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Friday, December 3, 2021

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Democrats Stall Bill to Condemn Forced Labor Camps in China

From the story: … the Democrat-led Congress can’t seem to get the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which passed the Senate unanimously in July, to President Biden’s desk. Pointing to procedural issues and promises of future action, Democratic leadership in both the House and Senate can’t seem to agree on a strategy to pass the bill through both chambers, despite publicly claiming they support it. Later: Biden administration officials have been quietly telling lawmakers to slow down. Administration sources confirmed that in an October call between Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the other co-sponsor, Sherman made it clear that the administration prefers a more targeted and deliberative approach to determining which goods are the products of forced labor. She also told Merkley that getting allied buy-in was critical and more effective than unilateral action… In other words, while the administration supports the legislation in public, they are asking Democrats to essentially water it down in private (Washington Post). From Marco Rubio: the opposition to my bill isn’t about a House blue slip. This is sick stuff (Twitter). From Seth Mandel: An extraordinarily Wendy Sherman thing to do. No skill quite suits your advancement in Foggy Bottom like the ability to step over bodies. The folks who thought a half-million Syrian bodies was a fair price to pay for a ludicrously weak Iran deal also want to know why we’re in such a rush to punish genocide when it’ll upset Nike (Twitter).

Man Shattering Female Swimming Records at University of Pennsylvania

A 22-year-old male swimmer, competing as a female, has broken several records that recently belonged to actual women (NY Post). From another story: Just two years ago, Lia Thomas was competing in men’s swimming at Penn as Will Thomas. In the 2018-19 season, Thomas was a second-team All-Ivy swimmer in three different events. After last competing against men in November 2019, Thomas returned after the Ivy League canceled the 2020-21 season because of COVID to compete against women and has obviously seen great success. Women who otherwise would have been on Penn’s team are out of luck. So are the women who would have won these events had they not been competing against a man. And more will be out of luck later on. Thomas’s times would have won silver and bronze in two events at the 2021 NCAA Women’s Championships (Washington Examiner).

New York City Sets Vaccine Mandate for Religious and Private School Workers

The story begins: New York City will require employees at yeshivas, Catholic schools and other private schools to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, in what is believed to be the largest effort in the nation to force religious schools to adhere to a vaccine mandate.

New York Times

Democratic Pollster Warns Democrats: We Are in Trouble

Brian Stryker told the New York Times “we have a problem. We’ve got a national branding problem that is probably deeper than a lot of people suspect. Our party thinks maybe some things we’re saying aren’t cutting through, but I think it’s much deeper than that” (New York Times). From Frank Luntz: Looks like calling everyone who disagrees with you “racist” is not an effective strategy for winning over voters (Twitter). A poll out of Harvard finds Biden’s approval among 18-29-year-olds has dropped 13 points and is now under 50 percent (Daily Caller).

Team Biden Mocked for Graph Showing Gas Down Two Cents Over Two Weeks

Even the Washington Post notes, in reality “Since Biden took office, the price of gas has risen more than a dollar on this same measure.”

Washington Post

11th School Board Association Votes to Leave the NSBA

The Alabama School Board Association is the latest to bail over their letter to the Biden Administration seeking them to get the FBI to harass parents (AL). From Christopher Rufo: The parent movement has broken the National School Boards Association. They tried labeling parents “domestic terrorists”—and parents fought back (Twitter).

New York Confirms 5 Cases of Omicron

But they were in panic mode before it got there.

Fox News

Atlantic Story Admits Opening Schools Didn’t Doom America

From the story: …many schools that reopened were able to implement measures that other institutions struggled with. Even so, people continued to worry about the danger that schools posed to society. Then classes began, and … widespread doom never really came—or, if it did, it didn’t come from schools. The Delta surge began long before classes resumed, and looking at the state-by-state data, you’d be hard-pressed to find bumps that can be pinned on the beginning of the semester. Last year, no surge happened in September either. Most states didn’t see any significant rise in COVID cases last fall until well into October. Schools aren’t the problem. They never have been.

The Atlantic

Chicago Mayor Backs Down in Threat to Sue Police Department

As murders are up, mayor Lori Lightfoot was suing to force police to be vaccinated or not get paid. The union was fighting her.

Daily Wire

10.

Pompeo Calls on NBA to Stand Up to China

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo challenged the 7-foot men to be as tough as those 5-5 women of the WTA.

Daily Wire