URLs du Jour

2021-08-31

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  • Sasse straight talk. Senator Ben Sasse's release, duplicated at the NR Corner: Dishonor Was the President’s Choice.

    This national disgrace is the direct result of President Biden’s cowardice and incompetence. The President made the decision to trust the Taliban. The President made the decision to set an arbitrary August 31st deadline. The President made the decision to abandon Bagram Air Base. The President made the decision not to expand the perimeter around Karzai International Airport. The President made the decision to undermine our NATO allies. The President made the decision to break our word to our Afghan partners. The President made the decision to tell one lie after another as the crisis unfolded. The President made the morally indefensible decision to leave Americans behind. Dishonor was the President’s choice. May history never forget this cowardice.

    If Sasse appears on my ballot in November 2024, I might break my usual rule and vote for him instead of the Libertarian.


  • The answer to Freeman's question is "Nothing". OK, so President Wheezy has forgotten about those stranded Americans in Afghanistan. James Freeman tells us of People Biden Didn’t Forget.

    People could write books detailing all the operational issues President Joe Biden neglected in the course of his chaotic exit from Afghanistan, and no doubt many will. But while poor souls who helped America and even some U.S citizens may be left to the horrors of Kabul, the President hasn’t forgotten to make Washington a happier place.

    In a Friday letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and Vice President Kamala Harris in her capacity as President of the Senate, Mr. Biden announced that he was invoking his legal authority under “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare” to increase salaries for roughly two million members of the federal civilian workforce. Yes, after creating the veritable model of incompetent governance recently witnessed by horrified Americans and allies around the world, Mr. Biden has decided this is the moment to declare a swamp-wide pay raise. What on earth does this latest raid on taxpayers have to do with addressing national emergencies?

    Among other employees, this cash will shower down upon…


  • The CDC, whose mistakes and lies killed thousands. Jacob Sullum notes the CDC has found a different way to kill Americans: The CDC’s Framing of Homicide and Suicide As ‘Public Health’ Issues Provides Cover for Biden’s Gun Control Agenda.

    As director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle Walensky has a lot on her plate right now—perhaps too much, given her history of misrepresenting COVID-19 research, promoting dangerously mixed messages about vaccination, issuing confusing and scientifically dubious advice, and laying claim to vast powers that Congress never gave her. But Walensky's pandemic-related duties did not deter her from publicly switching focus to a highly contentious subject that has always spelled trouble for the CDC: gun violence.

    "Something has to be done about this," Walensky told CNN last week. "Now is the time. It's pedal-to-the-metal time."

    Although that metaphor suggests hasty action, Walensky emphasized that she is not calling for new gun controls. "I'm not here about gun control," she said. "I'm here about preventing gun violence and gun death."

    As Jacob shows, the CDC's record on guns has been less about scientific research, more about promoting a political agenda.

    Given that "public health" has been waved as a talisman to allow the government all sorts of extraordinary powers over the citizenry, this will not proceed well.

    As I've observed before: one dictionary.com definition of "fetish" is "an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency." When Rochelle Walensky and her ilk babble about "gun violence", ignoring the people behind the guns, that's a perfect example of their (unfortunately common) fetish.


  • The vast libertarian conspiracy to take over the government and leave you alone. The Free State Project tweets:

    Marjorie refers to this NHBR article by Michael Kitch. Which begins:

    Shortly after the 2020 election when the GOP regained its majority in the Legislature, Jason Osborne, vice chair of the Committee to Elect House Republicans, was already looking a year ahead. He told the NH Journal, “It will again be my great pleasure to show what can be achieved by Republicans who stand united and to break even more records in the 2022 campaign season.”

    As House majority leader, Osborne leads the faction of the GOP whose values and votes closely align with those of the NH Liberty Alliance, the political arm of the Free State Project founded in 2003.

    As connecting-the-dots conspiracy-theorizing goes, this is pretty weak. Especially since the Wikipedia page for the NH Liberty Alliance says "The Liberty Alliance is not part of the Free State Project." (Wikipedia could be wrong, of course. I've asked the editor of NHBR to check on this.)

    But that reminds me, I should check on my state legislators' Liberty Rating as recently released by NHLA.

    • Catt Sandler: Grade Incomplete (only voted on 50.9% of the scored bills.)
    • Gerri D. Cannon: rated Constitutional Threat (6.3%)
    • Wendy Chase: rated Constitutional Threat (5.4%)
    • Cecilia Rich: rated Constitutional Threat (7.1%)
    • David Watters: rated Constitutional Threat (20.8%)

    Marjorie (unsurprisingly) also rated Constitutional Threat, although she's gotten a couple of Fs in previous years.

    And despite Marjorie's overheated claim, While some FSP people favor secession, I don't think it's an official FSP position. (I'm pretty sure the FSP doesn't insist its members adhere to any specific position on any issue. That wouldn't be very libertarian, would it?)


Last Modified 2024-01-20 5:21 AM EDT