One-Third

 As we continue to recover from the horrible disease that the Chinese government, we're learning the long-term effects of the government imposed social engineering  that came with the virus.  It seems that over one-third of all small business in the US is gone forever.  According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science:

“Previous studies have claimed that shelter-in-place orders saved thousands of lives, but we reassess these analyses and show that they are not reliable. We find that shelter-in-place orders had no detectable health benefits, only modest effects on behavior, and small but adverse effects on the economy. To be clear, our study should not be interpreted as evidence that social distancing behaviors are not effective. Many people had already changed their behaviors before the introduction of shelter-in-place orders, and shelter-in-place orders appear to have been ineffective precisely because they did not meaningfully alter social distancing behavior.” 

There is some analysis at PJMedia, but what I glean from this is that the pandemic revealed that some governors are power-hungry and loath to give up emergency powers.  We also learn that more than one-third of US businesses are gone forever, and the portion of the economy most harmed was the hospitality and entertainment industry. 

Intelligence Failures

 We see through a glass, darkly, and never more so than in the intelligence field.  Probably the greatest failure in American military intelligence was the failure to prepare for the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Naval Intelligence redeemed themselves six months later by laying a trap at Midway.

But, intelligence runs both ways.  By careful signalling, you can lead your adversary to believe that something is happening, to make him expend resources in a place where nothing is happening.  

We saw that yesterday.  The Democrats, and tier minions who should be serving everyone (the FBI, the Capitol Police, and other agencies) were convinced that there was going to be an insurrection on March 4, 2021.  They had pickup up internet chatter that led them to believe an attack was imminent.  Many of us who had done battlefield intelligence just grinned and waited.  Pelosi, et al, looked like fools.  Nothing happened.

This was an interesting experiment, as was the supposed insurrection on the afternoon of January 6th.  Those of us who spent our lives working such things know that the FBI, the Capitol Police, and others who testified in the aftermath lied to us.  This was not an armed insurrection.  The only guns at the Capitol belonged to the government.  If anything, it was more like a college frat party gone awry.  I'm not minimizing the death of those who we lost during the breach, but we must remember that the only person shot was sot by a government officer.

Now, two months later, the Capitol still resembles a prison, with fencing and concertina.  The National guard is still deployed in the Capitol, and Nancy Pelosi still cowers in her fear of the American people.  She is a disgrace and every person who supports her is complicit in her paranoia.

The New Industry - What Is Normal?

A year ago, we didn't know who Anthony Fauci was.  A faceless bureaucrat, with a known name among a very limited scholarly circle, he is now the face of Medical Science in America.  We now know that he is the highest paid civil servant in the US, making something north of $400K per year, and he's a darling of the news cycle.  There is no doubt that he is enoying his clelbrity.  Along with a bevy of "experts" who we knew nothing about a year ag.

Since the introduction of the Wu-Flu last year, we have learned a lot about a virus that has now killed more than a half-million Americans.  A year ago, I had no clue what an N-95 mask might be.  I remember seeing someone in a grocery store with a face covering and thought that was unbelievably odd.

We've now created an industry to fight the virus, and it spans the economy from the big giants who are making the vaccines to the tiny entrepreneur who is making face coverings on a  Singer sewing machine.  We have also destroyed some industries, and crippled others.

I am struck by the number of bureaucrats who have found good work in this industry, the industry of infection, and I"m wondering what they are going to do when we finally decide that we've had enough of fear.  They certainly don't want to lose their jobs.  Once we beat this thing, what will the Senior Advisor on Covid Response do for a  living.  All across state and local governments, are we ust going to fire these people?  Or, are they going to keep it going as long as possible.

Below, Dr. Anthony Fauci on when we might get back to normal.  He doesn't want this to end.

I am reminded of what Ronald Reagan said:

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!”

If we want to get back to normal, we're just going to have to make the decision to get back to normal, government be damned.  This "14 days to slow the spread" has lasted a whle year now, and I've had abut enough of it. 

Governor Edwards Pitches A Hissy Fit

 It seems that the Legislature, in issuing their petition to end the public health emergency order, has caused the Governor to throw a fit, not unlike a three-year-old who gets his hand slapped.  The Governor has now filed suit, claiming, among other things, that the law is unconstitutional.  From the Governor's Facebook post.

.In addition to the fact that getting rid of the mitigation measures that have proven to slow the spread of COVID and save lives is reckless and dangerous, the law being used is blatantly unconstitutional. 

This is a classic separation-of-powers clash, and the governor is being petulant. His argument of the Legislature relying n an unconstitutional law is laughable, because it is the same law that he relied on to initiate the public health order in the first place.  For the record, let me print the law as found in the state website.

§768.  Termination of declaration of public health emergency

A.  The state of public health emergency shall continue until the governor finds that the threat of danger has passed or the disaster or emergency has been dealt with to the extent that the emergency conditions no longer exist and terminates the state of public health or emergency by executive order or proclamation, but no state of public health emergency may continue for longer than thirty days unless renewed by the governor.

B.  The legislature, in consultation with the public health authority, by a petition signed by a majority of the surviving members of either house, may terminate a state of public health emergency at any time.  This petition terminating the public health emergency may establish a period during which no other declaration of public health emergency may be issued.  Thereupon, the governor shall issue an executive order or proclamation ending the state of public health or emergency.

It's the same law.  If the governor is correct that it is unconstitutional, then the entire series of emergency orders he issued are also unconstitutional.

No man is above the law.  The governor should immediately comply with the orders of the legislature. 

UPDATE TO ADD:  The American Spectator has a good piece on the Louisiana Constitutional Crisis.  Go there and read the whole thing.

To Choose A President

 It's interesting the way we choose a President, and have done so or over 200 years.  The rules are plain to see in our Constitution.  A state chooses a set of electors who then elect a president.  We call this the Electoral College.  If the Electoral College cannot decide on a president; if the vote is tied, the responsibility to elect the president then devolves to the House of Representatives.

And here is Nancy Pelosi's quandary and worst nightmare.  Under both Article II, Section I, and the 12th Amendment, when the responsibility to elect a president falls on the House of Representatives, the vote falls not to individual electors, but to the state delegation as a whole.  Each state gets one vote.

If my count is correct, the Republicans hold 26 state delegations.  This, under the current scenario, Should the election be thrown into the House,  Nancy Pelosi may preside over an election that gives Donald Trump a second term.

The irony is delectable.

Louisiana Legislature Calls For Special Session

 It appears that the Louisiana Legislature has called itself into special session to address several items of vital importance to the State of Louisiana.

The session will address the near-bankruptcy of the state unemployment trust fund, work on Hurricane Laura recovery and try to scale back the governor’s emergency powers in the latest battle over Gov. John Bel Edwards’ coronavirus response.

Scaling back Governor Edward's coronavirus edicts is a simple process.  Under current Louisiana law, it takes a simple majority of either house to end a declared emergency. Petitions have been pending for months to do that very thing, but the legislature could not garner a simple majority of either house to end the emergency.  

It is time to end the coronavirus emergency.  We have to learn to live with this thing.  And, over the past six months, most Louisianans have adjusted their habits to be more corona-conscious.  The damage wreaked on the economy by government edicts has a real and devastating impact on jobs and businesses. The governments job at this point should be education, not mandates.

The fact that the Legislature called itself into session is encouraging.  By calling the session themselves, they took Governor Edwards out of the equation.  They are setting the agenda themselves.  I hope that they are strong enough to take care of the legislative business and end the government over-reach.

The Tyrant Proclains

 I just read the Facebook post that our petty tyrant governor posted yesterday.  It's interesting, and I took a screen grab of it, in case he takes it down later.

That last line is the most outrageous thing I've ever seen a governor proclaim.  "I also want people to be realistic, as Phase 3 with some relatively minor modifications, is likely where we stay until a vaccine is widely available.

Really?  We stay in Phase 3 until a vaccine is available?  Suppose a vaccine is never available?  We're supposed to wear masks for the foreseeable future?

It is withing the legislature's power to end this.  With a simple maority of either house, the entire public health emergency can be over-ridden.  It's time to end this madness and let Louisiana breathe free.

Edwards Trying To Kill Bar Business

 Governor John Bel Edwards is doing his dead-level best to kill the bar business in Louisiana.  In his move to Phase 3 of the Covid response, he continues to blame bars for all the Covid illness.

According to WAFB news:

Bars will remain closed to on-premises consumption in parishes with high incidents of COVID-19. The parishes that have a positivity rate of 5% or lower for two consecutive weeks will be allowed to opt in, meaning the parish government will have to make the final decision. Those that open will be subject to many restrictions, including indoor restriction of 50% capacity, indoors and outdoors customers will have to remain seated for table side service only, can have no more than 50 customers outdoors, and social distancing will be required indoors and outdoors, live music will not be allowed, all drinks will have to be ordered at the table and delivered by bar staff to the table, sale of service will end at 10 p.m. and patrons will be cleared from the building by 11 p.m. Individuals younger than 21 will not be allowed in the bar.

The bar business doesn't affect me much, but it is a large part of the hospitality industry in Louisiana, and bar owners and employees  have suffered during this crisis.

Louisiana continues to be under the autocratic rule of a petty tyrant, who wants to pick winners and losers in the local economy.  This latest attack on the economy should draw the ire of the legislature, but it's my opinion that they are a bunch of nutless wondwes.

Defund Who?

While I wasn't paying attention this past week, it seems that the Left has lost it's mind.  There seems to be a call across some of the US to defund police departments.  The Minneapolis City council is planning to vote to disband its police department.

What the hell?

Police power is the power to arrest, detain and limit freedom for the public good.  Many times the police don't use that power, but work for the public good.  I spent a career as a police officer, serving all of my citizens without passion or prejudice.  I believe that every police department has problems, but that those problems can be fixed with good leadership.  If a police department has systemic problems, then a change of leadership is beneficial.

But, police power is power, and power will be replaced in a vacuum.  So, if we remove our police department, what will replace it?  And, I'm not hearing anything about who will control the power once the police department is disbanded.  What is the end game?

Power must be controlled, or anarchy results.  In a power vacuum, something will rise to replace it.

Thank God that we have a Second Amendment.

Petty Tyrant Extends Stay-At-Home Order

Our petty tyrant in Baton Rouge has extended his stay-at-home order for two weeks,



The feeling on the street is that this extension is complete and utter bullshit. 

The worst par is that he is term-limited and we won't vote him out.  He'll likely stay in office until he completes his term.  However, this governor has presided over the worst contraction of liberty in this state since Reconstruction.

He claims that this next two weeks will give him time to ramp-up testing ad get his little Gestapo ready for contact tracing.  I hope that he instructs them thoroughly on the Patient's Bill of Rights, and the protections in the 5th Amendment.

Five Million Per Week?

As I'm sitting here waiting for my doc to call on a tele-med appointment (nothing serious folks), I'm looking t the intertubes regarding the next steps in the covid lockdown.

It seems that our medical experts wan to test 5 million people per week, to try to get ahead of this thing.  A little math tells me that they want to test about 7% of the entire US population in a single week.  (5 million divided by 328 million times 5 working days).  That ain't going to happen.

It's simply unreasonable.  That same article, linked above, says that we have approximately 3.8 million primary care visits per week, on average.  If everyone that walked into a doctors office or urgent care facility got tested, they probably would ot get to 5 million per week.  And, at what cost?  It's preposterous.

They say that they want to do contact-tracing.  Good luck with that. 

I carried a Miranda Warning card for 27 years.  If PawPaw goes to the sawbones, and they tell me I have the Covid, that still does not compel me to tell then who I have been in contact with.  It ain't none of the gummint's business.  I will do the responsible thing and tell my loved ones that I have the Covid, but whether they go get tested is on them.  Not me.  I will not reveal my contacts.  Period.

Public Health - Or Power?

In early March, the corona virus was in my consciousness, but I really didn't consider it a threat.  On March 16th, the state of Louisiana locked down, and I became painfully aware that my life, and the life of much of the state had changed.

We were told initially that the lockdown was necessary to slow the spread of the virus, and to give our medical community a fighting chance, to limit our contact with others so that the medical system would not become overwhelmed and collapse.  First, it was "14 days to slow the spread", then it was 30 days.  Our governor's lockdown order expires on April 30th, three days away.  But, we in Louisiana know that April 30 isn't the end of the lockdown.

By my count, we are in day 43 of this lockdown.  Six full weeks, and we're starting week seven.  By-and-large, we've done what we were told to do. We've changed our society in ways that I can't even start to detail.  And, by any rational measurement, we've slowed the spread, we've flattened the curve, we've kept the medical community from collapse.

At this point, we have done what they asked us to do.  The government has had six weeks.  Everybody I've talked to is tired of it, and if you read the national media, the phrase "lockdown fatigue" is becoming common.  What this lockdown has taught me is the amount of control government at every level has over our lives. Churches, restaurants, barber shops, and other retail shops are closed.  On government edict.  Ministers are being arrested and we're all wearing masks, like we're ready to rob a liquor store.  It's bizarre.

Our governor says that we have to re-open slowly, so as not to experience a second wave, that medical experts tell us we are surely going to endure.  On this, the 43rd day of his shutdown, he still hadn't given us a plan to re-open. 

At this point, it's about power.  The government can couch it in whatever verbiage they'd like, but it's now about power.  They've shown that they can control us.  They've learned that most Americans will put up with whatever they say.  They can close churches, bars, lounges, casinos, barber shops, and all manner of venues where people congregate.

Fankly, I've had enough of it.

Lessons Learned

If you are afraid of government power, look what's going on right now.  Our Governor, John Bel Edwards, in the great state of Louisiana, is restricting the freedom of everyone in Louisiana based on a public health emergency.



The one thing that government is learning right now is that freedom can easily  be restricted based on a "public health emergency".  Listen to his language and hear the words "order" and "compliance" and "restrict".  I never thought that I would see the day in Louisiana where I was not free to go get a haircut, but that day is upon us.

I am outraged.  Don't tell me it is the right thing to do.  This much power should not be delegated to any one man.  Not the governor, nor the president.  After this is over, I an going to ask for an expansion of freedom commensurate with restrictions that were placed on us during this emergency.

If they can restrict freedom, they can damned sure expand it.

Article 2, Section 2

Article 2, Section 2 spells out the duties o the President, and in part, includes:

he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

There has been some comment about the President tweeting about a case involving his friend.  This is all politics.  We know that Obama protected his friends and allies from scrutiny,intervening when necessary, and the Democrats never said a word.

Just for the record, here is a little graphic to remind you how Obama put his thumb on the scales of justice.  And that's okay, because Article 2, Section 2 gave him that power.

It's the double standard that bothers me more than anything.

Legal Arguments

A compelling legal argument from professor Alan Dershowitz on the legal standard for impeachment.  It's an hour, but if you enjoy a vigorous legal argument, well worth the time.



As I understand the argument, it boils down to simply that an impeachment is based on a crime as defined in law.  What Trump may have done might be despicable, but not a crime defined in law.  All the rest are political arguments that can be made for consideration at the ballot box, but those acts don't rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

Texas Asserts Sovereign Immunity

It seems that the Texas government has asserted sovereign immunity over the US Congress.

Texas is asserting its sovereign immunity against Congress, telling Democrats on two congressional committees this week that the state has no obligation to comply with their investigative demands.
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office says that as a state with sovereign powers under the Constitution, Texas can’t be treated like a federal agency or Cabinet secretary who can be compelled to comply.

I've often wondered why states did not more often invoke the 10th Amendment in certain matters, telling Congress (or federal bureaucrats) to go pound sand.

For those who are not familiar the 10th Amendment says:

 The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Congress, over the past decades, has assumed a lot of powers not delegated to it by the Constitution, and sometimes the states should rein in the federal bureaucracy.

Sir Robert Peel

Robert Peel is often considered to be the father of modern policing.  His principles are taught in academic circles and have great weight in the matter of the proper  use of police management.   Years ago, I taught Principles of Police Work a t the local college, in the Sociology department, before they had a criminal justice program, and Peel consumed the first chapter of the text I then used.

The reputation of the police agencies in this country have taken a beating over the past few years.  Most famously in the Obama era, but we continue to struggle with our general reputation, in some part because we tend to forget who we actually serve.   A review of Peel's work will help us to re-focus out efforts in a manner that serves the greater good.  One of my favorite of his principles is:

The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. 

The police are the public and the public are the police.   This is the foundation of civil police work.  We are simply members of the citizenry who are paid full-time to focus on crime and disorder.    We are no better, or worse, in large part, than the citizens we serve.

Exactly

Reason Magazine has a good headline.

Shutdown-Induced Bottlenecks at Nation's Airports Shows Folly of Letting the Federal Government Run Things

I concur, and I've long wondered why the airlines let the TSA set the security standards.  For starters, they suck at it.  TSA fails to detect most threats, and basically performs kabuki theater to make the uneducated travelers feel better.  Those of us with security backgrounds know better.

Airline security should be airline-specific and could be used as a marketing tool.   Airline A could have hyper-vigilant security and make that a selling point.  Airline B could have good security, but let people think that flying is an adventure and cater to another market.

But, in the final analysis, the Fed Gov is horrible at most things.  We have a pretty good military, but I consider that the outlier, and mainly because the military has standards.  As a people, we should really limit the role of the Fed.Gov to simply funding the military.  Think how much money we'd save.

Sour Grapes

The headline at the New York Post sounds like sour grapes:

Melania Trump reportedly heading to Mar-a-Lago on government jet

The paper is trying to make the point that the Big Nance had a trip canceled yesterday, but Melaia is flying to Palm Beach for the weekend.  Frankly, the point is lost on me.

Who cares?  Melania is smoking hot and could probably stand on the ramp at Andrews with her thumb up and hitch a ride anywhere she wanted to go.  I'm pretty sure that the First Lady qualifies for Space-A travel.

Of course, leftist Twitter took notice.

“So Trump denies the Speaker of the House the ability to visit troops in Afghanistan, but Melania gets to take a trip to Florida ahead of the holiday weekend,” tweeted pollster Matt McDermott.

Troop visits go two ways.  When I was in service, I was involved in a couple of Big-Shot visits.  The idea that the Big Nance wanted to visit the troops is one thing.   The suggestion that the troops wanted to see Nancy is laughable.  Big-Shot visits are a pain in the ass.

President Trump did the right thing.  And, he was classy about it.  If it were me, I probably would have let her get to Bagram, then cancelled the return flight.  Military priorities, you understand.  Simply divert her aircraft for more important missions.  But, that would be wrong, wouldn't it?

Pelosi No-Fly

It's on the news everywhere, but President T rump has told the Big Nance that she can't fly to Europe on a government airplane.  I don't know why she thinks going on a world tour is a good idea during a government crisis of her own making, but evidently, she thought it was a good idea.

The letter is everywhere.

I'll bet that when she read the sentence about flying commercial, her tit got caught in a wringer.

That's funny, right there.