LETTER: Pacific Legal Foundation sides with Cordair Fine Art Gallery on Reopening.

While the government may adopt laws to protect public health, its power is not unlimited. Even during a pandemic, the State and County must abide by constitutional limits. As one federal court has ruled, the government may legislate to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, but “it does not at all follow that every statute enacted ostensibly for the promotion of these ends is to be accepted as a legitimate exertion of the police powers of the state.” And the United States Supreme Court has held that a community’s power to “protect itself against an epidemic” might be exercised “in such an arbitrary, unreasonable manner, or might go so far beyond what was reasonably required for the safety of the public, as to authorize or compel the courts to interfere for the protection of such persons.”

Entire letter at the link.

MISMANAGED: ICYMI: Nursing Homes & Assisted Living Facilities Account for 40% of COVID-19 Deaths: A startling statistic has profound implications for the way we’ve managed the coronavirus pandemic.

CHANGE: Judge tosses out Gov. Kate Brown’s coronavirus restrictions in Oregon. “Emergency powers” have to be approved by the legislature after 28 days.

But: “Brown said she would immediately appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court to try to keep the emergency orders in effect.”

I guess asking the legislature for approval is expecting too much.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump Didn’t Botch the Coronavirus Response, Andrew Cuomo Did.

BUT OF COURSE: Missouri Dem Touts Endorsement From Dark Money Group After Denouncing Dark Money.

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INDEED IT IS: Anti-Lockdown Champion Elon Musk Just Picked a Side and It’s Glorious.

VEGAN CHEF IS BRANDED A ‘COVIDIOT’ AFTER ACCUSING ORANGE COUNTY SUPERMARKET STAFF OF DISCRIMINATION FOR NOT LETTING HER INTO STORE WITHOUT A MASK:

She then addresses the original shop assistant who is wiping down shopping trolleys outside the store while dancing to music, stating that he appears ‘chipper’ (left). The video ends after store manager Ben hands her a business card for her to call the corporate office (right)

He responds that he is happy to have a job. ‘I’m a bartender and I wouldn’t have a job were it not for Gelson’s,’ he says.

Lewis adds: ‘I’m glad you guys think it’s OK to infringe on people’s rights here.’

The video ends after store manager Ben hands her a business card for her to call the corporate office.

Lewis’s social media profile states that she is a ‘flat earther’ and ‘vegan chef’.

The video has received backlash after it was posted online, with Twitter users branding her a ‘covidiot’.

Video below:

HMM: Japan’s economy slips into recession amid pandemic. “Japan recorded slides across all sectors except for government consumption, which grew by 0.1 percent. Leading the declines, exports of goods and services contracted 6 percent followed by imports at 4.9 percent and private residential investment at 4.5 percent.”

CORONAVIRUS RELIEF & STATE AID: Andrew Cuomo, Rick Scott Spar over Funding.

“Pensions are driving a lot of this,” Senator Scott says. “[States] don’t want to raise taxes. They don’t want to make tough choices. Businesses have to do it. You have to. Families have to watch their budgets — but not the states.”

Governor Cuomo, for his part, has attempted to resurrect the old canard about the so-called blue states subsidizing the red ones, as measured by tax receipts vs. federal expenditures. “They’re not bailing us out,” Cuomo said of Florida and Rick Scott. “We bail them out every year.”

This is a cherished Democratic talking point, but it is not quite true.

The largest per-capita net-recipient states at the moment are Democratic states: Virginia, Kentucky, and New Mexico. The biggest “donor” states are Democratic, too: Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. (NB: Estimates vary some from source to source, but New York is reliably pretty high on the purported net-payers’ list.) Some of those numbers are driven by entitlements and by the fact that the U.S. tax code is steeply progressive, i.e. by Democratic policies. And some of those numbers are driven by the fact that federal purchases, federal contracts, federal employees (hello, Virginia!), and federal lands are not evenly distributed throughout the country, which means that federal outlays do not land equally on every square inch of American territory — the federal government owns 85 percent of the land in Nevada but less than 1 percent of the land in New York State. There are a lot of financial firms in New York City and not very many Air Force bases, which affects the notional balance of payments.

The same dynamic is a big part of why Democratic states such as Maryland and Hawaii are on the net-takers’ list while Republican states such as North Dakota are net payers. California, once a donor state, is at the moment a modest recipient state, to the tune of about $12 a year per capita.

Read the whole thing.

I CREATED THIS FOR FACEBOOK FRIENDS THE OTHER DAY, BUT FIGURED IT COULD USE A WIDER AUDIENCE:

WHEN THE SCIENCE ISN’T SETTLED: No one knows what a perfect night’s sleep actually looks like.

NOT ONE DIME IN BAILOUT MONEY FOR CALIFORNIA’S JOB-KILLERS: “Michelle Steel, Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman and Republican candidate for CA-48, today called on Governor Gavin Newsom to halt plans to spend $20 million on enforcement of AB5 and put those funds toward recovery efforts from COVID-19.”

VDH: THE LEFT IS WHAT IT ONCE LOATHED.

Compare the current progressive view about civil liberties against the old liberal positions of the past.

Surveillance and spying on U.S. citizens? Remember liberal Senator Frank Church of Idaho and his 1975 post-Watergate select Senate investigative committee? It found the CIA, FBI, and NSA improperly over three decades had tapped into the phones of Americans, opened their mail, and worked with telecommunications companies to monitor the data of supposedly suspect politicians, actors, celebrities, and political activists. “Collusion” with the communists and the Russians was often the pretense to surveil American citizens.

Consider Church either a bastion of civil liberties protection or a dangerous firebrand who weakened the CIA and FBI. But the point is that the Left’s position had once mostly been that the government’s unelected deep-state intelligence officers simply had too much power to trust.

Indeed, the ACLU was outraged at what the committee revealed. Church was deified as a liberal hero uncovering government abuse. About the worst thing a government could do, liberals reminded us, was to spy on its own citizens.

Why, it’s almost as if the word “liberal” was a giant stolen base itself.

THE MANCHURIAN CORONAVIRUS: China Orders New Wuhan Virus Lockdown Because They Beat COVID-19, Honest.

SAME: Pine martens prefer neighbors, but only if they keep their distance.

ANTIFA ABSENT DURING LOCKDOWN:

CENSORSHIP KILLS: Epidemiologist who opposes COVID-19 lockdowns gets censored on YouTube.

DISSENT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED, COMRADE: Epidemiologist opposing lockdown approach banned by YouTube.

DE BLASIO’S DE BACLE: De Blasio goes on defensive amid spike in NYC shootings.

BUSTED: CNN Reporter Who Chastised Trump for Non-Mask Usage Rips off Mask the Moment She Thinks the Cameras Are Off.

ENDORSED: A century after Prohibition, will the coronavirus finally end it? We’ll drink to that. “Alcohol should be regulated more like prescriptions and other products. Delivery and to-go restrictions are remnants of a Prohibition mentality.”

GEE, WHY DON’T PEOPLE TRUST PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS? Dr. Fauci and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims.