Dude. What is going on?

Balancing work and family sometimes makes it difficult to sit down and write.  I write all day at work, and usually by the evening, I am all written out and headed to the gym or to play softball with my friends.  Lately and despite not writing too much, many of my friends have seen my name in the paper or on the radio and laughingly ask me, "Dude. What is going on?"  And my stock answer is "Dude. F___ those guys," and then we die laughing before I explain.  For those who know me well, I am one of the most calm and unshakable people out there.  There is freedom in only truly caring about that which is important and then letting the rest go.  Being the son of one of the biggest shit talkers on the south side of Chicago, what other people think does not bother me.  Go ahead, talk shit.  It motivates people like me.

In addition, you are instantly my friend until you are not by your choice and by your actions.  I believe that all people have an inherent value simply for being alive and always deserve respect until they have proven otherwise.  That said, I gravitate towards people who have sound moral foundations and are strong in their convictions.  Understanding that there is always a gray area around truth, I cannot tolerate outright dishonesty.  Outright dishonesty causes the loss of my respect almost instantly with little prayer of allowing myself to be fooled twice.  So then, the explanation to my friend's question becomes one of honesty.

After my first wife and I divorced in 2015 and because she works for Congressman McClintock, I removed myself from local politics in order to give her space in her world to heal.  We both needed it, and now things are very good.  Remarkably, my wife and my ex-wife celebrate Mother's Day together with all of our children.  My ex-wife is, in some respects, still a part of my life, and it works and is good.  So, when 2022 rolled around, I had not spoken to anyone in local politics aside from comments on blogs for nearly seven years and apparently most of these folks thought that we had moved back to Chicago.

Then at the beginning of 2022, the election office in Nevada County started playing politics with a group of citizens and with COVID, bullying them, and lying to the public about it.  I was given outrageous videos demonstrating how county elected officials and employees were treating its own citizens about whom the County was telling bald-faced lies.  I told all of my friends that helping these folks was a one-off, and I was going to finish my PhD when the mess was finished.  Inevitably, and after seeing firsthand the demeanor and foul character of some of the elected officials and employees, I went a little further and asked Gregory Diaz for a public election record - a copy of Natalie Adona's check indicating that she paid the filing fee for her candidacy for his office.  He straight up refused to give me a public record which he was legally required to disclose.  As I walked out of the election office and after being treated in the same bullying manner with which he treated his constituents in January earlier in the year and in my head, I said to myself, "F___ those guys."  Absent that moment, I would likely be enjoying my life working and studying history, as I had been.  The problem is that I cannot.  Our country is sick.  Our government does not seek the betterment of those whom they serve, but its own betterment.  Our government bullies and mistreats those whom they serve and lies about it.  At that moment on one hand, I was done, and on the other hand, I was just beginning.  So, I sued Gregory Diaz arguing that, if he did not give me the check, his chosen successor could not be on the ballot.  What happened in court?  Simple.  He coughed up the check, because it was required by law.

Enforcement Policies of Nevada County Mask Mandates Need to be Clarified

Last night, we watched the Los Angeles Rams defeat the San Francisco Forty-Niners in the NFC Championship game played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.  Currently, California is under an executive order signed by Gavin Newsom requiring citizens to wear a mask in all public areas.  To the left is a maskless governor with an already ill and maskless Magic Johnson in a public place (yet again) violating his own mask order.

Twitter @MagicJohnson

At this point the mask mandates, and those who enact or support them, are just silly.  Nobody is following these ridiculous orders, not even the governor who signed the executive order.  Further, neither the state nor Nevada County has an articulated enforcement mechanism at all.  Finally, and based upon these haphazard policies, the Nevada County election office has resorted to enforcement by physical force.  In fact, when asked Gavin Newsom was asked by media about enforcement of his mandate, he responded that he had “faith” in residents to follow the dictate. The lack of enforcement policies is inexcusable and leading to little government dictators changing policy on a whim thus leading to physical harm of constituents.

It is time for the Nevada County supervisors to lead on this issue.  They need to make clear what their enforcement policies.  If the supervisors value liberty, they would enforce the governor's mask mandate in the same manner which he enforces it.  We trust our fellow man to do the right thing.  I frankly rarely agree with Gavin Newsom on any topic, but in this instance, I agree with him whole-heartedly.   As Newsom has made clear, he has purposefully executed an emergency mask mandate with no enforcement mechanism and has commented to the media that we should trust our fellow man to do the right thing.  Regardless of the efficacy of masks and, for argument purposes, conceding that they are 100% effective in preventing infection, it is about a mandate which dictates to the public rather than the request which the governor has plainly made. 

At this time, the Nevada County supervisors need to lead.  Sue Hoek, as chairman of the board of supervisors, should direct staff to draft a resolution indicating that the county will follow our governor's lead and simply ask our local citizens to wear a mask in the county office.  While the supervisors may think that they work for the staff at the county, that fact of the matter is that staff works for the supervisors who work for the people.  If staff refuses to draft the resolution in the manner dictated by Sue Hoek, a template can be provided to her by a number of citizen groups who are sick of these mandates, and she can put it on the agenda.  That is her job.

As discussed in yesterday's post (and I know Sue Hoek agrees with this axiom because she is a strong, patriotic, freedom-loving woman), we are constantly on a journey from ancient authoritarianism towards true freedom and liberty.  Sometimes while on this journey, we as a society take two steps forward (the Declaration of Independence) and then take one step back (Dredd Scott).  In order for freedom and liberty to succeed, all of our collective steps must always be forward and towards freedom and liberty.  Any government mandate is a step backward towards ancient authoritarianism and away from our American way.  If we are a people that value freedom and liberty, and as Gavin Newsom said, we have to trust our fellow man to do the right thing, and the Nevada County supervisors should do the same thing and tell the county citizens that the county will not be enforcing these silly mask mandates and tell the public that they trust them to do the right thing for their neighbors.

Nevada County Elections Office Has Gone COVID Crazy

Today, The Union reported on the "altercation" at the Nevada County Elections office on January 20, 2022. To summarize the article, the proponents of a recall of our five county supervisors allegedly forced their way into the election office when confronted with the new election office mask mandate.  Below is the reaction (from January 19, 2022) of the politician who is currently running to be the head of our county election department when the recall proponents entered the election office. Her reaction is not entirely professional given the demeanor of the proponents and the fact that the sheriff's office did nothing for reasons to be discussed below.  

In a glaring omission, what the article wholly fails to mention is that the proponents want to recall the supervisors related to the county's COVID policies about which the paper has previously reported here and here.  All of these people are actually fighting about COVID mandates. Given the facts as presented to us by the CDC over the past two years, these COVID mandates are getting a little out of hand, and folks are arguably tired of COVID policies which have lost almost all support.

I spoke with a law enforcement individual today, and his response was that, clearly, the reaction by this politician was not her finest moment and that she clearly could use some additional skills in dealing with people.  I am informed that, in a private setting and if asked to leave an establishment, an individual can be cited for trespass.  This policy makes sense, as individual businesses choose whom they serve, as is their right.  On the other hand, law enforcement does not have the ability to enforce a mask mandate in a public building to which constituents have a right to enter.  This axiom is especially true for an election office which must transparently, and without bias, conduct this recall whether the government disagrees with the proponents or not.  There was also some discussion of the politicians politicizing COVID and politicizing the election office.  

It is understandable that folks are getting tired of these dictatorial mandates. First, the CDC told us not wear a mask (even an N-95), because they are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID.  Then, they told us to wear three masks.  Then Fauci told everyone that, if you are fully vaccinated, you do not need to wear a mask.  Now, we are back to mask mandates despite the vast majority of people being vaccinated or having had COVID.  Based upon these instructions and countless other misguided instructions over the past two years, we all have whiplash and, consequently, trust the government a lot less.

Let's review what we have learned during and from COVID.  The COVID vaccines, which California intends to mandate all children to be vaccinated for school, do not stop the spread of COVID.  We do not need the CDC to tell anyone this simple fact, as we have eyes.  Many of our friends and neighbors, both unvaccinated and triple boosted, are coming down with COVID.  The fact of the matter is COVID is here to stay regardless of your mask mandate or your vaccine mandate.  After two years, it is high time to start living with it.

Such sentiment brings us back to the election office.  These politicians have a balancing act for sure.  They must balance their duty as public servants but also protect their potentially vulnerable staff.  I would bet my house that both politicians in our election office and most of the staff are vaccinated, so why freak out?  Politics.  One politician is running for office and the other is trying desperately to get his heir-apparent elected, so create a scene and get some free press (i.e., politicize the election office) and demonize your own constituents.  Some heavy-handed politics, for sure.  In addition, and during the middle of our local election season, the politician in the video above admits that her boss (the head of our election office) was "out of the country" on Thursday.  If these two politicians are so concerned about their staff getting COVID and so concerned about the public, I would think that they would be responsible enough to not get on an airplane and travel abroad before potentially bringing back COVID to their office and infecting the entire staff before the busiest time of their public service - the 2022 primary election.  In fact, this type of hypocrisy is what is really frosting a lot of folks and driving them to resist these hypocritical government mandates.

Here is a news flash to Nevada County...we are all going to get COVID, and the arbitrary mandates are not going to stop that commonsense realization.

These dictatorial mandates are simply getting old and tiresome, and they clearly do not work.  It is commonsense.  Simply listen to the ever-changing guidance from the CDC over the past two years.  Listen to the scientific debates going on in the real-scientific world and not what Pfizer is telling you.  We are in a new normal, so it is high time to stop the crazy and get back to living and breathing and working.  It is also time for our local election office to get back to work and stop the nonesense.