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JANUARY 22,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

THE ANTI-WOMAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  Mere hours after stressing the need for “unity,” President Biden sparked a new civil war with an executive order letting transgender women compete in women’s sports.  On social media, #BidenErasedWomen and #TERFs (an acronym for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”) trended following the action. That’s understandable: It’s one thing, after all, to ban discrimination; it’s another to tell schools and colleges that transwomen athletes — biologically born boys who now identify as female — must be allowed to compete with biological women and girls, despite their physical advantages.  The notion is patently ridiculous and may result in millions of girls losing out on prestigious sports victories (and maybe scholarships that go with them). It also risks greater injuries to women. A better solution, perhaps, might be to give trans athletes a league of their own.  Meanwhile, the US Education Department will now switch sides in two court battles, one in Connecticut and another in Idaho, over whether transgender athletes are treated by their biological sex or by how they identify. An absolute betrayal of young women, and the silence of the "women's movement" tells us all we need to know about their radical leftist views.  The red ideology comes first; women are far behind.

CALIFORNIA'S STUDENT GOVERNMENT AT WORK – FROM FOX:   The COVID-19 vaccine rollout in California – the most populous state in the U.S. – is proceeding at a slower pace than most, if not all, other states.  Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that California has received 4.7 million doses of the vaccine – but it has only administered 1.8 million doses.  The data show it is doling out doses at a rate of roughly 4,565 per 100,000 people, which is slower than Texas, New York, Florida, Connecticut, Michigan, Georgia, and many others.  Data from Bloomberg ranks California dead-last among all 50 U.S. states in terms of the percentage of shots utilized (37.3%).  The CDC data suggests a slightly higher percent utilization rate of 38.2%.  California, once a Republican state, is now considered the symbol of Democratic states.  It's failing, driving people out, and obsessed with identity politics.  It still has the Sun, but will probably tax it.

January 22, 2021       Permalink

THE BATTLE FOR THE COURT – OVERNIGHT:  And it may be the most important battle we'll see in the age of Biden.  It is clear that the Democrats, who seem to have almost no respect for any American institution, would like to "pack" the Supreme Court by adding enough judges while they control the House, Senate and White House, to insure liberal/radical control of the highest court in the land.

Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the court in 1937, but his own party turned against him and the maneuver failed.  Now Republicans are trying to pre-empt the Dems.  They may fail, but they'll be alerting the American people to the danger of tampering with the Supreme Court.  From Fox: 

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito reintroduced a bill Friday that would limit the number of justices permitted in the Supreme Court.

"A nine Justice court has worked for our country for more than 150 years," Capito said in a statement Friday. "Increasing that number in a partisan effort to achieve a desired policy result is a never-ending proposition."

Following the death of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18, 2020, Republicans in the Senate rushed to push through a new Supreme Court justice – securing a third Republican-appointed justice under President Trump.

Democrats furiously pointed to the hypocritical nature of the confirmation, reminding their fellow GOP lawmakers of their refusal to review President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in March 2015, at which time they cited concerns over appointing a justice during an election year.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the high court on Oct. 27, 2020, just one week prior to the general election – causing a furious backlash from Democratic lawmakers, some vowing to "pack the courts" if Biden were elected.

The ability for Democrats to add more justices to the high court became a reality after the party won not only the White House, but majority control in the Senate.

"Once this door is opened, respect for the Supreme Court as an independent arbiter of cases and controversies would fall away as it became another partisan branch of government," the West Virginia Republican said Friday. "We should preserve our independent judiciary by closing the door to court-packing."

Though Supreme Court justices are intended to remain non-partisan in their judicial role, each justice tends to interpret the constitution in a manner that aligns with the White House's political affiliation during their time of appointment.

There are currently six justices in the Supreme Court that were confirmed under conservative presidents, while only three were appointed under Democratic presidents – a division that some lawmakers have said does not accurately reflect the political standing of the nation.

Nine justices have sat on the Supreme Court for the last 150 years, but there is no language in the Constitution that sets or limits the number of justices permitted in the high court.

The legislation originally put forward by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in March 2019, calls for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would limit only nine justices permitted in the court at a time.

In October, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that given the growth in population since 1876, when nine justices starting arbitrating from the high court, the U.S. may need to reevaluate the number of justices who regularly sit on the bench.

COMMENT:  Even Ruth Ginsburg, liberal icon, said that nine was a good number.  If the Democrats get to pack the court, the standard for appointment will have nothing to do with the qualifications of the candidate.  It will have everything to do with the group the candidate "represents."  Identity politics carried to its worst extreme.  It must be stopped.

January 22, 2021       Permalink

WAPO TELLS IT LIKE IT ISN'T – AT 7:30 P.M. ET:  We are watching the establishment press almost as closely as we're watching the new administration.  The establishment scribes did everything they could to destroy Donald Trump, and they, and the Washington swamp, finally succeeded. 

But how will they deal with Joe Biden, and, probably more important, Kamala Harris, who stands a high statistical chance of becoming president/  We've now gotten a taste from that great pillar of virtue and truth, the Washington Post.  But the Post got caught.  From Fox, and this is very juicy: 

The Washington Post removed an unflattering tidbit about Vice President Kamala Harris from a 2019 feature and republished a new version of the story that is friendlier to the Democratic media darling -- but eventually restored a link to the original after widespread backlash.

Reason reporter Eric Boehm noticed the edit and took the Post to task in a scathing breakdown of the situation.

"When The Washington Post published a 2019 campaign trail feature about then-presidential hopeful Kamala Harris' close relationship with her sister, it opened with a memorable anecdote in which Harris bizarrely compared the rigors of the campaign trail to…life behind bars. And then proceeded to laugh—at the idea of an inmate begging for a sip of water," Boehm wrote, calling it "an extremely cringeworthy moment" that painted Harris in a negative light.

"But now that Harris is vice president, that awful moment has seemingly vanished from the Post's website after the paper ‘updated’ the piece earlier this month," Boehm wrote.

The original Post feature from 2019 featured a tale of Harris comparing campaigns to prisons to her sister, Maya, when making a point that finding time to relax on the campaign trail is similar to prisoners seeking food and water. The first seven paragraphs of the 2019 Post story appeared like this:

It was the Fourth of July, Independence Day, and Kamala Harris was explaining to her sister, Maya, that campaigns are like prisons.

She'd been recounting how in the days before the Democratic debate in Miami life had actually slowed down to a manageable pace. Kamala, Maya and the rest of the team had spent three days prepping for that contest in a beach-facing hotel suite, where they closed the curtains to blot out the fun. But for all the hours of studying policy and practicing the zingers that would supercharge her candidacy, the trip allowed for a break in an otherwise all-encompassing schedule.

"I actually got sleep," Kamala said, sitting in a Hilton conference room, beside her sister, and smiling as she recalled walks on the beach with her husband and that one morning SoulCycle class she was able to take.

"That kind of stuff," Kamala said between sips of iced tea, "which was about bringing a little normal to the days, that was a treat for me."

"I mean, in some ways it was a treat," Maya said. "But not really."

"It's a treat that a prisoner gets when they ask for, 'A morsel of food please,' " Kamala said shoving her hands forward as if clutching a metal plate, her voice now trembling like an old British man locked in a Dickensian jail cell. "'And water! I just want wahtahhh….'Your standards really go out the f—ing window."

Kamala burst into laughter.

COMMENT:  Now read the rest of the piece.  Be sure to do it.  It is a lesson in how a newspaper can remake the image of a political personality by just leaving something out.  But I do see some hopeful evidence that at least some journalists are intent on restoring their calling's reputation after the journalistic degeneracy of the Trump years.  But they will have to overcome the overwhelming leftist bigotry that still remains.

January 22,  2021     Permalink

JANUARY 21,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

AGAIN, THE SILENCE OF THE DEMS – FROM FOX:   Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, took to twitter Thursday night to call on President Biden to condemn Inauguration Day protests turned violent riots in Portland and Seattle.  More than a dozen people have been arrested in the two North West cities, according to police reports Thursday, after anti-Biden demonstrators targeted government buildings and the Oregon Democratic Party building in Portland.  Portland police reported that roughly 75 people marched up to the Democratic Party headquarters and vandalized the building with spray paint and broke windows.  The city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was then targeted by a group of a 150 people, who also vandalized the building with anti-Biden and anti-police messages – forcing police to call an unlawful assembly and use tear gas to break up the crowds.  "I’m waiting for Pres Biden to condemn violence/looting/arson last two days in Oregon & Washington state," Grassley said Thursday. Strange that Biden wouldn't condemn attacks on Democrats...until you realize that the attacks are coming from people even further to the left.  We mustn't muss their hair.

JUSTIFIED OUTRAGE – FROM FOX:   Reports of shabby treatment of National Guard troops at the U.S. Capitol were sparking bipartisan outrage among lawmakers and other officials Thursday -- with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott calling for the return home of his state's Guard members.  Thousands of National Guard troops from several states had deployed to the U.S. Capitol to protect Wednesday's inauguration of President Biden against threats of violence following the Jan. 6 riot.  Photos of Guard members sleeping on the marble floors of the Capitol quickly went viral -- until they later received cots. Then on Thursday came another insult: According to reports, the Guard members were abruptly told to take their break time inside a parking garage instead of inside the Capitol.  The Guardsmen, who had been resting inside the Capitol between 12-hour shifts, were moved to a nearby parking garage where photos obtained by Politico and other outlets showed members crowded together on the ground -- some resting their heads against cement pillars.  Not surprising – the Democrats come to town and our soldiers are abused. 

January 21,  2021    Permalink

AS THE TRUTH OOZES OUT – AT 8:15 P.M. ET:  Little by little, the truth is leaking out about the "insurrection" at the Capitol on January 6th.  When the whole truth comes out, will the United States Senate want to impeach former President Trump?  Will some sane voice emerge to stop the farce?  Will the new president step up to his responsibilities as leader of his party?  From PJ Media: 

With the second bogus impeachment in the books, the Washington Post has finally seen fit to admit that President Trump did not incite the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 with his speech, acknowledging that it was, in fact, planned in advance.

The article, published Tuesday, the day before Biden’s inauguration, declares in its headline “Self-styled militia members planned on storming the U.S. Capitol days in advance of Jan. 6 attack, court documents say,” and opens with the following paragraphs.

Self-styled militia members from Virginia, Ohio and other states made plans to storm the U.S. Capitol days in advance of the Jan. 6 attack, and then communicated in real time as they breached the building on opposite sides and talked about hunting for lawmakers, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

While authorities have charged more than 100 individuals in the riot, details in the new allegations against three U.S. military veterans offer a disturbing look at what they allegedly said to one another before, during and after the attack — statements that indicate a degree of preparation and determination to rush deep into the halls and tunnels of Congress to make “citizens’ arrests” of elected officials.

U.S. authorities charged an apparent leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group, Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Berryville, Va., in the attack, alleging that the Navy veteran helped organize a ring of dozens who coordinated their movements as they “stormed the castle” to disrupt the confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory.

Several paragraphs later, here’s what the authors of the article concede:

The arrests this weekend of several people with alleged ties to far-right extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, suggest that the riot was not an entirely impulsive outburst of violence but an event instigated or exploited by organized groups. Hours of video posted on social media and pored over by investigators have focused on individuals in military-style gear moving together.

CNN acknowledged last week that the storming of the Capitol was planned prior to Trump’s speech, reporting that, “Evidence uncovered so far, including weapons and tactics seen on surveillance video, suggests a level of planning that has led investigators to believe the attack on the US Capitol was not just a protest that spiraled out of control, a federal law enforcement official says.”

The CNN report and the Washington Post article completely undermine the entire case Democrats made for impeaching Trump. As I previously noted, the riot at the Capitol was either planned in advance or inspired by President Trump’s speech. It simply cannot be both. That the media is starting to acknowledge the whole thing was planned in advance now, after the bogus impeachment, is no accident.

COMMENT:  The press performed horribly on January 6th.  There may be some journalists who now are trying to make the necessary corrections:  The violence was pre-planned.  You can criticize the tone of Mr. Trump's speech that day, but he didn't incite the violence.  He committed no impeachable offense. 

The press failure repeated the same embarrassment in reporting Watergate in 1974 – a kind of hysteria directed at the incumbent president.  At the very moment that we needed a calm and reflective press, we got Olympic-level screamers, both in 1974 and now. 

Question:  The violence that has broken out in Western cities in the last two nights is coming from the left, not the right.  Will any news organization attribute it to the constant stream of hatred oozing from Democratic officials and candidates in the last election cycle?  Am I kidding?

January 21,  2021     Permalink