'Political theater and nothing more': Newsom's sudden lockdown lift backfires, fuels 'Recall Gavin' campaign
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) lifted stay-at-home orders across the state Monday, citing improving COVID-19 conditions, but BlazeTV's Dave Rubin maintains that "without question [the] lockdowns were political theater and nothing more."
"I think it's become very obvious that this all was about politics. This all was about destroying Trump and crushing the economy enough so people would be frustrated and blame everything on Trump even though Trump handed the power to the governors — you know, the 'authoritarian Hitler guy' who was actually letting the governors do what they thought was best," Dave said on "The Rubin Report" this week. "And I don't think Newsom or [Gov. Andrew] Cuomo or any of these guys who have locked down their states and destroyed countless amounts of lives have any bit of guilt or remorse or anything. They've done truly, truly terrible things."
Dave also argued that the California governor's sudden decision to end stay-at-home orders was in response to the rapidly growing "Recall Gavin" campaign, as the number of required signatures crosses a major threshold to qualify for a statewide ballot. He shared charts from the New York Times that indicate seven-day averages of new coronavirus cases are actually higher now than they were in early December 2020, when Newsom announced a second round of strict stay-at-home orders for the region.
"I do have a special message ... Gavin Newsom, you're getting recalled," Dave said before encouraging Californians to find the nearest location to sign a "Recall Gavin" petition. "He deserves to go, he really does."
Watch the video below to hear more from Dave:
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Cops threaten expensive fines — for snowball fighting, sledding — amid strict COVID-19 lockdown in UK
Police in the United Kingdom are threatening to hand out £200 fines (about $275) for those who dare venture outdoors to enjoy the recent snowfall that reached half a foot in some places, the Mirror reported.
Image source: YouTube screenshot
And sledding or snowball fighting? That'll earn you a ticket from the sheriff of Nottingham, mate.
What are the details?
The paper said the snowfall attracted large outdoor crowds over the weekend, but police in London, Surrey, and Wiltshire warned winter revelers to not disobey COVID-19 lockdown rules even with members of their own households.
Cops in Swindon broke up a Sunday sledding soiree of 200 people at Coate Water Country Park, the Mirror said, and Surrey Police handed out £200 fines to two carloads of men "out looking at the snow."
The paper said Home Secretary Priti Patel and police have vowed to "get tougher on people flouting rules aimed at curbing the spread of the disease and saving lives."
Image source: YouTube screenshot
Government guidance says citizens can leave their residences for exercise but only once daily, the Mirror noted, adding that approved forms of exercise include but are not limited to running, cycling, walking, and swimming. When others are around, people must stay two meters apart from all those not in your household, the paper added.
Alarm bells ringing
"We are currently responding to reports of about 150 children and about 50 adults gathering in the Sevenfields area of Swindon and concerns have been raised that they are not abiding by the coronavirus guidelines," Swindon Police wrote Sunday on Facebook, the Mirror said. "Please do not gather in large groups — you are reminded that Fixed Penalty Notices may be issued to those who do not abide by the regulations. We are in the midst of a pandemic and failing to socially distance and wear face masks could aid the spread of the virus."
Wiltshire Police Inspector Louis McCoy on Sunday wrote, "I don't want to be dealing with [sledders] and snowball fights. There's still a lockdown on. Think about it; don't be tempted," the paper reported.
Image source: YouTube screenshot
The Surrey Police Roads Policing Unit said it fined two carloads of men who were out for a drive to and said they were "looking at the snow," the Mirror said.
"We stopped two cars that were traveling in convoy with each other in Guildford," the tweet read, according to the paper. "The cars contained four men, all from different households ... Four £200 COVID fines issued."
Surrey Police also tweeted: "We are currently receiving lots of calls and reports relating to snowballs being thrown and people outside [sledding]. Enjoy the snow today, but please don't involve other people, particularly more vulnerable residents. Please stay safe and remember that COVID regulations do still apply," the Mirror said.
Derbyshire Roads Policing Unit said it handed out fines after a family's car spun into a ditch, the paper reported, adding that "3 police cars, 2 ambulances, 1 doctor car, and 2 fire crews" were called, and that "tickets were issued."
The Mirror said officers in Merton, south London, wrote: "Sorry to be 'that grumpy relative,' but with the snow coming down the way it is, please drive carefully. And if you're going to have a snowball fight, please stick to your bubbles. Also do not eat yellow snow."
Not everyone took it well
There was some pushback against police interfering in the fun — and some figured officers might have better things to to:
- "Any chance you could use the time when you're not stopping snowball fights and [sledding] to find my stolen car?" one person wrote back, the Mirror said.
- Another asked, "So is taking the kids out sledging not exercise?" the paper noted.
- "Do you think maybe it's about time the police stopped disgracing themselves by enforcing laws that don't actually exist?" another person asked, the Mirror reported.
UK enjoys blankets of snow ahead of wet weather returningyoutu.be
UCSF medical professionals call on California to open the schools
Medical professionals in California are calling on state schools to reopen this February, arguing that the risks posed to children by social isolation are greater than the dangers of COVID.
A group of 30 University of California San Francisco medical professionals led by Dr. Jeanne Noble, the director of COVID response and a professor of emergency medicine at UCSF, have written an open letter urging state officials to open the schools by February 1.
"Long term closures have a detrimental, measurable impact on children and adolescents," the letter states.
California schools closed last March at the beginning of various state governments' responses to the coronavirus pandemic across the nation. More than 5.7 million K-12 California children, nine out of 10 of whom are public school students, were sent home for what initially was said to be two weeks to slow the spread of the virus.
Nearly a year later, Dr. Noble says there is an ongoing mental health crisis for children caused by the social isolation of lockdown policies. She explained why she's calling for the schools to open in an interview on Fox News Monday, saying, "There really is a mental health crisis among our youth from this lack of socialization and in-person education. And that was really the impetus for our letter, to bring attention to this other half of the equation," Dr. Noble said. "We focus a lot on the COVID risks of going back to school, risks for teachers and students, but we don't spend a lot of time talking about the mental health damage that's ongoing."
She reported CDC data that shows there's been about a 24% increase in ER visits for mental health reasons for children under the age of 11. For kids 12 and up there's been a 31% increase. Dr. Noble said local data in California "mirrors those national trends."
"In our children's hospital of Oakland we have something called, 'Ask Suicide Questions," where all kids coming into the ER are asked about recent thoughts of suicide," she explained. "Back in March, we had 6% of 10- to 17-year-olds reporting recent thoughts of suicide. That number had increased to 16% by September."
Children are suffering from more mental health issues than just thoughts of suicide.
"In the ER a lot of kids are coming in with signs of distress, so not just thoughts of suicide," Dr. Noble said. "That's kind of the tip of the iceberg. Those are the worst-case scenarios. We have kids who are cutting, who have become very anxious about going out of their homes, new social phobias, new eating disorders. Just a lot of signs of mental health distress that we're seeing in the ER."
"We have data about how we can return kids to the classroom safely," she added, explaining why now is the time to open schools.
"We closed our schools back in March because we assumed COVID was going to be like the flu, that kids would be the primary drivers of this pandemic, that they would get sick more often and transmit more often than adults. Now we know that we were wrong. Kids are less likely to get COVID, less likely to get sick, and less likely to pass it on than adults are," she said.
"If we knew in March what we know now, I don't think we would've closed our schools," Dr. Noble added. "And we have good data about safe school reopening. North Carolina just released a large data set: 90,000 kids K-12 back in school, 10,000 teachers. There were only 32 school-based transmissions of COVID during a 9-week period. Those are really tiny, reassuring numbers."
"So now that we know that kids can return to the classroom safely, it's time to get them back to school."
New international study says coronavirus lockdowns not more effective than voluntary measures, not needed to slow the spread
A new international study examining the effectiveness of state-mandated coronavirus lockdowns compared to other voluntary pandemic safety measures found that the lockdowns were no better at stopping the spread of coronavirus than less restrictive measures, like social distancing or reducing travel.
The peer-reviewed study, which Newsweek reported was published on Jan. 5 in the Wiley Online Library, examined how the virus spread in 10 countries in early 2020.
The study examined virus cases in countries that used "non-pharmaceutical interventions" — the academic term for lockdown policies — to those that did not. Researchers examined cases from England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States, which all imposed lockdowns in early 2020, to two countries that decided to use less intrusive, voluntary social-distancing measures — South Korea and Sweden. The aim of the study was to examine whether policies that closed businesses and forced people to stay in their homes were as effective as less restrictive policies to contain the spread of the virus.
To calculate this, the authors of the study used a mathematical model that subtracted "the sum of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did not enact more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (mrNPIs) from the sum of NPI effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did."
According to their analysis, "there is no evidence that more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions ('lockdowns') contributed substantially to bending the curve of new cases" in countries that imposed lockdowns.
While lockdown policies may provide some benefits that voluntary measures do not, the study found that these benefits are not significantly better, and the harms imposed by lockdowns, "including hunger, opioid-related overdoses, missed vaccinations, increase in non-COVID diseases from missed health services, domestic abuse, mental health and suicidality, as well as a host of economic consequences with health implications."
While the study found "no evidence of large anti-contagion effects from mandatory stay-at-home and business closure policies," the researchers did note some important limitations to the underlying data and methods used in their research. The authors acknowledged that cross-country comparisons are difficult because nations have different rules, cultures, and relationships between the government and the citizenry. Additionally, some countries are better at providing coronavirus data than others. The study also relied on confirmed case counts for its analysis, which can be "a noisy measure of disease transmission."
Given these limitations, the researchers could not conclusively declare that lock down policies had no benefits whatsoever. "However, even if they exist, these benefits may not match the numerous harms of these aggressive measures. More targeted public health interventions that more effectively reduce transmission may be important for future epidemic control without the harms of highly restrictive measures," the study concluded.
Lockdown policies in the United States are highly controversial, with advocates pointing to studies that claim they have saved millions of lives and detractors arguing experience shows places with less restrictive policies fared no worse than areas that were locked down.
Last June, Reuters reported a study published by researchers at Imperial College London that compared estimated coronavirus deaths in several European countries to the actual number of deaths recorded, claiming that some 3.1 million deaths were averted because of the imposition of lockdowns.
However, critics have accused early coronavirus models of overestimating the projected casualties of the virus. They point to states like Florida, which did not impose draconian lockdown policies and yet has fewer coronavirus deaths than states like New York that did lock down. In states with severe coronavirus restrictions like California, local business leaders have begun speaking out about the need to end lockdown policies, questioning their effectiveness.
Nationally, the Center Square reports that state-mandated lockdown policies have closed 19% of businesses, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics based on private-sector data collected from July 20 to Sept. 30, 2020. Businesses in the state of Michigan have suffered most, with the BLS reporting 32% of the businesses there had to close at least temporarily because of government restrictions. Michigan was followed in business closures by Pennsylvania (30%); Washington (27%); Vermont, Hawaii, and New York (26%).
In the United States there have been 22,965,957 total cases and 383,351 total deaths reported to the CDC.
England, Scotland re-enter full lockdown; citizens not allowed to leave home except for essential purposes
England and Scotland have re-entered national lockdowns effective Tuesday in response to a surge in coronavirus cases even as vaccines are being deployed throughout the United Kingdom.
The fresh restrictions come as the U.K. grapples with a new faster-spreading variant of the virus that has ripped through the nation of late resulting in seven straight days of 50,000 or more reported positive cases.
What are the details?
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the announcement Monday, ordering citizens stay at home unless traveling for essential purposes such as performing certain types of work, purchasing food or supplies, or exercising.
"I completely understand the inconvenience and distress this change will cause millions of people and parents up and down the country," Johnson said in a national address, according to CNBC, adding that schools will also be closed for in-person learning.
"The problem isn't that schools are unsafe for children ... the problem is that schools may act as vectors of transmission, causing the virus to spread between households," he said.
"The number of deaths is up by 20% over the last week and will sadly rise further," he added. "With most of the country already under extreme measures, it's clear that we need to do more together to bring this new variant under control while our vaccines are rolled out."
Health experts believe the mutated variant is up to 70% more transmissible than the original virus strain.
What else?
Earlier Monday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also announced that Scotland would re-enter a full lockdown.
Sturgeon informed the Scottish Parliament on Monday that schools will remain closed and that members of the public will be legally required to remain at home except for certain essential reasons, the Associated Press reported.
The aggressive move, which is slated to last at least until the end of the month, marks the first time since the start of the pandemic in early 2020 that Scotland has been essentially shut down.
"I can confirm now in summary that we have decided to introduce from midnight tonight for the duration of January a legal requirement to stay at home except for essential purposes," Sturgeon told Parliament. "This is similar to the lockdown of March last year."
"I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year," she added.
Anything else?
In his address, Johnson noted, "There's one huge difference compared to last year. We're now rolling out the biggest vaccination program in our history."
The U.K. plans to vaccinate tens of millions of people in a matter of months, starting with frontline workers and the elderly before moving on to the rest of the public.
"If we succeed in vaccinating all those groups ... that will eventually enable us to lift many of the restrictions we have endured for so long," Johnson promised.
Horowitz: Minnesota AG Keith Ellison threatens black business owner with farm labor for opening restaurant
Joe Biden once said that Republicans want to put black people "back in chains," but it appears that it is the leftist "Branch Covidian" cultists who are actually threatening to place a black single mom business owner back in chains for the "crime" of earning a living.
During the greatest crime wave in a generation, Larvita McFarquhar is the worst type of criminal in the estimation of the socialists. A single mom, rather than going on welfare, McFarquhar opened Havens Garden, in Lynd, Minnesota, a family-oriented restaurant with an attached gymnasium for kids to have a good time. She had the audacity to keep her business opened after the governor unconstitutionally declared property rights dead in the state.
Rather than offering to compensate her for the lost business, on Dec. 18, Ramsey County District Court Judge Sara Grewing found her guilty of civil contempt and fined McFarquhar $250 per day her establishment remains opened.
Evidently, Judge Grewing is a big stickler for the "law" — but only when it comes in the form of arbitrary executive edicts against business owners. Last year, Judge Grewing gave a serial sex predator who raped an unconscious woman just two and a half years in prison. On Aug. 3, she single-handedly nullified state election law by ruling that Minnesota's absentee ballots no longer require the signature of a witness who is a registered voter or a notary public and requiring the board of elections to accept mail-ins that come in after Election Day. And as she threatens business owners with prison time because of COVID, she has also demanded that the Department of Corrections officials show her a plan for protecting prisoners from COVID.
Are you starting to get a sense of which "laws" and which "criminals" she is concerned with?
Well, now that Attorney General Keith Ellison sees Larvita has a spine of steel and is willing to stand for God-given rights, he is upping the ante. Last week, Ellison's office filed a motion for further contempt sanctions with the Second Circuit court to propose jail time for her. Was she burning buildings or lynching motorists like BLM rioters? Nope. Her crime? "Defendant has continued to offer on-premises consumption of food or beverages to the public since receiving the Court's Civil Contempt Order on December 18, 2020."
What is the punishment they are pushing for? Take a look at the motion:
So now, in this country, you are not allowed to earn a living, and your punishment for doing so is slave labor. With China now celebrating the New Year with packed crowds, there is more freedom in China than in Minnesota. We have become a wealthier version of North Korea with a printing press of cash, except that cash just goes to big business or to households that didn't lose a penny from the shutdown. McFarquar didn't receive a penny of compensation.
Ellison's motion also threatens to confiscate the money she raised from her crowdsourcing page to pay for her lawyer's fees. Larvita gave an emotional response on a Facebook live filmed inside her establishment noting that she was "at a loss of words" as to how this can happen in America.
What few people have noticed is that, even if with some convoluted rationale the government had the power to categorically shut down businesses, at worst, it would be covered by the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause, which would mean she is entitled to "just compensation." Instead, in the new America, she has to pay to put herself out of business.
These government workers from the health department are able to earn their paychecks by denying other people their paychecks. We were all supposed to be "in this together," yet so many government workers and white-collar jobs can be done online while brick and mortar businesses get crushed. Again, even if the government was justified, this is exactly what the just compensation requirement expressed in the Fifth Amendment was written to address. As the Supreme Court said in Armstrong v. United States(1960), "The Fifth Amendment's [Takings Clause] . . . was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole."
COVID curfew violators arrested in Key West — including prominent restaurant owner: 'He said it was not a real law'
Police arrested at least a half-dozen people — including a prominent restaurant owner — in Key West, Florida, for violating the city's New Year's Eve COVID-19 curfew, the Key West Citizen reported.
Police arrested at least a half-dozen people on Thursday night for violating the City of Key West's New Year's Eve… https://t.co/KvgOmSP94M— Key West Citizen (@Key West Citizen)1609514107.0
What are the details?
The paper said Joe Walsh has been a vocal opponent of several city COVID-19 restrictions, including a mask requirement, and that on Thursday he emailed City Manager Greg Veliz stating he wouldn't close Fogarty's, his bar and restaurant.
Turns out Walsh's business was the only one that failed to heed the city's curfew, which required nonessential businesses to close at 10 p.m. every night through Sunday, the Citizen reported.
"He said it was not a real law," Veliz added to the paper regarding Walsh's objection to the curfew.
Veliz noted to the Citizen that he told Walsh in front of Fogarty's on New Year's Eve that he didn't have to be arrested but that he had to close.
"I told him it didn't have to be this way," Veliz told the paper. "I turned around, and next thing I know he was in handcuffs. It was unfortunate."
FL KEY WEST: A 10pm covid curfew was dropped on NYE Restaurant owner Joe Walsh refused and stood open as many oth… https://t.co/u6qnNGg2c3— Drew Hernandez (@Drew Hernandez)1609526036.0
Walsh and the other arrestees were cited with misdemeanors for violating an emergency management directive, the Citizen said.
In addition, a small protest broke out on New Year's Eve on Duval Street shortly after 10 p.m., the paper said, adding that tourists told Veliz they didn't have to obey the curfew.
"I had people telling me they come to Key West because there is no rules. That is the problem," Veliz told the Citizen. "Times Square in New York City was closed off, and they are telling me Duval Street doesn't apply."
Nope, nothing out of sorts occurred in Times Square on New Year's Eve — especially not with left-wing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Police were called to clear Duval Street and conduct crowd control, the paper said, adding that Veliz noted the street was cleared by 11:10 p.m.
Anything else?
Walsh — who's scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 14 — on Friday told the Citizen he intends to plead not guilty and fight the charge.
He added to the paper that the city's curfew violates the governor's order prohibiting local governments from enforcing local COVID-19 restrictions and that the curfew is illegal because the entire city commission did not vote on it.
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