Managing Sensibilities

But whose? Managing French sensibilities is never easy, The Wall Street Journal‘s editors open their editorial.

But what about Australian sensibilities? What about Brit sensibilities? What, above all, about the sensibilities of us average Americans?

I was under the impression that certain things had happened that hadn’t happened…I was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not going through. I, honest to God, did not know you had not been.

President Joe Biden (D) said that with an absolutely straight face to French President Emmanuel Macron.

Either Biden is lying through his teeth, or he has no control over what’s going on in his own Biden-Harris administration.

Either one alone demonstrates conclusively his unfitness for office. Both together….

How can Australians rely on this administration to say “G’day” and mean it, much less to maintain firm support for AUKUS? How can the Brits trust anything coming out of Biden’s mouth?

How can any American trust this administration regarding anything at all?

Misleading—And Potential Fraud?

Getting an adverse reaction—of any sort—from an employer-mandated or -encouraged Wuhan Virus vaccination? The Biden-Harris OSHA doesn’t want to hear about it.

The Department of Labor’s pledge Monday to publish an “emergency temporary standard” on COVID vaccine mandates “in the coming days” threatens to worsen the skewed picture federal regulators have been getting from employers for five months.

29 CFR Part 1904 – RECORDING AND REPORTING OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES AND ILLNESSES, among other things as JtN puts it requires employers to “record and report work-related fatalities, injuries, and illnesses[.]” OSHA, though, is exempting employers from reporting Wuhan Virus-related adverse reactions.

And this:

[T]he exemption is a “welcome reprieve to employers” because their insurance could have jumped based on recordkeeping logs of adverse reactions to vaccines, which have “little to no correlation” with an unsafe workplace, [labor lawyer Keith Wilkes of Hall Estill] told Just the News.

Concealing health data from the company’s health insurer could amount to insurance fraud, depending on the terms of the employer-insurer contract. It also could impact negotiations over new or renewed employer-insurer contracts, and fraudulently so if those withheld data are material to the matter being negotiated.

To be sure, OSHA still encourages employees

to file complaints when they believe their employer has exposed them to COVID or is “not taking appropriate steps to protect you from exposure.”

Which, to a candid world, would seem a bit one-sided when the employers are being told by the same OSHA to shut up about adverse reactions.

But that’s the Biden-Harris administration for you.

A Progressive-Democrat’s Bigotry

 

Recall Senator Joe Manchin’s (D, WV) statement a couple of days ago when he said that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—be pressured into voting for a reconciliation bill about which he has serious, and potentially bill-killing reservations in order to get the already Senate-passed “infrastructure” bill voted on in the House.

Manchin said major parts of his reservations centered on these:

How can I in good conscience vote for a bill that proposes massive expansion to social programs when vital programs like Social Security and Medicare faces insolvency and benefits could start being reduced as soon as 2026 in Medicare and 2033 in Social Security? How does that make sense?

And

Nor will I support a package that risks hurting American families suffering from historic inflation. Simply put, I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact that it’ll have on our national debt, our economy, and most importantly, all of our American people.

In response, Congresswoman Cori Bush (D, MO) said

Joe Manchin’s opposition to the Build Back Better Act is anti-black, anti-child, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant.

Manufacturing a racist or sexist beef where there is no racism or sexism, as Bush has so blatantly done, is an especially pernicious form of racism, of sexism, of bigotry in general.

A Window on Biden-Harris Priorities

Not so much from President Joe Biden’s (D) words or his Vice President and co-President Kamala Harris’ (D) careful silence, as much as what’s left in and left out of the current iteration of his reconciliation bill.

What’s still in after its seeming paring from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion (don’t believe those numbers or that any numbers are anywhere near close to finality or even accuracy, but take them at value for now): climate change initiatives.

What’s out (so far):

  • paid family leave and Medicare expansion
  • drug pricing, paid leave, Medicare expansion on dental and vision
  • pathway to citizenship for millions

As Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement argued,

Progressives are the ones who have fought like hell for Biden’s full agenda, and their votes cannot be taken for granted[.]

Yet those concrete and potentially directly actionable programs are the ones that were dropped in favor of the Biden-Harris (and of so many others) fantasy of global warming as an existential threat to our species.

Yet, if those dropped programs actually were any good, they’d be fully supportable and easily voted up in their separate and individual bills. Prakash even (cynically I say) argued that the pathway to citizenship for millions was left to an unelected parliamentarian—never mind that here too, maybe especially so, the pathway to citizenship question, if it’s actually something We the People want, would be easily voted up in a separate Pathway Bill.

But no. Progressive-Democrats know these are not particularly desirable; that’s why they tried, from the height of their control of both houses of Congress and the White House, to ram these things through unilaterally with not a syllable of input from the minority party.

Reckless—But in Whose Eyes?

The Tennessee legislature, in a Special Session that lasted into the small hours of last Saturday morning, passed a Wuhan Virus Freedom bill (my term) that achieves a number of things:

The final bill said government entities cannot force private businesses to institute a mask mandate or COVID-19 vaccination mandate, and private businesses cannot take action against an employee for not receiving the vaccine and cannot compel an employee or visitor to show proof of vaccination.

There are a couple of fillips: music venues will be able to require proof of vaccination in lieu of a negative virus test, and K-12 school principals will be able to require masks, but only on a school-by-school basis, and the principal must get the State’s permission, provide the masks, mandate a maximum of 14 days, and act only on a 14-day moving average of 1% cases for the school.

And yet….

Senator Jeff Yarbro (D, Nashville), a member of the conference committee that produced the final bill:

This is a reckless way to legislate[.]

Because individual freedom is reckless to Progressive-Democrats, and voting for individual freedom at 0100, as this bill was due to the long days and late hours of Progressive-Democrat obstruction, is equally reckless.

The bill itself can be read here.

Update: Governor Bill Lee (R) signed the bill 12 Nov 21.