The CDC Inadvertently Outs the Mask Cult This strange collection of secular zealots have zero scientific credibility. David Catron

https://spectator.org/cdc-mask-cult/

When the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that fully vaccinated people can safely participate in both indoor and outdoor activities without wearing face masks, it was good news for most Americans. In addition to a sense of vindication for those of us who object to post-vaccination masking, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s statement provided another much-needed service — it forced the metastasizing mask cult to reveal itself as a coalition of anti-science zealots and petty tyrants. A typical example of their collective response to the CDC guidance appeared in the Washington Post under the title, “The CDC shouldn’t have removed restrictions without requiring proof of vaccination.”

Its author, former Planned Parenthood CEO Leana S. Wen, is a proponent of vaccine passports for routine activities such as retail shopping, restaurant dining, going to the theater, and working in a fully staffed office. Aside from the constitutional and legal issues raised by the kind of government-issued passports Dr. Wen advocates, her views aren’t shared by most Americans. A recent Gallup survey found that a mere 40 percent support vaccine passports for restaurant dining, and only 45 percent favor them in the workplace. The only activities for which majorities supported such passports were airplane travel and attendance at large public gatherings such as concerts. Dr. Wen isn’t satisfied with such modest limitations:

The problem is this: You know what you’re doing, but you have no way to be confident of trusting everyone else. Let’s say you go the grocery store. It’s crowded and few people there are masked. Perhaps everyone is vaccinated, but perhaps not. What if you’re vaccinated but not fully protected because you’re immunocompromised? You can no longer count on CDC rules to help you keep safe. What if you don’t have child care, so you had to bring your kids along? They didn’t choose to remain unvaccinated — the shots aren’t available for them. Surely, it’s not fair to put them at risk.

First, as a practical matter, it’s impossible to know who is vaccinated and who is not. If vaccine passports are mandated, it will create a black market through which forgeries can be purchased.

Biden Scorning the Secret Formula of American Prosperity By Lawrence Kudlow

https://www.nysun.com/national/biden-scorning-the-secret-formula-of-american/91514/

Taxed to the max. In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. That famous quote, of course, is from Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. Among all the problems with the Biden administration’s policy, they even want to raise taxes on your death.

That’s a poke in Ben Franklin’s eye. Today’s column is not about Ben Franklin, though it’s worth noting that he, like many of the Founders, was an avid follower of the free market theories of Adam Smith, published in “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776.

Think about that (we can talk later about whether it’s a coincidence). The real point of this column is to press the question of why taxes matter. They do. A lot. And incentives matter. To quote Art Laffer many years ago: Tax something more, you get less of it. Something less, you’ll get more of it.

Why? Because in a free economy, which is certainly in line with our Founders’ legacy, we should reward success, not punish it. At the margin, if the extra hour worked, or the extra dollar invested, or the extra business risk taken, pays more after tax, that will propel an economy into prosperity.

More work, more investment, more risk, this is why America’s democracy and its founding principles have created the best economy in history. Taxes are not the only factor, but they are a big one. I would suggest five factors right at the top that are a useful intellectual model leading to prosperity.

Byron York’s Daily Memo: A disaster entirely of Biden’s making by Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent | | May 17, 2021 08:42 AM

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-a-disaster-entirely-of-bidens-making

A DISASTER ENTIRELY OF BIDEN’S MAKING. The more we learn about the true dimensions of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, the worse it is. Now, a new report says that in the last few months U.S. authorities have encountered illegal border crossers not just from Mexico, or the Northern Triangle countries, but from 160 nations around the globe. People are coming to Mexico from the most distant spots on the planet in order to cross illegally into the United States, confident that President Joe Biden will let them stay. And Biden is doing just that.

“More than 12,500 Ecuadoreans were encountered in March, up from 3,568 in January,” the New York Times reports. “Nearly 4,000 Brazilians and more than 3,500 Venezuelans were intercepted, up from just 300 and 284, respectively, in January. The numbers in coming months are expected to be higher.”

And then there are the migrants coming from India and Asia. “Some reported taking buses in their hometowns to a big city, like Mumbai,” reporter Miriam Jordan noted, “where they boarded planes to Dubai and then connected through Moscow, Paris and Madrid, finally flying to Mexico City. From there, they embarked on the two-day bus ride to reach the Mexico-U.S. border.” Aid workers report seeing migrants from everywhere — “Arabic, Haitian Creole, Hindi and Portuguese speakers,” among many others.

“Many of them are entering the United States through wide openings in the border wall near Yuma, Arizona, sparing them from the risky routes through remote desert regions,” the Times added. That would be the border wall that Democrats and their allies in the courts and media did everything they could to stop President Donald Trump from building. Now, the world is flooding in through gaps in the wall that Trump was able to build or strengthen.

Why are they coming? Because they have heard — correctly — that this moment presents a huge opportunity to enter the United States illegally without fear of being sent home. “While most of the migrants do not necessarily understand the intricacies of U.S. border policy, many said in interviews that they perceived a limited-time offer to enter the United States,” Jordan wrote. “Friends and family members already in the country, along with smugglers eager to cash in, have assured them that they will not be turned away — and this is proving to be true. ‘What we’re hearing back home is that the new president is facilitating entry, and there is demand for labor,’ said Rodrigo Neto, who came from Brazil.”

Texas reports zero COVID deaths 2 months after Biden slammed ‘Neanderthal thinking’ It marked the first time the Lone Star State reported no coronavirus deaths in about 14 months By Megan Henney

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-covid-deaths-biden-mask-mandate

Texas reported zero deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday, just two months after Gov. Greg Abbott drew heat from the White House for rolling back business restrictions and lifting the state’s mask mandate. 

It marked the first time the Lone Star State reported no coronavirus deaths in about 14 months, according to state health data. Abbott said the case numbers reported on Sunday – 388 – were the lowest in more than 13 months, while the number of hospitalizations was the lowest in 11 months. 

Greg Abbott
@GregAbbott_TX
Today Texas reported: * 0 Covid related deaths–the only time that’s happened since data was tracked in March, 2020. * the fewest Covid cases in over 13 months * the lowest 7-day Covid positivity rate ever * the lowest Covid hospitalizations in 11 months. Thanks, Texans!

President Biden skewered Texas, as well as Mississippi, at the beginning of March for relaxing lockdown measures, accusing state officials of “Neanderthal thinking.” At the time, Abbott had announced that businesses would be allowed to operate at full capacity – even though some health experts cautioned at the time that dropping preventative measures could lead to a spike in cases.

Convicted Former Congressman Still Draws Estimated $1 Million Federal Lifetime Pension By Adam Andrzejewski

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/05/17/convicted_congressman_chaka_fattah_

After being sentenced to 10 years in prison for a 23-count conviction for racketeering, fraud and other corruption charges, disgraced former Congressman Chaka Fattah was released from prison last July after about one year.

But the icing on this crooked cake is that Fattah is collecting a taxpayer-funded pension. The estimated pension is at least $55,000 per year. Fattah is only 64 years old, so his estimated lifetime pension is $1 million.

The reason we must take an educated guess? Congressional pensions are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Fattah, a Democrat formerly representing Pennsylvania’s second congressional district, was found guilty in June 2016.

But a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in McDonnell v. United States a few days later changed the legal definition of bribery to exclude “pay for access” and Fattah appealed his conviction, placing his sentencing on hold.

What Really Is Behind the Latest Burst of Hamas Terror in Israel Like all wars, the real causes are many and lie below the surface. Dov Fischer

https://spectator.org/hamas-terror-israel/

The media of our day always coalesce around a narrative that fits their preconceived worldview. When viewed in a light that “Palestinians” all are “Victims of Color” and that all Israelis are White Supremacists or their next of kin, it is easy to misjudge the Mideast reality underlying present conflict coming from Gaza. That narrative thus preaches that Jews with legally valid property rights in the eastern portion of United Jerusalem are not entitled to advance their legal claims to oust trespassers, Arab or otherwise, from their homes. That same line of reasoning proposes that supposed Israeli belligerence lies beneath the barrage of some 2,000 rockets launched from Gaza and aimed by Hamas at Israel’s civilian population from Ashdod and Ashkelon to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The truth is that a property dispute in the Shimon HaTzaddik/Sheikh Jarrah community of eastern Jerusalem is not the cause of the present war. Jews there owned property since 1875. Their homes and land were stolen from them and their parents and grandparents in 1948, when Jordan’s armies, bent on “ethnic cleansing,” invaded and illegally drove them out. Local Arab squatters moved in, but Jordan refused to recognize the illegal squatters as the land’s new owners. After 1967, when Israel liberated east Jerusalem and reunited the city, the ousted Jewish owners went to court with their documentation to reclaim their seized property. Israel’s courts, which not only are fair but even lean over backwards to favor Arabs in such disputes, repeatedly have held that the Jewish claims are documented and legally valid. As the Jewish landowners were recognized legally, they did not try ousting anyone. Rather, the courts held they could charge rent to the squatters living in their homes, so they did.

Relatively recently, Arab squatters stopped paying rent, so the landlords went to court finally to evict. This happens everywhere in the world when tenants stop paying rent and make clear they will not resume. The verdict on the matter, which has been argued and decided on by Israel’s highest court, was set for announcement on May 10th. That is the whole dispute. This property dispute over Arab Muslims not paying their rent has nothing to do with Hamas launching their current war of more than 2,000 murderous Iranian-supplied rockets aimed indiscriminately at Jewish population centers. The notion that the long-overdue evictions for non-payment of rent caused a war is as absurd as expecting Bulgarian immigrants in California to launch 2,000 rockets aimed at destroying the entire American country in response to local court rulings in Old Town Sacramento backing landlords trying to evict 20 families who won’t pay their rent in a Bulgarian ethnic enclave.

Against that backdrop, Israel is posed with the conundrum of defending itself in a manner that accords with woke expectations of elegance. If rockets are launched against Jewish civilians and other noncombatants from residential apartment buildings, elementary schools, ambulances, and hospitals that Hamas terrorists now control in Gaza, how does one stop the launches — elegantly? Israel cannot just dispatch an Uber or Lyft to the terror launch sites and unplug some wires from wall sockets. They have to extirpate the launchers, the rockets, and the terrorists determined to inflict unspeakable civilian tragedy against millions of Jewish civilians if unstopped.

The Big Lie? What proof does Liz Cheney have that ‘there was no fraud’ in the 2020 elections?By: Judd Garrett

Liz Cheney was removed from her leadership position by the Republican Party on Wednesday mainly because she has spent too much time attacking former President Trump for questioning the results of the 2020 election, and not enough time trying to stop Joe Biden’s agenda. She has said, “there is clearly an attempt to unravel the democracy,…by focusing on challenging the legitimacy of the election.” And that we have “particular obligation to make sure people know the election wasn’t stolen, that we shouldn’t perpetuate ‘the big lie,’.”

Donald Trump is not lying when he questions the results of the election. He is making an unsubstantiated claim. And that is an important distinction. Most proven claims of wrongdoing start out as an unsubstantiated claim that with a thorough investigation, and fact finding, is then proven either true or false. Liz Cheney does not know the election was honest with any more certainty than Trump knows it was stolen. Her claims of election integrity are as evidence-free as Trump’s claims of election fraud. And therein lies the problem. Neither side knows the truth.

26 million more votes were cast in 2020 than in any previous Presidential election, so it’s fair to ask whether all 26 million of those new votes were cast legally and legitimately. Election integrity is paramount to a functioning country, and simply stating the election was fair, like Liz Cheney, does not make it fair. That is something dictators do; they make blanket claims of integrity without any evidence to back them up. So, questions about the integrity of an election should not be ignored, or shot down as threats to democracy, they should be fully investigated. Yet we have never had a complete forensic investigation or audit of the 2020 election. So, Liz Cheney’s claim that the election was fair is as unproven as Trump’s claim that it was stolen. 

Not only were 26 million more votes cast, but we also had unprecedented, unconstitutional, and rushed-thru changes to our election laws in many states, primarily the battleground states, so it only makes sense to conduct a thorough investigation of our elections to determine if these changes hold up to the highest standards of integrity.

NY TIMES: SLOW JOE GETTING SLOWER : STEVEN HAYWARD

www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/ny-times-slow-joe-getting-slower.php?

The New York Times has a remarkable story out this weekend that offers its typical “behind the scenes” construction of how the White House operates—in this case, under President Biden. While the story tries to soften the blows with lots of fluff and filler, it paints a devastating picture of Biden for the careful reader. It explains he has a quick temper, takes a long time to make decisions, and needs to be heavily propped up by staff to function. It reminds us that Biden is indeed a creature of the Senate, where he mostly attended hearings, made speeches, fiddled with legislation, and seldom made any decisions that suggested executive skill (Quick—can anyone name a major piece of Biden legislation? The crime bill of 1994? Likely written mostly by the Clinton Justice Department. The bankruptcy reform bill of 2007? Likely written largely by Delaware-based banks. You get the picture.)

Here’s one early paragraph:

On policy issues, Mr. Biden, 78, takes days or weeks to make up his mind as he examines and second-guesses himself and others. It is a method of governing that can feel at odds with the urgency of a country still reeling from a pandemic and an economy struggling to recover.

One passage details weeks and weeks of meetings, briefings, and deliberations about how to confront Putin, culminating with this astonishing paragraph:

In the end, Mr. Biden called Mr. Putin directly and then delivered a public statement on Russia sanctions that lasted only five minutes and 49 seconds. For as much as Mr. Biden projects an aura of ease — with his frequent backslapping, references to Irish poetry and liberal use of the phrase “c’mon, man” — his aides say it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work to prepare him to project an assured demeanor.

Responsibility for the Latest Upsurge in Arab-Israeli Violence Goes to US President Joe Biden by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17370/biden-arab-israel-violence

Even Mr Trump’s harshest critics had to concede that, when it came to the Middle East, the Trump era had been a success.

Prior to the latest eruption of hostilities between Israel and Palestinian militants, Mr Biden’s only notable intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian issue had been to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid to the Palestinians, thereby reversing the Trump administration’s decision to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority over its refusal to maintain a dialogue with Washington.

Now, with Palestinian militants once more targeting Israeli civilian areas with rockets and missiles, the folly of Mr Biden’s ill-advised approach to the Middle East has been exposed…. Indeed, the extent of Iran’s military support for Palestinian militants was revealed by an official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation who boasted last week: “The rockets we use to pound Tel Aviv, our weapons, and our food are provided by Iran.”

Mr Biden’s comment, made following a telephone discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, that he expected the violence to end “sooner rather than later” certainly seemed to be more an expression of wishful thinking than a realistic assessment of events unfolding on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Full responsibility for the latest upsurge in Arab-Israeli violence goes to US President Joe Biden as a result of the policies of appeasement and capitulation he has pursued in the Middle East.

When Mr Biden took office in January, the Middle East was enjoying one of its rare moments of optimism, mainly due to the successful approach adopted by his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump.

Space Force Commander’s Book About Marxist Takeover of Military Shoots Up to Number 1 After He’s Fired For Talking About It By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/17/space-force-commanders-book-about-marxist-takeover-of-military-shoots-up-to-number-1-after-hes-fired-for-talking-about-it/

A new book about the Marxist takeover of the military shot to number one on Amazon’s best seller list after the author, a former commander of a U.S. Space Force unit, was fired for promoting it.

Lt Col. Matthew Lohmeier, commander of 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, was relieved from his post after he appeared on a podcast to promote his book: “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military.”

“Irresistible Revolution is a timely and bold contribution from an active-duty Space Force lieutenant colonel who sees the impact of a neo-Marxist agenda at the ground level within our armed forces,” a description of the book reads.

Lohmeier, a former instructor and fighter pilot, was tasked with detecting ballistic missile launches.

He was fired on Friday for comments he made on national security expert L. Todd Wood’s podcast “Information Operation” last week, according to Military.com.