These Governors Told Citizens To Stay Home. Then They Broke Their Own COVID Rules

Several Democratic governors who pushed Americans to stay home or to forgo Thanksgiving celebrations with their families have been accused of violating their own coronavirus restrictions.

A plethora of lawmakers across the country have been caught flouting the coronavirus restrictions, attending protests and ignoring their own social distancing guidelines. The mayor of D.C. and the governor of New York traveled to “high risk” states, Democratic leaders in New York were photographed attending a mostly maskless birthday party, and the governor of California and mayor of Philadelphia were photographed on separate occasions ignoring their own state restrictions on dining.

These incidents sparked outrage across the country in the past week. Video footage posted Sunday showed Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy confronted by two angry protestors who yelled at him and told him, “you are such a dick.”

“How you doing? How you doing,” a woman asked the governor, who was dining outside without a mask, which is in accordance with New Jersey coronavirus restrictions. “You having fun with your family in the meantime? You’re having all kind of other bullshit going on at your house?”

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New York Democratic Leaders Caught Maskless At Private Party Despite COVID Restrictions

Elite New York Democrats attending a Brooklyn private party did not adhere to the state’s coronavirus restrictions, photographs show.

The event was a private birthday party for Carl Scissura, who is the head of the New York Building Congress, a trade organization, the New York Daily News reported Thursday. Other attendees included former Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairman Frank Seddio and Deputy Brooklyn Borough President Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the publication reported.

Photographs of the event showed that very few people wore masks, though the party attendees stood in close proximity to one another as they chatted. One photograph showed both Seddio and Lewis-Martin chatting maskless.

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Powerful and connected New York City Democrats break Covid rules because they can.

So now we know you can violate Covid restrictions for mostly peaceful protests, Biden victory celebrations, and birthday parties (what is it about birthday parties?), the latter of which only applies if you are important enough, and if you have to ask if you are important enough, you aren’t.

“Adherence to COVID regulations was checked at the door at a recent birthday party featuring a number of Kings County powerhouses.

Photos of a celebration for Carlo Scissura, head of the powerful construction trade organization New York Building Congress, show revelers in close quarters without masks.

Attendees included Deputy Brooklyn Borough President Ingrid Lewis-Martin and former Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairman Frank Seddio.”

The event occurred just days after Governor Cuomo decreed ever more draconian limitations on your activities. “Take this seriously,” he officiously proclaimed.

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Gavin Newsom’s French Laundry Outing Crystallizes the Arrogance of COVID-19 Dictators

As J.D. Tuccille notes, this sort of double standard is par for the course during the COVID-19 epidemic, when politicians such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.), Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.) have felt free to flout the disease control safeguards that mere mortals are told to observe. “We’re expected to suffer discomfort, economic pain, and emotional distress or else pay fines and even serve jail time,” Tuccille writes. “Government officials, meanwhile, take offense when called out for violating the standards they created.”

While Newsom did not take offense, he did offer excuses, and he did not acknowledge that he was breaking the law he had laid down—not merely its “spirit,” but its specific requirements. “We certainly hope Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, enjoyed their dinner at the Michelin-starred restaurant,” The Sacramento Bee editorialized. “Because it will end up costing a lot more than $700 in terms of damage to Newsom’s credibility in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nothing will launder the stain of stupidity from his reputation after this ill-conceived outing.”

The paper also noted that Newsom’s children are attending private school while most public schools remain shuttered. “Newsom and the First Partner eschewed state public health guidelines to dine with friends at a time when the governor has asked families to scale back Thanksgiving plans,” the Bee observed. “If the governor can eat out with friends—and if his children can attend their expensive school—why must everyone else sacrifice?”

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ELECTION 2020: Establishment Dems Can’t Say ‘No’ to Billionaires

In real life, billionaires don’t bring any exceptional brilliance into the political process. They bring their billions. They bring outsized stashes of cash that can distort election outcomes and safeguard their fortunes. Witness the $200 million our tech giants spent this fall on a ballot initiative to kill protections for gig workers.

And these dollars, even worse, drop a suffocating ideological wet blanket over the campaigns that Democratic Party candidates run. In this fall’s presidential contest, for instance, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were formally running on a platform many analysts considered “the most progressive document to come out of a major national party in U.S.  history.” The ideas in that platform — everything from a $15 minimum wage and ending tax breaks for capital gains to making public colleges and universities “tuition-free” for most students — had come out of joint task forces that brought together the party’s left and moderate wings.

But the campaigns up and down the ticket essentially ran away from anything that might overly discomfort the nation’s most comfortable — and let Donald Trump and his pals pose as champions of average people against America’s overbearing elites. Trump came unnervingly close to winning. Many of his endangered pals did win.

Various national pundits are now savaging Republican movers and shakers for indulging Donald Trump, post-election, at his every narcissistic turn. But Democratic Party insiders remain largely free to indulge their super-rich benefactors. That has to change.

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