A modern-day Rosa Parks

Jon Caldera writes in part in Complete Colorado,

...how odd will it be if Jennifer Hulan is put in jail for the crime of trying to pay her taxes.

She indeed is a modern-day Rosa Parks.

Read more about Jennifer here.

“The people of Wisconsin never consented to any elected official, much less an unelected cabinet secretary, having the power to create law, execute it, and enforce it.”

In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court has come down hard in support of our Constitution against the efforts of a state bureaucrat. Jack Davis reports in part in Western Journal,

Wisconsin’s Democratic administration usurped the powers of the state legislature in issuing a lockdown order that called for criminal charges to be filed against anyone who broke it, according to a state Supreme Court decision issued Wednesday.

The court ruling, which offered a powerful summation of the rights of citizens against authoritarian governments, said the administration of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers left state lawmakers out of the loop while imposing restrictions on Wisconsin residents, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The suit was brought by Republican legislators.

Read more here.

"End the lockdown now!"

Dr. John Lee writes in UK Spectator about Covid-19.

...The majority of cases are asymptomatic. The most common symptoms are not fever, cough, headache and respiratory symptoms; they are no symptoms at all. The typical case does not suffer respiratory fibrosis; the disease leaves no mark. Somewhere around 99.9 per cent of those who catch the disease recover. Of those unlucky enough to die, over 90 per cent have pre-existing conditions and were anyway approaching the end of their lives. To say this is not being uncaring: it is simply a fact of life that older people are more likely to die in any event, and especially more likely to die from new types of infection.

The very models that put us into lockdown – on the basis of predictions no longer believed accurate – are keeping us here despite their known flaws.

...No country has ever improved the health of its population by making itself poorer.

Coronavirus affects mainly the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. But the large majority of this group who catch the disease recover. In the meantime lockdown is preventing many of the things that make life worth living: seeing children, grandchildren, and friends; eating out, hobbies, charity work, travelling. Doing all the things that people work so hard to be able to enjoy. Isolation is dangerous for everyone but particularly the elderly.

What about people who have died during this period of Covid or – many more – of other diseases? Is it right that they should have had lonely deaths, that they and their loved ones should not be able to say goodbye? What effects will this have on the survivors? How many elderly people have died because they did not access care? In whose name is the lockdown being prolonged? Do the healthy old, as well as 'vulnerable' groups, need the state to extend this damaging experience for their own good or would they like to make their own risk assessments in the face of uncertainty, as they have always done before?

There are 10,832,396 people aged over 65 in England and Wales. Even if we assume 50,000 deaths from Covid in this spike, and all occurring in this age group, the probability of death is less than 1 in 200. Would you rather see your family and live your life (with reasonable precautions as necessary) and take your own chances, or be locked up by the government for your own good?

The epidemiological models had nothing to say about how quickly our health service could adapt to a new disease. As it turned out, it adapted quickly. It has not been overwhelmed nor been close to it. That fear can no longer be a justification for continuing the lockdown. In fact, lockdown has merely harmed our ability to adapt more quickly. Unfortunately, the episode has also revealed less palatable things about the NHS. The gusto with which managers followed the Covid refrain meant that many vital treatments and investigations for conditions that we can and were dealing with were summarily put on hold. What is the moral equation that shows why a patient with one particular disease takes priority over all others? Is it right that health care staff can simply be ordered who to treat by managers? Who takes responsibility for patient care? I know many who are deeply unhappy to be working in an NHS where the command and control culture is so embedded that doctors can be told to stop, for example, cancer chemotherapy halfway through a course and feel they have no option but to comply.

... an evolutionary view suggests that the virus is likely to change quickly, with less virulent forms becoming dominant. Lockdown could potentially slow this beneficial tendency. On this view, asymptomatic people spreading the virus is a good thing because it means that the disease becomes milder more quickly. This could already be contributing to the flattening of the deaths curves that we are seeing. In this case, the sooner we lift lockdown, the better. It also implies that the peak in illnesses we have seen this time is likely to be as bad as it gets. In future, the virus will come into equilibrium with the population as wider immunity combines with predominantly milder forms of the virus to cause a lower overall death rate that nevertheless fluctuates from year to year, much like flu.

...the only reasonable solution is to inform people of the risks and let them, sensibly, calmly, and individually, make their own decisions.

...The government should rapidly lift the lockdown to a condition similar to that of Sweden’s.

Read more here.

"We must recognize malice or stupidity where we see it, whether among our partisan leaders, failing politicians, media pontiffs or medical soothsayers."

David Solway writes in PJ Media,

In a harrowing article for PJ Media, Dennis Prager argues that the COVID-19 global lockdown is “possibly, the worst mistake the world has ever made,” leading to a mortality rate eclipsing anything the virus could have delivered. Widespread famine in Third World Countries and extreme poverty across the globe are now imminent, “all because of the lockdowns, not the virus.” A study released on May 4 by the nonprofit research institute Just Facts confirms Prager’s argument, concluding that “the total loss of life from all societal responses to this disease is likely to be more than 90 times greater than prevented by the lockdowns.”

...There is really no option, if we wish to survive and preserve our democratic liberties, but to adopt sane preventive measures, rely on herd immunity, as in Sweden, and return to our trades and professions. We must recognize malice or stupidity where we see it, whether among our partisan leaders, failing politicians, media pontiffs or medical soothsayers. The alternative does not bear thinking.

Read more here.

Lockdown: the greatest mistake the world has ever made!

Dennis Prager writes in part in American Greatness,

...deceit, cowardice and immaturity now dominate almost all societies because the elites are deceitful, cowardly and immature.

But for those open to reading thoughts they may differ with, here is the case for why the worldwide lockdown is not only a mistake but also, possibly, the worst mistake the world has ever made. And for those intellectually challenged by the English language and/or logic, “mistake” and “evil” are not synonyms. The lockdown is a mistake; the Holocaust, slavery, communism, fascism, etc., were evils. Massive mistakes are made by arrogant fools; massive evils are committed by evil people.

The forcible prevention of Americans from doing anything except what politicians deem “essential” has led to the worst economy in American history since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus, that created this catastrophe. And the consequences in much of the world will be more horrible than in America.

Read more here.

Why we go for walks

"Committing the heinous crime of going outside"

From the Babylon Bee:

SACRAMENTO, CA—Governor Gavin Newsom has instructed detention facilities across California to begin releasing violent felons to make room for skateboarders, surfers, and other people who have committed the heinous crime of going outside.

Thousands of cells have now been freed up for "the dregs of society," as Newsom referred to people who go to the beach or skate at a skate park. As the felons left the prisons, they laughed at the skaters and surfers entering their previous cells. The skater bros just said, "Dude, not cool" and the surfers said, "Totes not stoked bra, major kook move dude."

"We need to free up those prison cells for the really dangerous people, like beachgoers," said Governor Gavin Newsom at a press conference. "We can't have those dangerous people who sit on the beach for a few hours or do doozy flipkicks and 630 spinaroos out on our streets."

The felons went out and immediately committed crimes, but many were undocumented immigrants and so were given a stimulus check instead of getting arrested.

Michigan lawmakers deny Gov. Whitmer's request to keep the state under lockdown.

Beginning this morning under a steady rainfall, hundreds of protestors, many of whom were armed, gathered at Michigan's capitol building to protest Governor Whitmer's edict to keep the state in lockdown. Valerie Edwards has a biased report supportive of the Governor here.

Images showed hundreds of protesters descending on the Capitol for the 'American Patriot Rally' that was organized by Michigan United for Liberty while the Michigan House decided whether to extend Whitmer's state of emergency for 28 more days.

Ultimately, the lawmakers denied Whitmer's request and passed a resolution authorizing the Speaker of the House to commence legal action, challenging the governor's authority and actions during the pandemic. Whitmer is unable to veto the resolution.

Lots of photos here.

"We'll just have to see what happens!"

Christopher Roach writes in part in American Greatness,

These shutdowns have been economically devastating. They’re psychologically taxing, hard on relationships, and damaging to our communities. And they’re encouraging the worst instincts among the ruling class and its servants.

Public policy, medicine, and life all involve risk assessments and changing course based on new evidence. After two months of shutdowns, it looks like we’ve killed our economy to forestall a phantom threat.

If this were actually a situation where millions of deaths were the alternative, continuing the lockdowns would be defensible. They’re even forgivable considering the state of our knowledge a couple of months ago. But with the benefit of the last two months of experience, it is clear that the toll of coronavirus has been and will be much closer to a bad flu season than millions of deaths.

One can expect the media, no matter what happens in Georgia, to report on every public gathering as ominous, to exaggerate the spread of the disease, and to shame the people of Georgia for their foolhardiness. As with hydroxychloroquine, the factual question of whether or not this is an acceptable risk will be subordinated to the social identity of rejecting every word out of Trump’s mouth, no matter how reasonable.

Reopening may, of course, prove to be a deadly and costly mistake. This is a new virus, after all, and its impact is not entirely known, treatment protocols are haphazard, and Georgia’s decision to “reopen” is being made under conditions of uncertainty, though not as much uncertainty as the original decision to close. Real science looks to evidence, not ghost stories about what could happen.

As both the scientific method and President Trump like to say, “we’ll just have to see what happens.”

Read more here.

"the brutally delicate balancing act that Trump is engaged in."

In the American Thinker, Bill Dunne wonders if Trump erred in criticizing Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for reopening the state too soon. Count me as one who was disappointed with Trump's decision to criticize Kemp. I also spent time reading the comments, and learned about Georgia and DC politics. One commenter who calls himself perplexed lawyer wrote,

You’re absolutely right I think that the Kemp comments will not lose Trump the election, but I think his harshness was undeserved and unfair. Smelled personal and our country can not afford such indulgences. It is also inconsistent with his (Trump’s) message and momentum to reopen. He should have wished Kemp and Georgians the best and indicated we would carefully watch their progress with hope and concern. Not his finest moment and I wish he had done better.

Read the whole thing here.

Surfers leading the way in Southern California lockdown protests

In the American Thinker, Monica Showalter has videos of surfers protesting beach closures in Southern California and adds relevant commentary here.

End the lockdowns!

Sundance in the Conservative Treehouse has a roundup of stories from across America of people exercising their Constitutional rights to protest the lockdown orders of various authoritarian politicians.

"if Trump does not change course, and fast, he's going to be in serious trouble this November and risks not only losing this election, but sinking the nation into an abyss from whence we will never emerge."

JJ Sefton has been one of President Trump's strongest supporters. JJ is not happy to see Trump join with the left in criticizing Georgia's Governor Kemp for ending the lockdown there. JJ writes,

Good morning, kids. Friday, and another grim milestone of yet another day of America held hostage. Let me start off by declaring here and now that come this November, I will gladly crawl over molten lava, eat ground glass washed down with a mug of battery acid, and contemplate necrophilia with the moldering bones of Helen Thomas to vote for Donald Trump. That said, I am not a blinkered true believer and have always held the position that if and when he does something wrong, I'm not going to behave like a typical Democrat to circle the wagons and place the blame elsewhere. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced that the situation in his state warrants the lifting of the lockdown and the start of a return to a normal routine. He is not ordering people back to work, nor is he mandating they exchange bodily fluids, as the Democrat-Media Complex is implying. It's highly suggested that people continue to exercise common sense hygiene, but they have the freedom to choose whether or not to open and/or patronize businesses. I can hear Charlie Gibson now - "Individual freedom to choose? Never heard of it."

Unfortunately, President Trump has decided to join the bandwagon and criticize Governor Kemp for his decision, albeit much less harshly than the usual suspects. But it's just as damaging, perhaps even more so, because it runs contrary to the President's own decision to leave these policies to the governors in the first place. Worse, it legitimizes the Left's shifting goalpost narrative that everyone must remain in suspended animation until we have a cure, until there are no more deaths, no new cases, or until we achieve total world peace, love and understanding; i.e. never.

It is now evident that this virus, though nastier than most, never was and is never going to be the Andromeda Strain Black Death. The original predictions and models were about as close to reality as the past 50 years of prognostications about global warming, which originally predicted Manhattan under 1,000 feet of ice. The other myth that the lockdown mitigated the spread of the disease has also been exploded since evidence from Stanford and NYC that millions might have been infected weeks or months before the lockdowns and travel bans, and the resultant herd immunity mitigated mass death, just like with every other flu season or severe viral outbreak in the past. Doubt me? See the link about Sweden. As for "bending the curve," that never meant preventing infection and death; it meant slowing the rate of those things to keep hospitals from being overrun. And that never happened since hospitals and medical professionals are facing closure and mass layoffs as much as anyone else. Huge numbers were infected, many got sick, sadly some died and will continue to die... and at least 98% of them recovered completely.

Naturally, the "experts" will poo-poo the facts in evidence and the Left, sensing the opportunity for a national kill shot are not going to relent. But frustratingly and now alarmingly, the President continues to play along. Yes, it's great that he's calling out the media and blasting China as well as the intransigent Democrats. But it doesn't amount to much because by accepting their narrative, he's playing cricket on a hockey rink. I get the fact that he, and we, may have been initially frightened and bamboozled into the lockdowns. And G-d bless Trump, it's not in his nature to admit mistakes. But by going along with this bullshit and accepting the premise that Brian Kemp is acting hastily or recklessly is just flat out wrong and dangerous.

I think the President needs to do what he does best, and that is communicate. While the optics perhaps of firing Dr. Falsie would be sub-optimal to say the least, he has to have some other epidemiologists who can counter him. The other thing he can do is to cite the new evidence that this virus is nowhere near as lethal as we thought it might have been and most importantly shift the focus of these daily press conferences away from the drumbeat of viral doom and gloom and make it about Lifting the Lockdowns and Reopening the Country. Look, people are going to die and for sure the Democrat-Media Complex will make the first death post the return to normalcy the Horst Wessel albatross to hang on Trump's neck. But all across the country, red states and blue, people are fed up and are desperate. If anything, the political winds are at the President's back on this. All he has to do is hoist his sails and tell it like it is. As has been his wont to do since he came down the Trump Tower escalator five years ago.

Yes, the onus is on the governors to lift the lockdowns, but by standing by the governors, mayors and county executives that do lift them, the political pressure will be on the Democrat-Fascist tyrants that refuse. The sight of Trump and Pence visiting reopened states will be the psychological boost the country desperately needs. And when blue staters see the rest of the nation getting back on its feet while their life savings, pensions and businesses disintegrate in front of their eyes, a good many will turn their ire on the likes of Whitmer, Cuomo, Newsom, Murphy and the rest of the Grating Bi-Coastal Covid-Non-Prosperity Sphere.

But if Trump does not change course, and fast, he's going to be in serious trouble this November and risks not only losing this election, but sinking the nation into an abyss from whence we will never emerge.

The time to change course and lead us out of this nightmare is now, Mr. President. You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.

Go here to read his links.

" ...it just may be that Sweden proves this to have been an unnecessary bit of economic suicide."

Ace of Spades writes in part,

The liberals and their Renfields the NeverTrumpers have demanded we shut down the country -- only with the secondary purpose of "flattening the curve;" the primary purpose was flattening Trump's economy -- and so we have....it just may be that Sweden proves this to have been an unnecessary bit of economic suicide.

...The liberals and their Renfields the NeverTrumpers have demanded we shut down the country -- only with the secondary purpose of "flattening the curve;" the primary purpose was flattening Trump's economy -- and so we have.

...Santa Clara County is the place where that recent study found the rate of infection was 50 to 85 times higher than believed.

Although the people pushing the Panic Buttons all day long tried to discredit that study, a similar study in Los Angeles came to similar-ish results: that the disease has been 50 times as prevalent as test results for current infection would suggest.

Meanwhile, Sweden gambled that it would be better in the long run to not lock the country down, but just deal with it as it occurred. The benefit of that is that Sweden will likely develop herd immunity throughout the entire country-- and so will not have to worry about a "second wave" or any other wave, ever again.

The Swedes think their gamble is paying off-- their hospitals are not overwhelmed and they have extra bed space and ICU berths. And keeping hospitals from being overwhelmed -- "flattening the curve" -- is the entire point of a lockdown.

And they say their curve is pretty flat with minimum social distancing (no lockdowns, more just like common sense and self-limiting trips to the store and bar).

...it just may be that Sweden proves this to have been an unnecessary bit of economic suicide.

Read more here.

Fight the Power!

JJ Sefton writes in part in his Morning Report in the Ace of Spades blog,

So here we are, with 16 million people (and counting) out of a job, businesses on the ropes or gone for good, our nascent status as the world's leading energy producer and energy independence strangled in the cradle, trillions more in debt added to an ocean of red ink, and a populace terrified into mass-panic over a virus, lethal though it may be to some, that is marginally more dangerous than common influenza. It may not have been planned, but the Democrats and the Chi-Coms sure are taking advantage of it. But as the days have now dragged on into weeks, with statistics that just don't jibe with the provably garbage computer models, the "experts" and the Democrat-Media Complex insist that if we don't stay imprisoned, surrender our freedoms and abandon the Make America Great movement, millions will die. I've seen this movie before. It's called An Inconvenient Truth.

Read more here.

"Something's got to give!"

In his Morning Report in the Ace of Spades blog, JJ Sefton writes in part,

Good morning, kids. Another week begins and another grim milestone of yet another day of America held hostage. And as of this morning, the box score as of 5:30AM Eastern here in the US for Chinese Lung AIDS is:

561,103 Confirmed Cases, 22,106 Deaths, 41,730 Recovered

Considering that none other than Dr. Deborah Birx herself publicly stated "dying with" is the same thing as "dying of, the actual number solely attributable to Sino Sinus Syphilis may be significantly lower than that posted. Nevertheless, the tragedy though lies not in those afflicted or who have died, and each one is indeed a tragedy. The tragedy is those deaths being used for political expediency to turn the lives of 320 million Americans upside down and lead us down a very dark path. More on this in a moment.

From an epidemiological standpoint, the evidence almost certainly shows that this virus first hit our shores some time in September, as media in California and elsewhere had been reporting an earlier than normal start to the flu season with what they thought was a particularly nasty strain. It turns out that those who were sick and had recovered are now reporting that the symptoms they had match that of the current Peking Pox. If that is the case, with quarantining, social distancing or travel bans from China yet to happen for another 3-4 months, it is more than reasonable to assume that the normal biological processes of herd immunity developed and protected the population. One only has to look at the statistics from other states and municipalities that did not go into lockdown to bear this out.

Yet here we are, after almost two months going stir crazy at home as our life savings are drained and the businesses that employed us vanish, leaving us at the tender mercies of our government. What was that? Cloward-Piven? Put everyone on welfare, crash the system and then take over? Something?

This whole thing may not have been intentional but it sure as hell is convenient, and the worse devils of the Democrat-Left's nature are moving at light speed to take advantage of it.

...Think of...the coronavirus. And think of what Chinese communist society looks like today:
- Government invents and dictates laws on a daily basis as it pleases
- Fines and imprisonment for disobeying
- No right to assembly
- House arrests
- No freedom of worship
- Total government control of the economy
- No freedom of movement without identity papers

Does this sound familiar? Rather than follow the Swedish model of government response to the coronavirus, which was simply to recommend that the population take extra care, the United States followed the draconian communist Chinese example of Maoism - apparently based on the recommendations of Democrats Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx. As a result, Maoism is becoming a reality for all Americans. Leftist politicians are drooling with glee now that their collective fantasy of being elevated to leadership in a distant far-off Utopia has become a present reality. Democrat leaders are barely able to contain themselves; their authoritarian nature is bursting out at the seams. Cloned characters (think de Blasio, Newsom, Northam, Garcetti, and Cuomo) are reveling in inventing new laws every day as they place new restrictions on movement and assembly while offering up threats and punishments against those who don't cooperate. "Virus free" identity cards and big tech tracking schemes are being floated. And just like in communist China, there are no checks and balances, and our courts are conveniently closed...

One of the most egregious examples of naked power-grabbing has got to be Michigan's Governor Gruppenfuhrer Gretchen Whitmer. After putting the state in lockdown, she further turned the screws by forbidding neighbors from visiting each other and then issuing diktats to big box retailers as to what they can and cannot sell based on her discretion of what she considers "essential." Pardon my unwarranted prole arrogance but how the hell is forbidding the sale of flooring, plants and seeds going to prevent people from contracting what amounts to a nastier-than-usual viral respiratory infection?! More to the point, what gives her the right to do it? The short answer is 10,000 Michiganders armed with torches and pitchforks (among other things) not marching on Lansing to have a little heart-to-heart chat with her.

Besides destroying Trump by destroying the economy, it is now abundantly clear that the Democrat-Media Complex wants to keep the country in a state of emergency as long as possible, if not permanently, so that it can consolidate power and issue other emergency decrees under the transparently fraudulent pretext of halting the spread of Chinese Coronavirus. If anyone thinks that they are going to cheerfully and instantly give that up once this lockdown is lifted, they're as lucid as Joe Biden on an LSD bender. No doubt the blue state hellhole states with zero opposition are going to keep the lockdowns going as long as they can get away with it and then go pedal to the metal. Even before the Chi-Com Lung AIDS, Virginia's blackface blackguard Ralph Coonman Babykiller was ramming through gun-grabbing legislation that had the potential to cause massive civil unrest until he was forced to back down in the legislature. If he keeps Virginia in lockdown, he may do something incredibly stupid and dangerous and decree the 2-A null and void "for the duration." Which in this case means in perpetuity.

Something's got to give.