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JANUARY 31,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

THE REALITY OF CHINA – FROM EPOCH TIMES:   In communist China, practicing a certain faith, printing, or even reading religious books could result in prison terms and abuse. Spiritual believers in China—be it Christians, Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, or Falun Gong practitioners—are faced not only with brutal suppression or forced-labor terms but also have their religious books burned or trashed at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  The coercive policies are aimed at forcing these religious followers to renounce their faith and follow the communist ideologies based on atheism and Marxism.  According to Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China, a Three-Self Church venue in one of the villages under the jurisdiction of Lanling County was demolished in July 2020.  A county government official told the congregation that “all churches too close to government institutions must be destroyed” and the same goes for “those that look better than government buildings.”  “Belief in the Communist Party is the only religion allowed,” the official said, according to the report.  The sad and ugly fact is that there are people on the political left in this country who have no problem with those policies.  In fact, they'd like to bring them here.

LET THE INTRIGUE AND BACKSTABBING BEGIN – FROM PAGE SIX:  Longtime ABC News chief James Goldston stunned industry insiders Thursday by announcing he’s stepping down from his post.  Goldston, who has had a 17-year career at the network and helmed its news division for seven, leaves his plum post with no successor lined up and no job to go to.  In a memo to staff, seen by Page Six, Goldston wrote, “It’s a really tough decision. I’ve loved every day of my 17 years at ABC News, but in recent times I’ve always assumed that after this extraordinary election cycle, which we’ve covered at a full sprint for four years, it would be time for a change."  It's always big news when the presidency of a major news operation is open.  ABC is widely seen as a liberal bastion.  Will that continue?  Will there now be a big push to name a member of a minority as a successor?  Most likely. 

January 31, 2021      Permalink

REMARKABLY INSIGHTFUL – AT 5:20 P.M. ET:  No, the red American states aren't seceding.  But, according to this penetrating piece, there's another kind of secession is underway.  It can change America's future.  From townhall.com: 

Lately, there has been so much frustration with the last election and the direction of our country that some Trump supporters have been talking about “secession.” Many conservatives and libertarians are asking if it makes sense for certain states to leave the union the way South Carolina left in 1860, after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States.

Whether it makes “sense” or not, we can be assured that it will not happen. Although the South Carolina state legislature voted in November of 1860 to initiate the process of secession, no state legislature would do that today. This is because most modern state legislatures, even conservative ones, do not have many members who are angry enough at the federal government to support seceding from it.

Never forget that many individual state legislators are professional politicians. They may disagree with some of the policies that flow from Washington D.C., but they are not angry enough to vote for secession, and that is what is required to secede, anger. While an official secession will not happen, there will be a different type. In fact, it has already started in our country.

Instead of state legislatures, dominated by urban dwellers, voting for secession, Americans who live in rural and some suburban areas are executing a secession of their own. They are disassociating themselves from the lifestyles, cultural mores, laws, and self-inflicted wounds exhibited in our large cities.

Of course, rural Americans are already living in areas removed from large cities, but geography is only one of the many differences. An even more striking distinction involves political ideology and attitudes on an array of issues like criminal justice.

Citizens living outside of ultra-progressive urban areas do not accept what is going on in large cities. Surely, the thinking is, “I am not one of them. They are different from me. We do not agree on basic things, like what laws should govern human conduct.”

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  I suspect we'll be having a national conversation on this pretty soon.  There is something very dramatic going on, not in the White House, but in your house.

January 31, 2021       Permalink

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