Archive for 2020
May 6, 2020
WAIT, THOSE COMMERCIALS SAID WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: Frontier will charge up to $89 for social distancing on flights.
COLORADO: Rethinking emergency powers should be high on legislature’s list.
Looks like we are crawling out of our home arrests. Which also means the Colorado legislative season will soon restart, too.
Since some are predicting a resurgence of COVID as the weather grows cold again in the fall, the legislature should learn from our recent experiences and use their prolonged session to adjust our laws for the next potential “emergency.”
Here are three suggestions for the legislature to tackle immediately.
Only elected officials should have emergency powers: Many of us were surprised to learn that unelected bureaucrats had the authority to place us under house arrest.
Before Gov. Polis ordered his statewide lockdown order, the tri-county health department, servicing Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, ordered businesses closed and people locked in their homes. They did so over the objections of elected county commissioners whom they supposedly answer to.
It is unthinkable that under current law technocrats with no direct accountability to the people have such unchecked power. No one who can’t be voted out of office or recalled should have the power to declare emergencies and rip away basic liberties.
We have a Democrat assembly and a Democrat governor, so the odds of reform are minuscule.
REOPENING CAMPUS WHEN FACULTY ARE A HIGH-RISK GROUP: “So far, no one has really talked about protecting the faculty.”
To be fair, if faculty die, the universities can replace them with low-price adjuncts, so why bother?
BRITAIN: Government scientist Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover. “Prof Ferguson allowed the woman to visit him at home during the lockdown while lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing.”
GIVEN THAT JUST ABOUT EVERY PRISONER WHO TESTS POSITIVE IS ASYMPTOMATIC, IT’S ALSO DUMB: “Cutting violent felons loose while simultaneously disarming law-abiding citizens sounds like an over-the-top BabylonBee parody. It’s actually a fairly standard leftist fantasy, and I can only imagine their frisson at seeing it come true.”
I LIKE THE CUT OF HIS JIB: 5-year-old boy caught driving on Utah highway was heading to California for a Lamborghini.
DON’T YOU LOVE A HAPPY ENDING? Lamborghini owner offers ride to 5-year-old who stole parents’ SUV.
INSANE: Cancer Treatments on Hold: The Invisible Health Costs of the Shutdown. “We’ve put such a scare into people, that the Wuhan Virus is causing people to miss out on cancer treatments, emergency medicine, etc. — as though we never did flatten the curve.”
SO FACEBOOK IS TAKING DOWN POSTS PROMOTING THIS ARTICLE: Social Media Platforms Are Censoring Legitimate Scientific Dissent About COVID-19.
OLD AND BUSTED: #believeallwomen.
The New Hotness? Sexual assault accuser shocked Joe Biden put Chris Dodd on VP committee. “Gaviglio was a waitress at the now-shuttered upscale Capitol Hill restaurant La Brasserie when Dodd and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) allegedly groped her after a lengthy dinner in a private dining room in December 1985…Kennedy then picked up the terrified waitress, who was just 24 at the time, and put her on Dodd’s lap — Kennedy forcing himself on Gaviglio and rubbing his genitals on hers, the report said, the alleged assault becoming known by the cruel moniker ‘waitress sandwich.’”
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Seen on Facebook:
WELL, THEY SHOULD BE: The Chinese government is worried global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since Tiananmen Square.
The think tank’s research was reportedly presented in early April to top Chinese Communist Party officials, including President Xi Jinping. Reuters’ report is based off sources who have direct knowledge of the findings, though the news outlet has not seen the briefing itself. If reports of its contents are accurate, it would at least confirm Beijing is taking the backlash seriously, though Reuters notes it’s unclear if those concerns will ultimately influence policy.
The paper reportedly concluded the rising anti-China sentiment is in part a result of American efforts to undermine public confidence in Beijing amid the crisis.
That last line is a real tell of just how deep the Communist regime is stuck in its own head, as Communist regimes usually are. What Beijing forgets, or can’t allow itself to understand, is that it was easy for the West to sweep Tianneman and a few thousand dead Chinese under the rug as there was all that money still to be made. It’s much more difficult to do that after years of getting ripped off by the PRC and when the dead are in our own countries.
“WE HAD TO BE BETTER THAN EVERYONE BECAUSE EVERYONE EXPECTED US TO FAIL.” Why the Tuskegee Airmen Were So Badass. We could use more of this kind of spirit today.
WHAT A JERK: Health workers that volunteered to come to NY during pandemic have to pay state income tax: Cuomo. “Even though the state government asked thousands of people to come to New York from out of state to help fight coronavirus, they will have to pay New York state taxes, even on income they might make from their home states that they’re paid while in New York.”
UPDATE: From the comments: “This won’t help lobby Red State Senators for bailout money.”
COLD WAR II: U.S. rearms to nullify China’s missile supremacy.
The Pentagon intends to arm its Marines with versions of the Tomahawk cruise missile now carried on U.S. warships, according to the White House budget requests for 2021 and Congressional testimony in March of senior U.S. military commanders. It is also accelerating deliveries of its first new long-range anti-ship missiles in decades.
In a statement to Reuters about the latest U.S. moves, Beijing urged Washington to “be cautious in word and deed,” to “stop moving chess pieces around” the region, and to “stop flexing its military muscles around China.”
The U.S. moves are aimed at countering China’s overwhelming advantage in land-based cruise and ballistic missiles. The Pentagon also intends to dial back China’s lead in what strategists refer to as the “range war.” The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s military, has built up a huge force of missiles that mostly outrange those of the U.S. and its regional allies, according to senior U.S. commanders and strategic advisers to the Pentagon, who have been warning that China holds a clear advantage in these weapons.
And, in a radical shift in tactics, the Marines will join forces with the U.S. Navy in attacking an enemy’s warships. Small and mobile units of U.S. Marines armed with anti-ship missiles will become ship killers.
Remember Obama’s “pivot to Asia” that turned out to be a nothingburger with a side of zerofries? These new moves are the real deal.
ANGELO CODEVILLA: The Original Fascist. “Although Benito Mussolini, fascism’s artificer and personifier, died discredited in 1945, fascism’s socio-political paradigm, the administrative state, is well-nigh universal in our time. And as the European and American ruling class adopted Communism’s intellectual categories and political language, the adjective ‘fascist’ became a weapon in its arsenal.”
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Liberal Billionaire Chad Richison Tries To Shut Down Conservative Think Tank. John Hinderaker: “This is one more in a long series of episodes demonstrating that liberals don’t want to argue with conservatives, they want to shut us up or drive us out of business.”
MEDIA ATTACK GOV. KRISTI NOEM FOR NOT PANICKING AND DESTROYING HER STATE:
And in contrast:
● Coronavirus hero Cuomo helped create New York’s disaster.
● Cuomo defends nursing home response amid growing death toll at care facilities.
● The Missteps Of Mayor Bill De Blasio’s Coronavirus Response.
● Whitmer to Michigan: Stay Home and Shut Up.
● First Gavin Newsom Closed the Beaches. Then His Cops Ticketed Those Who Came to Look at Them.
● St. Paul Barber Who Attempted To Reopen During Walz Shutdown Faces Up To $25,000 In Fines.
ABOUT TIME: Students accused of sexual misconduct get stronger protections under new federal rules.
UPDATE: More from Robby Soave at Reason: “Nothing Betsy DeVos has done since she took office will have a more lasting effect on people’s lives than this.” “Justin Dillon, an attorney with the firm KaiserDillon who specializes in campus misconduct adjudication, hailed the new rules as tremendously well thought out.”
Plus:
The new rules are similar to what the Department of Education proposed in November 2018. Most notably, the government has abolished the single-investigator model, which previously permitted a sole university official to investigate an accusation of misconduct, decide which evidence to consider, and produce a report recommending an outcome. Under the new rules, the final decision maker must be a different person than the investigator, and a finding of responsibility can only be rendered after a hearing in which a representative for the accused is able to pose questions to the accuser—i.e., cross-examination.
Importantly, the new rules narrow the scope of actionable sexual harassment to exclude conduct that ought to be protected under the First Amendment. Obama-era guidance had defined sexual harassment as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.” The new rules keep this definition but add that the conduct must be offensive to a reasonable person, severe, and pervasive. In practice, this should mean that schools will no longer initiate Title IX investigations that impugn free speech.
“This new rule strikes a powerful blow against campus censorship,” said a Department of Education spokesperson. “Campus free speech must not be sacrificed in the misguided pursuit of any other value.”
Good. Now enforce these rules with a heavy hand.
SHIFTY SCHIFF SHIFTS:
PETER WOOD: “The Collapse of the Fourth Estate.” Explain to me how the NYT’s ridiculous essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project, can win a Pulitzer. Or don’t. I guess I already know. The MSM manages to be both dangerous and ridiculous at the same time.