That’s what my grandmother—a much more gracious woman than I ever have been a man—would call things and behaviors that were utter…foolishness.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has signed a law that toughens the penalties for engaging in a variety of acts during riots. Engaging in the riots themselves has long been illegal.
And doesn’t care. That’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, as he made clear in his…testimony…before the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis last Thursday. Congressman Jim Jordan (R, OH) questioned Fauci regarding when Wuhan Virus (my term, not Jordan’s or Fauci’s) situation would be ending and CDC guideline restrictions lifted.
Fauci insisted that the restrictions would begin to be relaxed
When we get the level of infection in this country low enough that it is not a really high threat[.]
Despite repeated questions from Jordan to define “low enough,” Fauci remained evasive, repeatedly refusing to be specific, to identify the number…what metrics, what measures, he would use to define “low enough.”
In one of their Tuesday editorials, The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about the shooting of Daunte Wright in the Minnesota town of Brooklyn Center. They seemed to be on the right track in their insistence for due process both for Wright and for the police officer who, according to body camera video and audio, fatally shot him.
Sadly, the editors blew up their thesis with this, regarding post-shooting events:
On Monday night protesters looted businesses….
Accuracy, and truth, die at the hands of political correctness.
Protesters don’t loot. Criminals loot.
Protesters don’t riot. Rioters riot.
Especially in Los Angeles County, where County District Attorney George Gascón rules.
Gascón has proposed legislation that would bar felonies committed while a juvenile from being counted as “strikes” under California’s Three Strikes law when the person commits a felony as an adult. Superficially, it seems like a good idea. After all, Gascón argues, the child’s brain isn’t fully developed.
A sister of a gang-related murder victim exposed the flaw in that argument, though. Aja Courtney:
Anybody who has children understands that children know at very early ages what’s right from wrong[.]
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.
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.”
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….
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
…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].
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.