In his most recent announcement on the COVID-19 situation, Governor Newsom said his decisions will be based on “data not politics.” Here is one key data point: 99.9% of the people of the state of California are NOT infected with the virus. This is not the worst “pandemic in history” as some have attempted to describe it, the Spanish flu in the early part of the last century was far worse, and, as a country, we had far fewer tools to fight the disease. Yet, the country did not shut down.

The AIDS crisis of the 1980’s and 1990’s killed many more people and was mostly transmitted by male homosexual sexual contact, yet the country didn’t outlaw male homosexual sex. To this day, there is no vaccine for AIDS, and transmission continues at the rate of about 1.7 million infections per year around the world, but we don’t shut down human sexual conduct.

36,000 people die every year, year after year, from automobile accidents in the US, but we don’t ban driving (we do recommend social distancing while driving though).

These are the facts on COVID-19: the disease has not overburdened our hospitals, it has… Read More

In the politicians’ rush to “do something” during the coronavirus pandemic, D.C came up with a stunning, idiotic program to damage the economy while creating millions of new welfare addicts. And many of these addicts may well be committing criminal acts before the $600/week unemployment giveaway (supposedly) ends on 31 July.

I’ve been writing about this coming problem for weeks, but it really didn’t become apparent to the public until the $600/week federal “unemployment” checks started raining down from the D.C. helicopters. Here’s the first major article I’ve seen detailing the real world results.

As theWALL ST JOURNALop-ed below explains, restaurants are having a very difficult time running a bare bones take-out service. No one wants to work anymore. And under the current program, it will not be possible for a restaurant to open until 1 August.

EXCERPT:

We started making the calls last week, just as our furloughed employees began receiving weekly Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation checks of $600 under the Cares Act. When we asked our… Read More

The COVID-19 situation has shown just how pervasive the presence of the Arrogant Lazy Authoritarian (which I will call “the ALA” from now on) has become in California government.

Let’s begin with the definition of the term:

Arrogant – the ALA is arrogant because he or she is absolutely convinced that only they know what is good for you and me. You can hear the arrogance in their voice and in the words they use, and in the attitude they portray to the public. Arrogance is an occupational hazard in politics, but the ALA puts that arrogance on constant display. He or she absolutely knows that he or she is smarter than you and me, and knows, much better than you do, how to run your life. He or she knows that if you were left to your own devices, you would make yourself sick, or purposefully act in such a way as to hurt other people, or spend your money on “nonessential” things. You are ignorant, or stupid, or a “rube” incapable of leading your own life without their control.

Lazy – the ALA is lazy, because the easiest solution for the ALA is to exercise government power. They don’t have to think… Read More

Want to know why the federal stimulus checks will likely be unnecessarily delayed? Read the remarkable WALL ST JOURNAL article about how INCREDIBLY inept our government IT efforts have been for DECADES.

Not that we haven’t spent countless billions on our federal IT function. Indeed, the feds spend a breathtaking $88 BILLION a year on IT!

What did they do with the money? The rhetorical question is asked over and over in the article below.

Of course, state and local governments are too often just as behind the IT technology curve. California has squandered hundreds of millions on “new” systems that didn’t work right from the get-go.

The federal mismanagement is not always so funny: A much-needed Covid-19 antibody test developed in January that was under review by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA]. Dr. Makary noted, “And we lost precious time when one of the original scientists submitted an application and was told that he had to submit it also by paper mail with a CD-ROM with the files burned on it.” CD-ROM? They might as well have asked for applications on a deck of… Read More

The French economist and philosopher Frederic Bastiat described the economic principle of a cost-benefit analysis in his 1850 essay entitled, “What Is Seen And What Is Unseen.”

The historian Amity Shlaes applies Bastiat’s principle to the public health response to the Coronavirus, “For every action we take such as shelter in place, there is the unseen person who loses their job, or maybe their business and their livelihood.”

Our community has put forth extraordinary efforts to flatten the curve but as we push down the curve, like a large balloon, a new curve is created. In this case it is an unemployment curve. And to flatten this curve with Shelter in Place mandates, we have come remarkably close to comprising our Constitutional rights as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights LIMITS what the government CAN DO, preserving liberty for the people.

The International Monetary Fund released its economic outlook and it should not come as a surprise to anyone that shutting down our twenty-two trillion-dollar economy will create the worst recession since the Great Depression if it prolongs much longer. Riverside County will likely see an… Read More

We go to the polls every four years to elect a president. That president then appoints hundreds of people, many approved by the Senate. Most people think that these are the people we have put in charge for four-to-eight years; we then decide which team we want for the next four-to-eight years. Unfortunately, they are not the people who run the government and there is very little discussion about who does: The Senior Executive Service (SES).

The SES (established in 1978) falls under the auspices of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). They state on their website: “The SES was established to ensure that the executive management of the Government of the United States is responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and otherwise is of the highest quality.” They go on to say “These leaders possess well-honed executive skills and share a broad perspective on government and a public service commitment that is grounded in the Constitution.” That is their take.

If you are wondering about the importance of these positions, reflect on President Trump’s comments this week about his appointments not getting approved by the U.S. Senate. As… Read More

The accumulating death toll from Covid-19 can be seen minute-by-minute on cable news channels. But there’s another death toll few seem to care much about: the number of poverty-related deaths being set in motion by deliberately plunging millions of Americans into poverty and despair.

In the first three weeks since governors began shutting down commerce in their states, 17 million Americans filed for unemployment, and according toone survey, one quarter of Americans have lost their jobs or watched their paychecks cut.Goldman Sachs predictsthat the economy will shrink 34 percent in the second quarter, with unemployment leaping to 15 percent.

Until the Covid-19 economic shut-down, the poverty rate in the United States had dropped to its lowest in 17 years. What does that mean for public health?A 2011 Columbia University studyfunded by the National… Read More

Contact tracing, remember that phrase. It is the solution to the current quarantine “shelter in place” orders. It is how we should have dealt with this “pandemic” from the beginning. We are told we have to stay home to protect each other, and that justifies the government imposing all sorts of crazy rules about who is “essential,” who gets paid to stay at home, and who has to shut down and starve while this “crisis” continues.

The current government imposed orders are the result of what I call lazy authoritarianism and arrogance. “Arrogance,” because the so-called experts claim they have the only solutions, and we should go along because they are smarter than the rest of us. “Lazy Authoritarianism” because other solutions would require the government to work harder to balance the public health with our personal and economic freedom, and who cares about our personal and economic freedom? Certainly not the “public health bureaucrats.” Their mantra: “Just do what you’re told and quit complaining.”

That is where contact tracing comes in. That is how we deal… Read More