 

"The School Board adopted the "PRIME CHOICE® Plan" offered by Precision Retirement Group, which allows public employers to convert certain forms of compensation like accumulated sick leave, vacation time, and incentive payments into contributions to either a medical trust called the "PRIME Plan" or special deferred compensation plans like 401(a) or 403(b) accounts. Copies of the Prime Plan are at the end of the article.

The materials promote these conversions as allowing tax-free reimbursements for retiree health expenses in the PRIME Plan trust, or opportunities to defer federal and state taxes in the deferred compensation plans. They also advertise eliminating FICA tax obligations for both the employer and employee.

While portrayed as benefits for employees, such specialized retirement plans allowing favorable tax treatments on back-end payouts have been criticized by some as forms of excessive "golden parachutes" for highly-compensated public officials and administrators."

Well worth reading, with links galore to get you up to speed on the issues. 

The Grassroots is Awake

 

The Law

 

David Rice is back with the second of five articles, "Why is Child Porn Legal?" dealing with the subject of child porn and how porn has found its way into our schools and libraries. Rice details a recent visit he had with the Christian County Library's Executive Director:

"I recently met with the Executive Director at the Library near my home. I told her the material was illegal. She told me it was legal, and her smug look of satisfaction let me know I was uninformed. That is why I started this series. I dug into the law and discovered she was right. It is legal."

Part two dissects the legalities behind what has happened. Another must read.

Subscribe to David's Substack. Part one is here.

We're Failing the Children

David Rice begins a five-part Substack series titled "Why is Child Porn Legal?" 

One so wants to recoil from this stuff and not think on it. But in all honesty, porn has affected, on one level or another, almost everyone in modern society. Christians must be willing to take up the cross and fight. Porn, and in particular child porn, is a scourge that grows ever larger.

Our betters (those with most of the money, education, and influence) have long since abandoned their moral position and are not to be followed or trusted. This includes elected officials who pay lip service to protecting children but in reality do little or nothing.

From Rice's article:

"Overall, the Miller decision is just bad law. One of the justices, William J. Brenner, Jr., was eager to remove as many obscenity laws as he could. We can all give him thanks for his service to this nation. I need a sarcasm font. We were given a law which created a market for obscene materials across the nation. Its claim to return the issues to the states is a valueless claim. We are one bad petition initiative to change the Missouri Constitution to enshrine the right to porn in our libraries and our schools. This is what happens when you side with a Free Love worldview."

Just to keep it real, here is journalist Elizabeth Nickson of Welcome to Absurdistan:

 We Chose the Pornification of the Culture, and,

Child Rape in Hollywood. How Much Can You Handle?

Our local culture has become so degraded that our Christian County Library is on par with public libraries in St. Louis and Kansas City for the amount of smut pushing the early sexualization and indoctrination of our children.

But there is hope. The monthly library board of trustee meetings have become a sort of revival of Christian sentiment. Pastors are getting involved, though sadly they are few and far between. Victims of the "pornification of our culture" speak about its trauma, and how to be saved and healed.

The "educated" voices that speak in favor of allowing minors access to smut are slowly being overcome by common sense and sanity. But the Enemy of common sense and sanity will not give up easily.

 The next meeting of the Christian County Library is scheduled for Tuesday, January 23 at 6 p.m. Check the link to confirm the location as the meeting draws closer.

In the meantime, keep up with David Rice's series. Don't turn away. Local action has national impact.