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The idiocy, ignorance, and corruption of California’s Governor Newsom

In the past week the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has demonstrated that in his quest to cement the dictatorial powers he gave to himself with the arrival of the Wuhan virus, he really has no interest in any facts or real scientific data.

First, he announced with great fanfare on October 5th that the country and his state were entering a new terrible outbreak of COVID-19. “This is the second wave,” he declared grimly, adding,

“We continue to have a lot to do on COVID-19 transmission,” he said. “You’re starting to see an increase in COVID cases across the country,” the governor observed. “You’re seeing this not just across the country, you’re seeing this across the world.” Newsom then reported that 21 states across the U.S. are seeing increases.

Newsom then made reference to the Spanish flu pandemic that hit America in 1918, noting that “the second wave in 1918 was the most deadly.”

The problem for Newsom however are the facts, as shown in the graph below.

The same graph, annotated to show Gavin Newsom's second wave!

While it is true that hospitalizations and deaths usually trail an increase in cases by about two or three weeks, the facts show no indication at all of a second wave in California. The graph to the right shows that if California ever experienced a second wave of cases, it occurred around August 15th, and resulted in no significant increases in deaths across the state.

To make the absurdity of Newsom’s fear-mongering even more clear, I have indicated on the graph the exact moment when Newsom made these claims. Those numbers sure look terrifying, don’t there?

NOT! Though it appears the drop in cases has slowed in the past month or so, the numbers are still falling. And since we know the federal government is rewarding hospitals big money for labeling as many deaths as possible as COVID-19, the lack of any significant increase in the number of deaths during the summer, when the number of cases skyrocketed, provides more proof that this disease is not much of a threat to almost everyone who gets it. You either never know you had it, or if you do get sick, you recover, like any similar respiratory disease.

Newsom’s ignorance and stupidity, in the name of power, did not end on October 5th. Two days later he declared in a news conference that the reopening of amusement parks, like Disneyland and Universal Studios, was going to be delayed for an indefinite time.

“We don’t anticipate in the immediate term any of these larger parks opening until we see more stability in terms of the data.” Those are the long-awaited words of California Gov. Gavin Newsom on the fate of the state’s still-closed amusement parks. “We feel there’s no hurry to put out guidelines, and we continue to work with the industry,” he continued.

Newsom’s decision not only contradicted what almost every other state in the nation is doing, it also had no relationship to any facts, as once again indicated by the above graph. Moreover, the lack of guidelines for any reopening apparently has the entire amusement industry in California in an uproar. It appears it was the reason that Disney Chairman Bob Iger resigned from Newsom’s state task force for economic recovery.

Meanwhile, numerous other local California governments have expressed their own outrage and frustration with Newsom’s blanket edicts.

WHO's recommendations for mask use

Nor was this the end of Newsom’s idiocy in October. Earlier in the week, on October 3rd, his office posted a tweet that called for restaurant patrons “to keep your mask on in between bites.”

In other words, his office was advising people to lower the mask for food, then put it back in place immediately afterward. This means of course that his office was encouraging people to handle their masks repeatedly while eating, without disinfecting their hands, which is absolutely the worst thing you can do. The graphic to the right shows the WHO guidelines for mask use, which make it clear unambiguously that you must never touch your mask with your hands. As I wrote previously when posting this WHO graphic,

The most important take-away one gets from these instructions is that the mask should be treated as something that starts out sterile and antiseptic, but with use will become infected with pathogens. This is why one must never touch the front of the mask with your hands. Every time you do so without washing your hands thoroughly beforehand you risk placing the virus itself on the mask, at the very place you breath.

Even if you exercise proper care to not touch the mask, over time the mask will become filled with moisture from your breath, and will thus become what I like to call a pathogen bomb. It must either be discarded or washed properly. [emphasis in original]

WHO’s instructions are also consistent with the instructions from all other health agencies, including Newsom’s own California Department of Public Health:

If you must re-wear your cloth face covering before washing, wash your hands immediately after putting it back on and avoid touching your face.

And yet, his office is suggesting people put on and take off their mask repeatedly during every meal at a restaurant. Putting aside the fact that it remains very uncertain whether these masks do any good at all in stopping the disease, this advise by Newsom’s office is beyond stupid, and is guaranteed to increase the spread of all diseases, not just COVID-19.

The graph above actually suggests that this is exactly what has happened in California. Newsom imposed by edict the use of masks on June 4th. Up until then the number of new cases daily had been stable. Almost immediately afterward the numbers began to ramp up spectacularly. Though some of that increase is likely because the CDC loosened its definition for COVID-19 cases in mid-June, the imposition of mask use almost certainly contributed, since almost everyone uses them improperly.

In fact, the data worldwide so far does not confirm a second wave, as Newsom claims, but instead the overall failure of the tyrannical lock downs such as the one that Newsom imposed in California.

In a comparison of 50 countries, a team led by Rabail Chaudhry of the University of Toronto found that Covid was deadlier in places with older populations and higher rates of obesity, but the mortality rate was no lower in countries that closed their borders or enforced full lockdowns. After analyzing 23 countries and 25 U.S. states with widely varying policies, Andrew Atkeson of UCLA and fellow economists found that the mortality trend was similar everywhere once the disease took hold: the number of daily deaths rose rapidly for 20 to 30 days, and then fell rapidly.

Similar conclusions were reached in analyses of Covid deaths in Europe. By studying the time lag between infection and death, Simon Wood of the University of Edinburgh concluded that infections in Britain were already declining before the nation’s lockdown began in late March. In an analysis of Germany’s 412 counties, Thomas Wieland of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology found that infections were waning in most of the country before the national lockdown began and that the additional curfews imposed in Bavaria and other states had no effect.

Thus, when comparing the edicts of Democratic governor Gavin Newsom with the facts, we find that his edicts are completely divorced from those facts. Do you wonder why? The explanation is simple. Newsom isn’t interested in the facts or reducing the harm this epidemic is causing. No, all he is interested in is the wielding of power. Each edict, no matter how arbitrary, strengthens his political hold on every citizen in California, especially because he is succeeding in getting them enforced.

The worst part of this tale is that Newsom is quite typical of too many of today’s political leaders. They have all hungrily used the COVID-19 epidemic as a weapon to impose strict new rules on their citizens. They have also apparently been completely uninterested in the data that shows they have accomplished nothing to slow or stop the disease, while causing far greater economic and social harm.

No, paying attention to these facts, that their lock downs are not working and should be ended now, would mean they have to abandon their newfound powers.

And as we all know, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They have become corrupted, and are becoming increasingly addicted to that corruption.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

  • LocalFluff

    I consult Mark Dice as my psychiatrist in order to diagnose the DemocRATS. There is truly a dangerous mental disease epidemic going on. Perhaps those brain eating bugs from Mars, that some planetary protection bureaucRATS, and Henlein, have warned us about, have somehow arrived?
    https://youtu.be/eXbUh_Pl8aA?t=285

  • Call Me Ishmael

    Abigail Adams: “Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”

    We’ve been getting unmistakeable evidence of just how right she was.

  • Cotour

    AN INCOMPETENT MAYOR CONDEMNS HIMSELF AND SHOULD RESIGN
    (I was writing this piece and saw this Newsom story and its really all the same and comes from the same place. These people of the Left are fundamentally different humans)

    Junior Sandinista, mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio says: “I wouldn’t urge anyone to want to be mayor of New York City. It’s a very, very challenging moment,”. Thats after he has done his damage which others will have to fix, and they will not be Democrat if indeed the problems are to be fixed.

    https://nypost.com/2020/10/07/de-blasio-says-nobody-should-want-to-be-nyc-mayor-right-now/

    Just another typical “progressive” (Read: Leftist) Liberal Democrat who has been forced to admit that he is an incompetent, as so many of them are, in being able to deal with the challenges currently on going in New York City. And it will only get worse in the coming years, primarily exactly because he is now the mayor. Time to resign Mr. mayor and move you and your family to Cuba or Nicaragua.

    New York City deserves an accomplished actual executive who is able to take care of business, reinstate rational crime prevention policies, put back in jail violent people who deserve to be in jail, regardless of the color of their skin, and is able to properly manage the business of the city.

    You sir are a disgrace!

    And, Gavin Newsom is cut from the same Liberal, Leftist democrat cloth and delivers the same results, failure and incompetence. No difference here, and they both see themselves as presidential timber. What egomaniacal delusion. But isn’t that a prerequisite for being a politician of any stripe? But they are just very different human beings.

  • John C

    Okay, the handwashing germaphobes who are afraid of life have had their moment in the sun, their 15 minutes of fame. More like 15 months. Now it is time for them to crawl back into the safety of their own homes where they can remain while the productive members of society begin the task of piecing our civilization back together. I do wonder if in the long run we are actually hurting ourselves being over cleanly now. Somewhat like the overuse of antibiotics. Are we going to be more easily knocked down by a small bug in the future because we are not continually exposed to various viruses due to our excessive cleanliness.

  • john hare

    It is not so much power that corrupts as it is immunity. Most of us have the power to become mass murderers, but we would suffer near immediate consequences. It is people that are immune to consequences that go off the rails. Any politician, lawyer, or medical expert that was actually accountable for the harm from their actions would be acting very differently.

    And no, the possibility of not getting reelected in a year or three is not the same as leaving the office in bracelets that connect tomorrow morning.

  • Mara

    I am a 77-year- old widow, living on a small fixed income. I only own one house. When my husband died some years ago, I was left paying for the mortgage, which I unfailingly did, with the help of rental of my basement apartment.

    That was, until Governor Newsom, the judicial council, and the state assembly imposed an eviction moratorium that enables tenants to not pay the rent while California is on a state of emergency.

    My tenant(s), a family of a single mother and two adolescent children, have not been paying the rent since July because the government in effect says they don’t have to. Yesterday I received last month’s electric bill and it went through the roof! – just a bit short of a thousand dollars! I shudder at the thought of how much more the bill will increase in the coming cold months.

    With the unpaid rent and a huge electric bill every month, I am not sure I can stay afloat much longer, even with the four-month mortgage deferral from my lender. I feel like I’m being held hostage by the California government and there’s no one to help. The government says tenants may not be evicted until at least February 2021 in order to mitigate homelessness. But at the rate this is going, while my tenants surely have a home, I and my son will be the ones without a home. The government forbids me to even try to collect rent until next year.

    Meanwhile, my tenant drives a brand new Volvo.

    There’s a report that California will be paying reparation to descendants of slaves, even though there was never legal slavery in the state in all of its history. Furthermore, at least a quarter of the state population is foreign-born and has nothing to do with slavery. But the descendants of slaves will get reparation anyhow.

    What about small-scale landlords like me? What are the chances of my being paid reparation by the government for loss of income and being held hostage by its mandate that tenants be given free housing and free utilities for the duration of the never-ending pandemic?

  • LocalFluff

    What explains the different death tolls from Covid-19 in different countries?
    Here’s a paper by an economist that uses pretty simple health statistics to estimate how the number of persons vulnerable to such a disease has varied since 1960 in the Nordic countries. Based on previous mortality numbers. The result correlates very well with the Covid-19 death toll. Sweden has a higher death toll than neighboring countries because Sweden had milder flu seasons the previous two years, leaving more of the vulnerable alive.
    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3702595

    He uses the term “dry tinder” for the vulnerable population. It comes from established methods of predicting forest fires. When weather and other factors have allowed for more dry wood, the next forest fire season will be more intensive (as in California now). But I would definitely have used another term for our vulnerable old and sick.

  • Christina Pansy

    Face Masks Pose Serious Risks To The Healthy

    Dr. Russell Blaylock warns that not only do face masks fail to protect the healthy from getting sick, but they also create serious health risks to the wearer. The bottom line is that if you are not sick, you should not wear a face mask.

    As businesses reopen, many are requiring shoppers and employees to wear a face mask. With the advent of the so-called COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a number of medical practices that have little or no scientific support as regards reducing the spread of this infection. One of these measures is the wearing of facial masks.

    There is growing evidence that the treatment protocol issued to treating doctors by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), mainly intubation and use of a ventilator (respirator), may have contributed significantly to the high death rate.

    “By wearing a mask, the exhaled viruses will not be able to escape and will concentrate in the nasal passages, enter the olfactory nerves and travel into the brain.”

    Russell Blaylock, MD

    No studies have been done to demonstrate that either a cloth mask or the N95 mask has any effect on transmission of the COVID-19 virus. Any recommendations, therefore, have to be based on studies of influenza virus transmission. And, as you have seen, there is no conclusive evidence of their efficiency in controlling flu virus transmission.

    It is also instructive to know that until recently, the CDC did not recommend wearing a face mask or covering of any kind, unless a person was known to be infected, that is, until recently. Non-infected people need not wear a mask. When a person has TB we have them wear a mask, not the entire community of non-infected. The recommendations by the CDC and the WHO are not based on any studies of this virus and have never been used to contain any other virus pandemic or epidemic in history.

    Now that we have established that there is no scientific evidence necessitating the wearing of a face mask, are there dangers to wearing a face mask, especially for long periods? Several studies have indeed found significant problems with wearing such a mask. This can vary from headaches, to increased airway resistance, carbon dioxide accumulation, to hypoxia (shortage of oxygen), all the way to serious life-threatening complications.

    It is known that the N95 mask, if worn for hours, can reduce blood oxygenation as much as 20%, which can lead to a loss of consciousness, as happened to the hapless fellow driving around alone in his car wearing an N95 mask, causing him to pass out, and to crash his car and sustain injuries. I am sure that we have several cases of elderly individuals or any person with poor lung function passing out and hitting their head.

    Unfortunately, no one is telling the frail elderly and those with lung diseases of these dangers when wearing a face mask of any kind—which can cause a severe worsening of lung function.

    The importance of these findings is that a drop in oxygen levels (hypoxia) is associated with lessened immunity. In essence, your mask may very well put you at an increased risk of infections.

    There is another danger to wearing these masks every day, especially if worn for several hours. When a person is infected with a respiratory virus, they will expel some of the virus with each breath. If they are wearing a mask, especially an N95 mask or other tightly fitting mask, they will be constantly rebreathing the viruses, raising the concentration of the virus in the lungs and the nasal passages. We know that people who have the worst reactions to the coronavirus have the highest concentrations of the virus early on. And this leads to the deadly cytokine storm in a selected number.

    One should not attack and insult those who have chosen not to wear a mask, because these studies suggest that is the wise choice.

    For more detail see: https://technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/

    https://www.technocracy.news/masks-are-neither-effective-nor-safe-a-summary-of-the-science/

    For information on the negative effects of masks on dental health see:
    https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/10969268/posts/2853621035

  • Fisht

    The SF Mafia is not new or misunderstood. It began under Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, funny enough. From Feinstein to Willy Brown to Kamala to Jerry Brown and Newsome. They are the anti Americans that have purposefully destroyed California in hopes of implementing some sick flavor of authoritarian Socialism. Are we just going to keep ignoring this fact until its too late?

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