Monthly Archives: January 2022

The United States has the distinction of being the richest country in the world, and yet we have the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Nearly 59 million Americans have contracted the disease, and more than 837,000 have died from it.

Given the wide availability of the COVID-19 vaccination here and the vast number of people who have succumbed to the disease, one would think that the U.S. would be among the leaders in vaccination rates. Not so.

The latest data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Center show that 63.1% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated with at least two doses. The U.S. ranks behind 58 other countries on this statistic. These 58 nations include nine countries to our south: Chile (87.5%), Cuba (85.4%), Uruguay (77.3%), Argentina (73.6%), Ecuador (72.4%), Costa Rica (70.3%), Brazil (68.2%), Peru (66.4%) and El Salvador (64.5%). And Panama with a rate of 58.3% and Mexico at 57.1% are not far behind the U.S.

These 11 Latin American countries are far poorer and arguably less organized than the U.S. but have lost many fewer lives to COVID-19.

Mexico opened registrations for COVID-19 vaccines to the entire population over the age of 18 in July. And now Mexico has a higher vaccination rate than 18 U.S. states, with 10 of these in the South, four in the Midwest and four in the West. Idaho (47.6%), (42.2%) and Mississippi (48.8%) have the nations lowest vaccination rates.

Several sociocultural factors contribute to the higher vaccination rates in many Latin American nations, but what stands out is the cooperation among all age groups in complying with mitigation strategies wearing masks, social distancing, getting vaccines, and washing hands frequently and surfaces daily. Beginning in September, for example, Uruguay provided inoculation in the workplace to facilitate easy access during employees working hours. The prevention efforts are viewed as a social responsibility. This is not what is happening here.

In addition, the Catholic Church leadership, a salient institution in Mexico, launched a public health campaign to reinforce the basics of staying safe during the COVID-19 pandemic and promoting vaccination compliance. That has helped Mexico. This is going on in the U.S. to a certain extent. For example, a coalition of 28 U.S. Catholic organizations mobilized efforts to accept vaccines and promote equitable distribution of vaccines for the underserved and among communities of color. But this is a small effort compared with those happening elsewhere.

The reasons so many Americans less than 65 years of age have refused to get vaccinated are varied, but politics is a major dividing line. Seventeen of the 18 states that have lower vaccination rates than Mexico are predominantly red states. And it seems that people who have not received the vaccination have dug their heels in the ground with little movement.

Any use of mandates puts federalism to the test. The public sector has confronted numerous challenges, including obstinate employees, resulting in limited success. As such, the private sector needs to work alongside the public sector in the establishment of mandates requiring employees to be vaccinated with appropriate exceptions. A safe and healthy workplace is essential to establish a sense of security that is currently missing.

Achieving this goal will require acting on President Joe Bidens COVID-19 initiatives that spur business and protect the nations health. As six former members of the presidents COVID-19 advisory board recently pointed out, we also need to embrace the new normal, conceding the stark reality that we will never get 100% of the population vaccinated or defeat the virus.

Furthermore, it is critical to extend the series of business roundtables convened by strategic partnership in the corporate and nonprofit sectors such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, industry groups and leaders of communities of color. These groups would identify new financial incentives to help reduce barriers and encourage vaccinations.

We are all in this together. Being adaptive is surely well worth the cost given what is at stake.

Jacqueline Angel is a professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin.

Rogelio Senz is a professor in the Department of Demography at The University of Texas at San Antonio.

A version of this op-ed appeared in The Hill.

Originally posted here:

What US Gets Wrong About Vaccines That Other Countries Get Right - UT News - UT News | The University of Texas at Austin

IT seems inevitable that Scotland will remain in political paralysis until the independence referendum boil is finally lanced with a rerun. It is crucial for that issue and more generally the electorate's trust in politicians that we can at least make an informed choice.

It is the unquestionable duty of politicians to make their proposals backed up by detailed evidence of how the thorny issues will be dealt with. On the Yes side those are the EU, economics, the currency and more. On the No side, what changes are on offer to preserve the Union devo max? Federalism? What's the difference? What does it mean? How will the Celtic nations cope with a south-east of England-dominated, dominant England?

At least a fully informed referendum decision will give us the faint hope of subsequently being able to vote meaningfully for better governance than we are getting from either Holyrood or Westminster now. We, the electorate, are not stupid and last time I checked it was still our country

John Murdoch, Innellan.

* ALASDAIR Galloway (Letters, January 13) asks why those of us who do not support Scottish independence do not place the same burden of proof on our case as we demand from nationalists.

The answer is quite simple: the nationalist proposal is a hypothetical projection, while the status quo is an observable reality. We can see and record what happens and what has happened in the UK as it is (warts and all), but it is up to the nationalists to show that independence would be better, and how that could come about. There is currently no proposal for independence on the table, so it is quite legitimate to ask for one so that it can be scrutinised accordingly.

He also asks why any future proposal that may be produced should be subject to a higher level of electoral approval than in 2014 or 2016. Obviously he sees the Brexit vote as great success, but I think we should look to other countries like the United States, where two-thirds is the required vote for constitutional amendments, or to Switzerland, where they require a majority of all cantons (a double majority.) A simple 50 per cent +1 victory does not fulfil the purpose of a referendum (that is, to settle a matter for a generation or longer) but makes underlying divisions more permanent and more bitter.

Mr Galloway cites domestic precedents in his defence of a simple majority in these matters. However, unIike him, I do not believe that the British way is always the best way of doing things, especially in constitutional matters.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow.

NO MORE BRANCH MANAGERS

MARK Openshaw (Letters, January 13) details the many steps available in a free society to bring a recalcitrant politician to heel or justice, in this case the Prime Minister of the UK. This is true of all democracies which have evolved over hundreds of years. Democracy as we understand it today is underpinned by the rule of law and in Scotland the legal system can be traced back to the 12th century, perhaps slightly older than the English legal system. There are many countries able to trace their democratic roots back in time, although Mr Openshaw appears to allude to real democracy being the preserve of our islands.

If Scotland became independent, it is clear Mr Openshaw would not be supporting the SNP because of its omerta-like intolerance of internal dissent. I think the dictionary definition of omerta might be better applied to the governing party at Westminster with all its alleged dubious contracts to friends during the Covid crisis.

Mr Openshaw need not worry needlessly about who to vote for in an independent Scotland as he will be able to choose from a number of political parties. These are sure to include existing political parties now independent themselves. With the constitutional question having been settled, from a currently bare cupboard the Conservative and Labour parties might be able to come up with a policy or two which would benefit the new Scotland they might even get elected as the governing party.

No longer would the Tory leader in Scotland be regarded as a Tory lightweight by his betters in London or the Scottish Labour leader as a branch manager for a single MP sitting in London. Whats not to like?

Alan M Morris, Blanefield.

NATURAL REACTION TO EMPIRE BUILDERS

ALEXANDER R McKay's obsessive hatred of national independence (Letters, January 14) qualifies him to join the company of many celebrated figures from history.

The Romans viciously suppressed independence movements, the Habsburgs and the Romanovs were angered by them, Napoleon hated them and the British regarded them with indignation. The Ottomans failed to understand them and the Nazis ruthlessly attacked them in France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Norway, Denmark and any of the other countries they invaded.

All these frenzied empire builders have been swept aside by history and independent nations have became the accepted normal.

As soon as people began to question the morality of empire building and international plundering, residual sympathisers went on the defensive and, by a spectacular inversion of the truth, condemned "nationalism" or "separatism" as the cause of all political problems. Any examination of history shows that, on the contrary, the pursuit of national independence is just a natural reaction to the arrogant greed of empire builders and conquerors. They all eventually discover its power but cause incalculable damage before they do.

Peter M Dryburgh, Edinburgh.

* REBECCA McQuillan ("Rees-Moggs disdain for Scots Tories shows they must break free", The Herald, January 14) displays the head-in-the-sand affliction widely demonstrated by journalists and commentators who do not seem to understand the difference between the terms nationalism and nationality.

She accepts the increasingly obvious fact that the UK Conservative Party is now an alien force in Scotland and that the Labour Party in Scotland is severely hampered by its stubborn unionist stance but continues to maintain that there is virtue in avoiding "separation" from England. Even if the bitter pill of Brexit were to be swallowed without complaint, federalism or devo max, both of which would continue to treat Scotland as a region rather than a nation, will never satisfy the aspirations of the emerging generation among which so many identify their nationality as Scottish rather than British; their voting choices are driven by nationality rather than nationalism.

I don't think I am better than any of my neighbours and don't want to be any more separated from them than at present but I don't want them to be in control of my home as well as their own.

Willie Maclean, Milngavie.

DOUBLE STANDARDS FROM GOVE

MICHAEL Gove expresses laudable sentiments in Fridays Herald such as "government is a team event" and he boasts of new arrangements that "put mutual respect and collaboration at the heart of a new, mature partnership ("By working as a team across the UK we can overcome common challenges", The Herald, January 14).

What does he mean then when he contrasts the locations of London and Elgin and those who live there? Does ones location confer superiority? How can we level up if the really important place to be is London? Could it be that this mindset is so thoroughly ingrained, ministers dont even recognise it in themselves?

Doesnt bode well for the future.

Jane Guz, Dundee.

POVERTY MUST BE THE NEXT FIGHT

I SUGGEST that post-pandemic we will have an opportunity to raise our aspirations beyond a pitiful return to normal, a normal which fails to present a particularly hopeful future for so many, at home and abroad.

Is it realistic to hope that significant numbers within our society will recognise and condemn at long last the structural injustices of ultra-free markets in which only the prosperous and relatively prosperous can thrive while so many others struggle even to survive?

I am confident that the Labour Party will give the poor more hope of a much better normal than would the Conservative Party. I base my confidence on the following statement by Sir Keir Starmer: I have always been motivated by a burning desire to tackle inequality and injustice, to stand up for the powerless against the powerful. If I see something wrong or spot an injustice, I want to put it right. Can any reader imagine any Conservatives, other than the handful of remaining One Nation Conservatives, saying that since the advent of Margaret Thatcher 47 years ago?

Even during the Thatcherite-tinged New Labour years foreign aid was doubled and more than a million pensioners and more than a million children were lifted out of absolute poverty.

I await to hear the SNPs approach in its prospectus for an independent Scotland. How far down the social justice path would it wish to lead us? Can it demonstrate that the finances will allow it? Or would a Labour UK government and an enhanced devolution settlement be the answer?

John Milne, Uddingston.

Read the original post:

Letters: Let's lance the Indy boil with a fully informed vote - HeraldScotland

A day after Samajwadi Party (SP) leadership said West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee would campaign for the party in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the BJP leadership in West Bengal said her campaigning would only help the BJP in the election.

West Bengal BJP leader and Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said the BJP leadership in Uttar Pradesh would not call Ms. Banerjee bahirgata [outsider] and allow her helicopter to land in the State.

Mr. Adhikari, who is the most vocal critic of the Trinamool Congress chairperson, described her as anti- Hindu , blamed her for the post poll violence in the State. Sanatanis [Hindus] of Uttar Pradesh will not vote for her.

On Tuesday, SP leader Kiranmoy Nanda met Ms. Banerjee at her residence in Kolkata and said she would hold a joint virtual meeting and press conference with his party president, Akhilesh Yadav, on February 8 in Lucknow.

Mr. Adhikari said Mr. Nanda had become irrelevant in politics. He refuted the SP leaders claims that Ms. Banerjee had become a face against the BJP in the entire country.

On the issue of proposed amendment to the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, Mr. Adhikari supported the Centres move. He cited the instance of former West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, against whom the Centre had moved disciplinary proceedings.

Ms. Banerjee had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to roll back the decision. She said the changes in the rules for Central deputation of IAS officers would affect the States administration. She expressed strong reservation to the proposed amendment. It was against the spirit of cooperative federalism, she alleged.

View post:

Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls | Mamatas campaign for SP will help BJP: Adhikari - The Hindu

Chairman of the State Administration Council and Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has expressed his belief that more could be done to restore internal peace as the invitation has been extended to peace talks for the resumption of new paces of peace.

He made the comment in his message of greetings to a ceremony to mark the 70th Anniversary of Kayah State Day that fell on January 15, state-run newspapers reported.

At present, the State Administration Council taking the State responsibilities in accord with the Constitution (2008) is implementing the five-point road map and nine political, economic and social objectives. It is very important to ensure peace and stability of the country and restore perpetual peace across the nation in order to secure success in implementation. Hence, as the invitation has been extended to the peace talks for the resumption of new paces of peace, he said he firmly believes that more cooperation could be achieved for the restoration of the internal peace for all ethnic national people. The government focuses on the interests of the State and the ethnic people and will continue further cooperation with the ethnic national people in unison to emphasize more peace and stability of the country with prosperity and food sufficiency. As unity will bring prosperity to the nation, all need to build the nation through united strength, the Senior General said.

He added that only when all public service personnel, all civil society organizations and the entire people together with the Tatmadaw (military) participate in the tasks to build the Union based on democracy and federalism in accord with the desire of all ethnic national people, will the country successfully reach the goal in a short time. Primarily, all ethnic national people need to have unity whereas the country is peaceful, stable and tranquil.

At present, it can be seen that incitement of some foreign countries, instigation of some organizations with different opinions turning a blind eye to the interests of the State and the people, fabricated news pulling down the State into the abyss of danger, persuasion of NUG, CRPH and PDF terrorist groups and their terror acts cause wrong thoughts and disintegration of unity among the people from some areas without peace, he pointed out.

He then stressed the need to consider that in consequence, it cannot bring the benefit to the State but it can only bring danger to the State and the people.

The Senior General also said in looking back the history, the country unavoidably accepted the independence together with events of internal insurgency based on impacts of the divide-and-rule policy of the colonialists, racism and isms as well as armed conflicts based on doubts among the ethnic nationals for many years. All have witnessed such consequential impacts on the peace, stability and development of the State.

Currently, the government is making relentless efforts for building the Union based on democracy and federalism all the ethnic national people aspire. That is why ethnic nationals from the Kayah State are to participate in the work process through the genuine Union spirit taking the lessons from the past events, he commented.

Continued here:

More could be done to restore peace as invitation already extended for peace talks resumption: Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing - Eleven Myanmar

In the course of his nominally centrist 2020 campaign, President Biden embraced a whole series of radical, bad ideas for higher education. Whether due to old-fashioned realpolitik, the stylings of woke policy wonks on a somnolent staff, or an attempt to court the partys over-caffeinated Twitter base, Biden embraced free college, loan forgiveness, Title IX extremism, and much else.

Specifically, Biden pledged to make two years of community college free for all students and to forgive all undergraduate "tuition-related" student debt for those earning up to $125,000 a year. The price tag was extraordinary. Bidens free college and student loan proposals alone were estimated to cost $2.9 trillion over a decade. He also vowed to restore Obama-era Title IX rules that denied due process to students accused of sexual misconduct, yielded campus-run kangaroo courts, and led to hundreds of lawsuits from accused students on grounds of due process and discrimination. The DeVos Department of Education had restored due process in 2020 after a formal, lengthy rule-making process.

Well, after a year of fumbling, Biden has failed to achieve any of these goals. This is good for the nation, for taxpayers, and for students. Even if Biden can persuade Sen. Joe Manchin to resurrect something from the wreckage of Build Back Better, his free college and debt forgiveness proposals seem safely interred for at least the next few years. But it isnt all good news: Unable to move legislation through a Democratic Congress, Biden has increasingly turned to piecemeal pandering by executive order while ignoring easy opportunities to sound useful notes and solve practical problems.

Lets start by digging deeper into Bidens failures to move his agenda.

Bidens free community college proposal did make it as far as the falls initial $3.5 trillion version of Build Back Better. The proposed federal-state partnership (a delicate description of Obamacare-style federalism) prompted a frenzy of enthusiasm in the higher ed world, full of cart-before-horse conversation about how to spend the windfall. But, when Sens. Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema insisted that theyd meant it when they termed the $3.5 trillion price tag too high, free college got tossed overboard.

Loan forgiveness didnt make it that far. On the campaign trail, Biden promised, Im going to eliminate your student debt if you come from a family [making less] than $125,000 and went to a public university and Im going to make sure everyone gets $10,000 knocked off of their student debt. Thus far, though, the White House hasnt moved any actual legislative proposal on this count. Furthermore, Biden has responded to the woke lefts demands to order the secretary of education to discharge student debt by kinda, sorta explaining that he lacks the requisite authority (alert readers may find this eerily reminiscent of his Hamlet act regarding the eviction moratorium or federal vaccine mandates).

Of course, its unclear just what problems the trillions proposed for higher education are intended to solve. Indeed, the College Board, which annually tracks college pricing and aid, reports that generous public subsidies mean that the net cost of community college (i.e., tuition and fees minus student aid) has been $0 (or less!) for more than a decade. The Texas Public Policy Foundations Andrew Gillen has drily noted, Weve haddefactofree community college in this country since 2009-10.

As for loans, generous financial aid policies mean that inflation-adjusted net annual tuition increased less than $600 between 1996 and 2016 for low- and middle-income students. In fact, a 2014 Brookings Institution Analysis reported that, since 1992, median borrowers have consistently spent about 4 percent of their monthly income repaying student loans. By income, the top 40 percent of households account for 75 percent of student loan payments; half of all student debt is held by households in which someone holds a graduate degree.

For the most part, loan forgiveness is a subsidy to the affluent and a solution to a non-problem, one that rewards heavy borrowers at the expense of those who didnt attend college, hustled to minimize borrowing, or whove paid off their loans. This makes it especially egregious that Biden has turned to executive orders to push piecemeal giveaways. Early in the pandemic, back before Washington had taken to mailing out trillions in federal aid, the Trump administration took the dramatic step of adopting a blanket pause on loan repaymentsfreezing the accrual of interest and suspending payment. Since that time, what was initially billed as a temporary stopgap has been continuously extended. In August, Biden announced one last, "final pause on student loan repayment that would end January 31. So much for that. Biden recently announced that the freeze will be extended into May, meaning its been two years since borrowerswhatever their financial circumstanceswere expected to make loan payments. As of last June, the cost (originally estimated to be $15 billion) already exceeded $68 billion. Its a safe bet that the total cost will eventually exceed $100 billion.

Biden has also provided loan relief via a series of executive actions. The administration has forgiven $5.8 billion to disabled borrowers, another $1.3 billion to borrowers who had failed to comply with monitoring rules, and aggressively used Borrower Defense to Repayment to forgive billions to borrowers who attended an institution with even isolated evidence of misleading promotional materials. Biden also unilaterally expanded the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which eventually forgives loans to borrowers who take jobs in the public or nonprofit sector. The Department of Education estimates that the PSLF expansion could ultimately reduce loans for up to 550,000 borrowers. It projects the cost of all this thus far to be $11.5 billion, though the PSLF expansion means the final tally will likely be tens of billions more.

As for Title IX, Bidens promise to undo Trump-era reforms stumbled on the fact that the DeVos Department of Education (unlike her predecessors) actually went through the full federal rule-making process. Thus, itll take a while to restore the Obama-era star chambers, in which colleges were directed to use the lowest possible standard of evidence, deny defendants the chance to have a representative question their accuser, and even bar the accused from seeing the charges leveled against them. True to form, though, Bidens team hasnt allowed mere legal processes to stop them. On his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order extending the 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (regarding employment protections for gay and transgender employees) to Title IX. In June, the Department of Education declared in a Notice of Interpretation that it henceforth reserved the right to take action against colleges that use biological sex to organize dormitories, locker rooms, or sports teams.

While Biden has been fiddling with his pen and phone, hes missed golden opportunities to speak for the nations broad middle on higher education in a way that would be exceedingly healthy (and that could do much to burnish his waning centrist cred).

For starters, given Bidens concerns about college affordability and student debt, its remarkable that he hasnt been willing to challenge colleges to tackle administrative bloat and rein in their costs. After all, this is a president who has enthusiastically blamed profiteering companies for runaway prices. Biden mightve coupled his big spending plans with a challenge to colleges to curb their costs, which have substantially exceeded the rate of inflation for decades. Indeed, given that many colleges have been remote for a chunk of the Biden presidency, Amtrak Joe mightve folksily asked why it costs so much to educate a kid in their parents basement. Sincere or not, this wouldve provided a veneer of fiscal responsibility and a common sense complement to his grand new spending plans.

Biden also mightve taken the lead in urging colleges to help guide the nation back to the normalcy he has championed. After all, colleges mostly serve a relatively young demographicat limited risk from COVID-19. Biden mightve argued that, aided by billions in emergency federal aid, CDC guidance, high rates of vaccination, and sensible mitigation policies, colleges should be offering in-person classes and doing everything they can to provide students with healthy social interactions. And yet, even as Michigan State, Yale, UCLA, Duke, and many other campuses are going virtual or embracing draconian lockdowns like it was spring 2020, Biden hasnt used his bully pulpit to push back or even explain that his own efforts have made such measures unnecessary and unwise.

As far as student loans, Biden could have tackled some of the low-hanging bipartisan fruit. For instance, forgiveness and loan freezes aside, existing income-based repayment (IBR) options make it possible for borrowers to pause payments when theyre out of work and limit repayment to a manageable portion of a borrowers income. Unfortunately, the existing programs are balky, confusing, and not customer-friendly. There are plenty of good ideas on how to fix that. Streamlining and overhauling the IBR framework would be greeted by most higher ed authorities, on the center-left, in the middle, and even on the right, as a terrific and timely step forward.

And then, of course, Biden has been presented with a grand Nixon-to-China opportunity to use his bully pulpit to push back on campus intolerance and censoriousness. After all, in 2017, at the University of Delaware, Biden thundered, We hurt ourselves badly when we dont allow the speech to take place . . . The First Amendment is one of the defining features of who we are in the Bill of Rights. And to shut it down in the name of what is appropriate is simply wrong. A Democratic president visiting a campus to repeat just that message would be an enormously important, healthy thing. Yet, since taking office, Biden has assiduously avoided addressing concerns about campus speecheven as surveys find that troubling numbers of students deem it okay to use violence to shut down speech.

All in all, Bidens higher education story in year one is mostly a blank page. Given the cost of his dubious solutions to non-problems, thats cause for relief. And yet, it means that Biden has left a tremendous amount of good undone, at a time when the nation could benefit mightily from a Democratic president urging the nations colleges to get their house in order.

Frederick M. Hess is the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Read the rest here:

Biden's Higher Education Agenda, One Year In - The Dispatch

Good Congressional legislation that benefits the country and its citizens will have broad bi-partisan support. If a bill has strong support from one side, but little or no support from the other, it likely is good for the majority and/or bad for the minority.

Many bills, perhaps most, have only one party supporting them, the party in the majority, and are hotly contested.

A bill currently with this partisan split is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the late Georgia congressman and civil rights leader. The voting rights bill has strong support from Democrat majority, but strong opposition from the Republican minority.

As reported by Politifact, Supporters say the bill would renew the power of the federal government to oversee state voting laws and protect minority voters at a time when more GOP-led states have passed new restrictions. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT., who introduced the bill, said it would ensure that the Voting Rights Act continues to have the effect long intended: to protect the right to vote.

The report continues, But Republicans say the John Lewis bill is federal overreach and would make it too easy for plaintiffs to challenge state election laws that Republicans say are designed to prevent fraud. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has called it unnecessary and said that its against the law to discriminate in voting on the basis of race already.

Republicans view their election laws as mechanisms to reduce fraud, and Democrats view them as efforts to restrict voting to certain groups. Democrats see their election laws as making it easy for people to vote, while Republicans view them as mechanisms that make fraud and cheating easier.

The Democrat bill will transfer much of the control over elections that now resides with the states to the federal government. The system of federalism under which the United States was formed left much power to the states, deliberately not giving the federal government total control. The control of election procedures resides with state legislatures.

In addition to trying to federalize control over elections, Democrats also are now talking about eliminating the Senate filibuster, or eliminating certain of its uses. The filibuster, however, is a mechanism that both protects the Senate minority from being run over by the majority, and also helps to encourage the introduction of bills that will have bi-partisan support, which do not encourage a filibuster.

Some Democrats now favoring the changing or elimination of the filibuster have done an about face from just a few years ago.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who in 2017 as Minority Leader spoke to the Senate, saying there should be a firewall around the legislative filibuster. Let us go no further down this road, he said. I hope the Republican Leader and I can, in the coming months, find a way to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster, which is the most important distinction between the Senate and the House.

He and other Democrats condemned efforts by Republicans to challenge the filibuster back then. Here are some of their comments:

From Schumer:

They want to make this country into a banana republic where if you dont get your way you change the rules.

Change the rules in midstream to wash away 200 years of history.

Ideologues in the Senate want to turn what the founding fathers called the cooling saucer of democracy into the rubber stamp of dictatorship.

Itll be a doomsday for democracy.

From President Joe Biden when he was in the Senate:

It raises problems that are more damaging than the problem that exists.

Youre going to throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done.

Nothing at all will get done.

It is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

Ending the filibuster is a very dangerous thing to do.

It is a fundamental power grab.

From Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.:

That would be the end of the Senate.

You cant change the rules in the middle of the game.

Preserve checks and balances so that no one party can do whatever it wants.

From Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.:

You cannot change the rules in the middle of the game because you do not like the outcome.

Partisan power grab that will stomp on the rights of the minority and leave fundamentally changed for the worse.

I will not stand by when a party drunk with power tries to overturn 200 years of precedent.

From Sen. Chis Coons, D-Del.:

Im committed to never voting to change the legislative filibuster.

The one most important rule that requires compromise requires working across the aisle.

From Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.:

The legislative filibuster should stay there and I will personally resist efforts to get rid of it.

From Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.:

I dont think that we ought to be coming in willy-nilly and changing the rules.

From Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.:

If you dont have 60 votes yet, it just means you havent done enough advocacy and you need to work a lot harder.

Isnt it interesting how politicians forego their support of important things when they get in the way?

James H. Smokey Shott, a resident of Bluefield, Va., is a Daily Telegraph columnist. Contact him at shottcommentary@gmail.com

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Originally posted here:

Federal control of elections, and getting the filibuster out of the way - Bluefield Daily Telegraph