California teachers union official who’s spent months claiming that schools are unsafe…

…you already know where this is going, don’t you? Yet another Democrat official demanding compliance from the proles, while seizing special treatment for them and theirs. Right?

Right. And you know he’s a Democrat, because, well, he’s white, and elected, and in Berkeley, and I’ll just defer to the physical description:

“White man with dreads”. Only Urban Progressive Privilege conveys that level of immunity to charges of “cultural appropriation”.

Anyway – Meyer was caught on tape by “reopening” activists dropping his kids off at a private pre-school. I’ve added emphasis:

“Meet Matt Meyer. White man with dreads and president of the local teachers’ union,” the group wrote in a tweet on Saturday along with video footage of Meyer. “He’s been saying it is unsafe for *your kid* to be back at school, all the while dropping his kid off at private school.”

Meyer told Fox News in a statement that the video, which blurred out his child’s face, was “very inappropriate” and an intrusion of his child’s privacy. He added that there were “no public options for kids her age.”

Right – because of him, his union, and the state government over which both have inordinate control.

The Democrats are going to need another Republican to go to Cancun, and stat.

Big Karen warned us – those Super Bowl tailgate parties in Tampa were going to lead to the extinction of Florida Man.

Those of us who paid attention in high school science noted that there’s incredibly low correlation between outdoor gatherings and Covid transmission.

“The science says ‘obey or die!'”, Big Karen responds.

Observation indicates – well…

You can almost feel the disappointment wafting out from Big Karen.

When they’re not busy deflecting away from the fact, that is.

All is proceeding exactly as Joel Kotkin predicted.

At least a decade and half ago, urbanist Kotkin predicted…the present. Even then, urban growth patterns were trending away from the core-city/bedroom suburb model of the 1950s-1980s; most real growth was occuring on the fringes of the cities, and in medium-sized cities at the periphery. Most immigration was to the suburbs, not the fabled tenements of now-unaffordable major coastal cities. Indeed, cities were returning to their historical roots; European cities like London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, and even New York City and Boston, are mazes of smaller neighborhoods, built around settlement patterns, markets and industries (“Steinway”, in Queens, was a piano-building company town), rather than a general agglomeration of businesses.

Kotkin’s thesis – that eventually, today’s cities will become three concentric patterns:

1. An inner core of incredible wealth, as the 1% enjoys easy access to big-industry offices and core amenities.
2. A middle donut of intense poverty, a convenient place for Social Services to warehouse people on assistance.
3. An outer, exurban ring blending into the hinterlands, where most of the actual people and growth are happening.

The pandemic, and the explosive acceptance of remote white and pink-collar work, is accelerating this.

The whole piece is worth a read. This pullquote in particular grabbed me:

Referring to the internet as an “information superhighway” is retro in the most cringeworthy way. But here, the metaphor seems apt. Decades after the construction of the U.S. highway system allowed high-income families to move from downtowns to the distant suburbs, Zoom might do the same. Remote work could do to America’s residential geography in the 2020s what the highway did in the 1950s and ’60s: spread it out.

Today, the term supercommuting is often used to describe the punishment inflicted on lower-income workers who have to live far from their job because of the scarcity of affordable housing. But the remote-work revolution could spawn the rise of something a little different: the affluent supercommuter who chooses to move to a big exurban house with the expectation that she’ll make fewer, longer commutes to the office.

“Historically, people who work from home don’t commute less overall, because they just drive longer distances,” Autor told me, referring to a Federal Reserve study from 2019. One shouldn’t put too much stock in a survey of pre-pandemic behavior. But the logic of fewer-but-longer commutes should lead to small towns and suburbs experiencing the fastest price growth. And, lo and behold, that’s exactly the story the online rental data are already telling us.

I left rural America for a reason; there were things about urban life that could not be found out in the hinterland. And I’m in a career where it genuinely helps to be where the work is. Will either of those factors change when – if – this pandemic ever sunsets?

No idea.

The big winners so far are Zoom, and Joel Kotkin.

The bad news: As I observed with Ann Bauer while filling in for Brad Carlson last week, lockdowns are killing kids – especially kids who are, like so many these days, predisposed to mental illness:

Millions of American kids are struggling, and their chances for long-term improved mental health is predicated on the notion that we will now prioritize their emotional well-being, which our society has tragically shown it has no intention of doing.

Our hope for raising an emotionally healthy and mentally stable generation is dissipating with every day kids are kept locked in their bedrooms and out of schools. Skyrocketing rates of depression and anxiety are in no small part due to the fact that children feel neglected and forgotten, and they are not wrong to feel that way.

Our society has abandoned them and treated them as disposable. The damage caused by this abandonment is incalculable, and compounding every day we allow inertia, irrationality and the craven priorities of teachers unions to rule our decision-making.

The good news?

What, are you new around here? This is progressivism at work, operating through its wholly owned subsidiaries “Big Education” and “Big Karen”. Short of turning our culture around, there is none.

I recently suggested a new on-going feature, walking back the lies.  I have another item for the column.

The Best and Brightest people who sneered at Conservatives as ignorant, hateful racists for suggesting the debunked idea that a lab in Wuhan was the source of the virus and the Chinese were covering it up – are walking back the lie.  It seems  the virus may indeed have originated in Wuhan and the Chinese may indeed have covered it up. 

No apology of course.  No admission that Conservatives were right all along.  We don’t insist on that, don’t expect it, and would be astonished if it were forthcoming.

But somebody should remember and therefore the purpose of this ongoing feature.  We were right.  And they knew it. 

Joe Doakes

Series? Not a bad idea at all.

It’s verging on a Berg’s Law of “Fact-Checking” – something to the effect of “to the ‘fact-check’ caste, truth is directly correlated to “did a progressive say it”.

Thinking.

….that Ron DeSantis is high up on my short list of candidates for 2024.

I am saying that if he keeps up with his competent, fact-driven crisis management combined with his Trump-like ability to cut through the narrative BS while maintaining an air of measured acerbity…

…he could get there pretty quick.

Covid is acting exactly like any other respiratory virus.

It bursts onto the scene, kills a bunch of people who have no immunity, then fades into the background as the vulnerable host population dies off and the immune population go on with their lives.

So where’s the big emergency that justifies the dictatorship, again?

Joe Doakes

Title line says it all.

Turns out Americans can unify on one thing – gunning up.

Even in Minnesota?

Perhaps especially so.

the numbers: The National Shooting Sports Foundation tallied more than 37,600 statewide requests to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in January — nearly double from 18,990 in January 2020.

It wasn’t just January: More than 380,000 background checks were recorded here in 2020, up 49% from the previous year.

380,000 NICS checks in 2020 is more than one for every ten eligible Minnesotans (over 21 with a clean criminal record).

Feel that #Unity

President Biden admits the nation is powerless to change the trajectory of the virus.

He did not specifically concede President Trump was right all along, did everything he could, and nobody could have done anything better.  But giving up the fight two days after taking office means President Biden has no plan to defeat the virus because a virus cannot be defeated, it can only be endured.

It would have been nice if he had said that before the election but hey, better late than never, right?

Joe Doakes

It’s worse than that. Throughout the campaign, he croaked “I have a plan” for Covid.

He knew is was BS.

The people who wrote, and continue to write, everything he says, and control his “administration”, knew it too.

They could all count on one increasingly irreducible fact – a majority of Democrat voters are emotion-driven muppets with the critical thinking skills of barn-raised turkeys.

A friend of the blog emails:

How come we can call the new Covid strain from Brazil “The Brazil Strain” but we can’t call the Chinese strain “The Chinese Strain”?

Presumably because Brazilians are “white Hispanics” [1]

[1] “Hispanic”, meaning from the Iberian Peninsula, which is where Portugal is. And yes, the vast majority of Brazilians are not of Iberian descent. The joke is as absurd as the intersectional double-standard.

“Know what’d be better for halting Covid than wearing a mask? Wearing two masks. Let’s all do it.

But wait – you know what’d be better than wearing two masks? Three masks! Let’s get on board…

Hang on – you know what’d be better than wearing three masks? Four masks! That’s like four times the protection! So…

Jst a doggone minute – you know what’d be better than wearing four masks? Five masks! Bam!

Whoa, dudes, dudettes and non-binariliy-duded – you know what’d be better than wearing five masks? Si masks! Let’s smoke this brisket…

But…ay caramba – you know what’d be better than wearing six masks? Seven masks! Holy cow, we got the virus on the run now…

But hold your horses, hombres – you know what’d be better than wearing seven masks? Eight masks! Can you smell the victory…

Wow – wow wow wow – you know what’d be better than wearing eight masks? Nine masks! This must be what Jonas Salk felt like…

Oh, maaaaaan – you know where I’m going, right? 10 masks! Let’s get on board…

D’oh – I’m such a silly. Why stop at 10 when 11 masks are sitting right in front…no, wait, 12! 12 masks!…

…where we turn over control over “concern about the deficit and national debt” from one party to the other.

UPDATE: Also the date many of us become “domestic terrorists” in the eyes of the ruling party and Media (ptr).

UPDATE 2: On the other hand, today is the beginning of the period where Covid will be recognized as something that, between natural immunity and vaccines, will burn itself out and cease to be a national health crisis.

Study from Stanford University concludes lock-downs have no significant
effect on Covid spread and the small effect they might have, could be
achieved by less restrictive means.

I doubt it’ll stay up long, once Liberals realized it proves
Conservatives were right all along:  there is no scientific basis for
lock-downs and Stay Home orders, and without a scientific basis for the
regulations, they’re simply unconstitutional power grabs.

PDF copy attached.

Joe Doakes

To paraphrase the old law school saying: when the emotion is against you, argue science. When the science is against you, argue emotion. When both science and emotion are against you…doxx them?

For all of the pomp and circumstance and portent of Governor Klink’s grand proclamations on Covid policy, the inescapable fact is that he ahd his administration are doing a terrible job:

And the graphic here spells it out pretty starkly – Minnesota is lagging pretty much everyone.

Maybe the Governor is hoping to put that freezer morgue to use, still?

That was then:

This is now:

Remember – it’s all about science. We are “science” = political expediency.

It may be a bit much to hope that America’s celebrity culture (like “expert”-worship) might be an ongoing casualty of Covid-19.

But it’s been an encouraging year on that front, if nothing else.

And just to help remind you how “we’re all in it together”, here’s a parade of society’s useless celebrity mouths, from last spring, telling all of us plebs to be patient, because socialism is on the way, ho ho ho:

SCENE: Mitch BERG is at Fleet Farm, looking for new liners for his old chopper mittens. Engrossed in his search, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE walking around the corner, a quizzical look on hi…er, he…er, Avery’s face. LIBRELLE notices BERG.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Uh, hi, Avery. What brings you out to Fleet Farm?

LIBRELLE: Picketing against the Navy and farmers!

BERG: Of course…

LIBRELLE: It’s time to tax the billionaires for all the excess profits they’ve been earning because of the deadly Trump pandemic.

BERG: So let me make sure I get this straight…

LIBRELLE: Uh, heteronormative…

BERG: Huh? Oh, for f…ranklin Delano Roosevelt’s sake. OK. Let me make sure I get this correct: you want to raise taxes on the e-commerce billionaires who are prospering mightily…

LIBRELLE: Yes.

BERG: …because the small businesses that were competing with them were destroyed by the government’s ham-fisted handling of the pandemic, which was imposed by the government that you now want to make the ultimate beneficiary of the government’s own dork-fingered, utterly catastrophic mis-handling of the response?

(But LIBRELLE has already wandered off, looking for wherever the ships are).

(And SCENE)

Further evidence that the “state of emergency” is more about power and wealth transfer than public health: the ritzy French restaurant where Gavin Newsom (among many Democrat pols) entertained his friends in flagrant violation of his own quarantine rules, keeps on profiting from its special connection.

And as Megan Fox at PJM notes, the story comes from an unlikely source – a mainstream media investigative unit:

But real journalists still exist and ABC7, a local station in the Bay Area, did an amazing piece of investigative work that uncovered that The French Laundry applied for and received more COVID relief than any other restaurant in town. And not just more, but seventeen times more.

The luxury restaurant where Governor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed were notoriously spotted dining during a COVID-19 surge, reportedly received millions in PPP funding.

Yountville’s highly acclaimed French Laundry received multiple loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, totaling more than $2.4 million, according to an ABC7 analysis of newly-released data from the Small Business Administration.

The French Laundry received two loans that were both approved on April 30, 2020. According to the SBA, the first loan was for more than $2.2 million to retain 163 employees. The second loan was for $194,656 to retain five employees.

ABC7’s analysis found the company received 17 times more than what the average Bay Area restaurant received.

Other restauranteurs weren’t so lucky.

“That’s a lot of money. But, what can I do about it?” said Dennis Berkowitz, former owner of San Mateo restaurant Vault 164.

Berkowitz struggled to get around $318,000 to retain roughly 50 employees. The loan amount wasn’t enough to sustain his business, and he was forced to sell the restaurant in July.

“I’ve had a 40-year run in the restaurant business, so I consider myself fortunate,” he said. “I really feel bad for the next generation of restaurateurs because they’re screwed.”

The investigative team at ABC7 ought to win an award for this one. They uncovered what we have suspected for a while. Most of those COVID loans went to the guys with the big bucks who can purchase influence, while the little guy got screwed. 

My hunch, on the other hand? Nobody in that newsroom will do lunch on Market Street again.

A list – and a partial one at that – of the Twin Cities restaurants that’ve spun in so far in 2020.

I say “partial”, because every Khan’s Mongolian BBQ I’ve driven past in the last few weeks has been either listed “for Lease” or, in the case of the Roseville store, been replaced by…

…you guessed it, a national chain (Olive Garden, in this case) with the resources to ride out a government-induced depression. I don’t see them on the list.

Not sure what’s more disturbing – the number of restaurants that list “burned down during the riots” as their cause of death, or the ones that say from beyond the business grave that they support Governor Walz’s draconian state of emergency even though it’s destroyed their business/es.

“We’d have solved Covid, if only the American people weren’t so petulant and childish about petty infringements on freedom for the public good”

It’s the Karen lullaby.

And it’s wrong:

Polls since March have shown that Americans overwhelmingly aren’t in denial: They believe the threat of Covid-19 is real, they are reasonably good at identifying medical misinformation, and they are largely complying with public health recommendations. Compared to their peers in Europe, Americans are more willing to get vaccinated against Covid-19, similarly likely to wear masks, and no more prone to believe common conspiracy theories about the pandemic’s origins.

The U.S.’s response to Covid-19 has been bungled in many respects, but widespread public denial doesn’t explain why.

The obsession with denialism isn’t just inaccurate. It’s corrosive for at least three reasons. First, it needlessly alienates the interested public with false accusations. Second, by conflating reasonable dissent with unreasonable misinformation, it stifles debate, even about issues that genuinely warrant discussion. Third, the myth of denial deflects blame from the policy failures of politicians, who use it to claim they’ve done all they could, leaving only the denialists (and cheesecake eaters) to blame.

Back last summer, when an orgy of Blue Fragiility had Minnesotans claiming that the state’s Covid numbers were driven by unmasked Dakotas residents flagrantly crossing the border, I pointed out, as someone who (unlike pretty much any progressive in the world) had been to a Dakota (four times in 2020 so far) that people there were no less socially-distanced (above and beyond their normal natures, even) and masked up than Minnesotans.

And to about the same effect.

It’s rhetorical, because Big Media never actually responds to the plebs.

But is it possible…:

…that there could be a less scientifically literate phrase than “believe in Science?”

How about “Think Critically about the data in front of us, and make an informed decision?”

Nah, that’s just more radical conservative talk.

People who invested their lives and fortunes, who filled out forms and jumped through hoops, who passed background checks and credit checks and character checks, people who pay wages and taxes and fees and support the local schools, are dirty, rotten, low-down criminals who ought to be thrown in the hoosegow.  Keith Ellison is all over it.

From the article: “Two more courts have recognized the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the firm legal foundation of the State’s legitimate interest in putting a stop to it,” Ellison said.

Somehow, I doubt that. I’d bet a brand-new nickel the court didn’t listen to one minute of testimony from anybody about the Covid virus, its infectiousness or its fatality rate to determine whether Covid was actually a severe problem or not.  And I seriously doubt there was extensive briefing on the rational basis between the alleged problem and the Governor’s solution, which is the Constitutional standard for government restrictions that take away a vested property right.  Governor Walz’ restrictions are so arbitrary, so whimsical, so ridiculous that even the New York Times had to admit they were unscientific and bizarre.  I’d be surprised if a court found differently.

Instead, my guess is the court simply presumed the order was a valid exercise of executive power and like the Red Queen, skipped the trial to go directly to punishment.  As long as Democrats refuse to return power to the elected representatives of the people, Ellison will use the infinite power of the state to crush business owners, the courts will lie back and let him, and Minnesotans will continue to suffer.

When the political process is unavailing, the judicial system is unavailing, and the result is unjust, what’s the remedy?

Joe Doakes

Whatever it is, let’s f*****g get on with it.

Remember – it’s not what you know.

It’s who you know that has the power and media acquiescence to flout the rules any damn way they want to.

To: Governor Walz
From: Mitch Berg, impudent peasant and Covid “Survivor”
Re: I’m Here To Help

My Liege,

You and your administration have been having a hard time getting ahead of the Covid virus, and your stated goal of “controlling the spread”.

I’m here to help.

More proximately, I’m here to help by showing you policies from elsewhere in your own career that can fix things, deux ex Moderna, for you.

So this is what you need to do solve Covid’s violence against Minnesotans:

1. Find some national organization to whom you can (falsely, without any actual link) tie Covid. Which organization? Doesn’t matter – could be Ducks Unlimited for all we care. Just fine one, and start demonizing them.
2. Get your progressive plutocrat funders to pony up to created “grassroots” non-profits to push “common sense Covid laws” in the Legislature.
3. Support creating a registry of people who get Covid. Because it’s just common sense to know who’s got this deadly disease.
4. When citizens suspect someone might have Covid, allow citizens to file court orders allowing the policy to go into their homes and enforce quarantines.
5. If people have the kind of Covid that includes the skin rash, take it away from them. Nobody needs that.

Glad I could help with these commonsense Covid laws.

That is all.

…that if you call yourself an “ethicist” on the one hand, but on the other seek to deny people either a good or service for which they’ve paid, or perhaps to which they are entitled, directly or indirectly, because they exercised their right to free speech, you’re not actually an ethicist.

You’re a wanna-be Mussolini given a stage, at least for a while, by the misery of others.

Glad I could settle that.

Carry on.