Florida’s surgeon general has accused the Biden administration of “actively preventing” the distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19, causing an “immediate and life-threatening shortage of treatment options.”

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Tuesday, Dr. Joseph Ladapo alleged that HHS had reduced the number of antibodies allocated to the Sunshine State earlier this year “without any advanced notice.” //

​Another monoclonal antibody, GlaxoSmithKline’s Sotrovimab, appears to be more effective against Omicron and continues to be distributed by the federal government. ​But according to Ladapo, none has been allocated from the federal government to Florida, forcing the DeSantis administration to purchase a supply on its own.

For the entirety of the pandemic, Democrats and their media allies have used case numbers to trash red states. It never mattered that New York dwarfed Florida in deaths per capita despite the latter having a far older, more vulnerable population. Ron DeSantis was evil and every new infection was a moral failing, according to the left.

But now that COVID is slamming the Northeast at higher rates than the South’s summer wave, the goalposts have been uprooted and launched into orbit.

As we recognize that covid-19 is not a deadly or even severe disease for the vast majority of responsible Americans, we can stop agonizing over “cases” and focus on those who are hospitalized or at risk of dying.https://t.co/S4OQD7R58u

— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) December 28, 2021

His first instinct whenever he is challenged seems to be to lie and deflect all blame. He can never take responsibility for anything. It’s so reflexive with him sometimes the lies are not at all thought out, and so are incredibly obvious.

Biden did just that today when he was confronted by New York Post reporter Steve Nelson on the White House lawn.

Nelson asked about a report in Vanity Fair that Biden had been offered a plan in October by health experts to get 732 million test kits out to Americans before the holiday season hit so that could help reduce the crush of people wanting tests.

The 10-page plan, which Vanity Fair has obtained, would enable the U.S. to finally do what many other countries had already done: Put rapid at-home COVID-19 testing into the hands of average citizens, allowing them to screen themselves in real time and thereby help reduce transmission. The plan called for an estimated 732 million tests per month, a number that would require a major ramp-up of manufacturing capacity. It also recommended, right on the first page, a nationwide “Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge.” //

Steven Nelson
@stevennelson10
'We didn't reject it,' President Biden told me, responding to Vanity Fair report that his administration rejected a holiday #coronavirus testing surge https://vanityfair.com/news/2021/12/the-biden-administration-rejected-an-october-proposal-for-free-rapid-tests-for-the-holidays
12:25 PM · Dec 27, 2021

Um, so where were those 732 million tests for the holidays that just went by if you didn’t reject it? If you’re going to lie, at least make it a more manageable lie, like you were never offered it. With this lie, he just confirmed that there was a plan offered to him. It wasn’t put into play because nobody got the tests before the holidays. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki even acknowledged just before Christmas that they were just working out details now for something to go into effect weeks from now, that they hadn’t even signed contracts for it. But that was only after the media flipped out on them over the past couple of weeks that they even said that.

Biden just can’t stop lying. He can’t even keep track of what he’s saying anymore which is why none of it makes any sense.

Some may quibble with my use of the word “rigged,” but I think it’s more than apt. The Democrats’ legislation not only bans voter ID laws that are key to election security, but it also endorses ballot harvesting, uses taxpayer money to fund political campaigns, mandates same-day registration with no safeguards, makes mail-in voting universal, automatically registers minors, legalizes so-called “drive-thru” voting, and even sets up a system where ballots are allowed to be counted if they arrive 10 days after an election.

There is simply no justification for passing an illegitimate power grab over the nation’s election systems, and in my opinion, no justification could ever exist in any circumstance. We are a republic, and localized control of elections is a bedrock principle of our system. //

If you can make an exception on “voting rights,” one can be made on anything. Oh yeah, and lest we forget, Democrats would like to pack the Supreme Court as well. You know, to save “democracy” or some such.

This is all really tyrannical stuff, and if the shoe was on the other foot, the gnashing of teeth from the press would never cease. Yet, instead of being condemned, Democrats are actually lauded for their dictatorial efforts. It’s absolute insanity.

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A video feed of a Taiwanese minister was cut during U.S. President Joe Biden's Summit for Democracy last week after a map in her slide presentation showed Taiwan in a different color to China, which claims the island as its own.

Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Friday's slide show by Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang caused consternation among U.S. officials after the map appeared in her video feed for about a minute.

Peznt Journalist
@PezntJournalist
Irony @ The Summit for Democracy 12/10

1. Taiwan minister's map shows Taiwan separate from China
2. Video feed is cut when it comes back to her
3. "Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views US gov't"

2:38 PM · Dec 13, 2021 //

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
The Chinese Communist Party no longer needs to censor our friend Taiwan.

Why?

The Biden admin does it for them. 🤡🤡🤡
Michael Sobolik
@michaelsobolik
WHAT?

The White House cut the video feed of Taiwan’s Digital Minister during the Summit of Democracies.

Why?

Because Audrey Tang’s slide show displayed 🇹🇼 in a different color than 🇨🇳

This is insane. https://reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/curious-case-map-disappearing-taiwan-minister-us-democracy-summit-2021-12-12/
9:13 PM · Dec 12, 2021

H.R. 5305, the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act , requires that the DHS secretary submit a written report 60 days after the enacted date that breaks down how many Afghans are in the country. The breakdown must include how many evacuees are at U.S. overseas bases or nonmilitary holding areas abroad, as well as the number of lawful permanent residents, SIV holders, SIV applicants, nonimmigrant visa holders, and refugee referrals.

The Biden team blew all that off. So one has to ask: why? They have lied from the outset about the people that they evacuated, and they continue to try to obscure the nature of the people they evacuated.

According to reports, Biden himself ordered them to evacuate “Afghans at risk” and “Families with women and children” — people who didn’t even have to have helped the U.S. or who hadn’t been previously vetted — to fill up the planes. The Congressional requirement would make them have to explain all that and how many were security concerns.

Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻
@nayibbukele
US taxpayers should know that their government is using their money to fund communist movements against a democratic elected (and with a 90% approval rating) government in El Salvador.

It’s not working though 😂

The people of El Salvador won’t go back to that terrible past.
3:27 PM · Dec 12, 2021 //

Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻
@nayibbukele
False accusations?

Is it false that Jean Manes asked me to release Neto Muyshondt (captured in video giving tens of thousands of US dollars to gang members)?

Do you want me to continue?
Brian A. Nichols
@WHAAsstSecty
We condemn @nayibbukele's false accusations against @POTUS and other U.S. government officials, including Ambassador Manes and current Charge d'Affaires Brendan O'Brien.
3:45 PM · Dec 9, 2021 //

What has the US government got itself wrapped up in here? Let’s also note that Bukele, whatever the complaints against him, has actually dramatically decreased the murder rate in El Salvador, and until the pandemic hit, their GDP was rising as well.

I say that to say that the US position here doesn’t make any sense. We work with less than perfect leaders in countries all over the world, including actual dictators. But it’s El Salvador that we want to try to bully over a guy who appears to be legitimately in jail for working with the narcos? Notice that the US has not questioned the validity of charges against Muyshondt. So what exactly is going on here?

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday issued a statement protesting against “the military activity of the United States and NATO member states along the perimeter of Russia’s borders, including military flights and dangerous manoeuvres by naval ships.”

The CBO released another estimate that showed the true cost of the BBB bill after all the “temporary” programs in it are extended. That’s been the Democrat game. Just like with Obamacare, the Democrats wanted the BBB bill to be scored with more years of funding than programs. But that’s not how things work in the real world. So what’s the real number? You may want to grab a towel because it’s going to make your eyes water

Ryan Struyk
@ryanstruyk
·
Dec 10, 2021
CBO finds that, if the child tax credit, child care provisions, SALT deduction, health insurance subsidies and more in Build Back Better were made permanent instead of for limited timeline, the bill would add $3.0 trillion to the debt over next decade, instead of $0.2 trillion.
U.S. CBO
@USCBO
CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation project the budgetary effects, including the effects on interest costs, of a modified version of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, that would make various policies permanent rather than temporary. https://cbo.gov/publication/57673
Ryan Struyk
@ryanstruyk
President Biden two weeks ago on possible BBB extensions: "Here is what those critics are not telling you. They’re not telling you that I’ve committed to paying for every single program that extended, if any are, in future legislation, whether that’s for a day or a decade."
11:18 AM · Dec 10, 2021

Breaking911
@Breaking911
REPORTER: “Since the [Smollett] guilty verdict, are there any lessons learned here on rushing to judgement when a crime is alleged?”

PSAKI: “There are lessons learned, perhaps for everybody who commented at the time, including former President Trump.”

3:25 PM · Dec 10, 2021 //

This is the Biden administration in a nutshell: they are never able to take responsibility for anything that they do wrong. They haven’t learned anything at all. There are no “lessons” for them to learn in their mind — that’s why Psaki can’t even mention Biden, she had to deflect to Trump.

While many have accused the Biden administration of creeping toward socialism, Joe Biden’s nomination of Saule Omarova to comptroller of the currency demonstrates a sprint. The administration announced it would withdraw her nomination Tuesday, but that it was made at all indicates the administration’s priorities. Omarova expressed a desire to seize for the federal government sweeping powers over banking, including the politicized denial of services.

“Saule would have brought invaluable insight and perspective to our important work on behalf of the American people,” Biden said Tuesday in a statement about withdrawing her nomination. “But unfortunately, from the very beginning of her nomination, Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale.” That’s just plain false, and it’s frightening Biden would nominate and praise a woman with her record. //

Omarova, currently a law professor at Cornell University, is a native of Kazakhstan while it fell under the control of the Soviet Union. There, she was a member of the Communist Party.

“Omarova has promoted radical – ‘radical’ is her description — nationalizing the banking system, imposing government price controls, espousing the idea that money is a public, not a private good, curtailing economic innovation, dramatically limiting economic freedom and choice, having the government seize seats on corporate boards,” noted Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania in her hearing. //

Omarova earned her B.A. at Moscow State University, graduating in 1989 on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship prior to immigrating to the United States in 1991. Once in the United States, Omarova earned both her M.A. and Pd.D. at the University of Wisconsin, and her J.D. from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

While at Moscow State, Omarova wrote her thesis entitled, “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in ‘The Capital.’” When questioned about her thesis, she claimed to have forgotten about it, and testified she is unable to locate the document, even though it remained on her resume through 2017.

If someone tests negative, logically, they do not need to stay locked in a room for a week. Further, they would have tested negative prior to the flight as well, which means people would be quarantined after not one, but two negative tests. And for what, exactly?

That’s really the cardinal question here. Is the idea that such measures are going to put even the slightest dent in the community spread of current and future variants? Because if that’s the assumption, it’s a really bad one with no evidentiary backing. If we’ve learned anything over the last year, it’s that stopping the spread of COVID-19 is essentially impossible.

For example, Florida and Michigan have had wildly different COVID mitigation measures in place, yet both states saw big Delta variant spikes based on what is clearly a seasonal pattern. You certainly aren’t going to reduce spread by making the lives of international travelers, including US citizens, absolute hell for no reason. That’s especially true given spread on airliners continues to be largely non-existent due to the filtration systems in place.

To better compete in the country’s northeast corridor, the two airlines teamed up and decided to share flight lanes and revenue. In this region, American and JetBlue were underdogs against United and Delta, and they did as underdogs do: joined forces to increase their market share and better serve customers. //

It should be noted that this agreement was sent to the Trump administration’s DOJ for its blessing — where it passed, because the administration knew this was just how business works in the United States. //

And on the merits of the anti-trust action itself? This one’s easy: The United States does not currently have a problem of concentrated corporate power. We have fresh evidence for this. In the last few months alone, massive, multi-billion-dollar companies — GE, Toshiba, and Johnson & Johnson — have announced that they are splitting up into component, independent firms. They’re doing so because of business strategy, but the fact that they’ve done so is all the evidence we need that the US market economy is functioning as it should. Put more directly: Market forces are doing just fine without Merrick Garland’s guiding hand to help us.

It was created as a major national security asset in 1975 after Arab oil producers halted exports to the U.S. for resupplying Israel’s military during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, which they lost.

The Reserve, however, was intended for real emergencies, not PR stunts. In 2011, Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who was busy bombing Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi out of office, released 30 million barrels to cover supply disruptions.

George H.W. Bush released 17 million in 1991 for similar disruptions during the first Gulf War and his son released 11 million barrels to bolster regional supplies after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Joe Biden’s “genuine emergency” is of his own making — the continued plummet in job approval tied to the continued rise in gas prices.

That strategic reserve is an immense stash of oil purchased at lower prices by savvy previous presidents, including most recently Donald Trump, and pumped into salt caverns deep underground at four sites in Texas and Louisiana. Currently, it contains some 612 million barrels of oil of its maximum 714 million.

That can seem like a lot of oil; though it’s barely enough to fuel the country for six months. //

(A barrel of oil, by the way, contains about 42 gallons, which through refining produce roughly 20 gallons of gasoline, 12 gallons of diesel, four gallons of jet and rocket fuels, and other material like asphalt.) //

Biden’s all the time talking about an end to fossil fuels. All of which reduced supplies and market confidence while boosting fears of future shortages, which in turn boost prices.

When Biden was elected, the average gallon price of gas was $2.11. When he took office, it was $2.24, two months later $2.71, by May $2.89, July $3.12, September $3.17, today $3.39. Some California pumps now charge more than $5. //

Borrowing 50 million barrels from a strategic oil reserve for political purposes is a useless exercise, even if other countries do the same on a smaller scale. It’s not going to change anything. And the reserve will be refilled at higher prices.

First of all, it’s a drop in the barrel, literally. May seem large, But it’s merely eight percent of the reserve. That’s less than three days’ average U.S. domestic oil use and only 44 hours of OPEC production.

Lauren Boebert
@laurenboebert
To get a sense of how large Biden wants to grow our IRS.

@ElonMusk
’s Tesla has about 70,000 employees.

@Apple
has around 154,000 globally.

Biden wants our IRS to have 170,000 employees.

An increase of 87,000 supposedly to monitor the 614 billionaires in America.
7:50 PM · Nov 21, 2021

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” -from the Declaration of Independence

Look, you know the drill. Billionaires don’t pay their “fair share” of income taxes because most of their money isn’t income. Mostly, they own paper wealth — the value of the shares of the companies they founded.

They also have tax lawyers who eat IRS agents for breakfast.

So, no, Presidentish Joe Biden’s additional 87,000 agents won’t be going after Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.

They’ll be going after middle-class taxpayers because we’re appealing for two reasons:

We have just enough means to pay up
We don’t have enough means to fight the IRS
Biden would send hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

But can you blame him? It isn’t cheap buying 81 million LOL votes, so Biden needs to rob the middle class because that’s where the money is (and the lawyers aren’t).

That’s why Insanity Wrap is announcing our 2024 presidential campaign, starting today.

If elected, Insanity Wrap will reduce the entire IRS to one guy named Phil, who has narcolepsy, short-term memory problems, and tends to drink too much.

But now, many doctors, their medical associations and members of Congress are crying foul, arguing the rule released by the Biden administration in September for implementing the law favors insurers and doesn't follow the spirit of the legislation.

"The Administration's recently proposed regulation to begin implementing the law does not uphold Congressional intent and could incentivize insurance companies to set artificially low payment rates, which would narrow provider networks and potentially force small practices to close, thus limiting patients' access to care," Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., who is a doctor and helped spearhead a letter of complaint this month, told us in a written statement. //

Nearly half of the 152 lawmakers who signed that letter were Democrats, and many of the physicians serving in the House signed. //

The provisions in the new rule "do not reflect the way the law was written, do not reflect a policy that could have passed Congress, and do not create a balanced process to settle payment disputes," the lawmakers told administration officials in the letter.

Old Hillbilly
36 minutes ago
"Order please."
"Yea, I will have a double nothing burger with a side of large lies."

Let’s be honest, Democrats.

Joe Biden was elected — I will not relitigate the “stolen election” debate in this article — for one reason: to get rid of Donald Trump. Period. The Democrat Party could have nominated a blind, intellectually disabled squirrel, and the results of the 2020 election would not have changed.

But let’s be clear: No one loves Joe Biden. //

The Economist
@TheEconomist
Asked for their opinion of Joe Biden, some Democrats who saw him speak in Arlington this week said they were “indifferent”, others claimed to have “no view”
No one loves Joe Biden -- Americans elected the president to get rid of his predecessor. They’re not sure what else he can do
economist.com
10:00 AM · Oct 29, 2021 //

Diamond and Silk®
@DiamondandSilk
Disaster: What Happened to Biden's Approval Rating Since Taking Office Hasn't Happened to Any Other President Since WWII
Disaster: What Happened to Biden's Approval Rating Since Taking Office Hasn't Happened to Any Other...
Joe Biden has suffered a larger approval rating drop at the start of his term than any president since World War II, according to a new Gallup poll. Biden’s approval rating dropped from 56% in Q1
diamondandsilk.com
11:31 AM · Oct 27, 2021 //

GennaroPatriot • 27 minutes ago

"but,but,but Trump's tweets were so mean..."

Jaye -> GennaroPatriot • 22 minutes ago • edited

Trump's tweets consumed a few seconds of reading time .

Mocking Bird Media spent the next 24 hours hashing and rehashing them.

Understand "The Method" proposed by Dr Norman Vincent Peale in this book The Power of Positive Thinking, since Trump long ago admitted he was a follower of Dr Peale at a NYC's Marble Collegiate Church.

Then you will understand why Trump cleared the air with his early morning tweets, and then spent the rest of the day accomplishing extraordinary things - promises made, promises kept.

While the hate-media was still mucking and re-mucking his one early morning tweet. All of this was well known well before the 2016 election. Trump has been in the spotlight for decades.

*See Peter Grave's Biography series on PBS- for an early extended Trump interview. WYSIWYG

It’s great that so many have copies of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, but very unfortunate that so few have read it. The alleged “supply chain” problems we’re enduring right now were explained by Smith in the book’s opening pages.

Smith wrote about a pin factory, and the then remarkable truth that one man in the factory working alone could maybe – maybe – produce one pin each day. But several men working together could produce tens of thousands.

Work divided is what enables the very work specialization that drives enormous productivity. If this was true in an 18th century pin factory, imagine how vivid the truth is today. Figure that something as basic as the creation of a pencil is the consequence of global cooperation, so what kind of remarkable global symmetry leads to the creation of an airplane, car, or computer? The kind that can’t be planned is the short answer, but more realistically the only answer. //

Really, who was talking about supply-chain shortages or the impossibility that is demand-driven inflation in early 2020? Very few were, and that’s because the U.S. economy was largely free then. At which point politicians panicked. And in panicking, they imposed a rather draconian form of command-and-control on the U.S. economy. //

Some were free to work, some weren’t, and more still were free to work and operate their businesses within strict political limits. From freedom to central planning in a very small amount of time. At which point it’s worth considering once again the simple pin factory that Smith witnessed in the 18th century versus the global cooperation that was the norm 19 months ago. //

The supply lines of February 2020 were impossibly complicated structures that no politician could ever hope to design. Think billions of individuals around the world pursuing their narrow work specialization on the way to enormous global plenty. Put another way, the shelves in economically free countries were heaving with all manner of products based on economic cooperation that was staggering in scope. Brilliant as some experts claim to be, and brilliant as some politicians think they are as they look in the mirror, they could never construct the web of trillions of economic relationships that prevailed before the lockdowns. But they could destroy the web. And they did; that, or they severely impaired it. //

We know from the 20th century that when politicians, authoritarians or both substitute their intensely narrow knowledge for that of the marketplace that immense want for very little (and lousy) supply is the logical result. Yes it is. When we’re not economically free, bare shelves are the inevitable result.

Conversely, product and service abundance is a certain consequence yet again of the infinite actions and trillions of economic relationships entered into by billions of people. These commercial tie-ups were constructed by consenting individuals over many years and many decades only for them to be wrecked by a political class arrogantly seeking to protect us from ourselves. That’s what happens when command-and-control replaces voluntary order. The remunerative ties that bind us fray, or vanish altogether. Consenting, profitable economic activity was suddenly illegal. Yet politicians and other experts are only now wringing their hands about a lack of supply?

Really, what did they think was going to happen? While politicians couldn’t ever create or legislate billions working together around the world, they could and can surely break voluntary economic arrangements.