The Week in US Politics: a Few Passing Opinions

 

   This week brought some interesting political developments. President Biden gave a speech in Georgia that was roundly ill-received, comparing opponents of the Democrats' "voting rights" bills to George Wallace, Bull Connor, and Jefferson Davis. I posted Sen. McConnell's response to that speech, but I have a few more thoughts to add here. There is also a big change in the political perception of COVID underway, which is probably the biggest story of the week, although it may not be reported on by the "usual suspects" in the MSM, because they are the ones who are changing their perception. Also on COVID, the SCOTUS shot down the Biden administration's OSHA vaccine mandate, while leaving the mandate on health care workers. 

   Outside of Washington, NYC is entering the post-de Blasio era with mixed messages, as the new Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg seems intent on ending "carceral" prosecutions (that means keeping criminals out of jail), just as the new Mayor Eric Adams says he will make NYC safe again. So many aspects to this story, and the criminals continue to test the boundaries of "justice" in the city. Another "soft on crime" prosecutor (except when falsely charging police with murder), Marilyn Mosby has been indicted for perjury and making false statements. Unlike the policemen she indicted for murder, it looks as if the evidence supports these charges.

   We'll start with Pres. Biden's speech in Georgia, and the reactions to it. My take is that whoever put this together for the president to read should be fired, not to mention most of the team of people who wrote the various parts of it. What came across was a checklist of incendiary "red meat" quotes for the far left base. It incorporated every trope that they crave: bashing Pres. Trump, invoking Jan. 6th, comparing opponents of the bills in question to the worst racists in US history. He also doubled down on his own hypocrisy about the filibuster, twisting reality to justify immediate political gain. Frankly, it was among the most tone-deaf and politically suicidal speeches I've ever heard any president give, which became evident quickly.

   Sen. Durbin, the far-left number two Democrat in the Senate, acknowledged that Pres. Biden "may have gone a little too far" in his speech, while still trying to justify the underlying argument, falsely claiming that GOP state election laws are designed "to make sure that...fewer Americans are going to vote." This trope has been said before, on other state laws in Georgia, and minority turnout increased. WH Press Secretary Jen Psaki also had to weigh in, saying that Pres. Biden "was not comparing them as humans; he was comparing the choice to those figures in history." That cleared things up...NOT. Maybe the Biden team didn't realize that they were including the two Democrats whose votes they needed, when they made those statements. Either way, Sens. Manchin and Sinema reaffirmed their "no" votes on ending the filibuster, shortly after. 

   My final thought on this is why would the president and Democrats try to blow up the filibuster over a piece of legislation that probably would end up being struck down by the courts as unconstitutional? My only answer is that they hoped to throw a monkey wrench into the mid-terms. There is no way the states could comply with this law in time, so the chaos would provide an opportunity for the same meddling that the COVID "emergency" provided in 2020 to bend the rules in their favor. They can also now blame their probable 2022 losses on "voter suppression," again.

   The biggest, and most underrated story of the week, however, is the change in COVID policy perception. While there have been those on the right and center that have always been vocally skeptical of government COVID policies, it seems that some big left media outlets are starting to share that view, from the other side. Couched in terms such as "confusion" and "disorienting," they are becoming critical of the CDC, if not the government policies that have failed to stop the spread of COVID for almost two years. While the CDC has started loosening its guidance on isolation and quarantines, the lefties at MSNBC are calling it "a communications disaster," which is funny, because they usually use that to blame the failure of policies they support. Former member of Biden's COVID transition team Zeke Emmanuel said he expects COVID to become "endemic" this year, like the flu, but still supports mandatory vaccines, which nobody is suggesting for the flu.

  What it comes down to is this: Omicron has upended everything that the left has been spouting about COVID since it's inception. Masks, lockdowns, and other restrictions (especially contact tracing) were all ineffective tools that were used politically, in the same way that the TSA still makes air travelers take off their shoes at airports. The only difference is that the real cost, not only economically, but in human life and social welfare was exponentially worse. I am amazed that after two years of real world evidence anyone still supports school closures/remote "teaching," business closures of any kind, mask mandates, or any restrictions on people's ability to leave their house at will. Further, the whole "vaccine pass and ID" requirement that DC Mayor Bowser calls for is simply un-American. It looks as if the CDC and Biden administration are ahead of the rest of the left at realizing this, but I haven't seen the GOP jumping on that bandwagon yet, either. 

   Speaking of which, the SCOTUS shot down the Biden administration's OSHA vaccine mandate. This was a huge blow to their COVID policy, but a huge win for personal freedom, and the economy. It was another example of a huge overreach that Biden defended to the point of offensiveness, tarring the unvaccinated as some kind of enemies of the state. This, even as businesses struggled to find workers. The SCOTUS still upheld the health care worker vaccine mandate, with Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh siding with the liberal Justices. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has pledged not to enforce the mandate in his state, criticizing the two Justices as "lacking backbone." In dissent, Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Barrett wrote "Even if the Federal Government has the authority to require the vaccination of healthcare workers, it did not have the authority to impose that requirement the way it did." Justice Thomas added, in his own dissent, "(these cases) are only about whether CMS has the statutory authority to force healthcare workers, by coercing their employers, to undergo a medical procedure they do not want and cannot undo." I agree with their dissent, as well as Gov. DeSantis' opinion and actions.   

   New York City is happy to be rid of Mayor de Blasio, as Andy Cohen so eloquently stated on CNN's New Year's Eve broadcast (LOL, sarcasm alert). It's now Mayor Eric Adams' job to clean up the mess. Despite running as someone who will be tough on crime, he also embraced the ideas of the new Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, during the election. Now that they are both in office, DA Bragg has presented Mayor Adams with his first clear cut policy problem: does he support "non carceral" justice? This gets complicated, because Mayor Adams has often used the race card as a tool for advancement, from his days in the NYPD to his campaign for mayor. As this political drama commences, crime is not taking a holiday in NYC. Something has to change, soon, and the futile petition for a state law allowing the repeal of elected officials is a waste of time.

   Regardless of Mayor Adams past missteps, I hope he does aggressively address crime, including "quality of life" crimes. He has promised to bring back a "reformed" anti-crime unit, to focus on gun violence and major crimes, which is essential. The other half of the equation is a return to "broken windows" policing, or going after petty crimes. These are the very offenses that Manhattan DA Bragg has said he will not prosecute, on racial grounds. The big question is how will the mayor and his police department deal with an elected prosecutor who refuses to prosecute "quality of life" crimes? This is vital to NYC's recovery from the damage that the lockdowns have done.

   Another city that has one of those "soft on crime" prosecutors is Baltimore.  While she, along with the police commissioner have tried to push back against that image, she certainly had no problem charging six police officers with murder and manslaughter over the death of Freddie Gray. All charges were later dropped, after the most seriously charged officers were acquitted. In other words, she is not only soft on criminals, but virulently anti-police. She also is said to be inspired by VP Kamala Harris, who has both praised and campaigned for Mosby in the past. 

   Unfortunately, she is now on the other side of the law, after being indicted for perjury and filing false mortgage applications, related to early withdrawals of pension funds and on mortgages for two Florida properties. She is alleged to have claimed a COVID hardship to make the early withdrawals, while drawing her full salary (and getting a raise), and allegedly lied about a 2020 IRS tax lien of $45,000 on two mortgage applications. She is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, and denies the charges, but I give the prosecution better odds than her prosecution of the cops in the Freddie Gray case. She probably won't see jail time, I read somewhere, but this looks like another example of a "social justice warrior" who decided that she deserved to break the law for her own personal benefit, without a thought about the people she was defrauding. Crime really shouldn't be political, but the political left has made it so, by justifying crimes in the name of social or racial justice. Ms. Mosby, if guilty, is an example of where that type of thinking leads.