COVID Thanksgiving and just saying no to curfews

It’s Wednesday night, Thanksgiving Eve, as I write this and since Monday all day long, every day, with hardly any break, Highway 101 has seen heavy traffic in both directions simulating big city rush hour.

So much for folks heeding recently issued advisories from Gov. Newsom and Public Health officials not to travel during the Thanksgiving Holidays.

Can’t help but think that Newsom’s birthday party escapade at the French Laundry two weeks ago sent the wrong message at the wrong time.

By the way, speaking of that event, more news has surfaced about Newsom’s birthday buddy. Turns out the guy is not only an old friend of Newsom’s, but also a heavyweight, extremely influential lobbyist. According to Dan Walters, the dean of California political writers,

“Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attendance at a birthday party this month for lobbyist Jason Kinney, a veteran political consultant and a long-time Newsom friend who founded a lobbying firm, Axiom Advisors, shortly after Newsom was elected in 2018 … The firm has nine lobbyists and more than 80 clients, most of whom are corporate entities or coalitions …

According to a Politico report, “Axiom reaped $10.9 million worth of lobbying work in 201920, the first legislative session during which Newsom was governor … Some of Axiom’s clients highlight Kinney’s overlapping roles. Kidney dialysis firms DaVita and Fresenius paid Axiom $475,000 this session … Kinney earned $90,000 from the California Democratic Party, which spent money to pass a laborbacked initiative regulating kidney dialysis. The single most remunerative client for Axiom in the last two years has been Marathon Petroleum, giving Kinney’s firm $525,000 worth of business.”

Kinney is also the go-to man for the One Percenter investors in the pot industry, and helped shape Proposition 64, intentionally mis-titled as the “Personal Use” initiative, that in reality was the Trojan Horse of corporate growers.

It all makes sense now why Newsom would venture out and away from his home, in violation of his own Health Orders to attend the Napa birthday soiree for his “old friend.”

As Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh, former longtime Speaker of the California Assembly in the 1960s and 70s, was fond of saying, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

Sheriff says he won’t enforce curfew

• On Nov. 19, Newsom issued a curfew in the guise of a revised Stay at Home Order requiring that “non- essential work, movement and gatherings stop between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. in counties in the purple tier.” The order took effect at 10 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 21 and will remain in effect until 5 a.m., Dec.

21.

Many law enforcement agencies throughout California, including Mendocino County’s Sheriff, responded with very similar statements saying they’ll exercise a hands-off approach to the curfew and will not participate in penalizing residents who didn’t follow the curfew.

Sheriff Matt Kendall sent out a statement explaining his decision to ignore the curfew. His explanation reads in part,

“I wanted to talk to you today about the potential impending mandates from the State level on mandatory curfew. I’d like to let all the residents of Mendocino County know that the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office will not be enforcing compliance of any health or emergency orders related to curfews.

“What does this mean? It means we won’t be being making compliance checks of businesses, homes or making contact with individuals who are out between the hours of 10:00 pm to 5:00 am specifically due to these new curfew mandates.

“Will we be responding to regular calls for service? Yes, of course.

“Callers with COVID-19 related issues will be directed to the County Health Call Center at (707) 472-2759 for assistance. If you prefer email, you can contact via email: callcenter@mendocinocounty.org.”

California Highway Patrol Commissioner Amanda Ray said in a statement the department’s mission is unchanged.

“CHP officers will continue to patrol throughout California and use their sound professional judgment to conduct enforcement stops for violations of the law based upon probable cause. The CHP does not make arrests based on race, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or for any reason other than violations of the law based on probable cause. As always, CHP officers will have the discretion to take appropriate action when a violation is observed.”

Ray also said in the statement that the goal of the order is for people to “self-regulate their behavior, protect themselves, and go about only the ‘essential’ activities” during the curfew times.

Ray’s citation of “probable cause” translates as “We ain’t gonna enforce the curfew.”

Why some folks ignore health orders

Interesting item in Bruce Anderson’s column in this week’s Anderson Valley Advertiser that helps explain why so many people refuse to fall in line with Public Health Orders.

“LAURA COOKSEY puts it all in sensible proportion:

This alarmist rhetoric is one cause of many people writing off the whole thing. The out-take quote about 250,000 lives being ‘2.5 times more than American lives lost back to WWII’ is ridiculous. 250,000 is not far above the average monthly fatality rate (from all causes, prior to Covid-19) in the US, which was something like 222,000. So in nine months we’ve added a month’s worth of deaths… Which of course, now won’t happen next year or in the next ten, so the future numbers will balance out and the average will recover. Exaggerations do nothing to forward a cause in the long run, because people get burned out on the bull****. I realize that they’re talking about war deaths, but why compare those? Death from humans lobbing flesh-ripping ammunition or dropping incinerating bombs on entire villages for no personal reason is an entirely different matter (and, in my mind, unquestionably more tragic and worthy of hand-wringing) from succumbing, usually when past the average age of death, to one virus rather than another— which is just life. It involves death at the end… or didn’t people get the memo?”

Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, and is also the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http:// www.kpfn.org