Can’t be justified:

Under the guise of executive powers reserved for short-term disasters such as hurricanes, leaders across the West have done the previously unthinkable: they have FORBIDDEN entire segments of the population from working.

Using a nonsensical distinction between essential and non-essential (as if providing for one’s family is ever non-essential) our entire workforce has been divided into three groups: 1.) The upper class with jobs that can be performed in their pajamas at home, 2.) Laborers lucky enough to still be able to go to work, and 3.) Those intentionally rendered unemployed.

Those who belong to that final group include those for whom the popes of yesteryear wrote with concern. Waitresses, barbers, sales employees, janitors, those who provide child care and others who often live paycheck to paycheck. Also included are those who are small business owners, those who represent best the type of world envisioned by the popes for a fair market, namely those who aren’t rich themselves but through the own labor and risk create jobs so that others can provide for their families.

The now month-long and counting prohibition against labor for these people is intrinsically evil, for it is a violation of the rights of these men and women to preserve their lives. Even if they are made whole (they won’t be) by the printing of cash by their respective governments, they are being robbed of the dignity of eating by the labor of their hands. This can NEVER be approved, regardless of the consequences, just as one cannot murder [a] baby to save millions of people.

via RORATE CÆLI

She wanted carte blanche approval on decisions yet to be made. Those who objected got raked over mayoral coals.

“On one side was a vast majority of our City Council members who understand the seriousness of this moment and the urgency in how we need to be laser-focused in supporting our residents and businesses who are desperately in need — who understand, as I do, that we need to act swiftly and boldly to help our fellow Chicagoans who are literally sick and dying,” Lightfoot said [blah blah blah], adding that “a small handful” of council members are using “this moment of crisis to grandstand.”

Don’t they know whom they are dealing with?

“They stuck out like a sore thumb, choosing to serve themselves instead of the residents who elected them,” she said. “Choosing to put their own selfish interests ahead of their city and their community.”

Waspish display.

Lightfoot added she is personally embarrassed by the 35th Ward alderman since she lives in that ward.

Please.

How does kind of display help her cause?  Plus, is it so hard to call a Zoom meeting? Have a debate?

via Block Club Chicago

From lemon to lemonade.  Wholesale tanked, he went retail. It works.

Coffee drinks can’t be enjoyed in the store at this time, but Kyoto Black’s new setup lends well to a takeout-only service, Doggett said. The business only accepts credit or debit cards, and all of its products can be consumed on-the-go or at home.

Of such smart people an economy is made.

via Block Club Chicago

Permanently.

Worth every day of it? Not?

via  Block Club Chicago

Have these closings been necessary? Have they helped?

How often is this asked in today’s media-fomented panic climate? There’s no panic climate? How could there not be with the panicky news coverage?

Are these good questions?

via Block Club Chicago

Shutdown’s gotta shut down:

The focus on saving “just one life” from the coronavirus to the exclusion of all other considerations likely will prove a catastrophic failure of policymaking. The devastation to individuals’ ability to flourish or even survive may soon become irreversible.

Ah, that “one life” scam.

via American Greatness

Virus’s death toll a fraction of what’s been thought or at least said, according to two respectable — I dare not say reliable — pools: You’re maybe gonna get sick, but chances are you won’t DIE.

via News and Politics