JustOneMinute

Independence Day!

Boom!

Saturday Afternoon

So, any excitement this week?

Saturday Open Thread

Here we go.

Sunday Afternoon

Here we go again.

Sweet Jiminy!

OK, we are taking on the Tough Questions du Jour - why was Rod Stewart singing "Sweet Caroline" at the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Concert? Isn't that a Red Sox Nation thing?

Well, yes-ish, per the Times - Sweet Caroline is a fan favorite around the world and in many sports, and has been a thing in Northern Ireland for years, but... per the Times, the song came to Wembley in 2019 for the Red Sox-Yankees two game set and then took off during the Euro 2020 soccer tournament in 2021. LOTS more here, but I know you want to see Rod take a whack at it. Come in at the 1:55 mark, as Rod explains that the BBC made him sing this. Might want to think about turning down the sound and closing your eyes, but here goes...

Memorial Day Weekend!

Memorial Day is nigh! For me its a time to remember gas for the grill, the names of my kids' Significant Others (JK! Its the kids' names I still stumble on!), our nations's war dead and of course this old post from carefree 2008, when Candidate Barack re-imagined the holiday:

Obama: He's Ready To Tell Us His Secret

Obama is ready to tell us his secret - he sees dead people... Obama's intro to his Memorial Day speech in New Mexico:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

They've fallen - but they've gotten back up!  Well, he was in New Mexico...

Only fourteen years? Seems like a lifetime ago.

Monday Morning, And Biden Does It Again

Let's start the week with a resounding chorus of "WTF is it now?".

I'll open with this - back in the day (1916, actually) Woodrow Wilson's campaign slogan was "He kept us out of war".

Looks like Biden is pining his hopes on "He talked us into war". First up, by declaring his view that Putin was a war criminal and subsequently ad-libbing "For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”, Biden has raised the stakes in Ukraine to even more dangerous levels.

Now he is on a Pacific visit, so Biden has up-ended the longstanding US policy of 'strategic ambiguity' on Taiwan. And once again, after Biden's mouth finished its walkabout his aides began a frantic walk-back:

Biden Says U.S. Military Would Defend Taiwan if China Invaded

May 23, 2022; By Kanno-Youngs and Peter Baker

TOKYO — President Biden indicated on Monday that he would use military force to defend Taiwan if it were ever attacked by China, dispensing with the “strategic ambiguity” traditionally favored by American presidents and repeating even more unequivocally statements that his staff tried to walk back in the past.

At a news conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan during a visit to Tokyo, Mr. Biden suggested that he would be willing to go further on behalf of Taiwan than he has in helping Ukraine, where he has provided tens of billions of dollars in arms as well as intelligence assistance to help defeat Russian invaders but refused to send American troops.

“You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons,” a reporter said to Mr. Biden. “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?”

“Yes,” Mr. Biden answered flatly.

“You are?” the reporter followed up.

“That’s the commitment we made,” he said.

The president’s declaration, offered without caveat or clarification, set the stage for fresh tensions between the United States and China, which insists that Taiwan is a part of its territory and cannot exist as a sovereign nation. It also surprised some members of Mr. Biden’s own administration watching in the room, who did not expect him to promise such unvarnished resolve. The United States has historically warned China against using force against Taiwan while generally remaining vague about how far it would go to aid the island in such a circumstance.

The White House quickly tried to deny that the president meant what he seemed to be saying. “As the president said, our policy has not changed,” the White House said in a statement hurriedly sent to reporters. “He reiterated our One China Policy and our commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. He also reiterated our commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with the military means to defend itself.”

But Mr. Biden’s comments went beyond simply reiterating that the United States would provide Taiwan with arms, because the question was posed as a contrast to what he had done with Ukraine. The president made no effort to qualify what he intended when he agreed that he would “get involved militarily.”

Oh, brother. The point of 'strategic ambiguity' was that a firm US commitment to fight alongside Taiwan would both antagonize the mainland Chinese government and embolden Taiwanese separatists. Better to leave potential adversaries uncertain about just what dangers they faced if war started (perhaps triggered by a formal Taiwanese declaration of separation.)

And why change that policy now? My view is that one silver lining from this Ukranian horror is its likely impact on Xi and any subsequent Chinese leader. I'd hope that any assurances from his generals and admirals that the Chinese military was up to the challenge of a cross-strait invasion contested by Taiwan and perhaps the US Seventh Fleet would be met with a prudent question - "What do you suppose Putin was told about invading Ukraine?".

The last time China had a sizeable military engagement was their 1979 invasion of battle-hardened North Vietnam. Although a mismatch on paper it went poorly for the Chinese. Would they could attempt to invade Taiwan without first staging a warm-up war elsewhere?

A Chinese blockade of Taiwan relying on missiles and mines seems more managable militarily, although even that would probably lead to an economic war China may not want to fight. A Chinese strategy that culminates with an invasion would probably start with a blockade anyway (to limit supply of military aid), so a war in Taiwan is likely to start with a lot of obvious warnings.

Maybe a clear red line drawn by the US will discourage Chinese adventurism without firing up Taiwan. But if the US is changing its policy it would be nice to imagine the US foreign policy pros at State and Defense have chimed in first. "Foreign policy by ad-lib" was a feature of the Obama administration (and his campaign!), so its not as if Biden is a lonely Dem on this approach.

ERRATA: Obama apparently ad-libbed on Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Isreal in remarks to AIPAC in Jun 2008.

A brain fart that Egypt was not an ally came in September 2012 during a campaign effort on Telemundo.

Happy Monday!

Here we go, into the week!

LOL NY Times...

The NY Times seems to be testing a feature that is new to me - present the story they want to tell (and their Upper West Side readers want to read) early on and then run appropriate corrections and clarifications deep in the original story. No need for embarrassing appended editor's notes!

Here we go. The topic is Schumer's failed 'plant a flag for the elections' vote on a Dem abortion bill. Their narrative goal is evergreen: Common sense Dems thwarted by extremist Republicans, ie, all of them.

Bill to Guarantee Abortion Rights Fails in Senate

Dated May 11 and the byline goes to Annie Karni, a name we will keep in mind.

WASHINGTON — Democrats tried and failed on Wednesday to push forward legislation to guarantee abortion rights nationwide, as Republicans and one Democrat in the Senate blocked an effort to enshrine the landmark Roe v. Wade precedent in federal law.

With 51 senators opposed and 49 in support, Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they would have needed to take up sweeping legislation to ensure abortion access and explicitly bar a wide array of restrictions.

...

Republicans, who unanimously opposed the measure, were joined by one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. Mr. Manchin, who opposes abortion rights, said the legislation was overly broad, noting that it would go substantially further than simply codifying Roe and warning that it would “expand abortion.”

The resulting vote showed that a majority does not now exist in the Senate to support maintaining legal abortion nationwide. Democrats who supported the bill framed it as a call to action, ahead of midterm elections, for voters who support abortion rights to elect likeminded candidates who will preserve them.

People who read beyond the Times and have been following the debate will notice two howlers, because the bill goes well beyond enshrining Roe v. Wade, and majority does exist in the Senate for a pro-choice bill.

But don't take my word for it! Eventually (paragraph 17-18):

The legislation Democrats tried to advance on Wednesday, called the Women’s Health Protection Act, would protect abortion access nationwide, going beyond simply codifying Roe. It would explicitly prohibit a long list of abortion restrictions, including some that have been enacted by states since Roe was decided in 1973 and that have severely limited access to the procedure.

Democrats conceded that their bill was more expansive than Roe, saying that they had drafted the measure in line with their view that some of the statewide restrictions that have been put in place over the past decade are inconsistent with that precedent.

As to a possible Senate majority, that is retracted in paragraphs 19 and 20:

That position cost them support from Mr. Manchin and two Republicans who back abortion rights but said they wanted merely to preserve the status quo — not roll back existing abortion restrictions.

Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, had proposed a narrower bill that they said would codify Roe by outlawing any limit that would put an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. It borrowed language from the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, which affirmed what it called the essential holding in Roe: that states may not prohibit abortions before fetal viability.

Democrats dismissed the proposal as toothless, noting that it lacked clear guidance about what states can and cannot do, and that it would not explicitly rule out abortion bans before a fetus is viable or bar any specific prohibitions on abortion methods.

So basically, the bill attempts to "codify Roe" by re-writing it as the law as abortion actists would prefer.

But at least this story gives determined (and patient!) readers a fighting chance at finding the facts. Last week Ms. Karni previewed the bill, and provided only the most opaque of belated clarifications. Here we go again, as common-sense Dems battle extremist Reps:

Democrats Plan a Bid to Codify Roe, but Lack the Votes to Succeed

In announcing a Wednesday vote on doomed legislation to enshrine abortion rights into federal law, the top Senate Democrat teed up a political fight for the midterm campaign.

May 5, 2022 by Annie Karnie

WASHINGTON — Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, moved on Thursday to set up a vote next week on a bill to codify abortion rights into federal law, acting quickly in the wake of a leaked Supreme Court draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, despite clear evidence that the measure lacks the support to be enacted.

The plan is little more than an effort to send a political message before the midterm elections and a seismic ruling that could have major legal, cultural and electoral consequences, with deep significance for voters across the political spectrum.

The legislation is all but certain to be blocked by Republicans, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance past a filibuster. It also appears to lack even the simple majority it would need to pass the 50-50 Senate, given that Senator Joe Manchin III, the centrist Democrat from West Virginia who opposes abortion rights, voted against bringing up a nearly identical measure in February and has shown no signs that he has shifted his position.

...

Even if Democrats have no real path to passing a bill to enshrine Roe into federal law, the vote will give them a chance to show their progressive core supporters that they are trying to do so. They also hope the action stokes a backlash against Republicans by swing voters, including college-educated suburban women, who might be alienated by the G.O.P.’s opposition to abortion rights.

OK, the headline and paragraph 8 talk about codifying Roe. Much late, starting at para. 17:

They have also altered the measure [from a February version] in an effort to garner more support among Republicans who back abortion rights, removing a lengthy series of findings, including passages that referred to abortion restrictions as “a tool of gender oppression” and as being “rooted in misogyny.” Also scrapped was a section clarifying that while the bill refers to women, it is meant to protect the rights of “every person capable of becoming pregnant,” including transgender men and nonbinary individuals.

Yeah, swing voters worry about protecting abortion rights for transgender men. Whatev. They took that out. Still, para. 18-23:

But the fundamentals of the bill remain the same. It states that health care providers have a legal right to perform abortions, and patients to receive them, and would expressly nullify a wide range of requirements, restrictions and bans.

Democrats had hoped that removing the nonbinding findings could win over Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, two Republicans who support abortion rights.

But Ms. Collins said on Thursday that she still opposed the bill, because it went beyond simply codifying Roe v. Wade, which she supports, and lacked provisions that would allow Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions.

Democrats said they were not interested in finding a compromise that might be acceptable to Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski, who have introduced a narrower bill that would bar states from imposing an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion before her fetus is viable.

The Democrats’ bill is more prescriptive, explicitly invalidating any abortion ban or restriction before viability, which it defines as the point at which the treating physician judges the fetus has “a reasonable likelihood” of “sustained” survival outside the womb.

“We’re not cutting back; we’re not compromising,” Mr. Schumer said at a news conference when asked if he would consider taking up the Republican bill. “We’re not looking to compromise on something as vital as this. This has been American law for 50 years.”

Ms. Karnie updated and clarified her description of the Collins/ Murkowski bill for her latest story. I'll reprise it for comparison:

Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, had proposed a narrower bill that they said would codify Roe by outlawing any limit that would put an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. It borrowed language from the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, which affirmed what it called the essential holding in Roe: that states may not prohibit abortions before fetal viability.

Well, yes - the mysterious "undue burden" of the earlier story is now explained as coming from Casey (1992) which upheld restrictions (such as parental notification) which were found to be an undue burden.

 

 

 

Abortion

Abortion thunder from the right from... Bill Maher?

"Real Time" host Bill Maher kicked off his panel discussion about the abortion debate Friday by sharing the surprising things he learned following the leaked Supreme Court majority opinion draft on Roe v. Wade. 

"I learned things this week… that are pretty basic things that I did not know about abortion. Like in Europe, the modern countries of Europe are way more restrictive than we are or what they're even proposing!" Maher exclaimed. "If you are pro-choice, you would like it a lot less in Germany, and Italy, and France, and Spain, and Switzerland. Did you know that? I didn't know that."

The Washington Post ran a fact check asserting that back in 2017; now that it is being cited (including in the draft Alito opinion) they are backpedaling and emphasizing the nuance.

"I learned most people who are pro-life are women. I did not know that. Most abortions are from… mothers, people who have a kid… And I thought this was interesting, most abortions now — even when you go to a clinic are done with the pill. The pill. And pills are easy to get in America," Maher continued. "So, you know, for the people who say we're going back to 1973, we're not. That's just factually inaccurate."

Hmm. If the hysterical progressives have lost Bill Maher...

Kind Of A Big Deal

Roe to Go? Heck of a leak.

 

Real Men (and Women!) of Genius, Biden Advisor Edition

IMHO student debt relief is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons. Debt relief without MAJOR reforms to the system that got us here (high college costs, hunanities degrees of doubtful value) makes no sense. And plenty of progressives (cf Pete Buttigieg and Urban Institute below) acknowledge that, as priorities go, debt relief to high earning college grads is low on their list.

But as explained in The Atlantic college grads and academia drive the Dem agenda. That leads to some brilliant thinking, as Team Biden tries to placate part of his progressive wing without totally alienating the rest of us. From the WaPo:

White House officials weigh income limits for student loan forgiveness

Biden aides consider how to cut off eligibility to exclude high-earners

Well, the concept of means-testing makes sense but look at the thresholds:

In recent weeks, senior Biden aides have examined limiting the relief to people who earned less than either $125,000 or $150,000 as individual filers the previous year, the people said. That plan would set the threshold at around $250,000 or $300,000 for couples who file their taxes jointly, the people said. 

What kind of a country are we living in if a guy or gal making $125k can't get some help from the Feds on their bills?

Biden is apparently going to rely on Executive authority and a stroke of his pen. His team may see a political benefit to taking this step now (I'd say they talked too much to back down now) but I think they may be headed for the worst of all worlds - lose even more House seats this November and then lose a court fight next year.

Biden's obvious excuse to delay action is that this debt relief is inflationary, as explained by Matt Yglesias (I know, right?). But, to quote a Mitt Romney tweet, desperate polls call for desperate measures.

INTERESTING BACKGROUND: The NY Fed analyzed an Equifax data base of credit reports and scores.

ERRATA: Mayor Pete Buttigieg on debt relief while back on the campaign trail in April of 2019:

“Americans who have a college degree earn more than Americans who don’t,” Mr. Buttigieg said while addressing college students in Boston. “As a progressive, I have a hard time getting my head around the idea of a majority who earn less because they didn’t go to college subsidizing a minority who earn more because they did.”

And Matthew Chingos of The Urban Institute, also April 2019:

“I think you also are going to see some concerns from the left that if you are wiping out all the debt, that that would be a pretty regressive thing to do,” said Matthew Chingos, the vice president of education data and policy at the Urban Institute. “And once you look at the numbers, this looks like the Trump tax cuts in terms of who it benefits. So it’s a little hard to be out there saying, well, ‘I’m against tax cuts for the wealthy, but at the same time I want to give this big handout to the wealthy.’”

Well, not all college grads are wealthy. Yet here we are.

 

DeSantis v. Disney - One For The Public Finance Experts

Dissolving Disney's special tax district may be more complicated than it seems - when the Reedy Creek Improvement District was created by the FL state legislature pledged back in 1967 they pledged not to impair any subsequent bond issues. That leads to other issues - what one legislative session bestows another can often take back. But both the Florida and US constitutions speak to the question of impairing government contractual obligations.

The Miami Herald reprises the action so far.

 

Vaccine Panic At The Times

The Times delivers some vaccine porn for their Upper West Side readership - OMG, we won't vaccinate 70% of the world agasint COVID!

Its is only VERY late in the story we hear from experts who wonder whether that goal still makes any sense (spoiler - it probaby doesn't.)

Here we go:

The Drive to Vaccinate the World Against Covid Is Losing Steam

Rates are stalling in most low-income countries well short of the W.H.O.’s goal to immunize 70 percent of people in every nation. Some public health experts believe the momentum is gone forever.

In the middle of last year, the World Health Organization began promoting an ambitious goal, one it said was essential for ending the pandemic: fully vaccinate 70 percent of the population in every country against Covid-19 by June 2022.

Now, it is clear that the world will fall far short of that target by the deadline. And there is a growing sense of resignation among public health experts that high Covid vaccination coverage may never be achieved in most lower-income countries, as badly needed funding from the United States dries up and both governments and donors turn to other priorities.

...

Countries in different parts of the world, including some in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, have seen their vaccination rates stagnate in recent months at a third or less of their populations. But Africa’s vaccination rate remain the most dismal.

...

Fewer than 17 percent of Africans have received a primary Covid immunization. Nearly half of the vaccine doses delivered to the continent thus far have gone unused. Last month, the number of doses injected on the continent fell by 35 percent compared to February. W.H.O. officials attributed the drop to mass vaccination pushes being replaced by smaller-scale campaigns in several countries.

Some global health experts say the world missed a prime opportunity last year to provide vaccines to lower-income countries, when the public was more fearful of Covid and motivated to get vaccinated.

“There was a time people were very desperate to get vaccinated, but the vaccines were not there. And then they realized that without the vaccination, they didn’t die,” said Dr. Adewole, who wants to see countries continue to pursue the 70 percent target.

Yeah, well, experience can be a valuable teacher. But why is the momentum gone? A shortage of vaccines? Well, no:

The African Union still aims to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the end of 2022. But with countries slow to use up donated vaccines, the bloc has not exercised its options to order more doses of the shots from Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.

The South African drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare earlier this year finalized a deal to bottle and market the Johnson & Johnson vaccine across Africa, a contract that was billed as an early step toward Africa’s development of a robust vaccine production industry. Aspen geared up for production, but no buyers, including the African Union and Covax, have placed orders yet, said Stephen Saad, Aspen’s chief executive.

The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, stopped its production of Covid shots in December last year, when its stockpile grew to 200 million doses; Bharat Biotech, another Indian firm that was a major producer, also stopped making vaccines in the face of low demand. The companies say they have no further orders since their contracts with the Indian government ended in March.

The loss of public demand is eventually adddressed head-on - vaccines aren't great agasint Omicron and anyway, most people have had COVID:

The vaccine regimens that had been planned for the developing world offered little protection against infection with the Omicron variant. And as sub-Saharan African countries were shut out of vaccine distribution for much of last year, more and more Africans gained protection against the virus from natural infection, which studies have shown works as well as two mRNA doses in preventing infection. New data from the W.H.O. shows that at least two-thirds of Africans had been infected with the virus before the Omicron wave.

If 67% of the population had effective immunity prior to Omicron, the 70% goal has surely been achieved the hard way. Many experts are saying the focus should be on the vulnerable:

Given these factors, some public health experts in Africa say the broad 70 percent goal no longer makes sense. “There’s very little value to it. In fact, we will gain much more by getting to more than 90 percent of people above the age of 50,” said Shabir Madhi, a professor of vaccinology and the dean of the faculty of health sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. About two-thirds of South Africans above age 50 are currently fully vaccinated.

Dr. Madhi said that South Africa could close down mass vaccination sites and instead redouble its efforts to seek out the most vulnerable at church services and at government offices that pay out monthly pension benefits.

Katherine O’Brien, who directs the W.H.O.’s work on vaccines and immunizations, said the agency encourages countries to focus on its most vulnerable citizens rather than vaccinating “a random set of 70 percent” of their populations. The aspiration she said, has always been “100 percent of health workers, 100 percent of older adults, 100 percent of pregnant women, 100 percent of the people who fall into those highest risk groups.”

Vax the vulnerabble! Seems like common sense. But the Times can't leave their readers there, so they close with a plaintive plea for social equality:

Some public health experts said that while the 70 percent vaccination threshold is clearly not achievable by its original deadline, it would be unwise and unethical to give up on that target over a longer time horizon. They expressed frustration about the growing gulf between wealthy countries vaccinating young children and offering healthy adults fourth vaccine doses, and the regions where the majority of people still do not have one dose.

“Why are we making it one target for high-income countries and one target for low income?” said Dr. Ayoade Alakija, a co-chair of the African Union’s vaccine delivery program.

She said that even though many people in sub-Saharan Africa have been infected, there is still need for the additional protection that would come from a high level of vaccination coverage.

Modest vaccination coverage, she said, “is not considered a good enough level of protection in England, it’s not a good enough level of protection in America. How is it OK not to be aiming for the very maximum, maximum we can? Aim for the sky and get to the top of the tree.”

That's the spirit! Why should countries with a much younger population and very different public health challenges be treated differently from the US or the UK?