A.F. Branco: Dr Fauci’s magic goalposts

 

A.F. Branco cartoon credits: Townhall and Legal Insurrection 

Related headlines:  

At RedState:  New York Legislature -- Dominated by Dems -- Strips Gov. Cuomo of his Pandemic Emergency Powers

At The Federalist:  Texas Governor Announces 100% Reopening, No More Mask Mandate After Months Of Closures (to take effect on March 10)

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America First PAC: the alternative to CPAC

 

Evan James at Big League Politics reports:

The second annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) took place Friday night in Orlando, Florida, the same city where CPAC has been holding its own conference.

The speakers at AFPAC included political commentator Vincent James, reporter Jon Miller, bestselling author and columnist Michelle Malkin, former congressman Steve King, sitting congressman Rep. Paul Gosar, and political commentator and activist Nick Fuentes.

AFPAC is a conference specifically for the dissident wing of conservative politics known as the America First movement. The movement held its first political action conference last year in Washington DC as an invitation only event, but this year’s event opened to the public and sold tickets on a first-come, first-served basis.

. . .

The evening’s third speaker was Michelle Malkin. Continuing the tradition of building her major political speeches on a work of poetry, Malkin on this occasion chose William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus.” Per usual she delivered a fiery speech that pulled no punches. She tore into globalist “conservatives” like Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, lobbyists and organizers of CPAC, and she ridiculed the recent attempts by the GOP establishment to coopt the term “America First.”

. . .

All of the speeches from AFPAC II can be watched in their entirety below [at the link below]:

Full report here. President Trump made it clear in his CPAC speech that he does not intend to launch a third party;  he is trying to drag the GOP back to the right.  CPAC vs. America First PAC is the debate of the day:  many conservatives are not optimistic that the GOPe can be reformed from within.  Meantime, I have bookmarked Vincent James’ website TheRed Elephants.

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A test

 

I am testing this blog because I have tried four times to load up a blog post contrasting CPAC with the America First PAC (AFPAC).  Each time, the blog post has been theoretically accepted but has not shown up on the blog itself, so I am posting this to test the upload mechanism.

Sorry for the aggravation.

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President Trump at CPAC today

 

Right Side Broadcast Network [RSBN] is live streaming from CPAC 2021 in Orlando, FL. President Trump will deliver his remarks today, Sunday Feb, 28, in the afternoon, sometime after 3:00pm (CPAC schedule specifies 3:40pm).  Conservative Treehouse has the live-stream link here.

UPDATE at 3:47:  One America News is broadcasting live as well.  3:58pm: President Trump's speech is evidently delayed.  4:49:  One America News is cutting in and out of CPAC.  The livestream link at Treehouse, above, is carrying it.

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RINOs

 

In her American Thinker essay “RINOs: The Scourge of the Republican Party,” Patricia McCarthy speaks for many:

How clueless are the swamp RINOs?  Very, very clueless.  So confident that they can dismiss President Trump like last week's news, a select few of them are hilariously destroying their own brands — as if the 75M+ people who voted for Trump are just going to forget Trump, the best president they've had in decades, and go their establishment way.  This scenario could be a sitcom; that is how comical people like Liz Cheney, Mitch McConnell, Nikki Haley, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, and Mike Pence are at this sad moment in time.  They all thought, perhaps still think, that by denigrating President Trump, they will win over those 75M people.  They thought that by blaming him for what happened at the Capitol on January 6, they would be rid of the man who so threatened their cushy, establishment lives. 

How can these lifelong pols be so deluded?  Because they live in a bubble of their own making.  They presume without thinking that they are smarter than "we the people."  Proceeding from that fixed belief, they have no doubt that they can mesmerize us to forget Trump and all the good he did, the promises he kept, the economy he built, the jobs he created, the energy independence he made possible, the control of the southern border he commenced, the wars he did not start, the rebuilding of the military after Obama, the sex-trafficking he interdicted, and much more.  The man was and is the best kind of warrior for America.

No wonder the left has hated and feared him with the "white hot intensity of a thousand suns" (h/t Cheers).  Donald Trump was and is their worst nightmare; he actually does care about "we the people."  That, for the leftists, is a deal-breaker; the "people" are nothing more than units of labor to the left.  They should not have a voice or a vote.  For all their touting of their concern for "the people," they have exactly none. 

. . .

We are experiencing tyranny by executive order, and most of the Republicans are sitting still for it when they should, as a group, be on the steps of the Capitol every day warning the American people about what is happening.

Read the full article here.

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The COVID-19 denouement

 

Jeffrey A. Tucker at American Institute for Economic Research has some predictions about the COVID-19 denouement:

There is a sense in the air that the pandemic is winding down, and the toxic culture of division, fear, and hatred along with it. Cases are down dramatically. Deaths too. Hospitalizations are no longer irregular. Restrictions are being repealed. You can follow all the action daily at the CDC’s new and unusually competent landing page on the virus (it only took them a year to build this). 

Despite all the talk of a new normal and infinite mandates, there is hope that it could all unwind quickly, pushed by force of public impatience and frustration with restrictions, and a political scramble to avoid responsibility by running away from all that they did for the last year. 

The list of signs and symbols could be made very long. 

• ·         The politicians who overreached are suddenly being held accountable, with both Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom on the hotseat. Calls for governors and mayors to resign consume state and local news. There is clearly major political tumult building. 
• ·         The Great Barrington Declaration scientists can hardly keep up with the requests for respectful interviews, now that it is becoming clear that they were right all along. 
• ·         The experience in open states like Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, and so on, makes it impossible to ignore the grim truth that the lockdowns achieved nothing for public health but did harm health, businesses, liberties, law, and civilized life. 
• ·         The push to open economies, by the same people who locked down the economies, such as Boris Johnson in the UK, is an implicit repudiation of the nonsensical ZeroCovid movement. Everyone seems now to agree with what AIER has been saying for a year: humanity must deal intelligently with pathogens and stop pretending that political forces can control them. 
• ·         AIER visiting senior fellow Naomi Wolf had a hit just last evening on the Tucker Carlson show, and they spoke as allies in the reopening efforts after years of ideological sparring. 
• ·         There is growing weariness of Anthony Fauci’s daily word salads that have massively mixed up the public health messaging for a full year, to the point that Meghan McCain has called for his firing. 
• ·         A year ago, Slate was making sense until the virus became political and they joined the lockdown mob. Now the publication is back to making sense again, with this excellent piece. 
• ·         British medical journal The Lancet is publishing excellent short pieces on the cost of lockdowns, including this riveting letter from Martin Kulldorff. 
• ·         A prestigious European journal of public health has published a blistering attack on the very idea that a power government should ever be trusted with virus mitigation. 

The people who have committed their careers and lives to this pandemic and the policies surrounding it might soon need to find a new raison d’etre. Then the clean up begins – how did this happen, who did it, how to make sure it never happens again – and does not end perhaps for decades. 

The full article is here.

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Face Masks and Civil Disobedience in Burbank

 

Time to tear a page from a Burbank restaurateur. Carl Durrek at NOQ Report has the inspiring development:

Civil disobedience has been a staple of American culture since before the nation broke free from England. It is a necessary component of our freedom as government tends to lean towards authoritarianism whenever it sees a clear path. Covid-19 has opened up such a path for many authoritarians across the nation with California leading the way towards a dystopian near-future.

The city council of Burbank, California, has been in a mini-war with businesses from the beginning of the pandemic. One business in particular, Tinhorn Flats Bar and Grill, has chosen to fight back. Following yesterday’s unanimous vote by the city council to shutter the oldest bar in the city, the response from the local business was short and sweet:

As promised, the bar opened for business as planned. An hour after opening, there had been no word from the city or visits by law enforcement. So far it appears the civil disobedience is happening unimpeded. But that likely won’t last long as the strongarm of the law will soon step in. Very similarly to the infamous Hank Rearden speech in Atlas Shrugged, owner Baret Lepejian believes if government wants to stop them from doing business, they’ll have to do so with more than just an order.

“The pathetic-losers on the Burbank City Council had obviously made up their minds way before the ‘meeting'” ever started,” the bar posted on Facebook. “This was nothing short of a vicious mob with pitchforks coming for that who stands against their campaign of fear. I WILL NOT COMPLY AND I WILL NOT CLOSE MY BUSINESS TO THESE PATHETIC, UNAMERICAN SOCIALIST COWARDS. If need be, I will go down with my ship..”

This isn’t the first attempt by the city to shut them down. Last month, they revoked the restaurant’s public health permit in hopes of bullying the establishment into shutting its doors. But as noted by attorneys for the bar, they have never had a health violation. This latest move to revoke their business license has brought the city and bar national attention. Burbank City Attorney Amy Albano said that if the restaurant’s owners do not comply a lawsuit will be filed and a court order will be sought to close the business.

We wholeheartedly stand with Tinhorn Flats Bar and Grill as they fight to keep their rights to operate safely and within reasonable guidelines that follow medical science. Their story is America’s story. Their fight is our fight.

Which is why I posted this.  We’ve let the owners of our favorite neighborhood bistro know that if they want patrons who will refuse to wear a mask or to practice social distancing, we’ll be there. In the meantime, I continue to wear my [useless] mask like a beard across my chin.

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