Of all the fumbling, dishonest, weird things President Biden said in his “60 Minutes” interview last night, that statement: “The pandemic is over” was easily the most significant. Because…
- As if there wasn’t enough proof already, this was smoking gun evidence that poor Joe doesn’t know what’s going on in his own administration, or, in the alternative, that what his own administration is doing is only marginally within his power.
- Programs and policies completely dependent on the existence of the pandemic are not only ongoing, they are being challenged in court.
- Biden’s insane college loan forgiveness scheme relies (dubiously) on the existence of the pandemic to avoid being illegal.
- States are still firing employees who refuse to get vaccines. New York is attempting to fire hundreds of teachers and school administrators. Private companies are also firing unvaccinated employees. Military personnel are being disciplined for not getting vaccinated.
- Many school systems are still inflicting mask mandates on children.
- Professor Turley points out that Biden’s public statement is certain to be used in briefs relating to the many cases challenging emergency powers and policies used by the Administration, like the appeal being considered en banc by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, challenging the moves taken under the Administration’s claimed pandemic authority.
- While conservative critics are concentrating on the inconsistency and self-contradiction represented by Biden’s announcement, the Mask Loving Left is furious, because they want the pandemic, along with the fear and submissiveness it engenders, to continue forever. If the pandemic is gone, how will Democratic states justify installing new voting systems where voters just yell out their choices from the windows of their homes and cars, to be recorded by government vote-takers, written down, and deposited in convenient drop-boxes?
Ethics Alarms 
Is President Biden’s statement a Freudian Slip revealing the continuing deception that’s been rammed down the throat of the American people?
Nah. It’s just Biden being Biden. Remember, this is an election year and they want to stave off the supposed slaughter coming to a voting booth near you in November. Ron Klain tweeted yesterday that gas prices at the pump have decreased $1.00 since the start of summer 2022. He doesn’t say that they are still $1.00 per gallon over where they were two years ago, and he doesn’t talk about the costs to consumer at the grocery store (you know, Twitter’s character limitations and all) or spikes in interest rates and other costs passed on to the consumer. But, hey: It will be fun to see the Democrats use the pandemic to justify voting shenanigans this time around, ¿no?
It doesn’t make sense to compare current gas prices to prices from two years ago, without acknowledging that 2020 gas prices reflected significantly lower demand. Two years ago, we were still in the pandemic’s early days. A good chunk of the workforce was working remotely and hardly anybody was traveling for pleasure.
Valid point. In fact, Presidents have very little control over gas spikes and price drops, but all of them accept the credit or are stuck with the blame. If, as in Biden’s case, you deliberately curtail oil access, you’re begging to be blamed. It’s an easy way, if an inaccurate one, to focus on an irresponsible policy.
You don’t think people still held back on non-essential travel as gas prices climbed in 2021 & 2022 Consumption is still below Trump years levels, but prices are still at least $1/gal higher.
Well, why do you need a President when you have a press secretary that can walk back everything he says the next day anyway?
True dat!
Ron Klain hasn’t issued “a clarification” yet?
Either
1) the President’s caretakers will be issuing frantic “he didn’t mean that” retractions over the next few days.
Or
2) the Democrats planners are reasonably confident they won’t have to rely on election day “pandemic lockdowns” to pull shenanigans – they’ll have some other trick up their sleeves or already have arranged for what needs to happen.
Monkeypox.
jvb
I think they tried to make something out of monkey pox but have since let it go. I haven’t heard much of it lately since it rapidly became well known what the primary method of transmission was.
That sounds right. So, what will the next existential voting crisis be? Climate change is gonna wipe out people’s ability to get to the polls? 8.6% inflation will crush the poor and the weary, preventing them exercising their constitutional rights?
jvb
I’m not sure what the excuse will be to cover for ballot stuffing and harvesting but it will eventually be “republicans are election deniers and due to that danger to democracy cannot be allowed to vote”
1) The clean team has already ‘clarified’ Biden’s statement that the US will engage the Chinese with American soldiers should China move on Taiwan. “The policy has not changed.” I think this is the third time President Biden has made this statement in front of TV cameras.
2) California now conducts all elections by mail, sending ballots to every voter on the rolls, without the voter having to request one. California automatically enrolls voters at the DMV; people that aren’t inclined to vote (like the deceased or voters that have moved away) can have their ballots filled out for them surreptitiously by people fishing them out of recycle bins.
1) I was referring to the pandemic comment.
Yes, you were referring to the pandemic and I took a few steps ahead about what Biden’s administration was going to tell Americans that Biden didn’t mean what he said, vis-a-vis coronavirus being a continuing emergency.
That may be coming, but I’m not too certain. My recollection of these troublesome statements from Biden are usually all cleaned up in one motion, rather than reversing Biden’s faux pas over the course of multiple instances over multiple days/press conferences.
That only the Taiwan statement has been clarified leaves me to believe that this is the only thing from Biden that’s going to be retracted .
At least, I hope that’s the case. Declarations of Emergencies allow wannabe tyrants unfettered authority without those pesky checks & balances getting in the way.
“Programs and policies completely dependent on the existence of the pandemic are not only ongoing, they are being challenged in court.”
As I said on Twitter:
“Imagine having to be the administration lawyer arguing that the petty tyrancy in question is justified by the pandemic your head of state just publicly said is over. […] I’m waiting to see how many of his lawyers directly contradict Biden with arguments that the pandemic is still a pressing and ongoing concern.”
The thing is… A lot of these Bidenisms are, I think, him forgetting to not say the quiet parts out loud. A lot of the things we’re calling gaffes, things that Ron Klaine try to backpedal the next day… They’re things that the administration actually seems to believe and act on. If the administration is saying Covid is over (and really: It is.), I think this signals what the post-midterm narrative is going to be.
I can’t think of a job more stressful than being on Biden’s PR team. Every day that he’s allowed to circulate among people and isn’t hidden away receiving hyperbaric treatments and Adderall, or whatever goes on behind the closed doors of that Delaware house, must be a white-knuckle ride for those poor people. Will he say something insane? Will he sniff a little kid? Challenge someone to fisticuffs? Worst, will he say the quiet part out loud and blow up some carefully-constructed scheme that hinges on the flimsiest of fig-leaf pretext? I don’t know what time they dose him with sedatives for bed, but whatever time it is, you’d better have paperweights on all the documents in the WH press offices, because the sighs of relief at that point every day must be gale force.
If you’re on the Biden White House team and manage to make it through four years of this without developing any debilitating nervous tics or chemical dependencies, you will have proven yourself to have superhuman nerves of steel.
“Justify”? We don’t need no steenkin’ justify.
More specifically, the candidates who are elected will tell you that all is well under the system that elected them. Anyone who disagrees will have no standing to object substantively, because only elected persons have such standing. Others may comment with no leverage through, say, the media if they so choose, but not object substantively.
I truly believe that when the history of the pandemic and the vaccine is written it will be a story of mass hysteria fueled by inane policies and the validity of the placebo effect applied to masks and the vaccine alike.