May 18, 2022
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While incumbent presidents have been named the most admired man in 60 of the 74 polls taken, Obama had come first in 2017, 2018, and tied with Trump in 2019. However, the emergence of President-elect Joe Biden split the vote among Democrats, giving the victory to Trump with 18% of respondents.
Obama finished second with 15%, followed by Biden with 6%, Dr. Anthony Fauci with 3%, Pope Francis with 2%, and billionaire Elon Musk, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, billionaire Bill Gates, basketball star LeBron James, and the Dalai Lama all finishing with 1%, respectively.
The study, conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, analyzed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on coronavirus cases and a synthetic control design, finding “no evidence that COVID-19 case growth grew more rapidly in Tulsa County, its border counties, or in the state of Oklahoma than each’s estimated counterfactual in the weeks following the campaign rally.”
The study claimed to be “the first to explore the impact of this event on the spread of COVID-19.”
“Difference-in-differences estimates also provide no evidence that short-run COVID-19 case rates grew faster in counties that drew relatively larger shares of residents to the event,” the summary read. “We conclude that offsetting behavioral responses to the rally — including voluntary closures of restaurants and bars in downtown Tulsa, increases in stay-at-home behavior and displacement of usual activities of weekend inflows, and smaller-than-expected crowd attendance — may be important mechanisms.”
The National Bureau of Economic Research study comes after Dr. Bruce Dart, director of Tulsa’s public health department, suggested last week that 500 new cases could have at least partially been caused by the event.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions, "isn't about abortion, per se."
“And that’s really what the Hyde Amendment is really about. The Hyde Amendment isn’t about abortion per se. The Hyde Amendment is truly about equality of healthcare and healthcare access for low income women and women of color and women that get caught in our mass incarceration system. And so the Hyde Amendment is about income inequality and it’s about women’s healthcare in a system of income inequality. So I think that we need to repeal it.”
To someone with a hammer . . .
Playing games, whether it be team sports, video games, or board games with friends and family, can be one of the greatest joys in life. Because people have always relished
Playing games, whether it be team sports, video games, or board games with friends and family, can be one of the greatest joys in life. Because people have always relished friendly competition, the opportunity to push mental and physical limits, and even bragging rights, games in some form have been a part of our existence since the beginning of human history. Sadly though, as long humans have desired to win games, a small minority has always been willing to cheat or even change the rules mid-game to their own advantage.
From baseball to gin rummy, there are and must be rules to every game. These define the parameters of competition, ensure a fair and equitable outcome, and allow the losers to leave the ‘field’ of play disappointed for sure, but comfortable in knowing they lost fair and square and fully aware of what they need to do in order to improve their game for the next time they play. Allow a cheater to prevail, however, and everything falls apart. For example, what if your tennis opponent suddenly decided that balls they hit that land in the doubles zone count, but yours don’t? You would naturally pause and have a word with your opponent. If he or she failed to listen to reason, what would you do? Why, stop playing, of course, right?
Which, oddly enough, brings me to politics, something that is most definitely NOT a game (though I sometimes wish it were). The rules of the ‘game’ in the United States are so simple that most of us learned it in high school civics class, though the actual sausage-making has become uber-complex. It takes a House majority and at least 60 votes in the Senate - if one side invokes the filibuster - in order to pass a bill to the president, who can then sign or veto. Then, the Supreme Court has the power to determine the constitutionality of the passed law.
However, within this framework, there are ways to tweak the system - to ‘cheat’ - that may be technically legal, but if enacted would fundamentally change the ‘game.’
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Elections
In their efforts to rid the country of every means to ensure that every eligible citizen gets one vote and one vote only, Democrats know that enabling cheating will result in wins for the side that (primarily) cheats. Why else would they be pushing for ballot harvesting and the end to voter ID?
Immigration
The unending hordes of illegal immigrants are coming here at the encouragement and invitation of President Biden and Democrats. If these were potential Republican voters, do you think they’d receive the same welcome mat? Of course not. Ultimately, smart people on the left know that their ideas are toxic and in many cases super unpopular. Therefore, the only way they can keep winning elections is to import voters they see as sympathetic to their cause.
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So, what should fair-minded participants do when bad actors they are in a ‘game’ with cheat and change the rules to suit their own evil ends? Sure, we should try to stop it, and that’s what Republicans, even some of the weak-kneed ones, are trying to do. The jury is out on whether they’ll find success.
But what’s the answer if Republicans don’t succeed? What’s the answer if the left rigs the game so that the United States becomes a permanent one-party state? Well, at that point, millions of conservatives may eventually just stop playing the game.