Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

It looks like Massachusetts may not be opening any time soon

Posted: May 7, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Governor Charlie Baker had originally announced that all nonessential businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would remain closed until May 4th.  That date was later postponed another two weeks.  Most of us in this state were hoping and expecting that when that date is finally reached things would rapidly return to normal  I was one of them.  My hopes were rudely squashed when I saw this article on social media: Baker: Mass. Businesses Closed Due To Coronavirus Won’t Be ‘Off To The Races’ On May 18.

Here is how Governor Baker describes his plans for the opening process:

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said that while he hopes some businesses will be able to resume operations soon after May 18, he added it will be a gradual process and not “off to the races.”

“There won’t be anyone firing a starting gun on May 18 and saying everybody’s off to the races, but we do hope certain types of businesses and workplaces will be able to begin resuming operations, under the guidelines established through this process, and based on the fact that we will have hit certain triggers, with respect to the status of the virus here in Massachusetts,” said Baker.

Instead  of the rapid reopening we were expecting it looks now like it will be a long arduous process. According this quote from Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito the process might not even begin on the 18th.

“There seems to be some with an understanding that May 18 is a magical date. May 18 is the date that we said the report of this advisory board will be released,” she said, adding “It doesn’t mean that the economy across our Commonwealth will just reopen. It’s just not possible.”

How arduous will the process be? Check out this quote from Governor Charlie Baker.

“In the coming weeks we’re prepared to have more concrete plans on what each phase of reopening will look like, where certain activities and industries fit into which phase, general business guidance about social distancing, personal protection, and cleaning protocols that all businesses will need to adhere to upon reopening, and industry specific guidance and protocols for reopening safely,”

If Governor Baker’s reopening plan proves to be as slow and torturous as it seems from this article I’m not sure how many businesses will be left to open.  How many people will have their livelihood destroyed for good?  I believe the economic carnage by a painfully slow process will be staggering.  I don’t believe the people of Massachusetts will stand by and let such a slow process play out.  A major protest took place on this past Monday with at least a couple thousand in attendance.  The protests will soon spread and become larger,  Hopefully Governor Baker will listen.

Rather than relying on a committee of experts to come up with a plan which will be implemented by bureaucrats I believe Governor Baker should just let the business owners and the people of  Massachusetts come up with their own plan.  Decentralized decision making is always far superior to mandates from bureaucrats

A Man’s Got to Die of SOMETHING

Posted: May 5, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

There is an old story about a Samurai Lord who was sentenced to be executed by the order of the Shogun of Japan. The night before his execution he was with some of his retainers and he was offered a drink of Sake (rice wine). He declined saying that it tended to upset his stomach the next day. This drew some odd glances from his retainers as the next day was scheduled to be his last, so he replied that he was a warrior, and he’s alive until he isn’t and while he’s alive he’s going to take care of his body.

That is really what freedom is like. When you call yourself a free man that comes with responsibilities. One of them is to assert that freedom even in the face of society and authority and be willing to pay the consequences for that assertion.

For the last month we have accepted a lot of restrictions on our freedom because of the Corona/wuhan/ccp virus and there dangers therein. We have by and large accepted these restrictions for the sake of the public good and with the understanding that said restrictions were mandated in good faith. That the governments, state and federal were doing their best to contain the spread of the virus for the sake of public health and to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. I do not blame said governors nor the President for launching these restrictions. As a rule governors and presidents do not count infectious disease as an area of expertise and given the models they were presented with and the advice they had from experts on the subject they have acted as best they could in the situation.

But now we have many weeks of data and the patterns and risks of this virus are clear. It’s also becoming more and more apparent that it’s been around longer than we realized and that we likely have more herd immunity that we realized.

The President has offered a phased reopening plan that give flexibility to the various governors. While it is prudent to be cautious It’s become apparent however that there are quite a few Governors and mayors them who have found that they like the idea of absolute power over their people and are using this flexibility to maintain it for political reasons despite the facts on the ground.

In those states where this is the case people are going to have to decide how they are going to react to this. Are we going to assert our freedom or submit? Furthermore state and local police need to decide if they serve and protect their people or if they are going to be an arm of oppression.

It’s time to let the society function as normal and I say this as an overweight man closer to sixty than to fifty whose father had a history of heart attacks. Life is risk and I think it’s time for a free society to live with those risks. The bill has come due for living free I believe Americans in general (with the exception of a few Karens) and myself in particular are willing to take the risks to live that way. As Bill Hoge put it:

The time has come to begin moving to more targeted responses to the pandemic. There are probably communities and activities that still should remain locked down, but most of the country is ready for less heavy-handed measures.

Or as I say often: “A man’s got to die of something“

Report from Louisiana: Reopening Discontent

Posted: May 4, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – We broke quarantine yesterday and crossed the border into Texas.  With Louisiana still shut down and under stay-at-home orders for another two weeks, Texas looks pretty good right now.

For weeks the border has been closed to Louisiana residents, but now that has been lifted and Texas shops and restaurants are open, so we headed west.

We headed to Jefferson, Texas, a small, historic town in East Texas. Residents of Marion County supported Trump heavily in the last presidential election with a 71% strong vote over Hilary Clinton (27%).  Many of the people there are thrilled to see Louisiana customers back in Jefferson; the town has a quaint historic district filled with antique shops, specialty fudge shops, and eateries that have suffered financially since the closure. There are a couple of old, historic hotels and at less than an hour away from Shreveport, Jefferson is a popular day trip destination. People in Louisiana spend a lot of tourist dollars in Jefferson, so opening the state back up to travelers was a welcome move. They have been hit hard by the COVID closure.

Shopkeepers, bartenders, servers, residents, literally everyone we talked to, was thrilled that the state is open and people are coming back to spend money and browse the shops. We talked with several people who praised Trump’s COVID response and others who were firmly rooted in the belief that Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards is keeping Louisiana closed only for federal dollars.

The rhetoric in Louisiana circles is becoming more and more divided over the Edwards response. As it turns out, his stay-at-home order was very non-specific and would have allowed many businesses to stay open in some capacity, significantly reducing the large numbers of people forced into unemployment. The original stay-at-home order, issued March 22, specifically closed salons, gyms, tattoo shops, among others. Businesses not specified could stay open with restrictions, however that was never clear. As a result, places like Barnes and Noble, Ulta Beauty, sporting goods stores, craft stores, among others, closed when all along they could have stayed open with restrictions.

It has all been very murky and now the discontent is rising:

The catalyst is Gov. John Bel Edwards’ decision to extend Louisiana’s statewide stay-at-home order through May 15. The Democratic governor said the move is rooted in science and public safety. Republicans are bristling, preferring a parish-by-parish approach to loosening restrictions that have shuttered businesses and forced hundreds of thousands into unemployment.

At stake is “hundreds of millions of federal dollars in disaster aid for businesses and the state.”

Is Edwards playing it safe and only looking out for the health of Louisiana residents? Or is he parlaying the entire situation into a federal dollar windfall for the state? Has he been intentionally vague about his stay at home order? The answers depend on who you ask.

The bottom line is that the longer Louisiana stays closed, and with neighboring states returning to normal, the pressure on Edwards to reopen the state will increase. Louisiana dollars will be spent in the shops, restaurants, and hotels of other states.

Louisiana legislators return to Baton Rouge today, reconvening their session after a COVID hiatus and even the timing of the legislative return has been contentious.

Looks like the new normal in Louisiana is a lot like the old normal.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Joe Biden’s “Shoot Someone on 5th Avenue” Moment for Democrats

Posted: May 4, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

I remember a while back when the Billy Bush tape came out during the 2016 campaign old friend Stacy McCain wrote that Trump was finished “This election is over. Write “–30–” at the bottom and file it.”. If it had been a regular election year with a regular establishment milquetoast candidate facing a standard Democrat candidate he might have been right. However as it was Donald Trump facing Hillary Clinton he turned out (thanks be to God) to wrong be that day.

I mention that because he now has a piece about Joe Biden being finished:

My hunch is that this is just one more shoe dropping, in what will quickly become an avalanche of accusations against Biden. It’s kind of like what happened with Roy Moore. The guy had been in public life in Alabama for decades, and I’d followed Moore’s career since the 1990s, and never heard a word of any inappropriate behavior by him. Then all at once, Moore was accused by a half-dozen women of having harassed them when they were teenagers in the 1970s and ’80s. This avalanche effect has toppled many prominent men in the #MeToo era; once the first accusation of misconduct is made, the accusers seem to come out of the woodwork. One day you’re a senator or a movie star or a network news anchor, and next thing you know Gloria Allred’s holding a press conference with weeping “survivors” and your career’s over.

Once someone becomes a target of this machinery of destruction, the result is never really in doubt. If indeed Biden made the remark attributed to him, isn’t it likely he’s made similar remarks to other large-breasted girls? Of course it is, and now that the starting whistle of the #MeToo Accusation Derby has blown, every other woman who was ever an object of Biden’s interest will soon come forward to tell her tale.

Now it’s natural that Stacy thinks this, after all we’re reached a point where Kathleen Parker is hitting Democrats in general

In the aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings, Ford became a symbol of women’s empowerment. She appeared on the cover of Time magazine and received awards and praise for her courage. She also suffered vicious social media attacks and threats, as did Kavanaugh and his family.

She has largely kept to herself since, which is surely good for her soul but is also a reminder of another lesson in the decades-long culture war over sexual harassment. Once the feminist power brokers are finished with you, they move on to slay other monsters. Unless it’s one of their own monsters.

And Andrew Sullivan hitting Joe Biden in particular

Joe Biden has been practicing “sexual violence” for decades: constantly touching women without their prior consent, ruffling and smelling their hair, making comments about their attractiveness, coming up from behind to touch their back or neck. You can see him do it on tape, on countless occasions. He did not stop in 2014, to abide by the standards he was all too willing to impose on college kids. A vice-president could do these things with impunity; a college sophomore could have his life ruined for an inept remark.

Biden is now claiming simply that he never did what Tara Reade said he did. Let’s posit that he didn’t. Too bad. If he were to attempt to defend himself, by his own campus logic, he would be barred any knowledge of what he was precisely accused of, even the identity of his accuser;

as hypocrites, but we haven’t reached a point where Parker or Sullivan has called him to drop out, in fact Sullivan declares bluntly he will vote for him “because Trump” which frankly doesn’t surprise me.

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Furthermore it’s almost quaint to think that Gloria Allred or any of the various “woman’s” groups are going to vet or illustrate any of the existing woman or new women who come out concerning Biden, after all as soon as the Biden interview was done Jake Tapper was already pivoting to use it as an attack on Donald Trump and the LA Times actually ran a piece stating: “He’s not perfect but he’s not Donald Trump“

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2020/05/01/expert-smoke-screening-cnns-jake-tapper-shifts-focus-away-from-biden-to-ask-question-about-allegations-against-trump-as-whataboutism-detectors-overheat/

And we already have one Biden guy out there playing the classic Bill Clinton line from the 1990’s

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These “woman’s groups” don’t get their funding from women who like Reade until a few months ago, believed they were fighting for their rights, their bills get paid by big foundations acting as conduits for Democrat money to push the message of the day.

I’ll give the final word to Miss Allred’s daughter Lisa Bloom with my reply.

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At least she’s honest about it.

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