Category Archives: Transhuman News

Boris Johnson, the prime minister of Britain, on Friday announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. In a brief video released on Twitter, he shared the basics: Having developed mild symptoms thats to say, a temperature and a persistent cough he underwent testing and received the bad news. He will now be self-isolating until the illness has run its course.

Looking mostly healthy, if typically disheveled, Mr. Johnson stressed that he would continue to lead the national fightback from his home via teleconferencing. He urged the British public to abide by the three-week lockdown put into place on Monday. The more effectively people stick with social distancing, the faster the nation and its National Health Service will bounce back, he said, before closing with the plea, Stay at home, protect the N.H.S. and save lives.

It was a responsible, no-drama message. If only the prime minister had displayed such leadership sooner, he and who knows how many others might have been spared this illness.

Instead, Mr. Johnsons handling of the crisis has borne an unsettling resemblance to that of President Trump. He was slow to recognize the risks, taking a mid-February holiday with his pregnant fiance at his country home. Even after the virus became impossible to ignore, he remained glib and dismissive, as his government dithered and failed to put together a coherent response.

In early March, Mr. Johnson suggested that one course of action would be for Britain to take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures. This, he explained later, would create a sort of herd immunity that would protect the population as a whole.

Um, maybe. But not without killing untold numbers of people first. The approach was quickly recognized as bonkers and scrapped, and Mr. Johnson moved to embrace a more conventional path of containment and social distancing.

Policy planning aside, Mr. Johnsons use of the bully pulpit has been an abject disaster. The best thing you can do is to wash your hands with soap and hot water while singing Happy Birthday twice, he said at a March 3 news conference. We should all basically just go about our normal daily lives, he urged, before chuckling about how he had been running around shaking hands willy-nilly. This prompted a cheeky scribe for The Guardian to call the prime minister the U.K.s own super-spreader.

Such macho swagger would be hilarious if the repercussions werent so lethal. Who knows how many people Mr. Johnson infected with his blithe ignorance, including potentially his fiance.

Mr. Johnson is far from the only bad role model of the moment. Mr. Trump, of course, has been trumpeting, and indulging in, even more reckless behavior. Until the past couple of days, his news briefings were a case study in poor social distancing, with officials crammed together for the cameras. Not so long ago, he was boasting of how he wasnt bothering to protect himself from germs and was, like Mr. Johnson, still out there slapping palms with the people.

As the death toll has skyrocketed and the economy has crashed, Mr. Trump, a well-known germaphobe, appears to have started taking his own safety more seriously. He even agreed to get tested after aggressively dismissing the idea. But he has grown, if anything, more cavalier about the lives of the American public. His suggestion that the country can get back to business by mid-April is delusional, and his call for people to pack the churches on Easter Sunday, April 12, is demented.

So far, Mr. Trump has avoided paying a personal price for his recklessness. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has not been as lucky. Last weekend, Mr. Paul became the first senator to test positive for the coronavirus. He is unlikely to be the last in part because in the six days between when he was tested, on March 16, and when his results came back positive, Mr. Paul strutted around Capitol Hill, shedding pathogens left and right. He lunched with his colleagues. He held forth on the Senate floor. He breathed all over unsuspecting aides, worked out in the Senate gym and swam in the Senate pool. The United States own super-spreader.

And this is before you factor in the fact that Mr. Paul was the lone no vote on the first coronavirus relief bill, and he was the guy who delayed passage of the second relief bill to push his pet concerns.

It also bears mentioning that Mr. Pauls father, the former congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, has been among those pushing the notion that the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax.

As has often been noted, the Senate is a high-risk population for Covid-19, with nearly half of its members age 65 or over. Mr. Pauls selfish negligence has already compelled two of his Republican colleagues to self-quarantine, Senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney of Utah. The potential exposure of Mr. Romney who tested negative was particularly disturbing, since his wife suffers from multiple sclerosis.

But Mr. Paul put the entire chamber at risk, and by extension the entire nation, which is relying on lawmakers to help guide it through this nightmare. Rather than express regret, however, Mr. Paul has belligerently defended himself against all the finger wagging. In an op-ed for USA Today he whined that he never met the criteria for testing or quarantine, so he doesnt see why everybody is so angry. But he did get tested. He just couldnt be bothered with the quarantine part until after he got smacked in the face with the results.

Then theres Jair Bolsanaro, the president of Brazil, who continues to out-Trump even Mr. Trump with his poor example. Nearly two dozen people who traveled with Mr. Bolsanaro to meet with Mr. Trump in Florida this month have tested positive for the virus. There were initially reports that Mr. Bolsanaro has tested positive as well, which he and his family later disputed. Mr. Bolsanaro seems to have taken his near miss as license to dismiss the pandemic as a little flu.

Even as Brazil leads Latin America in both confirmed cases of and deaths from the virus, Mr. Bolsanaro has railed against social distancing as mass confinement and called on people to go back to their regular routines. He has blamed the media for fueling hysteria. He has continued to shake hands with people and says he has no concerns for his own heath, despite being, at age 65, at increased risk of complications. In my particular case, with my history as an athlete, if I were infected by the virus, I wouldnt need to worry, he said. I wouldnt feel anything or, if very affected, it would be like a little flu or little cold.

Brazils minister of health has warned that the nations health system could collapse by the end of next month, and the nations governors are struggling mightily to manage the situation on the ground, even as their president makes that job significantly harder.

Its a depressing echo of what many American state and local leaders are facing. As governors of hard-hit states such as Gavin Newsom of California, Jay Inslee of Washington and Andrew Cuomo of New York labor to provide guidance and keep their residents safe, they are battling not only the virus but also the muddled messaging and stutter-step relief efforts coming from the White House.

Weak leadership, it turns out, is its own form of devastating pandemic.

See the rest here:
Boris Johnson Has Coronavirus. He Handled It Badly. - The New York Times

There are also civil liberties concerns as to whether widespread closures in American society to counter coronavirus dissemination are allowed under the Constitution. That said, there has been a grudging consensus that it has to be done, at least to the point that there has been no significant legal opposition to the numerous lockout measures across the United States.

However, I dont really know what to do with the danger by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to permanently close down every place of worship that seeks to serve in the face of a citywide moratorium on gatherings.

Yeah, if the congregation wants to work, says the mayor, you will do well.

If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church and continue to hold services, despite being advised too much not to do so, our law enforcement officers will have no choice but to close down those services, de Blasio said Friday, according to a transcript from the news conference.

Im not doing that with much happiness. This is the last thing I would like to do, because I understand how important peoples religions are to them, and in this moment of turmoil, we need our religion. But we dont need meetings that would place people at risk.

There is no tradition of religion that endorses something that endangers the leaders of the community. So, NYPD, Fire Department, Buildings Department, everybody has been told that if they see religious services going on, they will go to the authorities of the church, they will tell them that they need to interrupt the service and leave. And if they continue to serve until fines are given, well, poof. De Blasio said the penalties should be the first line of action. Lets hope that will allow the congregations to stop meeting.

If that doesnt work, theyll take punitive measures to the point of fines and eventually close down the building indefinitely, he said.

De Blasio: churches and synagogues conducting religious services could be permanently closing pic.twitter.com/kdUsdp2YOMatthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) March 29, 2020 Most of the places of worship in New York City are performing their services online, if at all, and locking down their doors, according to Politico. Still not any of them.

Unfortunately, a limited number of religious groups, specific churches and specific synagogues do not pay heed to this guideline even if it is so universal, de Blasio said.

You were alerted. Youre going to need to interrupt services. Support people express their religion in many ways, but not in crowds, not in meetings that can place others at risk. Yeah, there is no safer way for recalcitrant religion organizations now conducting services in the wake of a moratorium on mass events to stop than to say, You have been warned. There is no doubt that the First Amendments protection of religious freedom is powerful too much so.

There is little in the legislation or precedent to create a general and unilateral declaration of state of emergency as an undisputed authority, Hall wrote in Op-Ed for The Western Newspaper. There is still nothing in the statute or tradition to justify a limit on the number of persons who can meet in a church, for health purposes or otherwise, as a justification for violating the constitutional right to freedom of worship. Yet another First Amendment expert, Eugene Volokh, told The Associated Press that the facts surrounding the coronavirus explosion are murky in the seas.

If religious groups argued that they were being called out for special treatment, it would be one thing, Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the AP.

Do you think the government should have the authority to ban the churches from meeting to discourage the coronavirus from spreading?

But if, for reasons entirely unrelated to the religiosity of conduct, you are only putting the same pressure on everybody, it is likely to be acceptable, he said.

Of example, its not clear if de Blasios comment was fully thought out. I would strongly doubt any church who has managed to meet in person in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, despite the questionable legal existence of any regulation restricting the right of speech, how can any official excuse indefinitely closing down a place of worship or a congregation, no matter how ill-informed their decision to start meeting in person was.

And in terms of things being counter-productive, if youre going to face a court battle over a series of orders given by state and municipal officials in the last few weeks, the legal challenge of ending the right of a religious group to worship in perpetuity is the nearest you can get to a slam-dunk litigation argument.

What part of U.S. case law makes de Blasio believe this is going to come before the courts? We may be in terra nova because of the coronavirus epidemic, but the first amendment also holds here and closing down a school, synagogue or mosque indefinitely does not appear to align with it. Moreover, if anything comes before the court and the injunctive relief is issued, what is to guarantee that other organizations and people do not use it to reverse other state and municipal coronavirus orders? If this occurs, de Blasio could do a disservice of cataclysmic proportions to the cause of public safety.

So even though theyre not toppled is that actually what de Blasios incompetent government needs to waste its time in court talking about? Whether or not the municipal council has the power to effectively extinguish a religious community?

It wont sound as good in court as it does at a press conference especially as the coronavirus issue comes to an end, but the ban on the congregation meeting wont come under de Blasios attack. That will be petty dictatorship, pure and simple, in the middle of the coronavirus crisis.

I dont believe thats what de Blasio said at all, however, as he could be seen to say something of considerable severity.

This was another politician in front of a camera, trying to look tough. Here we have another public official who imagines himself in the chaos of Aaron Sorkin, who fixes yet another question by doing or doing something dramatic (if not legally sound).

My guess is that we dont have to think about de Blasio really going through what he said on Friday. The Mayor can have his moment of President Bartlets cosplay as soon as anyone with the law chops took him aside after the press conference and said, Ah, yeah, but about the closure of the church, Mr. Mayor There is, of course, the awful chance that de Blasio is crazy enough to follow ahead with this, however. After all, he personally launched a failed presidential nominating bid, operating under the misapprehension that what Americans were really calling for in a president was a bland mayor of the nations largest city. (Thanks to de Blasio, his misapprehension was significantly less costly than that of the other man in the sector who made the same mistake.) Had de Blasio wanted to do that, it might not only end up in litigation, it would be the beginning of a legal avalanche that hinders the ability of the state and local governments to handle coronavirus.

Any way, it is a heavy-handed challenge that is almost definitely illegal and does nothing but damage credibility and confidence in Gothams ability to deal with COVID-19.

Follow this link:
Dr. Ron Paul hits the nail on the head in an interview with No-Nonsense Coronavirus - RecentlyHeard.com

Medical staff treat patients suffering from the COVID-19 coronavirus in an intensive care unit at the Oglio Po Hospital in Cremona, Italy, March 19, 2020. (Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters)The absence of American leadership in the current crisis is not an aberration, and it is not temporary.

Faced with the great challenge of his time the thermonuclear menace of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Jack Kennedy famously laid out the American position: We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge and more.

That was heady stuff but exhausting, too, and expensive. Americans tire of heroism pretty quickly. We are the weary kind, and the weariness is thoroughly bipartisan: Kennedys determination to fight the Cold War was met with opposition not only from the Left, which was sympathetic to the Soviet Union, but also from the Right, with some conservatives of the old school taking to heart Randolph Bournes dictum that war is the health of the state and believing that what they saw as imperialism abroad was inexorably linked to imperialism at home. And both sides coveted the money that was being spent, calculating that we could fill a lot of potholes in Poughkeepsie for the cost of an aircraft carrier or three. The Walter Mondale Democrats and the Ron Paul Republicans saw eye to eye on that, at least.

That dynamic has not changed much: Barack Obama complained about the money the George W. Bush administration spent chasing jihadists around the world and declared, America, it is time to focus on nation-building at home. Donald Trumps embarrassing nickel-and-dime attitude toward U.S. commitments abroad, from NATO to USAID, is the barstool version of Obamas schoolboy posturing. But, of course, we are Americans, we are restless, we like a fight, and we cannot actually mind our own business for very long. Our method is to get ourselves into a fight, grow bored with it, become agitated by the expense of keeping it up, and then retreat in a huff.

That makes for a peculiar politics on the Right, especially, as conservatives make like a guy trying to pat his head and rub his belly at the same time, simultaneously beating their chests and pinching pennies. On 24 June 2019, Sean Hannity lamented that President Trump had failed to follow through on his insane proposal to hijack Iraqi oil output, which Hannity proposed using to compensate the families of American soldiers who died in the American invasion and occupation of Iraq at a rate of millions of dollars per family. Warming to his theme but never quite managing to call his proposal tribute, the AM-radio moral philosopher concluded We have every right to force you to pay for your own liberation.

Us pay any price, bear any burden? No, you will pay any price, and you will bear any burden we damned well tell you to, buddy.

Kennedy laid out an invitation to ancient friends and new cooperators alike:

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can dofor we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. . . . To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.

That is . . . not exactly how we talk about those things today.

It is easy to criticize President Trump for his pettiness in rhetoric and in fact but he is not the cause of American surrender, only its symptom. It is impossible to blame the American people for their weariness. For one thing, the critics of JFK-style imperialism and those Poughkeepsie pothole-watchers are not without a point: There is an economic and a moral price to be paid for that kind of leadership, and government should, in most ordinary times, be mainly preoccupied with those potholes and not with dreaming up new crusades through which to aggrandize itself and its officers. And didnt Hercules himself, sometime between killing the Nemean lion and that unpleasant Augean housekeeping business, look over his shoulder and mutter about the unfairness of it all, and wonder aloud why the . . . Belgians . . . werent shouldering more of the burden? They have been very unfair to us, I am sure he said.

The coronavirus epidemic is a global problem, one that points to the current deficit in global leadership. Americans are paralyzed by resentment. The European Union, having just been gutted by the departure of the United Kingdom, does not know quite what to do, and those European universal health-care systems so admired by U.S. progressives are failing. China has just reminded the world that it is a socially backward gulag state that is stalled right there between Mexico and Bulgaria in real economic performance. Putin is the czar of Twitter trolls. The U.S. president has two pornographic films, six bankruptcies, and a game show on his curriculum vitae, and the country is so short of emergency supplies that Ralph Lauren is making medical garments and Titos is producing hand sanitizer instead of vodka not exactly in a position to exercise global leadership.

With the prominent exception of the European Union and a few relatively minor exceptions (ASEAN, OIC, etc.), the success of the prominent multilateral institutions of the post-war era depended to an extraordinary degree upon the willingness of the United States to carry them, applying its vast wealth, military power, and credibility to their missions. The United States is, at least for the moment, no longer as willing to do that as it once was our relationship with NATO in the Trump era is indicative of a deeper and broader change in our national orientation. This is the age of the Little American, who turns up his nose at the world and asks, Whats in it for me?

The absence of American leadership in the current crisis is not an aberration, and it is not temporary. This is the new world order, light on the order.

Read more:
Pandemic: The First Great Crisis of the Post-American Era - National Review

If you want to understand everything that is wrong with American politics and society, but are tired of the Trump show, Rand Paul might be a good place to start. Paul is the junior senator from Kentucky so, believe it or not, is actually the more decent and compassionate member of that unfortunate states senate delegation, but given that the other senator from Kentucky is Mitch McConnell, that is not saying much about Paul.

For much of his life, both inside and outside of politics, Paul has been a devout Libertarian. He is the son of former Libertarian presidential candidate, and current quack, Ron Paul, so Rand Paul, who was named after the high priestess of Libertarianism-and deeply mediocre novelist-Ayn Rand, came to his Libertarian from a very young age. In recent years, like many in his party, Paul has moved away from whatever odd principles he once had in favor of fealty to Donald Trump.

Senator Paul recently became the first member of the senate to announce that he has tested positive for the Covid-19 virus. According to a statement his office released on Sunday, Paul, is feeling fine and is in quarantine. He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events. If you are reading this and are able to take a test out of an abundance of caution because of extensive travel and events raise your hand. I dont think many American hands went up. The US has been so slow getting tests out that many people who have symptoms are not able to get tested, but Paul a powerful, well-connected and wealthy man was able to get the front of the line. At no point has Paul expressed any recognition that the president he so faithfully follows has worked hard to deny other Americans the ability to assuage concerns similar to Pauls.

Paul, like virtually every other member of his party made no effort to restrain, or even contradict, a Republican president who has spreading disinformation about the virus

In the days leading up to deciding to be tested for the Coronavirus, Paul continued to go about his life more or less as usual. Even after being tested, but before getting the results, Paul conducted his business as a senator, worked with staff and other members and did minimal social distancing. In doing that he exposed countless others to the virus, putting their health and lives at risk. Additionally, Paul, like virtually every other member of his party made no effort to restrain, or even contradict, a Republican president who has spreading disinformation about the virus.

Pauls reckless behavior may have directly affected dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people, but for every high profile senator like Rand Paul who ignored the warnings right up until he became concerned for his own health, there are thousands of Americans who continue to be misinformed by Donald Trump and his enablers in politics and media. These people are unable to get a test when they are concerned, and, in many cases, like Paul have spent weeks ignoring the reality of the Coronavirus crisis and therefore accelerated the spread of the disease.

Rand Paul is an angry, unpleasant, hostile man who has been educated and indoctrinated far beyond his intelligence and who has sacrificed whatever limited integrity he once had at the feet of an unstable and dangerous president. He is now suffering from a deadly illness in no small part because of his own ignorance. However, I wish that he, like all sick people, have a speedy and quick recovery. If he recovers, the test of Pauls meager intellect, and indeed humanity, will be if he recognizes that parroting scientifically bankrupt ideas for fear of upsetting a deeply troubled president is condemning others, who do not have access to early testing or good medical care, to death.

Lifting social distancing policies will lead to an extremely significant increase in deaths. However, a growing number of Republicans think that is okay if it helps the economy and therefore Trumps reelection chances

Unfortunately, that reality still escapes most Republicans whether in government or media. The proof of that is the extent to which conservatives sought to downplay the Covid-19 crisis and their subsequent failure to defer to those who understood pandemics and how to fight them. Moreover, those previous failures are in danger of being compounded exponentially as Republicans including Donald Trump and numerous others are advocating lifting social distancing policies and recommendations because of the effect it is having on the stock market.

This is an extraordinarily short-sighted, murderous, immoral, and for lack of a better word, idiotic idea. Lifting social distancing policies will lead to an extremely significant increase in deaths. However, a growing number of Republicans think that is okay if it helps the economy and therefore Trumps reelection chances. This is simply evil, but it also reveals a level of stupidity that is exceptional even in the Trump era. Do they not realize that two million deaths will lead to economic disruption and fear that would make the current economic downturn look like a Sunday school picnic?

Trump and Paul share a core inability to accept scientific reality when it gets in the way of either ideology or partisan interest, as well as an astonishing inability to recognize how this pandemic is already affecting millions of Americans. These two powerful politicians are completely buffeted from the economic uncertainty and lack of access to healthcare that frame the crisis for the rest of us. Thus, it is no surprise that they can blithely issue statements about getting tested because they are concerned or say things like we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem. Like most Republicans Paul and Trump know and clearly dont care that the lives and livelihoods that are lost because of their decisions are unlikely to be their own.

http://www.lincolnmitchell.com

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LincolnMitchell

Continued here:
Rand Paul and the Stench of Entitlement - European Interest

There are also civil liberties concerns as to whether widespread closures in American society to counter coronavirus dissemination are allowed under the Constitution. That said, there has been a grudging consensus that it has to be done, at least to the point that there has been no significant legal opposition to the numerous lockout measures across the United States.

However, I dont really know what to do with the danger by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to permanently close down every place of worship that seeks to serve in the face of a citywide moratorium on gatherings.

Yeah, if the congregation wants to work, says the mayor, you will do well.

If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church and continue to hold services, despite being advised too much not to do so, our law enforcement officers will have no choice but to close down those services, de Blasio said Friday, according to a transcript from the news conference.

Im not doing that with much happiness. This is the last thing I would like to do, because I understand how important peoples religions are to them, and in this moment of turmoil, we need our religion. But we dont need meetings that would place people at risk.

There is no tradition of religion that endorses something that endangers the leaders of the community. So, NYPD, Fire Department, Buildings Department, everybody has been told that if they see religious services going on, they will go to the authorities of the church, they will tell them that they need to interrupt the service and leave. And if they continue to serve until fines are given, well, poof. De Blasio said the penalties should be the first line of action. Lets hope that will allow the congregations to stop meeting.

If that doesnt work, theyll take punitive measures to the point of fines and eventually close down the building indefinitely, he said.

De Blasio: churches and synagogues conducting religious services could be permanently closing pic.twitter.com/kdUsdp2YOMatthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) March 29, 2020 Most of the places of worship in New York City are performing their services online, if at all, and locking down their doors, according to Politico. Still not any of them.

Unfortunately, a limited number of religious groups, specific churches and specific synagogues do not pay heed to this guideline even if it is so universal, de Blasio said.

You were alerted. Youre going to need to interrupt services. Support people express their religion in many ways, but not in crowds, not in meetings that can place others at risk. Yeah, there is no safer way for recalcitrant religion organizations now conducting services in the wake of a moratorium on mass events to stop than to say, You have been warned. There is no doubt that the First Amendments protection of religious freedom is powerful too much so.

There is little in the legislation or precedent to create a general and unilateral declaration of state of emergency as an undisputed authority, Hall wrote in Op-Ed for The Western Newspaper. There is still nothing in the statute or tradition to justify a limit on the number of persons who can meet in a church, for health purposes or otherwise, as a justification for violating the constitutional right to freedom of worship. Yet another First Amendment expert, Eugene Volokh, told The Associated Press that the facts surrounding the coronavirus explosion are murky in the seas.

If religious groups argued that they were being called out for special treatment, it would be one thing, Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the AP.

Do you think the government should have the authority to ban the churches from meeting to discourage the coronavirus from spreading?

But if, for reasons entirely unrelated to the religiosity of conduct, you are only putting the same pressure on everybody, it is likely to be acceptable, he said.

Of example, its not clear if de Blasios comment was fully thought out. I would strongly doubt any church who has managed to meet in person in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, despite the questionable legal existence of any regulation restricting the right of speech, how can any official excuse indefinitely closing down a place of worship or a congregation, no matter how ill-informed their decision to start meeting in person was.

And in terms of things being counter-productive, if youre going to face a court battle over a series of orders given by state and municipal officials in the last few weeks, the legal challenge of ending the right of a religious group to worship in perpetuity is the nearest you can get to a slam-dunk litigation argument.

What part of U.S. case law makes de Blasio believe this is going to come before the courts? We may be in terra nova because of the coronavirus epidemic, but the first amendment also holds here and closing down a school, synagogue or mosque indefinitely does not appear to align with it. Moreover, if anything comes before the court and the injunctive relief is issued, what is to guarantee that other organizations and people do not use it to reverse other state and municipal coronavirus orders? If this occurs, de Blasio could do a disservice of cataclysmic proportions to the cause of public safety.

So even though theyre not toppled is that actually what de Blasios incompetent government needs to waste its time in court talking about? Whether or not the municipal council has the power to effectively extinguish a religious community?

It wont sound as good in court as it does at a press conference especially as the coronavirus issue comes to an end, but the ban on the congregation meeting wont come under de Blasios attack. That will be petty dictatorship, pure and simple, in the middle of the coronavirus crisis.

I dont believe thats what de Blasio said at all, however, as he could be seen to say something of considerable severity.

This was another politician in front of a camera, trying to look tough. Here we have another public official who imagines himself in the chaos of Aaron Sorkin, who fixes yet another question by doing or doing something dramatic (if not legally sound).

My guess is that we dont have to think about de Blasio really going through what he said on Friday. The Mayor can have his moment of President Bartlets cosplay as soon as anyone with the law chops took him aside after the press conference and said, Ah, yeah, but about the closure of the church, Mr. Mayor There is, of course, the awful chance that de Blasio is crazy enough to follow ahead with this, however. After all, he personally launched a failed presidential nominating bid, operating under the misapprehension that what Americans were really calling for in a president was a bland mayor of the nations largest city. (Thanks to de Blasio, his misapprehension was significantly less costly than that of the other man in the sector who made the same mistake.) Had de Blasio wanted to do that, it might not only end up in litigation, it would be the beginning of a legal avalanche that hinders the ability of the state and local governments to handle coronavirus.

Any way, it is a heavy-handed challenge that is almost definitely illegal and does nothing but damage credibility and confidence in Gothams ability to deal with COVID-19.

View original post here:
Kathy Griffin was trying to jump the queue for a COVID test, turning out she had diarrhea after a trip to Mexico. - RecentlyHeard.com