SG Murthy Sabotaged the Biden Campaign

The U.S. surgeon general on Tuesday declared gun violence a public health crisis, driven by the fast-growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms in the country.

First off, fair warning: If the comment thread gets into a discussion about the merits of gun control, I will shut it down. That's not the topc for this post.

What is the topic is that, a few months before an election that may or may not be the most pivotal in over 160 years, where every vote counts, and which will decide whether we remain a nation of law and freedom or one that is a authoritarian oligarchy/kletocracy, the fucking Surgeon General of the United States decided to put on his clown shoes and wade in on one of the most divisive topics out there.

And it's not as though he doesn't know this. Murthy almost didn't get confirmed the first time that he was SG because of concern that he would do exactly what he just did.

Is he this politically obtuse? Was he so arrogant as to not have this vetted by the White House? And if he did, are there people in the West Wing who are so politically stupid as to not see the minefield in which Murthy decided to go for a nice walk?

Unless President Biden made this call, himself, there are people who should be doing rug dances in the Oval Office this morning.

Somebody Needs to Be Doing a Rug Dance in the Oval Office

The Pentagon did not tell President Joe Biden and other top officials about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's hospitalization for three days, two U.S. officials said.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and other senior White House aides didn’t know of Austin’s Jan. 1 hospitalization until the Defense Department sent over word on Jan. 4, two other U.S. officials said. Sullivan informed Biden shortly after DOD's Thursday notification.

I can't begin to understand the Kremlin-style thinking that it would be OK to have a Cabinet officer go into the hospital and nobody bothers to tell the President, their immediate boss, for days? And it's not like Austin was the Secretary of Agriculture, for Pete's sake. Some asshole made a deliberate decision to keep this secret and they need to explain why.

Kyiv Stands.

President Joe Biden paid an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a defiant display of Western solidarity with a country still fighting what he called “a brutal and unjust war” days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after meeting with Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jamming his finger for emphasis on his podium flanked by U.S. and Ukrainian flags, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

They're not saying, but I'm going to bet that there was an AWACS flying close to the border with fighters ready to intervene. It's kind of too bad that the Navy retired the Phoenix. The Secret Service probably had a cow over this trip.

The last three presidents made trips to war zones, but those trips were to bases under American control and where the enemies were rather short of sophisticated weaponry. That's by no means the case with this trip. Sure, there's a lot of symbolism in this trip (or any presidential trip), but that's part of the job.

No doubt that The TOFF would have flown to Moscow to visit his lien-holder.

Interesting Data Points

President Joe Biden called 26-year-old Brandon Tsay to thank the California man for disarming the Monterey Park shooting suspect over the weekend.
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“I wanted to call to see how you’re doing and thank you for taking such incredible action in the face of danger,” Biden told Tsay. “I don’t think you understand just how much you’ve done for so many people who are never going to even know you. But I want them to know more about you. … You have my respect. You are America, pal. You are who we are – no, no, you are who we are. America’s never backed down, we’ve always stepped up, because of people like you.”

I'm not saying that the call was not deserved. Mr. Tsay is a hero and he has earned his accolades.

But what about this guy? Is he not also a hero?

Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, Elisjsha Dicken was shopping with his girlfriend when a gunman opened fire on a food court at a Greenwood, Indiana, mall Sunday evening, killing three people and wounding two others.

While the shooter, 20-year-old Douglas Sapirman, fired 24 rounds from an AR-15-style rifle, Dicken did not hesitate to use the Glock handgun he was legally carrying. Sapirman was “neutralized” within two minutes, police said.

“Many more people would have died last night if not for a responsible armed citizen that took action very quickly within the first two minutes of the shooting,” Greenwood Police Chief James Ison said at a news conference Monday.

Garland Bows to the Inevitable

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to investigate the presence of classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at an unsecured office in Washington dating from his time as vice president.

The similarity between the cases of Biden and the Asset: Both had classified documents in unsecured locations.

The differences:

• Biden's people went looking for the documents.  The Asset's didn't.
• Biden's people reported the presence of documents. The Asset didn't.
• The Asset claimed that the documents were his.  Biden didn't.
• The Asset claimed that he had declassified the documents with his mind. Biden didn't.
• The Biden team turned over every document they found. The Asset's people didn't.
• The Asset had his lawyers lie about the presence of documents. Biden's didn't.
• The Asset turned over some documents after being subpoena'd. As for Biden, see two points up.
• It took a search warrant to get more documents from the Asset.  As for Biden, see three points up.
• Biden has cooperated at every turn. Not so for the Asset.

But the Trump loyalists don't see any differences. Because they are willfully blind or are idiots.

Let the Cries of "Whataboutism" On the Batshit-Crazy Right Commence, Because They're Going to, Anyway.

The Justice Department is reviewing a batch of potentially classified documents found in the Washington office space of President Joe Biden’s former institute, the White House said Monday.

Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered as Biden’s personal attorneys were clearing out the offices of the Penn Biden Center, where the president kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign in 2019. The documents were found on Nov. 2, 2022, in a “locked closet” in the office, Sauber said.

Of course, what is not present, in this case, are claims that "them's mine", or refusals to let FBI agents look for themselves, or sworn lies brom attorneys that no such documents exist, but that won't stop the cries about "whataboutism" from the Trumpanzees.

Comments that don't follow the rules of this blog will not be approved for publication. As will comments made by the Banhammer Boys (you know who you are).

X + Y = Z

As in "X Percent of Americans Are in Favor of Y Equals Zip Point Shit."

For the sake of this post, X can be anything. Gun control. Abortion. Eating whale meat. Heating homes with coal. Repealing child labor laws. Burning Mitch McConnell at the stake.

It's all pointless, because, as you should know, that's not how things work. We elect politicians to enact things we'd like to see. Which means that if the person you're voting for is not in favor of your pet issue, it matters not. Because most people are not single-issue voters; if their candidate is good on some issues but not on others, then they mauch chose not to worry about the points of disagreement.

But if there is a subset of voters who are single-issue voters, then those voters can excercise an outsized influence.

Which is why Biden's clarion call to do something about guns will go largely unanswered.

Biden's Superspreader Event

Trevor Noah joked about the event becoming a superspreader — and now the cases are rolling in. The annual White House Correspondents Dinner, along with the festivities held in the days before and after it, have led to the inevitable spread of Covid.

In the days since WHCD weekend, reporters and staffers from CNN, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Politico, and other participating news organizations have tested positive for the virus. Most notably, ABC's Jon Karl, who shook hands with President Biden and who sat next to Kim Kardashian, has fallen ill, as Politico's Maxwell Tani first reported.

That was not exactly the smartest thing to do, cramming over two thousand people in a ballroom for a dinner. And it wasn't just that, there were oodles of other parties around the WHCD. It not only just wasn't terribly smart, it was almost Trumpian in its stupidity, given that there is yet another variant on the rise.

But that's what people want, right? The ability to make their own risk calculations? But the problem is that for a large number of people at the WHCD, going there was part of their job, or, as a former XO of mine once put it: "This event is mandatory fun. You will go and you will have a good time."

CDC Goes Full-On Trump

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian on Tuesday asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halve its recommended quarantine time for vaccinated people who contract Covid-19, saying the current isolation period could negatively affect the airline’s operations.

Bastian wrote to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky proposing a five-day recommended quarantine period for fully vaccinated individuals who contract Covid. The existing recommendation calls for a 10-day period of isolation.

“Our employees represent an essential workforce to enable Americans who need to travel domestically and internationally,” wrote Bastian, along with the airline’s chief health officer Henry Ting and medical advisor Carlos del Rio. “With the rapid spread of the omicron variant, the 10-day isolation for those who are fully vaccinated may significantly impact our workforce and operations.”

The CDC listened to Delta.

People who test positive for the coronavirus need to isolate themselves for only five days if they don't show symptoms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. This cuts in half the earlier recommendation of 10 days of isolation.
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The CDC has also updated its recommended quarantine period for people exposed to the virus. It says unvaccinated people should quarantine for five days, followed by five days of "strict mask use."
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"The Omicron variant is spreading quickly and has the potential to impact all facets of our society," said the CDC's director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in a statement. "CDC's updated recommendations for isolation and quarantine balance what we know about the spread of the virus and the protection provided by vaccination and booster doses. These updates ensure people can safely continue their daily lives."

And if you're sick and feeling better, rock on:

People whose symptoms are getting better may also leave their homes after five days so long as their symptoms are improving, the CDC said. People who have a fever should stay home until the fever clears up, the CDC added.

So the CDC thinks it's OK to run the risk of the virus spreading if people have the virus so Delta and the other airlines can get their planes in the air. Does the CDC really think that those who have had their quarantine shortened ew foinf ro wear a mask everywhere?

"Ecch, you're feeling a little bit better. Go forth and spread the virus."-- That sounds like something that the Trump Administration would have said.

At this point, I'd be more inclined to rely on either the World Health Organization than the CDC. The WHO also is politically influenced, but probably less than the CDC. The Dutch guidelines make more sense; ten days after diagnosis or exposure, five days after exposure if you have a negative test on day five.

Guess Delta has no pull in the Netheralnds.

What Sense Does This Ban Make?

The US will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other southern African countries to try to contain a new coronavirus variant spreading there.

From Monday, only US citizens and residents will be allowed to travel from the region.

If the Omicron variant is of such concern and if it is spreading through suouthern Africa, then why not slam the fucking door shut now? Why wait three or so days?

And why not require quarantining of everyone who is eligible to travel from that region?

This is had the oder of the public health version of security theater.

Nah, Biden Can't Probably Do That

A second proposed rule, expected within 60 days, will tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces, like the one used by the Boulder, Colorado, shooter in a rampage last month that left 10 dead. The rule will designate pistols used with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own and are subject to a more thorough application process and a $200 tax.

I'm reasonably sure that he can't do that. The problem is that in now saying that pistols with arm braces are now short-barreled rifles means that anyone who owns one immediately becomes a criminal because they didn't go through the application process and get a $200 tax stamp for their gun.

The president can't issue an executive order that makes previously legal conduct illegal. Making something illegal is up to Congress, which makes the laws. Hell, imagine how much use TFG could have made of EOs with his Sharpie if by his whim, he could have made something illegal.

Do I think that pistols with stabilizing braces are essentially short-barrled rifles? I do. But the time to make that determination was when they were offered to the ATF for classification. The ATF said they weren't, so the guns went into production and a shitload of them were sold to people who bought them in good faith that they were buying a legal product. Turning them into felons at the stroke of a pen by executive action is vile and Trumpist-grade arrogance.

One Nice Thing Over the Last Seven Weeks

The news cycle hasn't been consumed by stupid shit tweeted, said or done by the president.

On another note, can someone please enlighten me as to the fascination that Americans have with the royal family of the third-rate core remnant of an empire? And don't tell me that "it's because they're royalty." Nobody seems to give a damn about the royal families of Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Thailand, Oman, Vietnam or Japan.

Word of the Day: Anocracy

Thanks to Donald Trump and his antidemocratci supporters, the United States is no longer a democracy. We are an anocracy. We've gone from being a full democracy to an anocracy in very short order.

None of this should be a surprise to anyone. All you have to do is surf a collection of blogs on the right side and you'll find ones that are advocating for secession or insurrection. What happened was that their side lost an election, bigly. Rather than sit down and figure out how they can persuade a clear majority of Americans to vote their way, the nutjobs on the far right are ranging from ways to cook the next election to yelling about how they're going to take their ball and go home.

What a bunch of spoiled children: "We lost, noooo faaaiiirrrr, whaaaa!"

There is no unity with such brats. The danger is some of them are seriously crazy. They've been fed a steady diet of lies and conspiracy theories and some of those fools have even been elected to Congress, like the lunatic who has blamed wildfires on Jewish space lasers. Or the one who allegedly was shot-calling for the 1/6/21 insurrection.

Anyone who thinks that there is any negotiating with people who are eager to cut your throat is delusional. And yes, that includes you, Mr. President. The only negotiations that should be conducted with insurrectionists are called "plea bargains".

(H/T)

Why Biden May Be Shutting Up on Gun Control

The number of new guns purchased in 2020 likely passed the total for 2019 sometime this month. August volume won’t be available for at least another week, although after Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer said in a press release earlier this month—after analyzing July’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) volume—“Our estimates suggest that the market for the first seven months of 2020 now has nearly matched that of the entire year of 2019.”

The FBI processed 3,639,224 NICS checks in July, the third highest on record. Only June and March of this year have experienced a heavier monthly volume in the entire history of the system. After subtracting administrative use, last month’s figure represents roughly 2 million firearm purchases.

Self-defense continues to be the top priority. Records checks related to the purchase of a handgun totaled 1,120,768. Only half of that number were associated with long guns—shotguns and rifles.

Every month in 2020 has experienced an increase in firearm sales when compared to the same periods in 2019, Retailer surveys indicate 40 percent of this year’s purchases were made by first-time buyers, another key factor contributing to the current strain on the ammunition supply chain.

Think about that for a second: Two million guns bought in July. If the surveys of retailers is close to accurate, that's 800,000 new gun owners in one month.

Run that out for this year, to date and that's millions of new gun owners out there. That's a lot of votes to leave on the table because one doesn't happen to like the NRA.

Biden: Dick-Stepping All the Way

On Labor Day, 2019:

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Former vice president Joe Biden said he wanted to spend Monday celebrating the role organized labor has played in improving the lives of Americans. But moments into his first Labor Day appearance, the presidential candidate turned instead to the nation’s latest mass shooting, which left seven dead in the west Texas town of Odessa on Saturday.

“It is irrational, with all due respect to the governor of Texas, it is irrational what they’re doing on the same day you see a mass shooting . . . and we’re talking about loosening access to have guns,” he told reporters at a picnic in Cedar Rapids.

“To be able to take them into places of worship, store them in schools, I mean, it’s just absolutely irrational, and it’s all about special interests, and it has to stop.”

The gun banners have been yammering for awhile that they're all for taking away guns "if it saves one life."[1]

But then there's this:

A gunman killed two people during a Sunday morning service at a church in White Settlement before a member of the congregation fatally shot him, authorities say.

Police in White Settlement, about eight miles west of Fort Worth, were called before 11 a.m. to the West Freeway Church of Christ at 1900 South Las Vegas Trail after one member, who is part of the church’s security team, opened fire on the gunman.

That doesn't exactly fit into the "forbidding guns from these places keeps people safe."

A bunch of people are alive to welcome in the New Year because, in Biden's view, their state government is irrational.
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[1] Let's close the swimming pools.

Hamlet Bows Out

Vice-president Joe Biden ended months of speculation on Wednesday about whether he would run for president, appearing in a hastily announced White House address to say that his window of opportunity to “mount a winning campaign for the nomination” had closed.

I'm not surprised. The party establishment has anointed Hillary Clinton, provided, of course, that those pesky voters in the early primary states can be made to see it that way.

Which is sort of where we were eight years ago, but some upstart Senator from Illinois then ruined the plans of the party bosses.

Musings about 2016, or "Somebody Please Shoot Me Now".

You can find a lot of musings about 2016 all over the damn place. It's probably true, though, that one of the problems with Hillary Clinton is that she has enough political baggage to fill up a truck and that's never helpful.[1]

While Bill Maher was pinging on the number of candidates who have "waited their turn" and he used Obama as the guy who didn't wait his turn and won, there are other examples of politicians who didn't wait their turn and won: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The outlier here, of course, is Reagan and Bush the Elder. Reagan waited his turn, but between nearly 20% inflation, a second gas crisis and the Iranian hostage crisis, even Rick Santorum would have been able to beat President Carter.[2] Bush was on his was to losing, but between an inept campaign by the Democrats, a lousy debate performance by Dukakis and the race-baiting of Bush, he turned it around.

In late 1991, it seems from the polling that Bush I was going to win in a walk. The "next turn" Democrats, like Anthony Cuomo, sat it out, figuring that they'd let some poor schmuck get buried and then come in in `96. Didn't work that way.

In 2000, there really wasn't a "next guy" for the GOP, other than Danny Quayle, and nobody was crazy enough for that.[3] And so George W. Bush won the Republican nomination[4] and the election.[5]

So yes, I think Maher is onto something. But it doesn't seem to matter. The GOP candidates for 2016, this far out, appear to be all of the same inhabitants of the 2012 Klown Kar, including Mitt Romney, and with a couple of quasi-new clowns. The Democrats seem to be, so far, Clinton and maybe Biden. Biden, well, you can just write off all but about ten states if he runs, for Shotgun Joe isn't exactly popular.

But, Jesus, why are we even talking about the intrigues in the American Political Whorehouse, now?
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[1] "Politicians are like a box of chocolates: Democrats are mostly soft and gooey and Republicans are mostly nuts."
[2] OK, maybe not Santorum.
[3] Unrepentant Nazi sympathizer Pat Buchanan might have also had a claim. Both men were interested, but pulled out before the primaries began.
[4] Like his father, his campaign used race-baiting as a tool.
[5] As for his campaign's successful theft of the two general election, let's not go there.

Crimea River

In probably the biggest non-surprise of yesterday, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

Next will come the mopping-up of Ukrainian military units on the peninsula. They have no place to run to and no hope of relief, so their choices are to give up or die futilely or bravely, depending on your point of view.

My quick Googling is that the Crimea has about 1.9 million people and 58% of them are Russians. Which is a hell of a lot of pro-Russian voters to take out of the next Ukrainian election. Unless, of course, the Ukrainians say that the people in the Crimea are still Ukrainians and they get to vote.

Manwhile, Vice-President Biden is running his mouth, which is his main talent. He seems to have no problem with invading another country, at least when we do it. When someone else does it, that's a violation of international norms. You can find idiots babbling on about economic sanctions, but they don't explain what effect that'll have on a country that has the eighth largest economy in the world and which is a major exporter of natural gas to Europe. Nor do they bother to think how the investors in Europe and the US will scream if the Russians retaliate by confiscating their investments in Russian projects.

UPDATE: As BadTux has pointed out, Putin merely dusted off one of our own plays when we were proclaiming shit like "Manifest Destiny".

Stopping the Scourge of Those M-1 Garands

Obama is banning the importation of U.S.-made military weapons.

Because of the rash of crimes committed with those easily-concealable Garands? I haven't checked, but I'll wager that more people get killed with shoelaces than Garands.

It's just more inane feel-good political theater from an administration that seems to specialize in doing that.

The National Circus

A long time ago, a ship I was riding made a port visit to Israel.* Not having much to do in port, I took advantage of a guided tour to Masada. On the way back, the bus detoured to Jerusalem for a "drive-by" tour of the sights.

One of the things the guide pointed out was what he referred to as "the National Circus of Israel". It was this building:

The sailors on the bus began asking questions about whether they had live performances, how much were the tickets and were any shows scheduled during the port visit, so they could go and watch. That's when the guide had to admit that it was the Knesset building. The Knesset has a very long reputation of being little more than a dysfunctional collection of self-aggrandizing imbeciles.**

Well, we have our own National Circus:

Between Sen. Ted Cruz's tea-fueled campaign to keep trying to repeal Obamacare and the Democrats pushing a gun control bill that won't be enacted, it's hard to take any of those clowns seriously.

And they are clowns and not just garden-variety clowns, but ass clowns. They're wasting time when there are serious challenges facing this country. It's not just them, of course, for the Administration is complicit in much of this congressional circle-jerking, what with Joe Biden going around the country, telling women they should buy an 1870s-era shotgun if they feel the need for a weapon.

So as the climate warms and the seas rise and nothing is done to develop any method of deflecting asteroids and the middle class is being squeezed out of existence and none of the banksters were sent to prison and the "too big to fail" banks keep getting larger and engaging in the same stupid risk-taking that they did before (because it cost them nothing the last time around), our National Circus will continue on basically doing nothing but making noise.
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* Never you mind what I was doing on that ship.
** I think you'd find that most Israelis would say that I am being overly generous in that description.