[guest post by Dana]

How hard can it be to locate the required exit papers of a former employee? Well, at most organizations, it wouldn’t be that difficult. Human Resources typically maintains any and all personnel records of current and former employees. Unless, of course, the employer is the State Dept. and the employee in question is Hillary Clinton. Then all bets are off.

Incompetency: Another day at the podium, another opportunity to look like a fool.

MATT LEE, AP: Last week, I think a couple times you were asked about whether the department has a record of Secretary Clinton signing the separation form.

JEN PSAKI: I don’t have an update on this, Matt. We’re still working on it. I understand.

MATT LEE: There has to be a human resources department, they presumably have a file on every employee at the State Dept. It can’t be that difficult.

JEN PSAKI: I don’t think former secretaries are standard employees.

MATT LEE: They might not be but how hard could it be? How hard can it be to find out whether she did or not?

JEN PSAKI: I understand why you’re asking. We’re looking to get an answer. I don’t have an answer today.

MATT LEE: Do you know — where are these forms after they are signed? Where do they go?

JEN PSAKI: Where in the building do they go?

MATT LEE: If I asked for one from someone else.

JEN PSAKI: I’m not sure how many forms we’d be willing to give you access to. Hahaha.

We keep records. I don’t have an update on this particular question today. We keep records, yes…

MATT LEE: So if someone had signed one of these forms it would be on file somewhere?

JEN PSAKI: We do keep records, yes, it would be on file.

MATT LEE: Then I can’t understand why– whatever.

Bonus points to Matt Lee for not gouging out his eyes in utter frustration.

Remember the unfortunate no-win:

If she signed it and was not honest, she is in a heap of trouble. If she did not have to sign it, it is further evidence that the rules don’t apply to her and that she is deliberately evasive enough to avoid perjuring herself.

And, to clarify:

If State can’t find the form then Hillary’s not guilty of perjury. If State can find the form then perjury is back in play, but remember that perjury is a crime of intent. You have to knowingly and willfully falsify facts to be guilty; an honest or pretend-honest mistake isn’t actionable.

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

Flash back to July 2021:

Hunter Biden’s artistic debut is sparking ethics concerns for the White House as some critics raise eyebrows over the high-priced pieces and whether they pose a conflict of interest.

Sources told CNN the White House was involved in forming an agreement between a SoHo New York Gallery owner, Georges Bergès, and Hunter Biden in an effort to address any ethics concerns.

[. . .]

Two sources familiar with the sales arrangement told CNN that the purchaser of the artwork will be kept anonymous and neither Hunter Biden nor the public will have knowledge of who bid on or purchased the work. If there is any unusual behavior – such as the offer price being too high or the collector doesn’t appear interested in the work – the gallery is expected to turn down the offer, the sources said.

However, there’s no clear enforcement mechanism for the standards agreed upon by the gallery and the prospective purchasers of Hunter Biden originals.

[. . .]

Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the White House, said in a statement that “the President has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history, and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example.”

On Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Hunter Biden “has the right” to pursue a new career.

“But all interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by a professional gallerist adhering to the highest professional standards,” she said. “And any offer out of the normal course would be rejected out of hand, and the gallerist will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection and transparency.”

Fast-forward almost exactly two years later:

On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden pledged that there would be an “absolute wall” between his official duties and his family’s private business interests. The Biden White House repeatedly made reference to that wall when responding to questions about the fledgling art career of Hunter Biden, the president’s son. In 2021, when a New York art gallery debuted Hunter Biden’s paintings with asking prices as high as $500,000, the White House said that his team had a process for carefully vetting buyers, and that their identities were known only to the gallery, and not to Hunter Biden himself. The messaging seemed to suggest that his art patrons came from a rarified universe of collectors who had nothing to do with the hurly-burly of politics.

Neither of those things has turned out to be the case. Hunter Biden did, in fact, learn the identity of two buyers, according to three people directly familiar with his own account of his art career. And one of those buyers is indeed someone who got a favor from the Biden White House. The timing of their purchase, however, is unknown.

That buyer, Insider can reveal, is Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real-estate investor and philanthropist. Hirsh Naftali is influential in California Democratic circles and a significant Democratic donor who has given $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year. In 2022, she hosted a fundraiser headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Insider also obtained internal documents from Hunter Biden’s gallery showing that a single buyer purchased $875,000 worth of his art. The documents do not indicate the buyer’s identity, which is also unknown to Insider at this time.

[. . .]

In an emailed statement, Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s counsel, said that his client learned the identities of Hirsh Naftali and a second buyer after they had purchased his art through his gallery because they were his friends. “The gallery sets the pricing and handles all sales based on the highest ethical standards of the industry, and does not disclose the names of any purchasers to Mr. Biden,” Lowell wrote.

“Names of buyers are strictly confidential,” Georges Bergès, Hunter Biden’s gallerist, wrote in an email. “Any attempt to get them is illegal and will be reported to the proper authorities.”

And here’s where we are as of yesterday:

Hunter Biden’s Manhattan art dealer said Tuesday that he never worked with the White House on an ethics pact to ensure buyers would remain anonymous — and added that the top purchasers were known to the first son, contrary to prior claims from President Biden’s aides.

Georges Bergès also revealed that in addition to the lack of supposed anti-corruption safeguards he actually met and spoke on the phone with the president while repping his son, the House Oversight Committee said in a readout of a closed-door deposition.

The art dealer testified that Hunter, 53, knew who bought about 70% of his art — including Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, who obtained works by the first son both before and after scoring a prestigious presidential appointment.

Bergès disclosed that he personally interacted with Joe Biden on multiple occasions, including at a closed-to-the-press White House wedding for Hunter’s daughter Naomi in 2022.

[. . .]

Hirsh Naftali, who scored repeated visits to the White House during the timeframe in question, inked a $42,000 sale in February 2021, before her appointment that July by Joe Biden to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, and then another for $52,000 in December 2022.

Bergès also confirmed that the first son was aware that Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, who met Hunter at a political fundraiser in December 2019 before bankrolling his tax payments and living expenses, was his top patron, buying $875,000 worth of art in a January 2023 deal.

So there you have it, this looks pretty much as bad as we figured it would. Despite Jen Psaki’s lies to the contrary, the White House never reached an arrangement with the gallery to draw a curtain between the buyer and the [cough, cough] artist. The gallery claimed to be holding to that non-existent arrangement, but when faced with having to testify under oath the gallery owner readily admitted that Hunter knew the purchaser of most of his [please don’t make me use this word] art. And finally, we know now for certain not only that Biden appointee Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali purchased Hunter Biden’s [sigh] masterpieces before she received her appointment to the art commission, but also that Hunter’s sugar daddy, Kevin Morris — the lawyer who “loaned” Hunter $2 million to help pay his tax debt and penalties — has coughed up nearly nine hundred large to [ahem] invest in the future appreciation in value of pieces from a tyro crackhead artist.

These people are so unbelievable in their brazenness, but they have always known that a pliant media and a deeply ridiculous art community would have their back. Look now for a Biden defense predicated upon a combination of “Hunter is a legitimate artist,” “the gallery sets its prices without taking into account the possibility of corruption,” and “the President was never told the identity of any of the buyers.” All of these will be lies, but they will get away with them.

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

Dana is once again on a super-secret Patterico’s Pontifications mission (can’t divulge too much, but don’t be surprised if a certain very tense situation in Bora Bora ends up quietly disappearing from the news in the next few days). So once again you are treated to the B Squad. So, without further ado, let’s get into the Junior Varsity Writing edition of our weekend open thread.

Res I – Dialing Back the Woke Grandstanding at the AAAS

The Wall Street Journal reports on a letter that Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker sent in response to a solicitation from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for a donation earmarked for efforts to “support and uplift science to inform and spur action on climate change.” Prof. Pinker objects that the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the publishers of Science magazine, have done more to discredit the progressive consensus on global climate change among politicians than they have to promote it. Specifically, he chides the organization for hewing to the academic left’s narrow worldview on controversial matters and refusing to acknowledge where that worldview is shortsighted or even wrong. He calls out three specific areas in which he believes that “Science magazine appears to have adopted wokeism as its official editorial policy and the only kind of opinion that may be expressed in the magazine”: the magazine’s stated belief that a lack of black physics professors and students is a manifestation of “white supremacy”; the magazine’s condemnation of prominent academics and journalists who won’t knuckle-under to transgenderism ideology; and the magazine’s kowtowing to anti-nuke sentiment among leftist faculty by refusing to consider nuclear power as a legitimate answer to our dependence upon fossil fuels. Read his explantation of each of the three points: it’s worth the few minutes of your time.

So The WSJ finds it to be very curious timing that just two days after Pinker’s letter was posted online, an article by Paul Voosen appeared in the magazine which suggested that maybe — just maybe — the models that the climate change crew uses to predict future rises in worldwide temperatures might not always be entire accurate. Last year, the British journal Nature also published a piece warning readers not to put complete faith in the temperature models. Between the two, there emerges a flickering of hope that The Scientific Community^TM is beginning to realize that fealty to science needs to come before fealty to today’s trendy progressive obsessions.

Res II – What Will Smith Hath Wrought

Note: Please keep in mind that this post is being written by guest blogger JVW, not the eponymous host of this site.

On Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl, a member of the audience jumped on stage and tackled comedian Dave Chappelle in the middle of his performance. Chappelle as we have discussed before, has courted the ire of various crybully communities by refusing to exempt them from his ridicule. As of right now, we do not know the motivation of the assailant, who was arrested at the scene but not before he had the ever-lovin’ snot beaten out of him by Chappelle’s security detail, but following the Chris Rock-Will Smith fracas at the Academy Awards it’s understandable that comedians are a bit skittish about being physically confronted by the audience. (Rock was on-hand backstage at the Hollywood Bowl and emerged from the wings to ask, “Was that Will Smith?”)

Yesterday the Los Angeles Times reported that the office of District Attorney George Gascón will not bring felony charges against the assailant, 23-year old Isaiah Lee of Los Angeles, even though Mr. Lee was in possession of (but apparently not brandishing) a replica gun which concealed a knife blade. Police and the Bowl are instead trying to figure out how he managed to smuggle that curious weapon into the venue and how he managed to emerge from the audience onto the stage. The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office could still file misdemeanor charges in the case. Left unasked is if Mr. Gascón’s office would have taken this violation a bit more seriously had the comedian himself been a member of the LGBTQ community or had been someone who spouted all of the proper views of the times.

Res III – Joe Biden Wrecks His Relationships with the Senators Whom He Needs the Most

Last fall as the Build Back Better fiasco limped its way to a sad but completely unsurprising legislative death, we chronicled the many ways in which President Biden, aided and abetted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, botched the diplomatic outreach to Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona, the two Democrats who were the most reluctant to sign on to further cash-dumps in the name of recovery. We know that Senator Schumer spent the past summer lying about Senator Manchin’s alleged refusal to name a top-line maximum dollar value that he would support for a stimulus bill, but now it appears that President Biden threw Senator Sinema under the bus among her party’s caucus by divulging to them what she had told him in confidence was the most that she was willing to support. This tidbit from a forthcoming book was reported by The Dispatch (subscription required), and here is how Business Insider summarized it:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona almost walked out on President Joe Biden in the Oval Office during a tense exchange over the scope of his economic agenda, according to a forthcoming book from a pair of New York Times reporters.

[. . .]

According to authors Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, Biden strenuously sought to reconcile tensions between his party’s centrist and progressive wings last summer around the size and scope of his domestic agenda. Progressives were pushing to go big on new social and climate programs while moderates tried restraining their ambitions and had fiscal concerns.

During a meeting with Democratic moderates, Biden revealed that Sinema had set her Build Back Better spending limit at $1.1 trillion — roughly one-third less than Sen. Joe Manchin’s $1.5 trillion price tag.

Sinema appeared “visibly angry” at Biden for revealing details from their personal talks, Burns and Martin write. Biden aides had “feared that if Sinema drew a public red line at $1.1 trillion—a miserly sum by liberal standards—then the party would erupt in open war.”

The authors wrote: “‘Mr. President,” she said, ‘that was a private conversation.’ Sinema began to stand up. She asked Biden: ‘Do you want me to leave?'”

Way to go, Brandon.

Res IV – Déjà Vu on the J&J Vaccine

The FDA has one again placed limits on the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine, citing the increased risk of life-threatening blood clots as compared to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. This is a redux of the agency’s April 2021 temporary halt on distribution of the J&J vaccine for the same reason, a decision which was rescinded ten-days later. Almost exactly one year ago as I was floundering through compiling a Weekend Open Thread, I included an item which wondered if the government’s abrupt pause and reversal had inadvertently strengthened the case for vaccine skepticism. Here we go again?

Res V – Why the Hell Are We Crowing about the Strategic Help We’re Providing Ukraine?

Rich Lowry has pointed out a couple of instances in which U.S. government officials bewilderingly are taking credit for helping the Ukrainian military fight Russian troops. On Wednesday the New York Times reported that “senior American officials” were claiming that U.S. intelligence had provided information on Russian troop movements which had helped Ukrainians to reportedly kill a dozen Russian generals ever since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion. Then just last night, Mr. Lowry flagged this second item from the NYT in which “U.S. officials” — likely the same damn ones — brag how we provided Ukraine with the intelligence which led to the sinking of the Moskva last month.

Look, if we’re going to enter the war as a belligerent then let’s go ahead and enter the war as a belligerent. If we’re going to commit all kinds of awesome skullduggery against Boris & Natasha then let’s keep it entirely under wraps, just like the cool spies in the movies do. But this policy of claiming that we are not participating in the fight while leaking details to news outlets friendly to the Biden Administration isn’t going to fool Vladimir Putin, it’s probably not going to placate those who want us to avoid direct engagement, and it’s certainly not going to satisfy those who believe we ought to be doing more on behalf of Ukraine. As usual, we seem to pick the most bumbling way imaginable to throw around our considerable weight.

Res VI – In Case You Have Forgotten

We still have American citizens stuck in refugee camps and even in Afghanistan, and no matter what the unctuous liar Jen Psaki or any of the other grossly-overmatched time-servers in the Biden Administration try to tell you, the United States government is not doing a bang-up job of facilitating their exit from those hell-holes:

Two American citizens who were trapped overseas after rescuing their families from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have returned home to the U.S. after nearly seven months in a United Arab Emirates refugee compound they both described as prison-like.

Both Bilal Ahmad, 28, and another man who asked to be identified by his nickname, Ace, were frustrated by how long it took U.S. officials to process their families’ cases and to give them permission to enter the country. National Review profiled both of their cases in January.

Ahmad, who started working with the U.S. military as a teenager in 2009 and moved to the U.S. in 2014, arrived home with his wife and 5-year-old son late last week. Ahmad already knew in January that he had lost his IT job, and he suspected he’d also lost his New York City apartment.

He and his family are now living in an apartment in the Columbus, Ohio, area, he said.

[. . .]

Both Ahmad and Ace expected they would fly home in a matter of weeks, and technically, both men could have. But their wives, and Ahmad’s son, could not because their travel documents hadn’t been approved. Neither man was willing to leave them in the compound alone.

Ace said his wife was attacked by a man in the compound. He said he called the compound’s police, but “they didn’t care.” He said there were a lot of “wild people” there.

No, it’s not as if President Biden or anyone in his administration wants them to suffer in these camps or remain hidden fearing for their lives somewhere in Afghanistan, but he certainly won’t prod the sclerotic State Department or Homeland Security Department to kick it into high gear and cut the bureaucratic entanglements and entropy in order to get them safely home.

Res VII – School Which Failed in Obvious Diversity Hire Being Dinged for Not Enough Diversity

Catching up with our old friend Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the putrid 1619 Project. Here’s a report from some journal which appears to exist solely to agitate for more diversity hires in academia:

The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) recently voted to downgrade the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media to “provisional accreditation” status, according to an email written by Interim Dean Heidi Hennink-Kaminski to school faculty.

The change is due to the ACEJMC’s concerns regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the school, especially in the wake of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones turning down a tenured position because of administrative controversy surrounding her hiring. In 2021, Hannah-Jones was hired as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism but was originally only offered a five-year contract instead of tenure by the UNC Board of Trustees. Despite later receiving a tenure offer, Hannah-Jones decided to take the same position at Howard University instead. The ACEJMC determined that this high-profile incident was evidence of significant DEI issues within the school that warranted reevaluation of its accreditation.

“[T]he UNC Hussman School is dealing with an existential crisis both internally and externally,” the ACEJMC wrote. “The [Hannah-Jones] controversy… exposed long-standing problems. Many stem from inconsistencies in executing the goals in the 2016 Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan.”

You know what would solve this problem? Close up the whole damn journalism school. It’s virtually impossible to argue in this day and age that graduate studies in journalism are of any benefit to anybody other than the academics whose jobs are funded by it.

Res Aliam

Dana oftentimes includes lovely art work, if not one of her breathtaking photographs then a piece of classical art which meets with the approval of her discerning eye. I lack the grace and refinement that she has in abundance, but here is the sort of art that I like:

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844-1934) was born and raised in rural New York State. Mostly self-trained in art, he founded a local newspaper and did illustrations for it before embarking upon creating the sort of whimsical photo backdrops that people poke their heads into at carnivals and state fairs. At the turn of the century, he began work on a series of sixteen oil paintings for use in calendars distributed by the Brown & Bigelow advertising firm showing dogs participating in various human activities, mostly playing poker. The painting above, titled “His Station and Four Aces” and my favorite work of his, is the only one in which the dogs are depicted dressed entirely in human clothing.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

NOTE: Comments section not fully functional yet. You can post comments and updates are happening but won’t show up on Recent Comments toolbar at right side of page.

First news items

Despite the low number of serious cases of Covid-19, Shanghai remains on lockdown. Residents are hungry, angry, and desperate enough to start protesting against the Draconian measures:

Video has emerged of clashes between police and people being forced out of their homes in Shanghai, as the city enters a third week of Covid lockdown.

Some residential compounds are being turned into quarantine centres.

Millions are confined to their homes as Shanghai battles a fresh outbreak of the virus. Anyone who tests positive is placed in quarantine.

But with more than 20,000 new cases a day, authorities are struggling to find enough space.

The city in recent weeks has converted exhibition halls and schools into quarantine centres, and set up makeshift hospitals…People have to order in food and water and wait for government drop-offs of vegetables, meat and eggs, and analysts say many are running low on supplies…The lockdown extension has overwhelmed delivery services, grocery shop websites and even the distribution of government supplies.

A few miles away, there was an organised protest, a bold stand as the lockdown takes hold in a country where you can be arrested for picking quarrels.

They’re angry about a local school being turned into another quarantine facility. Police with riot shields forced them off the streets in the end..

Second news item

Tragically, the number is higher than what was first reported:

The bodies of more than 900 civilians were discovered in the Kyiv region following the withdrawal of Russian forces, the regional police chief said in a briefing Friday.

Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force, said the bodies had been abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating that 95% of the casualties had died from sniper fire and gunshot wounds.

“Consequently, we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,” Nebytov said. “The number of killed civilians has surpassed 900 — and I emphasize, these are civilians, whose bodies we have discovered and handed over for forensic examination.”

He added that more bodies were being found every day, under the rubble and in mass graves.

“The most victims were found in Bucha, where there are more than 350 corpses,” he said.

Related:

Ukrainian President Zelenksyy has asked the Biden administration to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, two sources familiar with the discussions told NBC News.

Zelenskyy made the request in a recent phone conversation with President Joe Biden, the sources said.

A source familiar with the discussion about designating Russia a state sponsor of Terrorism says it was “a very brief part of the call.” Zelenskyy brought it up but there was not a long back and forth about the request.

The request did not carry the same priority as urgent appeals for more weapons and energy sanctions against Russia, the sources added.

Third news item

Zelensky warns the world:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN in an interview to air over the weekend that he believes the world should be prepared for Russia to possibly resort to the use of chemical or nuclear weapons, just a day after CIA Director William Burns made a similar statement about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “desperation” to win in Ukraine.

Zelensky reportedly told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Putin could and would use such weapons because he does not value the lives of the Ukrainian people.

Russian officials, including Putin, have threatened the use of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances, including if another country intervenes in the “special military operation,” the term Russia has used to refer to the invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February.

Fourth news item

Ohio’s J.D. Vance gets coveted Trump endorsement…after selling his soul:

Trump endorses JD VANCE in the Ohio GOP Senate primary. A big boost for the author who has struggled to break through to the top tier. Primary is in three weeks. pic.twitter.com/NdnqcBIS9Z

— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) April 15, 2022

Maybe this is what Trump was referring to when he said that Vance had said some not so great things about him in the past:

Vance was a critic of Donald Trump at the time, agreeing he was a “total fraud” who didn’t care about people and used issues like “the great Mexican wall” to give voters something to latch onto instead of policy solutions. Vance also told a New York City public radio host that many White working-class voters who supported Trump did not attend church regularly, making them susceptible to the sense of community in a Trump rally. At the same time, Vance argued racism did play a role in support for Trump, but not the biggest.

Additionally, Vance also said this:

After the 2016 publication of his book “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir about the problems in the Appalachian area where he grew up, Vance described Trump as “cultural heroin” and a demagogue who was leading “the white working class to a very dark place.”

But how quickly sacrificing one’s integrity for power happens:

Vance later became a fan of Trump and said Friday he is “incredibly honored” to have the ex-president’s endorsement.

Predicting Trump would reclaim the presidency in 2024, Vance said on Twitter that “he was an incredible fighter for hard working Americans in the White House, he will be again, and I’ll fight for the America First Agenda in the Senate.”

Fifth news item

Audio of Russian soldier admitting it was Russian troops that bombed a Russian border town:

A Russian soldier in an occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region was caught telling his wife back home that Putin’s own troops were the ones who bombed a Russian town on the border this week, according to Ukrainian intelligence. In an audio clip of an intercepted call released Friday by Ukraine’s Security Service, a woman can be heard expressing concern about the attack on the town of Klimovo that Moscow blamed on Ukrainian forces, which reportedly left seven people wounded. “That was ours fucking stuff up,” the purported soldier quickly responds. “It’s necessary. They do that to provoke the [Ukrainians]. And that’s why they hit it,” he said. “We talked to the bosses and they said that’s how it is. The same shit was happening in the Chechen War, they blew up apartments in Moscow, as if it were terrorists. It was really the FSB,” he said, referring to the series of bombings in September 1999 that helped bring Vladimir Putin to power.

Sixth news item

When you look at the big picture, it’s still Trump’s GOP:

But just looking at the scorecard misses the bigger picture. These primary fights aren’t between the ‘pro-Trump’ wing versus the ‘anti-or Never-Trump’ wing of the GOP. Candidates are not debating whether the GOP should continue to associate with or make a clean break from Trumpism. GOP candidates are not debating the future identity or ideology in the post-Trump era. Instead, these primary contests have only helped to illuminate that in both style and substance, the current GOP remains Trump’s party.

The best way to see that the party remains fixed in the Trumpian mold is to, well, see it. In hundreds of TV ads, GOP candidates and outside groups that support them, are highlighting their commitment to Trump’s policies and persona. The advertising analysis firm AdImpact captures and categorizes political ads from around the country. Since the beginning of the year, the term “Trump” appears in 164 ads that collectively total $26M worth of spending. Almost all of those ads — 152 of them — and that spending ($24M) came from the Republican side.

Most of these GOP ads feature not just images of the former president, but also many of the terms associated with Trump, like “fighter,” “conservative outsider,” and “America First.” Many feature pledges to complete or finish “Donald Trump’s wall” at the southern border and to defeat “radical socialism.

Seventh news item

This from the WH press secretary who is exected to leave the White House for a job at MSNBC in the next few weeks:

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that the questions posed by Peter Doocy, the Fox News correspondent who serves as her regular briefing room foil, are fed to him by his network.

She suggested that those questions make Doocy come off as a “stupid son of a bitch,” a reference to President Joe Biden’s hot-mic remark from an exchange with the Fox News reporter earlier this year. Psaki offered no evidence to support her claim about the provenance of Doocy’s questions.

“Is he a stupid son of a bitch, or does he just play a stupid son of a bitch on TV?” Pfeiffer asked.

The live audience laughed, and Psaki paused before answering the question about the reporter who’s known for needling the president and his sparring with the press secretary in the briefing room.

“Well, he works for a network that provides people with questions that — nothing person to any individual, including Peter Doocy — but might make anyone sound like a stupid son of a bitch,” Psaki said.

Eighth news item

Why? Just why??:

A Republican state senator in Tennessee invoked Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to support his argument in favor of a bill that would criminalize homeless encampments on public property.

Speaking during a Wednesday debate on the bill, which would classify camping on public property as a misdemeanor punishable by a $50 fine or community service work, Sen. Frank Niceley argued that homeless people can “come out of these homeless camps” and lead notable lives.

“I wanted to give you a little history on homelessness,” said Niceley. “1910, Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while. So for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory, and his body language, and how to connect with citizens and then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books.”

“So, all these people — it’s not a dead end, they can come out of this, these homeless camps, and have a productive life or in Hitler’s case, a very unproductive life.”

Oh my god, where do they find these people! SMDH.

MISCELLANEOUS

In honor of the great Jackie Robinson on the 75th anniversary of his momentous Opening Day, here's a story about what Jackie faced, his teammates' support, and the tradition of commemorating April 15th. pic.twitter.com/GFYaOTHCzv

— Vin Scully (@TheVinScully) April 15, 2022

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Under immense pressure and risking his life, this is leadership in action:

Zelensky with a roll call of Ukrainian leaders: "Prime Minister is here, the party leader is here, the head of the President's administration is here… We are all here. Our troops are here. Our citizens are here. Defending our independence. Glory to Ukraine!" https://t.co/7PgsDDWzUt

— Slava Malamud 🇺🇦 (@SlavaMalamud) February 25, 2022

Zelensky’s finest hour here.

Also, brave, defiant Ukrainian soldiers give their all:

A Ukrainian soldier on the ill-fated Snake Island was livestreaming as Russian warships opened fire and wiped out the 13 soldiers stationed there.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine Thursday local time. World leaders and diplomats widely condemned the attack and promised strong sanctions in response.

A Russian warship issued a warning to the Ukrainian border guards at Zmiinyi Island – also known as Snake Island – only to be told by one of the guards, “Russian Warship, go f— yourself.”

Social media identified the soldier as a 23-year-old among the troops. All 13 soldiers died “without surrender,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during an update on Thursday night.

Second news item

Directly targeting Putin:

The US will join the European Union in directly sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, the White House confirmed on Friday.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly and Jeremy Herb reported earlier Friday the US was planning to impose sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin according to two people familiar with the decision.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the decision came following a phone call between President Biden and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

“The United States will join them in sanctioning President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov and members of the Russian national security team,” she told reporters. “I expect we’ll have more specific details that later this afternoon.”

Third news item

Making history, President Biden nominates first Black woman to Supreme Court:

President Joe Biden on Friday nominated federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the first Black woman selected to serve on a court that once declared her race unworthy of citizenship and endorsed American segregation.

Introducing Jackson at the White House, Biden declared, “I believe it’s time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation.”

A fun “small world” story involving Judge Kenji Brown Jackson and Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan here.

Fourth news item

CPAC speakers reveal what the midterms and 2024 will prioritize:

In his 20-minute speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ron DeSantis hit on everything from immigration and “mob violence” to critical race theory, the Bill of Rights and the peril of a “biomedical security state.”

One thing the Florida governor — who is a U.S. Navy veteran and former member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — did not mention on Thursday was Ukraine.

It was a curious, but not entirely surprising, omission by one of the GOP’s leading presidential prospects as the world watched the Russian invasion unfold in real time.

DeSantis was hardly alone in avoiding the subject at CPAC, where Russia’s offensive — just hours old — drew only glancing interest at one of the party’s most prominent gatherings of the year. Even in a country where conflicts abroad rarely animate the electorate, it was one of the starkest indicators in decades of how far foreign policy has fallen on the Republican agenda. No longer is the GOP the party whose president once told Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

Former President Trump is scheduled to give the keynote speech tomorrow night…

Fifth news item

Alexander Vindman writes:

Instead, for two decades, the U.S. entertained illusions about what might be accomplished with Russia, a reluctant partner, while remaining oblivious to opportunities in Ukraine, a far more willing one. In its relationship with Russia, the U.S. had limited prospects of achieving any objectives outside of arms control, whereas with Ukraine it might have successfully influenced regional development.

The seed of this conflict was planted many years ago, across multiple Republican and Democratic administrations. But the Biden administration and its successors will own the geopolitical consequences of this war.

…U.S. leaders cannot absolve themselves of guilt by claiming they did all they could to prevent another invasion; they offered a necessary response, not a sufficient one. Like every administration since the end of the Cold War, Joe Biden’s fell victim to wishful thinking about the Kremlin’s ambitions in Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s basic commitment to international norms. In doing so, the Biden administration continued the decades-long practice of allowing deterrence to erode. The paths to prevention were not taken.

Sixth news item

President Biden’s job performance ratings slip via Marist Poll:

President Biden’s job approval rating (39%), notched down from 41% in December, is the lowest of his presidency. Biden’s negative score (55%) matches his worst which he received in that same December poll. Americans are nearly three times as likely to strongly disapprove (41%) of Biden’s job performance than strongly approve (14%).

Biden’s approval rating on his handling of the economy (36%) is his lowest since taking office. Biden’s economic score has been on a steady decline since April 2021 when he achieved his highest rating on the issue (54%). 58% of Americans disapprove of his economic approach, marking his highest disapproval rating on this issue.

Biden also receives his lowest rating on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, Americans now divide with slightly more saying they disapprove (49%) of how Biden is doing than approve (47%). Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been trending downward since May 2021 when 66% of Americans approved of Biden’s approach.

Seventh news item

This is so good. Read the whole thing:

At Newsweek, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk has written one of the most foolish, self-serving, hypocritical, illiterate, and counterproductive columns I’ve read in a good long while. “The First Amendment has long been a bedrock principle of my worldview,” Kirk begins, before proceeding to demonstrate that, in fact, it has been nothing of the sort. “There are legitimate legal limits to expression,” he writes. “Some things are so objectionable — even downright evil — that they don’t merit society’s protection.” Specifically, Kirk objects to what he describes as the “one ‘substantive evil’” that “Americans can all agree to prevent: worshiping Satan.”

The Devil’s next finest trick, it seems, is to persuade us that the First Amendment doesn’t actually exist.

Eighth news item

Most definitely *not* a great American:

Various clips of statements from Tucker leading up to yesterday pic.twitter.com/J1ARXGLt8R

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 25, 2022

But last night, he was singing a different tune:

Tucker Carlson offered a stunning reversal Thursday night: after months of defending Russian President Vladimir Putin, he blamed the Russian dictator for invading Ukraine.

“What is happening in Ukraine, whatever its scale — and it’s not totally clear right now — but whatever it is it’s a tragedy because war always is a tragedy,” he opened, before blaming the Russian president for the deadly incursion.

“Vladimir Putin started this war,” Carlson said. “So whatever the context of the decision he made he did it, he fired the first shot. He is to blame for what we are seeing in Ukraine.”

It’s easy to see why he pivoted. Just pathetic.

Ninth news item

To mask or not to mask?:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals.

The new system greatly changes the look of the CDC’s risk map and puts more than 70% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are the people who can stop wearing masks, the agency said.

The agency is still advising people, including schoolchildren, to wear masks where the risk of COVID-19 is high. That’s the situation in about 37% of U.S. counties, where about 28% of Americans live.

The new recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation and indoors in airports, train stations and bus stations. The CDC guidelines for other indoor spaces aren’t binding, meaning cities and institutions even in areas of low risk may set their own rules. And the agency says people with COVID-19 symptoms or who test positive shouldn’t stop wearing masks.

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

UPDATE: As Paul Montagu and DCSCA have pointed out, the Biden Administration also had their vaccine mandates for private employers smacked down by the Supreme Court today. As Paul Montagu writes, it is a big victory for federalism and an important loss for allowing unelected appointees and a federal bureaucracy to impose far-reaching regulations without the assent of Congress.

— Original Post —

The numbers are in, and they ought to be embarrassing to the Biden Administration who spent the past year insisting that its spending orgies would actually tame rather than exacerbate the rise in inflation:

Inflation plowed ahead at its fastest 12-month pace in nearly 40 years during December, according to a closely watched gauge the Labor Department released Wednesday.

The consumer price index, a metric that measures costs across dozens of items, increased 7%, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. On a monthly basis, CPI rose 0.5%.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting the gauge to increase 7% on an annual basis and 0.4% from November.

The annual move was the fastest increase since June 1982 and comes amid a shortage of goods and workers and on the heels of unprecedented cash flowing through the U.S. economy from Congress and the Federal Reserve.

Even left-wing media outlets get that inflation is disastrous, and though they are loath to admit it, they are staring to understand the effect that pouring trillions of imaginary dollars into the economy over the past eighteen months has had in driving up prices. Naturally, the concern among the left isn’t so much for how rampant inflation affects working-class and poor families, it’s for how it might help Republicans and hurt Democrats in this November’s elections.

At National Review, Charles C. W. Cooke views the latest inflation news as proof positive that Joe Manchin was absolutely right in opposing Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.

The last year has been the tale of two Joes. There has been Joe Biden, whose core position on inflation has been that it wouldn’t dare interfere with his presidency. In July, Biden insisted that “there’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist — that’s totally different.” In December, when inflation could no longer be denied, Biden alternated between insisting that inflation was about to go away and pretending that his plan to spend another $3.5 trillion would somehow prevent it from getting worse. Today, the White House is sounding equally schizophrenic. Inflation is peaking, says Jen Psaki, confidently. Oh, and also, it’s not real.

And then there has been Joe Manchin, who has not only seen inflation coming, but has clearly articulated the link between its pending arrival and our excessive government spending. In September of last year, Manchin explained that he wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of adding trillions more in spending to the World War II–sized figure that the federal government has approved since March of 2020, given the risks that such spending would pose. “Suggesting that spending trillions more will not have an impact on inflation,” he wrote, “ignores the everyday reality that America’s families continue to pay an unavoidable inflation tax.” In November, Manchin was even clearer. “I, for one,” he vowed, “won’t support a multitrillion-dollar bill without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on our economy and existing government programs.” “Elected leaders,” Manchin concluded, “continue to ignore exploding inflation, that our national debt continues to grow, and interest payments on the debt will start to rapidly increase when the FED has to start raising interest rates to try to slow down runaway inflation.”

Joe Manchin was right.

Mr. Cooke goes on to remind us that the Biden Administration, far from being chagrined at their woebegone economic forecasting, is doubling down on it. Roll Call reports that not only is the administration going to continue to agitate for at least $1.5 trillion in a new BBB bill, they are also going to push for yet another round of COVID “relief” spending to be distributed to schools (the federal government has to date spent at least $190 billion on COVID relief for education, which works out to be almost $1.5 million for each the nation’s 131,000 schools, or $14 million for each of the 13,500 school districts) and perhaps also used to fight the virus overseas. This despite the fact that Senate Republicans claim that over 70 percent of the funds already allocated still haven’t been spent. Even committed media progressives like Chris Hayes at MSNBC are left (bad pun there) wondering why education suddenly needs a new infusion of cash.

I feel like there’s a weird memory-holing of the fact last spring Congress distributed $123 billion dollars to K-12 schools for Covid preparedness. That’s nearly $1 million *per school*. So big q is: what was that used for?

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 5, 2022

This is just part-and-parcel of what happens when a feeble-minded old man who gives the impression of taking orders from — rather than giving orders to — his staff is put in a position for which he was always clearly unqualified and is sadly no longer even remotely capable of managing. Biden’s own blinkered view of history and tragic need to be considered worthy of a career which somehow seems to have just fallen into his lap leads him to flights of fancy which bear no relation to reality’s ugly interludes. As Charles Cooke points out, a administration which came into power with a very narrow House majority and an evenly-split Senate somehow thought it would ram through FDR-style sweeping legislation. That they have been as successful has they have in their first year has been a great misfortune to the American people, but at this point it would seem that their luck has finally run out. At least let us hope so.

CODA: Looks like Sen. Krysten Sinema has put in the nails in the coffin of the Democrats’ plan to change filibuster rules to ram through their voting nationalization bill. This follows Sen. Manchin’s declaration that any changes to the filibuster require the assent of 2/3 of the Senate.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Hold them accountable:

We all have a duty to ensure that the former President cannot subvert a U.S. election or subvert our democracy.

We have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution and defend the rule of law. pic.twitter.com/3lo2uoTPaA

— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) January 6, 2022

Second news item

MAGA masculinity in action:

Ted Cruz on Thursday walked back his use of the word “terrorist” when describing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol during an intense back and forth with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly questioned the validity of the Republican senator’s explanation.

Cruz was lambasted during Carlson’s Wednesday night show for describing Jan. 6 as “a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol.” During his Thursday night appearance, when Carlson asked him why he used the word “terrorist,” Cruz brushed off his previous phrasing as “sloppy” and “frankly dumb.”

…

“You told that lie on purpose, and I’m wondering why you did,” Carlson said.

…

“What I was referring to are the limited number of people who engaged in violent attacks against police officers. I think you and I both agree that if you assault a police officer, you should go to jail,” Cruz said. “I wasn’t saying the thousands of peaceful protesters supporting Donald Trump are somehow terrorists. I wasn’t saying the millions of patriots across the country supporting Trump are terrorists.”

Looks like Cruz has made a habit of being “sloppy” and “dumb” when it comes to discussing Jan. 6:

Cruz’s use of “terrorist attack” was not some sort of one-time accident. In fact, he had described the Capitol riot as a terrorist attack or broadly described rioters as terrorists over and over for months — at least 17 previous times in official written statements, in tweets, in remarks at Senate hearings and in interviews.

Third news item

California working hard to encourage residents to leave:

It would increase the top marginal income-tax rate to 18.05 percent. That’s 7.05 percentage points higher than Hawaii, the next highest state, and 12.75 percentage points higher than the national median. It would increase taxes by an average of $12,250 per household. “All told, the new tax package is intended to raise an additional $163 billion per year, which is more than California raised in total tax revenue any year prior to the pandemic,” he writes.

It’s not just income taxes, though. The state wants to implement a payroll tax as well, with the top rate applying to taxpayers making only $49,990 in annual income.

On a side note, how crazy is California? About $295 million worth of crazy:

…high above a quiet Bel Air cul-de-sac known as Airole Way, and surrounded on three sides by a water-filled moat, the main residence features 21 bedrooms and an unfathomable total of 49 bathrooms (42 of them full baths, the remainder powder rooms) sprawled across a whopping 105,000 square feet of Kathryn Rotondi-designed living space. Walls of glass throughout offer panoramic views of the ocean, city skyline and San Gabriel Mountains; there’s also a three-bedroom guesthouse and seven-bedroom staff quarters.

Fourth news item

What’s that you say:

VP Kamala Harris on why ECA reform isn't an "acceptable compromise":

“It's not a solution to the problem at hand, which is that right now in the USA, we need federal laws that guarantee the freedom and right of every American to have access to the ballot to be able to vote.” pic.twitter.com/xHypC8rjlx

— Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) January 6, 2022

Fifth news item

Oh, come on Floridians!:

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, acknowledged Thursday that 800,000 to a million COVID tests had expired in a state stockpile, with the omicron variant spreading and residents facing long lines for testing.

…

The expired testing kits had become an issue earlier, when Florida Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Nikki Fried said in a Dec. 30 statement: “It’s come to my attention that Governor DeSantis’ Department of Health has a significant number of COVID-19 tests stockpiled that are set to expire imminently.

“Given the Governor’s lack of transparency throughout this pandemic, there’s no known public information about these tests or how soon they expire. With omicron infections exploding throughout Florida, I beg of him to release these tests immediately to local counties and cities, and to stand up state-sponsored testing sites. To let these tests expire while Floridians anxiously wait for hours in testing lines is negligent at best, and heartless at worst.”

…Guthrie said demand for the tests was low in the fall, prior to the emergency of the omicron variant.

“We tried to give them out prior to that but there wasn’t a demand for it,” Guthrie said.

Sixth news item

Democrat and Republican focus groups reveal similar takes on 2024:

The most surprising thing to us was their shaky faith in the Democratic Party itself — and its ability to do anything either to stop Republicans from doing more violence or change the root problems with “the system.” Listening to both focus groups, you really understand that we live in a country that is at once so radical and so conservative, and that what unites the left and the right is a mistrust in people at the top. There was little enthusiasm among the Democrats for President Biden to run again in 2024 — and ditto for the Republicans and Mr. Trump

Seventh news item

New York City’s new mayor keeping it in the family:

Mayor Eric Adams has tapped his younger brother to serve as a deputy NYPD commissioner, The Post has learned.

Bernard Adams, a 56-year-old retired NYPD sergeant, will oversee governmental affairs, he confirmed Friday. But the full scope of his responsibilities was not immediately clear.

Internal documents obtained by The Post show Bernard Adams listed as a deputy commissioner on the official NYPD roster.

Eighth news item

Dazed and confused at the CDC:

The latest messaging setback happened last month when the CDC cut its recommended isolation period for those with Covid-19 to five days, and recommended people who tested positive should continue to wear a mask in public for five additional days. Confusion ensued, with some outside experts urging the CDC to add a recommendation for a rapid antigen test at the end of the first five days.

Behind the scenes, other federal public health officials also questioned the decision not to include testing. Both Dr. Anthony Fauci, the President’s top medical adviser on Covid-19, and US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy publicly made clear clarifications were coming.

Amid the public backlash, Walensky sought to reassure fellow senior federal health officials, telling Fauci and Murthy that the lack of a testing requirement in the isolation guidance was not motivated by the nationwide testing shortage, one person familiar with the discussions said.

Instead, she insisted that rapid antigen tests were simply not a sufficiently reliable indicator of contagiousness and noted to her colleagues that the US Food and Drug Administration had not approved the tests for that purpose.

She told CNN, “We actually don’t know how our rapid tests perform and how well they predict whether you’re transmissible during the end of disease.”

Ninth news item

Sentenced:

The sentences for Travis McMichael, who shot [Ahmaud] Arbery; and his father, Gregory McMichael, do not carry the possibility of parole. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan will be eligible, however, Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley said.

All three men were convicted of murder and other charges by a Glynn County jury in November in the pursuit and fatal shooting of Arbery on Feb. 23, 2020.

Tenth news item

Paging Jen Psaki and Jake Sullivan:

When the Taliban seized power in August, the militant group vowed it would not resurrect the violent religious policing it enforced during its first stint in power. The hard-liners claimed they would limit themselves to preaching Islamic values of modesty and dignity.

But nearly five months after regaining power, the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has reclaimed its role as the enforcer of the group’s radical interpretation of Islamic law.

In a spate of decrees issued in recent weeks, the ministry has imposed restrictions on the behavior, movement, and appearances of residents, particularly those of women and girls.

During the Taliban’s first reign from 1996 to 2001, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice established one of the most brutal reputations of any organization in world history. Its enforcers are the ones who carried out the horrific human-rights abuses that characterized the Taliban regime before the U.S. invasion…

Squads of the ministry’s morality police punished those who disobeyed modesty codes, with beards too thin or ankles that showed. They banished girls from school and women from the workplace and the public eye. A woman could not venture outside without a male guardian.

Radio Azadi reports that this time around, the ministry has ordered shopkeepers to behead mannequins in stores because they consider them idols, and Islam strictly forbids idolatry. (The report also quotes a more mainstream Muslim scholar who says this interpretation is incorrect because mannequins are not idols at all.)

The ministry in December said women who want to travel more than 72 kilometers should not be allowed to do so unaccompanied. It “also directed all vehicle drivers to refrain from playing music in their cars and not to pick up female passengers who did not wear an Islamic hijab covering their hair,” the report says. This order is being enforced by checkpoints all around Kabul.

Evil is as evil does. Always.

MISCELLANEOUS:

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

[Ed. Because it’s Christmas week and visions of sugar-plums dancing in our heads are so deliciously distracting, posting may be light.]

What a difference two weeks makes…

The good news:

President Joe Biden will announce a plan on Tuesday to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans beginning in January as part of an attempt to double down on the spread of a transmissible variant that has hit the U.S. distressingly close to the holidays.

Biden’s new efforts come as the omicron variant became the most dominant COVID strain in the country Monday, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all cases, and just as travel kicks off at nearly pre-pandemic levels for the holiday season.

The free at-home rapid tests will be delivered by mail to Americans who request them, a senior administration official told reporters…marking a slightly different approach from European countries that chose to send tests to all residents.

Americans will need to request the tests via an official website which will be available in January. While this is good news, many are wondering why this hasn’t already been a priority for the administration. They certainly had been warned about what was to come:

Dr. Sam Scarpino, managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation and a member of their Pandemic Prevention Institute, said the government could have seen this coming.

“Scientists have been warning about the potential for new variants to come along for a year now or more. And we’ve known about omicron since the day before Thanksgiving. It’s been weeks at this point,” he said.

And as recently as two weeks ago, Press Secretary Jen Psaki scoffed at the suggestion of every American having a rapid test mailed to their home because it would be “costly and wasteful”:

Q And I have one quick question on testing. Last week, obviously, the President explained some ramp-up in testing, but there are still a lot of countries, like Germany and the UK and South Korea, that basically have massive testing, free of charge or for a nominal fee. Why can’t that be done in the United States?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say, first, you know, we have eight tests that have been approved by the FDA here. We see that as the gold standard. Whether or not all of those tests would meet that standard is a question for the scientists and medical experts, but I don’t suspect they would.

Our objective is to continue to increase accessibility and decrease costs. And if you look at what we’ve done over the course of time, we’ve quadrupled the size of our testing plan, we’ve cut the cost significantly over the past few months, and this effort to push — to ensure — ensures you’re able to get your tests refunded means 150 million Americans will be able to get free tests.

Q That’s kind of complicated though. Why not just make them free and give them out to — and have them available everywhere?

MS. PSAKI: Should we just send one to every American?

Q Maybe. I’m just asking you — there are other countries —

MS. PSAKI: Then what — then what happens if you — if every American has one test? How much does that cost, and then what happens after that?

Q I don’t know. All I know is that other countries seem to be making them available for — in greater quantities, for less money.

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think we share the same objective, which is to make them less expensive and more accessible. Right?

Ultimately, though, this:

Many are ridiculing this dismissive and out of touch take by @PressSec on Covid tests.

But for me it’s the ‘how much does it cost’ part.

We spent BILLIONS AND BILLIONS on vaccines that we would never consider charging for.

Tests should be no different.pic.twitter.com/bf7JnpYTbH

— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) December 7, 2021

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

CNN reports:

Federal workers will have 75 days to get fully vaccinated or will face losing their jobs, the White House said Thursday, ahead of President Biden’s speech officially announcing the change in policy.

“There will be limited exceptions for legally recognized reasons such as disability or religious objections,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a briefing.

She said the interagency task force would “provide a ramp up period, and we expect federal employees will have about 75 days to be fully vaccinated. That gives people more than enough time in our view to start and complete their vaccination series.”

“If a federal worker fails to comply,” she continued, “they will go through the Standard HR process, which includes counseling and face disciplinary action, face progressive disciplinary action. Each agency is going to work with employees to make sure they understand the benefits of vaccination and how the vaccines are free, easy and widely accessible, but it will start to be applied once the executive order is signed.”

Oh, and congratulations, America – we are now just behind Russia in the percentage of Americans skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine:

A survey conducted between August 24th and 30th by Morning Consult, an American pollster, found that 28% of Americans say they do not plan to get vaccinated or are unsure whether they will do so, more than double the average for the 15 countries surveyed. Only Russians are less enthusiastic.

A former Marine I know posted an image questioning whether people who feel badly about Americans and Afghan translators left behind in Afghanistan would feel an equal level of frustration and sympathy if members of the U.S. military were punished, court-martialed, or dishonorably discharged if they refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19. I don’t see it as a credible analogy for what I think are pretty obvious reasons. One has to wonder if these same members of the military (or former members) similarly protested the required double-digit number of vaccines they were given in preparation for deployments? This all goes to show the immense harm the politicization of the COVID-19 vaccine has had.

And so it goes…

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

With 13 dead U.S. troops, another 11 injured, and around 170 Afghans killed in the bombings in Kabul, it has been a brutal week. Watching it unfold from the safety and comfort of one’s home was bad enough, so I can’t even imagine what it’s been like for those Americans and Afghan collaborators still stranded in Afghanistan today. An update today reports that 5,400 people are inside Kabul’s airport still waiting for flights out of Afghanistan. While the evacuations have been nothing less than incredible when considering the sheer number of evacuees, there will be those who won’t be getting out and those who will likely die at the hands of the Taliban. Officials are saying that there are currently 1,000 Americans still on the ground in Afghanistan. And for any number of Americans stranded in the country after the August 31 deadline, there is no guarantee that they will get out:

Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki: “I don’t think we can guarantee” Americans who want to get out will get out of Afghanistan after August 31 pic.twitter.com/pJn8m1fRZx

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 27, 2021

And as for the families of those U.S. troops killed, I feel like anything I say would be trite. But I think this says it all:

Nothing can be said to make today’s brand new Gold Star families less wrecked. I cannot imagine.

But those servicemembers were in harm’s way — willingly — to help Americans, Afghans, and others escape death and violence. That selflessness is their legacy.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 27, 2021

First news item

I can’t even… :

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

The move…was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

[T]he decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

On July 8, President Biden said that he does not trust the Taliban, yet nonetheless handed over the list of names to the group:

Q Mr. President — do you trust the Taliban, Mr. President?

Q Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not.

Q Why?

THE PRESIDENT: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.

Q Do you trust the Taliban, Mr. President? Do you trust the Taliban, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: You — is that a serious question?

Q It is absolutely a serious question. Do you trust the Taliban?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I do not.

Q Do you trust handing over the country to the Taliban?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I do not trust the Taliban.

Second news item

Pineapple Express saving lives:

With the Taliban growing more violent and adding checkpoints near Kabul’s airport, an all-volunteer group of American veterans of the Afghan war launched a final daring mission on Wednesday night dubbed the “Pineapple Express” to shepherd hundreds of at-risk Afghan elite forces and their families to safety…

Moving after nightfall in near-pitch black darkness and extremely dangerous conditions, the group said it worked unofficially in tandem with the United States military and U.S. embassy to move people, sometimes one person at a time, or in pairs, but rarely more than a small bunch, inside the wire of the U.S. military-controlled side of Hamid Karzai International Airport.

The Pineapple Express’ mission was underway Thursday when the attack occurred in Kabul…

There were wounded among the Pineapple Express travelers from the blast, and members of the group said they were assessing whether unaccounted-for Afghans they were helping had been killed.

As of Thursday morning, the group said it had brought as many as 500 Afghan special operators, assets and enablers and their families into the airport in Kabul overnight, handing them each over to the protective custody of the U.S. military.

Third news item

GET VACCINATED SO PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO NEEDLESSLY DIE:

When U.S. Army veteran Daniel Wilkinson started feeling sick last week, he went to the hospital in Bellville, Texas, outside Houston. His health problem wasn’t related to COVID-19, but Wilkinson needed advanced care, and with the coronavirus filling up intensive care beds, he couldn’t get it in time to save his life.

…

[Dr.] Kakli told Begnaud [CBS News] that if it weren’t for the COVID crisis, the procedure for Wilkinson would have taken 30 minutes, and he’d have been back out the door.

“I’ve never lost a patient from this diagnosis, ever,” Kakli said. “We know what needs to be done and we know how to treat it, and we get them to where they need to go. I’m scared that the next patient that I see is someone that I can’t get to where they need to get to go.

“We are playing musical chairs, with 100 people and 10 chairs,” he said. “When the music stops, what happens? People from all over the world come to Houston to get medical care and, right now, Houston can’t take care of patients from the next town over. That’s the reality.”

Fourth news item

Unconstitutional and unenforceable:

At least 10 school districts — including some in many of the largest cities — had been defying state rules set by Gov. Ron DeSantis banning mask mandates.

Judge John Cooper ruled on a lawsuit brought by parents who say DeSantis overstepped his authority when his administration said school districts couldn’t order students to wear masks. DeSantis had warned that “there will be consequences” for districts that defied the ban.

Ruling from the bench at the conclusion of a five-day trial, Cooper said that face mask mandates that follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are “reasonable and consistent with the best scientific and medical opinion in this country.” He found that the DeSantis administration violated the law when it banned school districts from requiring masks.

Related (from Texas):

In one instance, a parent physically grabbed the mask off of a teacher’s face. In a separate incident, a teacher was repeatedly yelled at by a parent who requested the teacher take off their mask, claiming they couldn’t hear what the teacher was saying. The events have made waves across the district that consists of nearly 8,000 students and is tucked in the wealthy suburban outskirts of Austin.

Also related:

A Texas man who helped organize protests against pandemic restrictions is fighting for his life after being hospitalized for nearly a month with COVID-19, the San Angelo Standard-Times reported.

His wife, Jessica Wallace, wrote Wednesday on Facebook that she had a “heartbreaking update” about her husband, Caleb.

“He’s not doing good. It’s not looking in our favor,” she said. “His lungs are stiff due to the fibrosis. They called and said they’ve run out of options for him and asked if I would consent to a do not resuscitate. And it would be up to us when to stop treatments.”

Fifth news item

A blow to Newsom and state Democrats:

Vice President Kamala Harris has canceled a planned campaign appearance alongside California Gov. Gavin Newsom aimed at boosting Democratic turnout in the final weeks of the recall election that could force him out of his job.

The vice president’s decision to cancel her trip to her native state followed attacks in Afghanistan that killed at least 12 U.S. service members. She and Newsom were set to appear at a rally south of San Francisco.

Interestingly:

Democrats have tried to nationalize the race, linking the recall effort to Republicans including former President Donald Trump, who has not publicly commented on the contest.

[Ed. I guess now Republicans should try to nationalize the race, linking the recall effort to Democrats including current President Joe Biden and the debacle in Afghanistan...]

Anyway, FiveThirtyEight reports that the latest polls make it too close to call for either side and are well within the margin of error:

The analysis says that 48.8% of California voters oppose the recall. Removal of first-term Gov. Gavin Newsom is backed by 47.6%.

And how is the governor feeling about things these days:

“I’m now feeling the weight of this decision, and a weight of responsibility to defeat this, and also the responsibility that if we fall short, I’m going to own that,” he said. He mentioned to me some of his recent initiatives, including the injection of billions of dollars of federal relief money into the state budget and signing a bill to expand health care to undocumented workers. “If I do fall short, I’ll regret every damn one of those decisions. And I don’t want to have any regrets for putting everything out there and doing … what I think is right and what I think is in the best interest of California.”

Oh, and about the people of California? Well, because of the Delta surge and the calamity in Afghanistan, he’s apparently now able to actually able to reach out to Californians outside of the Bay Area bubble:

He unfolded from his chair at the end of our interview, and buttoned his suit jacket for a picture with the café staff. He left the banana peel and the coffee, barely touched, on the little table beside him. He was supposed to go on a bus tour and hold rallies with Democratic stars such as his old San Francisco–politics rival Harris, but that plan was derailed by Delta too. (After several delays, she announced that she would campaign for him this week, before canceling the appearance hours after an attack in Afghanistan killed U.S. service members.) Still, he had to get moving—he was driving to Los Angeles, not flying, so that he could make stops along the way and talk with voters on his own. Flying over California his whole life, he had “never fully absorbed and appreciated it,” he told me. He’s hoping that the state cares enough to appreciate him, at least a little longer.

Sixth news item

Leave it in place for those who need it:

The Waukesha school board opted out of a federal program giving all students free lunch this year.

It is the only district in the state to do so, and some parents are not happy about the decision.

The federal government offered free school lunches for all nationwide last year because of COVID-19.

The parents who are upset with the district said it helped students whose families are struggling financially and ended the stigma of signing up for free lunches…

The federal pandemic-era lunch program, the Seamless Summer Option, created a level playing field for students to get a free lunch for the whole school year despite family income.

It especially helped those families still suffering financial hardships.

…

But the Waukesha School District said, “When you compare last summer’s number of meals served to the current summer’s level of participation, it is down 40%. This indicates a lowering in the demand for this program. … When looking at the free breakfast program, especially at the high school level, each student was handed a meal as they walked in the door. This led to a significant amount of uneaten food and meal-related materials ending up in the trash.”

The district also said there’s been a more than 60% decrease in families taking advantage of the permanent free and reduced lunch program.

(IMO: If parents need the help because of financial hardship, pandemic related or not, they should be able to fill out any required paperwork for free meals because no kid should go hungry. But if parents are not suffering financial hardship or unemployment and have the means to feed their kids, then why wouldn’t they do so? I thought feeding our kids was a basic responsibility. No matter the reason, no kid should ever go hungry.)

Also, I don’t know for sure but it sounds like Waukesha School District doesn’t have a program in place in which leftover cafeteria meals are collected daily by local food banks or organizations to hand out to the public needing meals.

Seventh news item

FOR GODSAKE, GET VACCINATED AND WEAR A MASK INSIDE YOUR CLASSROOM!!!:

The outbreak location was an elementary school in Marin County, California, which serves 205 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade and has 24 staff members. Each grade includes 20 to 25 students in single classrooms. Other than two teachers, one of whom was the index patient, all school staff members were vaccinated… The index patient became symptomatic on May 19 with nasal congestion and fatigue. This teacher reported attending social events during May 13–16 but did not report any known COVID-19 exposures and attributed symptoms to allergies. The teacher continued working during May 17–21, subsequently experiencing cough, subjective fever, and headache. The school required teachers and students to mask while indoors; interviews with parents of infected students suggested that students’ adherence to masking and distancing guidelines in line with CDC recommendations (3) was high in class. However, the teacher was reportedly unmasked on occasions when reading aloud in class. On May 23, the teacher notified the school that they received a positive result for a SARS-CoV-2 test performed on May 21 and self-isolated until May 30. The teacher did not receive a second COVID-19 test, but reported fully recovering during isolation.

The index patient’s students began experiencing symptoms on May 22. During May 23–26, among 24 students in this grade, 22 were tested. A COVID-19 case was defined as a positive SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or antigen test result.* Twelve (55%) of the 22 students received a positive test result, including eight who experienced symptom onset during May 22–26. Throughout this period, all desks were separated by 6 ft. Students were seated in five rows; the attack rate in the two rows seated closest to the teacher’s desk was 80% (eight of 10) and was 28% (four of 14) in the three back rows

Eighth news item

Democrat Seth Moulton on his quick trip to Afghanistan:

Seth Moulton saw things during his trip to Afghanistan that were “truly out of this world.” He spent about 15 hours on Tuesday at the airport in the capital city of Kabul, the epicenter of America’s messy withdrawal from the nearly 20-year war there. The Massachusetts congressman described the scene as “the most visceral, raw view of humanity that I will probably ever see in my life,” with “thousands upon thousands” of refugees camped out and “desperate” to fly out of the country, which was overtaken by fundamentalist Taliban forces. The experience left Moulton more convinced than ever that President Joe Biden made grave mistakes in his handling of the exit.

Moulton was on his way back from Kabul in the wee hours of Thursday morning when he spoke to New York about the trip, during a layover in Madrid.

“The thing that everybody needs to understand, even if you completely agree with the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw, the way they have handled this has been a total fucking disaster,” said Moulton, who traveled to the country with Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican from Michigan. “It will be measured in bodies, because a lot of people are dying because they can’t get out.”

MISCELLANEOUS

Have a good weekend.

–Dana