The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Out-of-Towners’ Blamed for ‘Mayhem’ After Florida City Re-Opens Beach

Posted on | May 17, 2020 | 2 Comments

 

Florida’s COVID-19 response has been a tremendous success story. Much like Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp resisted the Cult of Eternal Lockdown, the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, delayed issuing a statewide lockdown order and was one of the first governors to lift the order. As I have explained elsewhere, most Florida counties were handling their own coronavirus outbreaks with local policies, so DeSantis didn’t feel a statewide lockdown was necessary, especially because there were so many counties with very few cases, but finally he gave in to the political pressure. And as soon as May 1 arrived, DeSantis was ready to go back to business. Democrats demonized DeSantis, with activist Daniel Uhlfelder touring Florida beaches dressed as the Grim Reaper to promote the message that the Republican governor’s decision would kill people.

Meanwhile, Florida residents have begun resuming normal life without a statewide mandate, which means local governments are making their own decisions. Naples, on the state’s southwest coast, opened its beach May 1, but last weekend saw such crowds that they closed it again:

The city of Naples closed its public beaches at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. City leaders said the beaches were overrun with beachgoers to start the weekend, so the move is a continued effort to stop the possible spread of the coronavirus.
According to the city press release, “In an effort to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and alignment with CDC guidance and Governor DeSantis’s Executive Order 20-112, the City of Naples will be closing all public beaches within city limits effective 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, May 10 until further notice.” . . .
Naples Councilman Gary Price told us he visited the beaches during [Saturday, May 9] to get a look for himself. And what he said he saw disappointed him, concerned him and caused him to make a call to the city manager about how to regain control of the beaches in the city.
“We really wanted to make sure that people were safe,” Price said. “And what I saw today is what I believe to be really not safe.”
Price took a picture while checking out the beach, and that’s what prompted him to take action, he said. Price said he saw signs that people were visiting from the east coast of the state since their beaches remain closed.
“I took some pictures of cars that were from Broward and Miami-Dade dealership plates,” Price said. “And so you could tell from the cars.”

See? It’s not the Collier County locals who caused the problem; rather, it was people traveling from the Miami area — more than 100 miles away, where the beaches are still closed — who were the problem. Three counties (Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward) account for about 60% of all coronavirus deaths in Florida, and guess what else we know about those counties? Right — they’re overwhelmingly Democrat. In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton got 57% of the vote in Palm Beach, 64% in Miami-Dade and 67% in Broward. So the lockdown of the entire state was necessitated by the high rates of infection in these Democratic stongholds. Now that the statewide order has been lifted, the beaches remain closed in the high-infection Democrat areas. This creates problems for places like Naples, in Collier County, where infection rates have been low. Would you care to guess how people vote in Naples?

You guessed it — Trump got 62% of the vote in Collier County.

Partisan affiliation correlates with lifestyle differences, which is why Democrat-dominated areas of Florida have high COVID-19 infection rates, and why Republican-leaning Naples can’t re-open its beaches without being overrun by people trying to escape from Miami:

The City of Naples has voted to reopen its beaches again but this time with some limitations.
After a grueling emergency meeting and three failed motions, council members negotiated their way to a fourth and final vote.
Naples beaches will be open sunrise to sunset, Monday through Friday, starting at 7 a.m. May 13. The beaches will have shorter hours on weekends: 7 to 11 a.m. and then closing before reopening from 5 p.m. to sunset. The weekend hours will extend to Memorial Day, too.
Coolers and tents will not be allowed on the beaches, but chairs can be used in the evenings to watch the sunset.
Parking enforcement has been beefed up with fines doubling to $200 with no option to pay early for a discount. Illegally parked cars can also now be towed.
Parking will be limited to those with beach stickers (both city and Collier County stickers are accepted) but the city will not allow parking on residential streets unless they are properly marked parking spaces.
Readers React: Facebook readers react to city of Naples public beach closures, lack of social distancing
Some council members were steadfast in trying to get shorter hours during the weekdays as well as the weekends.
“I am rigidly set on 7-day bifurcation hours,” Councilman Ray Christman said. “It seems to me that opening the beach from dawn to dusk, five days a week and not placing any limitations on activities is just further increasing the risk of having out-of-towners coming in and using the beach and creating a situation that replicated last weekend.” . . .
Only a week after the city opened the beaches to the public, the closure order was issued after a council member witnessed crowds on Saturday not following social distancing guidelines.
“My judgment call was not done hastily,” Mayor Teresa Heitmann said. “It was done with the city manager, the police chief and the fire department to make sure this situation does not get out of control. I heard descriptions of mayhem and a lack of regard to emergency orders of social distancing.”

Democrats come to town? “Mayhem!”

Beyond this problem in Naples, how is Florida faring in its return to normalcy? We were told by Democrats like Uhlfelder that DeSantis’s decision would certainly result in thousands of COVID-19 deaths, but guess what? It hasn’t happened. Three weeks ago, during the week of April 18-24, Florida reported an average of 825.7 new cornavirus daily, and 45.7 deaths daily. For the week of May 9-15, the average daily number of new cases was 644.7 — a 22% reduction — and the average daily number of COVID-19 deaths was 31.7, a reduction of 31%. Florida’s per-capita death rate from the virus is still 94% lower than New York’s.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!




 

Category: Florida, Health Care

FMJRA 2.0: Hocus Pocus

Posted on | May 16, 2020 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Hocus Pocus

— compiled by Wombat-socho

A thin crop this week, but with a Rule 5 Sunday coming up that’s stuffed like Kate Upton’s bikini tops and a full week of linkagery following, next week ought to be back to normal.

Is Obama Living in an Alternative Reality?
A View From The Beach
EBL

Headline of the Week
EBL

R.I.P., Little Richard
EBL

Georgia on My Mind
EBL

Tater Tots With Russia Sauce
357 Magnum
EBL

Ahmaud Arbery: Focus on Media Bias, Because ‘The Issue Is Never the Issue’
EBL

The ‘Deep State’ Unmasked: Joe Biden Targeted Trump Aide Gen. Flynn
357 Magnum
EBL

The Cult of Eternal Lockdown
BattleSwarm Blog
EBL

Early Release
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.14.20
357 Magnum
EBL
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive

Transgender Person Stabbed to Death
EBL

Democrat Concedes in CA-25 Special Election: Not Close Enough to Steal
EBL

She Befriended the Man Who Killed Her Mother. Guess How That Turned Out?
357 Magnum
EBL

‘Science-Denying Grandma Killers’
Pushing Rubber Downhill
Bacon Time
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.15.20 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.15.20 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linker for the week ending March 15: EBL (16)

Thanks to everyone for the linkagery! We appreciate your support!

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Amazon Prime Music




Category: FMJRA Award

Remember How Everybody Was Going to Die Because Georgia Ended Lockdowns?

Posted on | May 16, 2020 | 4 Comments

 

The headlines last month were scary:

Georgia’s dangerous coronavirus experiment
— Joel Mathis, The Week April 21

Georgia’s Kemp neglected to warn people
about his dangerous gamble
— Steve Benen, MSNBC, April 22

Kemp poised to lift restrictions,
despite warnings of renewed outbreak
— Alan Judd and Greg Bluestein, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 29

It was a “gamble,” an “experiment,” and the media all agreed it was “dangerous” for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to do this “despite warnings.” You would have thought, based on the coverage, that Kemp’s plan was so reckless and irresponsible as to guarantee a “renewed outbreak” that would kill thousands. But what actually happened?

Georgia’s daily COVID-19 deaths had already peaked by the time Kemp announced he would begin re-opening the state’s economy. On April 16, Georgia recorded 52 deaths from the virus, concluding a week (April 10-16) in which the state recorded 205 deaths, an average of 35.7 deaths daily for that week. For the seven day period ending Thursday (i.e., May 8-14), Georgia recorded a total of 105 coronavirus deaths, an average of 15 daily. In other words, comparing these two seven-day periods, there was a 58% decrease in Georgia’s COVID-19 deaths. The number of daily new COVID-19 cases reported has likewise declined more than 50% since April, even as the number of tests performed has increased.

COVID-19 is a new disease. Everything we know about this virus, we’ve learned in the past six months. However, something Michael Fumento remarked last month bears repeating: Epidemics are always subject to Farr’s Law, in which cases rise and fall in a bell-curve pattern. The death toll peaks and then recedes because, in the early stages of the outbreak, the disease “grabs the low-hanging fruit” (the most vulnerable population), but eventually runs out of such victims. While quarantine policies can “slow the spread” and “flatten the curve,” ultimately no human intervention matters more than the effect of Farr’s Law.

By the time Governor Kemp announced his “gamble” in the third week of April, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Georgia had already peaked. While the number of reported cases was still continuing to rise (it did not peak until April 27, when 937 new cases were reported), this was an artifact, the result of more widespread testing, which identified asymptomatic or mild cases. Throughout the course of Georgia’s coronavirus outbreak so far, there have been 1,557 deaths and, with the daily death toll still decreasing steadily, it seems unlikely the state will experience the “renewed outbreak” that Kemp’s critics warned about.

As of 10 a.m. today, Georgia’s per-capita death rate from COVID-19 (measured in deaths per million residents) was 150, which was 88.5% lower than the state of New York’s death rate of 1,417.

Oh, and just for your information, the daily number of U.S. coronavirus deaths nationwide peaked at 2,683 — on April 21, which was 25 days ago. The highest daily number of deaths in the past week was 1,772 on Wednesday (May 13), and that number was 34% below the April 21 peak.

UPDATE: Earlier this week, Stacey Lennox said, “Dear Media, Governor Kemp Will Accept Your Apology Now.” Don’t hold your breath.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Hope you will remember that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!




 

Category: Georgia, Health Care, Science

In The Mailbox: 05.15.20 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | May 15, 2020 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Science Doesn’t Always Tell You What You Want To Hear
EBL: Judge Sullivan Can’t Let It Go
Twitchy: Daily Caller Busts New York On Undercounting Of Nursing Home Deaths
Louder With Crowder: Elon Musk Trashes Politicians, Urges Shutdown Critic Dave Portnoy To Run For Office
According To Hoyt: The Danger Of Masks, also, Panic Reaction On A National Scale
Monster Hunter Nation: Perspective
Vox Popoli: Poland Takes On GloboPedo, also, Why Flynn Was Targeted

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Posted Without Comment
American Conservative: The Next Stimulus Package Should Pay Americans Directly
American Greatness: PBS Teams Up With Red China To Produce Propaganda Film, also, At Least 40% of Families May Continue Homeschooling Even After Pandemic Ends
American Power: Surprise! The Wealthy Fled NYC As Coronavirus Broke Out, also, Los Angeles Goes Stir-Crazy During Lockdown
American Thinker: No Blue State Bailouts! also, Police State Dry Run A Huge Success
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five 1776 Friday IV
Babalu Blog: Mexico’s President Wants Answers About “Fast & Furious”
BattleSwarm: Unmasking The Unmaskers (Including Slow Joe), also, LinkSwarm For May 15
Cafe Hayek: Quotation Of The Day
CDR Salamander: Unsolicited Advice For The SECNAV-Designate, also, Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Cheap Chicago Thug Worried About Being Outed As Cheap Chicago Thug, also, We The People Decide What Is Normal, Not The Government
Don Surber: WaPo’s New Mantra Is Just Don’t Report, also, Lefty Discovers His Side Are The Fascists
First Street Journal: Connect The Dots
Fred On Everything: A Bicephalous Monoparty & The Four Pillars
The Geller Report: SD County Supervisor Says Only Six Of 194 Deaths Are Purely From COVID-19, also, Woman Sitting Alone On Beach Holding “We Are Free” Sign Dragged Off By Cops
Hogewash: Smog On Jupiter? also, IT’S ABOUT TIME
Hollywood In Toto: Twin Peaks At 30, also, Esquire Shames Kevin James For Mocking Social Distancing Scolds
Legal Insurrection: Occasional Cortex, John F. Kerry* To Lead Biden Climate Change Panel, also, Over 3000 Stand In Line For Food At NYC Church As Gov. Cuomo Extends Stay At Home Order
Michelle Malkin: Protect Your Family From Fearmonger Fauci
The PanAm Post: How Communists Are Exploiting The Coronavirus Pandemic, also, Spain’s Socialist Government Sends PPE To Cuba Despite Domestic Shortages
Power Line: A Scientific Explanation Of Why Shutdowns Are Useless, also, Coronavirus In One State, Part 40
Shark Tank: FL Democrats Accepted Money From Castro & Maduro Supporters
Shot In The Dark: Yeah, We’re In The Best Of Hands
STUMP: Moneypalooza Monstrosity! Let’s Check Out The State Aid In The $3 Trillion Bill
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – A Mini-Debate About Health Care, Part II
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, Joe The Everyman – Or Is He?
Victory Girls: Decision Trees For Reopening Issued By CDC
Volokh Conspiracy: 9th Circuit Panel Stays Injunction Against CA Ammo Restrictions
Weasel Zippers: Occasional Cortex Claims Illegals Pay Billions More In Taxes Than Many Corporations, also, Red Chinese Media Threatens To Strike Back At Coronavirus Lawsuits By Interfering In US Elections
Mark Steyn: Masking & Unmasking

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* “Who, by the way, served in Vietnam.” – R. Limbaugh

Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 05.15.20 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | May 15, 2020 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.15.20 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Keep America Working Event
Twitchy: Watch Stacey Abrams’ Soul Die Before Your Very Eyes
Louder With Crowder: Barstool Prez On COVID-19 – We Did What Was Asked, Now Government Is Changing The Rules

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Robot Music
American Conservative: The Illusion Of “Free Markets” & “Free Trade”
American Greatness: Red China Arrests Hundreds Of Its Own Citizens For Speaking Out Against Coronavirus
American Power: Timeline Of FBI’s FISA Abuse, also, The Naked Dress
American Thinker: The WuFlu Lockdown Is A Colossal Blunder, also, Fauci’s Song & Dance
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily “Big Anti-GMO” News
Babalu Blog: US Returns Castro Regime To Counterterrorism Blacklist
Baldilocks: April 2020 Post Digest For DaTechGuy Blog – With More Commentary Than Usual
BattleSwarm: Plenty Of Fear & Favor, also, Joe Rogan On Biden’s Rape Allegation & Dementia
Cafe Hayek: Here’s My Preference – Mind Your Own Business
Camp of the Saints:
CDR Salamander: The Red Chinese Will Tell You If You’re Effective, also, Battle Of The Antipodes
Da Tech Guy: Brief Thoughts Under The Fedora, also, Fear, Loathing, & Hunter Thompson
Don Surber: Obama Knew, Early & Often, also, They Have No Intention Of Ending The Lockdown
Fred On Everything: Latinos, Inevitabilities, And Nativism As A Hobby
The Geller Report: CNN Poll Shows Trump Crushing Biden In 15 Battleground States, also, President Of French Pro-Migrant Group Murdered By Afghan Refugee He Sheltered
Hogewash: Breaking – Politician Suspected Of Lying, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Today’s Woke Superheroes Have Conservative Roots
Legal Insurrection: PA Health Secretary Under Fire For Moving Mom Out Of Nursing Home As COVID-19 Deaths Rise, also, MI Bureaucrats Strip License Of Barber Who Defied Whitmer’s Shutdown Order
Michelle Malkin: Top Three Reasons To Doubt The Ahmaud “Just A Jogger” Arbery Narrative
The PanAm Post: Maduro Distrusts Cuba, Appoints Iranian Personal Guard, also, Diosdado Cabello Planned, Financed “Operation Gideon” To Overthrow Maduro
Power Line: Senator Cotton Has Questions For Joe Biden, also, Observations On The Great Hunkering
Shark Tank: South Florida Democrat Shows DeSantis The Love
Shot In The Dark: Models – Garbage In, Garbage Out
STUMP: State Bankruptcy & Bailout Reactions
The Political Hat: Abortion In The Age of Coronavirus – No Tests, No Telemedicine, No Doctor
This Ain’t Hell: Air Force Base Commander Found Dead, also, SSG Ron Shurer, Medal Of Honor Winner, Dies
Victory Girls: Deaths NOT Covered In Media’s Daily Panic Porn
Volokh Conspiracy: More Thoughts On Church Closings, also, The Irony Of “The Plot Against America”
Weasel Zippers: Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Says What Everyone’s Thinking About The Virus & Reopening, also, James Clapper’s Bizarre CNN Interview About Flynn & “Unmasking”
Megan McArdle: The Triumph Of Experience Over Hope
Mark Steyn: The Permanent Emergency

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Category: Linkagery

‘Science-Denying Grandma Killers’

Posted on | May 15, 2020 | 2 Comments

If you’re in favor of ending the COVID-19 lockdown mandates, liberals will accuse you of wanting old people to die, because Orange Man Bad!

This is not satire. It is literally the entirety of their argument. Because liberals hate Trump with the heat of ten thousand suns, and because Trump is in favor of ending the lockdowns as soon as possible, liberals now accuse anyone who suggests that small businesses should be allowed to resume operations of being irresponsible. It is useless to point out to them that, for example, Costco and Wal-Mart have never been shut down, so that the lockdowns are only punishing small businesses. Likewise, it does no good to point out that nearly all deaths from coronavirus have been among people 65 years or older, so that letting a 30-year-old get her hair cut at a local salon, or have a beer at the neighborhood pub, is unlikely to cause skyrocketing hospitalizations, nor will it put any senior citizen at risk. If the staff at Grandma’s nursing home is following proper disease-prevention procedures, there is no real public health risk from letting businesses re-open. Besides which, if you want to continue hiding out at home, nobody is going to force you to go out, so you can still be as safe as you want to be. No, never mind any of that, say people who consider themselves World Famous Virus Experts™ for no particular reason (expect they hate Trump), those of us who want to let businesses re-open are “Science-Denying Grandma Killers.”

Ace of Spades uses that phrase to devastating effect in mocking AllahPundit who is now renamed “KarenPundit.”




 

Category: Ace of Spades

She Befriended the Man Who Killed Her Mother. Guess How That Turned Out?

Posted on | May 15, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

If you answered “not too good,” you’re a winner:

Big-hearted, gregarious and always up for an adventure, Martha McKay surrounded herself with friends.
“There was something about her that people really loved,” her sister Katie Hutton tells PEOPLE. “She left an impression on people. She had that gift.”
McKay’s family and friends were devastated when she was killed on March 25, 2020, at Snowden House, the historic antebellum-style home on Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas, she bought from her family in 2004, restored and reopened as a luxury bed-and-breakfast.
McKay, 63, was found stabbed and bludgeoned to death at the top of the stairs, near a bag filled with her belongings, as well as a utility knife.
Authorities were shocked when they pulled the body of her killer out of the lake (he’d jumped in and drowned during a police chase): it was Travis Lewis, who’d been convicted at 17 for the horrific 1996 murders of her mother, Sally Snowden McKay, 75, and her cousin, Joseph “Lee” Baker, 52, a prominent Memphis blues guitarist. . . .
Knowing how forgiving McKay was, family and friends were still shocked when she befriended him after he went to prison (Lewis was sentenced to 28 ½ years after pleading guilty). . . .
A longtime Buddhist, McKay wrote Lewis letters in prison and supported his early, paroled release.
“We were contacted every time he came up for parole,” says Hutton. “None of us would OK it except for her.” . . .
When Lewis was finally released on parole in 2018, McKay quietly gave him a job doing work on the property, Hutton says.
But before her death, she fired him. Police had heard about a theft at McKay’s house before her murder, says Crittenden County Chief Investigator Todd Grooms. After she died, Hutton read in her diary that she’d sold a chandelier for $10,000 cash, which she stashed in the house.
Travis happened to be there that day, says Hutton. “Then the money vanished. She fired him after the money disappeared,” she says.
The family is still reeling from the fact that the same man killed her sister, mother, and cousin — 23 years apart.
“We are all just in disbelief,” says Hutton.

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.)




 

Category: Arkansas, Crime

Democrat Concedes in CA-25 Special Election: Not Close Enough to Steal

Posted on | May 15, 2020 | Comments Off on Democrat Concedes in CA-25 Special Election: Not Close Enough to Steal

 

Even the amazing ability of California Democrats to manufacture votes through “ballot harvesting” were not enough to elect Christy Smith in Tuesday’s special election to fill the seat vacated by naked bisexual Katie Hill‘s resignation. Republican Mike Garcia won CA-25 by a 12% margin, 56-44, an advantage of more than 18,000 votes, and Smith finally conceded Wednesday afternoon. You can add Garcia’s victory to the win for Republican Tom Tiffany in Wisconsin’s 7th District, filling the seat vacated by Republican Sean Duffy’s retirement. And how did the blog FiveThirtyEight tout this on Monday?

Two Special Elections On Tuesday
Could Hint At Another Blue Wave In 2020

For some reason, they haven’t followed up on that idea. How did they get this “bellwether” so wrong? Molly Hemingway takes a look:

The case made by Geoffrey Skelley and Nathaniel Rakich was simple: Supposedly Americans strongly prefer Biden and Democrats over Trump and Republicans, and they are particularly upset with Trump and other Republicans’ attempts to reopen the country as the global Coronavirus pandemic rages.
“On Tuesday, we’ll get a taste of whether Democrats’ electoral advantage on paper will hold up in practice, as California and Wisconsin hold special elections for two vacant congressional seats. The main event is in the California 25th Congressional District, a bellwether seat in the north Los Angeles suburbs, where both parties see a chance to add to their ranks in the House. But if Democrats are also competitive in the quickly reddening, rural Wisconsin 7th Congressional District, it could signal another blue wave in the fall,” they argued. . . .

Read the whole thing.




 

Category: California, Election, Wisconsin
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