Murphy backs down on right to protest. Blaming police for park closures?
By Rubashov
It looks like Sussex County civil rights leader Bill Hayden was correct… and the local constabulary was very, very wrong. When asked about anti-shutdown protests by a reporter at his daily COVID-19 public relations event, Governor Phil Murphy said:
“They have a right to protest. I would prefer that they somehow do this virtually.”
“They have their right to protest.”
“While I respect their right to protest. I wish they would do it virtually, from home.”
So all you over-zealous sworn officers of the… (we were going to write “law” but that would be the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and you certainly are not about that) Governor’s will… How do you feel? Better… or worse?
The Governor is finally getting some good legal advice. Oh, and you’ve been thrown under the bus…
According to a prominent Trenton lobbyist and sometime Murphy ally, operatives of Governor Phil Murphy are blaming the closure of state parks on the police who patrol them. Unlike neighboring state governments, who have left their parks open and who have actually urged citizens to get fresh air and sunlight, New Jersey’s state and county parks are closed by executive order.
Apparently, Murphy operatives are claiming that the closures are a result of requests by police who patrol the parks. After the first warm days resulted in the need for them to do their jobs, apparently the police complained to Murphy (through their lobbyist???). In yet another political concession to an important voter block (e.g. abortion clinics have remained opened as a sop to Murphy’s pro-abortion base) Murphy shut down the parks to New Jersey taxpayers, while continuing to pay the police who patrol them.
Getting paid for nothing is a pretty good perk. We heard one side of it (through the lobbyist), so we’d like to hear from the police who patrol the parks. We’d be happy to print your side as well, so please reach out.
Meanwhile, more and more scientific evidence is coming in, illustrating just how important Vitamin D is in the fight against COVID-19. Last week, scientists released a study that detailed how fresh air and sunlight can “lower the spread of Coronavirus.” A team of researchers from the University of California, Davis and University of Oregon said that “improving air flow” and exposing people to “more natural light” will help to “create a healthier environment”. The scientists hailed it as “a cheap and easy way to fight coronavirus.”
This confirmed the recent work of scientists in Ireland. The Irish Examiner (April 3, 2020) reported:
Vitamin D can help build resistance to Covid-19, two crucial Irish scientific studies have found.
One of the studies, published in the Irish Medical Journal, calls for the immediate vitamin D supplementation of hospital inpatients, nursing home residents and older people.
It suggests that vitamin D supplementation in the wider adult population, particularly in frontline healthcare workers, may further limit infection and flatten the Covid-19 curve.
An April 16th column, written by Dr. Vatsal G. Thakkar, notes that people of color are more at-risk from Vitamin D deficiency. We tend not to use the term “people of color” – but this is one time when it is directly appropriate. Please read what Dr. Thakkar has to say:
Black Americans are dying of Covid-19 at a higher rate than whites. Socioeconomic factors such as gaps in access to health care no doubt play a role. But another possible factor has been largely overlooked: vitamin D deficiency that weakens the immune system.
Researchers last week released the first data supporting this link. They found that the nations with the highest mortality rates—Italy, Spain and France—also had the lowest average vitamin D levels among countries affected by the pandemic.
Vitamin D is produced by a reaction in the skin to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Many Americans are low in vitamin D, but those with darker skin are at a particular disadvantage because melanin inhibits the vitamin’s production. As an Indian-American, my skin type is Fitzpatrick IV, or “moderate brown.” Compared with my white friends, I need double or triple the sun exposure to synthesize the same amount of vitamin D, so I supplement with 5,000 international units of vitamin D3 daily, which maintains my level in the normal range. Most African-Americans are Fitzpatrick type V or VI, so they would need even more.
… Vitamin D supplementation in African-Americans reduced cancer risk 23%. How? Cancer cells develop regularly in most animals, including humans, as the result of toxic injuries or glitches in DNA replication, but a healthy immune system destroys them. There is evidence that low vitamin D levels make the immune system go blind.
Dozens of studies confirm that deficiency is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which disproportionately afflicts African-Americans. A major contributor to heart disease is inflammation that targets blood vessels, forming the plaques that block blood flow. (Raising vitamin D levels with supplements hasn’t been shown to reverse this effect.)
Black Americans are also twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes as whites. Here, too, we find an immune connection. Insulin resistance, the harbinger of Type 2 diabetes, appears linked to high levels of circulating cytokines, the same pro-inflammatory proteins implicated in Covid-19 mortality. Many scientists are coming to view Type 2 diabetes as an autoimmune disorder, like Type 1.
History can also be a guide. A 2009 study examined sun exposure and fatality rates during the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million world-wide. Disparities in access to health care were minimal then, since treatment consisted mostly in supportive measures and convalescence. Antivirals, vaccines, intensive-care units and ventilators didn’t exist.
The U.S. erected emergency hospitals—one of which, the Camp Brooks Open Air Hospital in Massachusetts, had the unique distinction of being an outdoor recovery unit. The mortality rate for patients there fell from 40% to 13% when they were moved outside. Sunlight might have proved to be literally the best disinfectant.
So is it state police or the Governor who have ignored what most other states recognize as a essential medical need… fresh air and sunlight (Vitamin D)? Will they share responsibility for the lives that may be lost? After all, Governor Murphy likes to histrionically talk about “blood” being on the hands of those who don’t obey him. Doesn’t he have a responsibility to listen to science???
Will the threat posed by Governor Murphy to the health of average people further indict him? Constitutional scholar Andrew Napolitano – an author, law school professor, and retired judge – explained to a national audience that Governor Murphy’s executive orders constitute a “felony” and “misconduct in office… an impeachable offense”. Watch the Judge’s full statement about Murphy here:
So what will the local constabulary hide behind when the executive orders they act in the name of are found – at some point in the future – to be illegal and unconstitutional and they (and the municipalities they work for) all must pay out to those whose rights they robbed? It won’t help those future contract negotiations, that’s for sure.
Anyone wishing to follow-up with “the science” on Vitamin D and COVID-19 is advised to read the following. Enjoy!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835877/?mod=article_inline
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.”
– attributed to George Orwell (aka Eric Blair
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