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The press continues to avoid asking the important questions.
March 25, 2021
ITEM #1: If you’ve noticed some inconsistency and hypocrisy from Democrats regarding when it is or isn’t appropriate to require a person to show identification, well, rest assured:
You’re not alone.
Writing for National Review, John Fund passes along the following personal anecdote:
“Recently, I went to get my first COVID-19 vaccination. I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently the process in New York City worked.
“I also noticed that I had to present my ID twice, verify my address twice, and verify my phone number once. Anyone signing up for the vaccine is warned in advance that he will have to present identification that includes 'a driver’s license, passport, or any legal proof of your date of birth and residency.'”
You know where he’s going with this, right?
“Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, also took note of that fact on Twitter: ‘Why is it ok to require ID to save someone’s life but not ok for voting? Asking for IDs is sensible, here and for voting.’”
Completely sensible — so much so that it seems public opinion is firmly with Fund and Fleischer on the issue of voter ID. Fund provides the numbers:
“In a poll taken last month by Scott Rasmussen, adults opposed — by 64 percent to 30 percent — Democratic attempts in their H.R. 1 election bill to effectively nullify state laws requiring photo ID. Every key demographic group supported photo ID, including African Americans, who split 50 percent to 41 percent in favor. Other polls have shown margins in favor of ID that are equal to or greater than Rasmussen’s numbers.”
There’s a whole lot more great insight and information in Fund’s piece, which you can read in full here.
It simply is preposterous how we accept as common sense that showing ID is appropriate in countless other situations, yet are treated to hysterics from the left whenever anyone suggests requiring it to cast a vote — one of the most sacred responsibilities of citizenship.
Here in Nevada, of course, we’re still without a voter ID law. Yet rather than take the appropriate steps to strengthen election security, state Democrats have made it clear they intend to take our state in the opposite direction.
We’ll get deeper into that in the near future, so be sure to keep tuning in.
ITEM #2: We’ve had a lot to say about the exemplary performance of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in handling the COVID-19 outbreak.
Well, the Governor has a lot to say himself, particularly on the way our elites have forfeited any right to the public’s trust throughout the course of this episode.
In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, DeSantis writes:
“The Covid-19 pandemic represented a test of elites in the U.S., from public-health experts to the corporate media. The results have been disappointing. Policy makers who bucked the elites and challenged the narrative have been proven right to do so.”
He elaborates:
“To begin with, highly publicized epidemiological models were as consequential as they were wrong. The model produced by Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London — which forecast millions of Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. without mitigation efforts — sparked panic among public-health elites and served as the pretext for lockdowns throughout the U.S. and Great Britain. The lockdowns failed to stop the virus but did a great deal of societal damage along the way — damage that a more targeted approach, seeking to reduce total harms, would have been able to avoid (and did, in places like Sweden and Florida).
“Similarly, models predicting massive shortages of hospital beds helped to precipitate the disastrous policy — enacted by states like New York, New Jersey and Michigan — to send contagious, Covid-positive hospital patients back to nursing homes. States like Florida that rejected the models and adopted policies to protect nursing-home residents had comparatively lower nursing-home mortality rates as a result.”
And he’s just getting warmed up:
“Perhaps most damaging to public trust was the public-health campaign urging “15 Days to Slow the Spread.” This short-term mitigation, we were told, was necessary to buy time to prepare hospitals for any patient surges. But that reasonable aim was soon transformed into a lockdown-until-eradication approach that left no end in sight for most Americans. Going from ‘save the hospitals’ to ‘zero Covid’ represents one of the greatest instances in history of moving the goal post.”
The history books (the accurate ones, at least) will not be kind to those who responded to the coronavirus outbreak with the kind of irrational panic, unjustifiable heavy-handedness, and overall incoherence that DeSantis describes in his piece — which we’ve seen from far too many of our so-called leaders. (Hello, Governor Sisolak.)
They’ll be much more rewarding of those who, like DeSantis, showed the courage to stand up to elite opinion in order to do what their guts told them was wise and right.
ITEM #3: Who is responsible for the current crisis on our Southern border?
That the blame rests with President Biden is obvious enough. Still, given the efforts of many Democrats (as well as their media apologists) to obscure that clear fact, it’s worth walking through the argument in detail.
Victor Joecks, columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has done just that. Joecks writes:
“Normally, a president could blame his predecessor for any crisis that occurred during his first two months in office. But it’s laughable to contend that Trump is responsible for this when the problem started after he lost the election. The Biden administration is trying, of course, but it’s going to be a losing battle. Democrats and the media spent years attacking Trump for his hard-line immigration policies and rhetoric. You can’t make people forget that just because it would be politically convenient for your side.
“The public can see that Biden has laid out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants. He tried to stop deportations. He ended agreements the Trump administration had with other countries that reduced illegal immigration. Current Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said that if an unaccompanied child crosses the border, ‘we will care for that young child and unite that child with a responsible parent.’”
As Joecks explains, the politics of this crisis could become a real headache for the President:
“Biden has a major political problem. His base is divided on his de facto open borders policy — and not how you might think.
“‘Asking voters whether they lean toward Biden and Trump, and then emphasizing the Democratic position on immigration, often caused Biden’s share of support among Latino respondents to decline,’ Democratic poll guru David Shor said in a recent interview with New York magazine.
“According to Shor, around 10 percent of Hispanic voters went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but switched to Trump in 2020. If Biden keeps this up, that might be 20 percent by 2024.”
And as always, Joecks sticks the landing:
“Biden owns the border crisis. If he doesn’t get a handle on it soon, he’ll have a massive political crisis to deal with, too.”
ITEM #4: Conservatives often note how the philosophy and tactics of the hard left increasingly dominate today’s Democrat Party. But that leftward lurch is being noticed beyond the right, as well.
Doug Schoen is a long-time political consultant best known for his work on behalf of high-profile Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor and presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
Recently, Schoen observed:
“President Biden, along with leading Democrats on Capitol Hill, started the year with the choice between two paths to govern. The first route, which I have strongly urged my party to take, is characterized with bipartisanship. Democrats carry this incredible opportunity to consolidate their power by reaching out to moderate Republicans to achieve legislative compromises at a time when Republicans are deeply fractured. This route would lead to further friction, however, with the growing progressive wing.
“It is clear that Biden and Democrats have chosen the second route, which involves embracing liberal policies and using their power to push through a progressive agenda without any support from Republicans. While it may lead to legislative wins, it will do away with the promise of Biden to reach across the aisle and adds the risk of potential losses in 2022.”
Of the gargantuan “COVID relief” bill Democrats recently rammed through, Schoen notes that it is “more akin to something we would have seen if Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had been elected to office.”
Schoen is right of course that Biden is governing as a man of the far left. The only thing we can’t figure out is why Schoen, or anyone for that matter, is surprised by this in the least.
ITEM #5: Heads up, folks. There are a couple of tax-hike ballot initiatives coming your way soon.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports:
“The most significant move of the legislative session so far was something lawmakers didn’t do.
“The development reflects Nevada’s unique process for ballot initiatives. An initiative petition drive that gathers enough signatures doesn’t go directly to voters. Instead, the Legislature then has a chance to act on the proposal during the first 40 days of the next session. If lawmakers do nothing, the measure goes to the ballot during the next general election.
“Last year, the Clark County Education Association successfully collected signatures on two tax-hiking proposals. The first would raise the gaming tax on large casinos from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent. This tax is levied on a gaming licensee’s gross revenue, not profit. That means it would raise taxes on resorts and casinos that are losing money.
“The second proposal would raise the sales tax by 1.5 percentage points. This would push the sales tax in Clark County to nearly 10 percent, one of the highest rates in the country.
“March 12 was the deadline for lawmakers to act on these proposals. But majority Democrats took a pass — and for good reason. These tax increases are the wrong policy at the worst time.”
No doubt the likely political fallout of backing these measures (and the fear of drawing the wrath of the union were they to oppose them) drove the Democrats’ choice to take this hands-off approach.
And so now comes the important work on this — namely, ensuring voters know why passing these initiatives would be destructive for our state.
Noting that repeated spending increases have already failed to improve the quality of Nevada’s education system, the Review-Journal’s editors make the additional crucial point that, “These taxes hikes would batter an economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic and Gov. Steve Sisolak’s continued restrictions.”
We concur: Wrong policy at the worst time.
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