In a ridiculous 5-4 decision released Wednesday, the Unitedla States Supreme Court ruled that Governor Cuomo’s limits on the number of people who may congregate in houses of worship are unconstitutional. The deciding vote was that of Trump’s appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Just a few months ago, the same Court ruled that limits on the number of people in religious gatherings were appropriate because of the pandemic.
The death of Justice Ginsberg and her replacement by Justice Barrett means the right to practice religion is more important than public health. All three of Trump’s choices—Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—are religious extremists. Their votes, plus those of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, made this lethal decision possible.
Justice Gorsuch said it was unfair to allow hardware stores and ice cream shops to open while limiting religious services. But how many hardware stores or ice cream shops have hundreds of customers at the same time, congregating for hours, and singing?
Those who worship in a sanctuary with dozens or hundreds of others, singing, praying, chanting, breathing in each other’s exhalations—will go out into their communities and spread disease.
This is a terrible decision that will contribute to the pandemic. People will die because of it. We can anticipate more extremist decisions in which religious beliefs take precedence over other constitutionally protected rights as well as public health.
Even worse decisions lie ahead, in which religious beliefs will distort the law.
Agreed. Terrible decision
In her dissenting opinion Justice Sotomayor made it clear she supports free exercise of religion. She said the case is not about religion. It is about a pandemic. ““Justices of this Court play a deadly game in second guessing the expert judgment of health officials about the environments in which a contagious virus, now infecting a million Americans each week, spreads most easily.”https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/covid-19-regulations-case-sotomayor-dissent-claps-back-supreme-court-n1249122
The case is not about religion.
Its about stupidit.
Y
But stupidit works too.
Sotomayer nails it. Did SCOTUS even attempt to address the issue of whether pandemic measures are parallel to nefarious actions govts might take “temporarily” that could lead directly to permanent suppression of 1st Amendment rights? No. Temporary suppression of right to attend religious services for public safety reasons during a pandemic is thus upheld way above ordinary 1st Amerndment rights denied thro the Patriot Act (or whatever it is called today in its several extensions granting it near-permanency in law).
” Gorsuch said it was unfair to allow hardware stores and ice cream shops to open while limiting religious services ”
The pinnacle of judicial arguments: the hardware store and ice cream shop argument.
Given that Brett “I like beer” K. is now on the court, it’s undoubtedly only a matter of time before we get the beer vendor argument.
People do not need a church or synagogue to practice their religion. They can find streaming services or pray and read at home. Nobody is trying to infringe on religious liberty. Governors and mayors are trying to stop the spread of the virus.
Retired I think yours is the fundamental point. The premises of a church does not delimit where a free practice of religion can occur. I used to respect SCOTUS. Not much anymore. CBK
You don’t spend an hour in the ice cream store, sing and shake hands.
speak for yourself.
FLERP 😀 !
Dumdementalists —
Preserving Your Right To Die For Their Religion Since 1492
Most people don’t know it, but the Freedom to Infect was actually much discussed by the Founding Fathers (in the Epidemiological Papers, I believe Epidemiologist number 1) and only left out of the First Amendment due to a clerical oversight.
Jefferson (who was concerned about the possible limitation on his sexwsexual relations with his slave women) was particular adamant about the inclusion of the FTI
Thankfully the Supreme (Death) Cult is restoring that fine old tradition.
What next? COVID blankets for SNAP recipients?
“I can’t take a break from blogging. Someone is wrong on the Supreme Court!” — Diane Ravitch
Weren’t the Epidemiological Papers written by Benjamin Rush?
Yes, and Alexander Harmalton
With, of course, assistance from Madison Avenue!
Perfectly observed, Jon!
Good morning Diane and everyone,
Diane, you’re supposed to be on vacation! The real problem is that people don’t have enough self discipline to stay away from crowds- no matter what the situation. They need instant gratification and they feel that it (the virus) can’t happen to them or that it won’t be that bad. It’s pretty selfish to think you have to get to church and to hell with everyone else who you may infect while you’re singing and meeting and greeting people for an hour or more. Kids aren’t supposed to sing in school unless they’re 12 feet apart. Does the same go for church? Those who claim to be “religious” are no more moral than anyone else. And Neil Gorsuch! Hey, here’s a news item! All of life is unfair! Now, Diane, turn the computer off and have someone hide it where you can’t find it! 🙂
Mamie Krupczak Allegretti : “Kids aren’t supposed to sing in school unless they’re 12 feet apart.”
I still haven’t figured out how anyone can teach elementary beginning band or K-6 classroom music either in-person or virtually.
Chicago Public Schools teacher Paul DeNovi has done both and can be seen on YouTube. 🤓🔔
Eddie: Do you have a U-tube link? I’d like to see what he is doing.
Kids don’t have equipment at home…xylophones, recorders, rhythm instruments, song books, etc.
Movement activities have to be difficult without a group.
What about beginning band?
Hi carolmalaysia. I can’t link with my phone ☹️, but he can be easily found with Google, Bing, etc. 🙂
I don’t think Paul teaches beginning band online. 😐
Mamie Krupczak Allegretti: Here is one of his online sessions. He’s much better at taking videos than I would be. My laptop has really bad pictures when I appear on Zoom. He has a standing microphone. Mine is on my laptop computer. I’m sure there are other music teachers who don’t have the equipment that he has.
He also knows how to put writings on the screen. I always taught that the four instrument groups were percussion, brass [which means French horn], woodwind and strings.
His blade of grass or paper to make sound is cool. His idea to be creative to make a string instrument out of plastic cookie container works. Like his homemade shakers, which are percussion instruments.
He is creative and does a good job of presenting a music lesson.
Find An Instrument or Create An Instrument
Sep 27, 2020
Paul DeNovi
When I think of this majority, the aphorism about not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground seems to be the appropriate precedent. The venal craziness of the Idiot will be with us for some time to come. May they get the curse of (Herman) Cain.
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
—James Baldwin
Ignorance allied with stupidity allied with power (the tri-infecta) is even worse.
This is why I voted for Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020 (general elections), i.e., the courts. Thankfully Biden won and so if there are any openings on the SCOTUS or lower courts, Biden won’t be picking hard right wing religious/constitutional fundamentalists. If that slimy scum McConnell is still in charge, then things will be stalled and obstructed every step of the way. The parties are not the same when it comes to picking judicial nominees.
Technically the Court didn’t rule that the rules were unconstitutional. (It was a temporary injunction on enforcing the rules while the appeal is pending, so the standard was “likelihood of success on the merits.”)
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/11/justices-lift-new-yorks-covid-related-attendance-limits-on-worship-services/#more-297905
Also, I think at the moment the injunction has no practical effect, as the “red and orange zone” rules are no longer in effect for the areas in question.
But the decision does suggest that there are at least 5 votes, maybe 6, that would find the rules unconstitutional.
Please read this legal brief (it is brief) to see what else may be in the pipeline for the Supreme Court.
https://verdict.justia.com/2020/11/25/the-rhetoric-about-a-decline-in-religious-liberty-is-good-news-for-americans
This is the problem with fanatics in judiciary. No consultation of scientific evidence; just ideology. Freedom to kill the flock!
“Ridiculous” is right. To make it worse: The invalidated limitations are no longer in effect.
We should steel ourselves for a steady progression — no, a steady retrogression — of ridiculous decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court. A well-informed, democracy-loving citizenry would consider invalid any 5-4 decision in which either Neil Gorsuch or Amy “Sexual Preference” Barrett is in the majority. Not going to happen in a nation in which Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and other senators who lied to the country when Barack Hussein Obama nominated Merrick Garland in March 2016 have just been re-elected. We’re stuck.with the five Republican party functionaries for the foreseeable future.
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Coming from the Declaration and not the Constitution, this Jeffersonian triptych is not a principle of law. No matter. “Life” — it’s the first one, for G-d’s sake! Memo to Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Beer Kavanaugh, the truly notorious ACB, along with those who would kidnap Gretchen Whitmer and your entire anti-life ilk: Life is a necessary condition for personal liberty and pursuing happiness. Get it?
You are so right, Bill.
I shudder to think what this Court will do when someone sues because religious schools don’t get the same funding as public schools. Or when someone goes to court because their religious beliefs require them not to serve or provide accommodations to blacks, Jews, women, whatever. The Court already ruled that a baker did not have to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple because it violated his religion. Who’s next on the slippery slope?
They are using the historical perversion of the second amendment as a legal template to entrench a similar debasement and redefinition of the freedom of religion.
What blows me away here, Diane, is that you should actually have to defend calling out this crazy decision, without merit in the law, for what it is. Thank you, Diane. Thank you.
That bakery and others aren’t advertised as “Christian Bakeries”. Those bakeries aren’t distinguishable from any other bakery, except maybe a kosher bakery. 😐
The owners say “I am a Christian baker”, to avoid making a wedding cake for two Gays. ☹️
The only thing Gay or Lesbian about the wedding cake is two grooms or two brides at the top of the cake. 😐
GregB, I’m beginning to think the GOP have found religion to be one of their best scams. Use debasement & redefinition of freedom of religion as their excuse to laziness, libertarianism and skulduggery.
L, L & S! 👍
Always such a lovely, pleasant, and respectful dialogue here. It’s like watching a car crash, I don’t want to watch it, but I keep coming back!
While we can agree or disagree with the USSC decision, this incessant name calling and bashing those whom we may disagree with by calling them stupid, an idiot, or ignorant or assuming we know how everyone should practice their religion is not helpful and only magnifies the tension within this country. Both “sides” are equally guilty and we are only hurting ourselves. Trump is not gonna change, but he is gone, Pelosi, Schumer, McConnel, all need to be held accountable to act like adults. However, why should they when we do not.
Michael, it’s an outrage when the SCOTUS orders that public health requirements can be ignored by religious groups in the midst of a lethal pandemic. Sorry you don’t agree.
Unfortunately, the same occurs with certain religious groups regarding vaccinations. ☹️
You had me until “Both ‘sides’ are equally guilty.” Then you lost me.
Michael: Trump is not gonna change, but he is gone, Pelosi, Schumer, McConnel, all need to be held accountable to act like adults. However, why should they when we do not.
You definitely are a voice of reason, however, I use this blog to ‘silently scream’ in my own way. 70-80% of Republicans still think that Biden isn’t a legal president because of voter fraud.
Religions people are now going to say that they can legally congregate in churches and will keep pushing the issue. How many more Americans will die needlessly because of this belief that going to church is absolutely necessary? Meeting in person in a church is soon going to be on the same level of necessity as medical workers. /s
Nurses who do work in hazardous conditions without sufficient PPE don’t have health insurance and are being fired if they don’t show up for work.
Some people do not believe that COVID-19 is actually killing people. People who are dying still don’t believe that is the reason.
Schools are open even though the numbers of children getting infected is harming all adults in the schools. Some worried teachers have made out their wills ‘just in case’ and are terrified of going into schools and doing teaching in-person.
Tens of millions of Americans are going hungry right now and almost 20 million Americans will lose all their unemployment benefits the week after Christmas. Senate Republicans, “don’t give a damn”. They are all wealthy and live to make their donors happy.
Most of this would have been avoided if we had had responsible leadership who believed in the warning of science more than getting re-elected.
Sometimes acting as adults means saying what we think, and what we think is that this country is an abominable mess.
This country is an abominable mess. Debates like this that turn to name calling is part of the reason why.
In comparison, presidential elections such as in 1800, 1860 and others where newspapers were used by the presidential candidates to personally attach their opponent were just as bad, if not worse then 2016 or 2020, but the intensity of hatred for Trump and republicans on one side or against democrats on the other side is far worse today. Blogs like this clearly demonstrate that. Democrats hated Bush, and Republicans hated Obama. Despite their rhetoric, both were fairly centrist presidents.
Until we can turn that around, it is just going to get worse. Those of the elite class mentioned throughout these blogs should be the ones toning it down, not pouring gas on the fire.
Obama and Bush are centrists compared to Trump, who praises white supremacists and Nazis.
Michael Perhaps you don’t understand: Anti-democracy is, by definition, a bipartisan problem. CBK
Decided to wait a few hours on responding to Michael’s comment above, especially since I can let the venom loose at times. Thought about it. Yes, name calling of the Idiot’s cult. That’s why we’re in “an abominable mess.” That’s why.
I like the Trump and Trumpers name callings. Lots more please. 🤓😁🔔
Michael As an educator who taught history in K-12 and college/university for 35+ years, I tried to help students understand the clash of freedoms. Is any freedom absolute? Imho, the Constitution and Bill or Rights, as interpreted over more than 200 years, agree that the answer is NO.
Do the NY Laws limit exercise of religion? Yes. Is exercise of religion an absolute right? Would it be acceptable for a religious leader to advocate murdering people who did not agree with the religion?
My sense is that the answer to both questions is “no.”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes created the “clear and present danger” test in judging free speech https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1337/oliver-wendell-holmes-jr
Do the NY rules have a clear rationale in terms of public health? Yes. Is in this case, promoting public health (and combatting the pandemic) meet the “clear and present danger” test? Imho, yes.
Joe, as someone who also taught in K-12 schools and is currently a FT Prof who teaches public policy, I completely agree that individual rights are not absolute (i.e., the you cannot yell “fire!’ in a crowded theatre test).
The first amendment does guarantee the right to practice religion as he or she sees fit. Of course it is absurd to think that allows an individual to commit a crime or harm another individual in the process of practicing his or her religion. Your liberty cannot infringe on another persons liberty.
Most of the comments here are basically arguing that when people gather for church, they are in essence infringing upon the liberty of those who do not, by possibly creating an environment where disease might be more easily spread when those who attend church gather with those that do not.
I think that is a tough argument to make, especially when certain other businesses are allowed to remain open. The debate about opening K-12 schools largely hinges on the same basic argument, however, the evidence about schools as super spreaders is at best inconclusive. Universities face the same dilemma. My university is open, although faculty are given great latitude in where and how they hold classes.
The debate over what to open and not open is always going to be somewhat political. The nature of our 2-party political system creates that dynamic. This leads to the argument that we should follow the science. Politicians, the media and all of us may say that’s fine, as long as the scientist agrees with me, when he doesn’t he is stupid, an idiot…….. or maybe even a Trump supporter.
Michael: “This leads to the argument that we should follow the science. Politicians, the media and all of us may say that’s fine, as long as the scientist agrees with me, when he doesn’t he is stupid, an idiot…….. or maybe even a Trump supporter.”
I don’t recall Trump or his supporters following science. Remember when Trump said that doctors were impressed by his innate medical knowledge? I hope the doctors were wearing masks and could hold back their impressions on that bit of STUPID egoism. [Yes, I am purposely using that vile word “STUPID’, because it fits.] NIH has posted their results saying that hydroxychloroquine has NO affect on healing of COVID-19 patients. I won’t even get into the effects of injecting a disinfectant into your body. Maybe sticking a light up your you-know-where is going to work.
…………………………………
October 28, 2020
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner boasted in mid-April about how the President had cut out the doctors and scientists advising him on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, comments that came as more than 40,000 Americans already had died from the virus, which was ravaging New York City.
In a taped interview on April 18, Kushner told legendary journalist Bob Woodward that Trump was “getting the country back from the doctors” in what he called a “negotiated settlement.”
……………………………………..
CDC has lost is respect in the world because it is being led by a Redfield, a Trump appointee.
Facts never matter to the cult of Trump. Trump knows much more than scientists.
Michael You don’t have to “agree with me.” “Paying attention to the science” is about paying attention to the evidence.
GONE is critical consciousness, yours included, when the whole thing is couched in ME vs YOU. CBK
Numerous state courts have upheld the prohibition of using poisonous snakes in religious ceremonies. In the Tennessee case Harden vs. State, there exists an apt quotation that applies here: “It is common, knowledge that a rattlesnake is poisonous. There is also here affirmative evidence of that fact.” There is also affirmative evidence of the fact that religious services are super spreader events. This is not a case about religion. It is about concocting a specious argument that a sophistic majority of the Court will use to drive a toxic, intentionally divisive political agenda.
Michael It’s not the content of civil discourse that’s been attacked. Rather, it’s the GROUND of it, and of culture itself. . . not democrats, but democracy itself.
Until you “get” that, you will continue to fail to understand what’s going on in our politics and culture as we speak.
Trump’s base continues to “shoot itself in the foot”; the so-called elite can see it as it occurs; and the base has covered its ears with defensive propaganda. Besides serious “mental dysfunction,” there’s no other analysis of it: idiocy. CBK
Telling the truth about Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Paula White, Stephen Miller, Sidney Powell and all of Trump’s phalanx of toadies and sycophants is not incessant name calling or bashing. It’s merely descriptive. Trump is a vile, lying, duplicitous demagogue.
Trump may be all of those things and even more to 1/2 the country, but how is it helpful, how do we hope to move the dialogue, or convince the other 1/2 of the country that voted for Trump to listen when all we do is insult them?
What does it accomplish? By using descriptive such as these, it is no better then Trump and the ridiculous insults he uses.
Michael Good leadership helps; but ultimately, in a democracy, it takes two who have a modicum of open-mindedness and some sense of reasonability. Trump’s base passed by the “reasonable discourse” mark a long time ago (I have relatives . . . ). They doen’t listen anyway.
I was raised in abject poverty, but because I finally got a college degree, I am considered an “elite.” You’d have an easier time convincing Jim Jones’ followers not to take the poison, or to give it to their kids. I don’t know what planet you’ve been on, but IT’S THAT BAD.
Good leadership and, fortunately, some judges who still think evidence counts in legal proceedings (you know . . . those elite judges who are all against Trump), along with a good dose of time spent in recovery, and with peace and tranquility in it, will have to do. CBK
Now, now, Joe. Watch your ridiculous insults. Next time you may be guilty of the ridiculous insult of calling Tony the Tiger a cereal killer.
Michael, there is no convincing the Trumpeteers. Been there, done that. Trump lost the youth vote in a big way. That’s where we need to concentrate our energies, on the youth vote coming up. And, the Democratic Party has to show itself worthy of the Black vote that showed up for Biden. That’s where the future lies. Not with trying to hold rational conversations with people who think that Hugo Chavez ran our election, that asylum seekers are a George Soros-enabled caravan of rapists and murderers, that Covid-19 and climate change are hoaxes, and that all reporting not about how great Trump is is fake news. I have zero interest in opening dialogue with Trump voters. My interest, and the interest of the Democratic Party, must be in educating their children.
We have spent the last 8 years trying to “understand” the people who decided Obama was born in Kenya and was illegitimate.
We have spent the last 4 years trying to “understand” those who believe only in what Trump and Fox News (as long as Fox agrees with Trump) tells them is true.
Maybe it is long past time those people were told to stop their hate and try to understand those like us who don’t want to “lock them up” but just want then to stop hating.
Perhaps if I was an elite professor I could claim to speak for the haters who insist Trump won re-election, instead of speaking for science and facts.
Agreed, NYC Parents. I have a similar comment in moderation.
More than just a word
Civil is
As civil does
Civil gist?
Or civil buzz?
Michael: You missed something. People here talk to each other like folks do when they are with those they know will not be hurt by their venting of frustrations. Sometimes you have to get it out of your system. Few conservative commentators come to this living room.
I would be willing to bet that most of the people posting here would be far more diplomatic than you give them credit for.
Michael, you’ll know if you’re a regular follower, such venting is shorthand for fully-supported arguments detailed frequently in other posts/ threads. Nevertheless, I like the challenge, & glad you engage your responders. Who’s to say we couldn’t use a slap upside the head now & then? Hope you continue here.
Michael, I also hope that you continue reading and participating on this blog. The name-calling I read regularly in comments here also bothers me and serves no purpose. As you stated, how do we get the other half of the nation to see the light? Not by using the same tactics that Trump uses, such as name calling and demonizing “the other.” Sure, this blog can be a sounding board, and I can understand the need to vent, but do we really want to turn off moderates who happen to wander here? Why not try to educate them?
I personally think it would be great to increase the readership of this blog rather than run people off. This is a very educational resource, and I tell many friends about it. It has prepared me for the awful things in education that are about to happen to Montana due to the election of Greg Gianforte as governor. Charter schools and attacks on public schools and unions have been a distant reality until now.
As far as the belief that “we can never convince the Trump supporters,” to my total surprise, two of my family members who have always voted Republican voted Democrat in this past election. And another family member who voted Republican for 50 or more years switched a dozen years ago to voting for Democrats; in fact, that person is a big RBG supporter now. For that matter, I used to be a Republican. My relatives are traditional Republicans who are turned off by Trump’s coarseness and extremism and find Biden reasonable and acceptable. But these are probably not the people who will vote for extreme left-wing policies. This moderate demographic helped Biden win the election.
But have to agree CBK makes a great counterpoint with “GONE is critical consciousness, yours included, when the whole thing is couched in ME vs YOU.”
I still say, Michael: you claim you wants to lower the temp/ hostility-level of the national political discussion—a worthy goal— but you do the opposite by entering here as a newcomer & lambasting the whole blog as fire-throwers. Your say we’re ALL “name calling and bashing those whom we may disagree with by calling them stupid, an idiot, or ignorant.”
(1) the name-calling in this thread (so far) applies strictly to our elected representatives or their appointees, not to other bloggers (whom you feel free to castigate for our mode of expression—what’s next, “deplorables”?) You’ll find if you read here that we are not tolerant of calling each other names.
(2)Calling people out on how they express themselves is a disingenuous ad hominem that distracts from the discussion at hand. It’s no different from Trumpistas characterizing criticisms of Trump actions as “they just hate him,” or Dems characterizing Rep obstruction of Obama agenda as “they’re just racist.”
(3)You need to cut people some slack. We’re in the 9th month of whiplash between covid lockdowns & re-openings/ reversals: we’re in a rampant phase of the virus, punctuated by an election that is being stretched out into December. Venting would seem to be a normal, if not ideal, reaction. Tune in again in a month?
On the one hand, it seems the Court’s majority used a manner of dissentient reasoning against Cuomo’s aim to promote the general welfare of “We the people …” because of lack of readily available evidence, to wit:
“‘Not only is there no evidence that the applicants have contributed to the spread of COVID-19 but there are many other less restrictive rules that could be adopted to minimize the risk to those attending religious services,’ the Court held.”
And, on the other hand, it seems the Court’s majority used a manner of affirmative reasoning favoring religion to promote harming the general welfare of “We the people …” although evidence is lacking but could show up, to wit:
“The court said that even though Cuomo had lifted some restrictions, the houses of worship ‘remain under a constant threat’ because the restrictions could always be reinstated.”
That “restrictions could always be instated” is a fact does not make it evidence. If such a fact were evidence, then, everybody, without exception, could be found guilty of thinking or guilty of anything else.
Might this be the first example of the purely ideological, “religious liberty” level of reasoning to which the U.S. Supreme Court has now devolved?
In any case, thank goodness that Chief Justice Roberts went at Gorsuch and the other four, appropriately: They put in “their best efforts to fulfill their responsibility under the Constitution.”
As Deming teaches about “best efforts:”
“Their best efforts and hard work, [not guided by new knowledge,] only dig deeper the pit that they are working in.”
Great, and quite applicable, quotation from Deming, Mr. Johnson!
The larger question, of course, is what constitutes a “religion”. Who gets to decide?
This short sighted Supreme Court has too many right wing justices whose privilege got them the assumption of intelligence when they are mediocre political hacks like Kavanaugh. Scalia seemed to have intelligence, but these guys now got their positions through connections.
It would be entirely appropriate for “religious” groups to demand exemptions from all vaccinations to attend public schools and “religious” groups to demand the right to not wear seatbelts, or use heroin or set fires in dry woods or do any number of things that endanger other people because these “religious” groups demand the Supreme Court give them the total freedom to exercise their religion that their “originalist” interpretation of the first amendment demands.
The CDC … released data showing 94% of people who had died during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. died “with” the virus, not “from” it. Only 6% had COVID-19 listed as the sole cause of death on the death certificate. Hence, the real death toll, those who unarguably died as a direct result of the infection, is only around 10,000.
“For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death,” the CDC stated. This is an important distinction. Yet mainstream media continues to report that nearly 200,000 have died “from” COVID-19 in the U.S, thereby increasing national fear so they can implement their lockdowns and other strategies to limit our personal freedoms and liberty.
Janet,
I’m not sure I understand why you want to minimize the lethal nature of the pandemic.
diane Before Janet responds, I’d like to speculate about why she wants to “minimize the lethal nature of the pandemic.” In a word, paranoia. Janet writes that the national press mis-states the source of deaths . . . people don’t die FROM the virus, but WITH the virus. . . .
” . . . thereby increasing national fear so they can implement their lockdowns and other strategies to limit our personal freedoms and liberty.”
Janet has found us out. “THEY” and we want to curb personal freedoms and liberty. I don’t know why “THEY” want to do that, but I also would like to know who she means by “our”? “CBK
Janet E Johnson: “The CDC … released data showing 94% of people who had died during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. died “with” the virus, not “from” it. The CDC … released data showing 94% of people who had died during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. died “with” the virus, not “from” it.”
People who die earlier than normal are dying because of being infected with COVID-19. That is a statistic that means this virus is KILLING PEOPLE.
Would it make you happier to say, “CDC says 250,000 people have died with COVID-19.”?
This nation needs to get this virus under control. Virus doesn’t care if you use the word “with” or ‘from’. It keeps killing and we currently have a leader who is more worried about the fraudulent votes that never happened than about people who are dying or being permanently disabled.
Of course, he has to go golfing. Must be overworked from not watching Fox and eating junk food.
Janet E Johnson: Here’s more of that ‘fake news’. Don’t you sort of wonder why so many hospitals all over the U.S. are now saying that with confirmed COVID-19 cases getting higher that hospitals are becoming overwhelmed? [Is the American Medical Association telling doctors everywhere to lie to the media so that Trump will look bad?] Nurses are getting infected and they don’t have medical insurance. Some are being fired if they don’t show up for work.
…………………………………………
U.S. hospitals are near a breaking point.
Severe staffing and bed shortages are crippling efforts to treat a record-breaking swell of coronavirus patients. Staff members at smaller hospitals have had to beg larger medical centers to take patients, but many of the bigger hospitals have their own overflow issues and have sharply limited the transfers they will accept.
And rising infection rates among nurses and other frontline workers have doubled the patient load on those left standing. Above, a Covid patient was intubated in Houston yesterday.[ Photo doesn’t copy/paste.]
A record number of Americans — 90,000 — are now hospitalized with Covid-19, and new cases had been climbing to nearly 200,000 daily. The U.S. shot past 13 million cases on Friday against the backdrop of national travel patterns over the holiday weekend that raised the prospect of an even greater rise in infections.
Janet I’m going to be unfair & call on my personal knowledge of how cause of death is attributed in hospital. I hope you never have to experience it. The fact is, many if not most deaths have multiple proximate causes. Citing a stat for “cause of death covid” tells you nothing. The death that haunts my memory was caused by SFCA (sudden fatal cardiac arrythmia), which was undoubtedly [but you can’t prove it for tech reasons] caused by QT side effects of opiate drug treatment [despite all known precautions taken], which was administered for extreme cancer-like pain, which was caused by severe autoimmune disease flare-up ongoing for 2-1/2 yrs [despite all known approved rheumatic drugs trialed]. How you write up cause of death is a toss-up: some doctors will call out one cause, some will list all involved & pick out the immediately proximate, some will put “unknown.”
You are correct. If you have never seen someone die and then read the death certificate you would see several levels of attribution regarding “cause,” none of them revealing the preconditions, just the most recent and easily documented.
Reason for death: death
They didn’t die from virus
They died instead from death
The virus don’t retire us
Instead, it’s ceasing breath
Concise & absolutely brilliant, SDP.
Well, here we are. The highest deliberative legal body in the land hasn’t the brains of a pile of heads of lettuce at a farmer’s market.
Lettuce Pray
Lettuce meet
And lettuce pray
Lettuce beat
The Libs today
Perfect, SomeDAM! Isn’t it breathtaking what now passes for argument on one side of this court? One has to look to, say, Plessy v. Ferguson or to Bill Barr’s memo on the legality of the Mueller investigation to find, in our legal history, such utter nonsense.
These five “justices” have brought shame upon the court. The only reasonable response is ridicule.
In this decision we have poor reasoning in the service of the morally shocking. It’s a double whammy.
Koch-funded Republican mantra: Let us prey.
I fear the consequences of this lethal decision in addition to the pretense of sound reasoning from this Trumpublican court.
Add this to list of wanton destruction:
https://projects.propublica.org/trump-midnight-regulations/
What a catalogue of evil and destruction. I have used a lot of choice language to describe the Idiot and his maladministration, but the word that encapsulates it best is this: Trump is a vandal.
Add to the pile:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-rule-to-allow-use-of-firing-squads-electrocution-for-federal-executions_n_5fc0f78ec5b66bb88c664436
Get ready for unelected religious zealots to impose their beliefs on the rest of us- even if it may kill you. What happened to the right of freedom FROM religion. I fear the coming christian sharia law.
Here is possibly Trump’s farewell speech. It’s hard not to be uplifted by his magnificently inspiring words. Now all he has to do now is write it with a Sharpie and present it to the country.
………………………………….
**Opinion | Trump’s Farewell Address, in his own words*
Opinion by
Dana Milbank
Columnist
November 27, 2020
…But in the weeks that have passed since the election, he [Trump] has already given us his farewell address of sorts. Here it is, assembled entirely from his own words and tweets:
This election was a fraud. A total fraud. It was a fraudulent election. This was a massive fraud. This fraud has taken place. You have a fraudulent system. Fraudulent voting and fraudulent votes. There’s tremendous fraud here. There’s fraud all over the place. Massive fraud has been found.
We’re like a Third World country. We will find tens of thousands of fraudulent and illegal votes. You’re gonna find fraud of hundreds of thousands of votes per state. They used covid in order to defraud the people of this country. Biden can only enter the White House as president if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. I just don’t see Americans rolling over for this election fraud. Our big lawsuit, which spells out in great detail all of the ballot fraud and more, will soon be filled (sic).
RIGGED ELECTION! This Election was RIGGED. This, it was a rigged election. Very sad to say it, this election was rigged. This was a 100% RIGGED ELECTIONThey know it was a rigged election. At the highest level it was a rigged election. This election was a rigged election.
This was an election that we won easily. We won it by a lot. I won Pennsylvania by a lot. In Georgia, I won by a lot. I won that by hundreds of thousands of votes. There’s no way Trump didn’t win Pennsylvania because the energy industry was all for him. No, we won by a lot. We were robbed. We got many votes more than Ronald Reagan.
This election was lost by the Democrats. They cheated. They flooded everybody with ballots. They’re horrible people, and they’re people that don’t love our country.
Horrible things went on. Many other things were happening that were horrible. Just horrible. This is horrible what’s taking place. All of the horrible things that happened to poll watchers. If you were a Republican poll watcher you were treated like a dog.
Dead people were requesting ballots. Not only were they coming in and putting in a ballot, but dead people were requesting ballots, and they were dead for years. Dead people voting all over the place.
It’s a corrupt system. The most corrupt election in American political history. Corrupt election! This is corrupt. We’ll not allow the corruption to steal such an important election. Working hard to clean up the stench of the 2020 Election Hoax! The 2020 Election was a total scam…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/27/trumps-farewell-address-his-own-words/
This was predicted. It’s soon going to be time to ‘reform entitlement programs’.
………………………..
The Hill:
Republicans ready to become deficit hawks again under a President Biden
Republicans are preparing to re-embrace their inner deficit hawk after greenlighting big spending bills under President Trump.
GOP senators say they expect to refocus on curbing the nation’s debt and reforming entitlement programs starting in 2021, as the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the debt has surpassed the size of the American economy…
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is poised to become the chairman of the Budget Committee if Republicans keep the Senate. He said he wants to create a new commission to propose ways to reduce the deficit and address the country’s debt.
“I think we’ve got to understand that we’re going to be raising the debt ceiling in perpetuity if we don’t find a way to bend the curve,” Graham said…
Chairman Jerome Powell recently warned that “there’s going to be a probably a substantial group of workers who are going to need support as they find their way in the post pandemic economy because it’s going to be different in some fundamental ways.”
But it hasn’t just been the coronavirus where Republicans have been willing to spend big. Democrats are quick to note Republicans support for significant corporate and personal tax cuts in 2017. Though the administration pledged the bill would pay for itself, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that it would add $1.9 trillion to deficits over 10 years. …
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/527197-republicans-ready-to-become-deficit-hawks-again-under-a-president-biden
Carol,
The first saving will be ending that stupid Wall.
I normally attend two church services each Sunday. Often I lead the music. But I have only been to one service since Covid. If I were to pass Covid on to a person I dearly love by behaving recklessly, I would consider myself a poor excuse for a person.
I miss church, especially the singing. But I will be damned if I threaten the health of all those old folks.
There is a church near me that has wonderful messages on its board on the street. One of the best was one I saw near the beginning of the pandemic: “Services: Cancelled. Worship: Encouraged.” Even as an atheist, that one teared me up a bit. They’ve had a few more wonderful ones since then, can’t recall them verbatim so don’t want to get them wrong, but they made me smile and bucked me up a bit. They’re still not holding services, but I suspect their congregation is as strong, if not stronger, as ever. I’ll attend a service when things are normal just to give a contribution and thank the pastor.
Greg: go to sunday school, not church. and not one of those sunday schools where only one person talks. In tiny churches throughout my life, people have met in small sunday school groups to discuss the religious literature. Because they are small, clinging to existence, they are often very accepting to questions that challenge their view of the religion.
I used to periodically go to random churches. I would get up and drive until I saw a church assembling and just pull in. Since this was out in the country, I always chose places that were small. I recall going into one building near where I lived and hearing a nice sermon about how Black and White people should treat each other well. The minister brought in Henry Aaron and his gracious acceptance of hate mail during his quest to pass Babe Ruth. It was a surprise and a delight.
There were places I did not go. One group I knew of preached racism from the pulpit, according to friends from that part of the country. Still, it was fun. What I never did was to stop in on a big congregation.
Wow.
Hi Roy. Don’t know if you get Amazon Prime, but if you do, check out the French documentary series “The Silk Road.” Just watched the third episode about central and eastern Turkey and thought you would love it.
And if I were to send this to Trump lovers, they would say it is coming from ‘fake’ news. Unbelievable.
Ahhh, but churches can now be full of Trump lovers. People who have knowledge of reality wouldn’t show up and pray in large groups now.
……………………………
Covid Overload: U.S. Hospitals Are Running Out of Beds for Patients
Nov. 27, 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic surges across the country, hospitals are facing a crisis-level shortage of beds and staff to provide adequate care for patients.
From New Mexico to Minnesota to Florida, hospitals are teeming with record numbers of Covid patients. Staff members at smaller hospitals have had to beg larger medical centers repeatedly to take one more, just one more patient, but many of the bigger hospitals have sharply limited the transfers they will accept, their own halls and wards overflowing.
In the spring, the pandemic was concentrated mainly in hard-hit regions like New York, which offered lessons to hospitals in other states anticipating the spread of the coronavirus. Despite months of planning, though, many of the nation’s hospital systems are now slammed with a staggering swell of patients, no available beds and widening shortages of nurses and doctors. On any single day, some hospitals have had to turn away transfer requests for patients needing urgent care or incoming emergencies.
And rising infection rates among nurses and other frontline workers have doubled the patient load on those left standing.
There is no end in sight for the nation’s hospitals as the pandemic continues to hammer cities and rural areas across the country, totaling 13 million cases so far this year. And public health experts warn that the holidays may speed the already fast-moving pace of infection, driving the demand for hospital beds and medical care ever higher.
A record number of Americans — 90,000 — are now hospitalized with Covid, and new cases of infection had been climbing to nearly 200,000 daily.
Health care systems “are verging on the edge of breaking,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Covid-19 advisory council, said in a podcast this month.
The public does not realize how dire the situation is, Dr. Osterholm said, and may respond only “when people are dying, sitting in chairs in waiting rooms in emergency rooms for 10 hours to get a bed, and they can’t find one, and then they die.”
When Ms. Fine went to UW Health’s University Hospital in Madison, she found doctors there overwhelmed and distracted. “They just parked me in a hallway because there was no place for me to go,” said Ms. Fine, 61, who was eventually found to have a severe bout of shingles that threatened her eyes…
Admitted to a makeshift room with curtains separating the beds, Ms. Fine watched the chaos around her. A nurse did not know who she was, asking if she had trouble walking or heard whooshing in her ears. She “was just completely frazzled,” Ms. Fine recalled, though she added that staff members were “kind and caring and did their best under horrifying conditions.”
Workers at the hospital issued a plea last Sunday, published as a two-page ad in The Wisconsin State Journal, asking state residents to help prevent further spread of the virus.
“Without immediate change, our hospitals will be too full to treat all of those with the virus and those with other illnesses or injuries,” they warned. “Soon you or someone you love may need us, but we won’t be able to provide the lifesaving care you need, whether for Covid-19, cancer, heart disease or other urgent conditions. As health care providers, we are terrified of that becoming reality.”…
Well, I may have gotten my law degree off a cereal box [Crackerjacks for the SCOTUS badge], but allow me to dissent.
First off, of course: the restrictions no longer apply. So this was a Seinfeldian decision: about nothing, except entertaining the audience.
EVEN IF… (Isn’t that how just about every legal brief para begins?)… NYS’ prior, briefly-imposed church-gathering cap were still in effect:
Gorsuch opinion’s ludicrously compares an hour of sitting (breathing, responding in chorus, singing) indoors to 10-min indoor transactions such as picking up your bike from the repair shop or grabbing a bottle of wine. He also whines that Roberts’ precedent in a CA case “cuts the Constitution loose.”
The majority opinion wanders FAR out of the constitutional lane, casting aspersions on, e.g., calling “all plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics and all transportation facilities” essential. Let’s put SCOTUS in charge of breaking down electronics manufacture into chips for video games vs chips for pacemakers & see how that goes. Garages are suggested as non-essential: howya gonna get to work when you car’s broke? As for acupuncture, perhaps SCOTUS would advise their chronic-pain patients to take opioids instead?
SCOTUS implies NYS’ essential-workplace regs are negligent for not prescribing individual worker caps for every biz (LOL!). IMHO, unless McConnell gets his way on releasing employers from liability, we can leave such decisions up to the business. “The District Court noted that ‘there ha[d] not been any COVID–19 outbreak in any of the Diocese’s churches since they reopened.’ and it praised the Diocese’s record in combatting the spread of the disease.” I call hearsay by both courts: show me the evidence. Guessing testing/ contact-tracing at churches is not even up to the shoddy stds on which similar claims are made for on-campus teaching (& most likely, is non-existent).
I could go on & on [had to tear myself away from decision text midway to get bp back to normal]. This is a piss-poor excuse for the sort of reasoning one expects from the highest court in the land. I only hope pundits are correct, i.e., SCOTUS’ bone-headed burbling can be explained by the moot nature of case (what a thing to have to hope for).
First decision I’ve read since Barrett replaced RBG, & I’m already questioning whether her supposedly discerning legal prowess takes a backseat whenever her religious-freedom hackles are engaged.
Ed Johnson gets right at what irks me as he calls out the 2nd fork of SCOTUS argument: “the houses of worship ‘remain under a constant threat’ because the restrictions could always be reinstated.” The 1st fork is a half-assed excuse for evidence, as detailed above. The 2nd is entirely without merit, and collapses the house of cards with its obvious—disingenuous!— prop for a purely ideological slant.
bethree5 Scotus is implying that closures are prescribed arbitrarily . . . or seemingly so, to cover hidden political intent, if not now, they later by precedent/ implication.
So much irony . . . like Karen suggesting closures are for ending our freedoms (via the press), this decision suggests that closures cannot depend on any sort of intelligent and reasonable decision-making or . . . God forbid . . . on the Court’s own intelligent scrutiny at a later date . . . . so screwed up . . . a supremely cheap knock-off of what qualitative judgeship is supposed to be about. CBK
CORRECTION: I wrote “Karen” and meant Janet Johnson. CBK
I feel safer attending Mass at my local Catholic Church than I do shopping in my local grocery store. We wear masks properly(not half masked like many shoppers). We are expected to and do use hand sanitizer. (Again, unlike many shoppers). We keep our distance(unlike those folks in the checkout line who crowd me from behind). We aren’t’ singing. Every other pew is blocked off and groups are seated six feet apart. Registration is required prior to attending. I don’t take communion. I’m teaching online. I don’t go to bars or restaurants. I don’t visit friends or family. I would like to know who the readers of this blog think I am putting at risk by attending Mass.
C Read the literature about the differences. It’s all over the place.
But perhaps you don’t believe what they are saying as they try to inform us; or that they are trying to show us how to keep us all safe? Also, do you think the state regulations are about hindering your religious or other freedoms? CBK
Well, I just finished reading all 80-odd (so far) posts, and not one reader of this blog stated anything about whether mass-goers are putting the public at risk. The arguments here deal with the SCOTUS decision’s being (a)moot [i.e., no one is being restricted as described therein]— and (b) choosing nevertheless to make a point of intervening in local govt decisions in order to give “religious freedom” priority over public safety. Even if you personally attend mass in a NYC area briefly designated red or orange, at this point you’re re-zoned “yellow” & limited to 50% capacity, to which the NYC RC church does not object.
bethree5 I fully recognize the importance of Mass and, for others, church gatherings. However, in this awful time, do we need to go to church in order to worship? . . . in the same way we need to go to the store to get food? or choose to have it delivered? or to help others in a hospital or the other essential services?
NO . . . we don’t. In fact, it can be the opposite . . . we can put that time to quiet and deliberate prayer and reading at home, or with the children, or “attending” mass on television, we can find reflective time that we may not know is available to us under other circumstances.
But I wouldn’t be a governor if you paid me a billion . . . like SCOTUS trying to get into the details of human living with their general regulations, governors can only use the sledgehammer of regulations. In doing so, they are bound to include oversights and errors. If we are to pray, we should include our governors in the mix.
And if most of us had good sense in the first place, regulations would be restricted to stuff like stoplights. CBK
Good for you. The Orthodox Jews who also brought the suit are known for crowded events without masks. They spread the disease to people who do not share their religion.
Diane, re: first post on your “weekend off.” I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt: you are relaxing. We’re an easy crowd, you can blog with us over a lazy breakfast or a demi-snooze on the couch; we’re the household pup. All you have to do is throw us a bouncy ball and we’ll chase it for hours.
Thanks, Ginny. The post about Blake was intentional because it is his birthday.
The second post was an accident caused by my unfamiliarity with changes made by WordPress. Just as soon as I get comfortable with one format, WP makes changes. I intended that post for next week. C’est la vie.
Carol Malaysia – thanks for sharing Chicago Public Schoo music teacher Paul DeNovi’s wonderful video. I’ve posted it on Twitter & Youtube. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk4TFvyTP6Q