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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