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Dictators gotta dictate! When state Governors get away with dictatorial actions once, they'll keep doing it until someone stops them

It is no surprise that those once drunk with power would again imbibe when there were no consequences for the previous drunken spells.

As we have previously noted, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) has gotten away with unconstitutional restrictions on people’s freedoms because the sheeple allowed him to do so. And now, proclaiming that COVID-19 is rising too fast, he is doing it again. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

Gov. Andy Beshear unveils new coronavirus restrictions for Kentucky

By Grace Schneider and Emma Austin | November 18, 2020 | 4:19 PM EST | Updated: 4:42 PM EST

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced multiple new restrictions Wednesday as the state continues to see a surge in coronavirus cases, including:

  • All public and private K-12 schools will close to in-person instruction starting Monday through the end of the semester. The only exception is for elementary schools in counties outside the red zone, which may reopen on Dec. 7 if the school follows all guidelines.

Uhhh, since when does the state have authority over private schools?

Beginning on Friday and lasting until Dec. 13:

  • All restaurants and bars will close to indoor dining services. Outdoor dining is still allowed, with some limitations.
  • Gyms are limited to 33% capacity, and no group classes or indoor games are allowed. Masks are required.
  • Indoor gatherings should be limited to two families, not exceeding a total of eight people.
  • Attendance at wedding and funerals is limited to 25 people.

If the situation is so dire, I have to ask, why are gyms being allowed to open at all? After all, if dining inside a restaurant is too hazardous to be allowed, why isn’t working out inside a gymnasium?

Outdoor dining is still allowed, albeit with restrictions? The low for tonight in Lexington is forecast to drop to 36º F. While Friday, Saturday and Sunday have forecast highs in the low sixties, starting Monday it gets colder again, with daytime highs in the low fifties, and nightly lows in the thirties and, beginning Saturday the 28th, dropping below freezing. Might as well just close ’em down for everything other than take-out.

“Indoor gatherings should be limited to two families, not exceeding a total of eight people.” If the Governor is stating that gatherings should be limited, then he is simply exercising his freedom of speech to ask Kentuckians to do this. If there are some sort of executive orders mandating this, then they are in violation of our First Amendment rights of peaceable assembly.

And sorry, but weddings and funerals are (normally) religious events, and no Governor, no state, no President and no government at any level have the power to prohibit the free exercise of religion.

The General Assembly must, in its next session, this January, pass strict limits on the Governor’s emergency powers under KRS 39A. The Governor must never be allowed to attempt to restrict our constitutional rights, and in other emergency decrees must have his authority limited to only fourteen days without calling a special session of the state legislature to either pass laws to extend them, or revoke the orders.

The Governor, intoxicated with power as he is, had no intention of meeting with the legislature over his decrees:

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.

Translation: he did not believe the General Assembly would give him his way, so he was not going to allow them any say in the matter at all.[1]The state Constitution calls the legislature into session once a year, in January, for a limited time. The Governor may call a special session of the legislature at any time, but the legislature does … Continue reading

Fortunately, the 2020 elections expanded the already strong Republican control in the legislature; the GOP will have veto-proof margins in both houses of the General Assembly. But we really cannot simply wait for the legislature to act; Kentuckians need to protest now, to show the legislators that we are opposed to the Governor’s actions.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

References

References
↑1 The state Constitution calls the legislature into session once a year, in January, for a limited time. The Governor may call a special session of the legislature at any time, but the legislature does not have the authority to call itself into session.
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Could the credentialed media get any more fawning of Joe Biden?

Sometimes I believe that this would be the more accurate spelling.

The Democrats and their willing allies in the media have attacked President Trump every way of which they could possibly think, reasonable or otherwise, and I suppose that it worked: they defeated Mr Trump in the 2020 election. Now The Philadelphia Inquirer is praising Joe Biden, and slamming the President, because Mr Biden has pets while Mr Trump does not:

Major and Champ Biden are about to make the White House warm and furry again

by Alfred Lubrano | November 16, 2020

Of the more than 500 million Americans who’ve ever lived, fewer than four dozen have ascended to the presidency.

It’s hard to relate to a group that exclusive. But pets that dig up the Rose Garden, chew tassled loafers in the West Wing, and have accidents under the Resolute Desk are the great equalizer: There are more Americans who live with animal friends — around 66%, studies show — than those who don’t.

“Pets humanize presidential figures who seem remote,” said Andrew Hager, historian-in-residence at the Presidential Pet Museum, formerly in Williamsburg, Va., now awaiting a new home. “Seeing the most powerful person in the free world romping on the floor with a dog looks so much more like you or I — a very different image than a person in a suit behind a podium.”

When he moves into the White House in January, the already avuncular President-elect Joe Biden will morph into Romper-in-Chief, cavorting with two German shepherds, 12-year-old Champ and nearly 3-year-old Major, who will become the first shelter animal to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Biden and his grandchildren picked out Major at the no-kill Delaware Humane Association in Wilmington in 2018.

For the last four years, the White House has been a kibble-free zone. Although President Donald Trump has been accused of emitting racist-rousing dog whistles, he hasn’t owned an actual dog.

Yeah, no bias there, huh?

My family have pets. We have had cats around for as long as I can remember, but until we moved to the farm, we never had a dog. Why? Dogs require a lot more room to run around, and until we moved here, we never had what I thought to be enough room. Now we have the room, and my wife brought home a puppy in May of 2019. This summer, another dog just moved in. No, we didn’t seek him, but he just moved in on his own.

We have an outdoor feeder for the cats, and that has meant that we’ve had ‘visitor’ cats show up to eat as well. Floyd, our 21-toed polydactyl cat, just showed up, skinny as a rail, charged in the house when I opened the door and immediately attached himself to my wife. Right now, we have four cats, two dogs and two chickens, plus any other critters which just show up. Living on the border of the Daniel Boone National Forest, animals abound here; we see deer on the property frequently, and I’ve found bobcat tracks. There are bears and coyotes in the forest, and the dogs regularly growl and bark when they sense creatures I cannot see in the National Forest.

So, I’m not exactly an anti-pet person.

Yet President Trump is.

“Donald was not a dog fan,” wrote the outgoing president’s first wife, Ivana, in her memoir, Raising Trump. “And Chappy [her poodle] had an equal dislike of Donald.”

Trump is believed to be the only president other than James Polk (in office from 1845 to 1849) not to have a pet, Hager said, adding, “Even the impeached, sad, racist, drunk Andrew Johnson fed flour to mice friends he kept.”

To which I say, “So what?”

Mr Trump, long before he became President, moved around a lot. He had his suite in Trump Tower in Manhattan, his golf course digs in New Jersey, and his resort home in Mar-A-Lago in Florida. Believe me, it was no fun at all moving four cats from Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania to the farm in Kentucky, and we only had to do that once; what would it be like having to move pets around between New York, New Jersey and Florida several times a year?

Pets are simply not part of Mr Trump’s lifestyle, and he recognized that, apparently early on. If he wouldn’t be a good ‘father’ for pets, then he shouldn’t have them, and chose wisely enough not to do so, even though it might have helped him politically.

In 2017, Trump reportedly said he was “embarrassed” by the cats, snake, and rabbit (Marlon Bundo, subject of two children’s books) living with Vice President Mike Pence and his family. The Atlantic reported that the menagerie inspired Trump to label the Pences “low-class” and “yokels.”

“Animals are so against the Trump Fifth Avenue brand,” said Hager, who credits Trump for being “self-aware enough” to realize it’s best he avoid bonding with all creatures, great and small. In February 2019, the famously germaphobic president said his getting a pet “feels a little phony.”

And he apparently wasn’t phony.

So now the media are fawning over Mr Biden’s dogs. He adopted from a rescue shelter! He might have named a dog in honor of his late son, Beau!

The Inquirer article wasn’t listed as “Lifestyle” or “Human Interest” or “Opinion.” It was presented as a straight news story. Mr Biden hasn’t even taken office yet, but The Philadelphia Inquirer is already working on his 2024 re-election campaign.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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Professor “unfriended” by Virginia Wesleyan University University Would this have happened to someone harshly critical of Trump voters?

The obvious question is: how did his Facebook post get made public? From The Virginian-Pilot:

Virginia Wesleyan dean resigns after Biden Facebook post uproar

By Joanne Kimberlin | November 16, 2020 | 2:12 PM EST

A Virginia Wesleyan University dean whose Facebook post caused an uproar has resigned, according to a statement posted Monday by the university on its web site.

Paul Ewell got into hot water when a private post on his Facebook page went public recently.

The post asked anyone who voted for Joe Biden to “unfriend” Ewell, then went on to call all Biden supporters “ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian” and accuse them of “corrupting” not only the election but “our youth … our country.”

The university said Ewell has since apologized.

VWU’s statement said Ewell resigned last week as dean of VWU’s Global Campus.

On Monday, the university said, he also resigned from his position as a professor of management, business and economics.

This isn’t really a surprise. What would have been a surprise would have been a university professor being fired resigning from his position because he’d “asked anyone who voted for Joe Biden to ‘unfriend’ Ewell, then went on to call all Biden supporters ‘ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian’ and accuse them of ‘corrupting’ not only the election but ‘our youth … our country.'”

How was Dr Ewell’s Facebook post made public? The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald noted:

His post was made on his personal Facebook page, which has since been taken down. The page was set to “private” — open only to invited friends — but someone took a screenshot of the post and circulated it publicly on social media.

In other words, one of his “invited friends” decided to “unfriend” him in a way which cost Dr Ewell his job.

Had I received a ‘private’ Facebook post from someone telling me that if I had voted for President Trump I was a terrible person and should unfriend him, I would have done just that: unfriended him. But even though I can be an [insert slang term for the rectum here], I wouldn’t be [insert slang term for the rectum here] enough to do something to try to cost him his job.

Because, make no mistake about it, the guy who made a private post public was trying to get him fired. Unless you are horribly unaware of the political climate these days, you have to have heard of doxing and known why it is done. The person who did this to Dr Ewell is really the one who’s an [insert slang term for the rectum here].

I stated that Professor Ewell was fired, even though he technically resigned.

Stephanie Smaglo, a VWU spokeswoman, said that while the university “cannot speak to personnel matters, this incident is being addressed through our internal processes and policies.”

Yeah, that’s a firing. He was given the option to resign rather than being fired; that’s just how these things work.
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Cross-posted on RedState.

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Challenges of Old House Maintenance

There are lots of reasons to buy an old or historic home. It’s generally less expensive, it’s better for the environment to live in an old home instead of going through all the waste and trouble of constructing a new one and you get the opportunity to preserve a piece of history for the next generation. Very old homes are unique. They have character, class and style, but they also come with unique challenges.

Materials

One of the first and foremost challenges you will face as a historic homeowner is that the materials are old. For example, if you have an old brick house that needs repairs, then you may need to find an antique thin brick supplier. They don’t build them like they used to, and that may seem like an obvious thing it presents complex challenges. 

Design

Another side effect of an older home is that it was designed with different priorities in mind. They certainly weren’t designed with air conditioning, wi-fi and big screen televisions in mind. As a result, it’s pretty common for the modern family to have to build or adapt spaces for new or at least different purposes. 

Preservation

All that living and adaptation must be balanced with the responsibility to preserve a historic home for the future. Of course, you want your home to be safe and comfortable for your family, but you also want to make sure that the history of it is kept safe for the future. 

Owning an old home is a joy and a challenge. There’s something very special about becoming a part of history like that, walking and living in a place where so many have walked and lived before. To own a historic home is to own a piece of history, to become a part of that history and a steward to that history. Even when it is challenging, it is worth it. 

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Governors depend on officious little pricks to enforce their authoritarian decrees And the sheeple all say, "It is good."

On September 28, 1960, while Fidel Castro was giving a speech, bomb blasts rocked the steps of the Presidential Palace in Havana. Señor Castro then declared:

Comités de Defensa de la Revolución symbol. Con la guardia en alto translates to keeping your guard up.

We’re going to set up a system of collective vigilance; we’re going to set up a system of revolutionary collective vigilance. And then we shall see how the lackeys of imperialism manage to operate in our midst. Because one thing is sure, we have people in all parts of the city; there’s not an apartment building in the city, not a corner, not a block, not a neighborhood, that is not amply represented here [in the audience]. In answer to the imperialist campaigns of aggression, we’re going to set up a system of revolutionary collective vigilance so that everybody will know everybody else on his block, what they do, what relationship they had with the tyranny [the Batista government], what they believe in, what people they meet, what activities they participate in. Because if they [the counter-revolutionaries] think they can stand up to the people, they’re going to be tremendously disappointed. Because we’ll confront them with a committee of revolutionary vigilance on every block… When the masses are organized there isn’t a single imperialist, or a lackey of the imperialists, or anybody who has sold out to the imperialist, who can operate.

And thus were born the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. It was simple: every neighborhood would be organized, and every neighborhood would have people who would spy on, and tattle to the government, if someone was suspected of having counter-revolutionary thoughts.

Perhaps Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) didn’t have the Cuban spy committees in mind when he had the state Department of Health set up a ‘stay at home’ snitch line:

Reports to ‘stay at home’ hotline flood in; Walz says it is needed to relieve 911 workers

Republican lawmakers said the governor should close down the hotline.

Written By: Dana Ferguson | April 2, 2020 | 6:00 PM CDT

ST. PAUL — Minnesotans are nearly a week into a stay-at-home order aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus in Minnesota, and a hotline to report those congregating in large groups or failing to keep a sizable distance between themselves and others is generating hundreds of calls.

State emergency workers this week said they’d tracked more than 500 calls since the line got up and running last weekend. The stay-at-home executive order allows Minnesotans to go outdoors for exercise and activity if they observe social distancing requests, keeping at least 6 feet between themselves and those who aren’t members of their households.

And not all Minnesotans have been observing that rule, reports to state officials indicate.

The hotline came under fire this week, and Republican lawmakers over social media and in news releases called on Gov. Tim Walz to take down the hotline and email address used to report suspected violations of the order.

Republican lawmakers have objected to the hotline and said Minnesotans instead should aim to educate one another about the importance of not congregating in large groups and maintaining space between individuals in public spaces.

Of course, the Democratic Governor did not pull down the snitch line, and Channel 5 KTSP reported on August 14th that:

Since late March, the hotline has received thousands of reports of possible COVID violations, ranging from national companies ignoring the order to neighbors just telling on their neighbors.

Whole lot of Karens living in Minnesota, it seems. “(N)eighbors just telling on their neighbors,” huh?  I hope that the tattled-on neighbors find out who snitched on them, so that they can apply the appropriate punishment: shunning, ostracism and reputation-trashing. I would hope that when it’s discovered which Karens called the hotline, everybody in the neighborhood is informed of just who the snitches are.

I called that hotline just this morning, to make sure it was still up for this article; it is.

And now the Governor has announced new COVID-19 restrictions:

Gov. Tim Walz Announces New COVID-19 Restrictions, Earlier Restaurant And Bar Closing Times

By Esme Murphy | November 11, 2020 | 8:40 AM CST

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Gov. Tim Walz has announced new restrictions that target active spreaders of COVID-19 in an effort to bring the coronavirus under control, that will affect everything from bars and restaurants to family Thanksgiving plans.

“I feel like the guy in ‘Footloose,’ no dancing, no fun, no whatever. That is not my intention. My intention is to keep you safe so you can all dance a lot longer, and that our neighbors don’t put them at risk. But I recognize this is painful, it’s no fun,” Walz said Tuesday.

Walz said that the numbers are now growing exponentially in Minnesota, and that high deaths and hospitalizations are a predictable outcome if cases continue to grow in this manner.

“I wish I could say that this was unexpected, but it’s not,” Walz said. “I said back in March it would be a long, dark winter and that looks like what we’re headed into.”

Starting Friday, all bars and restaurants have to close dine-in service at 10 p.m and stay closed until 4 a.m. Indoor capacity is to be capped at 150 people, and may not exceed 50% capacity. Bar counter service is also going to be shut down, except at places that only offer counter service.

“Since the beginning of this pandemic, we’ve asked Minnesotans to make unprecedented sacrifices for the greater good. And they’ve done it. Because when times are tough, Minnesotans pull together,” Walz said. “Each step of the way, we’ve followed the best data available. These targeted, science-based actions will help get the spread of the virus under control so that we can care for those who fall ill, get our kids in the classroom, keep our businesses open, and get back to the activities we love.”

There is also a 10-person limit going into effect for all indoor and outdoor gatherings, and all social gatherings are limited to members of three households or less.

These restrictions include family gatherings for Thanksgiving.

For those who have noted my previous point that the restrictions in Kentucky are enforced not by the police but by local health departments, and have but small fines, let me point out that violating the restrictions in the Land of 10,000 Lakes are enforced by law enforcement personnel and is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine up to $1,000 and up to 90 days in jail.

A misdemeanor is a criminal conviction, and could negatively affect someone’s housing, credit and employment opportunities. A student so convicted could lose his scholarship if he has one.

But that’s what these authoritarian governors consider you to be if you violate their executive decrees: a criminal. And that’s why Governor Walz set up his hotline: just like the over 670 Karens in Lexington, Governor Walz is going to depend on the officious little pricks to snitch on their neighbors.

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The Supreme Court cared nothing about our First Amendment rights . . . while Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive With her replacement by Amy Coney Barrett, perhaps our rights will now be respected

Is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States controversial? Apparently to some of our friends on the left, it is. During a virtual event with the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention, Associate Justice Samuel Alito said:

For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry and can’t be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed. The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs.

You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.

Here’s the story from The New York Times:

In Unusually Political Speech, Alito Says Liberals Pose Threat to Liberties

The conservative justice’s pointed remarks, which he made in a speech to the Federalist Society, reflected thoughts he has expressed in his opinions.

By Adam Liptak | November 13, 2020

President Donald Trump, Justice Samuel Alito, and Senator Ted Cruz at te White House in 2019. Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — In an unusually caustic and politically tinged speech, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a conservative legal group that liberals posed a growing threat to religious liberty and free speech.

The remarks, made at the Federalist Society’s annual convention Thursday night, mirrored statements Justice Alito has made in his judicial opinions, which have lately been marked by bitterness and grievance even as the court has been moving to the right. While Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has tried to signal that the Supreme Court is apolitical, Justice Alito’s comments sent a different message

Coming as they did just weeks after Justice Amy Coney Barrett succeeded Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, giving conservatives a 6 to 3 majority, the remarks alarmed some on the left. But legal experts said there were few clear lines governing what justices may say off the bench.

The left were never alarmed, of course, when Associate Justice Ruth Ginsburg criticized then-candidate Donald Trump, but that’s different, don’t you know?

Naturally, the left waxed wroth over Justice Alito’s remarks:

Uhhh, just because you don’t like what someone says does not make it illegal. The First Amendment specifies:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Back to the Times/’ article:

On Thursday, Justice Alito focused on the effects of the coronavirus, which he said “has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.”

“I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health,” he said. “All that I’m saying is this, and I think that it is an indisputable statement of fact: We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020.”

Justice Alito was particularly critical of a ruling from the Supreme Court in July that rejected a Nevada church’s challenge to state restrictions on attendance at religious services.

The state treated houses of worship less favorably than it did casinos, he said. Casinos were limited to 50 percent of their fire-code capacities, while houses of worship were subject to a flat 50-person limit.

“Deciding whether to allow this disparate treatment should not have been a very tough call,” Justice Alito said. “Take a quick look at the Constitution. You will see the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment, which protects religious liberty. You will not find a craps clause, or a blackjack clause, or a slot machine clause.”

The ruling was decided by a 5-to-4 vote, with Justice Ginsburg in the majority. Her replacement by Justice Barrett may alter the balance on the court in similar cases, including a pending one from Brooklyn.

Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett (Photo by Olivier Douliery / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

In Calvary Chapel, Dayton Valley v Steve Sisolak, Governor of Nevada, the Court’s four liberal Justices, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, denied injunctive relief, but did not issue an opinion. The four conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Alito, strongly dissented. What Justice Alito stated at the Federalist Society’s meeting was essentially what he wrote in his dissent. In the upcoming case, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v Andrew Cuomo, Justice Ginsburg has gone to her eternal reward, and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic, has replaced her. With the Brooklyn case, we can hope that the freedom of religion will once more be respected.

While no opinion was issued in Calvary Chapel v Sisolak, in a similar case, South Bay Pentecostal Church v Gavin Newsom, the Chief Justice wrote a concurring opinion, in which he simply deferred to the judgement of “local officials (who) are actively shaping their response to changing facts on the ground.” The fact that the free exercise of religion and the right of the people peaceably to assemble as they choose were of no moment to the Chief Justice.

I suspect that they will be of some moment to Justice Barrett.

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What’s happened to The First Street Journal? Why does it look so funny?

I’ve had some serious WordPress problems, including not having administrative access to the background of the site. It was finally determined that the theme I had been using was simply too old and caused a lot of problems. My site hosting service had to reinstall WordPress, but they could not do it without trashing all of my old content. I brought over the recent posts, and the rest, well it still exists, in a file, but I don’t know if it can be restored. I do have a lot of stuff cross-posted on Red State that I will slowly bring over.

I am not completely happy with this set-up, so I will be tinkering with it as time passes.

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Did the Green Party candidate cost President Trump the vote in Pennsylvania? The Democrats kept Howie Hawkins off the ballot

I noted in Blaming the Libertarian Party that I did not believe The Wall Street Journal’s claim that Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen somehow cost President Trump the 2020 election. But The Philadelphia Inquirer is making the case that the exclusion of Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins from the Pennsylvania ballot may have carried the Keystone State for Joe Biden:

Pennsylvania Democrats may have saved Biden by knocking the Green Party candidate off the ballot

Howie Hawkins, from Howie Hawkins for President campaign.

In a particularly litigious presidential campaign, one legal fight may have saved President-elect Joe Biden’s chances of winning Pennsylvania — and the presidency.

The state Supreme Court, in a split verdict Sept. 17, removed Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins from the ballot for improper paperwork. The legal challenge was filed on behalf of two Democrats by Pittsburgh attorney Clifford Levine, who was representing the Pennsylvania Democratic Party in other cases.

“The concern was that, if you looked at the results in 2016, the Green Party candidate got more votes than the margin between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton,” Levine said Monday. “There was obviously a concern that a third-party candidate may effectively dilute the focus that we thought was important, that it be a race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”

Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2016 nominee, won 49,941 votes in Pennsylvania in 2016, as Clinton fell to Trump by 44,292 votes, a margin of just 0.7%.

Biden held a lead of about 54,000 votes over Trump in the state, as of Thursday. Pennsylvania secured an Electoral College win for Biden on Saturday as media outlets across the country called the state in his favor.

The Green Party’s nominees for attorney general, auditor general, and treasurer all won far more votes than Biden’s lead.

Note that Miss Jorgensen was not kept off the Pennsylvania ballot, and thus the common wisdom would have had her syphoning votes from President Trump, but Mr Hawkins could not have taken away many votes from Mr Biden, other than write-in votes.

It’s still a bit of a difficult argument to make, given that it was also common knowledge, pushed every day by the Inquirer, that the race was extremely close, and that Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes might be decisive. Remembering Hillary Clinton’s narrow loss in Pennsylvania, I have to ask how many people would have voted for the Green Party candidate.

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Karens gonna Karen Lexington-Fayette County Health Department gets over 670 complaints from Karens about people not wearing masks

As we, sadly, noted yesterday, the Kentucky state Supreme Court upheld Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) executive orders to fight COVID-19. Now the Lexington-Herald Leader is reporting that several businesses have been fined for not servings as the Staatspolizei in enforcing the Reich Governor’s decrees:

7 Lexington businesses fined over masks before top KY court upholds COVID-19 rules

By Jeremy Chisenhall | November 12, 2020 | 11:15 AM EST | Updated 11:22 AM EST

The Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Gov. Andy Beshear’s COVID-19 restrictions means businesses are still subject to penalties if they don’t enforce the statewide mask mandate.

Seven Lexington businesses have been fined over the mask mandate since it first went into place in early July, with one business getting fined twice, according to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department.

The health department had received more than 670 complaints of COVID-19-related health violations as of Wednesday, according to health department spokesman Kevin Hall. At least 85 notices to correct have been issued, and eight citations have been given out to seven different Lexington businesses. Citations come with fines of $50, $75, or $100, depending on how many times the business has been cited, Hall said. . . .

The health department does have the authority to fine businesses for multiple violations, including restaurant tables not being 6 feet apart or employees not requiring that patrons practice social distancing. But all of the COVID-19-related complaints as of Wednesday had been about masks, Hall said.

The businesses listed by the Herald-Leader as having been fined:

  • Kroger, 4104 Tates Creek Center, two citations, for $50 and $75.
  • Walmart, 500 West New Circle Road, $50.
  • Speedway, 2900 Richmond Road, $50.
  • Speedway, 1401 Leestown Road, $50.
  • Wing Zone, 580A Eureka Springs, $50.
  • Thornton’s, 2291 Elkhorn Road, $50.
  • Steak N Shake, 1832 Alysheba Way, $50.

I urge anyone reading this who happens to be in Lexington to patronize these businesses!

Have I mentioned yet that I have exactly zero respect for the Karens who make these complaints?

But, let’s get real here: $50 to a huge Walmart store is nothing, and $125 to Kroger, a huge supermarket chain? Laughable. While the article does not tell us whether the violations were due to employees not wearing masks, or non-enforcement against customers, those fines are far less than the businesses would lose if they pissed off customers.

What this story points out is what I have mentioned previously, that the Governor’s orders are not being enforced by the police, but by local health departments, and they have little power. They can issue citations, and minimal fines, to businesses, but if a health department worker sees me walking down the street without a mask — which is exactly how he would see me, if he saw me at all — he couldn’t do [insert slang term for feces here] about it. He couldn’t issue me a citation, and he couldn’t stop me, and if he called the police on me, there’s nothing they could do.

That’s what Governor Beshear did with his pathetic orders. While the General Assembly has to limit his emergency rule by decree power, because we cannot be a dictatorship, the Governor made not the police but pathetic little county health departments as the ‘enforcement’ agencies for his orders. He hasn’t targeted civilians for his enforcement decrees, but businesses, which are dependent upon holding business licenses. He hasn’t told armed police officers of deputy sheriffs to enforce his mask mandate, but 19-year-old waitresses and 16-year-old kids working behind the counter at McDonald’s to confront customers.

Of the seven businesses listed, other than the managers, most have minimum wage employees working in the public contact positions, but the Governor expects them to get in the faces of 220 lb bikers? https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_wacko.gif What’s wrong with this picture?

That the state Supreme Court had let Mr Beshear get away with this stuff is unfortunate, and the incoming General Assembly, with the GOP holding veto-proof majorities in both chambers, needs to drastically curtail his ’emergency’ powers under KRS 39A. But, for a dictator, Mr Beshear is a pretty weak-willed one.