Jennifer Rubin Says We Should Stop Subsidizing States With Stupid COVID Responses and She's Right

The move by Texas Governor Greg Abbott (see BREAKING: Texas Governor Abbott to Open State 100% and End Mask Mandates) and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (see BREAKING: Mississippi Gov. Announces His State to Go Mask-Free, Open THIS Week) to remove all restrictions on civil liberties that were imposed upon Americans because of the Wuhan virus pandemic has caused a large part of the left to lose their crap.

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Joy Reid is saying she won’t travel to either state…I’m sure they are heartbroken; everyone I know would gladly endure lockdown and wear a mask when alone in their own car just to get Joy Reid to not visit their state.

Politico is making a big deal out of Texas and Mississippi being in “red” status, according to the CDC:

We may have reached peak lunacy, though, courtesy of the Washington Post’s conservative columnist, Jennifer Rubin.

Sorry, not that lunacy. This lunacy: Why are we ‘bailing out’ Texas’s reckless decisions on covid-19?.

Spoiler Alert: we aren’t.

Republicans have groused that proposed federal aid to states and localities would amount to a “bailout for blue states,” ignoring the widespread economic damage in their own red states and the status of many of those states as moochers (they receive more aid from the federal government than they contribute in revenue). But if we take their argument seriously, it raises another question: Why should a state whose government behaves in a wholly irresponsible manner and endangers its own people be treated the same as responsible states when it comes to direct covid-19 aid?

The question is hardly hypothetical. The Associated Press reports, “Texas is lifting its mask mandate, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday, making it the largest state to no longer require one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of the coronavirus … where the virus killed more than 42,000 people.” Abbott also will open businesses “100 percent” — apparently abandoning any social distancing requirements.

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If the logical fallacy “Appeal to Authority” ran paid advertisements, Rubin’s “evidence” is what it would look like. She has Anthony Fauci, who will tell you that he has made no mistakes:

She has CDC director Rochelle Walensky.

She has the director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium (Dick Butcher, were he alive today, would surely give lawyers a pass and shoot all the modelers). This is her offering:

She said the recent deadly winter freeze in Texas that left millions of people without power — forcing families to shelter closely with others who still had heat — could amplify transmission of the virus in the weeks ahead, although it remains too early to tell. Masks, she said, are one of the most effective strategies to curb the spread.

I recall a time when this was called “quarantine” and “shelter in place.”

Finally, we arrive at this conclusion:

At some point, we need to question the efficacy of giving massive amounts of covid-19 aid to governors who deliberately make it harder to control and wipe out the pandemic. While we do not want to harm further the people Abbott is imperiling (e.g., elderly Texans), some portion of the relief needs to be conditioned on maintenance of basic precautions. Maybe that should be included as a factor in the formula to dispense state and local aid.

At the very least, the covid-19 task force, which has understandably attempted to work cooperatively with governors, needs to be publicly candid: Abbott is endangering lives.

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For the record, I’m all for rewarding success and punishing failure. If Rubin is willing to cut aid to states making boneheaded decisions and failing in their responsibility to the elderly and the frail, then she has my support. Texas, for instance, is focusing 100% of its vaccines on those over 65 and other high-risk adults. So Rubin’s critique is merely stupid. Other states are squandering vaccine doses on so-called essential “grocery workers” and teachers. If you are curious about why “grocery workers” qualify as a special carve-out in vaccine allocations, see CDC Is Literally Trying to Kill Granny by Using Critical Race Theory to Decide Who Will Get Wuhan Virus Vaccine. Given the data on the lack of China virus in school settings, I don’t understand the preferential treatment given to teachers at the expense of the vulnerable. Follow the link in the tweet below to get a state-by-state policy on vaccine allocation.

But, as someone famous, whose name escapes me right now, said, “by their fruits, you shall know them.” Let’s go to the data, see The Folly of Lockdowns Exposed in One Simple Graph.

Source: Twitter

 

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If we want to follow through on Rubin’s logic, then the most irresponsible states–that would be those to the far right in the above chart–should have their allocation of vaccine and other federal aid stripped because they are forcing us all to subsidize them. Because running up the number of China virus cases in your state, particularly in nursing homes, is a sure way to grub more federal money, see What the Media Isn’t Reporting About Andrew Cuomo’s Nursing Home Scandal.

The reason for their distress is obvious. The use of the “public health emergency” carve-out to the First Amendment is in danger of being revealed as the fraud that a large number of us have always thought it to be. The purpose had little to nothing to do with public health. This is easily proven by the fact that the biggest proponents of totalitarianism (New York, Michigan, New Jersey, etc.), in the name of saving us from a virus, are those racking up the highest body counts among the elderly and infirm. As I’ve said from the earliest days of this “pandemic,” it is not about public health. It is about public control. The longer it drags on, the more restrictions many of Biden’s subjects will accept as normal. Two states publically pulling the plug, so to speak, on these ridiculous, ineffective, and, perhaps, counterproductive policies threatens to bring down the whole house of cards that depends upon fear and docility to work.

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