(…) Small businesses across the nation have been devastated, drug use, depression, domestic abuse, and suicide have climbed, and society has been all but completely transformed.
And yet, those in power still flip flop, self-contradict, spin the facts, and continue to demonstrate how useless they are at actually stopping the spread of anything at all.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is such a leader, who has previously been an adamant proponent of shutting down bars and restaurants. Now, all of a sudden, she’s insisting that these establishments be re-opened “quickly.”
BizPac Review explains that Lightfoot’s fellow Democrat, the state’s Governor JB Pritzker, ordered indoor food service to halt in October.
While he’s since said that some regions of the midwestern state can begin rollbacks on certain COVID-19 restrictions beginning on Friday if they are able to meet certain thresholds, restaurants and bars are still excluded.
Lightfoot, with her newfound concern for the industry, says that bars and restaurants would actually be “one of the safer places” for residents to visit, according to CBS News, taking a rather different stance than the majority of Democrat leaders who seem to have been under the impression that the virus thrives under any condition where food or beverages are being served rather than packaged on a shelf at a big box grocery store.
“They’ve gone above and beyond to put in mitigation controls inside of the restaurants,” Lightfoot explained.
“I feel very strongly that we are very close to a point when we should be talking about opening up our bars and restaurants,” she added.
BPR notes that public health experts actually disagree with Lightfoot, who for her part pointed to what she says is an increase in underground parties in leu of open bars.
Were residents attending open establishments she argued, it would enable proper restrictions to be more enforced than these modern-day speakeasies.
“If we have people and give them an outlet for entertainment in the restaurant space, in the bar space, we have much more of an opportunity, in my view, to be able to regulate and control that environment,” Lightfoot said.
“People are engaging in risky behavior that is not only putting themselves at risk but putting their families, their co-workers, and other ones at risk.
“Let’s bring it out of the shadows. Let’s allow them to have some recreation in restaurants, in bars, where we can actually work with responsible owners and managers to regulate and protect people from COVID-19.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who like many of his fellow Democrat mayors and Governors has also strictly regulated indoor food service, has also done a similar about-face.
Blogger Matt Walsh and others drew attention to the timing of these shifting stances:
A week before Biden's inauguration and a study is released announcing that lockdowns don't work, Cuomo comes out and says that New York can't stay closed, and the mayor of Chicago is urging restaurants to open ASAP. We are supposed to believe that the timing is coincidental.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) January 15, 2021
Wow, amazing how the mayors of America’s largest cities are advocating for reopening the week before the Biden administration takes hold. https://t.co/eeHsWB5a8R
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) January 14, 2021
Inauguration Day is right around the corner… https://t.co/MYZZmMbwY0
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) January 14, 2021
California-based Chef Andrew Gruel was also understandably grumpy, as he has previously taken the same stance that Lightfoot now has but was attacked for doing so:
Wait, I said this 8 weeks ago and was vilified, had facebook groups set up to attack me, got harassing emails and anonymous hate mail. https://t.co/MGIOeom2EA
— Chef Andrew Gruel (@ChefGruel) January 14, 2021
By Elizabeth Johnston, author of Not on My Watch: How to Win the Fight for Family, Faith and Freedom