"Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won’t* get blocked by courts! Those court decisions didn’t happen at random; they happened because judges looked at what the administration did and decided that it didn’t comply with the law."
Writes my son John, at Facebook, commenting on "A year ago, Biden unveiled a 200-page plan to defeat covid. He has struggled to deliver on some key promises" (WaPo).
"Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won’t* get blocked by courts!" — We are all expected to pursue our goals and desires within the limits of the law. But we still can complain about the law that stands in our way and excuse our failure to achieve by pointing at this pesky law.
Sometimes you push the limits of the law and hope to convince judges. With a slightly different configuration of the Supreme Court, the vaccine mandate would have succeeded. Blaming the Court is worth doing to set up judicial appointments as a campaign issue.
And would the implementation of the vaccine mandate have served Biden's interests? Isn't he better off with it failing? He can point to it and say that he tried so hard and not be burdened with the realities of driving so many people out of employment, leaving businesses inadequately staffed, and imposing on the intimate personal bodily autonomy that his Party ordinarily celebrates.
By the way: "Activists look ahead to what could be the 'last anniversary' for Roe" (NPR).
Speaking of the pending abortion case... did the Texas legislators "figure out a way to implement [their] policies that won’t get blocked by courts"? I'd say they deliberately overreached well-known law because they wanted to convince the Court to change it and, failing that, they wanted political credit for trying.
Posts
85 comments:
Roe v Wade was the overreach.
Our federal government was never intended to solve problems.
It was intended to give the States space to solve problems and a framework to work together.
Everything our federal government does is done badly. It is the nature of centralized decision making vs decentralized decision making.
Sometimes you push the limits of the law and hope to convince judges. With a slightly different configuration of the Supreme Court, the vaccine mandate would have succeeded.
Now that this is out in the open do we still have to pretend judges are something other than hyper-partisan political actors with the power to create precedent that favors their side?
The vaccine-mandate issue is a big loser for Republicans. They are walking into a trap and have deluded themselves into thinking they are winning. Biden is intentionally being aggressive on the issue to goad Republicans into fighting back.
"Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won’t* get blocked by courts! Those court decisions didn’t happen at random; they happened because judges looked at what the administration did and decided that it didn’t comply with the law."
This is a complete misunderstanding of how our government was intended to work.
It comes from the point of view of someone who thinks that we are serfs who cannot be trusted to make decisions for ourselves.
We were meant to be a country of citizens who could be trusted to make our own decisions.
If you want to live in a country where we are all forced to conform to central planning you need to get the fuck out of our country.
Sometimes you push the limits of the law and hope to convince judges.
Yes, and sometimes you know your position is shit but you run through the motions anyways so later you can shrug your shoulders at your rabid constituents and say ‘we tried’…
Gerda Sprinchorn said...
The vaccine-mandate issue is a big loser for Republicans. They are walking into a trap and have deluded themselves into thinking they are winning. Biden is intentionally being aggressive on the issue to goad Republicans into fighting back.
The vaccine mandates areas popular as cholera.
Joe Biden is the most universally hated president ever for a reason.
And would the implementation of the vaccine mandate have served Biden's interests? Isn't he better off with it failing?
This would seem to be the strategy for most of the democratic party right now. Try to do something you know will fail and then continently fail.
*conveniently
With a slightly different configuration of the Supreme Court, the vaccine mandate would have succeeded.
But Biden's job is to deal with the realities of the country's legal system in the present day, no matter how frustrating or controversial they are. That includes the composition of the Supreme Court, which has been the same throughout his administration. The fact that only a third of the judges on our highest court were convinced that Biden's policy had been implemented in a legal way isn't completely out of Biden's control. For instance, Biden (who taught constitutional law for decades, as he told us in this week's press conference) could have foreseen that problem and instead tried to get the Democratic Congress to pass a law requiring employees of big employers to get vaccinated or regularly tested, if that's such an urgent part of fighting the war on covid. The Washington Post article is confusing a challenge for the president with a situation that's "beyond his control."
Biden ignores the law and complains the law exists, to gain approval of authoritarian progs.
Texas uses well-trodden paths in executing a lawfare attack on a judicial overreach in an attempt to reverse prior lawfare, and then laughs as those who invented lawfare complain about the tactic. And yes, the Texan legislators and governor smugly tell their voters they did exactly this, to achieve both the judicial end and the political one.
Maybe Tom can star in another climate change armageddon allegory?
Why did Joe not ask Congress to pass a law … is he a dictator or just afraid of asking his former peers in Congress to face the voters? Why did no one ask him the other day?
They could have asked lawyers how to do what they wanted to do while staying in compliance of the law. But I guess if they did that and the NYT, via the FBI, got ahold of their private conservation with counsel, then it might have been published in a way to seem embarrassing.
This is a complete misunderstanding of how our government was intended to work. It comes from the point of view of someone who thinks that we are serfs who cannot be trusted to make decisions for ourselves.… If you want to live in a country where we are all forced to conform to central planning…
Whoops, try reading what I said more carefully, because I didn't say any of that! 😂
But we still can complain about the law that stands in our way and excuse our failure to achieve by pointing at this pesky law.
I Literally can't begin to count the times 'the law that stands in' my way caused me to NOT attain the things i desired
Do You Realize?
Not Only, are is there a 'pesky law' against Grand Theft Auto, there are actually "laws" against Kidnapping, Rape, and Murder??
That, If you see a woman that you desire; it is against "law" to just Take her?
"pesky laws"
"The fact that only a third of the judges on our highest court were convinced that Biden's policy had been implemented in a legal way isn't completely out of Biden's control."
But if Trump hadn't colluded with the Russians and stolen the election in 2016, that 3 would have been at 5 (I don't think Kennedy would have resigned). The legal answer is just as likely to go one way as the other, but Trump illicitly snagged 3 Supreme Court nominations, and therefore none of the answers coming from this Court that don't include the liberal Justices can be considered correct.
Just kidding, only Trumpsters claim a presidential election was stolen... unless Biden was doing that in his news conference the other day.
Althouse said...
Isn't he better off with it failing?
Yes. The goal was to front-end a costly requirement amidst the kind of last minute uncertainty that businesses loath, even knowing it likely would fail the legal test, under the assumption that businesses would just do it anyway.
In fact, just days before, Biden & Co. were saying openly they didn't have the authority to impose a mandate. Klain even made the admission against interest when he said they had found an "end-around" with OSHA, which the court even cited.
Gerda Sprinchorn said...
Biden is intentionally being aggressive on the issue to goad Republicans into fighting back.
But have the Republicans really had to fight back, at least nationally?
Republicans are seen simply carving out oases of sanity at the state level.
The dissent in blue precincts has be fairly grass roots.
Starbucks anyone?
John Althouse Cohen said...
Whoops, try reading what I said more carefully, because I didn't say any of that! 😂
I read your words.
Take responsibility for your writing. The meaning is reasonable to infer.
If you don't want that meaning to be inferred then write clearly. Pretending you didn't say something and using stupid emoji's is silly.
You want to pretend you are smarter than someone and post some stupid snark. It is a juvenile habit.
But I know who you learned it from.
Ann Althouse said...
But if Trump hadn't colluded with the Russians and stolen the election in 2016, that 3 would have been at 5 (I don't think Kennedy would have resigned). The legal answer is just as likely to go one way as the other, but Trump illicitly snagged 3 Supreme Court nominations, and therefore none of the answers coming from this Court that don't include the liberal Justices can be considered correct.
Just kidding, only Trumpsters claim a presidential election was stolen... unless Biden was doing that in his news conference the other day.
This just highlights the issue that the real problem under all of this is Democrats just do not accept our system of government at a fundamental level.
You cannot have a high trust society with people like this.
@John Althouse Cohen, last year, during the election, did not your mother repost one of your blog posts lauding Joe Biden’s alleged leadership? Have you since learned anything?
(And please don’t respond with a screed against Donald Trump. We get it. You belong to the extreme left wing. Focus on the leadership failures of Joseph Biden.)
"Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won’t* get blocked by courts!"
Easy: get Congress to pass a law. (Since the constitutional limits on congressional power were nullified long ago, that could have passed muster: surely a mandate falls under interstate commerce?)
"We are all expected to pursue our goals and desires within the limits of the law."
What do you mean? 2020 rioters were not expected to do any such thing. DACA simply suspended application of the law, as did the eviction moratorium. Of course, the limits of the law do not apply to the elite: remember Hillary's private server?
"With a slightly different configuration of the Supreme Court, the vaccine mandate would have succeeded."
IOW, law is not law-law.
"Isn't he better off with it failing?"
Yes, slightly. But I don't think progs calculate that way. They'd rather have the power and use it (preferably without having to vote on it in a way that exposes Dems to the risk of defeat).
Ann Althouse at 9:35 AM
... if Trump hadn't colluded with the Russians and stolen the election in 2016, that 3 would have been at 5 (I don't think Kennedy would have resigned). The legal answer is just as likely to go one way as the other, but Trump illicitly snagged 3 Supreme Court nominations
The actual history is just as amusing as your sarcastic fiction.
The Democrats abolished the filibuster for all federal judges, except for Supreme Court justices.
Then the Democrats lost their majority in the Senate.
Then when President Trump nominated Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, the Senate's Democrats filibustered against him. Therefore, the Senate's Republican majority abolished the filibuster for nominations to the Supreme Court.
Then Justice Ginsburg, who should have retired during the Obama Administration, died during the Trump administration. And so she was replaced by a Republican justice.
mikee said...
Texas uses well-trodden paths in executing a lawfare attack on a judicial overreach in an attempt to reverse prior lawfare, and then laughs as those who invented lawfare complain about the tactic. And yes, the Texan legislators and governor smugly tell their voters they did exactly this, to achieve both the judicial end and the political one.
Texas is making a big mistake taking this path.
It is just the wrong way to fight this.
Make that red pilled…
With a slightly different configuration of the Supreme Court, the vaccine mandate would have succeeded.
So much for the rule of law. Hail rule of "raw judicial power" and judicial fiat. Rather apt today.
Just kidding, only Trumpsters claim a presidential election was stolen...
...and Hillary supporters, and Gore supporters, and...
How can The Party's newsletter, The Washington Post, owned by a man who stands to benefit greatly from the actions of The Party publish propaganda designed to benefit The Party?
It's a mystery likely never to be solved.
Hey, that wasn't the last dinner. DiCaprio is still here.
Common political tactic to take an action you know the court will shoot down. I sat with steelworkers in Sharon, PA back in 2003 when Bush announced new tariffs on Brazilian imports. Admist the cheering, a union official acknowledged, "Courts will strike it down. Violates our laws under WTO treaty". All those workers got was an excuse to get drunk for one night.
The east coast Media are trying to give Biden cover. This should not surprise.
I don't think the Supreme Court decision on vaccine mandates was at all obvious from a legal perspective. An issue the Court has been grappling with (under the surface at least) for a few decades is whether there are any real limits on what the Federal Government can do. Some judges have tried to use a narrow interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause to limit Federal power, but that effort has petered out. Since pretty much anything can be justified under an expansive interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause, there are almost no real restrictions on Federal power now. The power to tax provides another grounds for expansive Federal power as well and was the justification for upholding Obamacare.
The recent vaccine decisions (iirc) hinged on whether Congress had appropriately authorized these particular actions. There doesn't seem to be any controversy over whether the Federal Government could have enacted these measures, just whether Congress had explicitly authorized them. Again, the answer to this question is not at all clear. The Court struck down vaccine mandates for one group of employees, but upheld them for another (healthcare workers). It was not a clear repudiation of overreach by Biden and could have gone either way.
And Biden had every right to try to get the Court to agree. That's what courts are for. You don't go to court if everyone agrees on the answer.
The intrusiveness of the mandates have to be at least commensurate with the dangers posed should those mandates not be put into effect. The burden is on the would be liberty obstructor. Nobody can quite come out and say it. Because today we’re obsessively measuring our words beyond their meekly power to convey what we mean.
I come here for Ann's post, I generally enjoy the comments as well but something seems to be slipping off the rails lately. At least with Achilles; twice today he misinterprets other comments (one of Robert Cook's in the Ukraine thread and here he does it to John Althouse Cohen). and then gets into spats with them about it. It's starting to look deliberate.
Spoiler alert: Judicial appointments will not be a major campaign issue in either 2022 or 2024. It’s going to be “Are you better off than you were on January 20, 2021?” That’s it.
One word: 'Workaround.'
Didn't these morons learn anything from Trump?
The liberal judges beat Trump over the head with his own words when ruling against him...
The premise that when people ask to borrow money they ask for more than they need in order to help the lender to agree to lend some of the sum requested. This goes on between friends and family members. I was clueless about this hack well beyond the time I should have been wise to it. Biden asked for more than he knew he was going to get.
If it wasn't for those pesky judges we would have gotten away with it. Just another sign of the rot in our in government. Politicians barely consider if the laws that the lobbyists write are constitutional and leave it up to the courts to sort it out. And that's how we are left with a court that is a quasi legislative branch run by a handful of alta-chachers that hold the most power in the country.
something seems to be slipping off the rails lately. At least with Achilles
i think, that there are Two of them (or, he doesn't lock his keyboard)
He frequently seems to argue Both sides of an argument
Why is it that every time a Democratic Administration falls on its face (which pretty much defines every Democratic Administration) the go-to lefty talking point is about how basic government -- i.e. everything a president is supposed to do -- is out of their control?
"MY PREDICTION ABOUT AMERICA SUDDENLY BECOMING “UNGOVERNABLE” IF OBAMA FAILED has certainly been borne out. Now Newsweek asks: Is the Presidency too big for one man? Nope. Just for the inexperienced guy with no management experience that we elected. As Jay Cost wrote a while back “America is not ungovernable. Her President has simply not been up to the job.” And see these thoughts from Arnold Kling, too.
Plus, as Ed Morrissey noted last fall: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”
Glenn Reynolds
November 17, 2010
Another handmade tale. Texas rejected the political congruence ("="), and sets an objective standard for viability. A woman and man have four choices, and self-defense through reconciliation. A society should not normalize the elective abortion ("sacrifice") of human life for social, redistributive, and fair weather causes.
The problem with testing is a high rate of false positive and negative results, which is why the CDC changed their guidance for testing. The problem with mandating non-sterilizing "vaccines" (with excess adverse events) is that there is no public good argument to force experimental medical treatment of healthy and immune people... persons. Aside from planned parent/hood in several Democrat districts, and denial, delay, and stigmatization of affordable, safe, effective early treatments and nutritional supplements, the virus(es) pose a threat comparable to seasonal viruses, and natural immunity is proving both more durable and robust keyed off more stable, less pathogenic, components (e.g. nucleocapsid). The masks serve as petri dishes, viral collectors, and social inhibitor with forward-looking collateral damage.
"The fact that only a third of the judges on our highest court were convinced that Biden's policy had been implemented in a legal way isn't completely out of Biden's control."
But if Trump hadn't colluded with the Russians and stolen the election in 2016, that 3 would have been at 5 (I don't think Kennedy would have resigned). The legal answer is just as likely to go one way as the other, but Trump illicitly snagged 3 Supreme Court nominations, and therefore none of the answers coming from this Court that don't include the liberal Justices can be considered correct.
Just kidding, only Trumpsters claim a presidential election was stolen... unless Biden was doing that in his news conference the other day.
Just kidding, only Trumpsters claim a presidential election was stolen ...
@Althouse, you aren’t getting Alzheimer’s are you? Because I distinctly recall hardcore Democrats telling me to my face that Gore would be President except that the US Supreme Court chose Bush. You’ve forgotten “selected not elected”? Closer in time we have the example of Stacey Abrams in Georgia.
I hardly understand the premise of the article. Have they not read the Constitution? The Court did not have to look at Constitutional issues because Biden tried to mandate through OSHA.If they had, I expect that the Court would greatly narrow the circumstances in which vaccine mandates are legal and a mandate at this point of the pandemic should not pass that hurdle.
Obama famously said that the Constitution is a negative charter that limits what government can do for the people. He's right! But today's Democrats and Marxist Progressives hate it! They think they can do whatever they thing is right. Sorry, but not sorry.
Separately, a vaccine only COVID strategy has proven to cost lives that would not have been lost if Biden had focused on therapeutics from the start and had the cognitive skills to understand that and overrule the corrupt CDC that has waited for Big Pharma to come up with a therapeutic before endorsing them. We need to clean house at the CDC/FDA/NIH. As for Biden, there is blood on his hands for his failed handling of COVID and it has nothing to do with the Courts. Let's go Brandon!
Saying not in Biden's control?
SOP for a lefty publication in covering the failings/failures of a Democrat.
gilbar said...
something seems to be slipping off the rails lately. At least with Achilles
i think, that there are Two of them (or, he doesn't lock his keyboard)
He frequently seems to argue Both sides of an argument
If you think there are only 2 sides to every argument or issue I could see the confusion my posts would cause.
The vaccine mandate and Texas abortion laws are not quite analogous.
The goal of the Texas law is to remove legal protections from abortion. As such, a strategy based on provoking favorable court rulings is necessary, and if they fail, you have done all you can do.
The goal of the vaccine mandate was to "shut down the virus." If you promise that, and your keystone strategy is to win a court ruling yo are unlikely to prevail on, then you either needed a Plan B or you promised something you knew was out of your control.
Maybe the Constitution got in the way.
Maybe his crew decided better, as Joementia mouthed aloud, to put it in motion and get a lot of what they wanted before courts were able to weigh in.
Just a variation on process as punishment.
Achilles said...
The vaccine mandates areas popular as cholera.
--
No worries. PhiDerna are working on MRNA installation of cholera inducing lipid nanoparticles on an accelerated timeline and dissloved control group.
"Obama famously said that the Constitution is a negative charter that limits what government can do for the people. He's right! But today's Democrats and Marxist Progressives hate it! They think they can do whatever they thing [think] is right. Sorry, but not sorry."
WE SAY, Government can't do X unless X is expressly authorized.
THEY SAY, Government can do X unless X is expressly prohibited.
Our position conforms to the Framers' default setting. 10th Amendment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIl57cchRqs&t=97s
Stacey Abrams would like a word about stolen elections, please.
“The vaccine-mandate issue is a big loser for Republicans. They are walking into a trap and have deluded themselves into thinking they are winning. Biden is intentionally being aggressive on the issue to goad Republicans into fighting back.”
I don’t think that you understand what is going on. First, and foremost, the vaccines don’t work for what they were sold for - all they do is reduce the severity of the disease, which for a majority of the population is not worth the risk of the vaccine. I calculated the other day (from CDC numbers) that it was some 4,000x more likely to kill you if you were >=85 than 5-12.
July was the pivotal month. First, the P Town Superspreader event showed that the vaccines don’t do much of a job at preventing spread of the virus, given the high number of breakthrough cases. Second, the Delta variant pushed out the previous variants, shooting from 10% to over 90% during that one month. Delta is about twice as infectious as the ancestral variant, which results in an increase in the Herd Immunity Threshold from maybe 60% to 80%. That means that we could only reach herd immunity or over 80% of the population could not spread the virus. But, of course, with all of the breakthrough cases in those vaccinated, that means that we cannot include them in the 80% (now probably 90% with Omicron).
So, what’s the purpose of requiring vaccinations?
You can’t logically credibly answer that question, because there isn’t a credible answer to that question.
Making things worse, it has rapidly become clear that the vaccines have side effects. Some have been fatal. It is likely that more people in the 5-40 demographic are dying from side effects to the vaccines than from the virus. Probably a lot more likely. Maybe massively more. Meanwhile, Omicron flattened the curve on total deaths per day, while the number of cases exploded.
Then we get into the economic side effects of the vaccine mandates. Store shelves are getting bare. We are very quickly entering a time of food scarcity in this country, all a direct result of stupid policies on the part of the FJB Administration, and the worst being your sacred vaccine mandate. For example, truck drivers, who sit in their cabs alone, or with their spouse, all day, aren’t driving because they don't want to risk the vaccines. The drivers of the trucks that would normally be bringing food to grocery stores, etc. Meanwhile, some of our most valuable men ERs of the military are being thrown out because they too are more vulnerable to the vaccines, than to the virus. Etc.
Why do you think that opposing the idiotic vaccine mandates is going to hurt those who oppose such?
Achilles is a transcendental Blogger.
Achilles:
It's no longer classified, is it? Did they tell you?
Willard:
They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.
Achilles:
Are my methods unsound?
Willard:
I don't see any method at all, sir.
Achilles:
I expected someone like you. What did you expect? Are you an assassin?
Willard:
I'm a soldier.
Achilles:
You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.
“ But if Trump hadn't colluded with the Russians and stolen the election in 2016, that 3 would have been at 5”
Laughable in this venue (we know better), which is presumably why you said that. More accurately, you probably should have said that “if the Crooked Hillary campaign had been more effective in using the FBI to help her steal the election with her Russian Collusion hoax, there would have been 5”.
So, what’s the purpose of requiring vaccinations?
Same as the purpose of requiring face diapers.
I'd say they deliberately overreached well-known law
On this, I'd blame SCOTUS and some recent cases decided against the States on the basis they didn't have standing. I certainly don't follow the law like the host and most here, but I saw a few cases that seemed neither a person nor a state could gain standing to protest a law. I think Texas then wrote a law that took advantage of these rulings. I'm not sure why that would be called "overreach".
"On this, I'd blame SCOTUS and some recent cases decided against the States on the basis they didn't have standing. I certainly don't follow the law like the host and most here, but I saw a few cases that seemed neither a person nor a state could gain standing to protest a law. I think Texas then wrote a law that took advantage of these rulings. I'm not sure why that would be called "overreach"."
They were overreaching the law on abortion rights, and they tried to shield themselves from judicial review of their work by engineering the procedure so that no one would have standing. That's an effort to disempower the Court, but it has no effect on whether the law itself is unconstitutional, which it obviously is under the current doctrine.
Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won’t* get blocked by courts!
John Althouse-Cohen makes the fundamental mistake of assuming Biden and his "legal team" aren't Democrats. Results from the most recent Rasmussen poll are illuminating:
Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.
Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
People who wonder whether Biden supporters are National Socialists should stop wondering and start arming themselves.
What the FJB Administration should have legally and morally done is look at the law, as well as the Constitution, and determine what can be done legally. If there was something that the Constitution allowed, but not the laws, then request that Congress pass laws that would allow such. And, if the laws would allow it, but not the regulations, then go through required APA Notice and Comment, and change the regulations.
But that isn’t what the FJB Administration did. He announced what he wanted to do, and his minions rushed to do his bidding, regardless of existing Constitutional, legal, and regulatory permissibility. This was not the moral way to address the problem. We didn’t elect him king, but rather chief executive of one of the three equal branches of our constitutional republic. His job is not to legislate, but to faithfully execute the laws on the books.
This is a natural outgrowth of the leftist LawFare movement that brought us so much grief when waged at Trump while President. Key to this is the belief that laws are malleable, and can mean what you want them to mean, and what is important is control of the decision making in what and how laws are enforced, and against whom. It is evil. And part of that is because there is no constraints placed on those making these decisions. If they interpret and enforce the laws for their own benefit, and against their enemies, it is by right of having the power (and in the DOJ/FBI under Trump, when waged against him, they didn’t even have the legitimacy of having won the election).
they don't want to do that, that's why they stole the election in those rotten boroughs, that's why they are letting the criminals (and terrorists out) and locking citizens in, the Court imposed a muzzle on health care workers, and now the airline industry, they purge the military and police who believe in the constitution, they pursue those like henry cuellar who speak out against the invasion by 60 countries on our border,
You have to listen closely to a Biden rambling speech to catch all the whoppers.
John Althouse Cohen must have been listening closely (a nasty job but someone has to do it with a Biden speech). I now learn that Joe Biden "taught constitutional law for several decades". Dang me. I thought Joe was working at his day job in Congress all that time.
Obama was credited as a "constitutional law professor" for his brief stint as an adjunct law professor teaching a course on election law. Hardly makes him a con law professor in the traditional sense, but it was good enough for the wokerati.
"A year ago, Biden unveiled a 200-page plan to defeat covid. He has struggled to deliver on some key promises" (WaPo).
Ok- a 200 page plan is the first mistake. Biden promising to stop the virus is the second mistake. In short, the headline should have been- "Biden failed to deliver on his promise", because the only key promise he made was to stop the virus. Now, I don't blame him for that failure- I knew he wouldn't be able to deliver on it when he first made it- no one could. But, WaPo, don't blow smoke up my ass about how Biden only partially failed in what he promised.
And would the implementation of the vaccine mandate have served Biden's interests? Isn't he better off with it failing?
Nope. Because Omicron is going to flame out anyway, and Biden* won't be able to claim any credit for it, because his* policies were rightly and properly mostly rejected by the courts
All the Democrats will be left with is the fact that all three left wing "Justices" voted to allow the federal Gov't to violate people's "bodily integrity".
Which means whining abotu Roe being dumped is going to get slammed back in their faces
gspencer said...
...
WE SAY, Government can't do X unless X is expressly authorized.
THEY SAY, Government can do X unless X is expressly prohibited.
Reminds me of what the difference used to be between the Army and the Navy
Army- if the rules don't say you can do it, you can't.
Navy- If the rules don't say you can't do it, you can.
But that applies to individual decisions within the organization. The second way is much more flexible and allows for more innovation.
With government- the first way preserves freedom. The second way leads to dictatorship.
Boundaries, fences, rules, there's always pressure to change or move them in one direction or another. Chesterton's fence- before you remove it, you need to know why it's there. Is it necessary? Does removing it cause harm? How does it change things? Are the changes desirable? The world isn't static.
And Gerda Sprinchorn said...
The vaccine-mandate issue is a big loser for Republicans. They are walking into a trap and have deluded themselves into thinking they are winning. Are they? Let us take a look at recent polls. Apparently a majority of Democrats think I should be locked up in a concentration camp because I refuse to be vaccinated against a virus that likely won't kill me. And another question that wasn't addressed in that poll but has been in others. Why do Democrats feel that way? It's easy to understand when you discover that other polls reveal- over half the Democrats/Liberals think there's a 1 in 3 chance you'll DIE, hear me, YOU'LL DIE! if you contract covid. They believe I should be locked up in a concentration camp because they're woefully ignorant. Or is it willfully ignorant? Less intelligent or more misinformed? Doesn't matter- they're policy decisions are based on falsehoods.
Prof. A: your cynicism is off the charts here. You seem to be arguing that our elected officials spend their energy and time creating must-fail situations that will --get this-- consume endless resource and never end, thus justifying their continued employment and election, or at the very least giving them a fine excuse for not having done anything useful.
I'm simply shocked.
Quaestor said...
People who wonder whether Biden supporters are National Socialists should stop wondering and start arming themselves.
Arming yourself doesn't do any good unless you routinely practice to get yourself better, and find people to team up with for when the SHTF
gspencer said...
...
WE SAY, Government can't do X unless X is expressly authorized.
THEY SAY, Government can do X unless X is expressly prohibited.
The US Constitution is one of limited, enumerated, powers. So what we say is:
The Federal Government can't do X unless X is expressly authorized
The State governments can do X unless X is expressly prohibited
What the Left says is "whichever parts of whichever governments we control are unlimited in their powers, and nothing controlled by the other side ever has any legitimate power"
But that's because the Left are unprincipled scum
Left Bank of the Charles said...
The current doctrine is no longer current, unless the Five have become the Four (Kavanaugh did vote with Roberts in the vaccine cases, so there is that hope).
Kavanaugh voted with Roberts that health care workers do not have a liberty interest in keeping teh government from violating their bodily integrity.
So you can kiss Roe and Casey goodbye.
In its short existence, the workplace vaccine mandate likely saved thousands or tens of thousands of lives.
What the fuck are you smoking? The US is averaging 2 - 3 thousand deaths with Covid a day. The people who wanted the jabs got them, the people who didn't were saying FOAD. Are you one of those delusional fruitcakes who "thinks" that Covid kills 1/3 of the people it infects?
You could argue for "hundreds" of lives. In a country where ~4 million die every year, the effect of the Biden* mandates was negligible.
But you can be pretty damn sure that every person subject to those mandates will be voting against the Dems this year.
The mandate for health care workers continues to do so. The Biden administration has now turned to a testing and masking strategy. I’m feeling confident enough to schedule a Florida vacation for April.
IOW, even you know everything your side is saying on the subject is bullshit.
Covid's going to go down in a couple weeks because that what flu cases do. Nothing Biden* did, or tried to do, will make any difference in that
Regarding "Mask Harder" You do understand that a flu virus is shaped differently than a coronavirus, which is covered by spikes like a burdock, and that experiments have shown that surgical masks, like the ones they sell in 50 packs at the drug store, stop aerosolized coronaviruses, but not flu viruses. Cloth masks are all but worthless, but a different thing.
Or is that too complicated for you.
I now learn that Joe Biden "taught constitutional law for several decades."
Yes and no. He co-taught a weekly seminar focused on issues related to constitutional law that met Saturday mornings at Widner University's school of law. More details here.
once upon a time : there was slavery upon this great land - and there was laws against slaves running away to be free !
there were creatures that would chase after those fleeing and laws would demand that these creatures be afforded all freedom to do their deed.
and there were other two legged creatures that would cheer on the chasers after those fleeing.
-------
so I ask John Althouse Cohen - who are you? the fleeing slave -or- the chaser -or- the cheerer ?
tim in Vermont @ 3:52: "...experiments have shown that surgical masks, like the ones they sell in 50 packs at the drug store, stop aerosolized coronaviruses, but not flu viruses...."
Citation please.
Seriously: I would be very interested to get some knowledge on this. It was my understanding that an N95 mask (much finer-mesh than a surgical mask) still had pore size far bigger than the Wu Flu viral particle size: the interaction was "like a mosquito encountering a chain link fence" or close to it. Maybe that's wrong; or maybe there are electrostatic or other forces at work that would restrict viral passage. Maybe your "experiments" reference can shed light on this.
Thanks in advance.
“Regarding "Mask Harder" You do understand that a flu virus is shaped differently than a coronavirus, which is covered by spikes like a burdock, and that experiments have shown that surgical masks, like the ones they sell in 50 packs at the drug store, stop aerosolized coronaviruses, but not flu viruses. Cloth masks are all but worthless, but a different thing.”
I agree with Owen. A cite is necessary. We do know that the COVID-19 aerosolized virons are better than an order of magnitude smaller than the holes in an N95 mask. Where are you finding the research showing that level of mask, or even standard surgical masks, effective against aerosol SARS-CoV-2 virons?
The fact that "liberal" justices/judges often come to different decisions from "conservative" ones, does not imbue confidence in the law as a rational, rule-based undertaking.
"We need to clean house at the CDC/FDA/NIH"
Absolutely not. They need to be burnt to the ground, and then the ground someone with salt afterward.
And only then, if we decide that some of their purported former functions really are worthwhile AND is constitutional for the federal government to do so, we can constant new agencies to carry out those functions, with the further stipulation that no one employed by the previous institutions may be part of the new ones.
Yes, we will undoubtedly lose the services of some very capable people, but the spectacle of ridding ourselves of these corrupt agencies in such a visible fashion would be a worthwhile trade-off.
Not sure the shape is involved in escape around the sides.
But if those cheapo masks are proven to stop sars2, no need for repeated big pharma vax of questionable, waning efficacy and ignored safety signals.
Experiments might be referring to the Geshundheit II(I?) machine. I kid you not.
It must be frustrating for the Biden people. When they worked for BO, they could get away with anything, and have the courts stop Trump from undoing it.
I assumed that Biden implemented his vaxx mandates expecting them to be overturned so that he'd have an excuse for not "shutting down Covid". That way he can blame it all on those darned Republican governors, never mind that up until the day he announced the mandates he was against them.
It was kind of amazing, though, watching the left-wing talking heads go from declaring Covid mandates a conspiracy one day, to an obvious thing that only people who were against vaccines and wanted Granny to die would oppose.
But really, doesn't the concerted embargo against any early treatment modality give pause to the mask-hole lock-step jabber-walkies?
Noooooooo!!!
“Not sure the shape is involved in escape around the sides.
But if those cheapo masks are proven to stop sars2, no need for repeated big pharma vax of questionable, waning efficacy and ignored safety signals.”
Huh?
No. That isn’t why the virus escapes around the sides. That is because the mask isn’t well fitted (and taped) to their face. There is ZERO evidence that cheap masks do anything except possibly to force people wearing them to rebreathe the viruses and bacteria that they exhaled. Surgical and N95 masks (if properly fitted, etc) probably do prevent some droplet dispersal (but COVID-19 spreads primarily by aerosols - droplet dispersion is primarily when the carriers are symptomatic, and coughing).
What that other poster was trying to say (I think) was that the tests of aerosolized influenza virons showing that masks aren’t effective aren’t valid because the shape of the two virons are different, and the spikes on the SARS-CoV-2 may reduce the transmission of those virons through N95 masks. My response was that that effect is probably minimal, since the size of the holes are better than an order of magnitude (I.e. x10) times as large, and thus don’t pose much of a barrier, even with the SARS-2 coronavirus shape.
Well, Bruce..I agree in both instances. I thought obvious, but..
Coronavirus picture from the CDC
https://phil.cdc.gov//PHIL_Images/23311/23311_lores.jpg
Picture of flu virus from the CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/images/h1n1/3D_Influenza/3D_Influenza_black_no_key_full_lrg2.jpg
Picture of RSV virus
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2020/aspc-phac/HP3-1-46-4-eng.pdf
And just for comparison- a non-respiratory virus- measles
https://phil.cdc.gov//PHIL_Images/21074/21074_lores.jpg
Now tell me, how does one get caught more easily by a mask then another?
ckmishn said...
I assumed that Biden implemented his vaxx mandates expecting them to be overturned so that he'd have an excuse for not "shutting down Covid". That way he can blame it all on those darned Republican governors, never mind that up until the day he announced the mandates he was against them.
No, they were convinced the mandates would be approved. And they were also (almost assuredly correctly) convinced that Covid cases will be dropping a lot starting in a couple of weeks.
And then they would have claimed that their mandates stoped Covid
Instead, it's going to go down without the mandates, and the Left will look stupid, again
Post a Comment