Record Number Of Americans Converting To Whatever The One Religion Is That Doesn’t Allow Vaccines - The Babylon Bee

President Biden said that his wife is a doctor and she got the injection, no big deal. Plus, Pfizer’s CEO has estimated that the naturally immune getting vaccinated will lead to the additional benefit of him getting this baller yacht he saw in Dubai.

Woman Attending Ultra-Exclusive Gala For The Elite In Expensive Designer Dress Lectures Nation On Inequality - The Babylon Bee

At publishing time, the woman had momentarily considered that maybe she is actually part of the wealthy bourgeoisie and not an oppressed minority, but she quickly brushed the disturbing thought aside.

Labor Shortages Give Low-Pay Workers a Raise. Inflation Eats It Up. - WSJ

Overall consumer prices rose 5.3% in August from a year earlier, a slightly slower pace than in June and July but still near a 13-year high, said the Labor Department. That means that for the lowest-earning tier of workers, “real” wages—pay adjusted for inflation—fell 0.5% in August from a year earlier, according to data from the Atlanta Fed and the Labor Department. That contrasts with 2.1% annual growth in the two years before the pandemic.

5.3% is more than double the target rate. It’s been like this for months. Yet policy makers sit on their hands in their ivory towers and call it “transitory” and Congress muses about another $5T in new spending on top of the $2T in March, on top of the $2T in 2019.

Democrats rush tax bills through Congress - Washington Examiner

Congress spent a year and a half drafting and passing the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The Ways and Means Committee worked for six months on the bill before it went to the floor. Yet, in the next few days, the committee plans to rush another major rewrite of our tax laws through the committee, with no amendments, no debate, and not one public hearing. Members of the committee will be asked to approve this massive bill without a Congressional Budget Office score, and with no analysis of the bill’s impact on inflation, investment, jobs, or economic growth.

Rep. Neal wanted it this way, because the longer proposals are public, the more opposition that builds.

This is no way to legislate, no matter the party, policy, or bill.

The fact that Apple rearranges the cameras on iPhone every year for no other purpose than to signal that you have the latest phone is so telling of how pointless the upgrade is.

Joe Biden’s Presidency Is Incredible—No, Really - WSJ Opinion

Remember that vaccine that Kamala Harris said a year ago she probably wouldn’t take because Donald Trump was responsible for it? Well, now she and her boss say we’ve all got to take it or else the federal government will have us fired from our jobs. This followed a declaration on the vaccine by Mr. Biden, shortly before taking office, that he wouldn’t “demand that it be mandatory.”

Democrats Release Details of Proposed Tax Increase - WSJ

The changes, when combined with the expanded child tax credit available to households with no income, make the income-tax system much more of a tool for redistribution, said Lawrence Zelenak, a law professor at Duke University. “It’s using the income tax to take money from only half the population and using it to distribute money to half the population,” he said.

That’s weird. I thought taxes were for funding collective expenses.

“We are committed to enacting a law that will include meaningful SALT relief that is so essential to our middle-class communities, and we are working daily toward that goal,” they said.

Kind of seems like a state issue, not a federal one.

The Internal Revenue Service would get nearly $80 billion over a decade to beef up enforcement. That matches the administration plan, which would roughly double the size of the tax agency.

Good thing Senate Republicans negotiated this out of that Infrastructure Bill! Looks like everyone was wrong when they said it would just get stuffed in the other… oh, wait.

Local newspapers would get a new payroll tax credit for employing journalists. Labor-union members would get a new deduction for up to $250 in dues, even if they don’t itemize their deductions.

Looks like the lobbyists have been busy!

TransUnion Nears $3.1 Billion Deal for Neustar - WSJ

The Biden administration has also signaled interest in establishing a government-backed consumer-credit firm.

This is the first I’ve heard of this, but we already have 3 major credit reporting firms and a handful of smaller ones. Why do we need government to duplicate this invasive effort? To say nothing of the gigantic cybersecurity risk it would create.

I’m noticing a trend.

2x4 is neither 2 nor 4.

It took twenty years for the date to become meaningless to a lot of people.

• President George W. Bush

Today we commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the attacks of September 11th. Two decades on, the events of that day continue to have profound impacts on our lives as Americans. Sadly, a whole generation has grown up in a post-9/11 world, and today is a story from a textbook as opposed to a lived experience.

The documentary crew gained access to all of the key players from the Bush administration and chronicled their experience on September 11, 2001. President Bush, the Vice President, his Chief of Staff, members of the National Security team, Secret Service agents, members of the White House press corps, and military leaders all sat for interviews. What resulted was a compelling and visceral tick-tock of that fateful day.

Watching, I felt the emotions from 9/11 come back. Although I was in middle school, I was in a military family stationed nearby. My dad went off to war, again, as a result of 9/11. It was incredible how the sounds and images of that day are so ingrained in me.

The human toll is hard to fathom. Not only did nearly 3,000 people lose their lives, but so many more died slow deaths over the twenty years that followed as a result of their rescue work in the days that followed.

There is no doubt this was a difficult documentary to watch. It was even more painful watching it in the shadow of the disastrous surrender in Afghanistan. It was very well done and I hope that it will help those too young to remember and those not born yet just why September 11th is such an important day in our nation’s history.

🇺🇸

Carter’s does not deserve to continue as a going concern.

Biden Unveils ‘Your Body, My Choice’ Vaccination Program - The Babylon Bee

Companies will be forced to comply with the mandate until the Supreme Court strikes it down in a few hours.

The Wrong Way to Target Corporate Excess - WSJ

Capping executive pay at a certain ratio would raise problems too. Consider two similarly compensated CEOs, Daniel O’Day of Gilead Sciences and James Quincey of Coca-Cola. Mr. O’Day makes 76 times his average employee’s pay while the slightly lower-paid Mr. Quincey makes 1,621 times as much, according to executive compensation tracker Equilar. People who make and distribute soft drinks tend to earn a lot less than scientists so the ratio is skewed, but Mr. Quincey’s company earns more profit. Enforcing pay ratios would send the top executive talent to investment banks, software companies or biotech firms instead of retailers, trucking companies or restaurant chains.

Democrats Advance Plan to Require Employers to Offer Retirement Plans - WSJ

Roughly half of American households are at risk of seeing their standard of living decline after retirement, according to Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research.

But wait, I thought this is why we bill employers and employees 12.4% of wages so that we can fund their generous retirement via Social Security?

Auto-enrolling employees in an IRA at 6% and gradually increasing contributions to 10% seems to be a tacit admission from the defenders of Social Security, and opponents of privatization or any reform, that the scheme is a failure.

This plan is privatized Social Security, with no discount on the Social Security Income tax.

Democrats Float Partnership, Buyback Taxes to Fund $3.5 Trillion Spending Plan - WSJ

“This proposal simply reduces complexity by closing loopholes that allow those at the top to pick and choose when, and whether, to pay tax,” Mr. Wyden said.

This quote perfectly encapsulates the operating theory behind the new taxes in this bill: the government is entitled to the personal incomes of American workers. Further, anyone who follows the law and, as a consequence, pays less in taxes, is a cheater who deserves to be punished.

Mr. Brown’s plan responds to Democrats’ frustration that companies used some of their 2017 tax cuts to buy back their stock, a move that is typically seen as helping shareholders.

Shareholders will soon include every American worker auto-enrolled in the bill’s new auto-IRA. So it’s a problem that companies make any business decisions that help increase shareholder value?

Democrats Advance Plan to Require Employers to Offer Retirement Plans - WSJ

Starting on Jan. 1, 2023, the provision would require employers to deduct at least 6% from workers’ paychecks and automatically increase that savings rate by 1 percentage point a year until reaching 10% of pay.

Oh look, another terrible idea.

Taking an additional 6% out of peoples checks and investing in securities that people don’t understand.

Administrators sure will love this brand new fee base, tho!

Transforming America in 17 Days - WSJ Opinion

FDR’s New Deal programs were passed incrementally over two presidential terms with overwhelming Democratic majorities. Democrats created the Great Society over two years with supermajorities. ObamaCare was hashed out over nine months before Democrats enacted it into law with 56 votes in the Senate. The 2017 GOP tax reform was debated for months, and its principles for years, before Congress voted.

Now we get $3.5T, massive tax increases, expansive new entitlements, all in 17 days. No time to think, debate, or even read the bill.

Biden Administration Sues Texas Over Its Abortion Law - WSJ

“This kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans, whatever their politics or party, should fear,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference announcing the action.

This on the exact same day that the Executive Branch seeks to impose mass vaccination mandates on workers via OSHA. We didn’t even try for a year to get people to voluntarily get vaccinated.

The left hand sues Texas for limiting the ability to kill a baby with a heartbeat while the right hand dictates mandatory vaccinations.

It’s also a bit rich coming from the folks who said they had no authority to extend the eviction moratorium, but chose to do it anyway.

Biden to Boost Vaccine Requirements for Large Employers, Federal Workers to Combat Covid-19 - WSJ

White House officials have said the president won’t mandate vaccinations for every American

Just every American with a job.

Biden Administration Unveils Plan to Cut Prescription-Drug Prices - WSJ

To spur new drug innovations, the administration would launch an agency at the National Institutes of Health to drive biomedical breakthroughs. Mr. Biden requested $6.5 billion for three years in his fiscal 2022 budget for the NIH, whose focus would be to “foster medical innovations,” including for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimers.

Duplicative effort far more efficiently performed by the private market. Just another waste of taxpayer dollars on a project outside of the core competency of government.

Also kind of funny that Alzheimer’s is specifically named when the government is trashing the first serious new therapy in years.

I will never understand fashion photography.

Staged, awkward, unnatural, and unclear.

Doctors Join the Climate Lobby - WSJ Opinion

Medical journals are supposed to be forums for doctors to publish research and debate ideas. But like traditional media outlets, many are finding it harder to control their political bias. Now some 200 journal editors are showing their political hand on climate change in an apocalyptic and misleading joint editorial this week that could have been ghost-written by Greta Thunberg. The groupthink in these journals suppressed debate over important questions during the Covid pandemic, including the origins of the virus and the costs of lockdowns. Now these same experts want to tell everyone what to do about climate, which they know less about than geologists do about cancer.

Taliban Unveil New Afghan Government - WSJ

In an appointment that would complicate any recognition of the new government by Western nations, Sirajuddin Haqqani, designated a global terrorist by Washington because of close links between al Qaeda and the Haqqani network that he heads, was named minister of interior, with oversight of Afghanistan’s police and internal security. The FBI currently offers a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest.

The Taliban, our partners in peace!

Cool and beautiful on my walk this morning for the first time in months.

The dog days of summer are over and my favorite season is just around the corner!

🍁