New social gathering rules: This week, California’s public health officials released new social guidelines in the state, forbidding gatherings of more than three households at any time and mandating that all such gatherings be held outside. Attendees may – thank you, leader! – use restrooms as long as they are frequently sanitized – which seems like good advice in any decade. Seating at these gatherings must be at least six feet apart, and attendees must wear masks. Gatherings should be less than two hours in duration and among the same three households each time. Oh, and no singing! The media has billed these guidelines as an “easing” of state restrictions.
How can these violations of civil liberties be justified given the crushed curve? Heavy-handed government restrictions on civil liberties were originally justified to “flatten the curve” so hospital systems wouldn’t be overwhelmed. California has more than succeeded at this. There are fewer Californians hospitalized with Coronavirus than any day on record since April 1, the day the state began tracking the metric. Those in intensive care are at their second-lowest level since officials began keeping track in late March. Daily deaths are also at their lowest level since early April.
Yet in the land of the perpetually moving Coronavirus Reopening Goalposts, businesses and schools remain closed. And social gatherings are forbidden – aside from the Kafkaesque “gatherings” that could possibly take place under the state’s new guidelines. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to have deep concerns that Covid-19 has turned into an aphrodisiac for power among the state’s government officials.
The kicker: Science indicates that outdoor transmission is exceedingly rare – especially in the California sunshine.
As if kids didn’t have it hard enough, Halloween is canceled: This week, California public officials “strongly discouraged” trick-or-treating on Halloween. This announcement is tantamount to a ban because, in order for trick-or-treating to be any fun, most households or apartments in a given neighborhood need to take part.
According to California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly, “Some of the traditional Halloween celebrations, such as… door-to-door trick-or-treating, we know pose a high risk of spreading Covid and are therefore strongly discouraged.” Really? We know that trick-or-treating spreads Covid? I’d like to see the science behind that claim. As a replacement for Halloween, the fun sucks at the state public health department suggest an online costume contest.
Identity politics on overdrive: On this week’s episode of Radio Free California, CPC board member David Bahnsen and CPC President Will Swaim discuss how progressives are opening a new front in the identity politics war, demanding that Kamala Harris fight Indian caste prejudice in California. (Harris is a descendent of India’s elite Brahmin caste.) They also fact-check Harris on her debate claim that President Lincoln didn’t nominate a Supreme Court Justice in the month before a presidential election. And they offer the final Radio Free California assessment of state ballot propositions.
Why liberals should care about growing public pension liabilities: Those of us who continually sound the alarm over California’s public pension crisis are often derided as handwringing fiscal conservatives. Yet as Steve Greenhut explains in an OC Register op-ed this week, the public pension beast also consumes the public services that liberals deem so precious:
California cities face daunting fiscal problems (even before COVID-19), driven by the outsized pay and pension deals for their employees. This is leading to what policy wonks call “service crowd out.” As these costs outpace inflation and revenues, cities must cut services to balance their budgets and pay an escalating tab to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).
The main problem involves the costs for public-safety programs, mainly police and especially firefighting. Those departments often consume 60 percent or more of local budgets, with the bulk of the costs involving compensation. In many California cities, for instance, the average firefighter earns total annual compensation of well over $200,000.
Steve highlights the efforts of Placentia to form its own firefighting force independent of CalPERS to cut costs, a story broken by CPC contributor Edward Ring in a compelling three-part analysis. Steve highlights how no good government deed goes unpunished in California, noting the union-backed legislation that quickly passed to make sure that other cities cannot follow Placentia’s innovative lead.
The pain that so many Californians feel, beautifully articulated by… Bill Maher?! Funnyman and far-left liberal Bill Maher challenged U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff about the problems plaguing California on his most recent episode:
There is an exodus. California businesses are leaving the state in droves. In just 2018 and 19, which were economic boom years, 765 commercial facilities left, 13,000 between 2009 and 2016.
Look, I came out here in 1983. I found paradise. I love California. I do. I don't want to leave, but I feel like I’m living in Italy in the 70s or something. Super high taxes, potholes in the road, fires. I don’t know what I’m getting for my super-high taxes.
People talk about this a lot now and people are leaving. Like in my industry, Joe Rogan left, Ben Shapiro... Elon Musk talks about leaving.
Given that Maher speaks the language of California’s progressive powerholders, perhaps his message can get through. Even Schiff admitted California must become a better place to do business.
Making hiring more expensive during a recession is crazy: In an OC Register op-ed this week, Mercatus Institute scholars explain how AB5, which outlaws hundreds of thousands of contracting jobs in the state, is especially pernicious during a recession:
AB5 is the poster child for unintended consequences, which the legislature’s passage of AB2257 more-or-less acknowledges. For some workers and employers — who need the freedom, mobility, and flexibility of contract work — it’s like being asked to swim with cement shoes. Even the freelance industry’s solution — Proposition 22 — is too small of a flotation device. All workers should be exempted from AB5.
CPC President Will Swaim also had a recent op-ed in the OC Register highlighting the need to pass Prop 22 to fix Sacramento’s AB5 error.
Now’s the time to restructure BART: In his latest analysis, CPC contributor Edward Ring does a deep dive on the dire financials at the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency, highlighting how its profligate union contracts don’t match the new Covid-19 normal of depressed ridership and revenues:
If BART’s board of directors is serious about restoring any sort of financial sustainability to their system, all contract provisions should be subject to negotiation. In the current contract negotiations, if BART had a financially literate board of directors that properly understood that their job required them to prioritize the interests of fare-paying riders and taxpayers, union rumblings of a strike would be met by the respectful suggestion to “go ahead.”
With BART ridership at a small fraction of normal, and a new world dawning on the other side of the COVID pandemic, now would be a perfect time to shut BART down and redesign the entire system.
CPC President Will Swaim also recently covered BART’s refusal to recognize its fiscal reality.
Proponents of school closures ignore Sweden: In his latest analysis, CPC contributor Larry Sand highlights how teachers unions and the politicians on their payroll have never “acknowledged that not one child in Sweden has died from Covid, and that Swedish teachers did not suffer unusually high rates of infection, even though the country never closed schools for those under 16. Additionally, Swedish students were never forced to wear masks.”
New Cato report on the silver lining of school shutdowns: Larry also highlights a new Cato Institute report explaining how the trend of learning pods could revolutionize American education. Covid-19, write the authors, has “spurred the dramatic rise of microschools and ‘pandemic pods’ as school districts’ reopening plans (or lack thereof) drove desperate parents to explore alternative education options. For many microschooling or podding families, these options are merely temporary, intended to get them through the pandemic. However, given the considerable growth in microschooling in recent years, there are reasons to believe that the pandemic accelerated a growing trend that could significantly reshape K–12 education in the United States.” This trend could be accelerated if government officials passed school choice policies.
Teachers ridicule students: Two Vallejo teachers, unaware that their Zoom lesson was still recording, were caught this week badmouthing their students for not adequately understanding the virtual technology. “These kids are technologically illiterate,' said one teacher before mocking them for not knowing how to submit their work electronically. They don’t know how to do basic film editing he complained, but they could all “add puppy ears on their insta films.”
The transition to virtual learning has been brutal, with many children not learning at all. How about a little sympathy from the teachers who get the same pay for half the work? Imagine the repercussions if a business was caught making fun of its customers like this in the private sector. To the school district’s credit, it has suspended the teachers involved. Yet you don’t need a crystal ball to know that their teachers union will have them quickly reinstated with no real penalty.
The irony here is that students today do need more technological skills to compete in the 21st century economy. Unfortunately, they’re saddled with a school system that’s largely stuck in the 19th century. That’s what deserves ridicule.
Enjoyed this newsletter? Subscribe HERE. Donate HERE. Please forward this email to your friends.
