Author Archives: Dana Pico

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The Woke-ington Post defends Cameron “C-Grimey” Williams

We noted, four days ago, the firing of Chattanooga librarian Cameron Williams for being boneheadedly stupid burning library books with which he disagreed. Now comes The Washington Post, with their own article on the subject:

A Black Lives Matter activist was accused of burning books by Trump and Ann Coulter. He was then fired from his job.

By Teo Armus | February 17, 2021 | 3:08 AM EST

From the article title alone — and it should be noted that article titles in newspapers are normally written by the editors, not the article authors — you san tell: grab on to a support bar, because this one leans far to the left!

Cameron “C-Grimey” Williams says his instructions were clear enough: The 35-year-old library staffer was supposed to comb through the shelves of his branch in Chattanooga, Tenn., looking for books that were damaged, outdated or untruthful.

Black Lives Matter activist Cameron Williams

We noted Mr Williams’ appearance in the previous article; I can see from where his ‘street name’ of “C-Grimey” comes.

Let me be clear here: I would never hire, for any position involving public contact, anyone who looked like that. Nor would I ever hire anyone with any connection to #BlackLivesMatter. If someone cannot have decent, respectable grooming habits, nope, he doesn’t get hired. And having anyone on your payroll who you know is involved with attempting to defund or harm the police, who has a basically racist attitude — racist from any direction! — is something you do not want. It’s like hiring someone with any sort of “social justice” degree, such as Women’s and Gender Studies; such people are walking, talking discrimination lawsuits waiting to happen. You take their résumés, interview them if you must, and then quietly choose another candidate. The library was hiring someone to help people find books, not someone to push his political opinions on patrons.

The branch managers told employees they could bring home any weeded-out titles, he said. But Williams, a rapper who helped organize demonstrations against police brutality last year, reportedly had other plans for the books he picked out.

After nabbing Ann Coulter’s “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)” and Donald Trump’s “Crippled America,” he allegedly set them on fire in his backyard in December, live-streaming the blaze on Instagram, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Last week, the library fired him over the alleged incident, saying that he’d broken the rules by “improperly removing items from the Library’s collections.”

Cameron “C-Grimey” Williams, picture by Mr Williams, taken from The Washington Post.

One point the Post article does not mention is that the library met with the Chattanooga city attorney about this, before taking the decision to terminate Mr Williams. One would assume that the city attorney would have been very careful in advising the library on the legalities. More, the Post article states that, “Before his firing, (Mr Williams) was the only Black man on a staff of about 80 people, he said.” Note that verbiage: Mr Williams was the only black man on the staff; it does not mean he was the only black person employed there. Library personnel tend to be heavily female. Was this poor writing by the Post article author, poor reporting in failing to clarify the situation, or just laziness in taking Mr Williams’ word for it?

That point should have been caught by whichever Washington Post editor reviewed the story. At least I assume the normal practice of editorial review; perhaps such an assumption isn’t a wise one?

The Hitlerjugend burning books, 1938.

Mr Williams provided this picture to the Post. In it, he is shown in what appears to be the library stacks. He’s also wearing a black hoodie, something hardly professional, and a Black Lives Matter facemask. Was he projecting a politicized image while working at the library?

There’s some rather delicious irony when we see the Post publishing sympathetic articles about book-burners. Some things are just not good looks.

The Post’s story is an example of absolutely horrible journalism . . . which seems to be a 21th century trend. We should not be able to discern the writer’s biases by reading what is supposed to be a straight news article, but they are there for all to see. This is what happens when you hire the #woke.

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It’s not just the big boys like The New York Times and The Washington Post who don’t like #FreedomOfSpeech for other people Much smaller media like the Lexington Herald-Leader aren't too fond of it either

At The First Street Journal, and William Teach’s The Pirate’s Cove — and Mr Teach has done this site an invaluable service, crossposting because I’ve been under power-cutting ice storm threats for several days now — we have been tireless defenders of the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech. Thus, I was interested enough to read Joel Pett’s OpEd piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader celebrating that free speech pioneer, Larry Flynt.

RIP Larry Flynt: Kentucky native, porn publisher, and First Amendment champion

By Joel Pett | February 15, 2021 | 10:50 AM | Updated 12:50 PM EST

In the gathering gray of an April evening in 2004, I waited alone in the alley behind the Kentucky Theater, uncertain that my guest would show up. Inside, 150 or so attendees of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists annual convention watched a screening of the 1996 drama “The People vs. Larry Flynt.”

The film chronicled the infamous pornographer’s landmark 1988 legal battle with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, which ended with a unanimous Supreme Court firmly reinforcing our collective right to satirize the powerful. (Even if that satire implies that a renowned religious figure had fornicated with his own mother in an outhouse.) The AAEC had filed a friend of the court brief on Flynt’s behalf.

I didn’t wait long. A standard prom-issue limo slid up next to the loading dock. A couple of well-dressed young men emerged, lifted the gold wheelchair out and positioned it. Out swung Larry Claxton Flynt’s legs, rendered useless by a 1978 assassination attempt and wrapped in an expensive suit. Flynt struggled into position, looked up at me and growled “Goddammit, I hate to f—ing travel!”

Flynt, who died last week at 78, not only won the big First Amendment case, he was a native Kentuckian, making him a natural “get” for the Lexington convention. I had found his office tricky to communicate with, since they made no demands, didn’t need airline tickets (he had his own jet) and handled their own hotel reservations. He had simply barked into the phone, some eight months earlier, “All right, dammit, I’ll be there!”

Mr Pett’s paean to Mr Flynt is somewhat tiresome. Larry Flynt was the extreme test case for the first amendment, just as a vicious, cold-blooded killer is the extreme test for opposition to capital punishment: the concepts one wishes to defend are personified by the worst of people. Mr Flynt’s Hustler magazine went where Playboy and Penthouse did not go, far exceeding them in raunchiness and crudity. Since then, the internet has made much more graphic pornography widely available, often for free, and if there’s anything not available on the internet somewhere, I can’t think of what it would be.

Heck, you can find the basics for building nuclear weapons on the internet!

Mr Pett was unstinting in his praise for the Hustler publisher:

His injuries made speaking a struggle, but Flynt delivered. He animatedly railed against former President George W. Bush, for whom he had a particular dislike. He stayed to answer plenty of questions with grace, wit and humor.

I was a little disappointed that, over dinner, Flynt was considerably less effusive. No matter, he had done his job, sparking soul-searching among our self-important, ponderous, mainstream newspaper cartoonists about First Amendment protections extending to the gratuitous, crude, misogynistic and utterly distasteful smut between the slick covers of porn mags.

I don’t have to like Mr Flynt to agree as far as freedom of speech and of the press are concerned. But, as we’ve sadly noted previously, today’s credentialed media are a lot more supportive of their own First Amendment rights than they are for others.

And so we have Mr Pett’s conclusion:

Larry Flynt once said, “If the First Amendment protects a scumbag like me, then it will protect all of you. Because I’m the worst.”

Maybe. But watching Donald Trump’s outrageous claims to free-speech protection play out last week, some might disagree.

Mr Flynt had done his job, Mr Pett said, “sparking soul-searching among our self-important, ponderous, mainstream newspaper cartoonists about First Amendment protections extending to the gratuitous, crude, misogynistic and utterly distasteful smut between the slick covers of porn mags.” Yet when it comes to the political speech of President Trump, speech with which both Mr Pett individually and the editors of the Herald-Leader in general disagreed, that First Amendment, well, maybe it shouldn’t cover that!

Mr Teach’s blog tagline is, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” It seems to me that today’s credentialed media do not believe in freedom of speech and of the press for those theyn despise.

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About that getting rid of fossil fuels?

As Joltin’ Joe Biden and the rest of the #ClimateChange alarmists want you to end your dependency on fossil fuels, perhaps this story from the Austin American-Statesman ought to be in the backs of your minds:

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state’s electric grid operator says

Brandon Mulder | Austin American-Statesman | February 14, 2021 | 4:30 PM CST | Updated: February 15, 2021 | 10:11 AM CST

Frozen wind turbine in Texas.

Nearly half of Texas’ installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.

Fortunately for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s electric grid, the storm’s gusty winds are spinning the state’s unfrozen coastal turbines at a higher rate than expected, helping to offset some of the power generation losses because of the icy conditions

“Some of,” I note. There’s more at the original.

The story continues to tell us that wind generated sparktricity was 23% of the Lone Star State’s generation capacity, but it has to be asked: if the Climate Change policies that President Biden wants to put in place, to transition us to 100% ‘renewable’ carbon-free sources were actually in place, in this miserable February with it’s strong Arctic air mass having borne down upon the Midwest plains states, just how many people would be shivering in their homes right now?

Gas fireplace in my computer room/den.

When we moved to our retirement fixer-upper in July of 2017, it was total electric. In January of 2018, a snow and ice storm hit, and knocked out the electricity. Since we’re out in the country, at pretty much the far end of Jackson Electric Cooperative’s service area, we’re among the last people to get power back, and it took 4½ days. My wife went to Lexington, and stayed at our daughter’s apartment, but I had to stay here, to care for the critters, and the plumbing.

It got down to 38º F in the house.

As I said, our house is an eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and it certainly isn’t done yet, but we decided that we would have gas in the remodel, because Mrs Pico wanted a gas range. Thus we now have a new gas (propane) range, water heater and the fireplace installed. If we lose power again, we’ll still be able to keep the house warm, cook and take showers.

Without that fossil fuel, the place would become a not-very-much-fun place in the winter when the electricity goes out.

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LOL! A group calling itself Refuse Fascism actually advocates fascism, in seeking to deny the right of the accused to counsel But the left have always had an authoritarian streak to themselves; leftism and liberty are mutually exclusive

The left, so many of whom want to defund the police and emasculate law enforcement, will tell you that everyone deserves an attorney who will vigorously defend them in court.

Unless, of course, the defendant is Donald Trump. Then there’s Hell to pay! From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

From laughs over ‘Philly-delphia’ to vandalism at home, Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen draws backlash

by Jeremy Roebuck | February 13, 2021- 6:53 PM

Philadelphia attorney Michael T. van der Veen has taken a starring role in Donald Trump’s impeachment defense over the last two days — but he’s also incurred backlash.

Vandals smashed windows and spray-painted “TRAITOR” on the driveway of his suburban Philadelphia home Friday night, after he spent hours on the Senate floor hurling partisan invective and testily condemning the former president’s second impeachment trial as “constitutional cancel culture.”

A group of demonstrators with the group Refuse Fascism gathered outside his Center City law office chanting, “When van der Veen lies, what do you do? Convict. Convict.”

There’s more at the original. Another article from the Inquirer noted:

Michael van der Veen hired 24-hour private security for his family after vandals smashed windows and spray-painted “TRAITOR” on the driveway of his suburban Philadelphia home Friday night. He told reporters Saturday he received more than 100 death threats.

And they acknowledged being caught off guard by the level of rancor from Trump’s critics and supporters alike — even given the country’s fiercely divided politics and how other lawyers in his orbit have fared.

“I’ve been representing controversial clients for 30 years, and I’ve never experienced this type of vitriol,” said William J. Brennan, another local member of the team whose past clients include priests accused of sexual abuse and judges facing corruption charges. “We had no political agenda here. We are not partisan warriors. We are criminal defense lawyers who represented a client.”

So far, the Editorial Board has been silent, not condemning the attacks on President Trump’s defense lawyers, but, given the state of the #woke dominating the newsroom and the lack of actual journalism from the Inquirer, I wouldn’t be surprised if the editors remained silent.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees that anyone acused of a crime has the “to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

The hand-written copy of the proposed Bill of Rights, 1789, cropped to show the text that would later be ratified as the Sixth Amendment. Click to enlarge.

But, apparently the oh-so-tolerant left don’t believe in the Sixth Amendment and the right of the accused to defend himself and have the assistance of counsel. members of the laughably named Refuse Fascism group demonstrated outside of Mr van der Veen’s office:

Refuse Fascism has a logo as part of their Twitter biography, telling us that, “In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America!” But what would be more fascist than not allowing an accused defendant to have an attorney to defend himself?

This was their tweet:

Of course, were one of the members of Refuse Fascism arrested, he’d be screaming, “Lawyer! Lawyer! Lawyer!” at the top of his lungs.

In American history, we are taught that patriot John Adams served as counsel for the defense in the trial of eight British soldiers accused of murder during a riot in Boston on March 5, 1770, what was called the Boston Massacre, and he won acquittals.

Before we had our independence, before we had our Constitution and the Sixth Amendment, Mr Adams, passionate advocate of freedom, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and second President of the United States, took on the unpopular cause of defending those British soldiers, because he believed that every man deserves a defense, every man has a right to a defense.

That lesson seems to have been lost on the members of Refuse Fascism. Rather, in protesting the attorneys representing President Trump, they are protesting the right to counsel. They are not refusing fascism, but advocating it.

Of course, Refuse Fascism has an absolute right to assemble and advocate anything they wish. But I, too, have the freedom of speech, and the right to point out that Refuse Fascism is itself advocating fascist behavior.

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Chattanooga #BlackLivesMatter activist fired from public library for burning books by conservative authors

One of the reasons I like to use ‘credentialed media’ sources is so that no one can complain that my sources are evil reich-wing blogs and can’t be trusted. From the ABC News station, Channel 9 in Chattanooga:

Update: Chattanooga Library fires worker who burned library books by conservative authors

“The City of Chattanooga has policies in place to protect the public’s interest, and we follow those directives,” said Library Executive Director Corinne Hill.

by WTVC / Associated Press Sunday | December 6th 2020 | Updated: February 11, 2021

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — UPDATE (February 11th, 2021):

The Chattanooga Public Library announced in an email that Cameron Williams was fired on Wednesday for burning library books.

The email says this came after a February 5th hearing on the matter and after conversations with the City of Chattanooga Attorney.

The release says the investigation wrapped up on December 1st, and determined that Williams “violated City and Library policies by improperly removing items from the Library’s collections.”

Williams admits he burned the books, but claims he did nothing wrong, saying that the books were already set to be removed and that officials told him he could take them.

He says he and his attorney plan to appeal the library’s decision to fire him. See Isaiah Kim-Martinez’s update here.

Black Lives Matter activist Cameron Williams

Further down was what looked like links to previous stories, but had no links embedded, including “Williams previously helped organize protests against police brutality and faces charges of disorderly conduct and blocking a highway stemming from two July demonstrations.”

Let me be clear here: I would never hire, for any position involving public contact, anyone who looked like that. Nor would I ever hire anyone with any connection to #BlackLivesMatter. If someone cannot have decent, respectable grooming habits, nope, he doesn’t get hired. And having anyone on your payroll who you know is involved with attempting to defund or harm the police, who has a basically racist attitude — racist from any direction! — is something you do not want. It’s like hiring someone with any sort of “social justice” degree, such as Women’s and Gender Studies; such people are walking, talking discrimination lawsuits waiting to happen. You take their résumés, interview them if you must, and then quietly choose another candidate.

The only thing that surprises me is that Mr Williams was actually fired. I would have guessed that, in this time of the left trying to censor anything by conservatives, the library would have given him an award!

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Alabama gets stupid about capital punishment A waste of time and money

Sometimes I have to wonder about the utter stupidity of some people. Willie B Smith III was sentenced to death in Alabama for the 1991 murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson in Birmingham. Mr Smith and his cronies abducted her at an ATM, forced her to withdraw $80 in cash, at which point they took her to a cemetery, upon which Mr Smith shot her in the back of the head.

The too-few readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment, but that is not the point of this article.

Mr Smith was scheduled to be executed, and requested that his pastor accompany him into the death chamber. The Department of Corrections refused, and Mr Smith’s attorney sued. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued an injunction stating that Mr Smith had a right to have his pastor present. Alabama could have simply granted Mr Smith’s request, and proceeded with the execution, but no, the State had to get all high and mighty and appeal to the Supreme Court, where the state lost. From The Washington Post:

Supreme Court says Alabama cannot execute inmate without his pastor present

By Robert Barnes | February 12, 2021 | 8:12 AM EST

The Supreme Court said late Thursday night that Alabama could not execute a death row inmate without the man’s pastor by his side, and indicated that other states must find a way to honor final requests for a spiritual adviser in the death chamber.

The court’s order came an hour before Alabama’s self-imposed deadline of executing Willie B. Smith III, convicted of a 1991 robbery and murder. A lower court had put the execution on hold, and Alabama asked the Supreme Court to step in.

But the request divided the court’s conservative majority. For the first time since she joined the court in October, Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with liberal colleagues in a capital punishment case, saying federal law requires states to make accommodations for prisoners like Smith.

Barrett joined an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan that said a federal law protecting the religious rights of prisoners set a high bar Alabama did not meet.

There’s more at the original.

I have to ask: why did the state not simply allow Mr Smith’s pastor into the execution chamber? If the pastor agreed to perform that onerous duty, and agreed not to be disruptive, there was no practical reason not to allow this. Faced with the injunction from the Eleventh Circuit, the State had to know that its legal position was shaky, and that if the Supreme Court declined to end the injunction, the execution date would pass with Mr Smith still breathing.

And that’s what happened. Mr Smith is still alive. As an opponent of capital punishment, I think that’s a good thing. More, it exposes just how stupid states can get when it comes to capital punishment. Pennsylvania, for instance, has 142 people on death row, but has actually executed only three men since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1974 . . . and all three men “volunteered,” voluntarily dropped all of their appeals to just get it over. Despite all of the additional costs that come with a capital sentence, the Keystone State has not been able to put anyone to death against his will!

Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA) is an opponent of capital punishment, but does not have the authority to commute death sentences without the recommendation of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. He can, and has, refused to advance any capital sentences toward execution. But, don’t blame Governor Wolf too much; the previous Governor, Republican Tom Corbett, a strong supporter of capital punishment, signed 47 death warrants during his four years in office, and there were still no executions during his term. Is not stupidity involved in maintaining capital punishment in the Keystone State?

California has 711 people on death row, but has executed only 13 since 1976, and the last one was in 2006. Is not stupidity involved in having capital punishment in the Pyrite State?

Alabama? Well, the state has been successful in carrying out executions, 67 of them since the restoration of capital punishment. But with the stupidity, and yes, stupidity is the right word, shown by Jefferson Dunn, Commissioner of the Department of Corrections, it’s amazing that he’s been so successful. It would have been far more efficient, and less expensive, to have simply granted Mr Smith’s last request. By doing that, the state would have been able to carry out the sentence; by fighting it, the state lost, and failed to carry out the execution.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented from the decision not to vacate the injunction, wrote:

Because the State’s policy is non-discriminatory and, in my view, serves the State’s compelling interests in ensuring the safety, security, and solemnity of the execution room, I would have granted the State’s application to vacate the injunction.

But the Court has a different view and denies the State’s application. Given the stays of execution here and in Gutierrez v. Saenz, it seems apparent that States that want to avoid months or years of litigation delays because of this RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) issue should figure out a way to allow spiritual advisors into the execution room, as other States and the Federal Government have done. Doing so not only would satisfy inmates’ requests, but also would avoid still further delays and bring long overdue closure for victims’ families.

In other words, Justice Kavanaugh said to states which still have the death penalty, don’t be stupid!

As the Post noted, while we know that Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Kavanaugh sided with Alabama, the votes of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito are not mentioned. At least one of them must have voted along with Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Steven Breyer and Amy Barrett, to form a majority.

The easiest non-stupid thing to do would be to simply eliminate capital punishment. It’s actually cheaper to imprison someone for life than it is to execute him. And Alabama’s stupidity in this case is just one more in a long list of dumb behavior the courts have had to adjudicate as states have tried to put people to death.

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The sad, sad decline of The Philadelphia Inquirer

I ran across a photo if the masthead of The Philadelphia Inquirer from February 25, 1953, and noticed the ‘taglines’ that it used: “Public Ledger” and “An Independent Newspaper for All the People”. By Public ledger, the Inquirer was setting itself up as Philadelphia’s newspaper of record, which Wikipedia defines as “a major newspaper with large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative.” That Wikipedia article named four newspapers of record for the United States: The New York Times (Founded 1851), The Washington Post (1877), The Los Angeles Times (1881) and The Wall Street Journal (1889). First printed on Monday, Jun1 1, 1829, the then Pennsylvania Inquirer is older than any of them. “An editorial in the first issue of The Pennsylvania Inquirer promised that the paper would be devoted to the right of a minority to voice their opinion and ‘the maintenance of the rights and liberties of the people, equally against the abuses as the usurpation of power.’”

Boy has that changed! As has happened to other great newspapers, the newsroom of the Inquirer was captured by the young #woke, who forced the firing resignation of Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski over the headline Buildings Matter, Too.

“Devoted to the right of a minority to voice their opinion”? Yeah, that failed, too, as the Inquirer closed comments on the majority of its articles, stating that:

Commenting on Inquirer.com was long ago hijacked by a small group of trolls who traffic in racism, misogyny, and homophobia. This group comprises a tiny fraction of the Inquirer.com audience. But its impact is disproportionate and enduring.

Really? How do they know? How can they be sure that these views do not represent more than a “tiny fraction” of their audience? Have they really done the research, or was it just that the #woke didn’t like the idea that the riff-raff could express their opinions? “An Independent Newspaper for All the People”? No, the Inquirer has now become a non-profit newspaper for the left.

There’s a reason I’ve called it The Philadelphia Enquirer, mocking its name by using the same spelling as the National Enquirer.[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.

Before I retired, I used to pick up a copy of the Inquirer at the Turkey Hill in downtown Jim Thorpe, on my way to the plant. I read it, as did my drivers, though they sometimes said I should have picked up the Allentown Morning Call instead, being somewhat closer to local news. I read a lot of stories in the Inquirer, about the killings of Philadelphia police officers, I noted how the newspaper didn’t really care much about the murders of young black men in the city, but has the killing of cute little white girl Rian Thal splashed through the paper for days.[2]That site search for Rian Thal returned 3,128 results! Think the Inquirer was obsessed much, or were they just printing what the editors thought their readers wanted to see?

So, I’m sad to see what the Inquirer has become. They write about “gun crime” as though an inanimate object somehow jumps up and shoot people all by itself, because it’s just too politically incorrect to note that that “gun violence” is disproportionately committed by black Philadelphians. The editors have dozens and dozens of articles claiming that #BlackLivesMatter, when it has become obvious, to anyone who reads the newspaper, that black lives don’t matter, unless they are taken by a white police officer.

Despite the fact that I said I wouldn’t, I finally subscribed to the digital edition of the Inquirer, after Mrs Pico kept telling me to do so rather than try to get copies of stories for free and then have to manually type them into my blog articles. But the paper has gone downhill, even from just ten years ago.

References

References
↑1 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.
↑2 That site search for Rian Thal returned 3,128 results! Think the Inquirer was obsessed much, or were they just printing what the editors thought their readers wanted to see?
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After more than half a year of mask mandates, the CDC now wants us to have double mask mandates! Not just no, but Hell no!

As the rollout of the vaccines against COVID-19 has begun — though, even qualifying in Tier 1C, the local Health Department can’t say when I’ll have an opportunity to receive it — people have been looking forward to a return to a normal life. Tom Brady celebrated his seventh Super Bowl win by, Horrors! not wearing a mask, and the left were aghast!

Now, after months and months of mask mandates, the government is urging double masking. From The Wall Street Journal:

Double Masks Offer Significantly Better Protection, CDC Study Finds

By Betsy McKay | February 10, 2021

Upgrading your mask can really make a big difference, according to a study published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Wearing a double mask or fitting a single mask more closely on the face substantially reduces the risk of infection with the Covid-19 virus, the study, published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found.

In a series of laboratory experiments using headforms and machines to generate aerosols, the CDC found that wearing a three-ply cloth mask over a three-ply medical or surgical mask blocked 92.5% of particles from a cough.

That was much more effective than a single mask. A surgical mask alone blocked cough particles by 42%, and a cloth mask blocked them by 44.3%.

Many medical and engineering experts say people need to upgrade their masks because new variants of the virus are spreading around the country, particularly one that is significantly more transmissible than the currently most common strain. Other studies have shown benefits from wearing double masks or using mask fitters, devices which tighten the fit.

Still other experts say that people should wear N95 masks, which are used primarily in hospitals and are certified to filter out at least 95% of small particles.

N95s? We’re now seeing reports that there has been a surge in fake N95 masks, including those in Washington state, the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, and Minnesota.

The CDC is trying to accomplish two goals: convince people to wear a mask at all–since many aren’t doing that currently–and offer options on its website that can help them improve or find a good fit, said John Brooks, chief medical officer of the agency’s Covid-19 response.

“Masking is one of our most potent means for not only the epidemic and its effects on human health and the economy, but also for slowing viral evolution,” he said. “We are looking at all the ways we can enhance our prevention measures.”

After well over half a year — so much for fifteen days to flatten the curve, though others said it might take several weeks more than that — now we are being told that, hey, we aren’t wearing our masks right, and we aren’t wearing the right masks in the first place.

Will it sound paranoid if I say that this seems like more of an attempt at control of the population than anything else?  I’m just waiting for Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) to change his mask mandate to a double-mask mandate.[1]LOL! The Governor’s mask mandate includes descriptions of the face coverings to be worn, and what is included would not come close to the CDC guidelines: “For the purposes of this order, … Continue reading

There’s more at the original, detailing aerosol projection rates by single and doubled masks. After reading it, I have to ask: if doubled masks blocked more vaporized moisture than single ones, why wouldn’t tripled masks be even better? Perhaps if we just stopped breathing altogether?

We’ve seen ‘health care professionals’ tell us that we need to wear masks and not kiss during sex — which makes me wonder if they’ve ever engaged in sexual intercourse themselves, since they don’t seem to understand how people actually copulate — and wear masks even inside your home. Let’s face it: nothing we do will ever be enough. They want us to save our lives by not living our lives.

We’ve known since early on in this pandemic that the various restrictions on people lives were leading to increased mental health issues, and drug overdose deaths have greatly increased. A significant increase in suicides has also been blamed on the restrictions placed on people due to COVID-19.

Unemployment skyrocketed and poverty soared, as government forced many businesses to close.

From Business Insider, on December 9th:

  • On Monday, Moody’s Analytics found millions of Americans are, on average, nearly $6,000 behind on rent payments, according to a Washington Post report.
  • The figure paints a bleak picture for what could happen come January 1, when eviction moratoriums expire and billions in back rent are due.
  • Some estimates — like one from advisory firm Stout — puts as many as 20.1 million tenants in the US at risk of eviction. That’s equivalent to the population of the state of Florida.

At what point will we realize that the ‘cure’ has been worse than the disease? Probably not before the authoritarians issue even more draconian orders trying to control our personal lives and choices.

References

References
↑1 LOL! The Governor’s mask mandate includes descriptions of the face coverings to be worn, and what is included would not come close to the CDC guidelines: “For the purposes of this order, a ‘face covering’ is a material that covers the nose and mouth and is secured to the head with ties, straps or loops over the ears, or is wrapped around the lower face. It can be made of a variety of materials, including cotton, silk, or linen, and ideally has two or more layers. Face coverings may be factory-made, homemade, or improvised from household items such as scarfs, bandanas, and t-shirts.” I do, at least, applaud his use of the Oxford comma.
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Bad causes attract bad people Grifters gotta grift!

This isn’t from an evil reich-wing source, but the liberal Associated Press:

How a leading anti-Trump group ignored a crisis in its ranks

By Steve Peoples and Brian Slodysko | February 11, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — Last June, the Lincoln Project was on a high.

Led by several prominent former Republican consultants, its slickly produced ads attacking President Donald Trump made it perhaps the best known of the so-called Never Trump organizations. The group tried to claim a higher moral ground in an effort to purge Trump from the GOP. Money flowed in by the tens of millions of dollars from donors eager to help.

But within the organization, a grave threat was emerging.

In June 2020, members of the organization’s leadership were informed in writing and in subsequent phone calls of at least 10 specific allegations of harassment against co-founder John Weaver, including two involving Lincoln Project employees, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation. The email and phone calls raise questions about the Lincoln Project’s statement last month that it was “shocked” when accusations surfaced publicly this year. It’s also the first known suggestion that Weaver targeted a Lincoln Project staffer.

There’s more at the original.

Many have publicly mused about how co-founders George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen, Jennifer Horn and Rick Wilson could not have known about Mr Weaver’s activities. Twenty-one young men, including one who claims that things began when he was just 14, have accused Mr Weaver of sending unwanted sexually provocative messages, sometines including solicitations for sex, often in exchange for the promise of career help, to which Mr Weaver admitted once caught.

The Washington Post reported:

Weaver has been on a medical leave of absence from the Lincoln Project since last summer and said he would not return to the organization.

On Sunday, the Lincoln Project noted that Weaver was never around other members.

“The totality of his deceptions are beyond anything any of us could have imagined and we are absolutely shocked and sickened by it. Like so many, we have been betrayed and deceived by John Weaver,” the group’s statement said. “We are grateful beyond words that at no time was John Weaver in the physical presence of any member of The Lincoln Project.”

Oh, really?

On Twitter Sunday, (the American Conservative’s Ryan) Girdusky — who broke the story earlier this month — blasted the Lincoln Project’s statement as false, saying the group had been made aware of the allegations when he was reporting them out last year.

Girdusky, who has also worked as a political consultant for about 15 years, told The Washington Post that Weaver’s past was like a “worst-kept secret” and that several men reached out to him after Weaver followed him on Twitter last May.

“Three young men DMed (directly messaged) me and said, ‘Please be careful, this is what he did to me,’ and sent me their DMs with John Weaver,” Girdusky said.

Girdusky said several of the men who told him privately about Weaver’s behavior had also contacted Lincoln Project members as recently as last August “and it was ignored across the board.”

Steve Schmidt, a co-founder of the group, told the New York Times that they had heard “chatter” last summer Weaver could be in relationships with men, but denied they knew it was inappropriate.

Uhhh, Mr Weaver was married, so Mr Schmidt had to know that such relationships were “inappropriate.”

The Post article detailed Mr Weaver’s behavior and how the Lincoln Project denied any knowledge. The Associated Press article went further:

Since its creation, the Lincoln Project has raised $90 million. But only about a third of the money, roughly $27 million, directly paid for advertisements that aired on broadcast and cable, or appeared online, during the 2020 campaign, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures and data from the ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.

That leaves tens of millions of dollars that went toward expenses like production costs, overhead — and exorbitant consulting fees collected by members of the group.

“It raises questions about where the rest of the money ultimately went,” said Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington. “Generally speaking, you’d expect to see a major super PAC spend a majority or more of their money on advertisements and that’s not what happened here.”

The vast majority of the cash was split among consulting firms controlled by its founders, including about $27 million paid to a small firm controlled by Galen and another $21 million paid to a boutique firm run by former Lincoln Project member Ron Steslow, campaign finance disclosures show.

Emphasis mine.

The AP article was careful not to accuse the Lincoln Project of actual illegality, but noted that several of the members had serious financial problems, problems which seemed to be at least partially resolved by the success of the organization:

The Lincoln Project parted with one co-founder, Horn, last week, claiming in an unusual public statement that she was seeking a $250,000 signing bonus and a $40,000-a-month consulting contract. Horn declined to engage publicly, but public records reveal that the unexpected success of the Lincoln Project has extended a lifeline to some founders who have spent much of the past decade under financial distress.

Financial help also came to Messrs Weaver and Schmidt.

There has been a lot of coverage on Mr Weaver’s sexual messages, and even the AP article spends a lot of bandwidth on them, but, at heart, the Lincoln Project turned out to be a corrupt organization to benefit its founders financially. Yes, the evidence indicates that the members lied about what they knew and when they knew it concerning Mr Weaver, but that appears to be the least of it.

The AP article refers to Mr Conway as “conservative attorney George Conway,” but in his hatred for Donald Trump, he showed that he is no conservative. Supporting Joe Biden just to get rid of President Trump also meant supporting Mr Biden’s policies. Mr Conway, and the other #NeverTrumpers, have wound up supporting:

  • Characterizing conservatives as ‘extremists’ and supporting them being banned from social media;
  • Supporting President Biden’s allowing the ‘transgendered’ into the military, including the government paying for their medical ‘transition’ costs;
  • Supporting President Biden’s moves to allow illegal immigrants into the United States;
  • Supporting President Biden’s policies allowing the ‘transgendered’ to be treated as the sex they claim to be, including in athletic competitions;
  • Supporting President Biden’s rejoining of the Paris Climate Change agreement;
  • Supporting President Biden’s attempt to rejoin the Iran nuclear weapons agreement;
  • Supporting President Biden’s not just unlimited abortion license policies, but supporting having the federal government pay for abortions;
  • Canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline; and
  • Supporting legislation restricting our Second Amendment rights.

All of these things, and more, come with supporting Mr Biden’s presidential campaign!

Bad causes attract bad people, and supporting Joe Biden, because he is a nicer guy than Donald Trump, is a bad cause. Not everyone who supported Mr Biden is necessarily a bad person, but it certainly seems like his cause has attracted more than his share of bad people.

I don’t have to like Mr Trump as an individual; I’ve never met the man, never met any President, and the odds are vanishingly small that I ever will. His personality means nothing to me. What matters in a President is his policies, because it is his policies which affect every American, and President Trump’s policies were far, far better for the United States than those of the guy who succeeded him.