Funny how those screaming about the impending Trump police state remained silent, even cheered and ratted out their neighbors when the 2020 proof of concept plan was imposed on the U.S. and the world

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“We seen our opportunities, and we took ‘em” George Plunkett

John Hinderaker, PowerLine:

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

COVID-19 was a godsend for left-wingers around the world. The “pandemic” justified anything and everything. Shut down schools, even though kids were not at risk? Check. Shut down small businesses? Check. Shut down churches? Check. Make people wear idiotic masks? Check.

Shut down liquor stores? Don’t even think about it! Shut down Targets and Walmarts? No way. Shut down left-wing protests and demonstrations? Of course not.

The whole thing was obviously political, and was intended to advance statism. It was Rahm Emanuel who said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Whether covid was a serious crisis is debatable–I don’t think it was–but liberals certainly didn’t let it go to waste. They jumped on it with both feet, asserting previously unknown powers over the rest of us.

To take just one example, on March 25, 2020 Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota issued a long executive order that deprived residents of Minnesota of fundamental rights, starting with this:

Beginning on Friday, March 27, 2020 at 11:59 pm through Friday, April 10, 2020 at
5:00 pm, all persons currently living within the State of Minnesota are ordered to stay
at home or in their place of residence except to engage in the Activities and Critical
Sector work set forth below in Paragraphs 5 and 6.

It is extraordinary to realize that here, in the USA, a governor literally ordered everyone in his state to remain in his or her house except as permitted by that governor’s orders. And yet, it happened.

In my opinion, covid-era executive orders had little to do with public safety and a great deal to do with the Left’s insatiable appetite to control the lives of normal citizens. {I’d say, nothing and solely — Ed]. Expanding government power was not a byproduct, it was the point all along. (bolding added). And the growth of government power that leftists brought about during that dark era is still with us.

…

Make no mistake: the restraints on our freedom that various governments imposed, using covid as an excuse, were not a mistake. They were not inadvertent. They were not due to an excess of caution. They were malicious, the expression of a conscious desire to expand government power at the expense of the rest of us.

Government’s covid-era expansion must be thoroughly repudiated, and all remaining vestiges of that expansion should be dismantled. Our freedoms depend on it.

*EAST VILLAGE, Manhattan (WABC) -- There is an outcry over a video of an NYPD officer taking down a bystander who was watching officers make an arrest for an apparent social distancing violation this weekend.

As a couple was being arrested, video shows one of the officers break away from that arrest to walk up to a bystander with his taser drawn -- swearing and telling him to move back.

Video showed the plainclothes officer, who was not wearing a protective face mask, slapping 33-year-old Donni Wright in the face, punching him in the shoulder and dragging him to a sidewalk after leveling him in a crosswalk.

Police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Frances O'Donnell said Wright "took a fighting stance against the officer" when he was ordered to disperse and was arrested on charges including assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.

UPDATE:

CA County Imposes COVID Mask Mandate Just Days After Newsom Signed 'No Masks for ICE' Law

The Sonoma County Department of Public Health's Interim Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith issued an order Monday requiring anyone entering certain healthcare facilities in the county to wear a mask. Facilities subject to the order include skilled nursing facilities, portions of long-term care facilities where nursing care is provided, acute and non-acute rehabilitation facilities, infusion centers, and dialysis centers, according to the order.

Bob Hoge, RedState: You can almost feel the slow mission creep in your bones. Let’s take a look at some more of their plans.”

The mask mandate will run from Nov. 1 until March 31, 2026, and the order states that Smith can expand the type of facilities subject to it on an as-needed basis. [We’ve seen this game before in California.] Additionally, the requirement will be put in place annually unless otherwise rescinded.

Hoge: "Annually unless otherwise rescinded." Oh really? Don't you get the feeling that was part of the plan all along—and they’ll be trying to expand requirements for as long as possible as soon as they see an opportunity? Masks equal virtue, don’t you see.

Fond memories from 2021:

“Practice bubbles” — practice for what, and who’s practicing, the students, or their would-be masters?