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Morris

Its an issue that has long engaged my attention: Where do we draw the line between autonomy and subjugation, between when we should be left alone and when we must be made to conform for the common good?

I have strong libertarian instincts, so I have always argued for the minimum government necessary to protect us against threats to our lives and property. Otherwise, we should be free to pursue our own interests and flee our own demons. The laws should be few but well-defined, clearly explained and enforced equally against all offenders.

That viewpoint gives us an obvious place to draw the line: If my actions would harm only me, let it be. If they could harm others, a case can be made for government intervention.

But we can see a problem with that simple demarcation just by looking at Indiana traffic laws.

Prohibitions against driving under the influence are entirely justifiable because the drunken driver endangers everybody else on the road. Mandatory use of seat belts and motorcycle helmets should be on the other side of the line, since we only risk our own lives with noncompliance.

Indiana, alas, cannot handle the distinction. Seat belts are mandatory; motorcycle helmets are not. And the reason is not complicated: politics. Motorcycle riders have an active lobby. Car drivers do not.

That dilemma the implementation of necessary and understandable law complicated by political considerations has been brought into sharper focus by the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it. We should now be thinking much more deeply about the relationship between governors and the governed.

Time and time and again, we have been misled about well, everything. Masks. Vaccinations. Social distancing. The chances of serious effects, hospitalizations, death.

It could be said that our politicians lied to us in a cynical attempt to curry favor with one group and demonize another, or merely to savor the sense of power the emergency gave them.

Or we could be less cynical and say we have succumbed to a mistaken idea of science. Starting with global warming alarmism, we were encouraged to view the science as settled truth instead of a trial-and-error search for the truth. Now, with the pandemic, we expect the scientific answers to always hold instead of being subject to change as more data emerge. The pairing of politics, which is about short-term answers to immediate concerns, and science was always a bad marriage; we should be beginning to understand just how dysfunctional it is.

In either case, we keep repeating the same mistakes. Given the low threat level to everyone except the elderly and those with underlying conditions, the economy should not have been shut down, and incalculable damage was done to a whole generation of children by closing their schools. Yet, with every wave of new-variant infections, there are those who call for those same responses, and too many who willing accept them.

As I write this, Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 tennis player in the world, has been kicked out of Australia and denied the opportunity to compete in that countrys Open tournament because he refused to get the Covid vaccine, despite the fact that he had suffered through the virus and thus had better immunity than the vaccine could give him.

They could have forbidden entry to the country in the first place, but they let him come and then jerked him around for 11 days before sending him on his way. Not for any valid medical reason but because, in the words of one analysis, he was seen as someone who could stir up anti-vaccine sentiments.

I feel for you, pal, I really do. A line was crossed here, but not by you.

Leo Morris, columnist for The Indiana Policy Review, is winner of the Hoosier Press Associations award for Best Editorial Writer. Morris, as opinion editor of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, was named a finalist in editorial writing by the Pulitzer Prize committee. Contact him at [emailprotected]

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Leo Morris: COVID and the Djokovic Line - Greenfield Daily Reporter

Comedian Michael Rapaport wasnt joking when he expressed shock as an apparent shoplifter filled his bags and casually pranced out of a Manhattan Rite Aid without paying a cent.

I cant believe Im seeing this st, Rapaport says on his video of the purported crook, who cheerfully asks the stores security guard, Sup?

Frankly, the comic shouldnt have been surprised: Retail theft has soared, with nearly 44,000 reports of it last year a 36% increase over 2020. The Post filmed another thief in the act at a Rite Aid at 8th Avenue and 50th Street in Manhattan last week, with the perp so cavalier that he spoke openly about it to our reporter, admitting hes been hitting stores for months without getting arrested.

Last year, The Post reported that 22-year-old Isaac Rodriguez had been nabbed for shoplifting 46 times in the first 10 months of 2021 alone; 77 others with 20 or more retail-theft charges are out on the streets.

Fact is, these petty thieves rarely get arrested, and when they are, theyre generally freed within hours and prosecutors often drop the case. Which leaves drugstores, which offer many small necessities, ripe for the picking.

Now retailers must brace for even more theft, especially in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg has vowed to keep such bandits from ever seeing the inside of a jail cell.

Yet retail thievery takes a toll: Our reporters found empty shelves at a dozen CVS, Duane Reade/Walgreens and Rite Aid stores around the city. Workers where Rapaport filmed say crooks target the place daily. That has outlets boarding: Midtowns Rite Aid at 50th and 8th, where sources report more than $200,000 in stolen merchandise over the past two months alone, is set to close by next month.

Progressives like Bragg think theyre preventing injustice, when in fact theyre inflicting it on innocent merchants and honest would-be shoppers the public that theyre sworn to protect.

See the article here:
Progressives give NYC a shoplifting boom that harms the whole city - New York Post

WASHINGTON

One of the enduring beliefs of progressive voters and officials is that public opinion invariably favors their side. The corollary is that if their plans fail to pass, unreasonable obstruction must be to blame.

Here, for example, is Sen. Bernie Sanders in a recent appearance on NBCs Meet the Press talking about the Democrats bill to increase social spending and combat climate change, which has stalled in the Senate:

What is in the reconciliation bill ... is enormously popular, the Vermont independent said. Its what 70%, 80% of the American people ... the American people want us to take on the greed of the drug companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Ask people whether they want to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing and eyeglasses. Ask people whether they want to improve home healthcare, whether we want to deal with climate change. All of those pieces of legislation are enormously popular, the bill itself in its entirety.

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Its certainly possible to find polls that appear to back up that statement.

But such surveys dont give a true picture of what the public wants, unfortunately for Sanders and his fellow progressives and for President Biden, who spent much of the first year of his term pushing the spending bill to no avail.

The reasons why and the implications for progressives are worth a closer look.

Ask people if they want Congress to take on the greed of the drug companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs, as Sanders put it, and a substantial majority almost surely will say yes. People like lower costs, dont approve of greed and arent terribly fond of the drug industry, so a question worded that way will reliably produce the expected result.

Advocacy groups routinely produce polls with wording only slightly less subtle than that. Often, theyre testing language for potential campaigns to see what phrases best connect with the public. Theres nothing inherently wrong with that; the danger comes only when people, including elected officials, come to believe their own propaganda.

The public does side with Democrats on some major issues, but not all, by any means.

A Pew Research Center survey this week, for example, found that Americans gave Democrats a big advantage over Republicans when asked which party they more often agreed with on climate change (44%-22%), healthcare (42%-26%) and COVID-19 (41%-27%), but not on economic policy, guns and immigration, on which the two were basically even. Consistently, about 30% said they agreed with neither party.

Despite a lot of Republican efforts to profit from Americans anxieties about schooling during the pandemic, the survey found that Democrats held a small edge over the GOP on which party they more often agreed with on education.

A survey from Fox News, whose polling unit is widely respected in both parties, asked a slightly different list of issues and pushed those who initially said they didnt favor either party to say which side they leaned toward. That produced different numbers, but a similar lineup:

Democrats have a strong advantage, roughly 20 points, as the party likely to do a better job on climate change, racism and healthcare. They also have a smaller, but still significant, single-digit margin on the pandemic, education and bringing the country together, Fox found.

Republicans have a strong advantage on national security, the border, immigration, crime, the economy, the federal budget deficit and taxes. The two came out roughly equal on protecting American democracy a finding sure to frustrate Democrats who see Republican eagerness to push former President Trumps falsehoods about the 2020 election as a major threat.

So what does that tell us about the Democrats big spending plan? As Sanders would point out, the public sides with Democrats on healthcare and favors ideas such as expanding Medicare to provide hearing aids and dental coverage. That majority for Democrats melts away, however, when the question turns to taxes to pay for all that and the impact on the budget. The public gets pulled in both directions.

A second, less-obvious issue involves what political scientists call salience.

Ask people in January to name their favorite ice cream flavor, and the results will be accurate (chocolate routinely edges out vanilla in most surveys). But that doesnt mean most Americans have a strong hankering for a cone in the midst of winter; theres a reason ice cream production in June typically runs 70% to 80% higher than in December. (Bidens all-season taste for ice cream marks him as an exception.)

A similar truth applies to politics: Voters might favor or oppose a policy but not consider it a top priority at the moment. Unless a survey measures both dimensions support and salience its only giving part of the picture.

On the big Build Back Better bill that Sanders touted, for example, a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday found that 61% of Americans said they supported the social spending at least somewhat not quite the 70% to 80% that Sanders cited, but still a majority. Similarly, 56% supported spending to combat climate change.

But asked how important it is, those surveyed gave a very different verdict: Only 24% said passing the bill was a top priority while 37% said it was important, but there are other more pressing matters for Congress to deal with, and another 37% said it either wasnt important or shouldnt be passed.

Americans have been consistent about what they see as the top priorities right now: The economy, especially rising prices, and the continued COVID-19 pandemic. A majority of voters see the Democrats plans as largely unrelated to those two concerns.

Biden has pointed to economists who say his program would reduce inflation over time, but voters either havent absorbed that message or doubt its truth.

The same issue of salience affects other items high on the Democratic agenda. An NBC News poll this month found, for example, that while 42% of Americans cited jobs and the economy as one of the top two problems facing the country, and another 23% cited the cost of living, only 15% listed social and racial justice, 14% climate change and 12% voting rights.

That doesnt mean Democrats should stop pursuing issues they care about: A political party cant let polls entirely guide its direction, or it wont end up standing for anything. And elected officials can raise the salience of an issue by focusing on it, although the power of the presidential pulpit is often overrated.

But if a party is going to try to persuade voters about its priorities, its important to recognize that persuasion is called for and not insist that the public already believes in the program.

Consider the voting rights bill that Democratic leaders brought to the Senate floor this month in a doomed effort to break a Republican filibuster: The Monmouth poll found that 26% of the public supported it, 24% were opposed, 19% had no opinion and 31% knew nothing about it.

Equally important: If a party is going to spend time and energy on topics that voters dont see as job number one, then its crucial to ensure that voters believe job one is under control. On both those counts, Democrats this last year have conspicuously failed.

Perhaps the most frightening number for Democrats in that NBC News poll was this: Asked to characterize the year 2021, 44% called it one of the worst years for the U.S., and another 37% called it below average. Only 18% called the year about average or better.

When youre the party in charge, you can expect to suffer when voters have that grim a view of current conditions. Telling yourself that despite it all, the country really agrees with your side is a form of denial that can only deepen the problem.

I wrote last week about the role state courts have played in restraining Republican gerrymandering in the current redistricting cycle. On Monday, another court this time a three-judge federal panel in Alabama issued a ruling that could have a major impact if it survives on appeal.

The judges said that Alabamas Republican-controlled legislature had violated the Voting Rights Act by packing most of the states Black voters into a single congressional district and splitting other Black communities. They ordered lawmakers to draw a new map with at least two districts where the Black population would be sufficient to elect a Black representative. That likely would lead to the election of a second Democrat from Alabama.

The states only current Black member of Congress, Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, called the ruling a monumental victory. The case will move directly to the Supreme Court. If the justices uphold the ruling, it could serve as a precedent for similar moves in other Southern states, including South Carolina and Louisiana.

Notably, two of the three judges on the panel were Trump appointees.

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For more than a year, Democratic activists have publicly campaigned for Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire, fearing that the longer he stayed on the high court, the more the risk that Democrats could lose their tenuous 50-50 hold on the Senate.

Court insiders said all along that Breyer, 83, likely would retire at the end of the current term, and Thursday he did exactly that, announcing that he would leave the court when his successor is confirmed. News of his retirement leaked out on Wednesday.

As David Savage reported, Breyers departure wont change the ideological makeup of the court, where conservatives have a 6-3 majority. But it will allow Biden to appoint a younger justice who might serve long enough to, eventually, be part of a liberal majority.

Biden has said hell appoint a Black woman to the court, and he repeated that promise on Thursday when he appeared at the White House with Breyer to formally announce the justices resignation. The leading candidates are federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, 45. Jackson has the advantage that shes just recently been through a Senate confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in June with support of all the Democrats and three Republicans.

Another potential nominee, federal District Judge J. Michelle Childs, 55, of South Carolina, has a strong champion in Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), one of Bidens leading congressional allies. Her nomination to the D.C. Circuit is pending in the Senate.

The vacancy on the court gives Biden and congressional Democrats an opportunity to move past their recent setbacks and reenergize Black and progressive voters, Eli Stokols, Jennifer Haberkorn and Melanie Mason report. That is, if all goes well.

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Supporters of the expanded Child Tax Credit continue to push Biden to fight to extend it, Stokols reported. Last week, Biden suggested he might have to drop the credit from any revamped version of his spending package. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has opposed the credit, at least in its current form.

Tensions over Ukraine continue to rise as the U.S. on Wednesday rebuffed two key demands from Russia. As Tracy Wilkinson reported, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters that the U.S. was willing to discuss reciprocal efforts with Russia to de-escalate, but that the Biden administration had refused Russian demands for a formal pledge that NATO would never accept Ukraine as a member.

The Federal Reserve signaled readiness to raise interest rates in March and take other aggressive actions to combat high prices endangering the nations economic health. As Don Lee reported, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell made clear in a news conference that the central bank had pivoted its focus from maximizing employment to its other chief goal: achieving price stability.

At least 14.5 million Americans have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Acts marketplaces in the current open enrollment period, Anumita Kaur reported. The record number comes after the administration took several steps to lower costs and expand access to insurance. The number could go higher since some states, including California, are still accepting new signups.

As extremism in politics has increased, reformers have proposed a host of ways to tweak the electoral system with an eye toward making the process more friendly toward centrists. Californias top-two primary was one such move. New York Citys ranked-choice voting system was another.

Now, Alaska has adopted the most sweeping statewide change to date. As Mark Barabak writes, the states new system, which its Supreme Court recently upheld, combines a top-four runoff with ranked-choice voting. It takes effect in time for this years elections.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosis announcement that she plans to seek reelection extends one of San Franciscos longest-running, most-fevered political guessing games, Barabak wrote: Who will succeed her when she finally does step aside? Two of the most-discussed candidates are state Sen. Scott Wiener, 51, whose district covers a lot of the same ground as Pelosis congressional district, and the speakers eldest daughter, Christine Pelosi, 55, a Democratic activist.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin announced Wednesday he will not seek reelection to a third term, just one week after a recall bid targeting him fell short of the required signatures. As Benjamin Oreskes and David Zahniser reported, the unexpected announcement upended the campaign to represent the district, which takes in much of the Westside. Bonin, one of the councils most progressive members, said he had struggled with depression for years and decided that it was time to focus on health and wellness.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday moved to phase out oil drilling and gas extraction in the city over the next two decades, signaling the end to an industry that helped create modern Southern California, Dakota Smith reported.

The California Legislature is headed for another bruising fight over vaccine requirements, George Skelton wrote in his column. Gov. Gavin Newsom should support a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for schools.

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Essential Politics: Progressives mislead themselves about popularity of their plans - Los Angeles Times

Progressives are pushing back at the idea that they are to blame at all for President BidenJoe BidenFormer chairman of Wisconsin GOP party signals he will comply with Jan. 6 committee subpoena Romney tests positive for coronavirus Pelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better MOREs dismal poll numbers, arguing the White Houses problems have more to do with it moving away from a progressive agenda.

They argue the anemic polls largely reflect an unimpressed base disillusioned that Biden has been unwilling to deliver on issues such as voting rights, health care, gun control and climate change.

Bidens popularity was high when he ran on a progressive agenda and it dropped when he let corporate Democrats take the reins, said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement. It shouldnt be a surprise that voters are becoming impatient.

A Pew Research Center survey released on Wednesday found Biden with just a 41 percent approval rating, down from 59 percent in April.

Among Black adults, a key constituency for Biden, just 60 percent approved of Bidens job performance, down from 67 percent in September.

The bad poll numbers come after voting rights legislation failed to move forward in the Senate this month despite Bidens urgings. It faltered because of opposition from Republicans, and because two centrist Democrats Joe ManchinJoe ManchinPelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better On The Money Fed's inflation tracker at fastest pace since '82 Billionaire GOP donor maxed out to Manchin following his Build Back Better opposition MORE of West Virginia and Kyrsten SinemaKyrsten SinemaThe Hill's Morning Report - Democrats sense opportunity with SCOTUS vacancy Schumer finds unity moment in Supreme Court fight Left says they're not to blame for Biden's problems MORE of Arizona opposed a carveout from the filibuster to move the voting rights legislation on Democratic senator votes alone.

Those two centrists have also been major impediments to Bidens Build Back Better agenda, which includes a host of progressive priorities including an extension of a child tax credit and what would be the most ambitious effort to tackle climate change to pass Congress.

Moderate Democrats for much of the last year argued that progressives risked pulling Biden too far to the left to the detriment of their party. Sinema pushed back at proposals for higher taxes on corporations and wealthy households in the Build Back Better bill, arguing it was bad policy considering the economic climate, while Manchin opposed further spending given rising inflation.

Republicans have played up the divisions and cast Biden as a puppet of the left. They see that argument as helping them win swing districts in the suburbs next fall that will lead to GOP congressional majorities for the rest of Bidens term.

But progressives argue Biden is playing into GOP hands by not fully embracing progressive priorities. They see the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law by Biden last fall as a lost opportunity that cut into their leverage for pressuring Manchin and Sinema on the Build Back Better legislation which is also their top priority.

And they think a closer look at the polls shows that Bidens real problems lie in a demoralized base which they fear could also cost the party this fall.

Theyre standing in the way of the presidents promises, and it will be mostly their fault if Democrats lose Congress in November, Prakash said of moderate Democrats.

Moderates have taken aim at White House chief of staff Ron KlainRon KlainLeft says they're not to blame for Biden's problems Briefing in brief: WH counters GOP attacks on planned SCOTUS pick Biden's first year: A mirage of gender parity MORE, a longtime aide to the president who has taken heat from some moderates who say he is aligned too closely with liberals.

The Washington Post reported that some think Klain is too deferential toward Rep. Pramila JayapalPramila JayapalPelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better Left says they're not to blame for Biden's problems On The Money Economy had post-recession growth in 2021 MORE (D-Wash.), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Progressives held up a House vote on the infrastructure bill for months to try to move the Build Back Better bill forward.

Eventually, under pressure from Biden, they relented and voted for the infrastructure bill. That gave Biden a political victory, but it is one that hasnt really showed up in the polls so far.

A few progressives dissented, and there are some who say it was a mistake to vote for the infrastructure bill, though it is not clear holding it up would have moved Manchin and Sinema either.

Democratic operative Eddie Vale said progressives shouldnt be blamed for hurting Biden when they are the ones who ultimately compromised and backed him on infrastructure.

For the specific argument folks are currently having and the spate of stories going after Jayapal and Klain, blaming progressives doesnt really make any sense because in the end they went along with the pass infrastructure only strategy and almost all voted for both bills, he said.

Progressives say they are used to getting backlash when their flank pushes for more populism. While some say the president should take more responsibility, many argue that key congressional Democrats should take the shellacking in the court of public opinion.

People are just really exhausted by moderate Democrats continuously eating their young, said Camille Rivera, a partner at the progressive firm New Deal Strategies. Conservative and moderate Democrats need to start taking responsibility for their own messaging.

Operatives like Rivera are now moving into campaign mode, anticipating a tough midterm cycle.

Theyre not to blame, to put it simply, said Adam Hilton, an assistant professor at Mount Holyoke College who studies Democratic politics, describing progressives standing less than a year out from the midterm elections. On the contrary, the progressive wing broadly speaking is very much responsible for defining this ambitious agenda.

Biden is a centrist in a party that is tapping left, he said. To remain a centrist, hes got to be actually moving.

Go here to see the original:
Left says they're not to blame for Biden's problems | TheHill - The Hill

WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., on Friday has voiced his concernregardingreportsof federal contractors flying illegal immigrants from the southern border to other points across the country late at night:

The recent reports of immigrants being driven and flown across the country in the dead of night are truly breathtaking,Wicker said. The crisis at our border has steadily worsened since President Biden took office and shows no signs of slowing down.

"Strong countries need strong borders," said Wicker. "The constant surge of migrants across our border threatens to undermine American national security and the rule of law. President Biden should act now to restore confidence in our border and re-institute the tough policies of the last administration.

Until the President acts to get this crisis under control," Wicker added. "Congress should cut off funding for this transportation in any future appropriation and investigate the wholesale failure of the Biden Administration to prevent this crisis.

The flights, which have been widely reported after months of surging illegal migration, regularly distribute illegal immigrants who are awaiting trial to communities across the country with little to no notice given to local authorities.

Wickercalled outthe Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions in August when a group of 90 migrants were dropped off at a bus station in Natchez, Miss.

Read more about Senator Wickers recent work on the border issuehere.

See more here:
Wicker speaks on illegal immigration surge and overnight immigrant flights - Clarksdale Press Register