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Republican state agency heads tell Andy Beshear: not just no, but Hell no!

We noted yesterday Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) order that all employees and visitors to state buildings must wear face masks, even if they are fully vaccinated.

But Mr Beshear and his Lieutenant Governor, Jacqueline Coleman, are the only Democrats who serve in statewide elective offices, and that creates problems for enforcement of the Governor’s orders.

    Several KY state agencies run by Republicans won’t enforce Beshear’s new mask rules

    By Daniel Desrochers | July 29, 2021 10:56 AM | Updated: 12:06 PM EDT

    Several state agencies headed by Republicans say they will not enforce Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s mandate for all state workers to resume wearing masks while working inside, a potential sign of how contentious new orders to limit the spread of COVID-19 may become.

    Leaders of the Department of Agriculture, Office of the State Treasurer and Legislative Research Commission all said Thursday they will not enforce the new mask mandate, which comes as COVID-19 cases have surged over the past five weeks.

    In an email sent to the staff of the Department of Agriculture shortly after Beshear announced the new rule Wednesday, Keith Rogers, the chief of staff for Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, told employees the department would leave it up to staff members to decide if they want to wear a mask.

There’s more at the original.

Several state departments noted that the majority of their employees are already vaccinated, and will leave mask wearing optional. while the Legislative Research Commission, which is supervised by the General Assembly, not the Governor, will adhere to its May 23rd policy, which states that vaccinated employees need not wear masks.

We have previously mentioned Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) dictatorial orders, and his refusal to involve the General Assembly.

    Beshear was asked at Friday’s (July 10, 2020 — Editor) 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.

His unwillingness to even try to work with the General Assembly was stated much more recently, on June 10th, following the state Supreme Court’s oral arguments on his suits to invalidate several bills passed by the state legislature earlier this year:

    You look back at different things that this legislature has tried to do in the midst of this pandemic and they would have not had the courage to step up and mandate masks, which we know from the experts is absolutely necessary.

Which raises the obvious question: did the Governor, before issuing his order, do something really radical like call the heads of the various state agencies and get their input, or ask them to put in place such rules for the agencies they ran? It’s not that the agency heads had no clue that such an order could come; I have been noting for weeks now that the Governor was looking for an excuse to reimpose the mask mandate, and, despite my obvious brilliance, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

Protesters hanged Governor Andy Beshear in effigy, May 24, 2020.

Governor Beshear hates Republicans, and, in the Bluegrass State, a whole lot of Republicans hate Mr Beshear, and protestors over his lockout policies hanged the Governor in effigy last year. Yeah, that makes it difficult for them to work together. But the state agency heads aren’t rowdy protesters, and many are elected officials in their own rights, people not under the Governor’s authority, and people whom he cannot simply fire. Even if the Governor did not think he would get much of a positive response, he would have at least have had a chance of compliance if he had had the courtesy to call them in advance and ask for their cooperation, or even to issue the instructions for their agencies under their own authority.

But, if the Governor made such calls, it was not so reported in the Herald-Leader article. Personally, I doubt that he did, simply because he believes he can just issue his decrees.

So, if the agency officials refuse to go along, what can the Governor do? He has only two options:

  1. He can plead and cajole with them; or
  2. He can send in the Kentucky State Police to do, what, arrest those not wearing masks?

He did, after all, send the State Police to record license plate and vehicle identification numbers on cars in church parking lots on Easter Sunday of 2020!

Still, I doubt that even our Governor would be so boneheadedly stupid as to do that. At least, I hope so!
______________________________
Update! Well, what do you know?

    Beshear not considering reinstating statewide mask mandate despite COVID case surge

    By Alex Acquisto | July 29, 2021 01:53 PM

    As the threat of COVID-19 continues to worsen in Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday said he is not at the point of considering a statewide vaccine mandate or reconsidering a mask mandate.

    “I am not currently considering reinstating the mask mandate,” he said in the state Capitol during a news conference. But reinstating it isn’t out of the question: “It’s on the table if needed.”

    Likewise, with a statewide vaccine mandate, “Right now, I don’t think a mandate from me would necessarily get those that have been unwilling to get vaccinated, vaccinated,” he said.

I’m pretty sure that he’s right about that! Of course, the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 8, which expands the exemptions allowable to refuse mandatory vaccination orders, and it became law without the Governor’s signature on March 23, 2021.

So, the mask mandate remains on the table, if not issued again. But I wonder: what would happen if the Governor would simply ask Kentuckians to wear masks, rather than ordering them to do so?

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Andy Beshear orders face masks in all state office buildings

I have been saying, for a while now, that Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) would eventually reissue his odious mask mandate. He hasn’t yet, but he’s moving closer to it:

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Two more Capitol kerfufflers plead guilty to misdemeanors

The seriousness of the Capitol kerfuffle is revealed in the fact that the feds are charging most with just misdemeanors. The bias of the Lexington Herald-Leader is revealed in how they played up the story.

Fired Kentucky nurse, husband plead guilty in Capitol riot case. Sentencing next.

By Jeremy Chisenhall | July 28, 2021 | 01:46 PM | Updated 1:52 PM EDT

A Kentucky couple who were at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in Washington, D.C., have pleaded guilty to participating and face a maximum punishment of six months in prison, according to federal court records filed Tuesday.

Thomas and Lori Vinson, who were arrested on Feb. 23 and charged with participating in the riot and other related crimes, have each pleaded guilty to one count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol Building, according to plea agreements filed in federal court. In addition to a maximum prison time of six months, the two defendants could also face a fine of up to $5,000. Continue reading →

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More discrimination against Asians by the left

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” — Chief Justice John Roberts, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1

We have previously noted the apparently acceptable racial discrimination against Asians in the United States, and how white liberals not think that black and Hispanic students “have what it takes to compete on merit,” but they dismiss the achievements of students of Asian ethnicity as “white adjacent.”

From The Wall Street Journal:

    The Revolt of the Unwoke

    Three progressive San Francisco school board members are targeted for a recall.

    By William McGurn | July 26, 2021 | 6:26 PM EDT

    If the land of woke has a capital, it’s San Francisco. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that the City by the Bay has now become ground zero for a revolt by unwoke moms and dads.

Continue reading →

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Street justice The kind of justice you seek when you are boneheadedly stupid

Michael Lemond. Photo: Fayette County Detention Center.

We have previously noted the shooting, and blinding, of then-five year old Malakai Roberts; Michael Lemond and Teyo Waite, both 18, have been charged.

So why did they do it? It was a f(ornicating) mistake! They were shooting at the wrong house!

    Detective: Shooters accused of blinding Lexington boy ‘simply got the wrong house.’

    By Jeremy Chisenhall | July 27, 2021 | 10:49 AM | Updated: 12:05 PM EDT

    The young men accused of blinding a 5-year-old Lexington child shot into the wrong house, a Lexington detective testified Tuesday.

    Detective Jordan Tyree said Tuesday that the suspects in the Dec. 21 shooting intended to target the home of another person with whom 18-year-old Michael Lemond had gotten into an argument on social media. The intended target allegedly disrespected the victim of a 2019 homicide. But the suspects had the wrong address.

Teyo Waite. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center.

I understand that ‘disrespect’ used as a verb is a part of street language, but it seems to me that Jeremy Chisenhall, the article author, and Peter Baniak, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s editor, showed great disrespect for the English language by doing the same thing.

So, Messrs Lemond and Waite, the alleged shooters, were doubly stupid: they were ‘beefing’ with some other guy, looked up his address, and got the wrong one. They had to show him good, but didn’t even have the courage to face him. Instead they fired into a house, from the street, and blinded a child for life.

Young Mr Roberts has also lost his senses of smell and taste.

Detective Tyree said, “There were numerous bullet holes all through the upstairs and downstairs of the house.” In other words, spray and pray, the mark of a poor shooter. Young Mr Roberts mother, Cacy Roberts, was also struck by a bullet, which entered and exited her arm.

    Lemond also allegedly texted someone else about an hour before the shooting and told them “I love you … but I can’t let this s**t slide,” Tyree said.

    The intended target, who lived near where the shooting happened, allegedly “disrespected” Bryant Gaston, the victim in a fatal 2019 shooting. A 15-year-old was charged with murder in Gaston’s death.

Well, at least Mr Chisenhall put “disrespected” in quotation marks this time, indicating that it was slang.

Mr Lemond, again allegedly, got into an argument on social media with someone, so, again allegedly, he went after them with a gun. Street justice!

The detective revealed that Mr Lemond confessed, and gave up Mr Waite on the shooting as well.

So, over an argument on social media, Messrs Lemond and Waite decided that it would be a wise idea to show up at someone’s house and spray it with bullets. They got the wrong house, had no idea at whom they were shooting, and even if they had gotten the right house, had no way to tell if they were actually going to hit their target.

The Herald-Leader stated that each man male faced two counts of assault and two counts of wanton endangerment.

508.010 Assault in the first degree.

(1) A person is guilty of assault in the first degree when:
(a) He intentionally causes serious physical injury to another person by means of
a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument; or
(b) Under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human
life he wantonly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to
another and thereby causes serious physical injury to another person.
(2) Assault in the first degree is a Class B felony.

508.060 Wanton endangerment in the first degree.
(1) A person is guilty of wanton endangerment in the first degree when, under
circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he
wantonly engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or serious
physical injury to another person.
(2) Wanton endangerment in the first degree is a Class D felony.

A Class B felony is punishable by 10 to 20 years in a Kentucky state prison, while a Class D felony is punishable by at least one year and no more than five years in state prison. In theory, if convicted on all charges, the offenses are all charged in the first degree, and sentenced to the maximum with sentences to run consecutively, each suspect could get fifty years (20 + 20 + 5 + 5 = 50) in the state penitentiary. Fifty years could keep them locked up until they are 68 years old. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that, if convicted, the judge would set sentencing in that fashion. Sadly, the attorneys and prosecutors will probably work out some sort of plea bargain arrangement which will let the defendants out of jail while they are still relatively young men males. If the prosecution really does have the goods on the defendants, they should not agree to any plea bargain which does not sentence the defendants to the maximum.

Young Mr Roberts will never see anything again, never smell or taste anything again, for the rest of his life; the defendants, if convicted, should spend the rest of their miserable lives behind bars.

I urge you to donate to young Mr Roberts.

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The Wall Street Journal notes that professionals who can are leaving cities and moving to the ‘exurbs’ What will this mean for the climate emergency activists who want us all to live in cities with mass transit?

The COVID-19 ‘pandemic’ has hastened a social change that was already happening. People were getting frustrated with the incredible urban density of our major cities, and the ever-increasing crime rates there, along with the problems of trying to bring up children in apartments with no outdoor space. It doesn’t matter how much money you have; bringing up children in your apartment in Central Park West still means that your kids have a long way to go to see things like actual grass and trees. From The Wall Street Journal:

    The ‘Great Reshuffling’ Is Shifting Wealth to the Exurbs

    The flow of white-collar workers to fringe outlying communities could reshape everything from transportation to real estate

    By Laura Forman | Updated: June 25, 2021 | 2:51 PM ET

    White collar workers are trading their expensive lives in the nation’s most densely populated areas for cheaper, greener pastures. Online real estate company Zillow Group calls it the “Great Reshuffling.”

    These moves will reshape transportation, real estate and an emerging fixture of American life: the exurb.

    Fringe outlying communities of major metropolitan regions were prized for their extreme privacy or more affordable housing before the pandemic, but were typically much less wealthy than the denser cities and affluent suburbs they surrounded.

I look at places like Hockessin, Delaware, where it was only a short commute, fewer than ten miles, from downtown Wilmington. While there was some gentrification going on in the city, out in Hockessin, when I lived there, 2000 to 2002, builders were building like mad in developments like Hockessin Green and Hockessin Chase, in part because New Castle County development ordinances restricted the number of homes which could be built on a 100-acre lot. This led to pricier homes built on larger lots, which meant larger lawns on which kids could play. These were things that the execs at MBNA and DuPont wanted.

I’ve had years of cramped up city life, living like a duck in a pen.
All I know that it’s a pity life can’t be simple again.

With the restrictions brought on by COVID-19, telecommuting was put into practice where it could be, and as some urban professionals found that they could do their work from home, it became reasonable to continue that, at least for some days during the week, even as the restrictions were ending. Of course, with the recent surge, there’s more reason for corporations to allow more frequent telecommuting. Add to that reduced office costs, and there can be real reasons why companies which can have workers work from home to allow it to continue, at least for some days during the week.[1]My younger daughter, an IT professional, worked from home for a few months during the shutdowns, and while she continued to be paid and worked, even she would admit that she was less productive while … Continue reading

    The Great Reshuffling will likely make these far-flung exurbs richer and denser. The median household income across U.S. exurbs was $74,573 as of 2019, according to data from The American Communities Project. That likely ticked up over the last year as city dwellers in major job centers such as San Francisco and New York relocated to exurbs for the same or similar salaries. In 2019 the median household income in the San Francisco Bay Area was nearly $115,000 and in the New York metro area it was more than $83,000.

What can you get in New York City on an $83,000 income? Where I live now, you could get a house and acreage and grass and trees; in Manhattan, you’d get a shoebox apartment in a six-story walkup on 96th Street!

2305 Beasley Avenue, Antioch, California.

Really? On February 20, 2020, 2305 Beasley Avenue in Antioch, California, sold for $360,000, and it’s just 1,174 ft², and wasn’t in good shape. It’s in Contra Costa County, the adjacent county to Oakland and Berkeley. I’m ‘familiar’ with the house because it was the one my parents bought when my father got back from Japan after the Korean war, and that’s where I lived up through the second grade.[2]I tend to look up my past residences on real estate sites. Yes, I still recognize the place, even though I haven’t seen it since I was eight years old. The chain link fence is a new addition, … Continue reading It looks pretty rough in the photos, but those were from the site when it was for sale; perhaps the new owners have made some improvements.

    The money stockpiled from leaving pricier areas, coupled with stimulus checks and enforced saving over the last year, are padding the bank accounts of these new movers. Rising credit scores are, in turn, enabling other major purchases such as cars. The new arrivals in the exurbs are finding they need their first or second automobile now that they are located in a more remote part of a metropolitan area. A January survey conducted by Engine Insights on behalf of Xperi DTS found 55% of millennials surveyed said car ownership was more important than ever.

But, but, but, the global warming climate change emergency activists want us to get away from personally owned vehicles, and commute by electric buses and trains. If the Journal story is correct, people are doing the opposite of that, moving into situations where cars are more important to them. Even if you commute by bus or train, odds are that you will need a car to get from your home to the commuter bus stop or train station. And now the ‘millennials,’ the group on which the global warming climate change emergency activists most heavily depend for political support are increasingly seeing personal vehicle ownership as important.

With a two car garage, I suppose the new owners of 2305 Beasley Avenue can install electric vehicle charging stations, and that’s what the urban professionals moving to the ‘exurbs’ are going to need.

But let’s face facts: what the global warming climate change emergency activists want is pretty much diametrically opposed to the American lifestyle and culture.

References

References
↑1 My younger daughter, an IT professional, worked from home for a few months during the shutdowns, and while she continued to be paid and worked, even she would admit that she was less productive while working from home. Too many distractions like puppies and cats and sunshine — her computer was set up on the screened in, northwest facing porch — led to perhaps not as much concentration.
↑2 I tend to look up my past residences on real estate sites. Yes, I still recognize the place, even though I haven’t seen it since I was eight years old. The chain link fence is a new addition, and the windows on the left of the house go to what used to be my bedroom. The old, roll out windows in metal frames have been replaced since I lived there.
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It’s getting closer and closer! School districts . . . should require all students and all adults to wear a mask while in the classroom and other indoor settings, Andy Beshear said

It was just last Friday that the Fayette County public schools, the Commonwealth’s second largest,, announced that most COVID-19 restrictions were going to be lifted for when school begins again next month:

    Many COVID restrictions are lifted in Fayette school cafeterias. And all kids eat free.

    By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | July 23, 2021 | 10:29 AM | Updated: July 23, 2021 | 10:38 AM

    Many COVID restrictions will be lifted in Fayette school cafeterias in 2021-2022, a year in which all kids will eat free regardless of family income.

    Breakfast and lunch meal service will resume normal operations that were in effect prior to the COVID pandemic. Meals will not be delivered to the classrooms. High Schools will resume a la carte lines.

    Students may eat in the cafeteria, classroom, and other designated areas, a letter to families said.

Of course, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) waxed wroth!

    Beshear says Kentucky schools should consider requiring all students to wear masks

    By Alex Acquisto and Valarie Honeycutt Spears | July 26, 2021 | 3:13 PM | Updated: 5:38 PM EDT

    Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday sent a clear message to schools on when Kentucky students should wear masks in the fall, though he stopped short of issuing an order.

    Beshear said all unvaccinated students and adults should wear masks in classrooms and other indoor school settings. He said schools should require all students under the age of 12 to wear masks in classrooms. Those students are not yet eligible for vaccines.

    School districts wishing to optimize safety and minimize risks of educational and athletic, disruptions should require all students and all adults to wear a mask while in the classroom and other indoor settings, Beshear said.

    “There’s only one right answer that protects the kids,” Beshear.

    Beshear said a mandate is “not off the table.” Be he said he thought school districts would do the right thing before that was necessary.

I’ve said it before: Mr Beshear loves him some dictatorial powers, and while he hasn’t reissued his illegal and unconstitutional mask mandate yet, it seems like he’s getting closer to doing that, every day.

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Fear is the mind killer * Updated! *

We have previously noted how fear is being used to control the population. The government has been spreading fear, and one young lady has given us a very thorough demonstration of how well it has worked:

She posted a series of ten tweets in the thread, which I’ve quoted and linked below, to save space. I have also condensed her two paragraph tweets into single paragraphs.

  1. First tweet: I’m a vaccinated anaesthetist and this is how I shop for my family.
  2. Second tweet: Preparation is key. If possible, I go at quieter times or click and collect if I’m organised. If I need to go in, I have my respirator mask, sanitiser, a list, and the bags which I always forgot pre-pandemic.
  3. Third tweet: Current rules are that maximum one person per household can go each day. We minimise this as much as possible. Either my hubby or I go. Never together. No kids.
  4. Fourth tweet: Once parked I put on my respirator. I’m in healthcare so have a stock of self-purchased N95’s in the car. I take a moment to ensure that it is fitted correctly. No leaks.
  5. Fifth tweet: At the entrance I check in using the QR code the furtherest away from the front door. I sanitise my hands. Big smile with my eyes and thank you to the greeter.
  6. Sixth tweet: Once inside, it’s a race. I assume I have covid. I assume everyone else has covid. I shop with laser sharp focus. No browsing. I avoid crowded aisles. Keep distant. Get only what I need, touch only what is necessary. I don’t squeeze every avocado to see which is ripe….
  7. Seventh tweet: Once I have everything, I pay via self-service usually at the end one if free. I get outta there ASAP. Smile and thank the attendant. Sanitise on exit. Check out via the app. A long shop is 15 mins, usually 7.
  8. Eighth tweet: So why do I do this? Am I outta my mind? I didn’t care about germs before the pandemic. Well, in my job we are all about risk minimisation. I want to protect myself, my family, my patients and my colleagues. I don’t need to spend ages faffing about in there.
  9. Ninth tweet: I don’t want to bring covid into my hospitals. I want to do all I can as an individual to minimise risk. Also, if the supermarket ends up being an exposure site, I don’t want contact tracers to need to trace me and my contacts.
  10. Tenth tweet: Kudos to all the folk doing the right thing, and those working frontline in our supermarkets.

Note that these were tweeted on Saturday, July 24, 2021, not sometime during the summer of 2020.

Of course, everything she has said her husband and she are doing is perfectly legal, and they have every legal right to take the precautions she has mentioned. But this is the second summer — although it’s winter for her, in Australia and New Zealand — of COVID-19, and at some point people have to return to being the social animals that we are.

_____________________________________
Update: 10:03 PM EDT

Naturally, I notified the original tweet author, but it seems that she didn’t like it. When I tried to bring up the tweets again this evening, I got: