A complete surrender to Covid
A complete surrender to Covid
U.S. left without leadership or a plan in face of new surge
You almost get the feeling that Biden and the Democrats are glad, or at least relieved about the Trump-appointed judge striking down the nationwide mask requirement on airplanes, trains, buses, and other public transportation. For one thing, it lets them off the political hook for something they were afraid to do themselves.
While they are making a perfunctory appeal of Judge Mizelle’s decision, it appears that the country is now left without any strategy, game plan, or leadership in the face of rapidly-rising Covid numbers. With the nation’s top doctors and scientists neutered, the grand opening-up can be unleashed in time for the mid-term elections.
Republicans in Congress have been the main ones blocking funding for the war against Covid while tripping over themselves to allocate billions for military spending. But Democrats have generally gone along with the flow.
Public Opinion
Both parties may have misread public opinion which mostly falls on the side of mandated masking. According to a poll by the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, a majority of Americans want a mask mandate on public transportation. Fifty-six percent of those polled wanted people to wear masks, while 24% were opposed and 20% didn’t care. A YouGov poll put the number of those in favor at 63% and those opposed at 29%.
The White House Easter Egg party, attended by about 30,000 lottery-chosen guests including small children, was a clear indicator of how little the administration is concerned about the virus compared with its concern for digging the country out from under its economic doldrums in time for the upcoming elections. From the pictures, it’s obvious that hardly anyone was wearing masks, including the President and his family.
According to the New York Times:
The coronavirus seemed like a distant concern despite numerous cases this month among members of the administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill. A number of aides who had tested positive in recent weeks were back in their offices. Some egg-rolling families who had been invited to the White House for breakfast were tested beforehand, though not everyone in attendance had been required to be tested, an official said.
It only took one day before blue-state governors like J.B. Pritzker in Illinois (who flies in his private jet) responded to Mizelle’s decision by ending their indoor mask mandates and leaving it up to politically vulnerable local officials to try and implement mandates of their own. That’s not going to happen.
The message to the nation and the world’s travelers, including the elderly, the immunocompromised, and small, unvaxed children is — you’re on your own.
A war economy
The administration continues to try to call attention to the booming economy, noting that the real GDP in the U.S. exceeds that of the other G-7 countries. But what they and the media fail to mention is that the boom they are bragging about is largely the result of our move towards a war economy. The country is working overtime to produce bombs, tanks, missiles and armaments that have no social value and don’t contribute to longterm growth and stability. It all amounts to taking a large chunk of the country’s wealth and productive capacity and blowing it up on the Ukrainian killing fields instead of pumping it back into the economy. As a result, many economists and business leaders are warning of another recession or worse on the horizon.
Today, President Biden announced that he would send $800 million more in military resources to help Ukrainian forces — a package that includes heavy artillery and tactical drones.
Today’s Washington Post quotes Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment of the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Mariupol, claiming that his group of fighters is still holding out against the Russian invaders. The Post describes Azov as a “nationalist group” that is part of Ukraine’s National Guard. But the group has a history of war crimes and attacks on Ukrainian Jews and other foreigners and minorities. It’s founder, Andriy Biletsky said in 2010 that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races]”.