In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

The commentary I've seen on yesterday's speech mandating shots for 80 million people in the US has so far missed a key point. First, the numbers are at best confusing. The UK is one of the countries experiencing a major surge in cases, as shown at right. But according to the Office for National Statistics , An estimated 94.1% of the adult population in England, 92.0% in Wales, 90.4% in Northern Ireland and 93.6% in Scotland tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies in the week beginning 9 August 2021. The presence of antibodies suggests a person previously had COVID-19 or has been vaccinated. Estimated vaccination rates continued to increase in the week beginning 2 August 2021. Across the four UK countries, 90.5% to 92.4% had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 76.8% to 82.5% were fully vaccinated. By contrast, in the US, At least 208,024,209 people or 63% of the population have received at least one dose. Overall, 1...

As I noted yesterday, Biden had a very stressful Tuesday, which led to stumbling, gaffes, and fabulation. This continued into yesterday, when according to Fox News President Biden continued his bizarre habit of implying his handlers call the shots from behind the scenes on Wednesday when he concluded remarks in honor of labor unions by saying what he was "supposed" to do. "I‘m supposed to stop and walk out of the room," Biden said after finishing prepared comments in the East Room of the White House. Is this a symptom of cognitive decline? Again, I don't think so. I certainly agree it's bizarre and counterproductive, since it does entitle reasonable observers to conclude he's not in charge and is controlled by his handlers. Not only that, but as the story says, it's become a habit, which is also not good. But I think the reason for it lies in the parallel I drew yesterday with the disastrously incompetent neurosurgeon Dr Christopher Dent...

My family lived, for a time, in the Washington, DC area, where my mother worked for the Republican National Committee. (She's pictured on the left in the photo with then-President Nixon and a co-worker). One of her jobs was to, escort visiting Republican constituents through the Capitol to greet their elected representatives. According to my mother, one problem issue was Sen Everett Dirksen, at the time the Republican Minority Leader. Dirksen had a permanent mint julep in his hand. She was told to explain to the constituents at every meet-and-greet that the glass was in fact iced tea. President Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, not long after Dirksen's death in 1969. A senator with a drink in his hand all day would have been part of the culture then, if it's not in fact still like that. This bit of information popped into my head as I thought again about my principal theory of Biden's bumbling, which I outlined on August 27 , that his patterns of spee...

Up until a point a few weeks ago, the COVID narrative had been the vaccines are highly effective, and if the pandemic continues at all, it's because too many people are unwilling to be vaccinated. However, the CDC itself began to undermine this by announcing that vaccinated people could still transmit the virus and endorsing indoor masks again, although masks had proven ineffective throughout 2020. Now the narrative has shifted yet again, and the story now is the vaccines aren't as effective as we'd been saying, and now we need a booster. I noted in Sunday's post that Dr Scott Gottlieb has reversed his previous prediction on the delta variant, is now saying New York and Connecticut will have a big surge, and he's on board with the booster. Dr Fauci is saying this as well, as of the latest Sunday talks : Sunday, during an appearance on CNN, Biden medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci offered the possibility that a three-dose regimen may be the proper regimen fo...

I've mentioned Dr Scott Gottlieb, former FDA Commissioner, several times here as a voice of relative stability vis-a-vis the shifting explanations of Drs Fauci and Walensky. Most recently, I've noted that he predicted the current delta wave would peak by mid-September, which seems to be the case. But suddenly, he's now with the program. Maybe the curve that seems to be peaking now isn't the real delta surge , he now says. Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Friday predicted Northeastern states, including New York and Connecticut, will experience another jump in Covid cases tied to the highly transmissible delta variant. “I think there’s sort of a perception that we’re sort of through this delta wave here in the Northeast because we’ve seen delta cases go up and go down in places like the New York metropolitan region. We’re also seeing [test] positive come down,” the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I d...

Biden's handlers are clearly taking note of recent polls, and I assume other internal surverys are showing a perception that he's isolated and out of touch. So we see him getting out of the White House, in this photo with sleeves rolled up and jacketless (and I assume his greeters were informed of this dress code prior to his arrival), on the go. The problem is that when he does this kind of thing, there's always the off key note -- in this case, the cheat sheets in his back pocket, in the Delaware dignified transfer op, the compulsive watch checking. And his eyes are always just slits. He has Hillary's problem, the more people saw of her, the less there was to like. In his statements from the White House over the past week, he's been angry and callous, mostly refusing to answer questions. Apparently next week, he's going to start haranguing us about COVID again. It isn't enough just to make him more visible when even the photo ops go wrong. ...

Pardon me if, in the current atmosphere of false narrative piled on false narrative, I'm just the least bit skeptical of what's going on. We're being told via The Hill : Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Democrats should hit "pause" on President Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending package, firing a significant warning shot at his party’s top legislative priority. Manchin, during remarks this week at a West Virginia Chamber of Commerce event pointed to concerns about “runaway inflation,” the delta variant of the coronavirus and a botched withdrawal in Afghanistan to float slowing down what is the centerpiece of Biden's economic agenda. . . . "I know they're going to go nuts right now ... because what I said is going to all my caucus in Washington," Manchin added, referring to his Democratic colleagues. "But I'm thinking of it from the standpoint of where we are as a nation today." He restated these views in, of all places, a Wal...