April 29, 2026

COVID SIX YEARS AGO TODAY: Actual headline (still up) at The Atlantic — Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice.

Three weeks later, The Week reported that the Mull’s dark dreams fortunately did not come true: We should be grateful for good news in Georgia.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Atlanta is not burning. Bodies are not piled up in the streets. Hospitals in Georgia are not being overwhelmed; in fact, they are virtually empty. There is no mad rush for ventilators (remember those?). Instead, men, women, and children in the Peach State are returning to some semblance of normal life: working outside their homes, going to restaurants and bars, getting haircuts, exercising, and most important, spending time with their friends and families and worshipping God. The opening that began more than three weeks ago is continuing apace.

Oh, my apologies, you were waiting for bad news? Sorry, I forgot, we were actually not supposed to be rooting for the virus. Despite the apparent relish behind headlines like “Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice,” one assumes that most Americans, even the ones most committed to omnidirectional prophecies of doom, were actually hoping this would happen. While it really is a shame that we do not get to gloat about the cravenness and stupidity of yet another GOP politician, I think on balance most of us will be glad to hear that Gov. Brian Kemp was not badly wrong here.

What is happening instead of the widely predicted bloodbath? Confirmed cases of the virus are obviously increasing (though the actual rolling weekly average of new ones have been headed down for nearly a month) while deaths remain more or less flat. This is in fact what happens when you test more people for a disease that is not fatal or even particularly serious for the vast majority of those who contract it, for which the median age of death is higher than the American life expectancy.

How was this possible? One answer is that the lockdown did not in fact do what it was supposed to do, which is to say, meaningfully impede transmission of the virus. In fact, data both from states like Georgia and from abroad suggests that the lifting of lockdowns is positively correlated with a decrease in rates of infection. This could be because lockdowns are inherently ineffective at slowing down a disease whose spread appears to be largely intrafamilial and nosocomial.

Georgia’s Republican governor earned bipartisan attacks when he wisely reopened his state in late April: Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Affable Culture Warrior.

In April 2020, businesses in Georgia were shuttered by government decree as in most of the rest of the country. Mr. Kemp was hearing from desperate entrepreneurs: “ ‘Look man, we’re losing everything we’ve got. We can’t keep doing this.’ And I really felt like there was a lot of people fixin’ to revolt against the government.”

The Trump administration “had that damn graph or matrix or whatever that you had to fit into to be able to do certain things,” Mr. Kemp recalls. “Your cases had to be going down and whatever. Well, we felt like we met the matrix, and so I decided to move forward and open up.” He alerted Vice President Mike Pence, who headed the White House’s coronavirus task force, before publicly announcing his intentions on April 20.

That afternoon Mr. Trump called Mr. Kemp, “and he was furious.” Mr. Kemp recounts the conversation as follows:

“Look, the national media’s all over me about letting you do this,” Mr. Trump said. “And they’re saying you don’t meet whatever.”

Mr. Kemp replied: “Well, Mr. President, we sent your team everything, and they knew what we were doing. You’ve been saying the whole pandemic you trust the governors because we’re closest to the people. Just tell them you may not like what I’m doing, but you’re trusting me because I’m the governor of Georgia and leave it at that. I’ll take the heat.”

“Well, see what you can do,” the president said. “Hair salons aren’t essential and bowling alleys, tattoo parlors aren’t essential.”

“With all due respect, those are our people,” Mr. Kemp said. “They’re the people that elected us. They’re the people that are wondering who’s fighting for them. We’re fixin’ to lose them over this, because they’re about to lose everything. They are not going to sit in their basement and lose everything they got over a virus.”

Mr. Trump publicly attacked Mr. Kemp: “He went on the news at 5 o’clock and just absolutely trashed me. . . . Then the local media’s all over me—it was brutal.” The president was still holding daily press briefings on Covid. “After running over me with the bus on Monday, he backed over me on Tuesday,” Mr. Kemp says. “I could either back down and look weak and lose all respect with the legislators and get hammered in the media, or I could just say, ‘You know what? Screw it, we’re holding the line. We’re going to do what’s right.’ ” He chose the latter course. “Then on Wednesday, him and [Anthony] Fauci did it again, but at that point it didn’t really matter. The damage had already been done there, for me anyway.”

The damage healed quickly once businesses began reopening on Friday, April 24. Mr. Kemp quotes a state lawmaker who said in a phone call: “I went and got my hair cut, and the lady that cuts my hair wanted me to tell you—and she started crying when she told me this story—she said, ‘You tell the governor I appreciate him reopening, to allow me to make a choice, because . . . if I’d have stayed closed, I had a 95% chance of losing everything I’ve ever worked for. But if I open, I only had a 5% chance of getting Covid. And so I decided to open, and the governor gave me that choice.’”

At that point, Florida was still shut down. Mr. DeSantis issued his first reopening order on April 29, nine days after Mr. Kemp’s. On April 28, the Florida governor had visited the White House, where, as CNN reported, “he made sure to compliment the President and his handling of the crisis, praise Trump returned in spades.”

Three years later, here’s the thanks Mr. DeSantis gets: This Wednesday Mr. Trump issued a statement excoriating “Ron DeSanctimonious” as “a big Lockdown Governor on the China Virus.” As Mr. Trump now tells the tale, “other Republican Governors did MUCH BETTER than Ron and, because I allowed them this ‘freedom,’ never closed their States. Remember, I left that decision up to the Governors!”

Of course, by 2023, Trump was far from the only former official distancing himself from the debacle of 2020: Anthony Fauci Says Don’t Blame Him for COVID Lockdowns and School Closures.

Amanda Mull of the Atlantic’s about-face was much faster, taking only a month: Atlantic writer who warned of Georgia’s human sacrifice by reopening says New York’s 8 p.m. curfew is ‘absolutely insane.’

Posted at 10:55 am by Ed Driscoll

WHAT A JOKE: Iran selected for a vice presidency post at UN’s nuclear non-proliferation confab.

The United States and Iran clashed at the United Nations on Monday over Tehran’s nuclear program and the latter’s selection to be one of dozens of vice presidents at a month-long conference to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The 11th conference to review implementation of the NPT, which came into force in 1970, began on Monday at the United Nations in New York. Different groups nominated 34 conference vice presidents, and the conference chair, Vietnam’s UN ambassador Do Hung Viet, said Iran was picked by “the group of non-aligned and other states.”

Christopher Yeaw, assistant secretary for the US Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, told the conference that Iran’s selection was an “affront” to the NPT.

The only non-proliferation the Islamic Republic understands is bunker-busters delivered by B-2.

Posted at 10:40 am by Stephen Green

TRUTH:

Exit quote: “Let’s be honest, Jimmy: when you hate Donald Trump as much as you do, that doesn’t sound like a joke. It sounds like how you really feel. They always say there is truth in comedy.”

Posted at 10:24 am by Stephen Green

HE LIKELY DOESN’T CARE:

Posted at 9:57 am by Stephen Green

BLUE STATE BLUES: California agencies discuss what to cut as state deals with $35B deficit.

In January, the Governor’s Office projected only a $3 billion budget shortfall next year, well under the Legislative Analyst’s Office projections of an $18 billion shortfall in its budget released in November 2025.

Since that time, the conflict in Iran and an $8.6 billion increase in tax revenues have improved the budget outlook, but increasing costs in Medi-Cal spending has complicated the revenue picture, Palmer said. He noted nothing is final in the next version of the governor’s budget.

Newsom made it clear in January that he is attempting to solve the budget problems not only in 2026-27, but the following fiscal year as well, Palmer told The Center Square.

Meanwhile: The cost of High-Speed Rail is now estimated at $231 billion.

Ditching HSR would patch plenty of holes in the budget, but then what would Dems do for graft?

Posted at 9:38 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Brandon Gill Gives a Master Class on Questioning an Abortion Ghoul. “Texas Representative Brandon Gill is the youngest Republican in Congress but he is, as the old saying goes, wise beyond his years. On Tuesday, the 32-year-old first term congressman provided a blueprint for all of the GOP elders of the village on how to deal with any vile abortion ghoul who is being questioned by lawmakers.”

Posted at 9:07 am by Stephen Green

WELL SAID:

Personally, I’m a big believer in tit-for-tat. It’s science!

Posted at 8:59 am by Glenn Reynolds

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY, IT’S LITERALLY AN UNLIMITED RESOURCE!

California is still in the Gradually way of going broke. The problem with the Suddenly part is that it comes so suddenly

Posted at 8:51 am by Stephen Green

DON SURBER: The B in EBT stands for Bentley. “In one red state alone, more than 14,000 people with EBTs (food stamp recipients) own luxury cars.”

Posted at 8:50 am by Glenn Reynolds

50 YEARS LATER THEY’RE STILL LYING ABOUT REAGAN.

In 2076 they’ll be lying about Trump.

Posted at 8:48 am by Glenn Reynolds

COMMIES ARE LAZY AND DUMB:

Also evil.

Posted at 8:47 am by Glenn Reynolds

CHANGE: Nebraska First to Enforce Medicaid Work Requirement.

State officials say they’re prepared, training staff and sending letters, emails and texts to people who could be impacted.

Health policy experts, advocates and other states will be watching closely.

“It can be used as a lesson for other states, both where things go well and where things don’t go well,” said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

The work requirement is part of a broad tax and policy law that President Donald Trump signed last year. Nebraska Republican Gov. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen announced in December that the state would implement it eight months before it was required, saying the aim was “making sure we get every able-bodied Nebraskan to be a part of our community.”

Exit quote: “Under the change, many Medicaid participants ages 19 through 64 will have to show that they work or do community service at least 80 hours a month, or are enrolled in school at least half-time.”

Those conditions aren’t exactly arduous.

Posted at 8:36 am by Stephen Green

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll

DEFUND THE UN:

Posted at 8:20 am by Stephen Green