More Obstructionism

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Senate Republicans have a bill in the works that would provide aid to businesses and their employees who are at risk as a result of government-mandated business reduction to minimum production or to outright closure.  That plan would provide for

taxpayers to receive up to $1,200, with married couples eligible to receive as much as $2,400 with an additional $500 for every child. Those payments will scale down for individuals who make more than $75,000 and couples that make more than $150,000. Individuals who make more than $99,000 and households that earn more than $198,000 won’t be eligible for direct assistance.

And

provide $50 billion in loan guarantees for passenger air carriers, $8 billion for cargo air carriers and $150 billion for other large businesses, authorizing the government to take equity stakes in them. The proposal also includes $300 billion for loan guarantees for small businesses.

Progressive-Democrats in both the Senate and the House object because of course they do—it’s not their idea.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) said late Thursday that the Senate Republican plan “is not at all pro-worker and instead puts corporations way ahead of workers.”

Of course. Because direct payments to workers are not at all pro-workers.  Because workers who lose their jobs because employers went out of business will simply be transferred to the Progressive-Democrats’ welfare cage.

The Senate plan does need to be carefully constructed, though, so that any money offered to businesses is promptly repaid, at market interest rates.

Scapegoating

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…and fake apologies.

Recall that Doctor Li Wenliang, a resident of Wuhan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China and an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, gave early warnings about the dangers and contagious nature of the Wuhan virus. Recall further that subsequent to his warnings, the police were sicced on him and that they threatened him if he didn’t shut the hell up. Li subsequently died of that same Wuhan virus.

Now the Communist Party of China is pretending to apologize to his family for that behavior.

The party’s top disciplinary body said the police force in Wuhan had revoked its admonishment of Dr Li Wenliang that had included a threat of arrest.
It also said a “solemn apology” had been issued to Li’s family and that two police officers, identified only by their surnames, had been issued “disciplinary punishments” for the original handling of the matter.

Punishing two cops who were caught up in the early stages of the CPC’s attacks: nothing like a couple of scapegoats to put an end to the escapade.

Sure.

The Progressive-Democratic Party’s Presidential Candidate

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The headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial tells the tale:

Biden Wins, but Sanders Persuades

The editors continued:

Joe Biden spent decades opposed to taxpayer funding of abortion, until last summer when he revised his values to fit the times.
…
Medicare for All registers 55% support to 33% oppose in Florida; 61% to 32% in Illinois; and 58% to 34% in Arizona. … Only 37% want a restoration of what Mr. Biden sometimes calls “our administration.”

The editors concluded with this:

It’s Joe Biden’s moment, but his agenda…show[s] how fast the party is moving in Bernie Sanders’s direction.

Stated differently, it’ll be Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) running for President on the Progressive-Democratic Party ticket; he’ll just be using Joe Biden’s mouth to say the words.

A Start

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But we need to go further.  Recall that an official of the Communist Party of China threatened to cut off US access to life-savings medicines that are manufactured in the People’s Republic of China [Bing Translate translation from the Xinhua publication].

If China retaliates against the United States at this time, in addition to announcing the travel ban on the United States, it also announced the strategic control of medical products and the ban on exports to the United States, then the United States will fall into the ocean of new crown [corona] viruses.

Senator Tom Cotton (R, AR) and Congressman Mike Gallagher (R, WI) have introduced legislation that will begin to address such dependencies and improve our national security.

The Chinese Communist Party threatened to cut off America’s access to vital drugs in the midst of a pandemic caused by its own failures. It’s time to pull America’s supply chains for life-saving medicine out of China and make the CCP pay for contributing to this global emergency.

The proposed legislation would

  • task an FDA registry with tracking drug ingredients
  • ban the Federal government from buying drugs with a supply chain that originates in the PRC
  • require drugs to be labeled with the name of the country where they came from
  • provide benefits to manufacturers who make their drugs or medical equipment in the US
  • take effect in 2022.

But it, or quickly following legislation, needs to go much farther.

  • Feds should buy no drugs with a supply chain that passes through the PRC, not merely originate there
  • manufacturer benefits should be limited to preferential government buys and support for drug development, not overt outlays of taxpayer money
  • push the pace: the requirements should take effect in 2021, or sooner, depending on how quickly manufacturers can readjust their supply chains

Further legislation should do the same regarding other items important to national security, items like medical equipment, computer chips of all types, energy-related equipment.

“Novel Ways to Apply Homicide Liability”

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That’s what an ex-federal prosecutor in DC and current “legal” analyst for a broadcast network’s cable outlet says he was always on the lookout for in those unfortunate days of his prosecutor-ness.

Rule by law, instead of rule of law—this ex-federal prosecutor is an example of that.

Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime—this ex-federal prosecutor is the modern example of Lavrentiy Beria.

We have ‘way too many Federal criminal laws, laws, too, that usurp the individual States’ legitimate police powers—this ex-federal prosecutor demonstrates the failure of that and illustrates the need to “quinquagintate” those Federal criminal laws and then target pare from there..