Biden to State: Drop Dead

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That’s President Joe Biden’s position vis-à-vis Michigan as that State experiences an increase in Wuhan Virus infections, particularly via the UK Variant. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been trying to get President Joe Biden (D) to increase the number of vaccine doses allocated to her State. Biden says, “No.”

Here’s Biden’s CDC Director Rochelle Walensky:

The answer is not necessarily to give vaccine. The answer to that is to really close things down, to go back to our basics, to go back to where we were last spring, last summer, and to shut things down.

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Spreading Disinformation

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Jay Bhattacharya, in his Tuesday Wall Street Journal op-ed, (mostly) correctly called out and decried YouTube for censoring and spiking a public-policy roundtable hosted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and in which Bhattacharya had participated.

Among other things discussed by the participants was the wisdom of requiring children to wear masks in the face of the Wuhan Virus situation. The panel said the requirement was foolish and counterproductive, and this was too much for the Know Betters. YouTube

removed the video “because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

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A Thought on the J&J Vaccine

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A couple of nuggets in a Tuesday Wall Street Journal editorial prompt this in my pea brain. The editorial itself concerns [t]he issue [of] how best to address public anxiety over rare blood clots seemingly associated with the J&J anti-Wuhan Virus vaccine.

The nuggets are these:

six US cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) [in] 6.8 million who have received J&J’s vaccine

and

This particular brain blood clot is extremely rare in the general population—five individuals per million per year….

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Timidity

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It’s especially dangerous in the face of People’s Republic of China aggression. Yet it’s the position of Canada’s Justin Trudeau government. Don’t angrify the bully.

The Halifax Security Forum is a congress of international security experts:

…sponsored by NATO [and by the Canadian government, the latter especially with money], draws scores of powerful military and civilian leaders. Previous speakers have included then-US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel; Admiral Phil Davidson, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command; Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan; and officials from a host of other countries, including Israel, Estonia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Poland and Japan.

And

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Kancel Kulture and Racism

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Here’s a textbook example of the intersectionality of kanceling and racism.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer spoke last week against the idea of tampering with the Supreme Court’s makeup or structure.

To make those whose initial instincts may favor important structural change, or other similar institutional changes, such as forms of court packing, think long and hard before they embody those changes in law.
If the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts and in the rule of law can only diminish, diminishing the court’s power, including its power to act as a check on other branches.

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In Which the Court Got It Right

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…and the 9th Circuit Court messed it up again. This case (Ritesh Tandon, et al. v. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, et al.) involves California Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) restrictions on church gatherings against his more permissive approval of bar, salon, etc gatherings [emphasis added].

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Manchin and the Filibuster

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Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV), says he’s against eliminating, or even “weakening,” the Senate’s existing filibuster process. He’s all about protecting bipartisanship, he claims, in a Washington Post op-ed (which is behind a paywall, so I’m citing WSJ‘s cite).

I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt: there is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster[.]

On the other hand,

Some senators have floated potential changes that stop short of eliminating the filibuster altogether such as bringing back the “talking filibuster,” in which senators must be present and talking on the floor to block bills. That idea has been floated by both President Biden and Mr Manchin.

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Facilitation

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Recall that the Progressive-Democrat-controlled Congress and President Joe Biden (D) enacted a $1.9 trillion Wuhan Virus Relief bill that contained a sliver of money for actual virus-related relief. The bill also included $12 billion in transfer payments for New York to “assist” that State with its budget.

This is what that bill and those $12 billion in transfers also facilitated.

The Democrat-controlled New York legislature has passed a budget deal that includes a $2.1 billion fund for illegal immigrants—including a one-time, $15,600 payment for those who lost their job during the pandemic.

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Corporate Taxes

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Treasury Secretary and ex-Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen opened her Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed with this:

When Congress enacted the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, the result was a dramatic reduction in corporate tax revenue. Over the past three years, corporate tax collections have fallen to their lowest level since World War II: 1% of gross domestic product.

Amazingly—shockingly—Yellen wrote that as if it were a Bad Thing.

Then she partially rationalized her disparagement with this:

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