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JANUARY 30,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:  

THE PUSHBACK GETS UNDERWAY – FROM GATEWAY PUNDIT:  Several state attorneys general wrote a letter to Joe Biden slamming him for signing a record number of executive orders in his first week in office.  Dictator Biden has signed approximately 3 dozen executive orders in his first week in office.  Biden is unilaterally legislating and has completely ignored Congress – the Democrats control both the House and Senate yet Joe Biden is moving full speed ahead issuing executive fiats.  Attorneys general of Texas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana and Indiana, signed a letter to Joe Biden reminding him that a US president has “limited power.”  The top lawyers of each state argued “State Attorneys General in particular serve as an important check and balance as the President carries out his constitutional charges.”
“Under the Constitution, the principal political control of our government is entrusted not to the President, but to the carefully constructed Congress which serves as both sail and anchor of the federal ship of state,” they wrote. “Congress writes the laws and the President and his officers are limited under the Constitution to the role of faithfully carrying them out.”  “But a president is not a Prime Minister or a King and must respect that his constitutional office is a limited Chief Executive, not the supreme authority of the state,” they wrote, adding that “overreaching and defying Congress will not be rewarded or succeed.”  Very well said, but the Democratic Party increasingly is drifting toward totalitarianism. It's just so efficient, and doesn't require all those pesky legislators and judges. 

ANOTHER WINNER – FROM FOX:  Suzi LeVine, the departing head of Washington’s Employment Security Department (ESD), reportedly will run a federal agency office that assists states in processing unemployment claims.  But LeVine’s transition into a White House role comes amid an unemployment fraud scandal at her department that cost the state over $600 million. Her forthcoming role will be interim assistant secretary of the Employment and Training Administration, part of the Labor Department, five people familiar with the transition told Bloomberg Law.  The new job would put her at the front of President Biden’s economic recovery plan, after the economy shrunk by more than 10 million jobs since the start of the pandemic. With an annual budget of roughly $9 billion—about three-quarters of overall DOL dollars, the ETA will have a key role in patching up the scarce labor market.  It’s not clear if LeVine will ever drop the "interim" part of her title, but to transition into the permanent role she must be confirmed by the Senate, and questions of her record in Olympia could arise. A recent Washington state audit faulted the ESD under LeVine for failing to fix a software vulnerability that contributed to last spring’s massive unemployment fraud, according to the Seattle Times.  LeVine, announcing the staggering blow to the state’s finances in May, said that officials were working to recover as much of the money as possible. She said the state had taken steps to prevent new fraudulent claims, but did not detail the steps.   With all the qualified people available, why has Biden selected so many duds? Because duds are fine as long as they check off one or more boxes in the diversity contest.

January 30, 2021       Permalink

SOME COMMON SENSE – More than we could hope from the politically correct Biden administration – AT 5:50 P.M. ET:  From Fox:  

The Pentagon on Saturday announced that it was "pausing" a plan to give COVID-19 vaccinations at Guantanamo Bay -- after accusations from Republicans and 9/11 survivors that it was prioritizing terror suspects over Americans.

"No Guantanamo detainees have been vaccinated," Defense Department Press Secretary John Kirby tweeted. "We’re pausing the plan to move forward, as we review force protection protocols. We remain committed to our obligations to keep our troops safe."

Two defense officials had confirmed to Fox News the plan to offer COVID-19 vaccinations to the 40 detainees at the detention site near Cuba. A lack of vaccinations had reportedly made it difficult for federal prosecutors to move forward with war crimes hearings at the base.

The order was signed on Jan. 27 by Terry Adirim, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for health affairs who was sworn in as a Biden appointee on Inauguration Day, a Pentagon spokesman told the New York Post.

"It will be administered on a voluntary basis and in accordance with the Department’s priority distribution plan," a spokesman told the outlet.

Detainees at the base include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. It’s unclear how many Guantanamo inmates, if any, have been infected with COVID-19 to date. Vaccinations for medical workers and some troops stationed at the base began on Jan. 8.

But the move sparked fierce pushback from Republicans and 9/11 survivors.

"It is inexcusable and un-American that President Biden is choosing to prioritize vaccinations for convicted terrorists in Gitmo over vulnerable American seniors or veterans," Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, said Saturday.

"You can’t make this up. The ridiculousness of what we get from our government. They will run the vaccine down to those lowlifes at Guantanamo Bay before every resident of the United States of America gets it is the theater of the absurd," Tom Von Essen, who was city fire commissioner during 9/11, told the Post.

COMMENT:  Didn't hear much of a backlash from Democrats.   I am, however, glad that the right decision was made.  But I don't think this is the last time the Biden people will try to pull some act of craziness to satisfy its nutbag base.

January 30,  2021     Permalink

JANUARY 29,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

THE RICH GET RICHER – FROM COLLEGE FIX:    Stanford University could receive up to $5.3 million in taxpayer funds under the COVID-19 relief stimulus bill passed by Congress on December 21 and later signed into law by President Donald Trump at the end of December.  The American Council on Education conducted a simulation to determine how the $20 billion in stimulus funding allocated to the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund could be allocated. The association represents colleges and universities across the country.  Its simulation, which uses a calculation formula in the “Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act” found that Stanford could receive a total of $5.3 million, including over $3.5 million in grants to students.  The private university in Palo Alto, California would not tell The College Fix if it planned to accept any stimulus money.  Neither Dee Mostofi nor E.J. Miranda, media relations team members for the university, responded to two emailed requests for comment in the past week on if it planned to accept the stimulus money.  The university announced in October that its endowment had reached $28.9 billion as of August 2020.  Amazing how much federal money goes to vastly rich universities.  It shouldn't even be offered. 

MADNESS – FROM CAMPUS REFORM:    The Indiana University Department of Information and Library Science recommended that students read the autobiography of known terrorist Assata Shakur, referring to her instead as a "social activist." In a post on its official Instagram account, the department stated that the biography is part of the “Winter Reading List."  "This book is an autobiography of Assata Shakur, social activist and former member of the Black Liberation Army, as well as the godmother of Tupac Shakur," the post stated. The post features a picture of the autobiography's cover, which promotes a foreword by self-described communist Angela Davis, who also appeared on the FBI's Most Wanted List.  Davis is a frequent campus speaker, as Campus Reform has noted.  Assata Shakur, whose actual name is Joanne Deborah Chesimard, became the first woman in 2013 to make the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list. She is a convicted murderer, responsible for the 1973 death of a New Jersey state police officer. She is also a leader of the Black Liberation Army, a violent militant revolutionary movement responsible for the killing and wounding of more than a dozen law enforcement officers, the hijacking of Delta Flight 841, and numerous armed robberies and bombings, according to The New York Times.  What our kids are learning.  The next generation will pay the price. 

January 29, 2021       Permalink

BIDEN'S UGLY AGENDA, CALLING SUSAN RICE – OVERNIGHT:  A betrayal of Dr. King's dream.  Does the press care?  From Michael Barone at the New York Post: 

On Tuesday, six days into Joe Biden’s administration, it became clear why Susan Rice, hitherto a foreign-policy specialist, was named director of the Domestic Policy Council. Rice — unconfirmable for a Cabinet post after her unembarrassed Sunday-show lying about the Benghazi terrorist attack — ventured into the White House press room to preview Biden’s “equity” initiative.

With one possible exception, the specific policies announced were less important than the word ­“equity,” invoked 19 times by Rice and nine by Biden. Ending federal private prison contracts and combating “xenophobia” against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are small potatoes as federal policies.

Not so, perhaps, with the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing initiative, started under former President Barack Obama, repealed under former President Donald Trump and now due for spirited revival. The idea is for the feds to reverse local zoning laws and plant low-income housing in suburbs deemed insufficiently diverse.

Actually, discrimination in housing has been reduced since the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act, to the point that in metropolitan areas from Washington to Atlanta to Los Angeles, most blacks now live in suburbs, not in the central cities.

But for Rice and Biden, “equity” requires not equality of opportunity but equality of results. That’s one of the fundamental tenets of critical race theory training banned by outgoing Trumpites and reinstated by Biden on Day 1.

A lower-than-population percentage of blacks in any desirable category, explains critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi, must be the result of “systemic racism” (a term Rice used twice and Biden six times Tuesday). If you don’t agree, you’re guilty of “white fragility” and you must be a “white supremacist.”

As Andrew Sullivan trenchantly observes, “to achieve ‘equity’ you have to first take away equality for individuals who were born in the wrong identity group. Equity means treating individuals unequally so that groups are equal.”

This is exactly contrary to the central thrust of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It could easily be judged, in particular cases, to violate the 14th Amendment. Individuals discriminated against might have standing to go to court.

And there will surely be many such individuals. Rice made clear that the policies mentioned Tuesday are just a start. “Every agency,” she said, with no suggestion of exceptions, “will place equity at the core of their public engagement, their policy design and program delivery to ensure that government resources are reaching Americans of color and all marginalized communities — rural, urban, disabled, LGBTQ+, religious minorities and so many others.”

 That’s a lot of preferred categories, but one suspects that, as in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” some preferred groups will be more preferred than others. What we’re being promised is racial quotas and preferences in every conceivable program, in every possible corner of American life.

COMMENT:  And that would be the end of the United States of America as we understand it.  The greatest democratic experiment in history would be over.  Ronald Reagan warned about it.  The institutions we depended on to protect us against this monstrosity – the schools and the press – have bowed to it instead.  And one of our two parties – once known as the party of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, is enforcing it. 

January 29, 2021       Permalink

WE DEPLORABLES AND INSURRECTIONISTS WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT – AT 11:50 P.M. ET:  That's what we get for being, racists, sexists, and capitalist warmongers.  From Fox: 

While many Americans continue waiting to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, at least one notorious figure already has his shot – and another could soon follow, according to reports.

Ex-convict O.J. Simpson, living in Nevada since being freed from prison in 2017, posted a photo of getting himself vaccinated in Las Vegas on Friday.

"Get your shot. I got mine!!!" Simpson, 73, captioned the post.

The former NFL star, actor and NBC Sports commentator became eligible for the vaccine in Nevada because of his age, his lawyer Malcolm P. LaVergne said, according to the New York Post.

"If you’re 70-plus, you’re eligible for the shot. You can schedule you’re shot and they’ll do it," LaVergne told the newspaper. "There’s no favoritism with him being a celebrity. That has nothing to do with his getting the shot."

Meanwhile, at the Guantanamo Bay lockup in Cuba, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (aka "KSM") and other detainees were scheduled to begin receiving their shots as soon as next week, a Defense Department spokesman confirmed, according to the Post.

News that both Simpson and KSM might have their shots ahead of millions of waiting Americans drew lots of snark on social media – as well as severe criticism.

"Who had ‘OJ Simpson being stabbed by a white woman’ on their 2021 bingo card?" one Twitter user commented.

"Yeah that’s just what I want to see, OJ Simpson getting his vaccine before my elderly Dad," another wrote.

COMMENT:  I wonder if the Prince of Unity, Joe Biden, or America's governor, Andrew Cuomo, will raise any objection.  Why do I hear silence?

Janujary 29,  2021     Permalink