And that's the way it goes, isn't it? Can't back down now! It will only inflame the issue and embolden the opposition.
How much pain — through the history of humankind — has flowed from that line of thinking?
Back to the specifics of the vaccine mandate: Biden took a hard line. He bet that the hard line would work best, get the most people vaccinated, avoid the most suffering and death. But too many people failed to snap to it and obey. So now what? The hard line must hold. Never give in. Never never never...
... except to convictions of honor and good sense.
पोस्ट्स
९६ टिप्पण्या:
Embolden the opposition? How about completely validate their criticism?
So we've come to this: COVID policy is viewed in typical political terms of a zero sum game. Everyone associated with this should be banned from public life. Trump made mistakes on COVID but he did not try to gain political advantage through his policy. He desperately wanted to re-open the economy knowing how it would hurt businesses and people, and his future political prospects, but he deferred to the "experts". It turns out that Fauci was playing politics from the beginning. Disgusting little rat. I'd like to see some of his animal cruelty medical experiments performed on HIM.
Biden took a hard line. He bet that the hard line would work best, get the most people vaccinated, avoid the most suffering and death.
respectfully, Biden took a hard line. He bet that the hard line would work best, get the people that run him to give him more ice cream
or, if you prefer...Biden took a hard line. He bet that the hard line would work best, get the approval of the people that approve of him
i see NO indication that Resident Biden gives a damn about suffering... if he DID he wouldn't be implementing the policies he is
“I don’t know,” “might,” weasel words from a weasel. I cannot find a copy of the article that’s not behind a paywall but I imagine that the text is chock full of synonyms for “maybe,” and “perhaps.” But if Lawrence Gostin is floating a trial balloon for this administration then it’s made of lead.
I am going to disagree with you, Althouse, I don’t think Joe Biden “bet that the hard line would work best.” I don’t think he put even that much thought into it. I think he got carried away with himself, to the point that even people such as myself, who got vaccinated as soon as legally possible in the Commonwealth of Virginia, think he’s way out of line. And not to put too fine a point on it, a President whose approval rating is at 36% and dropping simply lacks the political capital to go hard line on anything. And he certainly lacks the political capital to define the courts when they tell him “not so fast.”
Briefs due Friday and Monday in the big 8th Circuit case. Biden will be crushed. Lots of states are plaintiffs.
"... I don’t think Joe Biden “bet that the hard line would work best.” I don’t think he put even that much thought into it."
It's metonymy.
He's the container, and I refer to him for simplicity. No President does his own analysis. Other people develop the content and make recommendations among options.
Have to keep pushing the failing policy or else the people who oppose it might feel vindicated. And not letting the opposition have a victory is the most important value.
Scratch a liberal, uncover a fascist.
How about actually following the law? Biden knew the eviction ban was unconstitutional, but kept it in place to buy more time for deadbeat renters. He knows that OSHA is not empowered to make vaccine mandate and that there’s no “emergency” situation, but wants to string out his power grab until SCOTUS rules against it. Texas SB 8 is not based on the idea of a legitimate challenge to Casey and Roe, but on a chilling effect until some court issues a controlling opinion saying that the statute is unconstitutional.
All these actions are cynically based on getting some temporary advantage without a well-founded belief in the merits of the position.
Well, this ought to assure everyone that the vaccine mandate is about public health and not politics.
How much pain — through the history of humankind — has flowed from that line of thinking?
The pain is the point. Biden, metonymically, wants us to suffer. We’re easier to control that way.
This was the hardest line, disemploying everyone who didn't buy into the propaganda. And it failed- it failed so comprehensively that following through would cause complete economic collapse and a general uprising. Now Biden HAS to double down.
How wonderful. Looks like I'll get a red Christmas after all...
Obviously this is not a health decision, it is a political decision. And some "professor of global health law" probably knows about as much about weighing the political choices as I do.
Leaders get a lot of their power by vicariously satisfying the needs of their followers, and the followers of Joe Biden want the Deplorables, who scare them, fear inspired by a lot of Democrat propaganda, controlled. They want Deplorables' guns taken away, they want them deloused.... er I mean vaccinated, etc, etc. Deplorables are the boogie man, and Joe Biden's job is to keep them from coming out from under the bed, so the good Democrats can sleep at night.
One thing this pandemic has inspired is a lot of fear, and the Democrats have managed to transfer that fear onto the Deplorables. If they would only take Trump's vaccine. OK, they don't call it "Trump's vaccine" because, even if that would be more persuasive, they have political goals that are more important than public health, and everybody understands that.
It goes back to "The Power of Habit" which, as I have said before, has a very interesting little section on politics, and the fact is that any political party must, at all costs, deny the other side any victory, even a small one, because everything is built on small victories, from a great musical career to a political movement. Politics über alles.
It’s only authoritarian when the other guy does it.
"Other people develop the content and make recommendations among options."
Other authoritarians, you mean.
He's the container, and I refer to him for simplicity
He’s the gassy, leaky, diseased, belligerent, empty container fascists are exploiting to destroy civilization.
It’s coming to a conclusion with the 5th Circuit court’s 60-day stay. That time frame was chosen I believe to give enough time to let the hospitalization rate decline. Even after the pandemic is officially not an emergency, there is another 60-day period until emergency orders expire. We may now be about three months out from tip-toeing to normalcy. It is in Democrats best electoral interest to be able to declare victory over COVID going into the midterms. However they may attempt to drag out the emergency past November if they calculate it is necessary to use the pandemic vote-rigging tricks they created in 2020. Sadly politics is driving COVID policy still.
Even Mr. Spock seems in doubt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwH2At2XM3k&t=1s
The mandate is a priority of big business.
If employers don't require vaccination for their employees, they might be liable for any who catch Covid at work because they didn't do enough.
If they do, they might be liable for anyone injured by the required vaccine...unless there is a government mandate.
Perhaps Biden's political calculation was he needed someone or something to blame as Covid got worse on his watch.
Enter the vax mandate Biden previously said he'd never implement.
Consider the likelihood Biden's "hard line" is specifically intended to "embolden the opposition," so they would oppose his mandate, yet in "defeat" and failure Biden would have someone to point a finger at.
Ann Althouse said...
He's the container, and I refer to him for simplicity. No President does his own analysis. Other people develop the content and make recommendations among options.
And when the historical analysis is done what we will find is that the Biden Regime was trying to get their foot in the door on a social credit system.
There are several treatments that are more effective and cheaper than the "vaccines." They had to change the definition of Vaccine to call these shots a vaccine.
The point was to get everyone's name on a card and get that card entered in the system.
And exclude all of those that did not kneel. There are always kneelers and cowards who will keep their head down.
But there is a critical mass of patriots in the US.
This is the definition of National Socialism and Americans will not kneel for it.
And that's how WWI started. I'm in a circle of alliances and agreements and if any of us backs down, the other guys in their circle of alliances and agreements will take advantage. "Saving face" cost 20 million lives then; we'll hope the stakes aren't quite so high in this instance.
"He knows that OSHA is not empowered to make vaccine mandate and that there’s no “emergency” situation, but wants to string out his power grab until SCOTUS rules against it."
The argument is that it's a matter of workplace safety. It's constitutional if you want it to be.
Can we now call this group as the Canute/Klein/Obama administration?
"If Biden were to back down now, I don’t know that it would lower the political temperature. It might even inflame the issue and embolden the opposition."
"...experience teaches that the most dangerous time for a bad government is usually when it begins to reform." - Alexis De Tocqueville 1856.
It's the same reason that he won't fire Fauci even though the FOIA emails, along with articles published in Nature prior to the pandemic gasping at the fantastic risks these people were taking, show that COVID is the result of a gamble by Fauci. If they had fired Fauci, which he richly deserved, -- he was the one who told Trump the whole thing was going to blow over -- the government might have more credibility.
But now it's all about not showing weakness. Maybe it's time for a kindler, gentler Biden, who listens to the other side, JKLOL. Biden is Flem Snopes, end of story. Bill Clinton may have been corrupt, but he would have fired Fauci and never would have done the mandate, because, he's not a sociopath who finds it impossible to understand his opponents.
I wonder if Fauci told Trump it was all going to blow over because that is what he was telling himself, since, you know, he partially funded the research that produced the virus, as we know from the FOIA emails.
Gavin Newsome is out today telling the nation that he cancelled his trip to COP26 because he wanted to "Spend more time with his family."
He then went on to attack Trump and conspiracy theories.
Everyone around him said muscle weakness and Guille Barre.
These are evil obviously dishonest people. The media is covering up the backlash that is coming.
If we withdraw from Vietnam, it will only inflame the opposition.
OSHA is not about Public Health but workplace safety and in 52 years has had almost zero effect on the rate of workplace deaths. This vax mandate debate has nothing to do with occupational safety. AIDS was a death sentence back in the late 1980s but employers couldn’t even ask if their workers carried HIV. But now, this strange fat-hating flu variant is a threat to “workplace safety?” Jesus wept.
JB has a 50+ yr as a well-known political hack who is clearly a bully, a liar and has a wildly inflated ego.
Why wouldn’t he take a hard line?
Not a joke.
C’mon man.
It's constitutional if you want it to be.
Seems like you could say that about anything.
The federal government can issue orders without much concern if the orders are likely to be complied with.
In this case the Administration, probably rightly, thought the orders would be well received by businesses who would comply. But the ultimate compliance here has to come from the people who are being vaccinated, not just the businesses, and that's not happening.
"It's constitutional if you want it to be." I'm a bit surprised it was written by a retired law professor. Kind of like a magician explaining a magic trick. Did you ever say that to your students during class?
"It will only inflame the issue and embolden the opposition."
But now peddled by "experts, "following the science."
Ann Althouse said...
"He knows that OSHA is not empowered to make vaccine mandate and that there’s no “emergency” situation, but wants to string out his power grab until SCOTUS rules against it."
The argument is that it's a matter of workplace safety. It's constitutional if you want it to be.
That's not really the argument.
"The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which polices workplace safety for the Labor Department, developed the vaccine and testing requirements under emergency authority that allows the agency to shortcut the process to issue workplace safety standards, which normally take years.
“The Occupational Safety and Health Act explicitly gives OSHA the authority to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them,” Nanda said in a statement Friday, after the Republican attorneys general and companies filed their challenge."
It got thrown out so quickly by the 5th circuit because the argument they tried to make was so stupid.
There is no world where you can read that OSHA has the power to ignore the 1st 2nd 4th 9th and 10th amendments.
And Newsome's negative reaction and their attempt to cover it up are going to ad flame to the fire.
JB has a 50+ yr as a well-known political hack who is clearly a bully, a liar and has a wildly inflated ego.
Why wouldn’t he take a hard line?
Not a joke.
C’mon man.
Is it safe yet to observe that these vaccines are historically shitty? The reason I am pro-vaccine is that vaccines typically work. I don't need to go get a new polio booster every 4 months!
These vaccines were designed to work against the strain (not a "variant"--strain) that was circulating two years ago. That virus is now a historic relic. These vaccines seem to have stopped working effectively against the current strain. This is why we update flu vaccines every season. It should be obvious to everyone by now that we need new vaccines, not to double down on the same shitty vaccines that no longer work. In infuriating that our government wants to mandate vaccines that have stopped working.
(I've also read a study or two showing that those that caught and recovered from COVID and have natural immunity are not experiencing the same rates of reinfection. In other words, its not the virus, its the shitty vaccines.)
It's one thing to never give in to the Nazi's taking over the world with their evil. It's an entirely different thing to have an embarrassed, and unsound health establishment melded to a political ideology as your call to duty. The vaccine was originally supposed to end this virus. Not only would it prevent you from getting it, it would prevent you from spreading it. Remember that? Then it's effects were found to fade quickly. Then we realized that vaccinated people were still getting the virus and worse- they were getting the Delta variant in huge numbers. Spiking numbers. Almost as if the vaccine attracted this variant. Then we realized, on top of all of this that those vaccinated people who got the virus were also spreading the virus.
So...what gives with that?
Then a steady drumbeat of news from around the world of people, especially younger healthier people, getting severely ill after receiving the vaccine. Heart issues, among the problems. Reports of some athletes having heart attacks on the field. How can this be?
Then tests from other countries showing those previously infected have more and longer lasting antibodies than vaccinated people. Again...what gives?
Then more and more adverse effects reported all over the world, but mysteriously labeled 'misinformation' and kept out of the press. Especially Twitter, Facebook, Google, and of course, NY Times, WaPo, and CNN.
Then some European countries banned the vaccines for younger people and kids- until more research could be done. But not here. Here in the US, when the Dems and our media grab onto something...facts aside, it's time to make it the law and those that don't follow- the Deniers- well...no jobs for you! Off to jail. Get out of our restaurants, stores, offices, and certainly no basketball, football, or hockey for you. Yes, you may be the best athletes in the world, but if you don't take the vaccine, you cannot work.
Until you can prove that vaccinated people cannot spread it (which you cannot) then you cannot make this a matter of workplace safety. And all the repeating of the phrase 'workplace safety' does not make it so. Like everything coming out of Washington these days and dutifully repeated by our media- this is bullshit.
I'm vaccinated and and boostered, and honestly, I don't know why at this point.
Among the top five rules of formal decision making (like risk analysis): SUNK COSTS DON'T COUNT.
Biden will carry the costs of his failed policies no matter which option he selects. It is fallacious to say he should continue the Status Quo because he has invested so much in it in the past.
Biden and his cronies are demonstrating clearly they are NOT rational actors. Moreover, they simply do not care about the consequences (intended or unintended) of their actions.
The argument is that it's a matter of workplace safety. It's constitutional if you want it to be.
Where does that end? If you don't want it to.
I am one of those terrible unvaccinated people. I've survived by taking vitamin supplements, exercising, and avoiding crowded places for going on 2 years. If I get immunity it will be the natural way.
As an engineer, I watch horrified at the BS called global warming and green energy. I understand the technology well and recognize it's such a shameful scam. Although I'm not a medical expert, I have to assume the same level of BS applies to Covid. I have zero trust in anything the government or the news media are harping about, especially with the idiots in power now.
I was somewhat neutral about the vaccine but the mandate pissed me off. They can kiss my hairy ass now. No way am I getting the shot now.
The corrupt left are purposefully making sure promising drugs that can effectively kill the virus = are not allowed.
Maddow and co ran a fake story that people in Oklahoma were Over-dosing in INVERMECTIN. The hospitals called to say it was NOT true. Why would Maddow do that?
I heard most of this pod cast in my car - by chance! wow. I had no idea the depths of how we are manipulated by the elites.
The front of this link is all annoying ads that loop - so push the little button over.
If you have some time,
please listen to this. Form your own opinion.
Ann Althouse said...
"He knows that OSHA is not empowered to make vaccine mandate and that there’s no “emergency” situation, but wants to string out his power grab until SCOTUS rules against it."
The argument is that it's a matter of workplace safety. It's constitutional if you want it to be."
If the argument is unsupported by facts, is it still constitutional?
Not changing the policy now reminds of a seen from the movie. Little Big Man. Gen Custer refuses to change his mind after getting new facts. Custer tells Little Big Man his life is not worth changing a Custer decision.
I think the facts have changed on the Vax. At first we all thought and hoped the vax would stop people from getting infected and stop the spread. From what I can tell it failed on stopping the spread. The vaxed can get infected, have a mild case, and still be contagious. Did the vax actually speed up the spread because many infected did not know and went out and about?
The only rational I can see for a mandatory vax is if it really granted immunity and would stop the spread? The theory being a vaxed person will not be infected so they can safely come to work and not infect others.
"I wan the old Left back" - Retweet from Glenn Greenwald.
"I had no idea the depths of how we are manipulated by the elites."
'I try to be cynical, but I just can't keep up' is an old joke, but it's never been truer. Like Greenwald says, "It's not about left or right, it's about rebellion and control, just as if we were ruled by a king or a dictator where political parties were not allowed.
"Gavin Newsome is out today telling the nation that he cancelled his trip to COP26 because he wanted to "Spend more time with his family."
He is taking the Adam Schiff approach, which actually goes back to how they deposed Charles 1st. They had a shameless guy in charge of parliament who had a lot of street thugs working for him. The thugs prevented opposition MPs from reaching Parliament, and threatened their lives on votes, and when these MPs objected, they were charged with 'treason' and hanged. Charles was eventually beheaded. These guys read their history books, or at least their strategists do. These tactics go back to even before Hitler and Bhota used them.
Well the good news is that Biden is following the science in that Covid flourishes in entities having 100 employees but is more or less benign in entities that have 99 employees. This is so very stupid.
Why did Rachel Maddow push a fake story about Oklahoma hospitals being over-run with Invermectin over-dose patients?
It never happened.
She is the same multi-million dollar fake journalist that spread lies about Trump and Russia.
The new left are corrupt lying hacks - paid millions to lie to you. They are found on CNN and MSNBC.
{Biden} wants to string out his power grab until SCOTUS rules against it.
Wishful thinking. I have a strong feeling that the calvary will not be riding to the rescue.
Biden took a hard line. He bet that the hard line would work best, get the most people vaccinated, avoid the most suffering and death. But too many people failed to snap to it and obey. So now what
Total misinformation. By now anyone who thinks Biden has any say in his administration is living in a fool's paradise. The Cabal- to use the conspiracy theorist description of the people behind the scenes- told him what to do and he did it.
And Americans most notoriously don't snap to any orders from above. Most of us still think of ourselves as citizens, not subjects, though there appear to be a growing number of sheeple who would trade freedom for safety. Which is a bad trade that throughout history has never actually led to safety.
And ordering the vaccine be given to teens and youngers ensures a larger death toll in that age range, not a lower one. That by now is obvious to anyone who understands numbers. The traded off- deliberately killing the young to theoretically save the lives of some old people, quite frankly, isn't worth it. And I sat this as a 66 year old. Which today isn't terribly old, but I'm getting up there.
It's about control, not about health, and has been from the beginning. Dictator Hochul's order to mask two year olds makes no sense to anyone in the health field, and less sense to parents. It's about control.
D.D. Driver said...
Is it safe yet to observe that these vaccines are historically shitty? The reason I am pro-vaccine is that vaccines typically work. I don't need to go get a new polio booster every 4 months!
11/11/21, 8:01 AM
It doesn't matter if an Obamajudge orders the whole country to get shot 4. We Will Not Comply.
Klain/ Garland/ Walensky think they are ruining Christmas for millions, but really they're digging their own graves. By the end of the Biden Administration I wouldn't be surprised to see a constitutional amendment forbidding their whole cabal from ever holding power again.
The difference between the Right and Left is so hilarious. Its impossible to imagine any DC Republican or Conservative Newspaper columnist saying "We need to double down no matter what. We can never be too extreme".
The Center-right and the Republicans never wants to fight, & always goes into negotiation with a starting position of 50%, blaring that "We want to reach accross the aisle and get a deal". Later, if they can get even 20% with a majority, they're happy as clams. They're always patting themselves on the back for "making the system work" and "acting like Adults". What losers!
Meanwhile, Pelosi and Schumer demand 100% but are reluctantly willing to accept 95%
It's metonymy.
@Althouse, please pay attention. In numerous comments over the years I’ve mentioned that I lived almost half a century in or around Washington, DC. Yes, I know how it works. But! A President of the United States is supposed to have the political sense to know when a policy will be rejected by the American population. He has the final thumbs up or thumbs down. Moreover, he is supposed to have political advisors that tell the President how things will play out politically.
But let’s think about it. How much thought went into formulating the vaccine mandate on the part of Biden’s medical or political advisors? I don’t see any evidence of much thought being put into it at all, and hardly any by the man with the final “yes” or “no.”
Finally, my comments about political capital remain the same whether we are discussing Biden as the head of his administration, or as the figurehead for his administration. With more than 50% of the population expressing a negative opinion of the man — and his administration — and with more than 70% expressing a belief that the US is on the wrong track, Biden’s administration has little political capital to spend.
No President does his own analysis.
Not quite true. Donald Trump went against the conventional wisdom time and time again, and with respect to economic and foreign policy, he was right, at least in those spheres. I have a vivid recollection about reading a learned analysis as to why one of Trump’s trade wars with China was doomed to fail. It was published on the same day that Xi’s government capitulated! Is that what made you and other liberals piss your pants so much? Think back to the first impeachment — isn’t Lt. Colonel Vindman whining about how Trump was ignoring the “diplomatic and national security consensus” what started that show trial going?
He could have done better with COVID-19, by being the authoritarian you liberals keep accusing him of being, for instance by arresting Cuomo and Whitmer and Murphy, and moving COVID patients out of the nursing homes. That would have saved thousands of lives, but is that the precedent you would like to see, Professor?
Biden has always been a blowhard and a bully. In the past people who disagreed just ignored him and moved on (including most of his own party), and he learned how to downplay that result and just keep on bein' Joe. Now that he's POTUS, he's doing the same bullying, same as always - except he gets outraged now that his edicts are being questioned and challenged. Crazy Uncle Joe!
By Grabthar's Hammer...
There's a term in poker, specifically Texas Hold 'Em: pot committed.
It's the uncomfortable situation where you have good hole cards (the two that are dealt face down to you), but the ensuing community cards (dealt face up that everyone can use) suggest you don't have the best hand, but you've bet a significant portion of your chips already.
Say your hole cards are a pair of queens. Nice. You bet accordingly, maybe high to drive other players out, maybe mid-range to keep the marks betting. The flop comes out and it's a 2, a 3, and an 5. No help for you, but low cards that if paired don't beat you. You bet significantly again. But the turn card is a 4. Oh, dear. Some other player has a possibility of a straight. You might stay in the hand if you run the numbers and deem it safe. And the river card is a queen. Congratulations, three of a kind. But a straight beats your three queens, and the player who has it now wants to bet big.
What do you do? Continue to bet and hope there isn't a straight out there? Or fold a monster hand and walk away from all you've bet.
This is where the metonymical Biden is. He's pot committed. So much capital goes away if he folds, but if he stays in, he could still lose it all and be humiliated, even though he could have avoided it.
I think he got carried away with himself
Of course Brandon did. That's just Joe being Joe. It's what he does in everything.
No President does his own analysis
Come on, man. You're not that naive. Even more than Obama, who thought/thinks he knows better than everyone else, Joe Biden KNOWS he knows more and better than anyone else. He finished at the top of his law school class, after all. He has dozens of degrees. BIDEN IS SMARTER THAT ANYONE WHO EVER LIVED!
Biden's self-delusions of his awesomeness are both pathological and legendary.
Don't think that Biden doesn't walk into the room already knowing best himself.
All QuidProJoe and the Dems have are their optics supported by the mediaswine. They have no substance on the issues.
People shake their heads and ruminate about the apparent lunacy of Joe and his consorts. It isn’t lunacy. It is a calculated effort to destroy our country. That is their substance. Eradication of our borders, an energy crisis, erosion of our constitutional rights, critical race theory, election irregularities, inflation, profligate spending, corruption of federal law enforcement, J6 misdemeanants demonized and held without bail, parents designated as domestic terrorists, censorship, etc. — all by design.
It’s not lunacy. It’s sedition. In some cases for remuneration. In others in support of a failed communist ideology. These are evil people.
Biden would never, ever give in to "convictions of honor and good sense". He wouldn't know those things if they smacked his flippin' phony face.
He's more flexible when it comes to politics, which is ultimately what will defeat the mandates. I am no lawyer, but I "get" Althouse when she says the mandate is "constitutional if you want it to be". Commerce Clause and whatnot, I suppose.
But if the Dems think they'll be bulldozed next November over this (if nothing else, and there's plenty else), they'll back off, hem and haw, set it aside, change the subject, sort of make it go away. There might begin to appear good news about "natural immunity"! They won't need to "give in", but they'll "give slack".
Following OSHA's explanation that its Emergency Temporary Standard is intended for the safety of unvaccinated employees, the ETS itself essentially treats those same employees as a workplace hazard. And the directed safety measure for those who are unvaccinated is to kick them out of their jobs.
Of course, terminating unvaccinated workers does nothing to protect society. It does nothing to reduce community transmission.
It's constitutional if you want it to be.
Seems like you could say that about anything.
Legal realism - the law is what the judges say the law is.
Something of a precursor to critical legal theory.
How much thought went into formulating the vaccine mandate...I don’t see any evidence of much thought being put into it at all, and hardly any by the man with the final “yes” or “no.”
At his announcement of the mandate, Biden already said what his motivation is, what thought he put into it: He's fed up. He's lost patience. People haven't bent to his will quick enough. So now he is going to use force.
Biden wanted something. He didn't get it from the people. So now he will make them. End of thought process.
What the ongoing COVID mandates are doing is the same thing the 55mph speed limit did 50 years ago - eroding the people's respect for the social norm of following the law.
I visited my mom in NC last weekend. I was amazed at the COVID precautions still mandated there, compared with back home in Texas, and at the simultaneous mass ignoring of the COVID precautions mandated there. Masks were treated as a joke and worn below the nose almost universally. Nobody stayed six feet apart in checkout lines, or anywhere else. Stores had mask signs up, but not once did anyone accost a non-mask wearer.
If you keep telling people to do something, "or else," and there is no apparent "or else," people eventually ignore your demands.
Charles was eventually beheaded.
@tim, and what eventually happened to the people who signed that death warrant after Cromwell died and Charles II came to power? Three made it to the New World and successfully avoided being extradited. Nineteen had their estates confiscated and were sentenced to life imprisonment. Some number of these, ominously, served their imprisonment in the Tower of London. Several fled Britain to countries on the continent, but were assassinated. And the rest were given a fair trial then hanged until almost dead, taken down, revived, their genitals cut off and entrails ripped out, before being slowly pulled apart by strong horses (quartered).
The people you referenced need to read all of their history books.
I think the plan is for Biden to push everything as far as it can go and then step down and let Harris play the moderate and the unifier. I'm not sure she can manage that, but it does make sense for politicians with a moderate and bumbling persona to push a more radical agenda, and those who are regarded as "different" or "foreign" or "unconventional" or "unsettling" to pull back. Kamala is as bumbling as Joe is, but the public won't cut her the same slack that Joe got.
"‘Daily Show’ Ratings Plummet to Shocking New Lows..."
https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/daily-show-ratings-plummet-trevor-noah/
To paraphrase Bill Maher, of all people, 'If they give in now, the audience will have won."
It's kind of heat warming to hear about Samantha Bee's abysmal ratings. I stopped watching TBS because at least once, sometimes twice, during an episode of "Married With Children," they would run one of her anti-Trump rants. Of course none of this was considered in-kind political contribution, and if you assume I am not the only one, then her lousy ratings have spoiled the rest of the apples in the barrel.
If they counted natural immunity, which can be measured (they do in Europe) it would be a lot more convincing, but no, it's the same Trump jab they claimed before the election was too dangerous, or nothing.
Bottom line: the people who rejected Joe Biden in 1987 and 2008 were right.
"There's a term in poker, specifically Texas Hold 'Em: pot committed."
There is a term in economics called "sunk costs." You don't consider them. In poker, though, you might be able to get the money back, it might be that the pot is so big (including your own bets) that a long shot bet, if it's not too expensive, is worth it. I once bet on an inside straight because there was money in the pot from previous hands, there was some 'minimum hand or the pot held over' rule, I can't remember the exact rule, anyway, knowing that the odds were long, but the pot was big, and the bet was small, I bet on it and won. But that's not the same thing as "sunk cost."
I think that his is more like the guy who has driven six exits past his destination, should he turn around, or just continue driving straight?
At this point it is a shining example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, at least as described in this article's excerpt.
I don't know how President Shit-For-Brains ended up in this idiotic cul de sac, exactly, but I suspect he or, more likely, Ron Klain got bad advice from Fauci that vaccinating everyone was possible and would exterminate COVID. Fauci may even have believed this himself which means he wasn't lying to executive branch officials at first. I can pinpoint, however, the day when it was clear that Fauci did know the vaccines weren't going to do what was promised- that was the day the government changed course and recommended the vaccinated wear masks indoors. There is no other explanation for that change of policy guidance except that it being clear to them that the vaccinated could catch and transmit COVID- that fact alone completely undermines the vaccine mandate as good policy. The mandates are sunk cost that has to be recognized and written off, but I know they won't until they are forced to retreat by mass non-compliance or SCOTUS gets off its ass and rules that the mandates are a constitutional violation, and even that might not stop it- POOTUS has already said businesses should ignore the 5th Ciruit's injunction- something I predicted here last Winter- that Shit-For-Brains would ignore court injunctions that attempted to stop what he and his handlers implement through executive orders.
Why do you say "the vaccine mandate"? Biden isn't mandating people to get vaccinated. He's giving them a choice: get vaccinated for covid-19, or get tested for covid-19. Yes, you can call it a "vaccine mandate" (with an opt-out for those who get tested) … but by the same token, you could call it a "testing mandate" (with an opt-out for those who get vaccinated).
Karl Denninger's take on OSHA... I don't think he's wrong.
https://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=244182
Biden issued his mandate because he ran out of patience with those who thinks he's moron and wouldn't listen to his pleas to get vaccinated. Plus the fact that these so-called vaccines are nothing more than prophylactic treatments. They don't kill the virus, just ameliorate the body's reaction to it.
“ Why do you say "the vaccine mandate"? ”
WaPo uses it.
I agree it’s inaccurate.
You should object to “individual mandate “ in the Obamacare context too.
But let’s think about it. How much thought went into formulating the vaccine mandate on the part of Biden’s medical or political advisors? I don’t see any evidence of much thought being put into it at all, and hardly any by the man with the final “yes” or “no.”
Biden campaigned on no mandates. Was he lying then?
Now he's fully committed to mandates for everyone, no matter the political cost. Who convinced him to change?
A real media would ask these questions and find these things out.
Ann Althouse said...
"...It's constitutional if you want it to be.”
It is constitutional, at least until a district judge, appeals court judges, and/or Supreme Court Justices say that it is not constitutional. But that takes time for a court date and then a ruling as Biden and the men and women controlling, I mean “advising”, him from behind the big blue presidential curtain well know. Tony Evers tried that tactic with his “Safe at home” mandate and his mask mandate in Wisconsin, until he lost in court to the Wisconsin Republicans who run the WI Legislature since he decided to ignore the WI Constitution and not involve the legislature. BTW, Wisconsin has been better off weathering the pandemic than the states that surround it that the Democrats have an iron grip on - Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan - since the courts struck down Gov. Evers’ pandemic mandates.
Do ARV regimen or lose your job. Would that be an acceptable "mandate"?
“ WaPo uses it.”
The White House uses “vaccination requirement.”
I use “vaccination ultimatum.” Do it or else.
Fine - a "vaccine or testing mandate."
Happy?
Misses the point entirely. Besides, you're missing the MAIN part, the part about "or get fired and lose your livelihood."
Explain the argument that if it is coercion, it is not really a mandate.
Yes, there is the option to comply or not comply. But in neither the Brandon Mandate or the Obamacare Mandate is there the option to be freely left alone. If the "not comply" option carries a consequence, then it too is a mandate -- a mandate that you suffer that consequence.
Always look at the "or else" first.
What this is is a mandate on employers to terminate their employees (or that schools expel students) -- the mandate is that people be excluded from the equal participation in society -- unless they give up their rights of self-determination and bodily autonomy.
"the process to issue workplace safety standards, which normally take years."
Meditate on just that for awhile.
I watched the World Series this year, looked at the crowds and said to myself, America isn't buying this Covid crap.
Its critically important to the ChiComs, Russians and Iranians that Biden's Earpiece not back down.
That's all you need to know.
Using our host's logic what can't be mandated? What happens when there competing mandates? The flu is contagious. Therefore let's mandate everyone get a flu vaccine. Alcoholism and drug addiction are workplace hazards so those individual must be subject to mandatory rehabilitation in order to work. Bipolar and schizophrenia are workplace hazards so those individuals must be mandated to take their medications. The Supreme Court ruled that one can't be mandated to purchase something ( but strangely enough can be penalized for not purchasing something) so how is not volunteering to get vaccinated not a commercial transactions amongst other things. The vaccine mandates impose a penalty for not engaging in commerce.
cfkane1701 said...
This is where the metonymical Biden is. He's pot committed. So much capital goes away if he folds, but if he stays in, he could still lose it all and be humiliated, even though he could have avoided it.
11/11/21, 9:56 AM
Biden's problem is that this isn't poker, or even normal business. In the real world, you can walk away blithely from sunk costs and be just fine. His problem is that he made an absolute ton of promises to the hard left to take power. Now the bill's coming due, the vast bulk of the American people are completely abandoning him, and the socialist left correctly think he's the weakest Democratic president in the post-FDR era. Biden can't walk away from Build Back Better without looking like the Bank of America tool he is. But he can't afford to make the economy worse without risking a general uprising.
'No President does his own analysis.'
You're correct, they don't.
But most presidents are able to then look at the metrics and make an informed decision.
Biden couldn't do that on his best day with his 95 IQ.
Now? God help us...
'No President does his own analysis.'
You're correct, they don't.
But most presidents are able to then look at the metrics and make an informed decision.
Biden couldn't do that on his best day with his 95 IQ.
Now? God help us...
All the pain being inflicted on this nation is punishment for voting for Trump in 2016. That's it. The lesson must be learned that the people do not do that ever again.
You should object to “individual mandate “ in the Obamacare context too.
It didn't happen because the unions said NO. Obama and Pelosi backed down.
If Biden were to back down now, I don’t know that it would lower the political temperature. It might even inflame the issue and embolden the opposition.
If the Biden* Admin were to "back down" now, it would inflame the bullying left wing pieces of shit who thought that stealing the 2020 election would let them order the rest of us around, and who now have their panties in a twist because we're not just giving in to them.
Note that "Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law" isn't trying to argue that the mandate is actually good for public health, he's just saying "you can't let those people win!"
Because none of this is about public health. it's just about assholes getting sexual enjoyment from using political power to force others to bow down.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/covid-vaccinated-likely-unjabbed-infect-cohabiters-study-suggests
People who are fully vaccinated against Covid yet catch the virus are just as infectious to others in their household as infected unvaccinated people, research suggests.
And this study doesn't even consider the fact that people with the jab are more likely to be asymptomatic, and therefore more likely to go out and about while infected with Covid, and thus infecting others.
These are things you care about when public health is more important to you than politics.
But that's clearly not the case in the Biden* Admin
D.D. Driver said...
Is it safe yet to observe that these vaccines are historically shitty? The reason I am pro-vaccine is that vaccines typically work. I don't need to go get a new polio booster every 4 months!
Bingo. I went out and got teh shots as soon as I could, because I bought the hype, and because I wanted to be done with masks.
So, no. I'm not going to get a "booster", and I'm not going to wear a fucking mask. It's a more contagious flu with a not very high death rate. We have good treatments, and shitty "vaccines". So get over it a get on with ndlife.
These vaccines were designed to work against the strain (not a "variant"--strain) that was circulating two years ago. That virus is now a historic relic. These vaccines seem to have stopped working effectively against the current strain. This is why we update flu vaccines every season.
They're called "flu shots" rather than "flu vaccines" for a reason. This one is a "shot", not a vaccine.
It should be obvious to everyone by now that we need new vaccines, not to double down on the same shitty vaccines that no longer work. In infuriating that our government wants to mandate vaccines that have stopped working.
(I've also read a study or two showing that those that caught and recovered from COVID and have natural immunity are not experiencing the same rates of reinfection. In other words, its not the virus, its the shitty vaccines.)
The efforts the CDC is going to to lie about this is really breathtaking.
On the plus side, it's a nice filter: anyone who pretends to believe the obvious CDC bullshit about the "vaccine" being better than prior infection for protection is establishing themselves as someone to never trust
Biden couldn't do that on his best day with his 95 IQ.
@Joe Smith, when did he start taking Adderall?
"It's a more contagious flu with a not very high death rate."
And yet, even with it's "not very high death rate," it has killed more Americans in less than two years than were killed in all of WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and our Middle East terror wars of the past 20 years. Even a disease with a statistically small death rate can kill huge numbers if it spreads to enough people...as we are seeing.
We've just become so inured to mass deaths that we don't register it any longer, especially if it's not violent, bloody and spectacular.
Robert Cook said...
Me: "It's a more contagious flu with a not very high death rate."
And yet, even with it's "not very high death rate," it has killed more Americans in less than two years than were killed in all of WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and our Middle East terror wars of the past 20 years. Even a disease with a statistically small death rate can kill huge numbers if it spreads to enough people...as we are seeing.
We've just become so inured to mass deaths that we don't register it any longer, especially if it's not violent, bloody and spectacular.
US Population in 1918 was less than 1/3 of current pop. US had 675k deaths from the Spanish Flu in 1918.
Even if you accept the bloated "death totals" for Covid, we're nowhere near the Spanish Flu death rates. And then there's this:
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/02/826358104/the-1918-flu-pandemic-was-brutal-killing-as-many-as-100-million-people-worldwide
The young and the old were hit hard, but middle-aged, otherwise healthy individuals also suffered; those aged 20-40 accounted for about half of the deaths in the pandemic
So if you go by "years of life lost", the Spanish Flu was far worse than the Wuhan Flu.
US 3019 death rates:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db395-H.pdf
We had 533k people die of heart disease in 2019, some 2.8 million died overall.
People die. Get over it. It's not an excuse to shut down society
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