Seen and Heard on the Sisolak Shutdown Front
March 25, 2020
From my friend Rich Galen at Mullings.com…
“3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance for the week ending March 21. Donald Trump is correct. The U.S. economy has stopped cold, like a pickup run out of gas on a farm-to-market road in rural Texas. Goin’ nowhere.”
“Those 3.28 million people who filed for unemployment insurance last week are not sitting around pondering economic theory. Their checking accounts are close empty. Their credit cards are close to maxed out. They have a family to feed, but no job to generate the cash necessary to feed them.”
Yet Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s statewide lockdown edicts – filled with nonsensical and irrational exemptions – appear to be even more deadly economically than anticipated.
Some 93,000 Nevadans filed for unemployment last week – a 182% rise; the highest rate in the nation. And that doesn’t even include all those who have been unable to actually file their claim yet.
The loss of tax revenue just from the gaming industry during the 30-day Sisolak Shutdown is tagged at $66 million. Yet the governor doesn’t think a special session of the Legislature is necessary.
Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burns!
The Big Question
Why are private businesses and private sector workers being classified as “essential” and “non-essential” – with non-essential businesses being closed down and non-essential workers being forced to apply for unemployment…but we’re not doing the same for GOVERNMENT workers?
So Let It Be Written; So Let It Be Done
On Tuesday, Nevada Gov. Steve “Little Caesar” Sisolak issued yet another of his almighty edicts from his Carson City bunker nestled high up on Mt. Olympus…
“The Nevada general public shall not gather in groups of ten or more in any indoor or outdoor area, whether publicly owned or privately owned where the public has access by right or invitation, express or implied, whether by payment of money or not, including without limitation, parks, basketball courts, volleyball courts, baseball fields, football fields, rivers, lakes, beaches, streets, convention centers, libraries, parking lots, and private clubs.”
The governor went on to declare that anyone violating his latest order “may be subject to criminal prosecution and civil penalties.”
Hmm, question: What if a group of ten or more wishes to gather in a park for, say, a picnic - but stay at least six feet away from one another? How would that pose a public health risk?
As usual, this latest diktat comes with a ridiculously contradictory exception to the rule…
“(T)his directive shall not be enforced against homeless persons.”
Lovely. Especially in light of reports today that the Chinese coronavirus has now hit the Catholic Charities and Courtyard homeless facilities in Las Vegas.
I guess the silver lining here is that thanks to the governor taking a wrecking ball to our economy, there will soon be a lot more homeless people who won’t have to follow his orders.
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
As President Trump continues to conduct daily live press conferences and briefings, Gov. Sisolak has only come out of the bunker a few times…
Usually to amend, change or clarify something confusing or contradictory he said in an earlier press briefing…
On Facebook…
Taking only a smattering of questions from the media…
Which are submitted in advance with no follow-up…
Are read to him by a staffer rather than asked by the reporter…
And as often as not go answered.
“Nevadans continue to be in the dark about what Gov. Sisolak and state officials are doing to increase surge capacity at hospitals,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted in an editorial on Wednesday. “What are the many government ‘emergency management’ personnel doing to ensure the medical supply chain remains viable or the state has secured enough respirators?
“Many state residents are also wondering how long these ‘stay-at-home’ orders will last given the economic calamity they may produce. There may be no crystal ball, but the public deserves regular updates on these issues from the man they elected to lead the state.”
Indeed. If you’re going to single-handedly destroy the state’s economy, bankrupt thousands of small businesses and put an army of workers out of work, the least you can do is take some unfiltered questions on a daily basis from the Fourth Estate…even on Facebook.
But instead…
In today’s Facebook episode of “As the World Burns,” the governor took off his emperor’s cape and assumed the role of morning talk-show host interviewer.
He interviewed a doctor no one has ever heard of and few could hear or understand. You’d think maybe someone on his staff would at least have some experience in using, you know, a high-quality wireless microphone.
I tuned out in less than five minutes. What an embarrassment. What a joke.
This whole situation in Nevada hasn’t just been a health crisis. It’s been a crisis of leadership, as well. Gov. Sisolak, way over his head, is proving he’s the wrong man for the wrong job at exactly the wrong time.
Wine, But No Women or Song
In the “old days” you could go to a restaurant and order a bottle of wine with dinner.
Then Gov. Sisolak shut down all the restaurants. But then he allowed restaurants to serve take-out meals curbside. But you couldn’t order a bottle of wine to go with them.
How does this make any sense?
Fortunately, the City of Las Vegas has concluded it does NOT make sense. As such, it announced today that you CAN order a bottle of wine for curbside pickup with your meal.
Unfortunately, if precedence is any guide, Gov. Sisolak will try to overrule this common-sense decision sometime tomorrow.
Not All Choices are Created Equal
Less than a year ago, Gov Sisolak boasted about signing a bill to “protect a woman’s right to choose to make her own decisions about her own body.”
That was, of course, the right to choose abortion.
But as we’ve now learned, that does NOT apply to women trying to obtain hydroxychloroquine from her doctor to treat the Chinese coronavirus; as per another of Little Caesar’s growing number of authoritarian edicts…
“The regulation prohibits the prescribing and dispensing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for a COVID-19 diagnosis.”
Hypocrisy so thick you need a chainsaw to cut it.
Random Drive-By Muthings
* California’s governor has been able to get banks to “suspend residential mortgage payments for Californians affected by the coronavirus.”
Nevada’s governor, thus far, has had no such similar luck.
If only the Nevada media was ready, willing and able to ask why not.
* The Las Vegas Review-Journal noted this morning that “the coronavirus may not be as deadly as initial estimates.” Some welcome good news.
And consider this observation from former Nevada State Sen. Bob Beers…
“Clearly, now we know the bug is not as virulent as public health employees first thought. 80% of the people on a party cruise ship for two weeks with the virus did not even get infected.”
* Gov. Sisolak decided NOT to shut down construction sites, even though there is nothing essential about them the way there is with grocery stores and pharmacies.
Well, guess what? The Chinese coronavirus has now spread to the Raiders stadium and the Resorts World construction projects. And who knows where else.
So much for stopping the spread. Heckuva job, governor.
* It’s been reported that Chicago is converting empty hotel rooms into quarantine rooms for people “with mild cases of the coronavirus and others unable to return home while they await test results.”
Why isn’t Jim Murren, Nevada’s new Coronavirus Czar, doing the same with his vacant MGM Grand hotel rooms?
For that matter, why aren’t those empty MGM Grand hotel rooms being used to house the homeless during the crisis instead of herding them into Cashman Field?
FINAL THOUGHTS
Let’s wrap this up with some words to those who support the governor’s efforts to flatten our economy in his over-reaction to flattening the curve – you know, the ol’ “burn the village down to save it” routine.
Your argument is that EVERYBODY has to be sentenced to house arrest because anyone out in public could catch the virus and spread it to someone else who doesn’t want to get it.
But, um, that’s not true.
If businesses open back up and people go back to work…and YOU don’t want to risk being infected…YOU can stay home and continue to self-quarantine.
So no one will be endangering YOU.
Look, there’s always a risk just walking out your door, even in normal times. Every day we weigh those potential risks and decide for OURSELVES if we’re willing to take them.
It’s called freedom.
Let’s not let Gov. Sisolak and the coronavirus kill THAT.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“Fauci on CNN saying that Italy got hit so hard because a lot of tourists from China brought coronavirus in and spread it widely before anyone there knew what was going on.” – Chuck Ross, Daily Caller
“When people start talking about 20% of a population being infected, it’s very scary. But we don’t have data that matches that based on the (actual) experience.” - Dr. Deborah Birx at White House briefing today on some of the much-quoted predictions
“Either we let many of us get the coronavirus, recover and get back to work - while doing our utmost to protect those most vulnerable from being killed by it. Or, we shut down for months to try to save everyone everywhere from this virus - no matter their risk profile - and kill many people by other means, kill our economy and maybe kill our future.” – Trump-hating New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sounding an awful lot like Donald Trump
(Mr. Muth is president of CitizenOutreach.org and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. He blogs at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.) |
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