Tunnel Wall: May 10, 2020

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Be Warned, Coronavirus Snitches: You Too May Be Snitched On; St. Louis tattlers discover their complaints about open businesses are public records.

Reason

The Reason Foundation (which publishes this site) recently released a working paper that tries to avoid these anger-inducing one-size-fits-all responses and focus instead on containing infection clusters. Patricia needs to keep herself safe, but that doesn't mean those businesses she saw needed to be closed in order to achieve that goal.

"Hundreds of St. Louis citizens who snitched to the government about businesses that defied closure orders are discovering that their messages are not confidential and their identities are subject to sunshine laws.

"As part of the effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, some city and state leaders have forced businesses they deem "nonessential" to shut down. St. Louis County encouraged people to report any such businesses that are still open via an online form.

"The county received more than 900 complaints. And the complaints, apparently, were not anonymous. Indeed, they're public records subject to the state's sunshine laws. Now people who are angry at the extent and duration of government shutdown orders are using those laws to expose the people who filed the complaints.

"KSDK, a local NBC affiliate, reported in late April that a man named Jared Totsch received a copy of these tipsters' records and shared them on Facebook. When a KDSK reporter reached out to him to point to him that these tipsters are now worried about retaliation, Totsch responded that was partly the point.

Jonathan Turley Rips Apart Obama’s ‘Leaked’ Statement About the DOJ and Flynn, and It’s Glorious

RedState "As my colleague streiff reported earlier, a “private call” from former President Barack Obama just happened to be leaked to Michael Isikoff.

"Strange, isn’t it, how this leak parallels leaks during the Russia investigation that also went to Isikoff with information seemingly meant to undermine Donald Trump? The same reporter who was leaked to about Carter Page. Almost as if there’s a pattern there that we’re seeing once again.

"On the call that obviously was private and not at all staged to be leaked, Obama said he was concerned that the “rule of law is at risk” after what he called the unprecedented move of the Justice Department dismissing the charges against Gen. Michael Flynn.

"From Yahoo News:

“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said in a web talk with members of the Obama Alumni Association.

“And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

"What utter gall."

"Georgetown Law School constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley had a few things to say about Obama’s remarks." . . .

UPDATED: Elon Musk threatens to move Tesla out of California over county's stay-at-home order

"Frankly, this is the final straw," Musk said in a seemingly frustrated tweet. "Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependent on how Tesla is treated in the future." "Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA," he added.

MSN "Elon Musk threatened to move Tesla out of California Saturday over a lingering county stay-at-home order preventing the company from restarting business until June 1. On Saturday, the Tesla CEO dangled an impending lawsuit via Twitter, accusing the Alameda County health officer of infringing on Constitutional freedoms.
" 'Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda County immediately. The unelected & ignorant 'Interim Health Officer' of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense," Musk wrote.

"Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) announced on Thursday new guidance allowing factories to reopen in the state but advised that some local governments could still impose limitations. Alameda County has kept measures preventing manufacturers from returning to work, according to TechCrunch.

. . . "Tesla sent a private email to employees Thursday with plans to begin "limited operations" at its Fremont factory in Alameda County, going against the county's stay-at-home orders, according to TechCrunch. The plan reportedly would bring back nearly 30 percent of workers to the Fremont factory as early as Friday.

"Musk threatened more drastic actions Saturday after receiving pushback from the health department, even laying out plans to move the company out of the state." . . .

Hat tip to Harley Standlee, California.

Musk: Tesla will leave California "Because of the corona pandemic, no Teslas are currently rolling off the assembly line in California. That won’t change that quickly either. CEO Elon Musk is not very enthusiastic about the California rules and announces the withdrawal of the company headquarters." . . .

Elon Musk sues, threatens to move Tesla out of California over coronavirus order shutting down Fremont factory

“ 'California and the Bay Area are demonstrating every day that we can protect public health and reopen our economy at the same time,” Jim Wunderman, President and CEO of the Bay Area Council, said in a statement. “We strongly urge Alameda County public health officials to work with Tesla and other employers in figuring out a plan that can allow them to safely resume operations sooner rather than later. We must send a strong signal to businesses and the millions of workers who have lost their jobs that the Bay Area and California are just as eager to restart our economy and get people back to work as we are to stamp out this pandemic.' ” . . .

Update: California Democrat Reacts To Tesla Lawsuit, Pullout Plan Over Coronavirus Rules: ‘F— Elon Musk’ Says the California Democrat with the blue check:

Lorena

@LorenaSGonzalez

Mama, Labor Leader turned CA Assemblywoman. Progressive #Latina Democrat. 
@latinocaucus
 chair, Appropriations Chair 

Lorena
@LorenaSGonzalez
F*ck Elon Musk
Wait for it; here comes the race card:

Lorena

@LorenaSGonzalez

And, the deaths from Covid-19 in California are disproportionately Latino. Our communities have been the hardest hit. By far. Maybe that’s why we take the public health officials’ warning and directions so seriously.

Flynn Was Innocent All Along: He Was Pressured to Plead Guilty

The time has come, indeed it is long overdue, to de-politicize our criminal justice system and to forbid it from becoming weaponized by either side for partisan purposes. Dropping the case against General Flynn is an important first step, but it cannot be the last if we are to restore the criminal justice system to its rightful place as a non-partisan institution of justice.

The Jewish Press

"More than a year ago I wrote that it was clear General Michael Flynn should never have pleaded guilty because he did not commit a crime. Even if he lied to the FBI, his lie was not “material.” For a lie to be a crime under federal law, it must be material to the investigation – meaning that the lies pertain to the issues being legitimately investigated. The role of the FBI is to investigate past crimes, not to create new ones. Because the FBI investigators already knew the answer to the question they asked him—whether he had spoken to the Russian Ambassador—their purpose was not to elicit new information relevant to their investigation, but rather to spring a perjury trap on him. When they asked Flynn the question, they had a recording of his conversation with the Russian, of which he was presumably unaware. So his answer was not material to the investigation because they already had the information about which they were inquiring.
"From a legal and policy point of view, encouraging the FBI to misuse its legitimate authority to investigate past crimes, solely to create future crimes is both immoral and illegal. That is why Congress added the word material to its statute.
"Because Flynn’s answers were not material to what the FBI said it was investigating –- a violation of a never-used law, the Logan Act, that prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments — they did not constitute a crime.
"At the time, that argument was mocked by the usual suspects: fair-weather civil libertarians who would have supported the argument if it had been made on behalf of a liberal Democrat but who rejected it when made on behalf of a Trump Republican. They claimed there was no authority supporting this argument, despite the citation of several cases by eminent judges." . . .

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of over 30 books, including, most recently, “The Case Against the Democrats Impeaching Trump.” Follow him on Twitter @AlanDersh or Facebook @AlanMDershowitz.

You Were Happy to Be Mom; Six Reasons to Arise and Bless Her

. . . Yet even when our mothers have failed us, we typically have something to be thankful for — and not just virtues that overlap with Dad’s, but qualities that were specific signs of her motherly femininity. What might you say to Mom this year? Consider a few ways you might honor her as mother. At least, here are six specifics for my own mother. Perhaps a few apply for you, and the others could inspire you of your own ways to honor Mom as Mom. . . .

Desiring God

"This Sunday is not Father’s Day. And Father’s Day is not Parent’s Day. In God’s common kindness, on the second Sunday of May, at least in the United States, we honor mothers.

"Even though we often praise our parents for generic virtues that could be true of either — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control — it is also fitting to give thought to what it means to honor a mother as mother. What makes Mom a good mom (and not a dad)?

"Of course, no earthly mother is perfect. Many, if not most, have obvious flaws, and clearly some are manifestly worse than others. And as great as the stakes are in fatherly failures and fatherlessness, perhaps the absence or failures of mothers prove to be all the more devasting, and difficult to recover from. Why? Because of God’s particular design and distinct calling on mothers as mothers in those earliest days, months, and years of our lives.

"Yet even when our mothers have failed us, we typically have something to be thankful for — and not just virtues that overlap with Dad’s, but qualities that were specific signs of her motherly femininity.

"What might you say to Mom this year? Consider a few ways you might honor her as mother. At least, here are six specifics for my own mother. Perhaps a few apply for you, and the others could inspire you of your own ways to honor Mom as Mom." . . .

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is a husband, father of four, and author of Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines.

Transcripts Adam Schiff was forced to release show exactly WHY every GOP on his committee called on him to resign

Twitchy

"Man, we are really enjoying how much Adam Schiff is getting dragged with the release of these documents and interviews. Especially when we know he was forced by the ODNI to release certain interviews, like the one Eli Lake is talking about here:

"He KNEW it was all a lie and he thought it would never see the light of day.

"He was wrong.

"Innuendo and fakery seem spot on as well.

"It’s only going to get bumpier, Adam. Better buckle up.

Disney no longer sweetly entertains children; now it indoctrinates them. The left sucks all joy out of any room.

. . . "Disney’s hard-left “creative” people are tunneling their messages about intersectionalism, sexual identity, sexual orientation, climate change, feminism, and all the other leftist shibboleths, directly into your children’s brains. And because Disney is always going to be more fun and exciting than you are, you can bet that Disney’s messages will resonate more than yours will."

Andrea Widburg "As is the case for most Americans living today, I grew up on Disney. I loved the classic princess movies, The Wonderful World of Disney, and the live-action movies of the 1960s and 1970s. When a local television channel syndicated The Mouseketeers in the late 1960s, I watched that too.

"Some (indeed, a lot) of the Disney product was banal, but it never deviated from a certain purity: Be good, be kind, be patriotic (if that was relevant), work hard . . . that kind of stuff. The next generation of Disney movies also promoted that message, whether with classic princess movies (Beauty and the Beast) or a non-romantic “adventure with a friend” film such as Moana.

"Moana’s earth goddess ending, though, hinted at what was to come with Frozen II, which was a visually beautiful, but tedious effort to introduce kids to anti-colonialism, man-deriding feminism, and Gaia worship. Watching that and thinking of the classic Disney movies, one has to wonder "Where on earth does this stuff come from?"

"The answer is surprisingly easy: It comes from the current crop of Disney writers and producers, all of whom were marinated in hard-left college liberal arts programs.

"This post offers two exhibits to prop up this assertion. The first is a cri de cœur from Itxu Díaz about the horrible changes wrought on Disney’s DuckTales. Díaz is Spanish, so the syntax is a little scrambled, but you’ll quickly get the gist about the push to take an entertaining character who always has an eye for the girls and turn him into a vehicle for pushing homosexuality on small children: . . ."

The second example is a Prager U video in which Ben Shapiro explains intersectionality, a terrible idea that was born on college campuses and that indoctrinated college graduates are carrying into corporate America. To illustrate the point, the video plays footage of a Disney writer discussing how important intersectionality is to her work and her messaging. I’ve transcribed the gist of it, but you have to watch this incoherent cultural Marxist speak to appreciate who’s teaching your children: . . .

Here the left does what the left does instinctively:

*Blue-check PhD of Women’s Studies shames Trudeau for referencing #MothersDay because it ‘erases’ LGBTQ families "You had to know we couldn’t go a full Mother’s Day without some blue-check saying something stupid, right? We’d have been super confused if people who spend their whole lives focused on identity politics actually let this little holiday actually go by without some sort of controversy.
"Or outrage.
"Or some sort of social justice nonsense.
"Thank goodness Doctor of Women’s Studies, Jill Andrew, stepped up to do her part in trying to ruin a day for moms: . . ."

*"Blue-check"?

Obama’s carefully released phone call shows an ex-President returning to battle

Fast forward several hundred years, and we have Obama, a president who now stands exposed as having tried to take down his duly elected successor. His walled Kalorama house is the new Avignon. To strengthen his position, Obama, who has kept a low(ish) profile for the past three years, is aggressively reinserting himself into presidential politics. He’s not just touting Joe as a viable candidate; he’s tackling policy.

Andrea Widburg "On Friday, Obama arranged to have leaked a phone call in which he criticized the Justice Department’s decision to dismiss its case against Flynn. He also crudely criticized President Trump’s response to the Wuhan Virus. Several writers, most notably Jonathan Turley (a Democrat who’s getting red-pilled fast), caught Obama’s factual and legal errors. That’s not the worst thing about Obama’s leaked call, though. The worst thing is that he’s deliberately stirring up factionalism, something no previous president has ever done. To a history major, it’s the papacy’s Schism all over again.

"In 1305, the French King, Philip IV, succeeded in getting a Frenchman, Clement V, elected as pope. Clement, who was unpopular in Rome, moved the papacy to Avignon in 1309. For the next 67 years, a series of French popes held court at Avignon.

"In 1376, Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome. Unhappy Italian cities waged war against the new pope, who responded with ferocity. Eventually, there were two popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon, creating a period known as the Schism or Babylonian Exile, which lasted from 1378 to 1417. It was a nightmare for Catholic Europe because, in an era when the well-being of one's soul was of utmost importance, people did not know to which authority they should look.

"Fast forward several hundred years, and we have Obama, a president who now stands exposed as having tried to take down his duly elected successor. His walled Kalorama house is the new Avignon. To strengthen his position, Obama, who has kept a low(ish) profile for the past three years, is aggressively reinserting himself into presidential politics. He’s not just touting Joe as a viable candidate; he’s tackling policy.

"On Friday, Yahoo reported that it had gained access to a recording of Obama’s conversation with past-administration officials. (“Gained access to” means “deliberately leaked to a friendly media outlet.”) In it, Obama staked out a couple of highly political positions:. . . "