1) Governor Races Turning Into A Voter Referendum On Lockdowns, Vaccine Mandates, And School Closures
We are thrilled that catastrophic lockdowns are front and center in gubernatorial races across the country. Governors Whitmer of Michigan, Walz of Minnesota, Brown of Oregon, Pritzker of Illinois, and Tony Evers of Wisconsin are getting hammered for heavy-handed shutdowns.
We think it’s imperative that voters hold governors and other state/local officials responsible (and some Republicans like Hogan of Maryland supported them) for the abuse of power in shutting down businesses, schools, churches, playgrounds, parks, and restaurants with almost no health benefits whatsoever. As we have pointed out many times on these pages, lockdowns did incalculable and long-lasting damage to our kids, our small businesses, and Americans’ mental and physical health.
The issue of lockdowns has become so toxic that Democratic governors that once were militaristic lockdown advocates (see above) are rewriting history and accusing Republicans and Trump for the shutting down of our economy. In many cases, these accusations are flat-out false.
Trump made mistakes for sure in dealing with Covid, but he also made a critically important and life-saving decision that goes completely unappreciated. In April 2020, he rightly deferred to the 9th and 10th amendments of the Constitution and allowed the states to make their own decisions about how they wanted to deal with the virus.
The result with a few exceptions was that red state governors opened up their economies and blue states stayed shut down. The subsequent impact on deaths was negligible, but the red states’ economies recovered quickly in jobs and economic output while the blue states’ economies remain to this day comatose. Had it not been for red states like Florida and Texas reopening early on, the national economic damage would have been far more calamitous.
Recall that we at CTUP did the definitive study on how governors performed in their COVID response. The seminal work on this subject of grading governor Covid responses was conducted by CTUP. Here is a list of the ten worst performers.
2) Bono: Crush Poverty With Free Market Capitalism
Bono, the superstar singer/musician from the iconic rock group U2 has spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money and hundreds of millions more in a valiant charitable initiative to fight global poverty over the past 20 years. Now he’s concluded that all that money to lift the boats of the poorest residents of the world has had only a modest effect. He’s had an amazing epiphany: peace, love, and capitalism.
3) Senate Democrats Tell The SEC: Stop Strangling Our Businesses
Speaking of epiphanies, how about the 12 Senate Dems who are calling for LESS regulation at the Securities and Exchange Commission!
Politico reports that a dozen Senate Democrats – led by Jon Tester of Montana – are warning hyper-regulator Gary Gensler, Biden’s SEC chair, to slow down. The SEC’s 300-page regulation mandating a climate risk disclosure rule for companies could triple compliance costs for publicly traded companies — driving businesses out of the U.S.
"It is critical that, as the SEC moves through the rulemaking processes, there is adequate time to evaluate each individual rule,” the letter to Gensler noted. The senators complained of a “significant number of proposed rulemakings" at the SEC.
When even the climate-change fanatics and anti-business Senate Democrats are complaining about too much regulatory burden, you know things are way out of hand. What’s next? Kamala Harris declaring it is time we get control of our border?
If you’re wondering why our kids are doing so miserably on standardized math tests, look no further than this tweet referencing an effort focused on "deconstructing racism" in math education:
A line on the first page says it all: “While primarily for math educators, this text advocates for a collective approach to dismantling white supremacy."
Where is this subversive lunacy coming from? Sadly, much of it is being bankrolled by one of the nation’s most prominent nonprofits: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Gates is actually funding to the tune of more than $100 million an initiative called “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” a group of 25 education organizations whose curriculum states that asking students to show their work and find the right answer is an inherently racist practice. It is being adopted in many states including California and Oregon.
Bill Gates, who played such a vital role in building our world-class computer industry, should know better. This is a plea to Gates and his Foundation directors to fund math PROFICIENCY, not math DEFICIENCY.
5) NY Governor Hochul On Vaccine Mandates For Kids
Speaking of governors’ responses to Covid, Kathy Hochul is another lockdown/mandate queen who is backtracking big time. She’s been a militant supporter of vaccine mandates and even firing workers who won’t get vaccinated. In her recent debate Hochul waffled on mandates
CDC figures show that less than one of twenty-five New York parents has fully vaccinated kids under the age of five. We strongly suspect that when Hochul says she won’t require the vaccines “at this time,” what she is really saying is she will wait until AFTER the election to reimpose the mandates.
