Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Germany and France have two of them. They were mentioned (although not as such) in a Wall Street Journal piece centered on Russia’s slow grind gains in Ukraine’s Donbas.

The first self-fulfilling prophecy:

Germany and France, which have sent limited heavy weapons so far, are skeptical about whether Ukraine can realistically drive the invading Russian army back to its positions when the war began on February 24.

Which Germany and France are making all the more difficult by their decision to withhold serious amounts of weapons and ammunition from Ukraine.

The second self-fulfilling prophecy:

Berlin and Paris are particularly anxious to avoid an accidental escalation into a direct clash with Russia….

Which surrenders the initiative to Russia and guarantees their continued backing down by telling Putin that such threats work.

We really need a mutual defense alliance with the Three Seas Initiative and a redeployment of American forces out of Germany into Poland and the Baltics.

What’s the Logic?

President Joe Biden (D) has decided to forgive all $5.8 billion of the loans outstanding still held by the folks who went to any of the Corinthian Colleges institutions.

[T]he remaining 560,000 borrowers will be eligible for automatic discharges of their remaining Corinthian federal student-loan debt. All remaining federal loans held by anyone who attended a Corinthian school between its founding in 1995 and its 2015 closure are eligible.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona:

As of today, every student deceived, defrauded, and driven into debt by Corinthian Colleges can rest assured that the Biden-Harris administration has their back and will discharge their federal student loans[.]

Either the Corinthian students were cheated, or they were not; I have questions. Notice that I’m eliding the question, here, of why us average American taxpayers should be on the hook for the misbehaving Corinthian Colleges’ pecadilloes.

Why does only some of the debt—the unpaid balances—get canceled? Why don’t the amounts already paid by those students with remaining debt balances also get returned?

Why aren’t the Corinthian students who paid off their debt—and there are quite a number—eligible for recompense?

Is Biden actually saying, with a straight face, that the students were cheated only to the extent they still owe money?

Help me understand the logic of this.

It’s All About the Power

DoJ has decided to appeal US District Judge Kathryn Kimball’s (Middle District of Florida) lifting CDC’s mandate requiring masks on airplanes, buses, and in transit hubs. The judge’s reasoning was that the mandate exceeded CDC’s authority and so was unlawful.

DOJ’s objection and reason for appeal is highly instructive.

None of the district court’s quarrels with the CDC order comes close to showing that the CDC has acted outside the “zone of reasonableness.”

And (as paraphrased by Reuters)

the CDC findings in early 2021 provided “ample support for the agency’s determination that there was good cause to make the order effective without delay.”

What the law actually allows or bars be damned. Law is irrelevant; Government definitions of “reasonableness” is all. No, we won’t work to change the law; no, we won’t try to convince our fellow Americans—those beneath us—to change the law.

This goes hand-in-glove with this Progressive-Democratic Party-run government’s decision to appeal the order barring lifting Title 42. “We know better. Leave us the power.”

The Political Winds

Recall that then-Presidential candidate Robert Francis O’Rourke proudly declaimed that Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.

Having failed utterly in that campaign, O’Rourke subsequently changed his Web site’s Gun Safety page to read And while it might not be the easy or politically safe thing to say, I strongly believe that we need to reduce the number of AR-15’s and AK-47’s on our streets.

Now O’Rouke has adjusted his Gun Safety page again [emphasis in the original]:

And while it might not be the easy or politically safe thing to say, I don’t believe any civilian should own an AR-15 or AK-47.

He’s not Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke. He’s Robert Francis “Veleta” O’Rourke.

Facts Don’t Matter

Especially when they contradict settled conclusions drawn beforehand. Here’s Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Georgia’s governorship, Stacey Abrams:

We know that increased turnout has nothing to do with suppression.

And

Suppression is about whether you make it difficult for voters to access the ballot. And in Georgia we know difficulty has been put in place for too many Georgians[.]

Never mind that voter suppression is so strong that not only Republican voter turnout exploded in the just concluded Georgia primaries, so has Democratic voter turnout:

Democratic turnout increased 30% over the last midterm in 2018 [which is pre-Wuhan Virus situation]….

The pre-set conclusion is all that matters.