This is one of those days when humility requires one to forgo the urge to write a post and instead tip the hat towards others authors who work is superior, and worth sharing.
There is much to extol about, from the horrible “For the People Act,” HR 1, the Democrats simply awful election “deform” bill that is unconstitutional on its face, subsidizes federal elections, legalizes “ballot harvesting,” and invalidates many perfectly acceptable voter integrity tools to provide basic protections against fraud and illegal voting.
Then there is the rapidly-changing so-called “America Rescue Plan Act,” or COVID relief and economic stimulus bill, being scaled back somewhat from pork-and-political-payback infested $1.9 trillion monstrosity passed last week by the US House. Looks like some of the pork is making its way out of the bill, thanks to a little sunshine and the so-called “Byrd rule.”
Then of course there is the whole controversy about a few “Dr. Seuss” books being “canceled” from the foundation set by their late author, Dr. Theodore Geisel, himself a strong supporter of Civil Rights and opponent of anti-Semitism during his day. No matter. It is another classic case of presentism - applying modern-day (mostly woke) standards to people, publications, and events of yesteryear. It is an insidious, anti-intellectual practice designed to erase and rewrite history, instead of learning from it.
I’ll just post these outstanding stories and encourage you to take a moment or two to scan or read them. They are worth your time, and will help dispel certain popular, if false, notions often promoted by less responsible media outlets, with a little satire at the end.
The Federalist’s John D. Davidson on the Dr. Seuss controversy.
To grasp how a man known as much for his messages of tolerance as for his artistic genius could be canceled for racism, you have to understand what’s actually happening here. The left’s war on the past, on long-dead authors like Geisel, isn’t really about the past, it’s about the future. It’s about who gets to rule, and under what terms.
Betsey McCaughey on “Nancy’s Election-Rigging Bill.”
The authors of the Constitution worried that Congress would try to seize control of presidential selection using dirty tricks like those in HR 1. That's why they acted to "to take the business as far as possible out of their hands," according to Charles Pinckney, a framer from South Carolina.
Congress, said Pinckney, "had no right to meddle" in it. The framers provided in Article II, Sec. 1 that only state legislatures would have the power to determine how the president is chosen. No national rules.
US Rep. Paul Gosar’s amendment to the COVID relief bill sought to take all the pork and convert into cash payments to many Americans most affected from COVID. It added up to $10,000 for most people. Democrats of course defeated it.
The Biden Administration locked the Twitter account for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. You know, the one that provided public safety alerts on illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds.
"It seems the Biden Admin locked [ICE Alerts] because if you were to report the location of one of these dangerous aliens to ICE, it would become too obvious that these assaulters, drug dealers, thieves, and drunk drivers are now allowed to go free under Biden's policies," former senior advisor to ICE, Jon Feere, wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
According to the Wall Street Journal, it appears most of the Capitol Riot suspects do not have any ties to “far right” groups. But many appear to be in desperate economic straights, with some having criminal records.
The University of Chicago researchers, citing public records, found that those arrested come from both Republican and Democratic strongholds. Many worked in industries vulnerable to pandemic shutdowns, such as moving, construction and restaurants. About a hundred have public defenders or other court-appointed attorneys, the Journal found, after judges determined they couldn’t pay for their criminal defenses.
Individuals in more than two dozen of the cases reviewed by the Journal have sought bankruptcy protection in the past, been foreclosed upon or ejected by landlords, or left a trail of unpaid bills and taxes. At least 27 defendants had criminal records before their riot-related arrest, according to the Journal review.
From the CATO Institute: Why Republicans outperformed the polls again in 2020.
First, Republicans are becoming more distrustful of institutions and society, and that may be extending to how they feel about pollsters. Second, suburban Republican college graduates are more likely to fear professional sanction for their views and are therefore self‐censoring more, including in surveys.
Speaking of polls, for the first time, according to Scott Rasmussen, half of Americans believe cities and states overreacted to the coronavirus pandemic in ways that did more harm than good. Perhaps this is why a number of states, led by Texas, are eliminating mask mandates and more fully reopening their states.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of Republicans believe many states and cities overreacted. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Democrats believe that did not happen. Among independent voters, 50% believe states and cities overreacted, while 34% do not.[1]
Men, by a 56% to 32% margin, are more likely to believe that many states and cities overreacted. Women are more evenly divided. Forty-five percent (45%) believe many overreacted, while 41% do not.[1]
For the second straight week, 39% of voters now believe the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Thirty-two percent (32%) now believe the worst is still to come. That's little changed from 31% a week ago. However, last week was the first time ever that a plurality of voters believed the worst was behind us.
And speaking of coronavirus, the nation’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is reporting almost three dozen instances of stillbirths and miscarriages after COVID vaccines were given to pregnant women. This, after Dr. Anthony Fauci said pregnant women should get the vaccine.
From Justthenews.com: Dr. Fauci has flip-flopped his way through the COVID crisis.
Fauci's flip-flop on school reopenings is just one of many very public reversals the public health official has performed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. At times the doctor has reversed himself not only on more political questions about public policy but on substantive and critical matters of hard science.
Finally, some satire The Babylon Bee: Women’s History Month (March) is Canceled.