Thoughts on The Week of December 19-25

Manchin, Fauci, and Christmas

Dec 26, 2021

Welcome to the 23rd edition of this newsletter. We had a lot of news at the beginning of the week and that is mostly what we have in this edition of the weekly newsletter. I hope all reading this had a great Christmas this year and now without further ado, the news for the week of December 19-25.

Manchin Says No

Joe Manchin is a no on Build Back Better, so naturally the left is taking the news well.

The Hill @thehill

.@JamaalBowmanNY: "It's an example of Joe Manchin, as a White man, showing that he doesn't care about Black people, he doesn't care about Latinos, he doesn't care about immigrants, he doesn't care about women, and he doesn't care about the poor."

Manchin’s West Virginia used to be synonymous with the Democratic Party. It was the party that stood with the coal miners unions who were dealing with things like black lung. Today, the Democratic Party is a full of woke, intersectional environmentalists who hate coal and act as if they are predestined to be in power forever. Manchin, meanwhile, is still a coal state Democrat who is enough of a institutionalist to know that one day Republicans will be back in charge and Democrats will rue the day they got rid of the filibuster if he and Sen. Sinema do not hold the line.

As for Biden, his hubris brought about BBB’s downfall, or at least this iteration of it. Biden won because he was Not Trump. The left may have wanted grand reforms, but the ordinary voter just wanted normalcy and competency from the White House. As it turns out, passing FDR/LBJ-style legislation without FDR/LBJ congressional majorities is a little more difficult than simply snapping one’s fingers. Manchin is a Democrat, he will not be switching parties, but he is a Democrat from a pervious era.

Air Fauci Non-Stop to Maskville

The tradition of Dr. Fauci saying stupid stuff on the Sunday shows continued with his appearance on This Week on ABC. Responding to claims that airplanes are safer than ICUs and therefore masking on planes is not necessary, Fauci claimed that masks will be worn on planes forever:

The First @TheFirstonTV

Fauci can't stop fear mongering. Here is his answer when asked if he thinks people will stop masking on planes. "I don’t think so. I think when you’re dealing with a closed space, even though the filtration is good, that you want to go that extra step when you have people."

I have tried really hard to be fair to the good doctor. I have accused him of being the sort of expert that has a hard time realizing that there is an entire world outside of his narrow area of expertise, but I have not gone so far as to label him a power-hungry bureaucrat who refuses to relinquish his power and 15 minutes of fame.

These sort of comments, however, really try my patience. Despite all the histrionics, over 72% of adults are fully vaccinated, over 85% have at least one dose (in any other context, 85% of Americans agreeing on something would be considered a consensus. With vaccines and public health officials, it is considered “controversial”) and yet, Fauci is still acting like it is March 2020. This is not an End of Days virus, but one day there might be such a bug. Fauci and his cult either seem unaware or simply do not care that if that day ever comes, it will be important for people to listen to the advice of public health officials and follow their guidelines, but that will not happen if you become a caricature of yourself by embracing Forever Masking.

Undercounting the Vaxxed?

Speaking of Dr. Fauci, on December 17, he told CNBC “We are never going to get out of this outbreak if we still have 50 million people who, for reasons that are very difficult to understand, refuse to get vaccinated.”

Squawk Box @SquawkCNBC

"Mandates-that's a radioactive word. Requirements people seem to respond better to that. They work," says Dr. Fauci. "We are never going to get out of this outbreak if we still have 50 million people who for reasons that are very difficult to understand refuse to get vaccinated."

On Monday, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins put the number even higher, “I never imagined a year ago ... that we would still have 60 million [unvaccinated] people."

PBS NewsHour @NewsHour

What could NIH have done differently during the pandemic? Dr. Francis Collins to @JudyWoodruff: "Maybe we underinvested in research on human behavior. I never imagined a year ago ... that we would still have 60 million people" not get vaccinated. to.pbs.org/2xQQeuL

So, is it 50 million or 60 million, because that is a big difference? If we assume, for the sake of conversation, that there are 300,000 first doses given every day, then Collins is 33 days behind Fauci. That means 33 more days of restrictions, mandates, and the like.

But, even Fauci’s number is strange. By the CDC’s own numbers, as of December 22, 85% of adults have at least started the vaccination process. Basic math tells us that 15% have not. According to the Census’ 2020 numbers, there are 258.3 million adults in the U.S. Fifteen percent of 258.3 million is 38.745 million.

So, where are Fauci and Collins getting their numbers? If the CDC’s website is off by that big of a margin, it should be fixed. If it is correct, then Fauci and Collins are overinflating the number of unvaccinated adults. Why? Some may say it does not matter, 38.745 is still too high, but precision matters because truth matters and one reason someone may still be unvaccinated is because they do not trust the likes of Fauci and Collins.

We know that Fauci is okay with the idea of white lies, so a cynic might say he is overinflating the number to try to shame more people into getting vaccinated. A less cynical approach would be that Fauci and Collins thought that a simple formula of Vaccines + Arms would be enough to bring this to a close, but more contagious variants have thrown a wrench in that idea and they do not know how to bring themselves or brace the public for the conclusion that COVID is going to be endemic with something analogous to the annual flu shot and that much of the End of Days rhetoric has been way over the top.

Some Other Things

In the latest example of corporations surrendering to Communist China, Amazon deleted all reviews of Xi Jinping’s book on its Chinese website as the price of doing business. Remember that the next time when Amazon claims to support human rights.
The U.S. and Russia have agreed to talks about Russia’s demands at the beginning of the new year, so you better believe we will keep an eye on that. In the meantime, Putin continues to blame the West for tensions in Ukraine, saying we are weaponizing it against Russia. He really is Eric Andre from the “Why would X” do this meme, isn’t he?
Materialistic atheists just might be the most joyless, fun-less people on the planet:
Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson
For Santa to deliver gifts to all world's Christians in one night requires hypersonic speeds through Earth’s lower atmosphere, vaporizing his reindeer & sleigh. Just sayin’.
December 24th 2021
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ICYMI

Last week’s newsletter

Weekly Randomness

The original name for the Elf on the Shelf was named Fisbee.
A Massachusetts man has won his second $1 million lottery.

Looking Forward to Celebrating…

National Bacon Day on Thursday, December 30

Alex Thoughts