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Texas Now Running At 25-50% Freedom

Tuesday, May 19th, 2020

Texas governor Greg Abbott is lifting more Wuhan coronavirus-inspired business restrictions:

Monday saw new information released on Phase 2 of Texas’ recovery plan.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced the new guidelines at a press conference Monday.

Phase 2 includes opening dates and health and safety guidelines and checklists for everything from bars and breweries to day cares, summer camps and even aquariums.

After being effectively shuttered for months, and putting thousands of bartenders and servers out of work, bars in Texas will be allowed to reopen Friday, Abbott said.

Under new guidelines, bars will be allowed to reopen at 25 percent capacity under very strict guidelines, he said. Breweries, wineries and wine tasting rooms are also included under these new guidelines.

Likewise restaurants, which had already been allowed to reopen at 25 percent capacity will be allowed to increase to 50 percent capacity starting Friday.

Abbott also issued minimum standard health protocols that bars must follow to keep patrons safe.

The restrictions are more of the “mother may I” rules that both patrons and establishments will probably start ignoring almost immediately.

Abbott is also lifting restrictions on sports facilities (or at least letting such facilities apply to open without spectators), which is good, since the NBA is also allowing teams back in practice facilities (though with a restriction to four players in a facility at a time, actual team practices aren’t permitted yet).

Thanks to Republican control of all three branches of government, Texas hasn’t suffered under the extreme lockdown insanity that Democratic governors have imposed on places like Michigan and California. But given that Texas has suffered no spike in coronavirus cases, and that Georgia has also suffered no spike in cases despite lifting most of their lockdown order, Gov. Abbott’s reopening moves seem relatively timid. Republican activists are not impressed:

For more than two months, Texas has been ruled by the edicts from Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.

It’s been the governor—and the governor alone—who has decided which businesses can reopen and how many people they can allow inside. The governor’s directives have strayed in the mundane operations of individuals, such as noting how often their employees must wash their hands.

As Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan asked rhetorically last week: “Are we finding we don’t actually need a legislative branch, with all their pesky drama and hand-wringing?”

Such is the case in current-day Texas. This is the status quo in a state where the legislature and the Supreme Court have thus far refrained from reining in the power of what’s essentially become an absolute executive.

As with the previous partial reopening announcements by Abbott, grassroots activists like Julie McCarty of the True Texas Project say Texans should not be satisfied with merely an additional portion of the freedom their leaders have taken from them.

“I get what Abbott is doing, he’s trying to save his own skin by doing just enough to not be fully blamed by either side. That’s appeasement, not leadership, and it accomplishes nothing,” McCarty told Texas Scorecard. “Texans have had enough with these made-up orders that don’t follow common sense. It’s time for Abbott to fish or cut bait; he doesn’t deserve any praise for piecemeal actions that put his lack of leadership skills on full display.”

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Posted in Economics, Texas | No Comments »

BidenWatch for May 18, 2020

Monday, May 18th, 2020

Biden panders to the left, banks mad Benjamins, slices up some more word salad, gives the high hat to Stacey Abrams, and his secret weapon is…#NeverTrump? It’s this week’s BidenWatch!

  • “Biden’s Support Among Women Drops as Tara Reade Allegations – and His Response – Take Their Toll.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “How the Biden Campaign Aims to Win Battleground States“:

    In an hourlong briefing with reporters on Friday, senior campaign officials pledged to have “over 600 organizing staff responsible for battleground states” in place by next month as they pursue an “expanded map” with Arizona at the “top of the list” of new opportunities. They also said that they had doubled the size of the digital team “and it is growing,” and that they planned to implement a new livestreaming platform as they navigate the challenges of campaigning virtually during the coronavirus crisis.

    So far these are not campaign plans, they’re boxes in a spreadsheet.

    “The most important thing for us and for the campaign is public safety and the safety of the vice president, the people around him, the staff, the press corps, the Secret Service,” Ms. O’Malley Dillon said, noting the current stay-at-home order in Delaware. “We will travel physically to places when the time is right, driven by the experts and the guidelines that come and not a day before.”

    Congratulations! Your friend posting “Horrible day! 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 Can’t talk about it…” is no longer the Vaguebooking champion.

    Yet news of the campaign expansion comes as some Democrats have expressed anxiety about Mr. Biden’s visibility and the campaign’s agility, headed into a general election in which Mr. Trump has an enormous cash advantage and the bully pulpit of the presidency. The Biden campaign, which is now fund-raising with the Democratic National Committee, has $103 million in cash on hand, according to a slide show that accompanied the campaign presentation. The Trump campaign announced this week that, in conjunction with Republican fund-raising committees, it had $255 million on hand.

    Some Democrats have also been dismayed by the poor quality of Mr. Biden’s online appearances, citing the glitches that have marred some of his livestreams, and have urged him to significantly upgrade his digital operation and to find ways to drive a forward-looking agenda.

    Legit concerns, but maybe you’d like to get back to that “how” thing?

    The indicated that the campaign sees Arizona, Texas and Georgia as being in play. She is particularly “bullish,” she said, on Arizona, a traditionally red state. An accompanying slide described the Biden strategy in Arizona as a mix of persuading Romney-Clinton voters and others who have moved toward the Democratic Party recently, as well as increasing turnout among Latino voters and voters under 30.

    (cue the music) They’ve got…HIGH HOPES…they’ve got…HIGH HOPES…

    These are not plans for battleground states, these are aspirational wish lists. None of those states have Democratic governors, meaning voter fraud is going to be more difficult to commit. You know what states aren’t in that article? Ohio. Pennsylvania. Florida. Minnesota. Wisconsin. Michigan. Save Florida, I don’t see “young Latino voters” pulling them across the finish line in any of those. (And it’s not going to happen in Florida, either, but at least it’s conceivable there.) Either they’re doing a bad job of trying to headfake the Trump campaign or they’re repeating Clinton 2016 errors.

  • Enjoy another roundup of Biden gaffes. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Lives, jobs, millions, billions, it all goes into the Bidenmatic Word Slicer:

  • Writer notes that unscripted Biden sucks. Stop the presses…
  • Tidbits from Biden’s financial disclosure form:
    • Biden earned $135,116 in a salary from the University of Pennsylvania, according to the latest report, which dates back to the start of 2019. He took a role as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice professor in 2017 and went on unpaid leave in April 2019.
    • Joe Biden made about $450,000 from just four speaking engagements at the end of 2018 and first month of 2019. Jill Biden made about $100,000 from three speaking engagements.

    Nice work if you can get it…

  • “All The Times Joe Biden Told People Not To Vote For Him.”
  • Joe Biden’s pitch to the left. Strangely, it’s not just “I’m not Trump and I’m going to keel over soon.”

    “We hear this every Presidential election cycle,” Harry Reid, the former Senate Majority Leader, told me in February, on the eve of the Nevada caucuses. “At least every one I’ve been involved in for these many decades. ‘The Party is moving too far to the left. It’s just terrible. What are we going to do about it?’ Well, when the primaries are over, the candidate moves back to the middle.”

    Hear that, lefties? Harry Reid thinks you’re perpetual chumps!

    At the time, we were talking about what it would mean for the Democratic Party to have a democratic socialist as its standard-bearer. Bernie Sanders appeared very likely to become the Democratic Presidential nominee. The question of the moment was, how would the ascendent [sic; nice work, New Yorker ] left win over the middle? But, of course, Sanders has suspended his campaign, and Joe Biden is the Party’s de-facto nominee. And that’s complicated the scenario that Reid and the Party have seen so many times. As the primaries ended, the general election began, and the coronavirus crisis hit, Biden, catching up to his own nomination, has spent as much time trying to move left as move forward.

    “A united party is key to winning the White House this November,” Biden tweeted on Wednesday, linking to an article about the task forces that he and Sanders—erstwhile opponents, now allies—have appointed and charged with working toward Party unity in six policy areas: climate change, health care, immigration, education, criminal-justice reform, and the economy. “The work of the task forces will be essential to identifying ways to build on our progress and not simply turn the clock back to a time before Donald Trump—but transform our country,” Biden wrote. The appointees to the task forces include pairings of new progressive stars with veterans of the Obama Administration: former Secretary of State John Kerry and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will co-chair the climate-change group; Representative Pramila Jayapal and former surgeon general Vivek Murthy will co-chair the health-care group. For much of the primaries, Biden’s rhetoric was that Donald Trump was an aberration, and that the soul of America needed to be restored. Now he’s saying that the country cannot “turn the clock back.” The blend of old and new faces on the task forces suggest that a Biden Administration will be a bit of both.

    Oh boy, task forces! Participation trophies for everyone! Any that’s pretty much the extent of the piece, except for sucking up to Elizabeth Warren (AKA 🐍, who the left freaking hates).

  • Want to guess who Biden thinks is his secret weapon? Would you believe #NeverTrump?

    Grandpa Badfinger just let slip that he has a secret weapon for November. No, his secret weapon is not the utter hypocrisy of a Dem base that is eagerly going all in on a senile old weirdo who, when he says “#MeToo,” means that he too treated women like inanimate objects as did his pals Teddy Glug-Glug Kennedy, Bill Cohiba Clinton and Harvey Sex Toad Weinstein. Their hypocrisy can’t be a secret weapon because their hypocrisy is no secret.

    No, Gropey J’s secret weapon is – get this – “Republicans for Biden.”

    Stop looking at me like that. This is really a thing, according to the presumptive nominee whose nemesis is a particularly uppity squirrel living in his backyard.

    Snip.

    I assume President Trump is quaking in his Guccis at the impending onslaught of verbal pinching and slapping from the very secret, very butch roster of Never Trump literal and figurative heavyweights. The Beast further reports on the identity of these titans of treachery: “Those names include former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Wisconsin-based political analyst Charlie Sykes, conservative media giant Bill Kristol, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, longtime campaign operative Steve Schmidt, former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL), and columnist Mona Charen, among others.”

    I assume George Conway and Anna Navarro will be waddling along too, assuming that the organizers keep their promise and bring doughnuts. Lots of doughnuts.

    Nor should we count out egg-evoking fiscal conservative Evan McMullin, who it was reported conserved fiscally by not paying his campaign debts. I’m sure David French will be part of it because he’s got nothing better to do. Maybe Jonah Goldberg will join too. He is alleged to have a new website, though most of us haven’t gotten around to not reading it yet.

  • Foreshadowing:

  • Nothing President Trump or Joe Biden does seems to move the polls at all. Eh, most people have other things on their mind right now…
  • Lawrence O’Donnell: Are you going to name Stacey Abrams your running mate? Biden: Oh hey, look at the time!
  • Related:

  • Hmmm. Evidently Jill Biden is not a fan of Homewrecker Harris.
  • Heh:

  • “Biden Campaign Hires Interpreter To Translate His Speeches Into English.”

    • Like BidenWatch? Consider hitting the tip jar:





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    Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for May 15, 2020

    Friday, May 15th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Today’s theme is Democratic Governor’s ignoring the constitution to keep their precious lockdowns going, Obamagate, spying (domestic and foreign), a bit about aircraft, and funny animals. Dig in!

  • The economy: is the worst over? Let’s hope.
  • Remember how Georgia lifting the lockdown and opening the economy was going to kill everyone’s granny? Yeah, not so much: “Georgia Records Lowest Number of Coronavirus Patients in over a Month.”
  • More medical hope:

    Ever since President Trump expressed optimism about the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, the mere mention of that drug can elicit instantaneous, strident, and finger-wagging condemnation by the mainstream media and all those who are pulling for the pandemic to lay waste to the economy and pave the way for a fundamental progressive transformation of America. Despite its use by health-care providers across the country and around the world to successfully treat COVID-19, you will be mocked as either a fool or a snake oil salesman if you approvingly utter the word “hydroxychloroquine” or even express hope that it can be used to save lives. The word is simply not to be tolerated in polite, progressive society.

    Well, it appears that the list of forbidden words is about to get longer. The new additions include “corticosteroids” and “Methylprednisolone.”

    What do these widely available and relatively inexpensive drugs with known safety profiles have in common with hydroxychloroquine? Leading physicians are using them in addition to hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat COVID-19. And they are doing so without waiting two or three years for the results of randomized clinical trials.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • “Wuhan Virus Watch: Over Half of All U.S. Deaths Have Occurred in Just Five States.” “New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania. New York remains the hardest-hit state of any in the country by far, having logged nearly 27,000 deaths as of Saturday afternoon. The next-hardest-hit state, New Jersey, had recorded over 9,100.”
  • Speaking of Michigan:

    It is difficult to describe, and impossible to exaggerate, just how badly Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID-19 response has been, and it has been a catastrophe from the very beginning. In early March, when the country was already becoming concerned about the spread of the virus, Whitmer did not cancel the Democratic presidential primary, and indeed, there was record turnout for the March 10 primary, which turned into a “super spreader” event in metropolitan Detroit. She has since bungled practically every aspect of the pandemic, including her deliberately punitive and irrational lockdown policy. Now she would have us believe that she is the real victim of all this:

    Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Wednesday that the lockdown protests are “racist and misogynistic” and called on those with a platform to discourage the demonstrators.

    Whitmer told ABC’s “The View” that the protests are “really political” as demonstrators have brought nooses, Confederate flags and Nazi symbolism.

    “This is not appropriate in a global pandemic,” she said. “But it’s certainly not an exercise of democratic principles where we have free speech. This is calls to violence. This is racist and misogynistic.”

    I have no idea who brought nooses, etc., to these protests, although I suspect these were false-flag agents provocateurs — leftists pretending to be part of the protest and acting in ways intended to discredit Whitmer’s opponents. None of this, however, justifies her policies.

  • Just in case you thought there was an end to her awful policies: “Michigan state Rep. Leslie Love (D-Detroit) is blasting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) policy of returning coronavirus patients to nursing homes, making the Detroit lawmaker the second Democrat to criticize the governor publicly in less than a month.”
  • Speaking of which: “NY officials allowed COVID-positive workers to stay on the job at nursing homes — the facilities account for 25% of deaths in the state.” More of that brilliant one-party Democratic rule…
  • “Media Lies: Democrat Governors Doing Great Jobs Despite Higher Wuhan Death Rates.”
  • Continuing the theme (click to expand image):

  • Wisconsin Governor and bureaucracy: “Screw your rights. Stay at home.” Wisconsin Supreme Court: “Unconstitutional.” Wisconsin Governor and bureaucracy the very same day: “Oh yeah? Then screw your religion! No meetings for you God weirdos!” Every. Knee. Must. Bend.
  • That crap doesn’t fly in Texas:

    Dallas County Commissioner Judge Clay Jenkins has repeatedly tried to act as the ruler of Dallas County by attempting to force his will on everyone within it and each time he’s been put back in his place by everyone from the citizens of Dallas County to his own fellow commissioners.

    Jenkins has now awakened the wrath of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who issued a warning to him and other officials in other Texas counties who are trying to illegally prevent Texans from living doing things such as attending church.

    According to Paxton’s office, a warning was issued to three county judges and two mayors telling them to back off their make-believe thrones, or else there will be consequences:

    Attorney General Ken Paxton today issued letters to three Texas counties (Dallas, Bexar, and Travis) and two mayors (San Antonio and Austin), warning that some requirements in their local public health orders are unlawful and can confuse law-abiding citizens. These unlawful and unenforceable requirements include strict and unconstitutional demands for houses of worship, unnecessary and onerous restrictions on allowing essential services to operate, such as tracking customers who visit certain restaurants, penalties for not wearing masks, shelter-in-place demands, criminal penalties for violating state or local health orders, and failing to differentiate between recommendations and mandates.

  • The curve Democrats really want to flatten:

  • The government-imposed lockdown needs to end. But lot’s of people have (properly) set their own lockdown standards:

    Many of the most important mitigation strategies are unknown to the general public because they’ve taken place behind closed doors on the initiative of employers, not bureaucrats, and have little or nothing to do with legal mandates (which are themselves, as I can attest is the case here in Canada, a contradictory, hastily-conceived patchwork of federal and provincial directives and advisories). To give but one example I happen to be familiar with: Many of the men and women you see driving delivery trucks and construction vehicles are now governed by all sorts of rules, at pickup and drop-off, that allow them to perform their functions without coming within six feet of others. In some cases, they’ve been enabled with apps on their phones or dash-mounted tablets that permit them to coordinate these functions without any direct on-site human interaction whatsoever. Or they might be subject to thermometer-gun screenings to determine if they have a fever. Having implemented these lockdown-lite policies at great cost and inconvenience, employers aren’t going to dump them the moment the government gives them permission to do so, even though these procedures have increased costs and decreased output.

    Many employers I speak to are actually far more constricted by the concerns of their own employees than by the law itself. At one workplace that I know of, the boss announced that loosened provincial restrictions mean that everyone can come back to work this month. To his surprise, his employees announced that they’d voted on the issue through Facebook, and, no, they would not be coming back, at least not yet. And in Quebec, which is starting to let elementary-school students come back to class this month, thousands of parents—a majority at some schools—have decided to keep their children home. I am told by reliable sources within my own family that some of these parents are even pressuring their neighbours to do likewise, and are shaming dissenters on social media as bad parents. It’s lockdown by mob.

    To some extent, I find this attitude of populist hyper-vigilance to be exasperating, because sending your young kids to school is now generally safe (and, selfishly, because I think my own seven-year-old could benefit from getting back to a structured education environment). But we got into this mess by letting our guard down, and so it’s not surprising that many ordinary people want to err on the other side of the equation for a month or three. Whatever your views, though, if you’re all in a fuss about lockdown policy, please remember that the real lockdown was never imposed by government. It turns out that it was inside each and every one of us all along.

  • Devin Nunes thinks that the entire Trump transition team was under surveillance by the Obama Administration. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Don Surber asked a question back in 2017 that we ought to take a fresh look at: Was Obama using the NSA to spy on Romney during the 2012 election? Given what we know of Crossfire Hurricane, would anyone put it past him?
  • Related:

  • Russia, Russia, Russia!

  • Oh, lovely. Crowdstrike admits that there was no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC server.
  • Lives better for the living:

  • Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would like to know the truth behind Obama’s Fast and Furious illegal gun running program. A lot of us would like to know the same thing…
  • EU and German courts (strangely two different things in this story) are having a pissing match over whose gavel is bigger.
  • Canadian Broadcasting Company can’t decide just how it wants to lie about The Epoch Times and its reporting on the Chinese Communist Party’s culpability in the Wuhan Coronavirus. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • TSMC to build chip foundry in Arizona. This is a pretty big deal, as TSMC currently has the best fab tech in the world, and this will be their first ground-up American foundry (they currently have (I think) two other American fabs as the result of acquisitions from WaferTech and TI).
  • “Arkansas Professor Arrested For Concealing Communist Chinese Funding.”

    An engineering professor at the University of Arkansas has been arrested by the FBI and faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly hiding funding that he received from the communist Chinese government.

    The New York Times reports that “Simon Ang of the University of Arkansas, was arrested on Friday and charged on Monday with wire fraud.”

    “He worked for and received funding from Chinese companies and from the Thousand Talents program, which awards grants to scientists to encourage relationships with the Chinese government,” the report notes, adding that “he warned an associate to keep his affiliation with the program quiet.”

    The report explains that Ang’s alleged hiding of the funding enabled him to also get US government subsidies, specifically from NASA, to the tune of more than $5 million.

  • “Chinese Government Lays Off Entire Propaganda Team As American Media Doing Their Job For Them.
  • “CNN Replaces President Trump’s Press Briefings With President Xi’s.”
  • Capitalist fungus. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • “Billy doesn’t respond well to pressure.”
  • “Why we at $FAMOUS_COMPANY Switched to $HYPED_TECHNOLOGY.”
  • Important safety tip: Don’t stand on an active airport runway. This was Austin, so odds are it was an adler.
  • For Rich:

  • The Los Angeles Rams uniforms are horrible garbage.
  • “Democratic States Deploy Greta Thunberg Drones To Lecture People Who Go Outside.”
  • Water sausage eats breakfast:

  • Goat rodeo:

  • This dog is on my wavelength:

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Economics, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Regulation, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 2 Comments »

    Democrats to Austin Businesses: Drop Dead!

    Tuesday, May 12th, 2020

    While the rest of Texas moves to open up, The People’s Republic of Austin seems determined to keep businesses down:

    As Texans across the state suffer and struggle to provide food for their families under prolonged government-ordered shutdowns (even with the governor’s trickled reopening of businesses), one Central Texas county is continuing their lockdown into the summer.

    On Friday, Democrats Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt extended their stay-at-home orders on citizens; Austin’s order will last until May 30, but the county’s order will drag on until June 15.

    The order is an updated version of the officials’ original decree from March. It states, “All persons may leave their residences only for Essential Services and Essential Activities.”

    The order prohibits all public and private gatherings, tells “non-essential” businesses to cease operating, and says all citizens over the age of six “shall wear some form of face covering” when going out in public.

    Violating the order “may be punishable through criminal enforcement,” with citizens potentially being fined up to $1,000 or even thrown in jail for six months.

    It is questionable what effect the order will have because it largely conflicts with Gov. Greg Abbott’s recently updated statewide order that allows for limited reopening. According to Abbott, local officials like Adler and Eckhardt cannot impose more burdensome guidelines than his statewide executive order.

    Despite including criminal punishments in the order, the officials admitted their limitation, stating in the order numerous times that “no civil or criminal penalty will be imposed for failure to wear a face covering,” and that their punishments could be “limited by state order.”

    Translation: “We don’t have any power, but we want Austin and Travis County businesses to know that we truly want to bankrupt them.” Because letting drug-using transients sleeping on the sidewalks wasn’t doing enough to drive away business.

    (Speaking of bankruptcy, the lockdown seems to have claimed popular Austin restaurant Shady Grove.)

    If all those burdens weren’t enough, Adler wants Austin businesses to keep a log of customer activities in their business.

    Last Friday, Mayor Steve Adler announced his extended, questionably legal stay-at-home order, in which he “encourages” restaurants and businesses of 75 capacity or less to record an “activity log” of all customers that come in. That means collecting “contact information for all inside or sit-down customers and employees including the dates and times they were present in the business and the location where they sat or were served [in] a restaurant or reopened service with seating.”

    Though keeping a log isn’t mandatory, a business could potentially pay a devastating price if they don’t obey.

    “In the absence of [such] a log, Austin Public Health may need to publicly release, without limitation and in its discretion, the location where people with confirmed infections have been, with relevant dates and timeframes, so as to otherwise trace contacts,” the order reads.

    In other words, for the businesses who don’t follow the order, the city government can determine if they were exposed to the coronavirus and has unlimited power to publish their names to the public.

    Evidently Adler thinks business owners just stand around all day, and thus have time to be his unpaid Stasi agents, as opposed to having to serve customers, manage stock, and generally keep the business running. Adler’s never let reality get in the way of his grand ideas.

    And there’s just no shortage of Alder ideas.

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Elon Musk Threatens To Move Tesla To Texas

    Sunday, May 10th, 2020

    Elon Musk has finally had enough of California’s business-hostile tax and regulatory environment:

    Recall just days ago we reported that Tesla was sending people back to work at its Fremont factory in Alameda County before the area’s lockdown expired.

    Late last week, Alameda County responded by telling Musk that he could not re-open his factory. “We have not given the green light. We have been working with them looking at some of their safety plans. But no, we have not said that it is appropriate to move forward,” Erica Pan, interim health officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department, said on an online town hall meeting on Friday.

    That was enough to trigger a total Elon Musk meltdown. The CEO, who has been going off on diatribes about civil liberties on conference calls and podcasts alike, Tweeted out on Saturday that he is going to be suing Alameda County for not allowing him to re-open

    The question is what took him so long. Thanks to one party Democratic rule, California constantly ranks as one of the worst states to do business in. High taxes and a brutal regulatory environment made California prohibitively expense to do business in long before the Wuhan coronavirus lockdown provided the final straw.

    Musk’s tweet attracted some attention:

    Is this just a negotiating ploy to pressure the county into allowing Tesla to resume manufacturing? Possibly. But plenty of companies have already moved operations from California to Texas, including Toyota, Kubota, and Charles Schwab. And that exodus just keeps continuing.

    I used to do a regular Texas vs. California update, detailing how bad California’s business climate was and detailing all the California businesses going bankrupt or moving to Texas. Eventually I got so far behind that the in-progress post simply got too huge to finish. (And this was right around the time I started doing the Clown Car Update, which sucked up huge amounts of my time.) And then the Wuhan Coronavirus came along to wallop everyone’s economy, so most of those links are probably moot. I have a very strong suspicion that ending the unreasonable lockdown conditions earlier than most states will help Texas recover more strongly, and increase it’s lead as a business-friendly environment over California.

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    Posted in Democrats, Economics, Regulation, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Wilco LivePD Pissing Match: Take Two

    Thursday, May 7th, 2020

    Dwight sent this over, and it’s certainly something:

    Williamson County commissioners took a step toward suing Sheriff Robert Chody when they voted Tuesday to hire lawyers for a possible lawsuit over a contract he signed for the “Live PD” television show.

    LivePD is sort of “NFL RedZone for Cops.”

    Chody did not get permission from the Williamson County Commissioners Court before he signed an agreement in March allowing Big Fish Entertainment, the production company for “Live PD,” to resume filming sheriff’s deputies.

    In August, the commissioners canceled the county’s contract with “Live PD” after the show had come under fire from prosecutors and defense attorneys who cited a lack of access to potential evidence gathered by film crews, and from officials who said it portrayed the county in a poor light.

    Chody did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. He has hired, at his own expense, attorney Eric Taube to represent him, Taube said in an email Tuesday.

    “While the sheriff would have preferred to resolve this issue with the commissioners with civil discussion and dialogue, it appears that the commissioners would rather attempt to go down a different path,” Taube said.

    “The sheriff is happy to resolve this issue based upon the law and not on politics, and will look forward to continue to exercise his discretion as a law enforcement officer to serve the citizens of Williamson County as he believes most effective.”

    Taube did not respond to a request for comment on why the sheriff decided to sign an agreement with the production company without getting permission from the Commissioners Court, as had happened with the original contract.

    Jason Nassour, general counsel for Williamson County Attorney Dee Hobbs, sent the commissioners a letter Friday saying that, although the commissioners have the power to determine the sheriff’s budget, they cannot “decide how an official uses those resources once allocated and may not micromanage an official’s decisions as to the use of those resources.”

    The letter also said that what the sheriff signed with Big Fish Entertainment was not a contract but an access agreement.

    “The court has attempted to assert control based on the premise that the access agreement is a contract rather than what is actually is the sheriff’s lawful authorization to allow Big Fish representatives into those areas controlled by the sheriff,” the letter said.

    Commissioners have disagreed, saying what the sheriff signed was a contract and that the law gives the county control over how the sheriff’s facilities and equipment are used.

    Austin attorney and former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire said Tuesday, “The sheriff has almost no authority to contract with a vendor without approval by the Commissioners Court.”

    “But the sheriff has independent authority to operate his office, including deciding who can and who cannot be present on calls the deputies go out on. Having disputes between county officials that give rise to litigation is not common, but there have been plenty of them over the decades.”

    On Tuesday, the Commissioners Court unanimously hired the law firm of Howry Breen & Herman LLP and the law office of Randy Leavitt to represent the county in the dispute.

    “We are in the middle of a disaster, a pandemic, and people are sick, and people are losing their jobs … and the sheriff is playing on TV,” Commissioner Russ Boles said after the court approved hiring the lawyers.

    County Judge Bill Gravell abstained from voting on the hiring of the law firm and said he would not take part in the discussion of it in executive session. Gravell said there were “attorneys involved” that would cause him to abstain. He made no further comments.

    You may remember my post on the original LivePD ban, which seemed to be in response to various non-PC events at the Sheriff’s office.

    Chody reinstating LivePD after the Commissioner’s Court banned it once suggests there’s some sort of deeper pissing match going on there. Chody was an APD officer before he and his wife literally literally won the lottery, which would suggest that money isn’t a factor in his insistence on keeping LivePD filming.

    Both Chody and three-quarters of the commissioner’s court (along with Gravell) are Republicans, but the commissioner’s court voted unanimously to fill a cease-and-desist letter over LivePD. Chody attended President Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the union address at the invitation of Congressman John Carter.

    Does Chody like the fame LivePD brings him? Probably. Does the commissioner’s court have a grudge against him? Probably. But it feels like something else is going on here, and I’m not sure what it is.

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    Posted in Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for May 1 , 2020

    Friday, May 1st, 2020

    Happy Victims of Communism Day. Texas is reopening, California is closing beaches, and we contemplate the mysteries of Sweden and Denmark.

  • Director Blue sent me this comparison of Wuhan coronavirus curves in various countries. The point of the piece was that Sweden, which hasn’t practiced social distancing, is doing better than European countries that have. However, what I find most interesting is that Denmark seems to be doing even better. Anyone know the reason?
  • Speaking of Denmark, they haven’t seen any sort of uptick in cases since they reopened.
  • “New York Required Nursing Homes To Admit ‘Medically Stable’ Coronavirus Patients. The Results Were Deadly.”

    On March 25, New York’s Health Department issued a mandate that state nursing homes could not refuse COVID-19-positive patients who were “medically stable,” meaning facilities that housed the most vulnerable populations were forced to introduce the virus into their midst.

    A nursing home in Queens received two coronavirus patients who had been discharged from a hospital (but were still contagious and in need of care) – along with a box containing body bags, The New York Post reported. An executive at the facility told the Post it had been free of the coronavirus prior to accepting those two patients. The executive also said that along with the two patients arrived a shipment of personal protective equipment and the body bags.

    “My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” the executive told the Post. “The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.”

    The Post reported that within days, “three of the bags were filled with the first of 30 residents who would die there.” The nursing facility continued to receive shipments of five body bags per week since those first two patients arrived – and they have been needed.

    “Cuomo has blood on his hands. He really does. There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” the nursing home executive told the outlet. “Why in the world would you be sending coronavirus patients to a nursing home, where the most vulnerable population to this disease resides?”

  • Speaking Cuomo scandals, here’s a look back at the Buffalo Billions crony graft scandal.
  • What the hell? “NYPD telling cops to prioritize 311 calls over 911.” “People getting jumped, robbed, assaulted…doesn’t matter.” How do you expect NYPD to deal with assault when there are so many people standing only five feet apart?

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • While Texas is starting to reopen the economy today, California Governor Gavin Newsom is closing down the beach. This is what happens when your governor is Stuck On Stupid.
  • YouTube censors California doctors for daring to disagree with Democratic politicians.
  • Georgia lifts the stay-at-home order.
  • “California Prisons Release Thousands Of Felons To Make Room For Skaters, Surfers, People Who Go Outside.”
  • Are overall American death rates in the United States actually down due to the coronavirus?

    Low fatality rates for 2020 are, at this point, a mystery. However, assuming I am reading the CDC spread sheet correctly, one thing is clear: there are nowhere near as many deaths actually caused by COVID-19 as government sources claim. If the Wuhan flu had really killed 40,000 or so people who would not otherwise have died over the last 14 weeks, it would be obvious in the overall mortality statistics. The fact that no such effect is visible–that, astonishingly, the death rate has actually declined–is consistent only with the assumption that not many people have died from COVID-19 who would not have died anyway, at about the same time.

  • In the land of Blue-on-Blue violence, Michael Moore has produced a new documentary out that takes on environmental green-washing. (The full film can be found here.)
  • Politico admits that a President Trump/Bank of China hit piece was completely false.
  • “I’m not saying it’s aliens, but…” (Previously.)
  • Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear slams somebody for filing for unemployment under the name “Tupac Shakur.” Tiny problem: that’s the guy’s real name.
  • How Democrats suppressed Republican votes in Wisconsin.
  • “Two Americas: Karens and Everybody Else.”
  • Nailed it:

  • Whoa:

  • Flashback to 2016 and Kat Timpf at The Gathering of the Juggalos.
  • Dolly Parton the vampire slayer.
  • “YouTube Removing All Videos That Don’t Begin With The Chinese National Anthem.”
  • Your daily “Awwww”:

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    Gov. Abbott Unveils Plan To Reopen Texas

    Tuesday, April 28th, 2020

    After much criticism from conservative activists that he was moving too slowly to reopen the Texas economy, Governor Greg Abbott has finally unveiled his plan to do just that.

    Governor Greg Abbott today announced the first phase of the State of Texas’ ongoing plan to safely and strategically open Texas while minimizing the spread of COVID-19. Under Phase I, certain services and activities are allowed to open with limited occupancy, and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is issuing minimum standard health protocols for all businesses and individuals to follow. The Governor also outlined special guidance for Texans over 65 and detailed a comprehensive mitigation plan for nursing homes in Texas. The Governor also announced a statewide testing and tracing program developed by DSHS that will help public health officials quickly identify and test Texans who contract COVID-19 and mitigate further spread of the virus.

    The Governor’s announcement is accompanied by Texans Helping Texans: The Governor’s Report to Open Texas. This detailed report, available on the strike force website, helps Texans understand phase one by outlining the new protocols, guidance, and recommendations. The report also includes a series of Open Texas Checklists that outline DSHS’ minimum standard health protocols for all Texans.

    “This strategic approach to opening the state of Texas prioritizes the health and safety of our communities and follows the guidelines laid out by our team of medical experts,” said Governor Abbott. “Now more than ever, Texans must remain committed to safe distancing practices that reduce the spread of COVID-19, and we must continue to rely on doctors and data to provide us with the safest strategies to restore Texans’ livelihoods. We must also focus on protecting the most vulnerable Texans from exposure to COVID-19. If we remain focused on protecting the lives of our fellow Texans, we can continue to open the Lone Star State.”

    By way of Executive Order (GA-18), all retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and malls are permitted to reopen on Friday, May 1. These services must limit their capacity to 25% of their listed occupancy. Within shopping malls, the food-court dining areas, play areas, and interactive displays and settings must remain closed.

    All museums and libraries may open under the same 25% occupancy limitation, but interactive areas of museums must remain closed. State libraries and museums will open by May 1, and local public museums and libraries may reopen only if permitted by the local government. Single-person offices may reopen as well.

    Churches and places of worship remain open. Outdoor sports are allowed to resume so long as no more than four participants are playing together at one time. Certain social distancing practices must also be followed. Local government operations, including county and municipal government operations relating to permitting, recordation, and document-filing services, may reopen as determined by the local government.

    DSHS has recommended minimum standard health protocols for all individuals, all employers and employees, as well as industry-specific protocols for retailers, retail customers, restaurants, restaurant patrons, movie theaters, movie theater customers, museums and libraries, museum and library visitors, outdoor sports participants, single-person offices, and low COVID-19 counties. These protocols are outlined in the Open Texas Checklists within the Governor’s report beginning on page 20.

    Essential services such as farmers and ranchers, grocery and drug stores, banks, and gas stations will continue to operate. Public swimming pools, bars, gyms, cosmetology salons, massage establishments, interactive amusement venues, such as bowling alleys and video arcades, and tattoo and piercing studios will remain closed through Phase I. Nursing homes, state supported living centers, assisted living facilities, and long-term care facilities must remain closed to visitors unless to provide critical assistance.

    The Governor also established increased occupancy protocols for certain counties with five or fewer laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19. Those counties may, on an individualized basis, increase occupancy limits to up to 50% for restaurants, retail, shopping malls, museums and libraries, and movie theaters if they meet certain criteria. The county judge must certify and affirm to DSHS that the following standards have been investigated and confirmed to be met:

    1. The county had five or fewer COVID-19 laboratory confirmed cases on April 30, 2020 or, at a later date, five or fewer active COVID-19 cases as verified by DSHS.
    2. The county has created a list of testing opportunities in the county or the area.
    3. The county has been in contact with its designated regional advisory council to ensure the community is prepared for any needed health care transfers.
    4. The county has provided public notice to the residents of the county, including: Signs and symptoms of COVID-19: Recommended health and safety protocols in line with CDC guidance; Information regarding how residents can get tested in the area; A link to the DSHS website where residents can go to learn about community spread in nearby communities, in order to help county residents understand their risk to exposure if they travel regularly outside of the county.
    5. The county has contacted each of the following types of facilities located in the county to ensure they are complying with Texas Health and Human Services (HHSC) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines regarding COVID-19: Nursing homes; Assisted living facilities; Industrial, agricultural, or business facilities with a significant number of employees; and City or county jails.
    6. The county is equipped and prepared to protect vulnerable populations, including nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
    7. The county has documented procedures to be activated if a resident becomes COVID-19 positive, including procedures to take appropriate measures as necessary in line with the plan to open Texas.
    8. The county has contacted DSHS in order to create a plan to ensure contact tracing will occur within 48 hours of a positive test reported to DSHS.

    Phase I will begin Friday May 1 and continue until at least May 18. The Governor will continue to evaluate next steps for the state.

    I like the fact that there’s some movement to reopen the economy, and that there’s finally a recognition that it’s stupid for Harris and Loving counties to be following the same rules. In fact, I’d prefer to see counties with no reported cases open up 100%.

    What I dislike is the institutional hypocrisy of imposing rules that no one is going to enforce. Do you think police are going to go around calculating capacity? “Hey! This place is 27% full! You, get out!”

    Outdoor sports with four people sounds like a pander to the golf set, although I suppose tennis, boxing and mixed martial arts would all qualify if it occurs outdoors, but five people playing Frisbee? Verboten!

    The restaurant patron guidelines have all the power of Austin Powers saying “Oh, behave!”

    I’m OK with continued nursing home guidelines.

    I would like to see more bias toward freedom in these guidelines and less toward ass-covering, with lots of guidelines that seem to be there just so Abbott and company can say “I told them to do X!” if infection rates start rising again.

    My guess is they won’t, based on the almost universal infection decline curve exhibited in various countries, and increasing evidence that sunlight/hard UV kills the virus. In fact, on that basis I’d like to see limited reopening of bars for outdoor service. Maybe in Phase 2?

    Texas has the second-best recovery rate from infection of any state:

    Our hospitals are not overwhelmed, so we have the capacity to handle an uptick in cases.

    Based on those metrics, I would have liked to see more boldness from Gov. Abbott than shown here. Abbott’s advisory board seems to be looking at the early (inaccurate) models rather than latter data.

    Still, an overly timid reopening is much better than no reopening at all…

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    Posted in Economics, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Harris County Democratic Judge Lina Hidalgo: I Decree That All Subjects Wear Masks. HPD Union: GET STUFFED!

    Thursday, April 23rd, 2020

    Here’s another case of a government official using the Wuhan coronavirus as an excuse to exceed their legal authority. Harris County Democratic Commissioners Court Judge Lina Hidalgo decreed that not only must every resident of the county wear a mask, but that they’d be subject to to 180 days in jail or a $1,000 fine for disobeying:

    Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo on Wednesday ordered residents to cover their faces in public starting next week, the latest effort by local governments to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

    The new rules, which require residents 10 and older to cover their nose and mouth when outside the home, take effect Monday and last 30 days. Acceptable garments include a homemade mask, scarf, bandana or handkerchief. Medical masks or N-95 respirators are not recommended as they are most needed by first responders and health workers.

    Under the order, the county’s 4.7 million residents must cover their faces at all times except when exercising, eating or drinking; the exemptions also include when individuals are alone in a separate single space, at home with roommates or family, or when wearing a mask poses a greater risk to security, mental or physical health. Violating the mask rules is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, though Hidalgo urged police to use discretion.

    The Houston Police Officers Union has decided to use discretion by not enforcing an illegal decree:

    Our officers work every single day to bridge the gap with our community and earn their trust, we will not stand idly by and allow Hidalgo to tear that bridge down, with her horrific leadership and echo chamber decision making.

    Let’s just say that Hidalgo’s attempt to release criminals into the public using coronavirus as an excuse was not popular with Houston police officers. They’re also seeking a ruling from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on whether Hidalgo’s decree is legal under Texas law, and note that police response is already way to thin with crime up in the city.

    You can read the complete text in the following tweet:

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott is expected to announce further loosening of coronavirus restrictions on Friday.

    Very rarely does a public employees union strike a blow for freedom, so let’s savor this rare occasion…

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    Posted in Democrats, Regulation, Texas, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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    Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020

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    Posted in Democrats, Texas | 4 Comments »

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