In Stunning Blow To Democracy, Legislation Decided By Majority Of Elected Representatives - The Babylon Bee

In a catastrophic blow to democracy with disastrous consequences sure to ripple throughout the free world, a majority of democratically-elected representatives decided against legislation proposed by other democratically-elected representatives.

We had a good run!

Pelosi Disappointed We’ll Never Get To Find Out What Was In The Build Back Better Bill - The Babylon Bee

The Build Back Better Bill is thousands of pages long, and with everyone in Congress being very busy and very dumb, no one there was going to read it. But if it had been passed, it would have been handed over to bureaucrats to implement, and then we’d all see what the bill actually did.

Sad!

Confronting Inflation, Biden Administration Turns to Oil Industry It Once Shunned - WSJ

The Biden administration says that oil companies face no government constraints on drilling more in the short run, even as it presses the companies to shift long term to cleaner forms of energy in response to climate change.

Facts not in evidence.

As a candidate, Mr. Biden said the country must transition away from oil, and in his first months in office he moved for more stringent regulations on the industry, explored restrictions on oil production and revoked a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

How Fauci and Collins Shut Down Covid Debate - WSJ Opinion

“This proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists . . . seems to be getting a lot of attention – and even a co-signature from Nobel Prize winner Mike Leavitt at Stanford. There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises,” Dr. Collins wrote. “Is it underway?”

Our tax dollars at work!

Pretty gross to see leaders in the scientific community circle the wagons as opposed to being open to the scientific process.

Glad to see bright, bright lights being shined on the technocrats.

Biden’s Omicron Reality Check - WSJ Opinion

Wasn’t Democrats’ $1.9 trillion spending bill in March supposed to pay for more testing and treatments? Too much of the money went to progressive political groups, and the U.S. pandemic recovery has been worse off for it.

The difference between the headline and the substance.

Central Intelligence

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One Last Chance to Build Back Better - WSJ Opinion

Unless Congress acts soon, millions of families with children will take a financial hit as Omicron surges and the economic outlook darkens. To avoid this, Congress should enact a one-year extension of the expanded CTC and use the breathing room to devise a long-term solution.

The expanded child tax credit was set for one year in the American Rescue Plan bill. Now that it’s expiring, here’s a proposal to extend it for one more year. And suppose that happens, what do you think we’ll be discussing in December 2022?

This is why BBB failed; because the expiration dates were a lie from the start.

Student-Loan Repayment Moratorium Could Get Another Extension From Biden - WSJ

A spokesperson for the Education Department said it would announce whether it plans to extend the pause later this week.

Seems like code for an extension is coming.

Borrowers will feel great about it, except that it’s an incredibly inflationary policy. $7B/month in misallocated capital.

But borrowers enjoy swimming around in the nice warm water, not noticing that they’re getting boiled.

If the pause is extended, don’t expect payments to resume until after the midterms.

First day of winter.

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Biden Emerges as Progressive Government’s Mr. Bad Example - WSJ Opinion

The virus is the most visible refutation of progressive vanity this year, but by no means the only one. Those liberal geniuses who told us they could manage the economy like a well-honed machine have managed to create the highest inflation in nearly 40 years, eroding real wages and imperiling economic stability. The brilliant ideologues who run our cities have presided over a surge in violent crime that has reduced life for many residents to a real-life dystopia. Those omniscient technocrats who know how to devise and implement a humane and functioning immigration policy have left us with a border in name only and chaos and lawlessness to accompany it. The strategic geniuses who told us “America is back” produced a debacle in Afghanistan whose full ramifications for U.S. security we haven’t even begun to see.

The sad truth is that the consequences of falling for false hope are experienced by us all.

Christmas Tree, 2021

U.S. Raises Fuel-Efficiency Requirements for Cars and Light Trucks - WSJ

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday that it would require auto makers to achieve a fleetwide average of 55 miles a gallon by model year 2026, up from a standard of 43 mpg set during the Trump administration

More government-imposed market distortions to be soon followed by producer gimmicks.

In total they would cut nationwide emissions by nearly 2%, based on EPA estimates.

And therein lies the rub. Upending an entire industry to make a statistically meaningless impact, especially when compared to the increasing emissions outputs of Russia, China, and India.

Why are we ruining our lives with no appreciable benefit?

“We are setting robust and rigorous standards that will aggressively reduce the pollution that is harming people and our planet—and save families money at the same time,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

False logic. These technology changes are going to increase the cost of new (and later used) cars by a factor of $1,000s while “saving” a family on their annual fuel bills by a factor of $100s.

“Achieving the goals of this final rule will undoubtedly require enactment of supportive governmental policies—including consumer incentives, substantial infrastructure growth, fleet requirements, and support for U.S. manufacturing and supply-chain development,” he said.

That was fast. The automotive industry is already claiming they can’t meet these goals without more taxpayer subsidies.

PirateShip is excellent.

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I don’t know if it’s very funny or very sad that my 8yo came up with a clever COVID joke.

Vast Household Wealth Could Be a Factor Behind U.S. Labor Shortage - WSJ

Families that win at least $30,000 in the lottery tend to earn less in the next five years, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper released in July by four University of Chicago scholars. The more a person wins, the bigger the effect that the award has on earnings and employment, the paper found. Upper-income winners are more likely to reduce their hours, while lower-income winners are more likely to drop out of the labor market entirely, the paper found.

Fascinating.

White House lights up Manchin after he crushes Biden’s megabill - POLITICO

With an evenly split Senate, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer needs every Democrat to go along with the legislation, which only requires a simple majority vote. That dynamic gives Manchin enormous leverage over Biden’s agenda, allowing him to single-handedly sink a priority that Democrats have spent much of the year working on.

If by “single-handedly” you mean Manchin’s single vote plus 50 other senators’ votes.

The White House Art of Furious Persuasion - WSJ Opinion

The progressive whiz kids who run President Biden’s White House don’t have much sense of self-restraint—or common political sense. Their response on Sunday to Sen. Joe Manchin’s opposition to Build Back Better was to accuse him of bad faith while saying they’ll beat him up until he changes his mind.

How to win friends and influence people?

Joe Manchin Rescues the Democrats - WSJ Opinion

We have to admit that Mr. Manchin’s defection also vindicates Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy to support an infrastructure bill that showed bipartisan Senate deal-making is possible. We don’t apologize for opposing that bill on the merits; it contains hundreds of billions of dollars in wasted spending. But Mr. McConnell calculated that sometimes you have to sacrifice a piece to win the chess match, and the GOP leader read the West Virginian well.

Agree.

Biden’s Climate Plans Thrown Into Doubt by Manchin’s Rejection of ‘Build Back Better’ Bill - WSJ

Without action from Congress, Mr. Biden could still meet the target, analysts said. But doing so would require more-ambitious state and executive-branch actions such as tighter federal rules on power plants, vehicles and industrial emissions

Now where have I heard this story before…

“Without the cost-reduction assistance of congressional actions, federal and state leaders will face higher technical and political hurdles as they pursue the ambitious policies required to get to the 50-52% target,” the report says.

Cost-reduction assistance, now that’s funny! Excellent writing. Code for forcing taxpayers to pay for terrible projects that the Market won’t support on its own.

And by “political hurdles” do they mean a discontented electorate that disagrees with reorganizing the entire society based on a contested scientific theory?

The Santa Clause

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First fire of the season.

Manchin Says He Won’t Vote for ‘Build Back Better' Bill - WSJ

Thank goodness!

Tech-Savvy Kids Defeat Apple’s and Others’ Parental-Control Features - WSJ

Parents say the controls aren’t simple enough and there are too many loopholes.

This is the essential problem. Software design has the absolute ability to create a master/slave dynamic, but the manufacturers and app developers are incentivized to help kids circumvent parental controls and increase engagement with a key demographic. So instead, they give these convoluted and easily breakable “tools” that are just a veneer.

Maybe parents should just stop giving kids these devices.

“I’ve been in tech for a long time, and I understand products pretty well, and I was incredibly confused,” said Tim Kendall, former president of Pinterest

Same.