Politics

As the pandemic accelerated, an epidemic seemed to recede from headlines. But it did not stop. More than 40 states reported an increase in opioid-related deaths, with more than 81,000 between May 2019 and May 2020, the highest one-year death toll ever reported. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one cause stood out: fentanyl overdoses spiked by nearly 40 percent. As a Schedule II controlled-substance, fentanyl is already highly regulated. The drug is several times more powerful than morphine; when used appropriately the pharmaceutical can treat severe pain post-surgery. Unauthorized use — possession, manufacturing, or distribution — is illegal. Synthesized analogue versions of the drug are just as deadly, but can skirt regulation because of chemical differences.

For all that has gone wrong in America in the last year, the main thing that has gone right is our system of 50 independent states has endured and prospered. The COVID-19 pandemic was a challenge to our federalist system. The impulse in March 2020 was to have all states respond in the same way to the virus. Of course, in a country with large cities and small cities, sprawling suburbs, small towns, extremely rural areas and everything in between, that made little sense. We quickly corrected it and governors took control of COVID-19 policies for their states. The results of that have been astonishing. States that had tight lockdowns, such as New York, New Jersey and Michigan, did not see better outcomes than states which loosened their lockdowns early on.

Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson came under fire early this week for vetoing a bill that would prohibit doctors from providing children suffering from gender dysphoria with hormones, puberty blockers, surgeries, or other treatments that would 'affirm' their 'identity'. The governor's response to this criticism was to pour gasoline all over himself and light a match. There are few good long-term studies on the use of hormone and puberty-blocking treatments for transgender youth, primarily because such drugs have only been used in the past on a short-term basis to treat conditions like precocious puberty. They were not intended to suppress puberty indefinitely. Research suggests, however, these treatments can lead to an increase in suicidal thoughts or depression.

Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Pete Snyder, currently polling second in the primary, is campaigning as an 'absolute' Trump supporter and has snagged high-profile endorsements from Ken Cuccinelli, Mark Morgan, Sarah Sanders and Kay Coles James. One of his top campaign issues is protecting the Second Amendment, reassuring Virginians that he 'believes that the Second Amendment is NOT optional'. But according to meeting minutes from Snyder's time serving on the College of William and Mary's Board of Visitors, he once voted for a weapons ban on campus. Then he tried to cover it up. Snyder was appointed to the W&M Board of Visitors (BOV) in 2011 by Republican governor Bob McDonnell.

Some hot water this week for Rep. Matt Gaetz. The Sunshine State Republican and adroit controversialist stands accused of everything from having sex with a 17-year-old girl to throwing orgies with underage prostitutes to showing his fellow lawmakers pictures of nude women on the House floor. He has yet to be caught chucking an alligator into a drive-thru window or attacking a Disney princess with a flamethrower, but even by Florida Man standards these are serious charges. The Justice Department has opened an investigation, while Gaetz himself has denied everything, claiming he’s being extorted. And certainly he deserves due process and the benefit of the doubt. Yet the allegations against him raise a thorny question: where do Republicans draw the line on sexual misconduct?

Biden is dishonest. His memory is shot. He’s an influence-peddler pretending to be a victim, a lifelong exploiter of his public position who hides behind the lowest forms of sentimentality. Hunter Biden, of course. You’d have to be on the wrong end of a three-day crack binge to confuse Hunter Biden with the impeccably honest, mentally agile and profoundly principled multimillionaire career politician Joe Biden. Hunter has written an autobiography. Or rather, some desperate and shameless mercenary has ghosted it for him. It belongs to the most execrable category of literature, the political memoir — the sort of book written to launch a political career (Dreams From My Father) or, as in this case, to end one (Ten Percent for the Big Guy).

Another day, another killing in America, another depressingly instant social-media argument over the perpetrator’s skin color. This time a man rammed his car into two Capitol Hill police officers in Washington DC. One, Officer William Evans, died. The other is seriously injured. The attacker then emerged from his car wielding a knife at other officers before he was shot and killed. Once again, various blue-checked Twitterers decided to assume that the killer must be some angry white Trump supporter, presumably because the last time the Capitol was attacked it was by a horde of angry Trumpists. But there was no evidence to suggest the killer was white. Indeed, in a video clip of the man being wheeled away having his chest pumped, his skin appeared dark.

Joe Biden was elected as a moderate-left Democrat, but he is not governing as one. He pledged repeatedly to work across party lines, but he is ramming through the biggest, most expensive progressive agenda in American history without any Republican votes. He is almost certain to try it again with his next two spending proposals, the largest since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. As the White House pushes these mammoth bills with only Democratic votes, Americans are realizing they got a very different president from the one they bargained for, the one they were promised during the campaign. What’s unclear is whether they will recoil from this new reality. Throughout the summer and fall, Biden ran as a unifier who could work across party lines.

I’ve had my Blue Heeler Murray since he was six weeks old. The breeder said he was 10 weeks, but I think she was just eager to get rid of him. I use the term ‘breeder’ pretty generously. Murray was born on a working farm that didn’t heed the closing plea of every episode of The Price Is Right. My significant other was first to arrive and literally had the pick of the litter. Six pups were playing sweetly with mom. One was off by himself headbutting a tree trying to shake loose a squirrel. That’s Murray. Blue Heelers are working dogs bred to herd cattle. If I am walking on the farm on any sort of path, Murray would instinctively get behind me to usher me along. When he was younger he would nip at my heel: hence the name ‘Heeler’.

The dim reaper is at it again. We need, President Biden tells us, to wear masks forever, to avoid ‘more cases and more desks...deaths...look...’ Look, fat: the number of desks has fallen in Texas and Florida, where mask-wearing in public is optional, while desks are rising in New York and New Jersey, where mask-wearing in public is required. It looks like COVID-19 works just like public-school teachers: differently in red states and blue ones. Biden uses the phrase ‘mask mandate’ like it’s already been approved, in the way that voters grant a mandate to an elected authority. But it hasn’t been voted for or approved. It’s a proposal from a president who parrots whatever the CDC tell him. It’s up to the state governors to approve or disapprove his suggestion.

What makes a tragic death a major news story? The races of the perpetrators and the victims, of course. As the media goes all in on critical race theory, many journalists have decided to only provide obsessive coverage of horrific crimes when they can be used to advance the idea — as so eloquently explained by NBA star LeBron James — that minorities are being 'literally hunted' by evil white people. Proof of this phenomenon has never been so clear as in the past several weeks. It all started when a white man was charged with killing eight people — including six Asian women — at three different massage parlors in the Atlanta area.

Talk about mojo! It was a calm, genial and persuasive Joe Biden that appeared before the press yesterday afternoon, easily batting away the queries that were lobbed at him. The big takeaway was that, yes, as Sarah Baxter of the Sunday Times of London alone among the media has intuited, Biden is in for bigger game than one term. He made it clear yesterday that he’s going for the full monty, two terms or bust. Otherwise, Biden didn’t really make any news — which is itself newsworthy. No gaffes. No miscues. No fumbles. It was smooth sailing for him. Yet Biden’s opponents refuse to concede that he’s on a roll. They’re almost making it too easy for him. My chum Dominic Green, for example, deemed Biden’s performance worse than lackluster.