Archive for 2022
June 28, 2022
THIS’LL HELP MORALE: Quote from Beijing official on ‘5 years’ of COVID-19 restrictions causes stir. “Residents of Beijing reacted with confusion and alarm Monday when a top Communist Party official was quoted in official media saying strict COVID-19 policies could be in place for five years. A story first posted in the Beijing Daily, the official publication of the capital’s ruling party, quoted former mayor and current party chief Cai Qi as saying the city will uphold the controversial ‘zero-COVID’ policy ‘for the next five years,’ the Guardian and CNN reported.”
This is the 21st Century version of the Chinese Communist Party’s many other stupid policies inflexibly applied, from “little steel” to the one-child policy.
BIDEN’S SANCTIONS CONTINUE UNDERMINING THE DOLLAR: Oil shippers are hiding Russian cargoes by paying in Chinese yuan, exchanging weapons for crude, and ‘going dark.’ “Yuan-ruble trading volumes have soared 1,067% since Russia began its war with Ukraine, though this is broadly seen as a sign of the allies strengthening ties to help weaken the influence of the US.”
ICYMI: Astonishing Testimony From Dr. Birx Lost Amid Landmark SCOTUS Rulings.
Jordan asked Birx if the government was lying or guessing when it told the public that people who received the vaccination couldn’t get COVID. Birx responded that she did not know. However, she continued, “All I know is there was evidence from the global pandemic that natural reinfection was occurring. Since the vaccine was based on natural immunity, you cannot make the conclusion that the vaccine will do better than natural infection. Although it can often do slightly better.” [Emphasis added]
Why didn’t she speak up about this while still in office? Public health “experts” like Dr. Anthony Fauci actively tried to convince Americans that natural immunity was inferior to the jabs. It’s not clear what large numbers of reinfections Birx was referring to since most positive post-infection tests were reported in asymptomatic people. One study in preprint finds that the spike protein, the part of the virus the tests detect, can remain in a recovered patient’s body for up to 12 months post-infection. How this could affect post-recovery testing in asymptomatic patients is unknown.
Jordan went on to challenge Birx about what the government knew and when. “You were part of this effort when you were in the previous administration. And you’re saying in this administration that you can’t rule out the fact that our government was lying to us when they told us the vaccinated could not get the virus,” he charged.
Birx responded, “I don’t know about their discussions that they had in the task force. So I can’t tell you that.” Then, as she often did on the Trump task force, she traded on her personal situation. “I can tell you as a family member who had individuals that were susceptible, of course, we got everybody vaccinated. But we still used layered protection during surges.”
So, why was Dr. Birx vaccinated and masked? She continued: “Because I knew potentially vaccine immunity would wane like natural immunity waned. There was evidence that every four months, reinfection was occurring in South Africa.” Huh. That seems like it should have been part of informed consent before Americans decided to take an experimental vaccine or give it to their children. Four months of coverage seems like a risk-benefit ratio Americans should have been able to calculate for themselves.
Jordan continued, “When the government told us that the vaccinated couldn’t transmit it, was that a lie or is it a guess? Or is it the same answer?” Remember when the anchors on CNN and members of the administration told you to “trust the science”? Do you recall all the accomplished clinicians and researchers who have been silenced and unpersoned over their COVID-19 comments? If so, Birx’s response may infuriate you. “I think it was hoped that the vaccine would work in that way,” she said.
Hope is not a plan. Except it was the plan.
SRI LANKA, WE MAY BE JOINING YOU SOON: “Here’s What Life Looks Like in a Country That’s Run Out of Fuel.“
REPORTS: At Least 42 People Found Dead Inside Truck Carrying Migrants In Texas.
But no need to worry: Karine Jean-Pierre: It’s a fact that the border is closed.
Although Blake included it in his quote from Ginsburg’s speech, he doesn’t otherwise mention no-fault divorce. Let’s talk about why Ginsburg connected the no-fault divorce movement with the abortion-rights movement — and why these movements happened in the same time frame. One could say both movements pushed government out of the intimate sphere that belongs to the individual. Another way to put that was both movements served the agenda of the sexual revolution.
Well, that was a top Gentry Class priority at the time, so of course the courts were on board.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Was Hunter’s Russian Escort Paid for by Joe?
Plus:
- Yeah, that’s grooming
- You’ll never guess the one place where you can still find tampons
- Consistency is not the hobgoblin of little Reichs
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Biden’s Sex Police: The White House’s new regulations will gut due-process rights for college students accused of sexual misconduct.
The new rules recommend a return to a “single investigator” model that was barred under the DeVos reform. This means one administrator can act as detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury on a Title IX complaint. The new rules also undo many of the procedural protections for the accused—including the right to see all the evidence, inculpatory and exculpatory, gathered against him. “It’s an evisceration of the procedural protections given to the accused,” says historian KC Johnson, co-author of The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities.
Under the DeVos rules, adjudication of a formal complaint required a live hearing be held that included cross examination. The Biden administration lifts this obligation. The Biden rules also call for a return to investigations initiated by third parties, even if based on rumors or misunderstandings, in which male students can be subjected to Title IX proceedings over the objection of their female partners. (Robby Soave at Reason has a good summary of the Biden proposals.) . . .
One frustrated Title IX coordinator told me she sometimes thought of her job as running “The Break Up Office.” She said many young people lacked the skills to navigate relationships themselves, and often didn’t want to. Why should they? Instead of focusing on punishing students who commit truly bad acts and aiding their victims, campus administrators transmitted the message that recasting any sexual experience as malign, and then reporting it to school authorities, is an act of bravery.
Colleges shouldn’t be policing relationships. Assaults should be reported to the police. Bad experiences not rising to that level should be learned from.
RANDY BARNETT ON BRUEN: A minor impact on gun laws but a potentially momentous shift in constitutional method.
NOW OUT: Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation. #CommissionEarned
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Against the Great Reset: ‘The Great Regression.’
DAN HART: The Catastrophe of 12 Million Fatherless American Boys.
Amongst the heated public rhetoric in the aftermath of the Uvalde school massacre, one tragic detail remains stubbornly paramount: the 18-year-old male shooter came from a broken family and was estranged from his father.
While it would certainly be unfair to pin all the blame for monstrous crimes committed by young men on the failings of their parents without considering other factors, there’s no denying what is arguably the central issue facing our nation (and what the Left persistently brushes aside): the breakdown of marriage and the children that grow up fatherless as a result. The Institute for Family Studies recently summed up the situation well: “The decline of marriage and the rise of fatherlessness in America remain at the center of some of the biggest problems facing the nation: crime and violence, school failure, deaths of despair, and children in poverty.”
American boys are at the center of this crisis: they grow up to commit crime, drop out of school, and take their own lives at far higher rates than women do. From 1960 to 1996, the percentage of boys who lived without their biological father almost doubled—from 17% to 32%. Today, the Institute for Family Studies reports that “an estimated 12 million boys are growing up in families without their biological father.”
Read the whole thing.
WELL, GOOD: The Ukraine war is bleeding Russia dry.
SAFE, LEGAL, AND… AWESOME? NYC Mayor, Deputy Mayor Credit Their Success to Abortions.
When lefties started bragging about their abortions they lost the moderates.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): It was all me starting this trend.
Okay, that was actually an ancient (2004) photoshop by Allahpundit, in response to an absurdly confused t-shirt complaint by lefty blogger Duncan Black, nee Atrios.
Ancient blogosphere history, I know, but I was there for it, as were many of you.
And I call this look “Blue Steel.”
Because of course.
ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): From the comments: “No one would have guessed in 2004, but in 2022 Glenn’s (photoshopped) t-shirt message is both plausible and celebrated!!!”
What a long, strange trip it’s been. . .
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Fat studies is the field that teaches students to view obesity as ‘oppression.’
OF COURSE HE DOES: Biden sends team to make nice with Venezuela.
I’m not going to fault Joe Biden for trying to secure the release of the hostages. Sometimes we have to deal with unsavory leaders in the interest of getting our people back. We’ve had to do the same thing with Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey and even the Iranian Mullahs in the past. But this trip involves some very uncomfortable realities for the White House that can’t be ignored.
In case the President has forgotten, our government does not recognize Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Nor does most of the civilized world. He stole the last election in 2018 and we recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate leader of that country. But now we’re going back into negotiations with Maduro’s people. . . .
Also, while it’s not being announced through official channels, it seems obvious that the Citgo connection is giving the Biden administration an opportunity to speak to Maduro’s people about the possibility of arranging for some oil exports for us. We’re not supposed to be taking any oil from Venezuela because of the sanctions, but why let a little thing like that stop us, right? There’s also the inconvenient fact that Russia now controls a majority interest in Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. So we are now apparently considering doing business indirectly with the Russians and an illegitimate socialist regime in South America rather than pumping our own oil domestically.
Fossil fuels are only bad if they come from America.
DON’T GET COCKY: More Than 1M Voters Switch to GOP in Warning for Dems.
More than 1 million voters across 43 states have switched to the Republican Party over the last year, according to voter registration data analyzed by The Associated Press. The previously unreported number reflects a phenomenon that is playing out in virtually every region of the country — Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns — in the period since President Joe Biden replaced former President Donald Trump.
But nowhere is the shift more pronounced — and dangerous for Democrats — than in the suburbs, where well-educated swing voters who turned against Trump’s Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back. Over the last year, far more people are switching to the GOP across suburban counties from Denver to Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Republicans also gained ground in counties around medium-size cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Des Moines, Iowa.
Ben Smith, who lives in suburban Larimer County, Colorado, north of Denver, said he reluctantly registered as a Republican earlier in the year after becoming increasingly concerned about the Democrats’ support in some localities for mandatory COVID-19 vaccines, the party’s inability to quell violent crime and its frequent focus on racial justice.
“Progressive” causes aren’t doing the Democrats any favors.
NOW OUT FROM JOE PAPPALARDO: Red Sky Morning: The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: I Have Beef With Liberal Lies About What Abortion Really Is. “One of the zillions of things I hate about the Marxy leftist sitzpinklers is the way they hijack our language to make their obscenities seem noble.”