Distance voting suddenly looks better
[ UPDATE: Bernie Sanders to pack it in. ]
We have not been a fan of voting by mail but — by gosh and by golly — the intrepid USPS mailman will deliver a ballot to the Stately Manor sometime before Wisconsin’s April 7 non-partisan Spring election.
CORRECTED: ⇒ April 2, 2020 @ 5:00 p.m is the last day for an absentee ballot. Get one here. [Previous deadline was too register.]
Well, we did say the Wuhan Woo Woo pandemic will change behaviors for good. Handshakes? How quaint! We completed the Census on-line and it was a breeze. Got to be more cost-effective for the gummint than sending actual, human disease carriers door to door.
“The world we once lived in has vanished,” David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times.
My Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden of Oregon, both Democrats, have are up with legislation that would require all states to hold at least 20 days of early voting, as well as to allow anybody to request a mail-in ballot. We’re more federalist than that. Allow each state to decide.
We warned last blogge, once Washington declares a disaster and opens the spigots, watch everyone with a pet cause come running with their buckets. Bernie’s pet idea for free college tuition for rich kids majoring in grievance mongering? It’s now an economic stimulus to fight the coming economic recession.
Social distancing may forestall triage
Some of our conservative co-conspirators are trying to make political points (yes, we do it, too) at Italy’s expense. Their decision (reportedly) not to treat coronavirus patients over age 80 is attributed to the evils of socialized medicine. Actually, it is due to triage. It’s what the MASH doctors do in combat when overwhelmed with casualties: set aside those who can wait and those who are unlikely to survive even with treatment in favor of those whose lives they can mostly likely save. In other words, Italy’s medical system is overloaded by the pandemic.
⇒ Hard-hit Italy says mortality rates are zero for those under age 30 but climb to a peak of 19% for those over age 90. Scientists caution that children and young adults are no less likely to get infected and transmit the virus.
⇒ The British estimate 12 people have the virus for every one found by testing.
⇒ One bright spot for us Deplorables: the Democrat(ic) presidential nomination is (for all practical purposes) decided. Won’t draw that many Democrats to vote in their primary April 7.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Pennsylvania is closing all state liquor stores (the state runs them). NOW Big Gummint’s gone too far!
Blaska Policy Werkes 
4 responses to “We’re mailing it in”
To balance Vicki’s almost daily emotional screeds about the virus, folks should consider the wisdom of Bill Ackman. He wants an immediate 1 month holiday for everyone so that the virus is defeated. Anything less, anything piecemeal, he maintains,will create total disaster for the economy. He seems reasonable. Others might provide dispassionate, compelling alternatives. If none surface, Ackman’s proposal gets my vote.
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“The world we once lived in has vanished.” Poppycock! Same nonsense that was spouted by lamebrain pundits after 9/11. My favorite pronouncement from that era was “Irony is dead.” The last time I looked it was alive and well; in fact, it was probably one of the first to recover. The Spanish flu pandemic was a thousand times worse than the worst predictions for the Wuhan flu and eventually life returned to normal. Yes, we should do everything feasible to combat the Corona virus, but we should keep our heads in the process and leave the Chicken Little hysterics to the climate change crowd.
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So how many people handled that envelope and the enclosed ballot before it reached your door? Couldn’t coronavirus be lurking there? At least at the polls, we could expect some measure of assured cleanliness.
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Well, if nothing else COVID has certainly cemented the media’s reputation as a bunch of cretinous crap weasels. Watching a bunch of clowns who’ve scrupulously avoided noticing China’s treatment of the Uighurs feigning moral conviction is somewhat nauseating. In fact, whether it’s treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, environmental issues, animal welfare, human rights in general (organ harvesting anyone?), and a host of other issues the media and left claim to feel deeply about, China gets a pass.
I’ve noted that the same people who fly into hysterics at the faintest rumor of Russia influence are the same breaking out the knee pads for China. The deference with which the media and political elites treat China is somewhat appalling. This, of course, has been going on for decades. It still boggles my mind how promptly and thoroughly the Tienanmen massacre was memory holed. Apparently the Nazi’s big mistake was not making cheap DVD players.
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