Oklahoma Supreme Court allows Trump rally to proceed as planned; Tulsa mayor rescinds curfew

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Trump’s upcoming rally in Tulsa can go ahead as planned despite concerns about coronavirus -- just as Trump announced that a curfew in the city had been lifted for the rally.

“I just spoke to the highly respected Mayor of Tulsa, G.T. Bynum, who informed me there will be no curfew tonight or tomorrow for our many supporters attending the #MAGA Rally. Enjoy yourselves - thank you to Mayor Bynum!” the president tweeted.

TRUMP WARNS 'ANARCHISTS' NOT TO DISRUPT TULSA RALLY, AFTER THREAT PROMPTS EMERGENCY ORDER

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I just spoke to the highly respected Mayor of Tulsa, G.T. Bynum, who informed me there will be no curfew tonight or tomorrow for our many supporters attending the #MAGA Rally. Enjoy yourselves - thank you to Mayor Bynum! @gtbynum

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2:09 AM - Jun 20, 2020

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Bynum on Friday issued a statement and said he was "told the curfew is no longer necessary."

"Last night, I enacted a curfew at the request of Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin, following consultation with the United States Secret Service based on intelligence they had received,” he said in a news release, the Tulsa World reported. “Today, we were told the curfew is no longer necessary so I am rescinding it.”

Bynum, a Republican, had declared a civil emergency and announced a curfew near the arena where Trump plans to hold a campaign rally on Saturday.

Bynum, in his order, said “in the interest of national security” he would establish a “federal exclusion zone” in the vicinity of the rally. He cited “crowds in excess of 100,000” and opposition protests as well as recent “civil unrest” -- referring to protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd that in the early days escalated into looting and violence in some cities. Additionally, he had warned that he had information that organized groups known for violence were traveling to the city “for the purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.”

"Jenzeers."

I turned on the car radio and CNN was talking about "Jenzeers." Jenzeers, in the aftermath of the coronavirus lockdown, were going to decide whether to abandon New York City and leave it hurting for population and economic vigor.

Jenzeers... Jenzeers... who the hell are Jenzeers?
Gen Z-ers.

The story I was hearing on the satellite radio corresponds to this text news report at CNN.com: "Coronavirus is making some people rethink where they want to live":

After years of growth, New York City's population had started to slowly decline in 2017. Chicago and Los Angeles also saw their populations dip in recent years as the economy picked up in the suburbs and elsewhere. Other big cities have seen growth virtually stagnate.

"It's not just a New York thing," says William Frey, a demographer and senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. "It's a kind of softening of growth among cities all over the country.... People have always come back to cities during some of the biggest disasters we've had in our history. ... When we look ahead in the next year or two, I'm not so concerned that we're going to see decline in city populations long-term"...

Immediately after the Great Recession, millennials flocked into cities and spurred a period of growth and revitalization. And in the aftermath of this unfolding economic crisis, Frey says Generation Z could take a similar tack.... "If they follow in the footsteps of millennials during a similarly dim period, they could help invigorate city growth -- especially if opportunities dry up elsewhere," Frey wrote in a recent analysis on the Brookings website....

Lifelong New Yorker Chloé Jo Davis never imagined leaving her beloved city -- until now. Davis and her husband were already used to working from home, but weeks spent cramped inside their rented two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side -- homeschooling their three young sons and caring for four rescue pets -- have changed her calculation.... 

Four rescue pets... that got me. They had 5 human beings in a 2-bedroom apartment and they bring in 4 pets. That's got to be either dogs or cats, don't you think? There aren't rescue goldfish or rescue gerbils. We're talking about sizable mammals that have the run of the place and shed hair and vomit and let you know how they feel.

Anyway... city life. I've done it myself... done NYC for about 11 years of my life. I like it, but adding children — more than one — and throwing pets on top... that already makes it hard to breathe. And then you throw in a dangerous respiratory disease... At some point you've got to want out, and if the job you have is one you do from home — you and your mate.... You're so free to leave.

And yet people don't leave. I understand how some folks are about New York. Every place else seems too not New York to be acceptable. I lived in New York City because I married a person who came from New York and his preference for the place was so overwhelming compared to anything I in my head. I didn't want to go back to Delaware or New Jersey. My ideas were vague — drifting over the general landscape like a line in a Johnny Rivers song ("She wants to live in the Rockies/She says that's where we'll find peace...") — so of course, New York won.

"It is giving us this quite extraordinary insight into just how much of a mess we humans are making of our beautiful planet. This is giving us an opportunity to magically see how much better it can be."

Said Duke University conservation scientist Stuart Pimm, quoted in "As people stay home, Earth turns wilder and cleaner. These before-and-after images show the change" (by AP science writer Seth Borenstein, published at Madison.com).

Another quote — from Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment: "In many ways we kind of whacked the Earth system with a sledgehammer and now we see what Earth's response is."

With photographs and maps, the article concentrates on the reduction in air pollution. There's also a bit about wild animals taking the opportunity to show themselves on city streets. But I'd like to see more about climate change.

All the article says is:

The greenhouse gases that trap heat and cause climate change stay in the atmosphere for 100 years or more, so the pandemic shutdown is unlikely to affect global warming, says Breakthrough Institute climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. Carbon dioxide levels are still rising, but not as fast as last year.

But this can be viewed as an experimental head start on the Green New Deal we've heard so much about. What had seemed impossible to begin is now a way of life we've plunged into. We've gone much further than what the climate activists were proposing, though we've done it for a different reason, by government order, under the fear of death by disease, and seemingly only for a few weeks (or months).

Why aren't people saying that when we emerge in phases from this lockdown — as we must, or we face economic doom — we should not attempt to go back to everything that we were doing before but go forward into some livable, workable form of the Green New Deal?

Shouldn't the Democrats be saying this? Where's Joe Biden?

Could Donald Trump and the Republicans offer something like this? I know the term "Green New Deal" has a Democratic Party sound to it, but why can't they present something visionary and future-looking that inspires hope instead of merely presuming that what's best is whatever we happened to have had in the past?