Across America, confrontations have been erupting. They have taken place between police and citizens who are angry over shelter-in-place restrictions imposed on them by “Executive Orders” from politicians that have locked them down and put them out of work.
Here are just a few:
- In Idaho, a mother who was allowing her two children to use a playground was handcuffed after challenging the police. Deaf to the screams of people yelling to the police, “You don’t want to do that… her kids are here! Her kids are here! What is going to happen? Who’s got her kids?” The brave squad of cops dragged the woman off to jail.
- In Alabama, a 39-year-old woman was arrested for having a party in her home with about 40 friends. Irate, she reportedly coughed in the face of the arresting officer and yelled something about the coronavirus. Her bail was set at $23,500.
Neighbors had called police to complain of hearing music coming from the house. Police smelled the odor of marijuana and included possession in the charge along with breaking the state’s ban on large gatherings. The county in which the arrest took place has had no reports of anyone dying from COVID-19.
- Police broke up a funeral attended by about 70 orthodox Jews in Lakewood, NJ. Some of the attendees resisted being dispersed and 15 were arrested.
The prosecutor, Bradley Billhimer, stated, “This ban applies to everyone. To be blunt, ignoring the governor’s order places lives at risk – not just the lives of everyday citizens, but the lives of our brave men and women in law enforcement who are required to respond in order to break up these unlawful gatherings.”
- On 18 April, a Wisconsin teenager with coronavirus was threatened with arrest for posting an Instagram photo showing her in the hospital wearing an oxygen mask. The following day, a sheriff’s deputy arrived at her hospital bed demanding she remove the post or he would “start taking people to jail.”
The charge, he said, would be disorderly conduct. A lawyer for the Marquette County Sheriff’s Department, defending the police against a lawsuit filed by the accused teenager’s parents, stated that the girl’s photo and message “caused distress and panic within the school system and law enforcement acted at the request of school health officials in good faith effort to avoid unfounded panic.”
- In Florida, thousands are reacting to Facebook’s 20 April announcement it was banning information about any event that defies a state government’s social distancing orders and will focus on “removing content that advocates for in-person gatherings defying government health guidance.” Facebook did say it would permit information about events that are within a state’s safety guidelines.
Yet, in Florida, gatherings can have more than ten people so, in effect, Facebook is banning any post calling for a significant protest.
The “Reopen Florida” group’s Facebook page reads, “This is a group of like-minded people joining together with the purpose of compelling Governor DeSantis to end the unconstitutional shutdown of our schools, libraries, parks, beaches, businesses and economy and REOPEN FLORIDA!”
- On 20 April, hundreds of protesters assembled in Sacramento, the state capitol of California, with placards reading: “I need to go back to work” and “Paychecks are essential.”
Many broke the social distance requirement and most did not wear masks, as required. Dozens of cars and trucks circled the area honking horns.
One of the organizers of the event, Sara Thornton, responded, “People need to get back to work, get back to life, get back into contact with their loved ones’ whom they’re isolated from, they need to be able to have a paycheck. This is the grounds they will enslave us upon [sic].”
Last Tuesday, around 1,000 people assembled in downtown Raleigh, NC to pressure Governor Roy Cooper to end the shutdown. This rally was larger than the one held the previous week, and organizers said more would continue to show up every Tuesday until the state is re-opened.
- On 22 April, the second rally in less than a week took place in Virginia. Hundreds gathered on sidewalks around the state capitol and hundreds more in cars honked horns. One protester, who owns a small boutique store, told a reporter, “As small business owners, we have the right to open up just like the big box stores do… we’re letting fear drive our decisions.”
- Last Wednesday, hundreds gathered in Albany, New York’s state capitol, with demonstrators, both young and old, holding signs that read, “My small business is essential.”
One demonstrator pointed out, “We have a maximum of maybe 50 deaths in the whole 518 area code. Why are we treated the exact same as New York City? We’re not the same at all.”
Responding to the protest outside, Governor Cuomo said,
“Economic hardship, yes, very bad, not death. Emotional stress from being locked in a house very bad, not death.
Domestic violence on the increase, very bad, not death, and not death of someone else.”
See, that’s what we have to factor into this equation. Yes, it’s your life, do whatever you want; but you’re not responsible for my life.
TRENDPOST: As for Governor Cuomo’s “very bad, not death” refrains, conveniently, he ignored the fact that healthy people who are hit with the virus are not dying after being infected. The governor’s brother Chris, the CNN Presstitute, was featured for weeks by the cable network at his home saying how sick he felt.
As we have continually reported, the hard data clearly shows those who are COVID-19 victims are the elderly, the obese, and people with pre-existing chronic ailments. Especially at risk are people with high blood pressure, diabetes, and those suffering from heart and lung disease… such as smokers, of which 480,000 died last year in America.
Governor Cuomo, via his “Executive Orders,” anointed liquor stores as an essential business. At the same time, he arrogantly dismissed businesses such as restaurants, bars, dry cleaners, hair salons, hotels/motels, music venues etc., and the millions of people who are going broke, as irrelevant: “You want to go to work? Go take a job as an essential worker,” he said.
- On Friday, one of the largest protests to date took place in the capital city of Madison, WI, with citizens demanding an end to stay-at-home orders from Governor Tony Evers.
Governor Evers has extended the shutdown of all non-essential businesses through 26 May. While most of the protestors did not wear masks and were not practicing social distancing, police on the scene did not arrest anyone or try to disperse the crowd.
Angry Citizens Start Suing
A number of groups around the United States are directly confronting governors with lawsuits, claiming the strict lockdowns imposed in states are in violation of constitutional rights.
On 30 March, a Pennsylvania manufacturer of musical bells filed suit on the basis of the way in which the state ordered non-essential businesses closed. The lawsuit specifically cited: “It shocks the conscience, and is arbitrary and capricious, to allow employees – and the small businesses that employ them – to privately bear without compensation the cost of the COVID-19 closure orders, orders which were issued for the public purpose of slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus across Pennsylvania.”
In Columbus, OH, bridal shop owner Tanya Rutner Hartman filed a lawsuit on 16 April against the state’s Health Director, Dr. Amy Acton, challenging the basis on which she ordered the closing of all non-essential businesses. She is being defended by a city organization, the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, which takes cases protecting constitutional rights.
And in Michigan, a lawsuit may have already had an effect without being tried. On 19 April, a group of motorboat enthusiasts filed suit against Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who banned the use of these recreational boats as part of the state lockdown. Last Friday, despite extending the overall shutdown through 15 May, the governor announced the lifting of a number of restrictions including the use of motorboats.
On Monday, Attorney General William Barr stated that the Justice Department will get involved if it perceives the lockdown orders to combat coronavirus are overly restrictive and alerted federal prosecutors “to be on the lookout” for local and state measures that might transgress on constitutional rights.
Some legal experts have defended the safety measures imposed by governors and asserted lawsuits filed against states would fail.
James Hodge, law professor at Arizona State University, is quoted on the website of the American Bar Association: “Lawsuits are unlikely to be successful unless they are challenging “a truly egregious practice… The idea that you’re going to walk into court and object vehemently and successfully against known, proven public health social distancing measures that are being employed currently is not a winner.”
TRENDPOST: Is not shutting down an entire economy based on models that inaccurately forecast death rates, rob people of their Constitutional Rights, and destroy their businesses and livelihoods a “truly egregious practice”?
And as for Mr. Hodge to claim the social distancing measures being employed are “proven health practices,” according to the findings, as reported in the Trends Journal, they are scientifically questioned and each country makes up what the social distance should be.
Over There
As Trends Journal subscribers well know, one of our Top 2020 Trends was the “New World Disorder.”
Long before the spread of the COVID-19 hysteria, there were massive, ongoing street protests, riots, and civil unrest throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. People took to the streets angry over government corruption, lack of jobs and, in many instances, unacceptable basic living conditions.
Then, in an instant, throughout the world, the street protests were quashed by government “stay at home” lockdown orders despite extremely low COVID-19 death rates.
For example, India was reeling from massive protests raging against a new citizenship law that targeted Muslims, as well as from workers’ strikes and demonstrations over poor living conditions and government corruption. These demonstrations were immediately shut down when the government ordered a lockdown on 24 March… despite registering only a handful of COVID-19 deaths.
Indeed, more than a month later, a grand total of 881 people (out of a population of 1.3 billion) had died in the country from the virus.
Enough is Enough
There are signs people have had enough of the global shutdown.
In suburban Paris, last Tuesday marked the fourth consecutive day of confrontations between police and demonstrators, irate over the heavy-handed tactics used to enforce the nationwide lockdown.
Nine people were arrested for setting fire to a school. The protest was sparked by an incident on 20 April when residents filmed a policeman who appeared to have deliberately opened his police car door in the path of an approaching motorcycle.
In Lebanon, protests took place in the capital, Beirut, and in the northern city of Tripoli. To date, just 80 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in this nation of nearly seven million people.
As previously reported in the Trends Journal, before the spread of the virus, Lebanon was in economic collapse with its currency in free-fall, and banks refusing to allow depositors to withdraw their money. There was a lack of confidence among its citizens in the government’s recovery plan.
Since then, for the first time, the government defaulted on its debt.