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Dave Portnoy, the owner of Barstool Sports, posted a video to social media in which he laces state and local governments for continuing or extending coronavirus lockdown orders, asking when we went from “flattening the curve” to “finding a cure” in order to open the economy.

**Warning: Graphic language

Emergency Press Conference – When Did Flattening The Curve Turn Into Finding The Cure pic.twitter.com/ZaSTxL6Tuc

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 14, 2020

“What the f*** is going on?” Portnoy asked in opening the video. “When did this become, ‘flatten the curve’, ‘flatten the curve’, ‘flatten the curve’, to we have to find a cure or everyone is gonna die?”

“Like, [Dr. Anthony] Fauci, seems like a nice enough dude, I was always like, this guy has no agenda …  [He] gets in front of the Senate, he’s like, we’re reopening the country too fast everyone’s dead. Where’d that come from?” Portnoy continued. “And the L.A. mayor [Eric Garcetti] we’re not opening the city until we find a cure? What? Find a cure? Who says we’re gonna find a cure? We haven’t had a cure to cancer, it took AIDS 20 years or whatever, do we even have a cure? So, the economy is just shut down?”

Continuing, Portnoy said:

All we ever heard, for forever, was, ‘flatten the curve,’ ‘flatten the curve,’ ‘make sure there’s hospital beds.’ We’re there! Now all of a sudden, it’s like a 180. That’s like taking a cross-country flight, six hours. Five hours and a half go by, they get on the intercom and they’re like, ‘oh, just kidding, we have another ten hours’. You can’t do that! People have been mentally preparing, we’re doing what you ask. We’ve done exactly like you said, now you’re changing the rules.

Some governors and mayors certainly are. They include Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who recently extended her original order for the second time in May, though it’s being challenged in court by the state’s majority-Republican legislature. And again, Garcetti just extended a lockdown order for Los Angeles for an additional three months.

“And what about people who own businesses,” Portnoy stated. “You can’t say closed indefinitely. Imagine working for a year, five years, ten years, two decades, grinding your fingers to the bone to build your businesses — Barstool, thank God, will be alright — I’m talking about other businesses. People who have jobs and have worked their whole f***ing lives to put food on the table and create a happy living.”

“They’re just gonna go out of business? They’re just gonna wake up whenever this thing ends, when the mayors say them they can go back to work? Work to what? Your company is gonna be out of business, the economy is gonna be in the s***er, there’s gonna be no jobs, how the f*** are you gonna pay for your family, put food on the table, all that s***? What are you doing? You gotta give these people a choice,” the Barstool Sports owner ranted.

“If you told me, because of corona, I lost Barstool, I had to get a nine-to-five and start f***ing over, I’d rather die of corona, seriously, or at least take my chances,” Portnoy said. “I’m not saying everyone would do that. I would. But if I’ve dedicated 20 years of my life, I don’t wanna start over. I’ll f***ing deal with corona. You can’t just make everybody stay inside and basically start over. It’s insane. Like, what the f*** do they think is gonna happen?”

“At some level, we’ve done what you asked us to do,” he finished. “If you’re that scared of corona, stay inside. … There’s risk. We’re Americans, you have to take risks. If people want to go out, they can go out; if they wanna stay in, they stay in,” he noted further.

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Jon Dougherty

Staff Writer
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Jon is a staff writer for BizPac Review with 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.

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