May
14
2024

Mush From the Wimpette

Last Friday, I mentioned that I was irate enough to send my state's senators a polite letter, asking them to support Lindsay Graham's resolution condemning the Biden Administration’s decision to halt weapons deliveries to Israel.

I should have known better.

I got this response yesterday from Jeanne Shaheen:

Thank you for contacting my office about the Israel-Hamas conflict. I appreciate hearing from you about this important issue and my thoughts are with the people who have lost loved ones in this terrible conflict.

The United States must continue working towards an end to the conflict that will prioritize civilian lives and ensure an equitable and durable peace in the region. I support the United States’ efforts to facilitate the expeditious delivery of aid to civilians who are suffering in Gaza, as well as efforts to secure the release of the innocent Israelis held hostage by Hamas.

There must be a ceasefire now to get aid in and hostages out.

I will continue to urge Israel to use every possible precaution to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians. Respect for human rights and democracy must be at the center of U.S. foreign policy and will lay the foundation for an end to this cycle of violence.

As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations, Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, please be assured I will keep your thoughts in mind and continue supporting the protection of all civilians.

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with me, and please do not hesitate to contact my office with any future concerns.

I'm pretty sure if I wrote in about my "future concerns" I would get back similar unresponsive focus-grouped drivel. I'm pretty sure a decent chatbot would have done better.

Yes, Jeanne: "harming civilians" is bad. But: you leave unmentioned that only one side has a deliberate policy of harming civilians and using their own civilians and innocent hostages as shields.

(Hey, Pennsylvania: if we must have Democrat senators, could we trade you Jeanne for John Fetterman?)

But enough about my useless, gutless senator. I found this to be on target:

And Jim Geraghty has a question to which we too would like an answer: Why Are We Withholding Sensitive Intelligence about Hamas from the Israelis?

The Washington Post, Saturday morning:

The Biden administration, working urgently to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, is offering Israel valuable assistance in an effort to persuade it to hold back, including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group’s hidden tunnels, according to four people familiar with the U.S. offers. [Emphasis added.]

So, the U.S. knows where the Hamas leaders are hiding but isn’t telling the Israelis?

For a moment, forget blindsiding the Israelis and not telling them about Hamas’s counteroffer and ruse that it had agreed to a cease-fire deal, forget the Gaza Pier, forget cutting off arms exports to Israel . . . if we know where Hamas leaders such as Yahya Sinwar, the accused architect of the October 7 attacks, are hiding, why would we not tell the Israelis that? Why would we effectively protect Hamas leaders?

Why are we protecting the lives of the leaders of a terrorist organization that has taken Americans hostage?

Geraghty goes semi-nuclear on President Dotard and whoever is actually running the pusillanimous show in D. C. Certainly, we won't see any significant criticism of his betrayal from Jeanne "senior member of the Senate Appropriations, Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees" Shaheen.

Also of note:

  • Not even an E for Effort. Daniel J. Mitchell looks at a recent column from Michelle Singletary that promises to reveal "5 myths about Social Security". And (good news) two of those myths are actually false, and deserve debunking. But that only gives Ms. Singletary a 40% score as Mitchell is Debunking the Debunking.

    Ms Singletary:

    Myth No. 1: Social Security is, or will be, ‘bankrupt’: Social Security will not run out of money. The program is financed by payroll taxes, so as long as workers pay into the system, money will always come in. …It’s the Social Security Trust Funds’ reserves that are projected to become depleted. …The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program, which pays retirement and survivor benefits, will be able to pay 100 percent of benefits until 2033.Even if Congress fails to act, there will be enough projected income coming in to cover 79 percent of scheduled benefits.

    Mitchell says wait a minute…

    Reality: I’m baffled that she wrote that “Social Security will not run out of money” and then a few sentences later admitted that there will only be enough income “to cover 79 percent of scheduled benefits.” Makes me wonder about her definition of bankruptcy. I’ll simply note that if Social Security was a private pension system providing annuities, the government would shut it down and probably arrest the people in charge.

    I will let you click over to see Mitchell's responses to Ms Singletary's other two myths-that-ain't.

  • Also poking holes in socialist bullshit… is Mr. Kevin D Williamson, who writes something worthy of Bastiat: There Are Two Sides to Every Debt.

    Except they aren't really "seen" and "unseen", it's really more like "noticed" and "ignored".

    Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Ro Khanna of California introduced a bill last week that, in their telling, would “eliminate” medical debt.

    But there are two sides to every debt: One party’s liability is another party’s asset. And we have a word for taking away people’s assets by force: robbery.

    Sanders and Khanna’s legislation would amount to robbing Americans, declaring that debts owed to them are no longer valid or binding. And why should those Americans be made to forfeit their property? Because they did something unforgivable: They helped people to get health care.

    And there you have it: American progressivism, 2024 A.D.

    Why aren't these people being laughed out of Washington? (I realize it would be illegal to break out the tar and feathers.)

  • Having solved all other problems… Emma Camp reports: More States Are Considering Lab-Grown Meat Restrictions.

    Lab-grown meat is a scientific marvel. We've managed, through pure human ingenuity, to create something that looks like meat, cooks like meat, tastes pretty much like meat, and comes from animal cells—yet doesn't require the slaughter of a single living animal.

    But state legislatures across the country are thinking of following in Alabama's footsteps and banning lab-grown meat (also known as "cultivated meat").

    In March, Alabama legislators passed a bill banning the sale or development of lab-grown meat in the state. Italy's parliament passed a ban on cultivated meat last year, citing the need to protect farmers from competition. Arizona, Florida, and Tennessee also seem poised to ban the product, with cultivated meat bans working through their state legislatures as of mid-March. In Congress, senators have introduced a bipartisan bill that would keep lab-grown meat from being served in public school cafeterias.

    "These misguided and short-sighted bills will kill innovation in a vital and growing biotech sector," says David Voorman, a vice president at Food Solutions Action, a meat-alternative political action committee. "Consumer freedom, consumer choice, and free market principles are also lost when lawmakers decide they know what's best."

    This is from Reason's current "AI" issue, which is a hoot. The article is accompanied by a Dall-E illustration, and it makes me think I should learn Dall-E.