This really demonstrates how much thought and skill went into the making of the song:
The movement to withhold treatment from the unvaccinated
It is pernicious, and some are shocked and fighting back:
A growing number of doctors have threatened to withhold treatment from the unvaccinated, sparking backlash from doctors and bioethicists who say such sentiments violate the Hippocratic Oath. Those critics are even more troubled by the silence from professional organizations tasked with upholding medical ethics.
Doctors in Tennessee, Florida, and Alabama have announced they will refuse to treat unvaccinated patients, while Dallas hospital workers reportedly discussed considering vaccinated status when delegating ICU beds. Such comments have infuriated top medical professionals. Dr. Brian Callister, governor of the Nevada chapter of the American College for Physicians, said doctors should never blatantly refuse to treat unvaccinated patients who are otherwise willing to comply with the rules set out by the practice.
“It is absolutely unethical, period, end of story, to not treat a patient in need,” Callister told the Washington Free Beacon. “It is absurd and amoral for any physician to say they will not treat unvaccinated patients.”
Yes, but it is not surprising. The left has taken over the thought processes of a lot of Americans in the last few years. I wonder what the age range tends to be of those who are in the anti-anti-vaxxer movement versus those who, like Dr. Callister, are objecting strenuously to that movement. My guess is that the latter group is considerably older than the former.
Ah, but Sarah Palin was crazy for talking about the possibility of death panels.
Arizona door-to-door canvassing of 2020 voters…
…has uncovered evidence either of massive fraud or massive error that could have affected the results.
Not that anything will be done about it after the fact. These things must be prevented before the fact. Will they be? Your guess is as good as mine. I tend to doubt it, alas.
Here’s an article about it, and here’s the report.
The Biden administration, the Arizona election authorities, and the left in general will all say the people being canvassed are lying, of course.
[NOTE: And please see this, about the California recall.]
What was George W. Bush referring to on the 9/11 anniversary?
George W. Bush made these questionable remarks when speaking at the 20th anniversary of 9/11:
There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and those at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit and it is our duty to confront them.
The left and much of the right has assumed he was talking about January 6th, which is understandable on the part of the left but somewhat less so from the right, who should at least have also included the Antifa and BLM riots. But now a spokesman for Bush has issued a clarification, and I’ll assume it’s an official one approved by Bush himself:
“Those comments were certainly inclusive of but definitely not exclusive to January 6; rather all forms of extremism — attacks on schools and synagogues, on Blacks and Asians, etc,” the spokesperson said. “All forms of domestic extremism.”
It’s a fascinating glimpse into the mind of Bush that says a lot. This attitude is part and parcel of his tendency – and the tendency of many non-conservative Republicans – to do a sort of balancing act of condemnation. We hear: “on the one hand this, and on the other hand, that.” It is my opinion that such an equation is often not only stupid, but dangerous. It equates things that should not be equated.
To take Bush’s specific example, fanatic Islamic terrorism that kills 3,000 innocent people, most of them civilians, not as collateral damage but as the main event and in a vindictive spirit that seeks to conquer and subdue, is not the same as or even similar to either Antifa riots in the US or January 6th, both of which are also quite different from each other. Moral equivalence of these three things is absurd, and in particular 9/11 stands quite apart from the others.
The other two were essentially demonstrations. January 6th was not even especially violent or destructive, although there was some violence and some destruction. Antifa and company were more violent and more destructive, to be sure, but nothing in the realm of 9/11.
The January 6th demonstrators were protesting what they thought was a violation of democracy, and they wanted the official stamp on the results halted through the legal means of Congressional action. That was their aim, and the few who turned destructive and violent were the exceptions.
Antifa has a different aim. They are more akin to the self-styled revolutionaries of the 1960s. But in their demonstrations during 2020, the violence in which they engaged was for the most part to property, and although it sometimes was violent against people – especially the police – there was no widespread killing of civilians, much less thousands of them. On the scale of evil, 9/11 wins, hands down.
And what does “all forms of extremism” mean? Weren’t the heroes of the American Revolution “extremists”? Same for the abolitionists? It’s a weasel word that is purposely vague enough to allow nearly any interpretation, and plays right into the hands of the left.
But unfortunately, that’s an old habit of Bush’s.
NOTE: It’s also quite galling that Bush managed to emerge from his long Obama-era slumber to diss Trump for the last few years, but here’s my earlier explanation for Bush’s extra-special Trump-hatred. It has a long provenance, and Trump is by no means innocent, particularly many years ago, before he became president himself.
Victor Davis Hanson speaking on Biden, Afghanistan, and America’s decline
I haven’t yet watched the whole of this video – it’s long. But what I’ve seen seems excellent, if depressing. I suggest you watch (or just listen to, if you’re double-tasking) at least part of it. Sometimes, to save time with videos, I watch at faster speed – you can adjust the speed in the YouTube settings for each video.
In case you’re unaware of Hanson’s specialty, he’s a military historian:
Open thread 9/13/21
Good CATch
I don’t usually post on Sundays, but I couldn’t resist putting these up. We can use some feel-good stories, right?:
9/11: twenty years later
[BUMPED UP]
This is the saddest anniversary of that date in the twenty years since the event itself. Saddest by far, and angriest as well.
I don’t really have to explain in any detail why I say that; I’ve already written a great deal about how the actions of the administration in the last month or so have not only undone any progress we had made against the forces that perpetrated and/or celebrated 9/11, but in my opinion have taken us to an even worse state than before.
That undoing – that unraveling – was performed for no pressing reason other than whatever goes on in Joe Biden’s mind and the minds of those who advise and to a certain extent control him. The left has its reasons for doing what it does, of that you can be sure, and they do not include wishing America well.
All of that makes what otherwise would have been a solemn and sobering occasion an exponentially more tragic and enraging one.
There are so many documentary videos on the original 9/11 that I find it hard to choose what to highlight today. This one, however, is very short but very searing. It encapsulates the horror and pathos of the day. The ending of the video is a reminder of a resolve that is still there for many of us but certainly not for all of us, and not for the people who are currently in positions of power in the White House. Why did I merely link to it and not embed it? It is just too heartbreaking, and using a link gives it the tiniest bit of extra distance. I warn you that, short though it may be, it is difficult to watch.
Here’s another short one that focuses on a recent interview with some of the now-grownup children who lost a parent that day. It highlights the passage of time.
Twenty years. Sometimes it seems like a lot more than that, doesn’t it?
Biden – or his animatronic – gives a pre-recorded speech on the 20th anniversary of 9/11
[BUMPED UP]
I’m just going to link to it rather than embedding it. I don’t want his face to appear on my blog today. If you decide to follow the link you may notice – as I did very late last night – that the comments are uniformly bitter and derisive.
Here’s a sampler:
Like the soft caress of a cold dead fish, Biden ‘soothes’ the nation with a pre-recorded, heavily edited statement that would not even get an honorable mention for public speaking at the local retirement home.
Cmon man that was 20 years ago “checks watch”.
I watched this at night…. now I can’t sleep, he just looks so creepy.
This traitor gave a nation to the terrorist who did these attacks.
Disgusting to hear him talk about the victims.
Vacant stare in those dead black eyes. What’s up, Joe.
The man invented Borking which led to the politics of personal destruction. He’s a used car salesman with a law degree.
He looks like he just woke up out of his casket. We have never had a weaker person as a president.
He preaches the very opposite of everything he does. While he sows division in everything he does, he preaches unity. What a joke you keep talking about unity joe.
These are typical. Plus, there are a great many that mention his leaving behind Americans in Afghanistan. There’s a great deal of anger out there, and his supporters – wherever they are and whoever they are – are almost entirely silent. It’s probably because they are not actually pro-Joe but anti-Trump and anti the right.
I have yet to speak to any of my Democrat friends on the topic of what’s been going on in the last few weeks, except to refer to it in the general sense as very upsetting, a sentiment with which they agree. I sense they do not want to talk about it or hear from me on it, but at some point my plan is to choose one or two friends whom I usually can talk to about politics without their getting angry (although they sometimes get impatient), and talk to them in more depth about these things.
I have no idea whether they are getting at all regretful about their votes for Biden, or whether they are still very pleased he won. My guess is the latter.
One of Biden’s Afghanistan drone strikes apparently killed the wrong people
Even when the Biden administration is trying to seem tough on terrorists they can’t quite pull it off with competence. I’m actually surprised that the left is reporting this story:
The U.S. drone strike that military officials said targeted a suspected ISIS-K car bomb in Kabul during the final days of the U.S. evacuation effort may have mistakenly targeted an innocent civilian, according to extensive investigations by the New York Times and Washington Post. Ten civilians, including seven children, were reportedly killed in the August 29 airstrike. All were members of the same extended family.
…On August 29, U.S. Central Command announced that it had conducted a drone strike on a suspected terrorist driving a car that seemed to be filled with explosives and was believed to pose an imminent threat to the airport. Military officials suggested that the driver, whom they were not able to identify, had acted suspiciously in the hours before the strike, including a stop at a possible ISIS-K safe house, and loading the car with heavy packages that may have been explosives. The U.S. said that a larger secondary explosion occurred after the drone strike, which would suggest the presence of explosive cargo and seemingly justified targeting the vehicle.
But the Times investigation found no evidence of a large secondary blast, and the Post’s investigation suggests that if a second blast was seen, the most likely explanation would be that it was from the ignition of the vehicle’s fuel…
Both publications have identified the driver as Zemari Ahmadi, a 43-year-old electrical engineer who had long worked for Nutrition and Education International, a California-based aid organization operating in Afghanistan. According to relatives who spoke with the Times, Ahmadi and another member of his extended family in Afghanistan who had once worked as a U.S. military contractor had both applied for refugee resettlement in the U.S. for them and their families.
According to Ahmadi’s family members and colleagues, the white sedan he drove belonged to NEI, and his various stops on the 29th were just a normal day on the job, including picking up his boss’s laptop and transporting co-workers…
…[P]er the Times report, “according to his relatives, as Mr. Ahmadi pulled into his courtyard, several of his children and his brothers’ children came out, excited to see him, and sat in the car as he backed it inside.”
What a nightmare this administration is. They sent a drone to kill someone based on evidence that flimsy? They were apparently desperate to appear tough.
Again, I wonder why the left is reporting this. I can speculate – for example, is it a sign that Biden is going to be removed? But I really have no idea.
Cornhead’s post on the Omaha funeral procession for Marine Corporal Daegan Page
Commenter “Cornhead” has written this piece on the funeral procession for 23-year old Marine Cpl. Daegan Page of Omaha, killed in the Kabul airport terrorist attack. RIP.
Open thread 9/11/2021
