Paging Attorney General Bill Barr: Clean up required in New York City; constitutional violation underway.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has definitely had the worst response to the Wuhan coronavirus and unfortunately, it’s showed in the impact that the virus has had in New York City.

De Blasio downplayed the virus for months, not taking it seriously until the middle of March. Even into March, he was encouraging people to go out to the theater and to go on the subway, saying there was nothing to fear. He even took a one-stop subway ride on March 5 in a packed subway, encouraging people to ride.

But now, Comrade de Blasio is adding to his horrible response, by trying to curtail people’s rights as well.

Both he and the NYPD Commissioner said they would not be “permitting” people to gather for protests because of the virus.

They claimed that the requirement to social distance took precedence over First Amendment rights.

From Fox News:

“You’re talking about some of the values we hold in the highest regard in this country and certainly in this city, the right for people to gather, the right to free speech and the right to protest,” Shea said during a Monday press briefing. “But now comes the bad news, we’re in a pandemic and executive orders have been issued, these are laws that have been passed down through executive order to keep people alive, while we greatly, greatly respect the right of people to protest, there should not be protests taking place in the middle of a pandemic by gathering outside and putting people at risk.”

De Blasio specifically was talking about a protest by Reclaim Pride, an LGBT group, against Mount Sinai for working with Samaritan’s Purse to help reduce their overload.

De Blasio claimed that there were ways to protest without doing it in person.

The mayor said if people who have messages they want to spread care about protecting other people, “use all the other tools you have to get your point across but avoid anything that might put other people in harm’s way.”

Sorry, Bill, that’s not the way it works. It’s incumbent upon you to prove both a compelling state interest plus that there aren’t other ways not impinge on people’s rights. You don’t have the power to simply demand that people can’t protest. Whether I agree with the group or not, they have a right to protest as does every other group. Now, in New York City, no one can. You don’t get to do away with that right.

This is scary stuff that these Democrats are pulling out of their hat, with the virus as a justification. Yet, this is almost going unnoticed with virtually no media coverage or question.

This is exactly the kind of stuff that Barr warned about, that needs to be looked into and stopped.