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Friday, December 3, 2021

THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM?

BY PAUL MIRENGOFF IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, CORONAVIRUS

The lead headline in today’s Washington Post (paper edition) reads “Societal function drove CDC’s call to cut isolation time.” The headline to the internet version of the story is even more explicit: “New CDC guidelines were spurred by worries omicron surge could lead to breakdown in essential services.”

The recommended isolation time no longer is ten days. It is now five. Based on comments by a “senior official,” the Post reports that the reduction “was driven largely by the concern that essential services might be hobbled amid one of the worst infection surges of the pandemic.”

Administration health officials “worried the sheer volume of infections could mean that tens of thousands of police, firefighters, grocery workers and other essential workers would be out of work, making it challenging to keep society functioning, even though many of the infections would be mild or produce no symptoms.”

In other words, officials balanced the health benefits of a ten-day quarantine against its societal costs (or at least some of them), taking into account that the new covid variant isn’t all that dangerous.

This shouldn’t be front-page news. It should be (and should have been) standard policymaking practice.

The Post notes that the administration’s decision, a no-brainer as I see it, is being criticized by some public health experts and union leaders. They say it is based more on economic, than on health, considerations.

No. It’s based on a balancing of the two sets of concerns. There’s no other rational way to approach the issue.

Even from a purely health point of view, the reduction in isolation time shouldn’t be that disturbing. As noted, the new variant isn’t anywhere near as threatening as its predecessors. In addition, people are most infectious in the one to two days before they develop symptoms and the two to three days thereafter. And most people don’t get tested until they start to develop symptoms.

Therefore, the risk of transmission is greatly reduced by the time five days have elapsed from a positive test. To be sure, the risk isn’t zero. Thus, if health (i.e. concern about the direct health effects of the virus) were the only consideration, isolation for ten days, and possibly more, would be the way to go. However, it would be irrational to make this the only consideration.

Rochelle Walensky cited another consideration that may have factored into the thinking behind the change in isolation policy. She said the public won’t tolerate 10 days of isolation at this stage of the pandemic.

I think that’s true, and that “the public” is right. However, if this had been a significant consideration, I doubt the administration would have changed its isolation policy. Many people would have adhered to the ten-day isolation period, even as the public at large began to disregard it.

The policy changed because the administration doesn’t want workers to be out of commission that long just because they tested positive to a virus that isn’t all that threatening. It understands that ten-day absences from work, and not just among “essential workers,” are bad for the country.

The administration is right. Its revision offers hope that 2022 will be the year in which we learn more rationally to live with covid.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/the-beginning-of-wisdom.php

HOW MUCH LOWER CAN HIGHER EDUCATION SINK?

BY STEVEN HAYWARD IN HIGHER EDUCATION

It is hard to say, but likely a lot lower still.

I recently came across this excellent description of the problem:

All over the United States one finds colleges in trouble. From reading the papers one would think these troubles are purely financial; they are that too, of course, but at times the financial troubles get undue attention simply because they are easier to discuss than that sickness of soul which afflicts what used to be called “higher education” in America today.
That sickness in the case of the colleges consists of not knowing what they are doing. To be slightly less imprecise: colleges are supposed to make their students liberally educated, but the rationale for liberal education has been lost, or at least misplaced. I once taught at a college whose president would address the incoming freshmen at the beginning of each academic year. Year after year he would tell the students that one was not liberally educated unless one had read Pericles’s funeral oration. Frankly, I doubt that he even knew it was written by Thucydides, but that is beside the point, I suppose. On one such occasion one of the younger professors asked “Why?” and the president had no answer. A riddle: who was worse, the college president who knew there were reasons but could not give any, or that young professor, soon, I imagine, to become a radical activist, who thought there were no reasons?

This observation comes from the late professor of political philosophy Werner Dannhauser, in . . . 1975. Sigh.

Dannahauser noted the early germ of the full-blown mania of our time:

As for the explicit discussion of relations between men and women, it is these days so highly charged as to be virtually impossible. To raise the question, for example, of the difference between the sexes, and the difference that difference might make, is to risk being hissed off the platform. So much for the philosophic enterprise; so much for a subject whose splendors and miseries have occupied human beings for millennia.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/how-much-lower-can-higher-education-sink.php

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Arctic Sea Freezes Early, Trapping 18 Ships in Ice Near Russia

Arctic Sea Freezes Early, Trapping 18 Ships in Ice Near Russia

Predictions of global warming not working out as promised.

Posted by Leslie Eastman

Fresh off of a post-climate-conference high, MSNBC decided to dedicate a post to all the iconic landmarks around the world that could be lost due to global warming.

These include Easter Island and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

As global temperature continues to rise, bringing with it a slew of freak effects from flooding and drought to wildfires and heatwaves, many of the world’s most stunning landmarks are under threat. We take a look at the incredible ecosystems, national parks and cherished places hanging in the balance.

Yet there is more evidence that what is occurring is related to solar energy output than SUV’s. I have noted before, the Sun has likely entered into the modern Grand Solar Minimum (2020–2053) of sunspot activity. This means that there will be a significant reduction of solar magnetic field and activity like during Maunder minimum leading to a noticeable reduction of terrestrial temperature.

This theory better aligns with the record-breaking cold in the Antarctic as well as the early freeze in the Arctic that just stranded 18 ships.

At least 18 ships are stuck in Arctic sea ice off the coast of Russia after an unexpected early freeze took shipping companies by surprise. Some could be stranded for months as they wait for icebreakers to reach them.
In recent years warmer weather triggered by climate change has allowed ships to cross parts of Russia’s northern sea route in November without the help of icebreakers. Ship owners had assumed this month would be no different.
However, ice up to 30cm thick has already formed across most of the Laptev Sea and East Siberian seas, according to the Barents Sea Observer, a Norwegian news site.
The plight of the ships, which are stuck in five different locations, will raise concerns in Moscow, where the Kremlin has invested heavily in the northern sea route as climate change opens up the Europe to Asia shipping passage.

On the other hand, there is new evidence that the Arctic has been warming, not because of carbon dioxide, but because of a process called “Atlantification”.

The new research highlights the connection between the North Atlantic and Arctic between Greenland and Svalbard, a region known was Fram Strait, where warmer, saltier water from the south has been steadily infiltrating northern waters.
“Pinpointing the exact timing of the onset of Atlantification in the Arctic can give us some important clues as to the exact driving mechanisms behind this phenomenon,” study co-lead author Francesco Muschitiello told UPI in an email.
A more precise Arctic warming timeline will also allow scientists to compare the history of climate change in the Arctic to changes in volcanism, solar activity, freshwater, greenhouse gases, aerosols and more.

Clearly “experts” are baffled by climate. Therefore, there should be no rush to impose remedies that likely will not work, yet have the potential to harm people economically, lower the standard of living, and line the pockets of bureaucrats.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/11/arctic-sea-freezes-early-trapping-18-ships-in-ice-near-russia/

Black Lives Matter launches Christmas campaign against 'white-supremacist capitalism'

Black Lives Matter launches Christmas campaign against 'white-supremacist capitalism'

Twitter tirade follows attack on Thanksgiving as a holiday celebrated on "stolen lands" with "dry turkey."

By Madeleine Hubbard

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is attacking two of America's most revered holidays, accusing Americans of "eating dry turkey and overcooked stuffing on stolen land" on Thanksgiving and promoting "white-supremacist capitalism" with Christmas.

The official Twitter account of the self-described "collective of liberators" posted, "YOU ARE ON STOLEN LAND" (original emphasis), with the subheading "Colonization never ended, it just became normalized."

BLM posted a series of Tweets on Thanksgiving about its ideology.

For example, one tweet said, "This #Thanksgiving we send our deepest love to families whose loved ones were stolen by state-sanctioned violence and white-supremacy.

May we offer a special prayer for those who will forever have an #EmptySeatAtTheTable."

"Colonization never ended," another tweet from the social justice organization stated. "It just became normalized. This nation was built on the stolen land of Indigenous people and the stolen labor and lives of our African Ancestors." The tweet directed users to a website showing where native tribes once lived across the world.

The day after Thanksgiving, BLM put up its virtual Christmas decoration, a Black Xmas profile picture.

Elaborating on Black Xmas, BLM posted Saturday: "For 7 years #BlackLivesMatter has been drawing connections between white-supremacist-capitalism & police violence with our #BlackXmas campaign." The tweet included a link to an article in the Los Angeles Sentinel about Black Xmas by Dr. Melina Abdullah, a professor of pan-African studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and a "womanist scholar-activist."

In her article, Abdullah began by lamenting the Rittenhouse verdict. She then explained her vision for the future. "Now is when we must renew our commitment to struggle — not simply against white-supremacist-capitalism, but towards imagining and building new visions for the world and for Black people," Abdullah wrote.

For seven years, Black Lives Matter has encouraged people to "dream of a Black Xmas," according to Abdullah. This means "#BuildBlack (invest in Black-led, Black-serving organizations), #BuyBlack (spend exclusively with Black-owned businesses from Black Friday through New Year), and #BankBlack (move our money from white corporate banks to Black-owned ones).

"#BlackXmas is about being self-determined and felling existing structures by building new, and more viable, beneficial ones ... in the names of our mightiest and most righteous warrior Ancestors, in the names of those stolen by police violence, in honor of our community, and as a commitment to the generations to come."

Last week, Just the News reported that BLM activist Vaun Mayes of Wisconsin came under fire for saying that the Waukesha Christmas parade attack "sounds like the revolution has started."

Is The Omicron Variant The 'Midterm Election Variant'?

Is The Omicron Variant The 'Midterm Election Variant'?

BY MATT MARGOLIS

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who previously served as White House physician under Barack Obama and Donald Trump, has a disturbing theory about the Omicron variant.

On Saturday, Jackson suggested that Democrats will use the Omicron variant to push for universal mail-in voting for the 2022 midterm elections and save their party from an electoral bloodbath next year.

“Here comes the MEV – the Midterm Election Variant!” Jackson tweeted. “They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election – but we’re not going to let them!”

Reaction to the Omicron variant has been mixed. Some countries, including the United States, have announced travel bans with several African countries (where the variant was first discovered), citing its apparent high level of transmissibility for the decision.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has already declared a state of emergency for New York, even though there are no confirmed cases in the country, let alone her state, yet.

At least one doctor in South Africa has reported that the symptoms of the variant are mild but doctors have cautioned that we don’t know yet how the new variant will affect the elderly, who have typically been the group most at risk from COVID.

As for Jackson’s theory, while some have mocked him on Twitter, others think he’s on to something. Last year, COVID led to many changes in how we do elections, including several states and areas implementing universal mail-in voting—a very insecure voting method. While it seems many people are anxious to return to normal, Democrats have been hoping to make various COVID-era changes in voting permanent. So far, those efforts have failed, and I wouldn’t put it past them to use Omicron, or another variant that comes after it, as a pretext for implementing universal mail-in voting.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/11/28/is-the-omicron-variant-the-midterm-election-variant-n1537085?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&bcid=15803c7fc8c68b6fd1f0a5e7f4b59fc49df45d48335d4339ad60f7b0a0c7404d&recip=28668535

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Waukesha killer Darrell Brooks’ enablers

Waukesha killer Darrell Brooks’ enablers

Not the perpetrator for which the left was hoping. Despite the MSM’s accomplished and accustomed lying, Brooks is a tough customer for them to make into a saint. If they can’t do that, they’ll try to make sure he is forgotten as quickly as possible, much like James Hodgkinson, the left-wing activist would-be killer of Steve Scalise and other Republican Congress members.

After all, Brooks is a black mass murderer (I thought they didn’t exist?) and quite the racist, as well. They’re also attacking the messenger:

For the past 15 months, our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the press have screamed that Kyle Rittenhouse is a “white supremacist” for shooting three white men who were attacking him. Now those same journos are trying to suppress information about a black supremacist who ran over dozens of people at a Christmas parade in Wisconsin. The journos and other libs can’t use this mass murder for their own political purposes, so they’re blaming Andy Ngo for revealing facts about the killer’s past that they’d rather you didn’t know.

Facts such as these:

More at this link.The post about running people over in the street is actually a quote from some Facebook posts by a person who turned out to be a St. Paul, Minnesota policeman, concerning the demonstrations there in which leftist activists walked on the highway and put themselves at risk. You can find a story about that here; suffice to say that the officer was correctly relieved of his duties as a result of posts that seemed to be encouraging people to run them over.

So you have someone like Darrell Brooks, a criminal and drug abuser for most of his adult life, getting the idea – fanned by media and leftist rhetoric, and by people like that officer – that white people are out to get black people. Not only that, but the current rhetoric even implicates white children as irredeemably tainted with the original sin of racism against blacks, in a society saturated with such hatred.

Add to that mix an image that clearly fired up Brooks’ imagination – that of mowing people down with a car. What power! And no need even for something like a firearm. Even felons can legally possess cars, and they make excellent weapons. Three weeks ago Brooks had tried out the method on his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend (identified here as the mother of his child), and apparently he enjoyed the experience enough to repeat it on a large crowd.

Of course there’s also the question of why this man was not already in prison for a long, long time. The answer lies in policies put in place by enablers such as leftist DA John Chisholm of Milwaukee (Waukesha is basically a Milwaukee suburb):

“When we pay too little attention to the underlying causes and characteristics of individuals in the criminal justice system, we make significant errors, which can lead to greater problems,” Milwaukee County district attorney John Chisholm wrote in a 2019 paper about criminal justice reform.
That was before Chisholm conceded Monday that he had set an “inappropriately low” bail amount earlier this month when Darrell Edward Brooks Jr., the lead suspect in Sunday’s deadly car rampage in Waukesha, Wis., was arrested for domestic abuse and eluding police. Chisholm has been a leading figure among “progressive prosecutors,” leftwing lawmen who favor diversionary programs and community-building to locking up criminal defendants. His handling of the Brooks case is already sparking blowback to their growing influence over the justice system, much of which has been boosted by financial contributions from the leftwing billionaire George Soros.
Chisholm, who was elected in 2007, supports deferrals for some misdemeanors and “low-level” felonies in order to cut down on incarcerations. And he’s taken credit for inspiring a new wave of prosecutors in cities like San Francisco, St. Louis, and Philadelphia who have enacted similar reforms. Chisholm congratulated San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin following his election in 2019, and the pair spoke at a forum earlier this year on the status of the progressive prosecutor movement.

So this guy Chisholm is one of the earliest of the “reformers” in this movement. He apparently also knew and accepted that some people would get killed as a result of his policies:

“Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into [a] treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody?” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2007. “You bet. Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.”

Collateral damage, he seems to be saying.

It would not have been rocket science to have predicted that Darrell Brooks might be a good candidate for being one of those individuals who would “go out and kill somebody.” He seems to have tried his best with his ex, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy his rage.

Chisholm said Monday he is reviewing the bail decision for the earlier case, saying it was not high enough for a violent crime.
Brooks’s release this month is not the first time he has been freed after prosecutors lowered his bail. ..
Court records show that Brooks has two open felony cases in Milwaukee County, both of which involve violent crimes. One is the domestic abuse incident, which occurred Nov. 2. The other dates to July 2020, when Brooks had a fist fight with his nephew over an old cell phone at his grandmother’s house. Brooks fired a 9mm Beretta at his nephew’s car as he drove away from the house. He was arrested with the gun and a small amount of meth.

It’s a perfect storm of leftist rhetoric and policy that led to an obviously violent and angry man being let out time and time again to commit acts of violence against family and then ultimately against strangers who were probably targeted because of his racial animus.

Brooks may finally end up paying a significant price for a crime. But will the press and Chisholm ever pay a price for their enabling?

https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/11/23/waukesha-killer-darrell-brooks-enablers/

Twitter reaction to my Deep State piece shows Dems are docile to Big Government

Twitter reaction to my Deep State piece shows Dems are docile to Big Government

Twitter is the gold standard for cutting-edge political commentary, at least according to Twitter aficionados. Roughly 20 percent of American adults use Twitter, though the large majority of tweets come from only 10 percent of the users. Because Twitter is tilted left with far more Democrats than Republicans online, it provides an excellent weather vane for progressive sentiment.

On Tuesday, I ambled online after breakfast and saw that “Deep State” was a Twitter trending topic. I tossed out my two cents: “Don’t forget how NYTimes & many liberals heaped praise on the Deep State in 2019 for its role in the first Trump impeachment.” I attached a link to my 2019 USA Today article headlined “As the deep state attacks Trump to rave media reviews, don’t forget its dark side.”

Alas, I quickly learned that I was a hopeless reactionary. Apparently, President Donald Trump condemning the Deep State proves it doesn’t exist. And since a Democrat now occupies the White House, any mention of the Deep State is a sin against the political Holy Ghost. DoinTimeOnEarth responded to my tweet: “Why don’t you shut up & do some good instead of spreading lies?”

Twitter is a fount of wisdom because so many of its users are omniscient. Someone with the Twitter name “What?” howled: “USATODAY has gone bat-s – – t crazy. . . . And no, I am not going to read a bunch of jackass bulls – – t before re-tweeting with this comment.” My story had 23 links to news stories, analyses and government reports on the Deep State scandals, including Bush-era torture, National Security Agency misdeeds, drone killings of innocent foreigners and other abuses of power and secrecy. It included links to three New York Times articles confirming the Deep State’s role in spurring Trump’s first impeachment.

Twitter user Nom of the Plume huffed: “Liberals don’t believe in the ‘deep state.’ It goes against our radical values of being sane and educated.” I replied: “So being a smug ‘educated’ liberal means believing federal agencies don’t pervasively violate the law & Constitution? When did gullibility become a badge of political sophistication?” My response failed to placate my critics. “Nom” commented: “No I won’t try to have a rational conversation with irrational people . . . You are extremists and terrorists.”

On Twitter, “likes” are the highest form of logic, and retweets are irrefutable truth. Some Twitter users disproved my articles by posting rows of laughing emoji. Others debunked my delusion with memes such as a photo of a screw next to a baseball. Some of the names of Twitter respondents reeked of piety. “Covfefe_au_lait is FULLY VAXXED+BOOSTER” sneered that “anyone who uses the phrase [Deep State] sounds ridiculous.”

For many Twitter zealots, any mention of the “Deep State” is sufficient proof of mental illness. Almost 40 people liked a reply declaring: “It does not exist. It is a construct of your collective imagination lead [sic] by a diseased mind.” NygrooveX smirked: “It must be ‘Deep State Day’ in Crazytown Today.” MindyLouAgain scoffed: “you are deranged.” Gerald Slaby summed up: “Don’t blame us [liberals] for your ignorance and insanity.” DocB counseled: “don’t forget to take your medication or you end up like this.” Twitter user antifashyst cackled: “Get professional help, Jimmy.”

Few if any of the hostile respondents clicked through to read that 2019 USA Today piece. PupperMum declared: “Please share examples. Should be easy.” You mean aside from the 20+ links in the first article? I replied to her by posting a link to an American Conservative article I wrote in February that detailed the FBI’s machinations with the Steele dossier (condemned by the Justice Department inspector general) and the CIA’s skulduggery bankrolling terrorist groups to fuel the Syrian civil war. That received zero responses from critics.

That Twitter throng symbolized how Democrats have become far more docile toward Big Government in recent years. In the 1970s, a Senate select committee chaired by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) courageously exposed vast abuses by the FBI COINTELPRO and CIA spying on US citizens. In 2014, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) valiantly defied the Obama White House to publish a Senate Intelligence Committee report exposing the CIA’s post-9/11 torture regime. But a 2018 Pew survey found that 77 percent of Democrats had a favorable view of the FBI and 63 percent approved of the CIA. I wondered how many of the folks enraged by my tweet had bought those votive candles to pray for former FBI chief and special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation failed to prove that Trump was a Russian tool.

Twitter bosses have sometimes gone overboard to keep users intellectually barefoot and pregnant. Prior to the 2020 election, Twitter blocked the sharing of New York Post articles on the damning information contained in Hunter Biden’s laptop and even locked The Post’s Twitter account. CEO Jack Dorsey admitted at a congressional hearing in March that Twitter’s treatment of The Post was a “total mistake.”

Perhaps Twitter has simply become confirmation of the historian Henry Adams’ observation a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Twitter exemplifies how herd confirmation is now a sufficient substitute for evidence — at least for many political activists. People consider themselves well-informed because they skimmed dozens of one-sentence tweets and 100 memes.

When law professor Glenn Reynolds canceled his popular Twitter account three years ago, he declared, “Twitter actually makes people meaner and less thoughtful. . . . If you set out to design a platform that would poison America’s discourse and its politics, you’d be hard pressed to come up with something more destructive than Twitter.”

Maybe because my sense of humor has always been a bit depraved, I still get a kick out of Twitter. I can tap on the site and quickly see the latest links and best quips from some of the sharpest political commentators I know. And if a Twitter mob heats up my office on a cold November morning, I would be remiss not to give them a hat tip.

James Bovard is the author of 10 books and a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors.

https://nypost.com/2021/11/26/twitter-reaction-to-my-deep-state-piece-shows-dems-are-docile-to-big-government/

BIDEN’S COVID SCORECARD IS WORSE THAN TRUMP’S

BIDEN’S COVID SCORECARD IS WORSE THAN TRUMP’S

BY PAUL MIRENGOFF IN CORONAVIRUS, DONALD TRUMP, JOE BIDEN

Joe Biden has ordered a ban on travel from eight African countries due to the emergence of the latest coronavirus variant. The countries from which Biden is cutting off travel are South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

When Donald Trump banned travel from China in the early days of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Biden called the move xenophobic. I suppose that makes Biden’s travel ban racist by similar reckoning.

Speaking of Trump, Biden, and covid, the Wall Street Journal points out that deaths in the U.S. from that virus since Biden was inaugurated exceed the number of deaths that had occurred when, during a 2020 campaign debate, Biden proclaimed: “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.” At the time Biden proposed this disqualifier from holding the presidency, the U.S. had recorded 220,000 covid deaths, according to the Journal. Since inauguration day, it has recorded 350,000. And counting.

The comparison isn’t “apples to apples.” When Biden made his statement during the debate, the pandemic had been raging in the U.S. for about six and a half months. It’s been about ten months since the sad day Biden became president.

On the other hand, we had no vaccine during almost the entirety of Trump’s presidency. We’ve had one — developed and distributed during Trump’s presidency — throughout the time Biden has occupied the Oval Office.

Furthermore, as the Journal reminds us, Biden promised to “shut down the virus, not the country,” and he claimed to have a plan to accomplish this. This was BS.

So was his statement that “if [Trump] had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the [220,000] people would still be alive.” Has any presidential candidate ever defamed his opponent so flagrantly on a matter of policy? If so, I don’t recall it.

Here’s another comparison between Trump and Biden on the pandemic — one that’s closer to “apples to apples.” During the debates, Biden slammed Trump’s performance by claiming that Europe had done much better in limiting covid deaths than the U.S. At the time, however, the number of deaths per capita in the U.S. was in line with four major European countries it made sense to compare us with — the UK, Spain, France, and Italy. Like the U.S., these nations had reliable data, large populations, and lots of foreign visitors before travel was restricted.

As Trump’s presidency drew to a close, per capita deaths from the virus in the U.S. were about at about the midpoint of per capita deaths in these countries — nearly identical to the UK, a little lower than Italy and Spain, somewhat higher than France.

What about now? Today, per capita deaths attributed to the virus are higher in the U.S. than in all four of the comparator nations. Currently, the U.S. has recorded 2,393 deaths per capita from the virus. France, Spain, the UK, and Italy come in at 1,814, 1,880, 2,113, and 2,213 respectively.

The U.S., therefore, has lost ground to these four countries in terms of covid deaths under Joe Biden. This, despite the fact that the U.S. (under Trump’s leadership) was considerably faster off the mark than France, Spain, and Italy in getting the vaccine approved and into arms. (The UK, free from EU constraints, was a little faster than the U.S.)

Personally, I don’t think presidents should be judged based, without more, on how many Americans die during a pandemic. But Joe Biden based much of his case for the presidency on precisely this criteria. In both debates with Donald Trump, he led with that case. His pitch was as effective as it was crude.

By Joe Biden’s crude metrics, he has failed abjectly in dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus, both in absolute terms and in comparison to Europe. By his rhetoric, Biden “should not remain as President of the United States of America.”

I’m glad the Wall Street Journal has called Biden out on this. Don’t expect to read about it elsewhere in traditional media.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/bidens-covid-scorecard-is-worse-than-trumps.php