In my 2/8/21 post, I advised, “Do What You do Best.” Biden had run a quiet middle ground campaign with the central theme of “I’m not Trump.” Rather than rock the boat, build on what is in place. Operation Warp Speed promised to deliver Herd Immunity by the end of spring, if not sooner. As more people become vaccinated, the economy continues to open leading to a boom. The fourth quarter ’20 numbers showed we were already moving up. The Israeli-Arab Alliances are offsetting Iran in the Middle East. Our Southern Border was relatively quiet. China is a problem, but they know we are taking a much stricter attitude towards them. Giving the Ukrainians effective weapons stabilized that front. Continue what’s in place and add an excellent bipartisan infrastructure bill and bask in the results. Instead, Biden proposed colossal spending on virtually all of the far left’s dream list and undoing everything Trump accomplished.

Instead of realizing while many people have a personal distaste for the former President, they weren’t against his policies and actions. There is a good reason for this; many of the Trump policies worked. The Biden administration instead adopted the attitude if Trump did it, the policy or action must be evil and undone. Even if left in place policies such as Warp Speed and the economy, there could be no acknowledgment of the previous Administration. Border accords ditched, cozying up to Iran, and mixed signals to Russia and China replaced Trump’s policies and actions. In the last post, I made these points to show Biden’s first 100 Days unnecessarily disastrous.

The media has done its best to shield the President from his failures. However, reality has a way of breaking into the light. The recent job report illuminates the Administration’s missteps. Instead of the expected million jobs filled, only 266,000 more went to work. How could this be when everywhere you look, there is help wanted signs? The three reasons given are fear of Covid, schools still not full time, enhanced unemployment pay makes work unattractive, or some combination of the three. All these trace back to the Biden administration. A fully vaccinated President surrounded by masked vaccinated people still wears a mask inside or outside. Dr. Anthony Fauci, his chief medical advisor, wears two masks. The perceived message is no matter what we say, maybe these vaccines don’t work.

Go back to last summer when the Trump Administration told us schools were safe to open. Faced with solid data from Presidential medical policy advisor Dr. Scott Atlas, the CDC concurred. Some states, such a Florida, followed the science and opened in the fall, saving the school year. Unfortunately, many failed to provide in-person education. Even today, up to 40% of schools don’t offer full-time in-person schooling. Instead of using the bully pulpit to help the kids, the Biden Administration bowed to the teacher’s unions. With so many children stuck at home, for many parents returning to work isn’t an option.

Extending the generous unemployment benefits to September in the Administration’s first big bill was breathtakingly unaware. Paying people not to work in a rapidly expanding economy is counter-productive. So here we are, with millions of jobs going unfilled while people are sitting at home cashing taxpayers’ checks.

How did the Administration get so much wrong in such a short time? Could it be the President and his advisors are unaware of alternative data indicating different paths? The idea of everything the Trump administration accomplished was evil maybe is indicative of a more significant problem. If it doesn’t come from our approved sources, exclude data or ideas as tainted. The Administration mustn’t listen to the “Neanderthals.”

A lot of bright people warned against these misguided actions. Instead of giving them a hearing, they were, in many cases, demonized. Maybe if the Biden people sat down with the authors of Operation Warp Speed, they might’ve understood the timeline better. Instead, they fired Dr. Mocef Slaoui and disparaged HHS. Sec. Alex Azar. Data and advocates for keeping schools open were there initially; instead, Democrats and their media allies blasted the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration and Dr. Scott Atlas. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis followed the get the schools open advice and received nothing but scorn.

I remember months ago economists, Stephen Moore and Mark Zandi clashing over the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion proposals that included the extended enhanced unemployment funds. Moore had calculations showing the money would entice people to stay home rather than work. The computations echoed in a June 2020 Congressional Budget Office report, the office wrote, “[This] extension would weaken incentives to work as people compared the benefits available during unemployment to their potential earnings, and those weakened incentives would in turn tend to decrease output and employment.” Zandi derided the idea. The Administration often cites Zandi and his Moody’s Analytics to support their programs. On the other hand, Moore got nothing but grief from the Democrats and their allies when Trump mentioned him for the Federal Reserve Board.

Routinely ignoring Data from abroad on schools and vaccines has contributed to the Administration errors. When the E.U. paused the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine over a tiny number of blood clots, they quickly realized they should’ve followed the U.K. and just labeled the vaccine and expressed confidence in the shots. Instead of learning from the E.U. experience, the CDC faced an almost identical situation with the J & J vaccine, still paused the vaccine. We have had a sharp decline in vaccinations ever since. It seems to have cast doubt on all on all vaccines. Again only listening to your close allies rather than seeing the big picture.

What explains the Administration’s narrow viewpoint. Equally credentialed people with contrasting views ignored or derided, instead of engaged in hammering out the best solutions. Since the beginnings of the Age of Reason, we developed ways to accumulate data broadly and evaluated it in the most effective ways to come to the best solutions. Now, we seem to have regressed to some religious tests to consider data, at least on the left. If it conflicts with dogma, it must be opposed and discredited—those espousing the heresies punished. The Catholic Church imprisoning Galileo for pointing out the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. Being governed in this fashion isn’t likely to end well.

Doesn’t the right do the same thing? Some on the right may want to, but they lack control of the media, the educational establishment, and many reward systems for achievement. Whether you want to or not, you can’t help knowing the dogma of the left. Going counter to it could harm you professionally or worse.

We have a real-life test of my theory of an administration run on religious-like dogma. With the Administration proposing to spend enormous sums to combat “Climate Change,” upending our economy, a new bestseller has appeared to challenge the basis for these actions. “Unsettled: What Climate Science tells us, what it doesn’t, and Why it Matters,” by Steven E. Koonin, a theoretical physicist who served as Under Secretary for Science in the Obama administration’s Dept. of Energy. It addresses many issues we need to evaluate before committing to the present Administrations’ enormously expensive and disruptive proposals.

It would be hard to find anybody more qualified to be brought into the discussion. Will his positions and thoughts receive respectful debate, or will he be labeled a climate denier along with the army well-credentialed thinkers that have already questioned the left’s Climate change Dogma. In a rational world, Koonin’s Book would add to our ability to take the best course of action. Governed by blind dogma, it won’t. The book is only $8.49 for the Kindle edition. Please read it to understand the issues better and then see what the Administration does. It will tell us a lot about leadership that claims to follow the “Science.” Based on what Biden has done up till now, I’m not optimistic.

The solid results from Operation Warp Speed still have us track for spring Herd Immunity, but the inability of the present administration to foresee the predicted time of vaccine hesitancy along with the stupid decision to pause the J & J vaccine have knocked us off the upward trend: