The politics of mask mandates?

 Colorado is experiencing another surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. The health care system is reportedly becoming overwhelmed, and a lot of health care workers are experiencing burnout after the last 1 1/2 years.

In this environment Colorado's governor has refused to impose a statewide mask mandate. Instead he says county and local health authorities should decide any mandates. Two counties, Boulder and Larimer, have re-imposed mandates.

Other counties have not imposed mandates, yet many of them are actively lobbying the governor to impose a statewide mandate. If masks are so important one wonders why the county doesn't impose its own mandate independent of the state. While a mandate by one county in the Denver Metro area will do less than a metro area wide mandate (given the number of people who cross county lines daily) a county mandate ought to do some good and say that officials are serious about it. Yet most counties aren't putting their own mandates into place.

Could this be politics? Mask mandates are unpopular, especially among conservatives. One place actively lobbying for masks is Jefferson County. It is in suburban Denver and generally conservative politically. Are they lobbying the governor so that with a statewide mandate the (democratic) governor will get any negative political fallout from a new mandate?

"Defund the police" Justice Department Style?

Immediately after the verdict in the Derek Chauvin case the Justice Department announced an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department looking for a pattern of racial bias or excessive force.

Now today the Justice Department announced a similar investigation into the Louisville, KY police department over the death of Breona Taylor.

One wonders if the Justice Department is going to investigate any police department where an event hits the national news or prompts protests. There are plenty of other cases of questionable police behavior which have not hit the national news, have not prompted protests, and apparently for this reason will not prompt a Federal investigation.

Russian actions, Trump vs Biden

In the last couple days President Biden announced new sanctions against Russia for hacking and election interference. The claim is Russia interfered in the 2020 election in favor of Donald Trump.

Coincidentally (?) Russia is reported to be moving troops to its border with Ukraine and there may be another Russia / Ukraine conflict.

It's interesting that Donald Trump was supposed to be the friend of Russia or even Russian agent, yet it's under Joe Biden (perceived as anti-Russia) that Russia thinks it can get away with military action.

What is offensive?

 Big news this week is that Dr. Seuss is being "cancelled". More specifically a few of his books which have been declared "racist" -- expressing racial stereotypes which some find offensive.

To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street has been removed from publication, apparently because of one picture in the book showing a stereotypical Chinese man holding chopsticks. This has apparently been declared offensive. There are a few other pictures in the book which stereotype other groups, I'm not sure if they're part of the reason that the book is so bad.

Coincidentally, I decided to finally watch the Star Wars movie "Rogue One". This movie is praised for a female lead and a "diverse" cast. Yet I find it odd when watching the movie. The female lead is an English actress, so no diversity there. Of the various characters one is a stereotypical oriental martial arts master. I can't see that as any less "offensive" (that Chinese are martial arts masters) than the Dr. Seuss stereotype of Chinese clothing.

A few other characters fit other stereotypes, yet apparently these are ok in the movie context. Of course, the overtly white males are all officers of the Empire and thus villains.

Still, it seems it would be as easy to declare Rogue One as "racist" as it is to declare Dr. Seuss "racist".

Travel bans for me but not for thee

 In January 2020 President Trump restricted travel from China as the COVID-19 epidemic ramped up. At the time this was roundly criticized as unnecessary and xenophobic by Democrats including Joe Biden. If I remember correctly some lawsuits were also filed against the restriction.

Sometime later when this was brought up as an example of President Trump paying attention to COVID-19 (contrary to the talking point that he ignored the pandemic) Nancy Pelosi acknowledged the China travel ban but said it didn't do any good since US citizens and a number of other people were still allowed into the country.

On January 25, 2021 Joe Biden issued a proclamation restricting travel to the US from Europe and Brazil. And just like the Trump China restrictions the restrictions don't apply to US citizens and several categories of non-citizens.

It looks like Joe Biden just issued a travel "ban" which is essentially the same as the Trump travel "ban" he criticized a year ago. Yet this one is not being labeled xenophobic or racist, perhaps because we're primarily banning whites, not Asians.

What Was Donald Trump Really Like as President?

 Now that Donald Trump is out of office the Biden administration is hard at work to reverse everything which was done over the last four years. Perhaps not literally everything, but a lot.

Something else happening is further claims about how irrational Donald Trump was as President. Recent comments by Dr. Fauci say how refreshing it is to no longer be working for Trump. Yet what's the truth of these claims?

There are numerous reports describing Donald Trump's behavior as President as childish. One was by the person labeled as "Anonymous". Yet in the end it turns out "Anonymous", regardless of the truth of his accusations, lied about his identity. He wasn't a White House insider but a high level staffer at DHS. In addition, "Anonymous" (Miles Taylor) had previously denied the identity when initially asked by the press if it was him.

Other reports of the Trump administration portray a President who listened to policy debate, asked reasoned questions, and made thoughtful decisions (see "You're Hired!" by Casey B. Mulligan). Which version is true?

It's hard to say the reality of Trump's behavior. Descriptions of his Presidency are strongly based on the opinions of those doing the describing. I haven't seen objective hard evidence presented (e.g. taped together documents from reports Trump routinely ripped up things he didn't like), so we're dependent on news reports, largely by overtly anti-Trump media companies, sourced by people who have a reason to dislike the Trump administration.

Dr. Fauci says it's refreshing not to work for Trump, yet Dr. Fauci has lied to the public (and admitted it), both about masks (in March, 2020 he said they aren't needed, around July he admitted he lied because they didn't want common people buying scarce maks) and about herd immunity (admitting he stated the percentage of the population needed for herd immunity based on what he thought the public would accept).

So what's the truth? Especially after Donald Trump's failure to accept the election the best political move many can take is to talk about the horrors of Trump. I'm sure we'll see books from former members of the administration talking about the horror of the Trump White House (and a few others about how great it was). Yet can we know the truth? The Trump administration has been defined by the highly polarized positions of this supporters and opponents. Will people lie about him? "The Resistance" was formed to get him out of office "by any means". It seems clear many allies have been willing to support impossible election fraud claims.

It may be we never know the truth of what went on in the White House.

This is Human Trafficking?

Florida law enforcement has announced a big human trafficking bust. Yet was it? See 71 Arrested in Human Trafficking Sting in Florida Ahead of Tampa Super Bowl.

The headline announces a bust against human trafficking, yet reading the story it appears this was just a prostitution sting. The police posted online ads for sex or had female detectives pose as sex workers. They then arrested men who answered the ads. All will be charged with some variation of patronizing a prostitute.

Notice that no actual prostitutes, pimps, etc. were involved. Nobody actually involved in human trafficking was arrested nor were any women "rescued" from sex work.

This appears to be an attempt to generate some headlines in advance of the Superbowl. These arrests are not doing to do anything to fight actual human trafficking. There might be a brief, minimal affect on the number of men seeking out a prostitute out of fear of a new police sting, but beyond that it will be business as usual in the sex trade.

Was Trump's speech an impeachable offense?

 A second Trump impeachment is being demanded based on outrage for the riot at the Capitol. More and more people seem to be demanding impeachment, even if done after Trump leaves office (for which there is apparently precedent).

Yet what was the impeachable offense? The impeachable offense was basically that the crowd attacked the Capitol building. If the crowd had marched to the Capitol and spent the afternoon chanting and yelling we wouldn't be talking about a second impeachment, it would have just been a bunch of Trump deplorables and the media would have spent days talking about how they were all stupid racists.

So the impeachment "offense" is largely an offense by the Capitol occupying crowd, not directly by Donald Trump. One could imagine a similar "offense" if somebody had gone and shot a cabinet official shortly after members of Congress called for attacks on those working for the administration.

The next few days will say whether Trump is impeached (most likely yes) and whether the Senate convicts or even holds a trial (most likely no).