I've been beyond melancholy all day. I found out last night while listening to Don Henley's "Inside Job" CD. Weeping, my wife showed me her phone with the news. Tonight I will listen to Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. It will be emotional.

First Petty's unexpected loss and now this.
When I see the Dog Star tonight I'll say a prayer of thanks for all the joy Prine brought to my life. Probably thru tears.

Happy Passover
alice cooper -shul’s out.

Some second tier economies countries that have done very well against the virus could become bigger players with a lot of countries on IR. Vietnam for example

Posted by dino27 on 4/9/2020 8:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dino27 on 4/8/2020 11:19:00 PM (view original):
Kansas Republican state legislature strikes down gov’s attempt to limit the size of religious gatherings in time for Passover.
state atty general Schmidt insists that Jewish people should be able to congregate in large numbers ASAP.

General Schmidt will also make sure that Easter worshipers can spread good cheer on Easter Sunday.

Why I say this is dumbed down country.
sorry if I offend.
i hate to see people being encouraged that it is ok to risk suicide and negligent and reckless homocide.
Dumbcountry

My dad is kinda a lowkey hippy. He's also a physician. But he's also a pastor. When I told him that churches in DC were all closed, he asked why. I said because the mayor said so. He said "I don't think the church is beholden to the mayor." They still closed their church, but it was a decision of the church leadership at that time. The point is, in certain circumstances, the right thing to do is just to ask people to do the right thing.

I think in this case your summary of Kansas AG - as biased and inaccurate as it may be - is still basically a truism. Jewish people should be able to congregate in large numbers ASAP. Any people should be able to congregate in large numbers any time they want to. Freedom of assembly is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment. I have no issue with executive orders closing nonessential businesses. Within reasonable bounds, enforcing social distancing is probably ok. But most states have an executive order right now banning "social gatherings" of n or more people (n usually =10); this is obviously unconstitutional. It's not ambiguous. Moreover, the wording you would use to defend circumventing a Constitutionally guaranteed right is virtually identical to the wording King George III's government would have used to forbid private gatherings during the revolutionary era in an attempt to either isolate or imprison revolutionary voices - protection of the common good of society, preservation of lives, etc. Keep in mind that while estimates of colonial casualties during the Revolution vary widely, a middle-of-the-road estimate of 50,000 deaths represents ~2% of the total population of the colonies during the war. That's on the very high end of worst-case-scenario death tolls from this virus. So this isn't "worse" or "unprecedented" as a dangerous challenge to personal liberty. It is a founding and fundamental principle of American political philosophy that it's better to forfeit lives than forfeit core liberties. "Give me Liberty or give me death."

Obviously people should do the right thing and try to avoid gathering in large groups. I don't really even have a problem with governors attempting to pass these executive orders. It's the job of government to push the boundaries and try to protect the citizenry. What bothers me is that nobody seems bothered by the fact that their first amendment rights are being blatantly violated. I'm not comfortable with how comfortable modern Americans seem with forfeiture of Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. It means the only reason we've been honoring the Constitution and its guaranteed rights is because it's been convenient to do so, not because we as a people still deeply value our freedoms.

I've also heard people in the media already talking about whether we should be making contingencies to postpone the general election depending on how things are going. Moreover, all of the people leading the charge on this talking point have been left-leaning. This totally flabbergasts me. With a president with clear autocratic tendencies currently leading the executive branch, and a Senate that seems willing to do almost anything he asks, do you really want to try to give the Federal government the power to manipulate the election cycle? You think the White House can't monitor election polling along with COVID trends and push for an election delay if Trump is struggling in the polls, or demand elections proceed as normal if he's looking good? I'm not ready to put the core functionality of our democracy in the hands of this administration, or this Congress. And it shocks me that the people who are ready to do so are theoretically liberal. The fundamental basis of a liberal democracy requires regular elections and preservation of basic human rights as guaranteed in our written Constitution. The American left seems to be surrendering any claim to true liberalism in favor of an overprotective and repressive state free to ignore something as fundamental as the First Amendment.

Liberalism
noun
1. the quality or state of being liberal, as in behavior or attitude.
2. a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.

But it seems to me that those on the "other side" (the right/conservative/fascist/etc folks) don't seem to fully understand what it means to support STATE'S rights! Within THAT philosophy Governors would be able to assert "overprotective" policies designed to "protect" us from some harm without limits other than those already within their own State Constitution.
Potentially violating sacred individual "rights" all the while their actions and executive orders are allowed to STAND due to inaction of the (State) judicial branch OR a State constitutional framework that allows for the abridging of "individual rights" in pursuit of the common good.

States are obligated under Article VI to follow all Federal laws and regulations as the supreme law of the land. So this isn't correct. Nothing in any state constitution can supersede the individual protections of the First Amendment. Period. You do touch on an interesting point, though. Almost all of the courts have been shut down by the same executive orders to which I take exception. It's an interesting problem. How can anyone challenge the orders if the courts are closed? Does closing the courts also violate the Constitutionally-guaranteed right to a "speedy trial?" I'm inclined to say no, at least not yet. But it does present an interesting problem, maybe reveals a loophole. Again, it doesn't necessarily matter how much we agree with the motivation to close the courts right now. This illuminates the fact that our systems seem to allow a state governor to issue an illegal declaration, shut down the courts, and make his illegal order impervious to legal challenge. Something like that could be abused in other circumstances.

Now let me ask you................will YOU be willing to undergo a "test" of some sort administered by Governmental authority (either State or Fed) to determine your covid-19 status?
Many health experts are saying that the ONLY sure way to win the battle against covid-19 is by mass (National) testing.
Thus identifying those that carry the virus and are spreading it.
As I read the US Constitution an "order" would be prohibited. But a National patriotic request would be legal. Would it be followed/obeyed?

I'm not convinced mandatory testing would be illegal. I don't think we have the resources for it right now. But I don't see why it wouldn't be legal. I do think you may be misinterpreting what "many health experts" are saying, or perhaps who qualifies as an expert. I don't think anyone with real knowledge advocates testing everyone. I'm also not sure what good one round of universal testing would do. You'd have to keep doing it every few days to keep multiple rounds of infection home to really stop the disease entirely. And then you'd need to close the country to all foreign entry until the virus has disappeared everywhere. That would be catastrophic economically. Testing everyone is a way to get to 0 cases, but 0 cases isn't a realistic goal. Testing everyone nationwide is wildly unnecessary to flatten the curve.

But sure, I'd be happy to go in for routine testing if requested or mandated by any level of government. And again, I actually think that would be legal.

The hypocrisy of right-wingers is legendary in my world and NOWHERE is it more clear than by those folks gladly accepting their socialist payments of cold CASH from the Federal Gov't, with NO protest about this payment being blatant socialism!

I agree with this. It's way off the rails in terms of the original Constitutional question, but widespread payments to the general public were just a bad idea from the very start. Several prominent Senators made this argument for me - ultimately, the purpose of the Federal stimulus bill is to... be a stimulus. Giving money to individuals during a time when a bunch of places to spend money are closed anyway doesn't really stimulate the economy. I understand the appeal of putting a little bit of money in people's pockets during a difficult financial time, but I don't think it's an efficient use of Federal resources. In the short term, it will make people more comfortable, but it has no long-term benefit. I would be pumping all of the money into the industrial and commercial sectors. You can beef up the funding for Federal unemployment benefits with some of the money, but you just don't have to pay everybody. In 3 years those people would be better off by pumping the money to businesses so that when the virus has faded into the background the job and stock markets rebound quickly. There's going to be short term economic pain no matter what. The best use of the money would, in my view, have been to make the rebound as quick as possible when this is over.

Also, one critical point - I'm not trying to put the political right on a pedestal. They just didn't happen to be the side driving the particular problem I was responding to in my post.

The Global Elites want to micro-chip us all!!!!!!!!

Wolverines!

Fair enough.
Hypocrisy does not hold sway with just one side.
Neither does fear.
Nor ignorance.

Your point regarding mass "testing" is quite correct regarding the need for "multiple" tests.
I'm of the belief that 3 tests, spaced out over 10 - 14 days would suffice.

As for using our Countries natural protections (oceans) to aid prevention of the virus (or another!) entering.
I say damn the economic costs globally. Seems it's time (to me) to practice self sufficiency and sustainability.
Here's some (sorta) praise for Trump. (Might surprise some coming from Me!)....
His action (though a tad slow) to eliminate air travel (entrance HERE) from China worked pretty damn well.
IF ONLY He had done the same with ALL of Europe and perhaps even elsewhere.
I have read that scientists have determined that the NYC outbreak is of the European genetic markers NOT the wuhan variety.
Our newspapers here in Arizona report the same--------OUR outbreak is from European origination NOT China.

THUS, IMO, IF we closed all international entry (without an effective quarantine) AND performed multiple widespread mass testing you could theoretically reduce infections to (close to) zero, and maintain it!
It would mean WE need to be able to feed ourselves and produce EVERYTHING we need to function as a society/nation. All our oil, minerals, medicines, food, etc! Kinda like the original Jeffersonian vision, no?