politicnewsbusterinsiderpostreview: Daily Digest

Wednesday, 29 September 2021

Daily Digest

Reconcile this
Kamala Harris declines to disagree with claim of “ethnic genocide” by Israel
Reading the Tea Leaves in Virginia
Break on through (to the other side)
Did he lie or did it slip his mind?

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 04:31 PM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

It looks like the Democrats can only pass a reconciliation bill if they are willing to get behind a trimmed-down package. The $3.5 trillion version doesn’t command the support of 50 Senators. A $2 trillion package might.

But to get from $3.5 trillion to around $2 trillion, the Democrats must agree on what to cut. That seems like a tall order because the current package contains big gifts for everyone under the Democratic umbrella. Which constituencies will be deprived of Christmas?

Here’s one that should be. Unions.

Dominic Pino at NRO points out that the current reconciliation bill provides tax breaks for union members. It would create a $250 above-the-line tax deduction for union dues starting next year.

Pino also directs attention to an analysis by James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation which itemizes additional goodies the bill confers on unions. One is that it bans all staff meetings to discuss unionizing.

Unions oppose such meetings because they give employers an opportunity to tell employees about the disadvantages of unionizing. The reconciliation bill takes that opportunity away, but unions would still be able to reach employees in all the ways they do now, including getting the names and addresses of employees and going to their homes to sell unionization.

I’m not sure, by the way, what employer meetings have to do with federal spending and the budget. Reconciliation bills are supposed to be limited to measures related directly to these matters.

The draft bill also imposes civil monetary penalties of up to $50,000 for each employer unfair labor practice (ULP). And it personally subjects business officers to these fines. These fines would apply to all ULPs, not just serious ones like firing a union supporter.

Sherk notes that since federal labor law is highly complex, this provision would expose many employers, especially small businesses, to potentially crippling fines for inadvertent violations. This, in turn, would give union organizers leverage to pressure employers into forgoing secret ballot elections for their employees.

Another pro-union element in the bill identified by Sherk is an increase in funding to the Labor Department to curb alleged "misclassification" of workers as independent contractors. As Pino explains, independent contractors can't unionize the same way employees can. Thus, as independent contractors become a bigger part of the workforce, the pool of potential members shrinks.

Democrats therefore would like the Biden Labor Department to minimize the degree to which workers are classified as independent contractors. The reconciliation bill would fund an enhanced effort to accomplish this.

Another gift for unions is a provision under which a tax credit for electric cars applies only if the cars are produced with union labor. Pino notes that this provision “undermines any claim to its being about the environment, since nonunion electric cars would have the same carbon emissions as union ones.”

The bill also would prohibit companies from locking out employees — the opposite of a strike. I can understand why unions and Democrats want this. I don’t understand the direct relationship of this ban to federal spending and the budget, and hence why it can properly be accomplished through reconciliation.

Finally, the bill would prohibit employers and employees from using arbitration to resolve class grievances, requiring such disputes to go through the court system instead. Sherk notes that arbitration is faster and less expensive than litigation. Importantly for purposes of the Democrats, it also generates far fewer attorney fees.

If this provision is enacted (and again it doesn’t seem like a proper measure for reconciliation), it will prevent employees from using an effective and efficient mechanism for redressing their rights, while creating opportunities for trial lawyers.

Striking these pro-union, anti-employer provisions from the reconciliation package won’t go very far towards bringing the price tag down to where Sen. Sinema reportedly wants it. However, it would be a good place to start.

If Congress wants to significantly alter labor law and labor relations, it should do so through regular order with the votes of 60 or more Senators. It shouldn’t do so by smuggling pro-union agenda items into a budget reconciliation measure.

Kamala Harris declines to disagree with claim of “ethnic genocide” by Israel

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 11:15 AM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Kamala Harris has been out of the news for quite some time, surely the result of a decision (perhaps by Joe Biden’s handlers) to lower her profile. However, Harris appeared at George Mason University in Northern Virginia on Tuesday in a surprise visit to a political science class. She said she was there to promote voter registration and discuss voting rights.

During her visit, Harris took questions from students. As a result, she’s back in the news.

One of the students used her time to attack Israel. According to this report in the Guardian, the student said:

I see that over the summer there have been, like, protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine, but then just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.

(Emphasis added)

Harris reportedly nodded as the student said this.

The student went on to express her belief that the funding would have been better spent helping Americans struggling with housing and health care costs instead of “inflaming Israel and backing Saudi Arabia and what-not.” She added that she needed to raise the issue because “it affects my life and people I care about lives.”

Harris responded:

I’m glad you did. And again, this is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things we’re fighting for in a democracy, right?

Unity should never be at the expense of telling anyone personally that, for the sake of unity, ‘Oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let’s not deal with that thing.’ That’s not unity. True unity is everyone in that room has a voice.

The point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that.

This is classic evasion. Instead of responding to the anti-Israel student’s substantive point, Harris launched into a defense of the student’s right to express her opinion, which very few would question.

Note, too, that Harris calls the student’s opinion “your truth.” This is another evasion.

Harris doesn’t want to disagree with the student’s anti-Israel rant, not even the absurd claim that Israel is engaged in “ethnic genocide.” Harris probably agrees with much of it and, in any case, doesn’t want to alienate the sizeable anti-Israel faction of her party. At the same time, Harris doesn’t want to express agreement with it because doing so would alienate Jews and other supporters of Israel.

We hear the phrase “your truth” — an unfortunate one as a a matter of epistemology — more and more often, but only when people are spouting leftist dogma. Has anyone called claims that the last presidential election was stolen “Trump’s truth” or that of his most ardent supporters? Of course not. That’s called “the Big Lie.”

By calling anti-Israel opinions the speaker’s “truth,” Harris is giving some credit to the claim that Israel is practicing ethnic genocide. She would not have called it “your truth” if the speaker had denounced coronavirus vaccines or abortions.

The same double standard applies when it comes to defending free speech. If Harris has suddenly become an advocate of open discussion on every controversial topic, with no voice suppressed, that’s great.

But I don’t believe she has. Does she oppose campus speech codes? Does she support the drive to promote free discussion and the expression of diverse opinions on college campuses? Has she backed model legislation to make the free-speech aspiration she expressed to the anti-Israel student a reality?

The answer to each question is no.

Harris is not a free speech advocate. She seized on free speech advocacy to avoid talking substantively about Israel.

That’s not how a public figure who supports Israel behaves. If the questioner had denounced a cause Harris favors — for example, Black Lives Matter — or a nation Harris considers a true ally, the vice president would have made her disagreement clear. She might (or might not) have added that the student is entitled to her opinion (she wouldn’t have said “her truth”), but that would have been a secondary point.

That Harris nodded her head when the student told her she was aware of the various things she was talking about, including the so-called ethic genocide, doesn’t conclusively show she agreed that genocide was occurring. Harris may have indicated only that she agreed she was aware of funds being allocated to Israel notwithstanding claims of genocide.

But Harris’ unwillingness to disagree with claims that Israel is engaging in “ethnic genocide,” coupled with the head nodding, strongly suggests that deep down, the vice president of the United States shares the student’s anti-Israel “truth” at least to some degree.

Reading the Tea Leaves in Virginia

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 08:35 AM PDT

(Steven Hayward)

Last night Virginina watched a debate between former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, who is trying for a second turn in office (Virginia has a single-term limit, but you are still eligible to run again after another governor serves), and Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin. Polls show it to be a close race.

I’ve never thought McAuliffe an especially talented politician, and he let fly with two howlers in the debate, captured in these two tweets:

Yes—he really said both of these things. (Sorry, Bill, old pal—you’re not the “leading conservative” in America any more; only in the Potemkin Village constructed in the minds of liberals.)

But there was one other more subtle point. When asked about Biden’s “Build Back Better” blowout spending plans, McAuliffe allowed as how he thought the total $3.5 trillion price tag is “too high.” This suggests some awareness that maybe this kind of profligate spending might not be popular with Americans. No wonder the Bidenites are attempting the absurd line that their spending plans won’t actually cost anything because Jeff Bezos is going to pay for it with spare change from his couch cushions.

In other words, Biden and the Democrats may have painted themselves into a corner in which they are doomed if they don’t pass a big bill, and doomed if they do. Here’s to hoping the country manages to escape the doom loop they have shoved us onto.

Chaser— Nancy Pelosi this morning: “It’s not about a dollar amount…the dollar amount, as the president said, is zero.”

UPDATE: The Youngkin campaign is out with an ad capitalizing on McAuliffe’s gaffe:

Break on through (to the other side)

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 06:04 AM PDT

(Scott Johnson)

Kevin Roche continues to follow the Covid-19 data and research. His Healthy Skeptic site pierces the fog on a daily basis. Most recently, focusing on Minnesota, Kevin has sought to understand the phenomenon of breakthrough infections. At my request, Kevin provides the following background to his post “Breakthrough Infections, September 27,” which should be consulted together with these comments. Kevin writes:

Vaccines against respiratory viruses historically provide good adaptive immunity, but the immunity is not absolute. We all have to breathe and the vaccines cannot stop exposure to an airborne pathogen, so exposure can occur frequently. However, the vaccines can provide a quick response to exposure and attempted infection — a response which can restrict symptoms, the likelihood of serious illness, and infectiousness.

Assessing the real world effectiveness of a respiratory virus vaccine by monitoring the prevalence of infections and serious disease following vaccination is obviously important and can also provide guidance to improve future iterations of the vaccines. Access to data about infections following vaccination is crucial.

In Minnesota, the Department of Health defines a person as fully vaccinated 14 days after his final dose of a vaccine and refers to infections in these people as “breakthrough” cases. A few weeks ago the state began providing data on infections in fully vaccinated people, including hospitalizations and deaths.

The data, however, are incomplete in important respects. The state identifies fully vaccinated persons from a separate database, and has some capability to include Minnesotans who were vaccinated in a few neighboring states, but is unable to identify Minnesotans who may have been vaccinated in Florida or Arizona, for example. There are quite a few people who fall into that category, so the state’s data are understated.

Weekly on Mondays the state merely gives the number of persons who are fully vaccinated along with the cumulative number of breakthrough cases, hospitalizations and deaths. The department does this because it fits their messaging, which has been that breakthroughs are rare and represent a very small per capita rate of all people who are infected.

This is misleading. While per capita rates can be informative, they should be compared with per capita rates among the unvaccinated and, more importantly, the public should be given data on the relative proportion of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to breakthrough infections versus those in the unvaccinated. And please note that the unvaccinated actually includes a number of persons who are in the process of becoming fully vaccinated.

While the state — intentionally I believe — fails to attach dates to breakthrough events, it is possible by estimating data lags to come up with the proportions of breakthrough events. The charts in my recent post provide the per capita proportions of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations in Minnesota, and the proportion of those events in each population, respectively.

The charts help us understand why the department so desperately seeks to divert attention from the data. We do not in fact currently have an epidemic of the unvaccinated. We have an epidemic that is likely right at this moment evenly split between the two groups and heading toward a majority of the events occurring in the vaccinated population.

There is a data lag of several weeks, but in recent weeks the per capita rates in the respective populations have begun to converge. On the relative proportions chart 40 percent of cases, hospitalizations and deaths occurred in the vaccinated group. September of 2021 saw more deaths than did September 2020 and those deaths are in the elderly, most of whom are vaccinated. When we see the data for September in a couple of weeks I am confident that most events will be among the vaccinated.

I don’t find this alarming. In fact it is what you would expect a vaccine against a respiratory virus. And it doesn’t mean the vaccines don’t work — they do, on a relative basis. But the public should have been given the appropriate expectations and should be given fully transparent and accurate information about breakthrough events. Among other things, this information helps create the realistic understanding that it is futile to imagine that we can eliminate the virus. We can’t and we will live with it just fine.

Did he lie or did it slip his mind?

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 05:09 AM PDT

(Scott Johnson)

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last month, President Biden denied ever having received military advice to maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan — not that he recalled, anyway. The generals who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday wanted it to be known that the debacle in Afghanistan was not their fault. It was Biden’s. They had recommended the maintenance of 2,500 troops in the interest of stability. Paul Mirengoff noted their testimony and commented in real time yesterday.

Secretary Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley, and Centcom Commander Mckenzie all but cried out the old Freddie Prinze catchphrase “It’s not my job!” For good measure, Milley added that the evacuation represented “a logistical success but a strategic failure.” He wasn’t responsible for the strategy.

The New York Post puts the story on its cover this morning to flag the editorial “Liar in chief: Military brass urged Biden to keep US troops in Afghanistan” along with Michael Goodwin’s column “Tragic cost of Biden’s Afghanistan lies.” Following up on the testimony yesterday afternoon, the psychedelic Jen Psaki performed the obligatory gaslighting.

So did Biden lie or did he forget? When Biden told Stephanopoulos “No, no one said that to me that I can recall," I thought he was lying then and still do now. Given his diminished mental capacity, however, he might have a case. Maybe it just slipped his mind.