We can’t blame all of our farts on the dog anymore.
Now that Trump is relegated to Mar-a-Lago without access to social media, the decisions made by our leaders are without the counterbalance of “I’d rather that than him.” For example, violent protest in Portland are without the moral righteousness of an election and are now simply… violent protests.
Same with COVID responses, without the President joking about drinking bleach we now look at how local governments are handling this problem without comparison. Enter California, who ripped up their state shutdown metrics from the spring when the winter surge happened. Instead of restrictions going county by county, stay at home orders would be levied in five “regional hospital networks.” The pitch was simple, all that mattered was ICU capacity. Fall below 15% and you will get shut down. The entire state very quickly sank below the line.
That was months ago. And with the state now recovering from the worst, the question becomes when basic freedoms can return. This issue became more pressing in the Bay Area over the weekend when the state’s own web portal showed the hospital network at 23.4%, well above the threshold.
So, can restaurants wheel out their space heaters again? Will backyard BBQers no longer be violating the law for having a “private gathering of any size”? Is this the end of speakeasy haircuts?
We don’t know! Why? Because the state of California refuses to show their data on how they determine the key metrics triggering the lockdowns. This is even more confusing since the Greater Sacramento region came out of their lockdown orders last week despite having an ICU capacity below 15%.
COVID leadership is very hard. You are never going to please everyone. However, the burden of that leadership falls to those we elected to those positions.
Even if we don’t agree with the decisions, it is our right to know the data behind them.
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THE REST OF THE NEWS…
Impeachment articles transmitted today, trial in two weeks
NEW YORK TIMES
Delay allows Biden cabinet to be installed.
Militia members planned storming capital in the days before January 6th riot
WASHINGTON POST
Very clear that amongst the LARPers there were some among the crowd that had more than selfies on their mind.
Sander pushes to use Senate majority “aggressively”
NEWSDAY
National Guard to stay in DC through impeachment trial
POLITICO
Hopefully they can get better digs than a parking garage.
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Will Trump write a Book? Will he tease the idea of giving away America's Best secrets? Who killed JFK, area 51 and the like. Seems like something he would do. - KEN S
He almost certainly will. Who will publish it is a very good question.
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Biden put in an EO requiring masks on federal property, but he isn’t wearing one while in the Oval Office with other people around. Seems pretty anti-science to me. When can we start the impeachment? - DAVID
Found Marjorie Taylor Greene’s alt.
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As a fellow small-government guy, I have to confess I don't get what Scale sees in the Trump administration. Sure, there were some good judges, but basically everything else was rank incompetence. And it's not like Trump *himself* holds any particular reverence for small-government policies. He demonstrated quite clearly at every opportunity that he viewed the presidency as akin to a CEO role, where what he says goes. - MATT
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You know what? I'm starting to like the fact that the worlds oldest president is in charge. These young whipper-snapper politicians like Hillary and Trump are all cyber-bullies. Biden couldn't cyber-bully if he wanted to. - KEN P
C’mon man!
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Why does the impeachment trial "happening in his first 100 days" mean ANYTHING to Biden? - ESKOBOMB
While I agree that the “First 100 Days” is overstated in the sense that no president truly has a “mandate” that will make opposing Senators soften resistance because there is new leadership. However, the opening weeks of a presidency is unquestionably important in that THINGS haven’t happened yet. Right now the only thing we are thinking about as a nation is what Biden is going to do. We haven’t had a natural disaster or a terrorist attack or a school shooting or a massive scandal that reshuffles congressional power. We are also only going to get closer to the mid-terms where Senators will be worrying about upcoming elections. Barring a game-shifting event, we are still on the right side of the conflicts and trade-offs that will be necessary to get anything done. Everything in congress has a consequence and the lack of built up consequences is helpful.
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The legality or morality of Keystone aside, it feels like a fair statement that this executive order was setting the new line of scrimmage to restart the game now that guy waving the gun around went home. It let Republicans put guys in hard hats on TV decrying their lost jobs during the pandemic, and the left to celebrate an early win. It also seems to have relegated most of the outrage over the Transgender Executive order to RT and more odious bits of Twitter. - MIKE M