Biden's COVID Reckoning
Columnist Byron York writes that Joe Biden is facing "a day of reckoning" for his mishandling of the pandemic. Biden's White House address yesterday suggests that he knows that day is upon him.
Last year, Biden relentlessly blamed Donald Trump for every COVID death. He said during one debate, "Anyone who is responsible for [220,0000] deaths should not remain president of the United States." But no matter how you count the numbers, there have been far more COVID deaths than that since Biden took office.
During the campaign, Biden said over and over again that he had a plan to "shut down the virus." He lied. Now faced with a "winter of death," as a result of his long list of broken promises, Biden was forced to face the cameras yesterday. And he lied again.
First of all, the image of a sick Joe Biden coughing his way through the COVID press conference made for terrible optics. But on matters of substance and policy, he didn't fare any better.
Of course, Biden spent much of his time attacking the unvaccinated, which seems to be a favorite pastime for progressives. Left-wing mayors across the country (here and here) are imposing stricter vaccine mandates, setting up a new regime of "medical segregation."
Biden blasted unvaccinated Americans yesterday, saying, "You may think you're only putting yourself at risk, but . . . you're putting other people at risk." Well, we know even vaccinated individuals can still spread the virus. Even people with booster shots are getting breakthrough infections.
There is an argument to be made that the vaccines are useful for preventing severe illness and death. But their usefulness in preventing transmission seems questionable, and that makes Biden's demonization of unvaccinated individuals unacceptable.
Beyond hyping the vaccines the Trump/Pence Administration created, Biden's other proposals yesterday were extraordinarily weak.
He called for the production of 500 million new at-home tests. That may sound impressive, but it really isn't. There are 330 million Americans, so it's not even enough for everyone to test twice.
Last year, candidate Biden promised to create a national testing plan that would provide 7 million tests a day. If you do the math, that's about 2.5 billion tests a year. Eleven months since he occupied the Oval Office and Joe Biden is still short about two billion tests.
Biden also vowed to send military personnel into the nation's hospitals to assist with staffing shortages. But that's a problem he created with his vaccine mandates!
By the way, if Biden really cared about stopping the spread of the disease, he would take the crisis at the southern border far more seriously.
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Biden's Crime Crisis
Polling shows that rising crime is increasingly a top concern for voters across all demographic backgrounds. (Here and here.)
It's gotten so bad that the left-wing mayor of Chicago, where nearly 4,300 people have been shot this year, is now begging the federal government for help. Even the progressive mayor of San Francisco is getting tough.
Yet in the middle of the crime crisis, what's the Biden Administration doing?
The Department of Justice announced yesterday that it will not require prisoners released during the height of the pandemic last year to return to jail to finish their sentences. In other words, they just gave thousands of prisoners a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card!
Biden's Polling Crisis
Joe Biden continues to get hammered in the polls. For example, a new PBS poll finds that his support among critically important independent voters has cratered to just 29%.
And you know things are really getting bad when CNN reports that Biden's ratings on the economy are worse than Jimmy Carter's!
But wait. . . There's more!
Voters are clearly having buyer's remorse. A new Rasmussen poll asked voters which candidate best represented their views. Only 31% of voters said Joe Biden, while 44% said Donald Trump.