Thank You for Your Veto, Mr. Bellone.
Now Let’s Enact Bipartisan Lines.
We asked. He answered. He agreed. We thank him.
County Executive Steve Bellone exercised his veto power – and good sense in our humble opinion – in striking down the flawed, lame duck 2021 Democrat legislative majority’s plan to enact new County Legislative Districts for the next decade.
The Suffolk County Legislature, on the last day of the 2021 session – indeed on the last day of 2021 – passed Introductory Resolution 1964-2021 “A Charter Law to Reapportion Suffolk County Legislative Districts” by a strictly partisan 10-8 vote.
As The Messenger noted in an editorial last month, the resolution passed with minimal public comment or participation. In fact, the resolution passed completely apart from a process intended to involve an independent, bipartisan redistricting commission according to the Suffolk County Charter.
As reported in our news coverage of the process, The Messenger noted that political pundits have long suggested that the reapportionment and redistricting process which follows each decennial federal census is as political as politics gets – the party in power has traditionally gotten to draw the lines…and thus potentially shape electoral trends for the ensuing decade.
As we wrote in January: the “Democrat Majority won the 10-8 vote in the year end battle. But now the County Executive has the power to end the war and ensure a commission is established, acts in accordance with its intended purpose and the County Charter, and provides well-considered maps.”
“A public hearing on I.R. 1964-2021 is scheduled for January 18 next week.”
“But Bellone should veto the Resolution. The veto would be moral, right, just, political, and legal all in one stroke of the pen.”
The County Executive last week did just that.
In his veto message, filed with the Clerk of the Legislature, Bellone wrote:
“The process of revising the boundaries of legislative districts must comply with the Suffolk County Charter, be fully transparent and include public input through a public hearing process before a redistricting plan is proposed.”
Bellone proposed compromise legislation in agreement with current Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey (R-Lindenhurst), who took over the gavel from the Democratic Majority at the beginning of the year.
Bellone’s veto message further stated that his proposed legislation would “establish an extensive bipartisan redistricting process that is fair, transparent, and includes substantial opportunity for public input.”
Such an effort is precisely according to the Charter – and is the right thing to do.
We favor fair lines – fairly presented, fairly considered, and fairly approved. Thank you for your veto, Mr. Bellone. Thank for listening.
That is the message.
This is The Messenger.
Lockdowns Should be Rejected Out of Hand
The oft-repeated mantras these days are “follow the science” and “follow the data.”
Unfortunately, those mantras have led to demands from the ostensible experts to “follow my current pronouncements.”
Think Dr. Anthony Fauci and countless politicians, whose pronouncements meant mask and social distancing mandates, business restrictions and closures, prohibitions on gatherings – even First Amendment[1]protected religious worship, and a ban on in-class schooling for America’s children. Think Dr. Fauci , Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, California Governor Gavin Newsome, and so many more, caught violating their pronouncements and restrictions. Think: “Do as I say, not as I do.”
But the pushback from countless citizens has now gained its own justification in the science and data.
A newly-released “meta-study” from Johns Hopkins more than suggest that societal lockdowns as a means of preventing deaths and the spread of Covid were simply not effective.
The lockdowns, the experts of this study tell us, did almost nothing to prevent deaths.
The Johns Hopkins study notes:
“Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results are in line with the World Health Organization Writing Group (2006), who state, “Reports from the 1918 influenza pandemic indicate that social-distancing measures did not stop or appear to dramatically reduce transmission […]”
The study noted that in Edmonton, Canada, for example, “isolation and quarantine were instituted; public meetings were banned; schools, churches, colleges, theaters, and other public gathering places were closed; and business hours were restricted without obvious impact on the epidemic.”
The study found: “The most recent research has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid 19 deaths.”
Mandates only regulate a fraction of potential contagious contacts, the study remarked.
“Unintended consequences may play a larger role than recognized. We already pointed to the possible unintended consequence of SIPOs, which may isolate an infected person at home with his/her family where he/she risks infecting family members with a higher viral load, causing more severe illness. But often, lockdowns have limited peoples’ access to safe (outdoor) places such as beaches, parks, and zoos, or included outdoor mask mandates or strict outdoor gathering restrictions, pushing people to meet at less safe (indoor) places. Indeed, we do find some evidence that limiting gatherings was counterproductive and increased COVID-19 mortality.
But note:
“The use of lockdowns is a unique feature of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns have not been used to such a large extent during any of the pandemics of the past century. However, lockdowns during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic have had devastating effects.”
“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy. These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best.”
“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.
We should learn that Free Speech is actually an important component of a healthy society. Health, writ large, is not solely defined by so-called experts in Public Health.
The pushback against mandates, against unlimited restrictions, against constantly changing and contradictory advice from the “experts,” were shunned, censored, mocked and more by politicians, MSM pundits, and Social Media giants.
But it seems the pushback was right all along.
Covid has not been stopped, by social distancing, masks, or even vaccines and boosters.
No one said that Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness eliminates risk.
Lockdowns have not prevented deaths.
That is the message. This is The Messenger.
Return to Choice
After Governor Kathy Hochul received a legal victory through an ongoing appeals case against a Nassau Supreme Court Justice’s ruling, the fate of her mask mandate has been left in legal limbo.
It has simultaneously been determined to have no basis in the law, unenforceable and left in place until it is taken up by the appeals court. The Departments of Health and Education, by direction of the Governor, hold valuable state aid hostage and threaten lawsuits for noncompliant school districts and counties.
However, with the CDC admitting what many have known from the start – that cloth and surgical masks are in effect useless against the virus – many are wondering why the insistence on masks.
It is logistically impossible and cost-prohibitive to give New York residents the N-95 and KN-95 masks they would need to be fully protected. Even if it was possible, our peer nations in Europe, such as England, Spain and most recently Denmark, are dropping all their Covid-19 restriction.
With the United States at a comparable level of vaccinations, it makes no sense for the Governor to double down at this juncture.
Yes, the Omicron variant did prove to be highly transmissible but also far weaker by other metrics. Despite the tragedies related to Omicron, virologists indicate that this is a good sign that the worst of the virus is behind us.
Now, what is most important is a return to normalcy. We cannot continue to subject students to masks with grave consequences for disobedience. We cannot subject businesses to the threat of fines for not imposing masks on customers.
In today’s New York State — a New York state that has deteriorated by many metrics — the focus should be on normalcy. And the fastest way back to normalcy is a return to a fundamental many of us have forgotten: Bring Back Choice.
That is the message. This is The Messenger.
