Riots: What is really going on?

Patricia McCarthy at American Thinker has a column titled “Who is recruiting, moving and paying the professional anarcho-rioters?”  Good question.  Here are some of her thoughts:

The death by cop of George Floyd in Minneapolis was grotesque, a clearer example of police brutality that has otherwise rarely been filmed for all to see.  Even if, as has been reported, Floyd did not die of asphyxiation or strangulation as it appeared, his death was without a doubt caused by that officer’s cruel and unnecessary action and the inaction of his fellow officers who stood by and watched. 

Yet that does not begin to explain the rioting. McCarthy continues:

Is it really the citizens of Minneapolis [and other cities, including Cleveland] who have set the city on fire, burning down small businesses as well as the police precinct building, libraries, etc.?  Who are those masked men in black with secret-service quality ear-pieces, military grade gas masks and backpacks full of Molotov cocktails?  They are very likely professional rioters, recruited, transported and paid by the likes of some George Soros front group or other anonymous Cloward-Piven devotees who share Soros’ hatred of America and want to see this nation bought to its knees.  Panic over the virus was waning. These orchestrated riots across the country are the next ploy.  Someone is organizing this madness.  Someone is supplying the most lethal rioters with all the accoutrements of conflagration and moving them into place to all the affected cities.  That all costs a great deal of money.  Antifa owes its funding to Soros as do the more violent branches of Black Lives Matter.  These players seem strangely secure that they will not be arrested or that if they are, they will be quickly released.

. . .

What is happening all over America these past several nights is not about George Floyd.  The rioters are using his death to embark on rampages, to loot small and large businesses alike.   These are not protests.  What we are seeing is mass thievery under color of protest.  Chances are if the looters in Los Angeles were asked “who was George Floyd,” they would not have a clue nor would they care. 

. . .

No matter how much the media loves to fan the flames, indicting America as a racist nation and blaming Trump for every single thing they can, these riots have nothing to do with race beyond it being a convenient excuse for criminal behavior.  Those rioting, setting things on fire, smashing store windows and looting businesses are black, white, and Hispanic; they are a conglomeration of races, but are all thugs without a shred of decency.   

Read the rest here.

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Not “protests” - RIOTS

The outrage over the death of George Floyd is justified;  the violent “protests” are not.  Many of the local news outlets are reporting on the “protests” today in downtown Cleveland.  Here’s Cleveland.com’s headline:

Protestors break windows, set police cars on fire 

as George Floyd demonstrations turn violent in downtown Cleveland

And Fox 8 news:

Protests Continue in Cleveland

Not "protests."  RIOTS.

Here’s footage from earlier today taken from a balcony overlooking Lakeside Ave.:

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Stop Voter Fraud Handbook: Voter Registration lists

 

Your precinct is, relatively speaking, a small part of your city or town.  The following is from Judicial Watch’s Stop Voter Fraud Handbook;  it contains some suggestions of how to help clean up voter registration rolls in your precinct:

Perform Voter Registration Research

Without question, the key to ensuring voter integrity during an election is being able to verify that the names and addresses on the voter registration list are legitimate and up-to- date. In each state, voter registration lists can be obtained ahead of the election. Checking these lists against other available data is a laborious, time-consuming — but essential — job for which your help would definitely be welcomed.

While voter registration lists can be purchased from an online service and directly from some of the states (either of which can be expensive), you should have no difficulty getting a copy of the list for your precinct from the state headquarters of your candidate or your party. You can also file an “Open Records” request with your state.

The process of checking voter registration lists requires a degree of patience and creativity. For example, volunteers working on lists will attempt to check the voter entries against other available resources, such as property tax information and dates of birth. The website, www.tributes.com, and local papers can even be checked for obituaries.

Duplicate registrations, which do occur, will be more easily discovered. As indicated, the process is time-consuming and tedious, but it is an extremely important function, as it is the bedrock of ensuring voter integrity on Election Day.

Information for each county elections board in Ohio can be found at this link.  Your precinct details appear on the postcard notice from your Board of Elections.

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Vote-by-mail: the threat

Bob Gorrell cartoon via Townhall

  

Probably the single biggest threat to the future of the United States as we know it is election fraud.  Recently on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekends,” Government Accountability Institute research director Eric Eggers explained if vote-by-mail was done on a mass scale that would bring “voter role irregularities into play.”  Via Pam Key at Breitbart:

According to Eggers, “a lawsuit found 30,000 more registered voters than citizens of legal age. They also found 2500 dead people that were registered to vote in the city of Detroit. This is actually a problem nationwide. The U.S. Supreme Court in a decision last decade cited statistics that said one in eight voter registrations in this country -- that’s 24 million -- have significant problems or [are] completely inaccurate.

So it’s not just limited to Detroit. But I think we’re wise to be – to use the term from the congressman in the previous segment . . . concerned because you have to remember in 2016, Donald Trump won the state of Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes. So if you start talking about more than 30,000 registered voters and citizens of legal voting age in the city of Detroit alone, I think that’s pretty concerning.”

. . . there is a difference between people voluntarily choosing to cast a mail-in ballot as by the way 1 million people in the state of Michigan choose to do regularly and mailing everyone a ballot as they are doing in California or as they are about to do in the state of Michigan, mail everyone an absentee ballot request form. What it does brings all these voter role irregularities into play. Now you’ve got the guaranteed likelihood of people who shouldn’t be receiving a ballot, people that aren’t real voters because they have either moved or dead or, you know, they are on the roll erroneously those people will now have the opportunity or request forms will go to addresses for those people. And we know that there are forces out there attempting to sway elections. Look at what happened in Philadelphia recently. An elections judge was just charged with literally stuffing the ballot box. So, it’s not as if, you know, the idea that people are trying to sway elections illegally haven’t been proven. We saw one literally just this week in a major American city.”

BizPacReview reported on another voter fraud settlement:

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania — home to the city of Pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs — has settled a lawsuit directing officials to clean up voter registration rolls.

County officials settled the suit on Monday with the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which focuses on election integrity, after the Allegheny election manager and three board of elections members were sued over registration rolls containing duplicate entries and the names of persons who had died, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Representatives of the elections watchdog said researchers discovered almost 1,600 dead registrants, nearly 7,500 with erroneous data, and more than 1,500 who were older than 100 years — including 49 who were born in the 1800s.

. . .

Last year Judicial Watch won a lawsuit against the state of California which required it to purge 1.5 million inactive voters from its registration rolls, as required by federal voter registration law.

“Los Angeles County has a registration rate of 112 percent of its adult citizen population,” the watchdog group noted in a statement in January 2019. “The entire State of California has a registration rate of about 101 percent of its age-eligible citizenry.”

There have been many instances of voter registration ‘errors’ discovered since Trump’s 2016 win, including in Ohio, where, again, scores of people listed as being well over 100 years old were discovered on registration rolls.

So safeguarding future elections is no longer mostly about poll-watching.  The guidelines prepared by Judicial Watch had several sections on what citizens could do as poll-watchers, but with mail-in voting already a precedent in Ohio, Cleveland Tea Party members may ask what else can be done?

My next blog will share Judicial Watch’s section on cleaning up voter rolls by researching voter registration.  

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Memorial Day: Remember and Honor

image credit:  WHECNews

Today is Memorial Day. From the history.com site:

Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2020 occurs on Monday, May 25. 

Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season.

Like many cities, Cleveland cancelled its 2020 Memorial Day Parade.  Remember and honor fallen troops when gathered around the family dinner table.  

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Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words free access

If you were unable to access the recent broadcast of Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words, here is good news from Mark Tapson at Frontpage magazine:

A riveting new documentary revisits the Clarence Thomas--Anita Hill controversy as part of a look at the Supreme Court Justice’s amazing life journey. Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, produced by Michael Pack of Manifold Productions, aired earlier this week on PBS, of all places, and is still available here for free through June 2. Don’t miss it. The producers interviewed Thomas and his wife Virginia for over 30 hours about his life, the law, and his legacy. As the movie’s website states,

the documentary proceeds chronologically, combining Justice Thomas’ first person account with a rich array of historical archive material, period and original music, personal photos, and evocative recreations. Unscripted and without narration, the documentary takes the viewer through this complex and often painful life, dealing with race, faith, power, jurisprudence, and personal resilience.

In his rich, sonorous voice, Thomas, the second black American to serve on the Court and, at 28 years, the longest-serving Justice, tells his life story beginning with his birth in tiny Pin Point, Georgia in 1948. Descended from West African slaves and born into rock-bottom poverty, Thomas later was raised by his grandparents in Savannah. His stern grandfather, “the greatest man I have ever known,” believed firmly in hard work and even more firmly in the education he never had, the lack of which he blamed for his inability to rise above his station in life. He impressed upon his grandchildren the importance of committing themselves to school. He told Thomas and his brother that they would attend class every day, even when sick, and even if they were dead he would take their bodies to school for three more days “to make sure we weren’t faking.”

That free [through June 2] direct link to the PBS website is here.

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Ending the lockdowns now

Ohio is starting to re-open.  Not soon enough, but Ohio is faring better than New York.  New York Post (and Federalist) contributor David Marcus was on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson program yesterday evening to expand on his NY Post op-ed.  He wants New York to get back to work.  He’s right.  Here’s some of his editorial:

By prolonging the coronavirus shutdown long after its core mission was accomplished, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have plunged tens of thousands of New Yorkers into poverty.

It needs to end. Now.

In mid-March, we were told we have to endure a lockdown to ensure that hospitals didn’t get overrun. We did. The hospitals were not overwhelmed. We turned the Javits Center into a hospital. We didn’t need it. We brought in a giant Navy ship to treat New Yorkers. We didn’t need it.

We were told we were moments away from running out of ventilators. We weren’t, and now the United States has built so many, we are giving them away to other countries.

Meanwhile, the Big Apple is ­dying. Its streets are empty. The bars and jazz clubs, restaurants and coffeehouses sit barren. Beloved haunts, storied rooms, perfect-slice joints are shuttered, many for good. The sweat equity of countless small-business owners is evaporating. ­Instead of getting people back to work providing for their families, our mayor talks about a fantasyland New Deal for the post-coronavirus era.

Open the city. All of it. Right now. Broadway shows, beaches, Yankees games, the schools, the top of the freakin’ Empire State building. Everything. New Yorkers have already learned to socially distance. Businesses can adjust. The elderly and infirm can continue to be isolated.

. . .

Read the rest here.  

We also know that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s advice has been wrong every time.  For a listing of his continuing mistakes, here’s a column by Mark Simone posted earlier this month at the 710 WOR website.  Not to beat the dead horse, but today we are reading that “Mastermind of LOCKDOWN Dr. Anthony Fauci NOW says staying closed for too long could cause ‘IRREPARABLE DAMAGE’! (headline quote via Pamela Geller here.)  

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Judge rules Ohio lockdown arbitrary and unreasonable

Many in Ohio have observed that Gov. Mike DeWine’s lockdown and imposed regulations were and are arbitrary and unconstitutional.  We know that Health Director Amy Acton based her recommendations on wildly inaccurate models and projections.  An Ohio judge agrees.  Jacob Sullum at Reason reports (h/t Instapundit):

The headline:  Ohio Judge Deems the State's COVID-19 

Lockdown 'Arbitrary, Unreasonable, and Oppressive'

The ruling says the state's top health official exceeded her statutory authority by ordering "nonessential" businesses to close.

Ohio's COVID-19 lockdown is illegal, a state judge ruled today, because it exceeds the powers granted by the statute under which it was imposed. Responding to a May 8 lawsuit filed by the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law on behalf of 35 gyms, Lake County Court of Common Pleas Judge Eugene Lucci enjoined Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton from penalizing the plaintiffs or similar businesses for violating the lockdown, provided "they operate in compliance with all applicable safety regulations."

. . .

"Constitutions are written to prevent governments from arbitrarily interfering in citizens' lives and businesses," 1851 Center Executive Director Maurice Thompson said in response to the ruling. "On that front, the call to action is clear: The governor and health director may no longer impose their own closures and regulations and write their own criminal penalties to enforce those regulations and closures. We remain available to serve those who are caught in the state's tangled web of unlawful orders."

Most of the damage is already done, but it’s good to know there may be potential remedies for small businesses.  And Ohio's Governor won't be able to pull this again.  Mr. Sullum's full report is here.   

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Mail-in ballots and voter fraud

Frank Bullitt’s Editorial today at Issues & Insights makes the case against mail-in ballots:

Democrats and their media scribes have spent more than three years glued to the narrative that President Donald Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton by colluding with Russia to rig the outcome. But they don’t care about the legitimacy of elections. If they did, they wouldn’t be agitating for voting by mail this fall.

“House Democrats have sought to drastically overhaul the American electoral system in light of the pandemic, arguing dramatic change is needed to allow Americans to vote safely,” Politico reported last week.

It seems they have the public on their side. A recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found nearly 60% of voters “either strongly or somewhat support a federal law that would mandate that states ‘provide mail-in ballots to all voters for elections occurring during the coronavirus pandemic.’”

What they don’t have, though, is a good argument to defend their proposal for turning an entire election, or nearly all of one, into a contest of absentee ballots. 

Few elections, even in the U.S., are ever perfectly clean. But the potential for a dirty election sharply increases when ballots are scattered in the wind.

“Absentee ballots are the tools of choice of election fraudsters because they are voted outside the supervision of election officials, making it easier to steal, forge, or alter them, as well as to intimidate voters,” says Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation.

The full editorial is here. And the integrity of Ohio’s elections is now at risk. See prior CTP blogs here and here.

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Created Equal on PBS tonight (Monday 5/18)

Scott Johnson at Power Line recommends Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words on PBS tonight:

I wrote about Michael Pack’s documentary on Justice Thomas in “Clarence Thomas speaks.” The title of the film is Created Equal. We ran to one of our local suburban multiplexes to see it upon its release this past winter, in the good old days when such activities were permitted. If you missed it, however, you may want to catch it tonight on PBS, where it is scheduled to be broadcast at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern), but check your local listings. It turns up tonight at 10:00 on the schedule of our local PBS channel.

This is my take on the film. The left could not and cannot deal with Justice Thomas. They disparage him for his silence on the bench, but they don’t want him speaking out either. His comments on the Anita Hill episode — his comments then and now — are utterly devastating. Joe Biden makes a cameo appearance as a complete and utter buffoon. This section of the film should elicit feelings of rage and disgust from sentient beings, and yet the scenario is as current as today’s headlines. I am so grateful this movie exists and urge you to see it.

The Power Line blog is here.  WVIZ in Cleveland lists a 10pm-12 broadcast.

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Vote by mail and election fraud

Rick Moran at PJ Media has an article “Nevada's Mail-In Ballot System Wide Open to Fraud and Abuse” that provides chapter and verse for the increased opportunities for voter fraud with mail-in ballots.  Nevada has a primary next month, and “thousands of legal ballots are being sent to inactive voters — voters who haven’t voted in the last few elections, which might include voters who have moved or are dead.”

Ohio voters just lost their opportunity to vote in person on Election Day in our recent primary election. The excuse was, of course, concerns over coronavirus. Cleveland Tea Party’s Ralph King posted more bad news on social media on the November election in Ohio:

The Never Trumper Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is already laying the groundwork & planting the seeds to vote by mail in Ohio for the November election.

I've always said, since he was first elected OH SoS, if there was going to be any undermining of Donald Trump in the 2020 election it would be through LaRose & Ohio!

Ralph links to this at the Beacon Journal.  If there is no voting in person on Election Day, poll-watching is no longer one of our options.  More soon on this.

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Why shutdowns are useless

Over at Power Line, John Hinderaker links to an interview (not quite an hour long) with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford Medical School for Uncommon Knowledge.  Mr. Hinderaker's closing comments, based on the interview:

The conventionally posed choice between fighting the disease and salvaging our economy is entirely wrong. The choice is not disease vs. economy. The disease is here, and there is nothing governments can do to stop it. (They can, of course, close down access to nursing homes, a mixed blessing if you are elderly.) The real choice is between the disease with a flourishing economy, and the disease with a devastated economy. The disease is a constant.

Read the full column here, with interview link at the bottom.

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Lockdowns vs the Constitution

Here’s a glimmer of sanity during our months of house arrest. Thomas Lifson at American Thinker reports:

Two state supreme courts have stepped up to constrain abuse of civil rights in the name of fighting an epidemic.  The concept of a "state of emergency" can be used to suspend constitutional limitations on the powers of government, as has been the case with the response to the Wuhan virus pandemic.  But under our system of justice, there has to be a reckoning, and finally we are beginning to see state supreme courts acknowledging what Barack Obama notoriously called "negative liberties," also known as limits on governmental powers, also known as protections against tyranny.

Using their respective state constitutions (which generally mirror the U.S. Constitution when it comes to fundamental rights), the supreme courts of Wisconsin and Texas have spoken up for liberty in the face of two months of "state of emergency" punishing restrictions on liberty.

. . .

In Texas, Justice James D. Blacklock, the majority [opinion held that] the default position must always be to protect rights, and any contravention of thise rights must be minimal and justified.  This is what our revolution was fought to protect.

. . .

These judicial actions — and there will be more later — will help solidify the growing public revulsion against loss of liberties in the name of fighting an epidemic that, while concerning, has not lived up the scary estimates driven by computer models that have not proved out as remotely realistic.  Politically, Democrats have wagered that the public will remain frightened enough to accept a new Great Depression in the name of avoiding a phantom catastrophe . . .

Read the article here; it includes extracts from the judicial rulings.  

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'The Great Mistake'

image credit: EndTimesProphecyReport.com

Deborah Georgatos’s article at American Thinker about the “Great Mistake” provides an excellent summary of the lockdown; she is outraged:

America’s Great Shutdown started with The Great Mistake.  Vital lessons must emerge from both, and propel the reopening of America, rooted in the “only normal” for America, the promise of liberty.

Ms. Georgatos goes through many of the topics that have been posted on this blog to question the lockdown:  faulty models, inflated projections, inadequate and misreported statistics, medical “experts” with an agenda, and so on. The consequent policies have been catastrophic:

This Great Shutdown at the hands of governors and elected and non-elected officials has destroyed the economy, large and small businesses, and the economic security of individuals and families. It has launched an unprecedented avalanche of unemployment claims and unsustainable federal “bailout” spending. It has emboldened petty tyrants with dubious authority but mountain-sized swagger to issue ‘orders’ that control the lives and movements of American citizens.

. . .

. . .the most devastating consequence of the Great Shutdown caused by the Great Mistake is the loss of liberty.

Or more precisely, the loss of the presumption that as Americans we have the right to live in liberty. If we concede liberty can be taken away for an unspecified and unlimited period of time in order to “keep us safe” from any future virus or other threats, we will never have liberty again. There will always be another virus, another threat, another expert advocating shut down.

. . .

It is beyond ironic that the miserable economy, massive unemployment, and devastating loss of freedom is happening only two months after the best economy, record-setting employment, and the palpable, energized sense of American freedom and greatness that marked the first three years of the Trump presidency. That booming economy grew out of returning to our roots in freedom.

Let’s change course, correct the Great Mistake, and move past the Great Shutdown.  Let’s re-open a Great Economy based on trust in American liberty. Let’s restore liberty as the “Only Normal” for America.

Read the full article here.

It would be difficult to fault President Trump for calling on well-known medical experts to advise him at the ouset.  Few would expect a President to have medical expertise himself.  But where I would fault President Trump is sticking with policies when it became obvious they were based on bad advice.  Perhaps he has a strategy that I cannot see, but it is difficult to imagine that he would knowingly put the country through such agony.  

At this point, if you are concerned about the slow-walking of the Ohio lockdowns “ordered” by Comrade DeWine, then let your concerns be known:

Contact Gov. Mike DeWine: (614) 644-4357 or by email here

https://governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/contact

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Happy Mother's Day

art credit: thegraphicsfairy.com

from Cleveland Tea Party

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Continue the lockdown or re-open?

photo credit: Times of India

Once again, Heather Mac Donald is a voice of reason during the destructive lockdown. Her article appeared in The Hill the other day, and here’s part of it:

Who has the burden of proof regarding the economic lockdowns: Those who argue for continuing them or those who want to lift them?  

. . .

. . .both sides of the lockdown debate are motivated by public health concerns. Pace [Gov. Andrew] Cuomo, his ornately complicated reopening plan does have a trade-off. Lives are being lost to the lockdown, a toll that will mount the longer the economy remains shuttered. Some doctors estimate that the closure of hospitals to non-coronavirus cases and the reluctance of patients to burden 911 have increased mortality as much as the virus. The global depression will devastate life expectancies in the less-developed world. Overdose deaths and suicides brought on by joblessness and loss of hope will rise, as more and more businesses fold permanently.  

The rhetoric of lockdown proponents is growing more apocalyptic. “A Virus Tightens Its Deadly Grip” announced the lead print headline in Wednesday’s New York Times — even as the data keep reinforcing the case against universal shutdown. Infection outbreaks are occurring in highly specific locales, not universally: nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons. Deaths are tragically concentrated in the former.   

. . .

The demographics of COVID-19 allow for a targeted response. Nursing homes and all congregate facilities must be kept immaculately clean and protected. Over the long term, Americans will need to rethink how they care for elderly parents and how much they are willing to pay for such care. But if the proponents of universal lockdowns had to prove the case for continuing to destroy the complex web of transactions by which human beings flourish, the economy would reopen and millions of livelihoods would be saved. 

Ms. Mac Donald’s full analysis is here.  Highly recommended.

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Mike DeWine "plans" for Ohio

Paula Bolyard at PJ Media doesn’t think much of Governor Comrade Mike DeWine’s power-grab:

The Ohio House on Wednesday passed a bill stripping the state health director of some emergency powers and limiting stay-at-home orders to 14 days, requiring the approval of the legislature for an extension. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who’s been basking in the praise of Democrats and the MSM for his heavy-handed approach to containing the coronavirus pandemic, has vowed to veto the bill.

. . . 

DeWine’s office told reporters on Wednesday that should the bill make it to his desk he will veto it. It does not appear at present that the House would have enough vote to override a veto. The Senate has yet to take up the measure.

“My administration is focused on the important things we need to do to help businesses responsibly reopen while protecting Ohioans’ health and safety,” DeWine said in a statement. “This week alone, this included increasing coronavirus testing and tracing, balancing Ohio’s budget, and working on plans to move Ohio’s economy forward. Ohioans need their legislators focused on these important issues. Creating more uncertainty regarding public health and employee safety is the last thing we need as we work to restore consumer confidence in Ohio’s economy.”

In other words, the governor has no intention of relinquishing the power he and the unelected health director have amassed. If that power is taken away, what will he and Acton have to talk about at their incessant, mind-numbing “Wine with DeWine” daily press briefings?

How does he plan to "restore consumer confidence in Ohio’s economy" by keeping everybody under house arrest?  Ms. Bolyard's column is here.

Meanwhile, Seth A. Richardson at cleveland.com reports:

Gov. Mike DeWine said Thursday that barbershops, hair salons, nail salons, tanning salons and day spas can reopen starting May 15, nearly two months after they were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses will have to abide by certain health guidelines, including social distancing and strict sanitization regimens.

May 15?  Why May 15?  What is wrong with yesterday?  

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Coronavirus and elite hypocrisy: it’s about control

meme via Sundance

Amy Johnston at Lifezette reports:

This entire coronavirus crisis has been a study of “for me, but not for thee.” Throughout the crisis, global elites have been dictating to us what we “must” do – much of which is centered around forcing us to stay home. Simultaneously, many of these same elites have elected to go on about their usual business in complete contradiction to the very disquisitions they prescribe to the masses.

While Michelle Obama told us to stay home, Obama was duffing around the golf course. As Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot was threatening to arrest citizens for violating lockdown rules, she chose to have her hair done by a salon stylist. A Texas mayor, who locked her citizens down, subsequently went to a nail salon to get her nails done. In another Texas town, salon owner Shelley Luther refused to close down her salon – and on Tuesday was ordered by a judge to spend 7 days in jail in addition to paying a hefty fine.

These stories have been commonplace during the coronavirus chaos and just serve to show how we, the peasants, are mere pawns in this illegitimate power grab.

The global elites really do think they’re better than us. They’re riding high and mighty, collecting their paychecks and visiting their mistresses, as they lecture to us from their golden pedestals. Meanwhile, small business owners are watching what they’ve toiled and sacrificed for years to build crumble, as they and others deemed “non-essential” wonder how they’ll feed their families tonight.

. . .

Read the full article here. 

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On re-opening the economy

A friend of mine on social media forwarded this to me:

Some attack those who want to reopen business as selfish & reckless. But then, those that rely on many people to supply them while they cower in fear at home: isn’t that being selfish?

You expect your garbage to be picked up.

You expect the grocery store to be open with stocked shelves so you can feed your family.

You expect truck drivers to supply the stores.

You expect farmers, meatpackers, fruit & vegetable pickers to keep food in that store.

You expect Amazon to ship all the things you’re ordering while you sit at home shopping.

You expect the delivery guy to leave it on your doorstep.

You expect your phone to work, your power to stay on & your mail to show up rain, sleet, or shine, & your gas station to be open.

You expect the doctors & nurses to be there if you need them, although many have been furloughed because their units & services have been shut down.

One premise of 'shelter in place' is based on the arrogant idea that others must risk their health so you can protect yours. There is nothing virtuous about ignoring the army required to allow you to shelter in place.

Maybe you should stop & think about the people who allow you to stay "safe" in your home.

With some common sense on my part, I could go back to life as it was. I want to go to restaurants & to get my hair cut. I could catch COVID-19. I could also catch the flu or a cold. I could get hit by a car. I could get struck by lightning. We take risks every day.

If you choose to stay home, that is your choice. And don’t start screaming at me about how I’ll spread it. Why are you worried? You won’t get it because you’re staying home. Are you going to shelter in place every time a new strand of flu happens?

Our economy is crumbling. If it collapses, so will every other economy worldwide. If that happens, you really will need to hide in your house.

I absolutely don’t want people to die ... from COVID or anything else. I want people to live. But sheltering in place is not living.

# # #

The Unnecessary Lockdown

art credit: clipart

"Salons And Barbershops Across America Are About To Show How Unnecessary This Lockdown Was" --  Scott Morefield at Townhall :

In the eyes of many, Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther has become the latest face of justified resistance against governmental tyranny for her steadfast refusal to back down on keeping her business open despite the prospect of going to jail.

Luther’s Salon a la Mode opened for business last Friday, then promptly got slapped with a court order to close because of coronavirus restrictions. Instead of meekly complying, as most others doubtless would have, Luther stood outside her salon and literally ripped the thing to shreds. Indeed, it was a moment that would have made Patrick Henry proud. (I’m also pretty sure it would have made another person with the surname “Luther” proud too.) The salon owner told media she has “had enough” of stupid, nonsensical restrictions on her livelihood and that of her employees, and is more than willing to go to jail to make her point.

“Essential, non-essential,” Luther said. “That’s ridiculous what has been deemed essential and non-essential because right now the pet groomer next door has been essential this whole time. So pets can get their hair done but someone can’t walk in my salon and get their hair cut? So why is a pet getting essentials?”

Good on her. The continued enforced closure of hairdressers, barbershops, salons, and the like are one of the most ridiculous in a sea of ridiculous aspects of the current coronavirus lockdown insanity. Turns out, while the generally solid GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has finally signed off on allowing some types of businesses to open, salons and barbershops inexplicably aren’t yet among them. They are “nonessential,” don’t you know, and the people who work in them apparently don’t deserve the same chance to feed their families that others do.

Insisting that salons are still not “safe,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins ripped Luther and other like-minded business owners as supposedly “putting their own need to make money ahead of public health.”

But Luther disagrees: “It’s pretty ridiculous to think that our place would be unsafe. The second part of that is we’re all grown adults. We decide where we want to go and if someone does not want to come in the salon, I respect that decision.”

Truly, is there any logical reason to think salons and barbershops are any less safe than most any other public place, particularly if owners and employees utilize masks, gloves, and regularly sanitize between customers? 

. . .

The full article is here.  It’s frightening to think that going to work or getting your hair cut is now civil disobedience.

RELATED:  Tyler O'Neil at PJ Media:

Early estimates of the COVID-19 death rate, cited to justify the lockdowns, have proven far too pessimistic. In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated a 3.4 percent fatality rate and Dr. Anthony Fauci estimated that the fatality rate of the coronavirus was about 2 percent. As PJ Media’s Matt Margolis reported, at least five studies have placed the death rate below 1 percent, confirming President Donald Trump’s hunch.

Recent studies have found that far more people than expected have COVID-19 antibodies — meaning the virus has spread faster than previously thought, but also proving that it is far less deadly than previously thought.

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