Time for a correction, AP?

The AP should run a correction to this story that appeared in today’s morning newspaper and in countless other papers around the country. The assertion that Hemings gave birth to children fathered by Thomas Jefferson is almost certainly bogus. Fathered by “a” Jefferson? Perhaps.

According to an authoritative 2012 Wall Street Journal column by Robert F. Turner, a professor at the University of Virginia and editor of “The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission,” 1998 DNA tests did not use genetic material from Thomas Jefferson, but rather suggest that one of more than two dozen Jefferson males may have fathered Hemings’ youngest son, Eston. Turner wrote that there may have been at least seven Jefferson men, including Thomas Jefferson, at Monticello when Eston was conceived in 1807.

“Allegations that the ‘oral history’ of Sally’s descendants identified the president as the father of all of Sally’s children are also incorrect,” Turner wrote. “Eston’s descendants repeatedly acknowledged — before and after the DNA tests — that as children they were told they were not descendants of Thomas Jefferson but rather of an ‘uncle.'”

The most likely candidate, according to Turner, is Jefferson’s younger brother, known at Monticello as “Uncle Randolph.” Randolph, who it was said would “come out among black people, play the fiddle and dance half the night,” was invited to visit Monticello just weeks before Eston’s likely conception.

Turner points out that the first allegations of President Jefferson fathering a child with Hemings’ was published in the Richmond Recorder in September 1802, noting that Hemings’ eldest child was named “Tom.” After Jefferson’s death, a former slave named Thomas Woodson claimed he was that “Tom,” but DNA tests of descendants of Woodson’s disproved this.

That Richmond newspaper story was written by the notorious slanderer James Callender, who was imprisoned under the Sedition Act during John Adams’ term as second president. He admitted writing lies about Adams to get Jefferson elected. In fact he shouted as much in front of the White House when he demanded that Jefferson grant him the job of postmaster of Richmond, Va. The newspaper story apparently was his revenge.

Thomas Jefferson, third president of U.S. (WSJ pix via Getty Images)

 

Today’s omphaloskepsis

Political correctness is run amok. Just look at today’s newspaper.

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez nailed the new Oscar “diversity” requirements.

Meanwhile, the morning paper reported that the Clark County School Board voted 5-1 to rename Kit Carson Elementary School, which was built in 1956.

Despite all of his discoveries and exploits, Carson’s name was removed apparently because he was ordered to force the Navajos onto a new reservation further West. No mention apparently was made of the fact Carson did not want to carry out his orders and tried to resign.  Nor was it mentioned that Carson, later as an Indian agent, worked until his death in 1868 to protect tribes from corruption and exploitation.

Can the Carson River and Carson City be next? What about the streets in Las Vegas named for Carson and John C. Fremont?

Meanwhile, the headline on the editorial in the insert declared, “America won’t reach its potential until it honestly addresses racism.”

It decried President Trump’s orders to stop forcing federal employees to undergo training in “critical race theory,” which foists the notion of white privilege. It also blasted Trump’s hollow “threat to withhold federal funding to schools using The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project,” which teaches that the country was founded in order to protect the institution of slavery.

The editorial states, “Recognizing racism is a first step to addressing it.” Presuming racism is rampant and even systemic without solid evidence is, well, presumptuous.

Earlier in the week the morning paper carried a column by Larry Elder, who pointed out that the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald found: “A police officer is 18 1/2 times more likely to be killed by a Black male than an unarmed Black male is to be killed by a police officer.”

Everybody is engaged in serious omphaloskepsis — navel gazing.

Kit Carson Elementary (Google Street View via R-J)

Our day that will live in infamy

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

I wrote on the Sunday following that day of infamy:

“I sat down at my computer at about 6 a.m., unfolded the newspaper and switched on the television. There was smoke pouring from the top of one of the unmistakable landmarks of New York City, the World Trade Center. Well, I thought, there’s a story and photo for tomorrow’s front page, and started into the morning’s routine.

“Minutes later a fireball blossomed from the other tower, and it began to dawn on the commentators and me that this was no ordinary accident and Sept. 11 would be no ordinary day.”

I started making phone calls. Reporters and photographers were dispatched to Hoover Dam, McCarran International, City Hall, Nellis Air Force Base, the Strip and elsewhere. Editors huddled. The publisher called in and said we should add 24 pages to the Wednesday newspaper. All plans were scrapped and we started from scratch, hoping to help our readers make sense of a senseless act.

Every section of the paper kicked in its resources.

The press crew rolled the presses early and cranked out thousands of extra copies.

Then I wrote that Sunday:

“I was proud of what we all had accomplished, of the concerted effort and professionalism, as I drove home at 1 a.m. … until I heard the callers on the radio. People were saying they would gladly give up some freedoms for the sake of safety.”

I wanted to reach into the radio and slap some sense into the callers.

The column proceeded to tick off some of the rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights and I wondered aloud which people would willingly sacrifice. The First’s right of assembly, lest there be a bomb, and no freedom of speech and religion, especially that one? The Second’s right to bear arms? The Fourth’s prohibition against warrantless search and seizure? The Fifth’s right to due process? The Sixth’s right to a public trial?

I concluded:

“If this is the consensus of the nation, the bastards have already won, destroying our will and our principles as well as planes, buildings and lives.

“We will have surrendered without firing a shot in the first war of the 21st century.”

The column appeared sandwiched between a Jim Day cartoon and a Vin Suprynowicz column with the headline: “The passengers were all disarmed.”

In a comment to a local magazine on an anniversary of 9/11 I called it “our Pearl Harbor.”

A version of this was posted on this day in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

 

What does prohibiting profit have to do with preventing the spread of a virus?

Today, we find the definition of arbitrary and capricious on page 3A of the morning paper.

Entertainment columnist John Katsilometes reports that a couple of bars in the valley have been told to end live music performances. The reason was spelled out in an email from a Las Vegas business licensing official to musician and owner of the Saddles N Spurs Saloon Bobby Kingston:

“Live entertainment which includes karaoke at this point is prohibited with a few allowances. You can have a singer, piano player, guitar player or small piece band that is there playing music at an ambiance level. There can’t be any ticket sales, admission fee or headliner advertisement for the entertainment & no dancing.”

What, pray tell, do ticket sales, admission fee, advertising and ambiance level have to do with preventing the spread of the coronavirus? Sounds like a bureaucratic aversion to profit rather than a demand for hygiene.

Saddle and Spurs Saloon owner Bobby Kingston, foreground, can’t understand why he can’t offer live music. (R-J pix)

Public sector jobs vs. private sector jobs

So, Gov. Steve Sisolak’s plan for cutting state spending this coming fiscal year calls for a freeze on merit raises and filling job vacancies and one-day-a-month “furloughs” and laying off no more than 50 state public employees, according to the morning paper.

We wonder what the more than 335,000 drawing unemployment and the thousands more simply out of work think of that concern for public sector workers. According to a DETR email this morning, “Through the week ending June 6, there have been 517,925 initial claims filed in 2020, 496,273 of which have come in the last thirteen weeks.”

“The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to take a different direction with our state budget in response to our changed economic reality,” the compassionate governor was quoted as saying. “I know for many state employees, layoffs, furloughs, and budget cuts are all too familiar and create tremendous hurdles in the work of serving our state.”

Governor’s reopening decision leaves workers in the lurch

Gov. Steve Sisolak has gone off half cocked again.

He has said that some of the businesses he ordered closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus may reopen Saturday, but what if some workers fear for their health and that of their families? Will they no longer be eligible for unemployment benefits if they refuse to return to work? Will they have to take a pay cut?

According to the morning paper, Sisolak doesn’t yet have an answer:

As for employees concerned about being required to go back to work, Sisolak said that “is a very difficult situation.”

“If they’re offered their job back, and they don’t take their job back, their eligibility for unemployment comes into question,” Sisolak said, adding that the administration was working with Nevada’s federal delegation and the Labor Department on a fix.

“I want people to feel safe when they go back to work,” he said. At the same time, “a lot of people are going to go back to work and make less than the thousand dollars a week that they’re making now, and you can say, ‘Why am I gonna go back to work?’ Those are difficult situations that we’re going to be facing in the future.”

As for the high-minded life-is-more-important-than-profit stance Sisolak and other Democrats have taken, columnist Victor Joecks takes the current hypocrisy apart:

Make no mistake: Sisolak’s decision to move Nevada into Phase 1 will increase the number of coronavirus infections. “We would anticipate an increase in new cases if mitigation efforts are lifted,” state biostatistician Kyra Morgan said in an April email.

According to no less an authority than Sisolak himself, this is unacceptable.

“I am not going to allow our workers to be put in a position that they have to decide between their job, their paycheck and their life,” Sisolak said last month on CNN. “That’s not a fair position to put them in, and I will not allow that to happen.”

But that’s what he’s allowing to happen on Saturday. That’s what he did by allowing construction to continue on the Raiders Stadium — despite workers testing positive.

Sisolak isn’t the only one who’s promulgated this standard. “Georgia’s experiment in human sacrifice” was the headline of a piece in The Atlantic on the decision to reopen by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No one is expendable. No life is worth losing to add one more points to the Dow,” presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden tweeted Wednesday.

Sisolak’s actions on Thursday show how bogus this rhetoric is — and his own hypocrisy. Even he couldn’t live up to his own standard.

Yet the governor is requiring people to choose between a paycheck and their life without knowing all of the ramifications. Will unemployment be denied if they refuse to turn to work? That would be a key criteria in making such a decision.

Siam Square restaurant workers move tables to prepare for possible reopening Saturday. (R-J pix by K.M. Cannon)

 

Governor double talks, waffles and punts … or does he?

Governor talks out of both sides of his mouth and doesn’t say much specific from either side.

According to the morning newspaper, Gov. Steve Sisolak at a press conference Thursday talked about reopening some businesses — which he has ordered closed due to the fear of the coronavirus overwhelming the health care system, though it hasn’t — in some manner after certain unspecified criteria have been met by a date to decided in the future.

The third graf reads: “But Nevada will follow a ‘state managed, locally-executed roadmap’ that flexibly accounts for vast differences between the state’s urban and rural areas and allows for local decision-making and control, the governor said.”

Toward the bottom of the account, the paper quoted the governor as saying it “would be a disservice” to residents and businesses “to pretend like Esmerelda County is the same as Nye County or that Clark is the same as Elko.” It said Sisolak was forming a Local Empowerment Advisory Panel, or LEAP, which will “serve as a resource for counties as they work through the necessary requirements to reopen and share best practices and guidelines for local communities.”

What will be the authority and powers of this panel with the cute acronym?

A couple of grafs later the governor is quoted as saying the panel doesn’t mean counties will open at different times, “All counties will open in Phase 1 at the same time.”

Then why bother?

So, when will casinos open? Sisolak reportedly said that will be determined by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, adding, “Here’s what I can tell you today: Gaming will not be opening at the start of Phase 1.” Why? Didn’t say. But apparently that is not to be determined by the Control Board either.

Over in the newspaper insert, Sisolak was quoted as saying the Nevada Restaurant Association and the Nevada State Board of Cosmetology will be asked to come up with plans for opening restaurants and personal care shops. Whether he will pay any heed was not stated.

Gov. Sisolak at press conference Thursday. (R-J pix)

 

 

Governor won’t even ‘permit’ discussion?

Many people are aghast that Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has had the audacity to suggest the coronavirus shutdown might not have been necessary in the first place and reopening should begin soon — even suggesting Las Vegas could be used as a placebo or control group to compare the impact of reopening to staying shutdown.

People have called on her to resign, have called her suggestions reckless and deranged. A television interviewer called her ignorant for saying Las Vegas is not like China.

But what I found disturbing was a quote in the morning paper from Gov. Steve Sisolak, “I mean, there is no way I would even permit the discussion about using the city of Las Vegas as a control group in dealing with the spread of the coronavirus. That’s beyond the pale. I can’t even imagine someone even contemplating that.”

He would not “permit” the discussion? He would silence debate? You know what they call people who do that.

He further declared, “You cannot allow our citizens, our folks, to be used as a ‘control group’ in this unscientific experiment that she’s talking about, relating to the spread of the virus. That’s just simply not allowable.”

Unscientific? What are control groups? They are the ones who do not get the experimental treatment, but perhaps a placebo, so the effectiveness of the experimental treatment can to compared to doing nothing.

Goodman may well be wrong. Granted, she is probably wrong.

But somewhere someone needs to contemplate a gradual return to normalcy. Whether some businesses reopen tomorrow or six months from now there is likely to be an uptick in contagion. At which the doomsayers will declare, “I told you so.”

In a separate story in the morning paper Sisolak was quoted as being dismissive of suggestions by the Elko mayor in a letter in the Elko Daily Free Press that said the sparsely populated and less affected rural counties should not be treated in the same manner as the more densely populated areas.

Elko Mayor Reece Keener wrote in an open letter to Sisolak:

It is a given that we will see outbreaks and “hotspots” into the foreseeable future. This virus is tenacious and will continue to be a threat until we have either better medicines or a vaccine. However, we cannot and must not continue to put our lives and civil liberties on hold until it is deemed “safe” to resume a semi-normal state. If, and when we experience an increase in new infection rates, we will be prepared to dial things back accordingly in a measured response.

We accept the responsibility, and with this, we need the flexibility to have local decision-making authority for our reopening timetables and planning. Please consider that a “one size fits all” approach does not work for a largely rural and sparsely populated Nevada. A statewide extension mandate will further deepen the economic damage that we have already incurred, plus it will be a huge psychological blow to the citizens that have diligently complied with the orders. Crucially, a statewide extension will invite civil disobedience and unrest. As mayor, I do not want to place our police officers in the untenable position of having to enforce state directives that are unpopular and impractical for our community.

Keener also pointed out, “Despite the best of intentions, the models and projections have been grossly overstated.”

But the governor reacted by saying, “If you open up Elko County, and you don’t open up Clark County or Washoe County, and in Elko all the stores are open, the restaurants and bars, all the entertainment’s open, well, then the people from the other counties are going to go to Elko County because they’re tired of being locked up in their houses, and they want to experience that, and they’re all going to go back to their counties and then the virus is going to continue to spread. So that wouldn’t work.”

He added, “It’s not just that we don’t want them to open. It’s just that it has to be done in a way that it doesn’t negatively impact that county or the surrounding counties.”

And what way is that, pray tell, and when, if ever?

Las Vegas can’t reopen, Elko can’t reopen. Who can? When? How long must everyone cower in the corner?

Who will “permit” at least a discussion?

Mayor Goodman interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN

Editorial: Keep a close eye on enforcement of virus regulations

Shortly after state health officials confirmed the first presumptive case of the coronavirus — dubbed COVID-19 — in Nevada this past week, Gov. Steve Sisolak issued an emergency regulation regarding insurance coverage for testing and treatment of the rapidly spreading virus.

State law gives the governor the power in emergency situations to make, amend and rescind regulations in response to the emergency. Customarily one thinks of such things as calling out the National Guard to prevent looting or other problems after a national disaster.

In this case the Commissioner of Insurance Barbara Richardson made a finding that an emergency affecting the health and safety of the public exists and that adoption of an emergency regulation was appropriate.

What Sisolak did was attempt to avert potential adverse financial impact for those who carry health insurance.

We highly recommend the governor keep a close eye on the effects of his order lest it have unintentional adverse affects on the availability of testing and potential vaccines or treatments for the disease. Dictating the price of things in the marketplace has been known to deter availability of goods and services when adequate compensation is not forthcoming.

There has been plenty of anecdotal evidence over the years that so-called anti-price-gouging laws merely limit the supply of necessary goods and services in a crisis.

For example, according to the American Institute for Economic Research, in 2005 a Kentucky man took time off from his job, bought 19 power generators, rented a truck and drove to hurricane-ravaged Mississippi intending to sell the generators at twice the price he paid to cover his costs and make a profit. Police confiscated his generators for price gouging, held him for four days and kept the generators in police custody. Those who urgently needed them and would have gladly paid the asking price suffered in the dark instead.

“This pre-emptive emergency regulation should give Nevadans confidence to continue taking preventative measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 as well as seeking necessary medical services and prescriptions without fear of higher than normal costs,” Sisolak was quoted as saying in a press release accompanying the emergency declaration. “Protecting Nevadans is my top priority, and adopting this emergency regulation is a critical piece of our broader plan to anticipate and prepare for the potential impacts of COVID-19.”

The press release said the order prohibits a health insurance company from imposing an out-of-pocket charge for an office, urgent care center or emergency room visit for the purpose of testing for the virus. “Additionally, the regulation prohibits insurers from charging Nevadans for the COVID-19 test itself or an immunization as one becomes available and further requires coverage for off-formulary prescription drugs if a formulary drug is not available for treatment,” the press release says.

Sounds confiscatory. If companies are prohibited from recouping their expenses for services provided, how readily available will those services be?

The regulation further requires health insurance companies to pro-actively provide information on available benefits, options for medical advice and treatment through telehealth systems and ways to prevent exposure to the virus.

With only a few cases in Nevada so far such measures may be premature. There have been no reports of insurance price gouging due to the virus that we are aware of, which is what the governor’s emergency order appears to be intended to stave off.

We suggested the commissioner of insurance and health officials keep a close watch on events as they develop to assure these shackles on the free market do not interrupt the availability of necessary services and thus create the opposite effect of what the governor intends.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Gov. Steve Sisolak announces emergency regulations. (R-J pix)

Newspaper column: Courts can’t tell lawmakers to hike education funding

An education advocacy group has filed suit on behalf of nine parents of Nevada public school children demanding that the courts force lawmakers to adequately fund K-12 education — declaring that the students “inhabit one of the lowest-rated and worst-performing state school systems in the United States.”

The suit, filed in the 1st Judicial District Court in Carson City, by Educate Nevada Now asks the court to find that the level of funding of public education in the state has fallen short of the constitutional requirement to “ensure a basic, uniform, and sufficient education for the schoolchildren of this state.”

The 37-page lawsuit cites a litany of woes — including the fact Nevada ranked 50th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in Education Week’s most recent Quality Counts report’s Chance-for-Success Index and has the third largest class sizes and ranked first in the U.S. in class size growth according to the National Education Association.

The suit further noted that in the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) only 34 percent of Nevada fourth graders were proficient in math and only 31 percent were proficient in reading. Both rates were even lower for eighth graders.

Nevada holds “places near the top of every ‘bad’ list, and the bottom of every ‘good’ list, in myriad rankings of public schools systems and student performance across the country,” the suit states.

The Nevada Supreme Court in the case of Guinn v. Legislature in 2003 held that Nevada students have a basic right to a public education under the state constitution, the suit states. In that case the court decided education funding had to take precedent over a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority to raise taxes.

Justice Bill Maupin was the only dissenting vote in the case, citing separation of powers, “Again, we are powerless to order co-equal branches of government to exercise individual acts of constitutional discretion. Our authority depends upon whether extraordinary relief is warranted and in exercising our authority to grant relief, we would be restricted to an interpretation of the Constitution, utilizing recognized tenets of statutory construction.”

The current lawsuit neglects to point out that the justices three years later overturned Guinn v. Legislature, largely for the very reason cited by Maupin.

The Educate Nevada Now suit further quotes the state constitution, which says, “The legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools, by which a school shall be established and maintained in each school district […].” 
The quote is cut off before the part that says such schools must be open “at least six months in every year …”

The suit further notes that the constitution states that the Legislature shall appropriate education funds “the Legislature deems sufficient …” That would seem to dictate that lawmakers are to determine what is “sufficient” rather than
the courts.

The litigation comes despite the fact Nevada lawmakers in 2015 passed the largest tax hike in history, $1.5 billion, largely to fund education, and lawmakers this year approved 3 percent raises for teachers. It also comes while the Clark County teachers union is preparing to circulate petitions seeking to increase sales and gaming taxes by $1.4 billion a year.

The problem with Nevada public education is not so much a lack of funding as it is a deficiency in accountability.

At one time Nevada high school students were required to pass a proficiency exam in order to graduate. That was dropped in 2018.

With the 2015 tax hike came a requirement that third graders who could not read at a certain proficiency level would be held back to repeat the third grade. That has since been dropped.

At one point 50 percent of teacher evaluations were based on pupil achievement growth. That has been cut to 15 percent.

Amanda Morgan, an attorney for Educate Nevada Now, told the Las Vegas newspaper after the suit was filed that the intent of the litigation is to prod lawmakers into addressing education funding.

“The court won’t say you need to put x amount of dollars into education,” Morgan was quoted as saying. “But it will say, ‘What you’re doing right now doesn’t meet your constitutional obligation. Go fix it.’”

The constitution seems clear when it says education funding is whatever “the Legislature deems sufficient …”

A version of this column appeared this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel and the Lincoln County Record — and the Elko Daily Free Press.