• As Ronald Reagan liked to say, when politicians feel the heat, they see the light.
—News item: Looking increasingly likely Gov. Gavin Newsom will have to face a recall election this summer or fall.
—News item: Gov. Newsom calls for public schools to reopen “immediately.”
Chaser: From a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in November: “The decision to close US public primary schools in the early months of 2020 may be associated with a decrease in life expectancy for US children.”
Exit question: Why do Democrats and teachers unions hate children so much?
• What’s behind the exposé of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo? Normally you’d expect a tough pol like Cuomo to keep his troops in line, and not get blindsided by state Attorney General Letitia James and his health secretary Melissa DeRosa subsequently blurting out to legislators that Cuomo had falsified the number of COVID deaths in nursing homes, let alone face a firestorm now from his own party. My simple theory is that there are plenty of Democrats in New York who can’t stand Cuomo (quite aside from Major Warren “De Blasio” Wilhelm) and who would like to bring him down—either as a future presidential candidate or even his prospects for re-election to another term as governor next year. In other words, this is an inside job. Maybe Attorney General James wants him out of the way so she can run for governor next year? Couldn’t happen to a nastier thug.
• In a blatant capitulation to leftist demands for censorship, Amazon has stopped selling Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. You can still buy it directly from Encounter Books, and Ryan reports that the publicity from Amazon’s deplorable decision has actually given the book a sales bump—it has sold out on Barnes & Noble. (And needless to say, everyone should do their online book shopping from Barnes & Noble and boycott Amazon.)
I suspect there was a strong lobbying campaign directed at Amazon, possibly emanating from the Center for American Progress, to de-platform Ryan’s book. (In case you missed it, you can take in my podcast with Ryan from 2018 about the book here.)
For the time being, Amazon is still selling Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, but you should start your countdown clock to see how long before Amazon removes it, too.
UPDATE—Ryan Anderson has written about the matter over at First Things:
Amazon never informed me or my publisher that it was removing my book. And Amazon’s representatives haven’t responded to our inquiries about it. Perhaps they’re citing a religious objection to selling my book? Or maybe they only sell books with which they agree? (If so, they have a lot of explaining to do about why they carry Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.) If there’s a religious or speech objection, let’s hear it. But if it’s just an attempt to skew the conversation in the public square with an attempt to discredit one of the Equality Act’s most prominent critics, that’s a different matter.
So first, a caveat: If you fear what Big Tech can do if you dissent from gender ideology, just wait to see what Big Government will do if the so-called Equality Act becomes law. Second, a lesson: If you fear Big Government, don’t turn a blind eye to Big Tech. Conservatives need to get over the misguided belief that private businesses can do whatever they want. That isn’t true. And it’s never been the American law on the issue. Nor is it what the natural law supports.
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