[Inforum] It is fashionable in certain political circles — among those who think the job of an elected leader is simply to get elected — to talk about how we should just do, as public policy, what technical experts tell us to do. Folks, that's not leadership.
MINOT, N.D. — After Gov. Doug Burgum's administration rescinded a quarantine order yesterday, one which had misdemeanor criminal charges attached to it for violators, interim State Health Officer Dr. Paul Mariani has announced his resignation.
He'd been on the job for less than a month, and he's now the third person to step down from the position since the pandemic began.
It will be tempting for some, particularly Burgum's political enemies, to suggest the governor is doing something wrong.
From outward appearances, I'm not at all certain that's true. I think our real problem is in finding someone for the SHO role who understands that they are not the governor.
Thursday I was the first to report that the controversial quarantine order was to be rescinded. Between that moment and Dr. Mariani's resignation this evening I interviewed Burgum. Toward the end of our conversation, he sad something that, in retrospect, is pretty fascinating.
I was closing out the interview, and Burgum interjected to praise our public health officials. "One thing I want to say in support of our local public health teams, they're working so hard," Burgum said. "They care deeply about people's health. That's their job. Their job isn't to look holistically about the economy and education, their job is on health."
That bit about what the job of public health officials is, and is not, reveals a great deal about Burgum's mindset.
It's his job, as our state's top elected official, to "holistically" (to use his term) consider all aspects of public policy, from health to the economy to education. Public health officials have a narrower remit which makes them responsible for just one of those facets.
That attitude — and it's the correct one for a governor to have — is at the heart of Burgum's apparent conflict with his state health officials.
It is fashionable in certain political circles — among those who think the job of an elected leader is simply to get elected — to talk about how we should just do, as public policy, what technical experts tell us to do.
Folks, that's not leadership.
Someone like Dr. Mariani, without question, has expertise when it comes to questions of health. Yet the quarantine order he issued touched on policy areas far outside the expertise of a doctor.
How would that order be enforced? That's a law enforcement issue.
Disobeying the order would have been a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. But if you arrest someone for a crime, they are afforded certain rights, including access to public defenders and all the due process our statutes and constitution and reams and reams of jurisprudence afford.
There is clearly a very vocal and active faction of North Dakotans who saw that order as unjust. If they resisted it, was the state prepared for the resulting court cases? And perhaps civil suits?
That may not be the sort of thing a technical expert, like a doctor, considers.
Yet those ramifications are exactly what a governor must consider.
Burgum wants people to wear masks. He wants them to distance themselves while in public. He also wants them to quarantine for the appropriate amount of time after coming in close contact with someone who tested positive.
But because he's a governor, and not a technical expert with all of the policy-area myopia inherent to that sort of position, he understands the political, legal and even economic ramifications for trying to force those things, by law, in a place like North Dakota.
"We know the government telling people what to do in North Dakota doesn't work," Burgum said during our interview.
He's right.
For those of you who think he's wrong, you have an alternative in Democratic-NPL challenger Shelley Lenz who has made it clear that she'll appoint someone else to make these tough policy decisions for her.
#1
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite. - Eisenhower's address to the nation.
Via Insty: Researchers from Florida think they have found a coronavirus cure, saying their treatment protocols had a success rate of nearly 100%.
AdventHealth Ocala doctors treated their patients with a combination of four types of drugs under the acronym ICAM.
ICAM is a COVID-19 therapy designed to boost the immune system while preventing inflammation in the lungs.
A clinical trial is underway to prove the findings. If it’s found to be safe and effective, ICAM therapy might be used on COVID-19 patients without the need to hospitalize them....
ICAM isn’t a new drug, it’s an acronym for a combination of existing medications used simultaneously on patients. It uses Immunosupport drugs (Vitamin C and Zinc), Corticosteroids against inflammation, Anticoagulants against blood clots, and Macrolides to help fight infection.
[GatestoneInst] It seems that criticizing the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) and their plan to disrupt and steal the 2020 presidential election can be dangerous.
So -- the leadership of TIP has spoken. Now you know their thinking, their motives and their true objectives. It seems Nils Gilman wants Michael Anton executed.
The brutality and viciousness of Marxism and its adherents is on display. Those that may have held reservations or harbored some doubt on my analysis of what TIP really had in store for the election now have their answers.
Continued on Page 49
[Ricochet] After the Battle of Helm’s Deep and the Ents’ breaking of Isengard, Gandalf and his allies gather at the foot of Orthanc, the last redoubt of the traitorous wizard Saruman. Gandalf warns the company of the power of Saruman’s voice. Those who hear it are easily swayed to his side, even if they do not remember his words. Indeed, the horsemen of Rohan quickly find themselves drawn to the foe whose schemes killed so many of their kinsmen. The honeyed voice of the rainbow-clothed sage in his high tower begins to trap the common warriors who, though skilled in battle, are unprepared for the combat of beguiling sophistry. But then:
It was Gimli the dwarf who broken in suddenly, ’The words of this wizard stand on their heads,’ he growled, gripping the handle of his axe. ’In the language of Orthanc help means ruin, and saving means slaying, that is plain. But we do not come here to beg.’
Help means ruin. Saving means slaying.
Peaceful protests. Abortion is healthcare.
Men are women. Women are men. Following constitutional procedure is a constitutional crisis.
We have our own fair share of Sarumans in this world, I think. The language of Orthanc lives on. Bless the Gimlis, their hard heads, and their axes!
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/27/2020 11:02 Comments ||
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#3
There are two Californias; the California with the riots and feces covered sidewalks, and the California with the fires and power shutdowns. My power is scheduled to shut down in about seven hours.
#9
Stay safe, Tom. You probably know the evac rules. Pack the important shit now
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/27/2020 15:55 Comments ||
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#10
Friends we left behind in El Dorado Hills are facing another extended Pacific Gas & Electric shut off. The public safety message from PG&E used a new term, announcing they are going to “de-energise” the system for safety during a period of strong winds. I wonder if that is how they say it in Venezuela.
With various people discussing a new Civil War it is worth revisiting some aspects of the last one that history kind of sweeps under the rug. In 1863 the Czar's Fleet visited the Union on both coasts. This also inhibited the greedy eyes of France and the UK. Major elements of his fleet remained in an available state until our war ended.
In addition many Russian officers served with the North including one of Sherman's generals.
Click on the story title for historical document. Google for more.
The cynic in me wonders if the Democratic President Wilson, a known KKK supporter, sent troops into Russia after WW-1 in part because Russia helped keep French and UK help from the South.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Around the world, the Communist rulers of China are planting flags with the speed of a Victorian adventurer claiming lands and seas that others once thought their own or neutral.
Using debt instead of gunboats, the Chinese are tying new nations into their own imperial order.
It looks like Barbados may be the latest trophy in Beijing’s imperial string of pearls.
Last week, the island announced that, after nearly 400 years, the monarchs of Great Britain would no longer rule over them. Not that this Queen ever really did.
As a constitutional monarch, Queen Elizabeth has never exercised any power over the 300,000 inhabitants.
Barbados is, and has been for decades, an independent constitutional realm and a democracy in the Commonwealth.
So why the change? What has triggered the Barbadians to find a new head of state and end the symbolic rule of the world’s most respected head of state?
If there’s one thing we know for certain, it’s nothing the Queen said or did that triggered the change. In fact, it’s nothing the British Government did either.
The move we’re seeing has everything to do with a new scramble for power. The Great Game has given way to the Great Gamble as countries are taking loans from Chinese state banks and betting they can pay them back before the default clauses come due.
#6
China gives poor countries loans that they cannot repay, then plunders their assets and resources when they default.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/27/2020 11:58 Comments ||
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#7
I don't get this "China panic". We poured money into these places and got exactly zero for our efforts. Zero results and zero thanks.
Well, actually I do get it. From what I've heard, China is offering a better deal than the former colonial masters. These ex-rulers got lazy and happy having everything their own way, and got used to it. Like any ruling class, they are absolutely outraged that someone would dare to mess with their pat little schemes.
[The Hill] Democratic nominee Joe Biden said Saturday that voters should decide who nominates the next Supreme Court justice to replace the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
"The American people know the U.S. Supreme Court decisions affect their everyday lives," Biden said in a statement. "The United States Constitution was designed to give the voters one chance to have their voice heard on who serves on the Court."
"That moment is now and their voice should be heard. The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress," Biden said.
His statement was issued shortly after Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee Saturday afternoon from the White House Rose Garden.
#1
They also want to do away with the Electoral College. Stuff them ballot boxes!!
"The American people know the U.S. Supreme Court decisions affect their everyday lives,"
Which is exactly wrong with what the court has become. You can not call this a republic if you have people who sit for life and unaccountable to the people to have such power.
#4
"In a statement" = Sundown Joe was put away for the day and his puppeteers issued a press release
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/27/2020 8:42 Comments ||
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#5
It seems Hidden-Biden failed Civic class.
OR did he forget the voters elect the President and the President they elected nominates the replacement SCOTUS Justice?
Then voter picked Senators whine and grandstand for $$$$, favors, and pander for votes on their selection.
NOTE:
The usual Whining, crying, mouthy Protesters are normally the ones than LOST when casting their vote.
[RedState] As I write this, we are still a few hours away from President Trump exercising his prerogative and executing his constitutional duty by nominating a replacement for a vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Last evening, CNN broke the news that President Trump was poised to announce Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to fill that position (see BREAKING: CNN Reports Trump Will Nominate Amy Coney Barrett for Supreme Court).
It has long been suspected that Coney Barrett will be attacked over her membership in a charismatic Catholic organization. She was attacked for being a Catholic who lived her faith during her confirmation hearing to the 7th Circuit. Who can forget this incredible display of anti-Catholic bigotry on the part of California Senator Dianne "I didn’t know my chauffeur was a ChiCom spy" Feinstein?
If she merited this attack for a Circuit Court seat, then how much more so for a seat on the Supreme Court?
This tweet is by a Catholic comedian, but I suspect we will see most of these charges made at any hearing Coney Barrett attends.
#1
I saw this game before. The usual suspects in South Korea were denouncing the Americans because they were 'stealing' Korean children. Back then we had real representatives, as the American ambassador pointed out that Americans were adopting Koreans that other Koreans refused to adopt. Shut that one down quick.
[YouTube] This showed up on NBC last night — a blast from December 19, 2019. It’s pitiable to realize they just reminded all the Democratic voters what they thought of Gropey Joe Biden and Kamala Harris less than a year ago, before they voted for him to be their party’s saviour.
...former Red Diaper baby who thought his way over to conservatism, and has since applied the activist skills of his childhood milieu to his former comrades...
author of the new bestselling book Blitz: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win, gave me an exclusive interview on Newstalk 570 WSYR in Syracuse, where he revealed his shocking theory about the current political unrest that seems more plausible by the day as revelations about a coup attempt to remove the president are revealed.
We’re in a war. My book Blitz shows we’re already in a civil war. What the Democrats did in 2016 is what you call treason. They seceded from the Union for the second time, the first being with the election of Abraham Lincoln, which led to the shooting war. The reason we don’t have two armies in the field is that the federal government is too powerful so there’s nobody outside the government who can organize a military force that wouldn’t be crushed immediately. So the civil war is over who controls the executive.
Horowitz has a unique insight in the communist wing of the Democrat Party, having spent his youth agitating for the left and even connected to groups like the Black Panthers, a domestic terrorist organization. You can read about his transformation to conservatism in his excellent book Radical Son. When someone of Horowitz’s caliber and insight into the left speaks, we all should take what he says very seriously. He may be one of the only living witnesses to the horrors of the left’s assault on America in the ’60s through terror and infiltration. Horowitz continues to reveal that he knows where and when the Democrat secession meeting happened:
Five days after the 2016 election there was a meeting at the Mandarin Oriental, which is a very posh hotel in Washington, D.C. It was organized by George Soros and there were something like 400 people there including Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Soros, Bernie Sanders, the Occupy Wall Street communists, the whole range of the left. What they did is form what they called a "resistance" to Trump—you remember, 70 Democrats boycotted the inauguration. This is sedition.
Horowitz also explained why the Electoral College was so important to the founders and why it is imperative to protect it in the face of Democrat attempts to abolish it.
[PJMedia] Democrats used COVID-19 as a pretext to try and change the way America votes. In fact, mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, and other various and sundry election law changes were part of the reason Democrats refused to debate a narrow COVID relief bill. Because Republicans wouldn’t agree to give up every election security feature we have, you and your family couldn’t get your unemployment benefits extended, schools lost money, and small business owners were left without assistance.
To block the bill, Democrats used the filibuster, which Barack Obama teachable moment... called a Jim Crow relic during the Democrat National Convention. However,
Continued on Page 49
#1
Maybe they figure the mail-in ballots are already in the mill so now they can get a lot of their people to vote again in person: either they get two votes counted or they get more chaos - a win-win scenario for them.
#2
The more Trump voters show up in person, the less likely vote harvestors will be able to pawn votes at the districts without exposing their game. It becomes rather obvious when a hundred or more harvested ballots show up for people who already voted in person.
#3
A fresh Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruling that requires ballots without the inner security envelope be discarded could affect tens of thousands of votes in that swing state.
Looks like the Dems have not been preparing for this new requirement.
[Babylon Bee] SEATTLE, WA—In a software rollout that went live Thursday, Amazon updated Alexa's programming to better understand your thoughts.
Products with Alexa have always been able to listen to your thoughts, but the new update will help Alexa delve even deeper into your innermost secrets.
"We're always improving our hardware and software to better hear and understand your deepest, darkest desires," said Jeff Bezos. "The latest microphones in our Echo products are fine-tuned with the highest quality sensors to listen as you think."
"So think away!" he added happily.
Alexa will use the feature to customize its answers, order you lots of Amazon products you're considering, and call the police should you commit any thought crimes.
[Breitbart] Ibram X. Kendi (Henry Rogers)
director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, wrote on Saturday that white people who adopt black children may be "racist," joining a growing group of Democrats and leftists commenting on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Haitian son and daughter.
Kendi wrote on social media: "Some White colonizers ’adopted" Black children. They ’civilized’ these ’savage’ children in the ’superior’ ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity."
"And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point," he continued. "It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist."
Kendi concluded, "I’m challenging the idea that White parents of kids of color are inherently ’not racist’ and the bots completely change what I’m saying to ’White parents of kids of color are inherently racist.’ These live and fake bots are good at their propaganda. Let’s not argue with them."
#1
Nothing says "racism" like providing a stable two parent home environment.
Love and care, nurturing, sending them to school each day and on to college. Little more evidence of systemic hate and racism needed here.
#6
So...
"Some White Gay colonizers ’adopted" Black children. They ’civilized’ these ’savage’ children in the ’superior’ ways of White Gay people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity."
#7
So he's a BU, eh? Between this asshole and AOC being a BU graduate, it makes you wonder (or not) how poor a school they've become once John Silber left as BU's president.
#9
It'll be great when/if a critical mass of normies finally figure out that no amount of supplication and "good deeds" will ever be enough for these people.
Then we can finally have true change.
BTW, Colin Kaepernick was adopted by White parents and Barack Obama was effectively raised by his White grandmother.
#10
Schumer et al are probably scouring the length and breadth of Haiti for people who, in exchange for good and valuable consideration, are willing to play the role of the biological parents of ACB's adopted kids.
Posted by: Matt ||
09/27/2020 14:38 Comments ||
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#11
Ah, yes, Haiti...and the Clinton Foundation.....
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.