We get it: Lexington Herald-Leader columnist really, really, really doesn’t like Republicans. Given the newspaper’s record of political endorsements, and how out-of-touch they have been with Kentucky’s voters, Mrs Blackford’s political opinions are not exactly a surprise. Still, I would have thought that she’d read her own newspaper. After all, it isn’t even that big anymore! Continue reading
It ain’t just them Southern rednecks protesting against #VaccineMandates
I have heard these stories anecdotally, and seen smaller versions of them in the Lexington Herald-Leader, which isn’t exactly a major newspaper. But now even The New York Times is reporting on the story:
A Hospital Finds an Unlikely Group Opposing Vaccination: Its Workers
When a Staten Island hospital implemented a vaccine or testing mandate, some of its staff staged angry protests.
By Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura | August 22, 2021
Their movement started discreetly, just a handful of people communicating on encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Signal. But in just days it had ballooned tenfold. And within two weeks, it had turned into a full-blown public protest, with people waving picket signs to denounce efforts to push them to receive coronavirus vaccines.
But these were not just any vaccine resisters. They were nurses, medical technicians, infection control officers and other staff who work at a hospital on Staten Island, which has the highest rate of Covid-19 infection of any borough in New York City.
There’s much more at the Times original,[1]To get around the Times’ paywall, you can also read it here. but I want to point out the most important part: the resisters aren’t just cafeteria workers and custodial staff, the lower-paid people in the hospital and those with little or no medical training. They included “nurses, medical technicians, (and) infection control officers,” people who have degrees, a lot of training, and medical knowledge.
Employees at Staten Island University Hospital who are opposed to mandatory vaccination and testing protested last week. Credit…Yana Paskova for The New York Times. Click to enlarge.
- Scientists and medical professionals point out that those who refuse vaccines are potentially endangering the lives of patients. “Vaccinations are critical to protect our patients, our staff and protect the general community,” said Dr. Mark Jarrett, chief medical officer at Northwell Health, which is the state’s largest health care provider and runs Staten Island University Hospital. “It’s a tough issue, but it’s our professional obligation to always maintain that whatever we do, it’s for the safety of our patients.”
He said he is hopeful that imminent federal approval of the Pfizer vaccine will persuade some of the unvaccinated to get shots.
As the Delta variant, the highly transmissible version of the coronavirus that now makes up almost all new cases in the United States, drives a surge throughout the country, public health officials are struggling to boost vaccination rates among frontline medical workers. Among the nation’s 50 largest hospitals, one in three workers who had direct contact with patients had not received a single dose of a vaccine as of late May, according to an analysis of data collected by the U.S. Department of Health.
The Staten Island protests started last Monday when Northwell Health began requiring unvaccinated staff to get weekly coronavirus tests by nasal swab or risk losing their jobs. On the same day, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that all health care workers across the state would be required to have at least one dose of the vaccine by Sept. 27, with limited exceptions for those with religious or medical exemptions.
So, a third of (hospital?) workers who have direct patient contact hadn’t received a dose of the vaccine by late May? Remember: the vaccines were first made available to health care workers, so it’s not as though their opportunities were as limited as those of the general population.[2]For me, even though I was technically eligible at the beginning of March, the vaccine wasn’t actually available to me until April Fool’s Day, due to shortages. But, as we noted here, the Times itself reported, just three days ago, that ‘Nursing Is in Crisis’: Staff Shortages Put Patients at Risk: “When hospitals are understaffed, people die,” one expert warned as the U.S. health systems reach a breaking point in the face of the Delta variant. While I assume that that one-third ratio has declined some, it must still be fairly high, or the left wouldn’t be trying to force people to get vaccinated.
It has to be remembered: in a time where the supply of workers is low vis a vis the demand for them, workers have the power. When it comes to registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, and medical technicians, even if they are not formally unionized, they have the primary strength of a union, that being the restriction on the supply of available workers. With hospitals and nursing homes experiencing a serious shortage of such personnel, every one that a hospital discharges for not getting the vaccine creates a difficult-to-fill position. The Times reported, on a small health care system:
- Nearly 30 percent of Singing River’s 500 beds are empty. With 169 unfilled nursing positions, administrators must keep the beds empty.
I’m waiting on the credentialed media to start telling us about the shortages of nurses and other personnel from the decisions to mandate the vaccine.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, on the other hand, is all about pushing vaccine mandates:
Facing new vaccine mandates, more Philly-area residents are agreeing to COVID-19 shots
COVID-19 vaccine mandates and requirements are here, and more are likely coming. Early evidence indicates they’re effective in reaching those reluctant to get a shot.
by Jason Laughlin and Marie McCullough | Updated: August 23, 2021
A growing number of people trickling into Philadelphia-area vaccine clinics this month very much don’t want to be there.
What cut through reluctance, anxiety, or the cacophony of misinformation on social media, they said, and got them to roll up their sleeves, were the restrictions and mandates that are becoming increasingly common in the city and across the nation.
“Basically I got boxed in a corner, I guess,” said Kittrell Norman, 33, who has side jobs that now require vaccination. “Until this started messing with my money no one could tell me any different.”
The Pfizer vaccine’s winning full approval from the Food and Drug Administration on Monday is likely to make vaccine requirements and mandates even more common.
This is a new phase of vaccination: Get tough.
Restaurants, cruise lines, colleges, and a growing number of employers — hospitals, municipal governments, Amtrak, Citigroup — are telling workers and customers to prove they’ve been vaccinated or go elsewhere.
There’s more at the original, but if you read it, you might notice what I did: the mandates are working on people like Mr Norman, because he doesn’t have the kind of positions in which he can take the job loss, and, to be blunt about it, he can be more easily replaced than a registered nurse.
There are good reasons to get vaccinated, but I have to wonder: just how much are the left stiffening resistance by their mantra that You Must Comply?
Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements
People enter marriages expecting and not expecting a divorce. Prenuptial agreements and postnuptial agreements have become a norm today. Moreover, people enter into marriages on a contract basis. Unfortunately, nowadays, the genuineness of marriage is becoming less justified. A family law lawyer assists in ensuring the marriage does not end up ugly. Prenuptial agreements are marriage contracts between two people who intend to get married. However, a court may find a prenup invalid if it has the following elements;
Child custody and support terms
The court decides the conditions on who to pay child support or who to take the child with upon divorce. The prenuptial agreement stipulating these is invalid because the judge has to act in the children’s best interest. The judge will also decide on the amounts to be paid in child support and by which partner.
Divorce incentives
A prenuptial agreement explains the financial state of both partners upon divorcing. The agreement will be considered invalid if there are terms providing divorce incentives. Both partners should stick to their assets and not ask for more than they deserve.
Unreasonable terms
A judge may decide to invalidate some terms stipulated in the prenuptial agreement. Upholding terms that will result in hardship, like one partner unable to provide basic needs for themselves, is overridden. A divorce, even with a prenup, should ensure both parties part civilly.
Illegal terms
All provisions in the prenuptial agreement should be compliant with federal, state, and local laws. The agreement should not stipulate any illegal actions or assets to be maintained or carried out by either of the partners.
Nonfinancial rules
The prenuptial agreement may be challenged, and any nonfinancial rules stipulated may not be upheld. The major element of a prenup is to elaborate and emphasize the financial issues. Domestic issues such as religion and choice of schools for children will be invalidated if stipulated in the prenup.
It is crucial to note that prenuptial and postnuptial agreements do not necessarily mean there is no love between the couple. Both types of agreements can be tailored according to the couple’s assets and liabilities. The contents of a postnuptial agreement that occurred after the union took place are;
Spouse maintenance fees
The couple may decide to take a secondary or primary role in raising the children, being a stay-at-home husband/wife, and seeking higher education for better jobs. Maintenance for the spouse may apply during and after marriage. Alternatively, the couple may decide on no support upon divorce.
Provision of separate property
State laws supersede the postnuptial agreement. Some laws may uphold the provision of separating property before and after marriage, while others may not. Inherited property kept and maintained during the marriage may be considered individually. You, as a couple, must understand the state laws before writing this provision.
Marital property
If the postnuptial agreement does not contradict the law, this provision is upheld and helps to quicken the divorce process. The marital property provision encompasses joint accounts and properties. This provision protects the separate property from the marital one.
Child support, custody, and visitation rights
The postnuptial agreement may have a provision that protects children from previous marriages if divorce happens. The provision must be fair and reasonable to both parties. The court will invalidate this provision if it is not in the best interest of the children.
Seeking a family lawyer in the matters of marriage and divorce is important. Legal counsel will help you understand your limits in stipulating the provisions. Mental health should be included in the whole process, especially where children are involved. However, religious and cultural differences may slow down the divorce process. Unfortunately, many marriages suffer from toxicity.
Haven’t the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer noticed the numbers? Homicides and shootings in the city have dropped significantly
We have previously noted the recent decrease in the number of homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. We noted, on July 9th, that there had been 291 killings as of 11:59 PM on July 8th. 291 ÷ 189 days in the year, = 1.5397 homicides per day, for a projected 562 for the year. If I recall correctly, that 562 number was my highest projection for the year.
But then, as of the 221st day of the year, 325 homicides had been recorded. 325 ÷ 221 days in the year, = 1.4706 homicides per day, for a projected 537 for the year. That number stayed fairly consistent, as a week later, with ‘just’ 339 homicides in 228 days, Philadelphia was seeing ‘only’ 1.4868 homicides per day, which works out to ‘just’ 543 over the course of 2021.
As of 11:59 PM on Sunday, August 22nd, the Philadelphia Police Department reported that there had been 345 homicides in the city. 345 ÷ 234 days = 1.4744 per day, or 538 projected for the year. The big news is that, over the past 31 days, a full month, if not a calendar month, there have been ‘just’ 31 homicides, ‘just’ 1.00 per day. With 131 days remaining in 2021, if that rate could be maintained, there would be ‘only’ 476 killings in Philly for the year. If The Philadelphia Inquirer has noticed that decrease, I haven’t seen it mentioned. It certainly doesn’t seem as though their Editorial Board has noticed.
In Philly, someone has been shot every day since Jan. 2 as multiple crises plague the city
January 2nd was the only day in 2021 in which no person was shot in Philadelphia.
by The Editorial Board | August 23, 2021
If you’re looking for ways to quantify the depths of the gun violence crisis in Philadelphia, there may not be many bleaker statistics than this: There’s only been one day so far this year — Jan. 2 — when not a single person was shot in the city.
Since then, nearly 1,500 people have been shot in Philadelphia, including 295 fatalities. At least 50 other people were murdered by an assailant who used a weapon other than a gun.
Gun violence drives Philadelphia’s murder rate, which is on pace for a record this year, but it’s essential that the city also address three other factors if officials hope to stem a seemingly unrelenting tide of killings — increasing the rate at which murders are solved, fostering more cooperation from witnesses in criminal prosecutions, and rooting out corrupt officers whose bad practices later lead to convictions being overturned.
In Philadelphia, murderers have a better chance of winning a coin toss than being arrested. Last Wednesday, during the most recent briefing on the city’s response to gun violence, the police presented data showing that through Aug. 15, only 43% of homicides this year led to an arrest. That homicide clearance rate, or the percentage of killings that lead to an arrest, is on par with recent years.
Am I wrong in thinking that the Editorial Board ought to be noting that fewer people are being killed?
But it’s not just that fewer people are being killed. According to data provided by the city, there were 272 shootings during the 31 days of July, and ‘only’ 145 through the first 22 days of August. If that rate of 6.59 shootings per day holds up for the rest of the month, there would be 204 total shootings in August, a 33.33% decrease.
There’s more at the original, but, if you remember when publisher Elizabeth Hughes said she was going to make the Inquirer “an anti-racist news organization“, you won’t be surprised that the Editorial Board turned quickly to a Larry Krasneresque condemnation of the Philadelphia Police Department, noting Mr Krasner’s ongoing attempts to overturn what they claim are false convictions.
- These exonerations, as well as recent reporting by The Inquirer, have shed light on the coercive and illegal tactics detectives used to get false confessions. This month, Krasner charged three former homicide detectives for lying in the 2016 retrial of Anthony Wright, whose murder conviction was vacated due to DNA evidence.
Also this month, Krasner asked a judge to hold the Philadelphia Police Department in contempt for failing to turnover police misconduct records.
Philadelphia’s twin crises of gun violence and homicides are multilayered and intertwined. To reduce the number of unsolved murders in the city, the homicide clearance rate needs to go up. For the homicide clearance rate to go up, witnesses need to have faith that the system is actually seeking justice — not simply trying to improve its statistics by throwing another person in prison.
I’m trying to figure out how the Editorial Board are trying to give witnesses “faith that the system is actually seeking justice” by continually slamming the performance of the Police Department, and so far, I’ve got nothing. When the Board say that the Police Department needs to be “rooting out corrupt officers,” the impression the #woke at the Inquirer are giving — and, I suspect, trying to give — is that most of the city police officers are corrupt.
The unintended consequence of #MaskMandates: schools can’t find enough bus drivers
I have previously noted, on Twitter, how Fayette County is having real problems with manning school buses:
Lexington schools dealing with bus driver call outs and shortage of drivers overall, but no one will say that the #MaskMandate is part of the problem. https://t.co/nDfRq1VulP
— Dana Pico (@Dana_Pico on gab.com) (@Dana_TFSJ) August 17, 2021
Well, it looks like I haven’t been the only one noticing that!
Bus driver shortages are latest challenge hitting US schools
By Amy Beth Hamson and Lindsay Whitehurst | August 22, 2021
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana school district is dangling $4,000 bonuses and inviting people to test drive big yellow school buses in hopes of enticing them to take a job that schools are struggling to fill as kids return to in-person classes.
A Delaware school district offered to pay parents $700 to take care of their own transportation, and a Pittsburgh district delayed the start of classes and said hundreds more children would have to walk to school. Schools across the U.S. are offering hiring bonuses, providing the training needed to get a commercial driver’s license and increasing hourly pay to attract more drivers.
The shortage of bus drivers is complicating the start of a school year already besieged by the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19, contentious disagreement over masking requirements, and the challenge of catching up on educational ground lost as the pandemic raged last year.
The Lexington Herald-Leader story I had linked with my tweet noted the shortage of drivers, and that “several” had called out sick the previous week, which was the first week of school, made no mention at all of the mask mandate imposed by the Fayette County public schools. I had previously noted the problem, and pointed out, “Neither story says, of course, that the mask mandate ordered by Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) might be having an impact, but it’s an obvious question: would you want to be a bus driver and face possibly being accosted by angry students and their parents over such. Given the very liberal unemployment eligibility and the government paying people not to work, why sign up to take such abuse?”
Of course, given that the Herald-Leader Editorial Board supported Mr Beshear on his mask mandate, it’s not likely that one of the newspaper’s reporters would mention the mandate as part of the problem. As we have pointed out previously, the newspaper’s Editorial Board aren’t exactly in tune with the voters in the Commonwealth.
Now, what I have guessed to be true has been reported by the credentialed media. The Associated Press report noted that:
In Helena, the company (First Student) has 50 bus drivers and needs 21 more before classes start on Aug. 30, a shortfall (Dan) Redford called unprecedented.
Attendance ended up being light at Helena’s event, but similar demos, like one held recently in Seattle, led to more applications.
The delta variant also drove the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend universal mask wearing in schools, especially for children too young to be vaccinated. But in many areas, there’s a wave of fierce anti-mask protest.
First Student lost some Helena drivers to mask requirements on buses, Redford said.
The left will howl that such potential drivers are selfish in not wanting to wear face masks, but it is what it is: not everyone in the United States agrees with the #MaskMandates, and it isn’t as though we are seeing the left rushing in to fill the bus driver vacancies.
We have already noted how #VaccineMandates are contributing to a shortage of health care personnel. Now, Axios has noted that the ‘pandemic’ and the responses to it have led to a significant shortage of teachers as well.
It seems that some people just will not comply with authoritarian dictates!
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
Why does Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) have to lie to us? This is what he tweeted yesterday, after the state Supreme Court slapped him down:
The image to the left is not the tweet itself, but a screen capture, in case the Governor or his staff delete it. You can click either this link or the picture itself to see the original on Twitter.
Note the comparison dates: March 1 through August 18, 2021. The problem is that, other than for health care workers and people over 70, the vaccines were not available. Virtually every person hospitalized with COVID-19 problems was unvaccinated because they didn’t have the chance to get vaccinated.
The vaccine is a two shot series, with the Pfizer booster dose recommended 21 days after the first, and Moderna 28 days after the first. If the vaccine first became available to you on Monday, March 1, 2021, and you got the booster shot on Monday, March 29th, since you are not considered ‘fully vaccinated’ until 14 days after the second shot, you wouldn’t be considered fully vaccinated until Monday, April 12th!
Of course, the Governor was simply retweeting one by Dr Steven Stack, who is Kentucky’s Commissioner for Public Health. Are we supposed to believe that Dr Stack didn’t know those facts, that Dr Stack did not understand that by using statistics from prior to Kentuckians being able to get the vaccines, he was skewing the numbers?
Me? In a small, eastern Kentucky county, I wasn’t able to get the first dose until April Fool’s Day. Instead of 28 days later, I couldn’t get the second dose until Cinco de Mayo, because of whatever problems the county Health Department was having. That meant I wasn’t considered fully vaccinated until May 19th, which just happened to be our 42nd wedding anniversary, so at least those dates make it easy for me to remember.
Now, I do not disagree with the Governor that people should get vaccinated; I just see his tweet as wholly dishonest. Then again, I see the Governor as totally dishonest on just about everything.
As Governor Beshear and Dr Stack continue their efforts to persuade more Kentuckians to get vaccinated, perhaps they ought to consider that using rigged statistics does not help their cause, save among those not observant enough or smart enough to spot what they did. But, then again, that says someting as well: it tells us just what those two fine gentlemen think of Kentuckians.
#VaccineMandates, unintended consequences, and the power of persuasion
We have previously noted that the vaccine mandate by Philadelphia’s Acting Commissioner for Health Cheryl Bettigole would have the unintended consequence of exacerbating the already short staffing of health care facilities. Now comes The New York Times:
‘Nursing Is in Crisis’: Staff Shortages Put Patients at Risk
“When hospitals are understaffed, people die,” one expert warned as the U.S. health systems reach a breaking point in the face of the Delta variant.
by Andrew Jacobs | August 21, 2021
Cyndy O’Brien, an emergency room nurse at Ocean Springs Hospital on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, could not believe her eyes as she arrived for work. There were people sprawled out in their cars gasping for air as three ambulances with gravely ill patients idled in the parking lot. Just inside the front doors, a crush of anxious people jostled to get the attention of an overwhelmed triage nurse.
“It’s like a war zone,” said Ms. O’Brien, who is the patient care coordinator at Singing River, a small health system near the Alabama border that includes Ocean Springs. “We are just barraged with patients and have nowhere to put them.”
The bottleneck, however, has little to do with a lack of space. Nearly 30 percent of Singing River’s 500 beds are empty. With 169 unfilled nursing positions, administrators must keep the beds empty.
Nursing shortages have long vexed hospitals. But in the year and a half since its ferocious debut in the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has stretched the nation’s nurses as never before, testing their skills and stamina as desperately ill patients with a poorly understood malady flooded emergency rooms. They remained steadfast amid a calamitous shortage of personal protective equipment; spurred by a sense of duty, they flocked from across the country to the newest hot zones, sometimes working as volunteers. More than 1,200 of them have died from the virus.
Now, as the highly contagious Delta variant pummels the United States, bedside nurses, the workhorse of a well-oiled hospital, are depleted and traumatized, their ranks thinned by early retirements or career shifts that traded the emergency room for less stressful nursing jobs at schools, summer camps and private doctor’s offices.
“We’re exhausted, both physically and emotionally,” Ms. O’Brien said, choking back tears.
There’s a lot more at the original. For those who do not have a subscription to the Times, you can read it here for free.
The Times article notes that there are a huge number of hospitals which are very short staffed, but one point it ignores is the fact that the #VaccineMandates of do-gooders like Dr Bettigole and President Biden — whose #VaccineMandate applies only to nursing homes, not hospitals, can only reduce the number of registered nurses and certified nursing assistants available. It doesn’t matter what you think of their intentions; the consequences of their decisions can be very different from what they envision.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article from a week ago, which is still on their website’s main page, about hos the health care profession is trying to persuade, rather than force, people who have been resistant, to get vaccinated:
Some people’s minds are changing about the coronavirus vaccine. Here’s how doctors persuade them.
Deeply personal reasons are often why people who are initially reluctant decide to get vaccinated, said several physicians and vaccine providers.
by Erin McCarthy | August 16, 2021
Ritom Bhuyan wasn’t going to get the coronavirus vaccine. But three months ago, the 28-year-old rolled up his sleeve and got immunized.
What changed his mind? The health of his 65-year-old father, who struggled with COVID-19 for a month after the family all caught the virus. Bhuyan realized he wanted to protect his dad by getting vaccinated.
“My mom passed at a young age, so my dad’s all I have,” said Bhuyan, of Plymouth Meeting, “so when I saw him get sick with something potentially deadly, that kind of changed my mind.”
These deeply personal reasons are often why people who are initially reluctant decide to get vaccinated, said several physicians and vaccine providers, and finding those connections may be key to increasing vaccination.
With the delta variant sparking outbreaks in the country’s undervaccinated communities, causing case counts to rise across the Philadelphia region and prompting renewed masking rules, changing minds — and getting people to finally walk into a clinic and get their shot — has new urgency, they said.
Doctors recommend patience. Six months into the vaccine rollout, they say, people who haven’t been vaccinated may require some convincing, and open, fact-based, nonjudgmental conversations with those they trust can help.
Nonjudgmental? That’s sure not what the left have been doing! We have noted how so many on the left have obviously never read Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People, preferring instead to calling the people they (supposedly) want to persuade “selfish or stupid.”
Some people could sell ice to Eskimos, but some of these guys couldn’t sell ice water in Hell.
It’s a fairly long article, and unlike with the Times, I don’t have a work around for those who are not Inquirer subscribers.[1]Both newspapers allow people a few free articles a month; if you aren’t a subscriber, but haven’t tried to open one of their articles recently, you can probably open the ones I have … Continue reading But it’s an article in which, rather than dripping with contempt and disdain for those who have chosen not to get vaccinated, is one which tries to illustrate that some — certainly not all — people who have been resistant to getting vaccinated can be persuaded.
References
| ↑1 | Both newspapers allow people a few free articles a month; if you aren’t a subscriber, but haven’t tried to open one of their articles recently, you can probably open the ones I have referenced. I do pay for subscriptions to both, so if you want to help me pay for that content, click here 🙂 . |
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The Kentucky Supreme Court slaps down Governor Andy Beshear But don't get too complacent; it might not be over just yet.
I was surprised, and a bit frustrated, when I heard that the Kentucky Supreme Court finally released its ruling on Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) attempts to have declared invalid several laws passed by the General Assembly, over his vetoes, which restricted his emergency powers. Why frustrated? Because I wanted to write about them earlier, but I had to pick up the family at the airport in Louisville, and I had no computer available to me!
But the ruling? Not frustrated about that at all, save for the inordinate amount of time it took.
Kentucky Supreme Court: New laws limiting Beshear’s emergency powers are valid
By Jack Brammer and Karla Ward | August 21, 2021 | 3:43 PM EDT
Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY)
In a 34-page order, the state’s highest court unanimously said Franklin Circuit Court abused its discretion in blocking the new laws from taking effect and sent the case back to the lower court to dissolve the injunction and hear legal arguments about the constitutionality of each law.
The challenged legislation was lawfully passed and the governor’s complaint “does not present a substantial legal question that would necessitate staying the effectiveness of the legislation,” the seven-member court ruled.
Which is what I have been saying all along!
- Beshear had sought injunctive relief against the new laws, arguing that the legislation undermined his ability to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and created a public health crisis that would result in increased disease and death. The governor sued the legislature and Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
The Supreme Court in a decision written by Justice Laurance B. VanMeter of Lexington largely agreed with Cameron and lawmakers. Cameron argued that the challenged legislation does not prevent Beshear from responding to emergencies and simply requires him to work collaboratively with other officials — including the legislature — in emergencies that last longer than 30 days.
The Governor’s argument was simple: he just had to have the authority he claimed, because COVID-19 was so serious! Work collaboratively with other officials? On July 10, 2020, Mr Beshear stated that he wouldn’t involve the legislature because he believed that they wouldn’t do his bidding.
- Beshear was asked at Friday’s news conference on COVID-19 why he has not included the legislature in coming up with his orders. He said many state lawmakers refuse to wear masks and noted that 26 legislators in Mississippi have tested positive for the virus.
And now he has found out that he isn’t a dictator!
Republican candidates for the General Assembly ran against the Governor’s authoritarian decrees, and the voters of the Commonwealth rewarded the GOP with 14 additional seats in the state House of Representatives, and two more seats, out of 17 up for election, in the state Senate. Republicans hold a 75-25 majority in the House, and 30-8 majority in the Senate. It takes only a ‘constitutional majority,’ more than 50% of the full membership of each chamber, to override a gubernatorial veto, not a 2/3 supermajority, as people are familiar with when it comes to the federal government, but the GOP has more than a 2/3 majority in each chamber.
- A spokeswoman for the governor responded to the decision Saturday afternoon, saying Beshear “has had the courage to make unpopular decisions in order to keep Kentuckians safe — the court has removed much of his ability to do so moving forward.”
Crystal Staley said in a statement that “the court’s order will dissolve Kentucky’s entire state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic. It either eliminates or puts at risk large amounts of funding, steps we have taken to increase our health care capacity, expanded meals for children and families, measures to fight COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, worker’s compensation for front-line workers who contract COVID-19 as well as the ability to fight price gouging.”
“It will further prevent the governor from taking additional steps such as a general mask mandate,” she said.
And that, of course, is exactly what Kentucky’s voters were trying to do, what they wanted done, when they gave Republicans such strong majorities in the General Assembly.
Miss Staley continued to say that the Governor is assessing whether calling the legislature into special session — the Governor has the authority to call our part-time legislature into special session, but the legislature itself does not have the authority to call itself back into session — would do any good, whether the General Assembly would give him anything he wants. The Governor’s toady jurist, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, who always sided with Mr Beshear when he was Attorney General, trying to frustrate then Governor Matt Bevin’s (R-KY) actions, blocked House Joint Resolution 77, in which the legislature authorized extensions of some of the Governor’s executive orders, because HJR 77 assumed that Senate Bill 1, which limited the Governor’s emergency decrees to 30 days without legislative approval for extension, was valid, and Judge Shepherd had stayed that law as well. HJR 77 did not grant approval to extend the hated mask mandate.
The legislature, in fact, indicated a willingness to work with the Governor, but Judge Shepherd didn’t want any of that!
- The most prominent he has in place now is his Aug. 10 executive order requiring almost all teachers, staff and students in K-12 schools, child care and pre-kindergarten programs across Kentucky to wear a mask indoors. It applies for 30 days and leaves open the indefinite possibility for renewal. A U.S. district judge’s ruling Thursday temporarily blocked that order in at least one school district. Beshear has asked that it be dissolved.
The state Board of Education on Aug. 12 implemented its own emergency regulations requiring a mask mandate for students for most of this school year, and the Department for Public Health did the same for child care facilities. A legislative panel has since found those regulations deficient, but Beshear overrode that decision. One of the new laws might limit those emergency regulations to 30 days.
That order included not just public schools, over which the state Board of Education has some authority, but private schools and private daycare centers.
The state Board of Education claimed that today’s decision has no legal impact on their emergency regulations, which run for 270 days, the entire school year. I had previously speculated that Governor Beshear already knew that he lost his case with the Supremes, and pushed to get those regulations put in place to that his authoritarian decrees would continue despite the loss. The Kentucky School Boards Association urged that interested parties go slow in responding, which means that they don’t want anybody filing lawsuits challenging the KBoE’s emergency regulations.
Of course, the KBoE acted because, after the Governor urged, but did not mandate, that local school boards institute mask mandates, some local boards chose against such mandates, so the Governor, who had asked for cooperation decided that he was just going to make it an order.
However, this is not a complete victory. The state Supreme Court remanded the decision back to Judge Shepherd[1]Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), page 2., with an order to dissolve the injunctions, but that does not in any way prevent the Governor’s toady from finding for Mr Beshear again.
This part is important:
- Another rule of interpretation is that we “‘presum[e] that the challenged statutes were enacted by the legislature in accordance with constitutional requirements.’” Acree, 615 S.W.3d at 805 (quoting Cornelison v. Commonwealth, 52 S.W.3d 570, 572 (Ky. 2001)). “A constitutional infringement must be ‘clear, complete and unmistakable’ in order to render the statute unconstitutional.” Caneyville Volunteer Fire Dep’t v. Green’s Motorcycle Salvage, Inc., 286 S.W.3d 790, 806 (Ky. 2009) (quoting Ky. Indus. Util. Customers, Inc. v. Ky. Utils. Co., 983 S.W.2d 493, 499 (Ky. 1998)). Considering that the General Assembly is the policy-making body for the Commonwealth, not the Governor or the courts, equitable considerations support enforcing a legislative body’s policy choices. In fact, non-enforcement of a duly-enacted statute constitutes irreparable harm to the public and the government.[2]Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), pages 16-17.
The Court affirmed that it is the General Assembly which makes the laws, not the Governor.
But here’s the kicker:
- These items noted, we do not believe this issue has been adequately addressed by the parties and therefore make no definitive pronouncement concerning the constitutionality of thirty-day limitation contained within the 2021 legislation. . . . .[3]Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), page 22.
In sum, considering that the challenged legislation was lawfully passed, the Governor’s Complaint does not present a substantial legal question that would necessitate staying the effectiveness of the legislation. And as the equities clearly favor implementation of the legislation pending an adjudication of its constitutionality, we conclude that the Franklin Circuit Court abused its discretion in finding otherwise. Thus, we remand this case to the Franklin Circuit Court with instructions to dissolve the injunction. This case is reversed and remanded to the Franklin Circuit Court for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion. In the event certain sections of the 2021 legislation may be ultimately found invalid, the likely remedy may be severability.[4]Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), page 27.
If, upon hearing the arguments at trial, Judge Shepherd decides that the 30 day limit in Senate Bill 1 is unconstitutional, it could, once again, empower the Governor to issue draconian decrees. We waited half a year for the state Supreme Court to rule that Judge Shepherd’s injunctions were improper, half a year in which the authority of the General Assembly in passing the laws was violated, half a year in which some of our constitutional rights were violated. The Court made clear that the Governor’s authority is not implicit, but is defined by the state legislature, so it would be a high bar that the Governor would have to clear to argue successfully that Senate Bill 1 is unconstitutional, but, with a sycophant judge like Mr Shepherd, anything is possible.
References
| ↑1 | Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), page 2. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), pages 16-17. |
| ↑3 | Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), page 22. |
| ↑4 | Cameron v Beshear, 2021-SC-0107-I (2021), page 27. |
Paul Krugman waxes wroth because you didn’t take your medicine!
We have previously noted Amanda Marcotte’s article on Salon, It’s OK to blame the unvaccinated — they are robbing the rest of us of our freedoms. Miss Marcotte was upset, very upset, that the gym of which she was a member responded to Philadelphia’s new regulations to either impose vaccination requirements, complete with “Ve need to see your papers” enforcement, or require all staff and patrons to wear a mask, and the gym chose the latter. She is, she sand, “incandescent with rage” at the willfully unvaccinated.
Of course, Miss Marcotte, while she does have a following, is still relatively unknown, at least as far as the big picture is concerned. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman, however, is well known, and if he didn’t use the phrase “incandescent with rage,” you can tell that it it would fit:
So how do you feel about anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers? I’m angry about their antics, even though I’m able to work from home and don’t have school-age children. And I suspect that many Americans share that anger.
The question is whether this entirely justified anger — call it the rage of the responsible — will have a political impact, whether leaders will stand up for the interests of Americans who are trying to do the right thing but whose lives are being disrupted and endangered by those who aren’t.
To say what should be obvious, getting vaccinated and wearing a mask in public spaces aren’t “personal choices.” When you reject your shots or refuse to mask up, you’re increasing my risk of catching a potentially deadly or disabling disease, and also helping to perpetuate the social and economic costs of the pandemic. In a very real sense, the irresponsible minority is depriving the rest of us of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Actually, getting vaccinated and wearing a mask are personal choices. Dr Krugman himself, exercised his personal choice to get vaccinated, as did Miss Marcotte, and as did I. What Dr Krugman wants is for the rest of us to not have a personal choice in this matter
Dr Krugman spent 834 words telling us how evil conservatives are, and, reading it, it could have been written by Miss Marcotte! But then there was this:
Recent polling suggests that the public strongly supports mask mandates and that an overwhelming majority of Americans opposes attempts to prevent local school districts from protecting children. I haven’t seen polling on attempts to prevent businesses from requiring proof of vaccination, but my guess is that these attempts are also unpopular.
Really? I’ve pointed out dozens of times that when Republican state legislative candidates in Kentucky ran against Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) executive orders, the voters rewarded the GOP hugely.
But it wasn’t just the Bluegrass State, which President Trump carried by a wide margin. In Pennsylvania, which Joe Biden won, the state legislature put two constitutional amendments on the May 18, 2021 primary ballot, measures which would limit the governor’s executive authority, and both of them passed, 53.3% to 47.7% and 53.2% to 47.8%.
One thing, however, ought to be obvious: if the public really do “strongly support” mask mandates, why aren’t we seeing that out on the streets? I had to go to Lexington again today, and drove through part of the University of Kentucky; had I been able to find a place to park, I would have gotten lunch at the Local Taco. Alas! I couldn’t find a parking space, but the other thing I couldn’t find were students, most of whom are normally more liberal than the population as a whole, wearing masks.
I spotted one, one! lady coming out of Sqecial Media wearing a mask, and she was visibly older than the usual student population.
As I made a right turn off South Limestone Street onto Vine Street to head home, I saw one lawyer-looking type wearing a mask.
That was it. Kentucky was very much a red state, with President Trump winning 62.09% of the vote, but Joe Biden carried Fayette County, 59.25% to 38.50%. In 2019, Attorney General Andy Beshear beat Governor Matt Bevin (R-KY) by 65.51% to 32.95% in Fayette County. If anyplace in Kentucky was going to “strongly support” a mask mandate, it would have been the areas around UK and downtown Lexington.
Lexington, however, isn’t the only place I saw. The NFL Network had the preseason game between the Boston New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s only pre-season, so the games don’t count, but I was happy to see the Patriots stomp the Iggles, 35-0. What I noticed, because I was deliberately looking for it, was that when the cameras panned the crowd at Lincoln Financial Field maybe, maybe! 1% of the crowd were masked.
In Philadelphia, which gave Mr Biden 81.44% of its votes.
Of course, as we have note previously, the City of Brotherly Love does not have an 81.44% vaccination rate, and the Philadelphia zip codes with the lowest vaccination rates are heavily minority.
Well, I think the pro-public health majority is also getting increasingly angry, and rightly so. It just hasn’t been vocal enough — and too few politicians have sought to tap into this righteous rage. (Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, is trying. He’s pointing out, correctly, that voting for his recall would probably install an anti-vaccine, anti-mask fanatic as governor, with dire consequences for the state.)
So it’s time to stop being diffident and call out destructive behavior for what it is. Doing so may make some people feel that they’re being looked down on. But you know what? Your feelings don’t give you the right to ruin other people’s lives.
How, I have to ask, is Dr Krugman’s life being ruined? He is, or so I have inferred from his column, vaccinated, he is able to work from home, and he is perfectly capable of wearing a mask. His chances of contracting COVID-19 have to be pretty low, but, in the end, it’s not about his chances of catching the virus that have him outraged. No, what has him so angry is that not everybody is doing what he believes they should be doing.
The left are like that these days.