A Good Idea?

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Progressive-Democrats are looking at “adjusting” Party’s proposed child tax credit in order to appease Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV).

Some Democrats have started exploring how to pare back their proposed expansion of the child tax credit in ways that are aimed at winning the critical support of Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), according to people familiar with the matter.
Among the possibilities: Reducing the size of the credit’s expansion and limiting which Americans are eligible for it, according to the people.

Tweaking to appease a single Senator. Never mind any effort at looking for bipartisan support.

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Typical

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The Progressive-Democrat Jamaal Bowman now says his fellow Progressive-Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is a traitor for her continued verbal support for the Senate’s filibuster.

John Lewis is a hero, you [Sinema] are a traitor to his legacy, your constituents and our democracy.

This is typical of the Progressive-Democrat Party: either you support Party, or you’re a traitor, and separately, you’re also a racist.

Bowman’s rant brings to mind a couple of quotes. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student to name the source(s).

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No Law

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…but merely convenience. Australia’s immigration ministry makes Australia a nation ruled by men and not by law.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke made clear in court documents concerning his second revocation of Novak Djokovic’s entry visa that the law counts for nothing.

Hawke didn’t dispute Djokovic’s claim of a medical exemption from rules that travelers to Australia must be vaccinated against Covid-19…. Hawke, who canceled Djokovic’s visa on Friday, said allowing the player to stay could sway some Australians against getting vaccinated.

Additionally,

Hawke didn’t refute Djokovic’s contention that he posed a negligible health risk, documents showed.

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What Does Putin Want?

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It’s not as complicated as some…pundits…want us to believe. One such, James Marson in his Wednesday Wall Street Journal piece, offered the following claim from a Vladimir Putin spokesman. Marson didn’t question it; he simply commented on other politicians’ responses to the claim as though it were accurate.

A Kremlin spokesman said President Vladimir Putin wasn’t presenting ultimatums, but was worried about threats to Russia’s security.

This is a truckload of bravo sierra. Putin knows full well that no one in the West is interested in threatening Russian security, no one in the West is interested in invading Russia. Putin knows full well that Russia has absolutely nothing at all of value to the West that isn’t gotten far more cheaply—and mutually beneficially—through free and honest trade.

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More Chit-Chat

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Cynically done chit-chat, too.

Biden-Harris says he’s going to distribute bunches more Wuhan Virus test kits to schools to keep them open.

The Biden administration plans to distribute millions of free Covid-19 tests to schools around the country, part of the federal government’s effort to keep schools open amid a surge in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant.
Later this month, the administration will begin shipping five million rapid Covid-19 tests to K-12 schools each month, White House officials said.

That’s in contrast to this:

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Gerard Baker Misunderstands

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Gerard Baker asked a serious question early on in his Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed. Unfortunately, despite the cogency of the rest of his piece, his opening remarks are badly wide of any serious mark. He posited

What if she and the administration she works for actually believe their own narrative that they are engaged in an existential, twilight struggle against the forces of darkness among us.

With this, Baker demonstrates two enormous, and mutually independent, misunderstandings in the same sentence.

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Clyburn Misleads

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Congressman Jim Clyburn (D, SC), in an interview on Fox News Sunday, made the below claim in defense of his Progressive-Democratic Party’s Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which together are intended to take the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives of Federal elections away from the States and to entirely Federalize those election procedures. In citing Alexander Hamilton’s (as alleged by Clyburn) statements that elections “cannot” and “should not be left up to the states,” he made this claim:

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Walensky Fails

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CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was asked on Bret Baier’s Fox News Sunday episode last Sunday,

Do you know how many of the 836,000 deaths in the U.S. linked to COVID are from COVID or how many are with COVID, but they had other comorbidities? Do you have that breakdown?

Walensky proceeded to weasel-word her answer and segued to the only talking point she could remember, that everyone must get vaccinated and boosted and get their children vaccinated, too, as soon as they’re eligible. Only toward the end of her off-topic response did she reveal her larger failure:

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Congressman Jordan Demurs

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Congressman Jim Jordan (R, OH) has declined Congressman and Chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol Bennie Thompson’s (D, MS) “request” to appear before that J6 committee. His letter carrying his decision to Thompson laid the matter out in no uncertain terms.

Leaving aside Jordan’s notice that the J6 committee’s summons of Jordan (and of Congressman Scott Perry (R, PA), I add) is an assault (Jordan used “pry”) on a sitting Congressman’s deliberative process informing a Member about legislative matters before the House is an outrageous abuse of the Select Committee’s authority, he laid out a number of other reasons for his decision.

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Iran’s Nuclear Weapons

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With the pseudo-negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program going the way they are, President Joe Biden, of the Biden-Harris Presidency, is rapidly coming to the first of two moments of truth.

The first is whether Biden-Harris will fold in the talks—he is, after all, consigned by the Ayatollah to the kiddie table where he’s to be seen and not heard by the adults in the room—and give Khamenei everything he wants just so Biden-Harris can come home claiming a deal, however disastrous.

That, though, is a moment of lesser truth. The greater truth moment will come after. As Dubowitz and Kroenig put it in their op-ed at the link,

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