The "big lie" of university admissions --- and it's hurting the life chances of black and brown students.
Here's John McWhorter, on Substack:
No more SAT at the University of California? Classic racist antiracism, and it's not going to end well.https://t.co/S5AxQRCV7f
— John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter) July 25, 2021
I used to post Judge Jeanine's opening monologues quite often.
She's a real treasure (and doesn't take any crap).
At Fox News:
This is a total scam.
As if Frisco couldn’t drive out residents any faster. *Eye-roll.*
At Fox Business, "San Francisco considering congestion tax on high-earning drivers: The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is studying the prospect of congestion fees."
Sen. John Barrasso: "The Democrats seem to be determined to bankrupt America. This spending spree is a reckless tax and spending spree. It really does seem to be Bernie's [Sanders] effort to socialism. It's his manifesto." pic.twitter.com/Om9TEtKdvv
— The Hill (@thehill) July 25, 2021
Everything's so stupid, especially these summer games (which I'm boycotting, because, well, they're so lame).
At NBC News, "Sports Illustrated's swimsuit editor calls Megyn Kelly's Naomi Osaka tweet 'unnecessary'":
Let’s not forget the cover of (& interview in) Vogue Japan and Time Mag! https://t.co/PAAUEwAVi0
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 19, 2021
Poor @naomiosaka blocked me while taking a shot at me (guess she’s only tough on the courts). She is apparently arguing that she shot her many covers b/4 publicly claiming she was too socially anxious to deal w/press. Truth is she just doesn’t like Qs she can’t control. Admit it. pic.twitter.com/izyRzOrUVm
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 19, 2021
The state of California says it will not follow L.A. County with a new indoor mask mandate, so, once again, L.A. County is flying solo & going further than state & CDC guidelines, just like when they were initially the only county that decided to ban outdoor dining last fall.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 16, 2021
Woo boy, this story's a doozy, but entirely predictable, sadly.
From Jonathan Turley, "Twitter Censors Criticism of BLM Founder Buying $1.4 Million Home In Predominantly White Neighborhood":
We have been discussing the expanding censorship on Twitter and social media. The latest example involves the story of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors, 37, and her purchase of a $1.4 million home in a secluded area of Los Angeles whose population is reputedly less than 2% black. The professed Marxist received considerable criticism for the purchase, including from Jason Whitlock, an African-America sports critic who has also been a critic of BLM. When Whitlock called out Khan-Cullors, Twitter promptly censored the tweet — leaving a notice that it was “no longer available.” Last week, various cites like dirt.com reported, “A secluded mini-compound tucked into L.A.’s rustic and semi-remote Topanga Canyon was recently sold for a tad more than $1.4 million to a corporate entity that public records show is controlled by Patrisse Khan-Cullors, 37-year-old social justice visionary and co-founder of the galvanizing and, for some, controversial Black Lives Matter movement.” It produced a firestorm of critics who noted that Cullors has long insisted that she and her BLM co-founder “are trained Marxists. We are super versed on, sort of, ideological theories.” Critics like Nick Arama of RedState pointed out: “[I]t’s interesting to note that the demographics of the area are only about 1.4% black people there. So not exactly living up to her creed there.” Jason Whitlock posted a link to a story but was promptly censored by Twitter: [SCREENSHOT HERE] The controversy is illustrative of the age of Internet censors. Tweets, and in some cases Twitter accounts, vanish without explanation. Twitter is notorious for not responding to media inquiries over such censorship and even less forthcoming on the decision-making process behind such decisions. If Whitlock was expressing his contempt for the purchase, it is core political speech. Even the head of New York City’s Black Lives Matter chapter is calling for an independent investigation into the organization’s finances in the wake of the controversy. This controversy follows an Atlanta-based figure being criminally charged with fraud. According to the Justice Department, Sir Maejor Page, or Tyree Conyers-Page is accused of using a Facebook page called “Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta.” The New York Post and other publications have reported that Cullors is eyeing expensive properties in other locations, including the Bahamas. However, it is not clear if this money came from BLM which has reportedly raised almost $100 million in donations from corporations and other sources. Indeed, Cullors seems to have ample sources of funds. She is married to Janaya Khan, a leader of BLM in Toronto, and published a best selling memoir of her life and then a follow up book. She also signed a lucrative deal with Warner Bros to develop and produce original programming across all platforms, including broadcast, cable and streaming. She has also been featured in various magazines like her recent collaboration with Jane Fonda. The issue for me is not the house or claimed hypocrisy. It is the censorship of Twitter of such criticism. Cullors is a public figure who is subject to public scrutiny and commentary. Twitter is rife with a such criticism over the lifestyle choices of figures on the right ranging from Donald Trump Jr. to Rand Paul. That is an unfortunate aspect of being in a high visibility position. I would be equally concerned if criticism of Trump Jr.’s big game hunting exploits or Giuliani’s lavish tastes were censored...
Still more.
And at London's Daily Mail, "BLM founder is branded a 'FRAUD' after buying a $1.4 million home in an upscale mostly white enclave in L.A."
Personally, I don't care much that this woman bought a ritzy house in "exclusive" Topanga Canyon (good for her!); and the Twitter censorship is par for the course, in any case; and is, perhaps, less interesting to me than it is to Mr. Turley.
It's the hypocrisy and --- the literally satanic --- double-standards. Not only can I not stand "Black Lives Matter," as their movement is, obviously, a sham that's virtually 100 percent responsible for the "B.L.M." riots last summer than burned down darned near every Democrat-run city in the entire country, but this woman, as noted above by Mr. Turley, is a self-declared "Marxist"; that is, she's a real, dyed-in-the-wool communist, and for her to be out there scooping up million dollar properties, not just in L.A., but perhaps in the Caribbean as well, that's a bit rich for me, and I find it absolutely disgusting. (As, for one thing, the wealth-creation derived from such purchases is literally the same anathema that these ideological and partisan ghouls are always yapping about, and, frankly, I often sympathize with these very same "concerns" that they have about "capitalist racist oppression" or "structural racism," or, well, on and on and on, blah blah).
What is more, as political science professor, at a genuinely "minority-majority" college, a place really filled with the kind of "marginalized" kids that these "B.L.M." hacks and liars constantly say they're "all about," I can't even say how much this pissed me right the f*ck off. But that's life, and honestly, lately I mostly just "get with the program" at my school, because radical leftists already tried to get me fired ("cancelled") 10 years ago, and I have no interest in dealing with any such sort of related campus-based ideological conflicts again, despite the fact that I'm tenured. It's just too much. You become a pariah, and it's even worse, because you become a pariah to a lot of people with whom you'd had perfectly fine and collegial relationships prior to such libelous, illegal, and FUBAR attacks.
I mean, if you've heard folks online, or in commentary pieces, etc., argue that "it's hard" for conservative faculty members on America's college and university campuses these days, well, you have no idea. And take it from me, because I'm a pretty hardy soul, but also pretty mellow and totally friendly to those with whom I work, but no matter: All that good cheer and outstanding professionalism (and professional relationships) goes out the window should you wind up in the cross-hairs of these truly satanic ideological and partisan monsters.
While I would never say this to a student of mine, I really don't recommend anyone WHO IS NOT a freakin' Marxist to go into college or university teaching, and that's to say nothing of just recommending graduate training in the humanities or social sciences (or even English literature, etc.) to my students, because as bad as it all is, I'm not one to crush a young person's dreams, and I'll only speak frankly on the cancerous toxicity of "academe" if the student brings it up herself (or himself, or "themselves," or whatever).
From Thomas Chatterton Williams, a fellow I read from time to time at the Old Gray Lady, who hits the nail on the head here like Thor smashing some enemy antagonist to dust.
At Harper's Magazine (surprisingly):
Late on election night, when the betting markets were just realizing that Trump’s path to victory had narrowed, and leading voices on the left were lamenting the failure of anything resembling a blue wave to swell up and wash the country clean, Ruben Gallego, a Democratic congressman from Arizona and an Iraq War veteran, tweeted a triumphant message to his supporters: “Az Latino vote delivered! This was a 10 year project.” Gallego had ample reason to rejoice. For the first time since 1996, a Democratic presidential candidate had won the state of Arizona, thanks in large part to strong Hispanic support. This development stood in sharp contrast to outcomes in Texas and Florida, where Latinos provided crucial votes for Trump, and in California, where they even helped to doom a pro–affirmative action ballot measure. In light of this fragmented result—and amid much hand-wringing in the media over whether Latinos still form a coherent category in our obsessively charted racial landscape—one user responded:Ruben, honest question, how do we as a party improve our work with the LatinX community across the country as well as we’ve done in AZ? Its so frustrating to see so many republican LatinX voters, but I know its on people like me to help convince them dems are the place to be.Gallego’s blunt reply went viral: “First start by not using the term Latinx,” he told him. The MSNBC host Joy Reid, who only hours earlier had referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as “Uncle Clarence,” popped into the thread dumbfounded, seeming surprisingly out of touch for a professional commentator. “Can you elaborate on this a bit more?” she asked Gallego, with what seemed like genuine incredulity. “I was under the impression that this was the preferred term, and as a Black person, I’m definitely sensitive to what people prefer to be called.” In fact, not only is “Latinx” decidedly not the term most Latinos choose, but a significant number—about three fourths of the Latino population—have never even heard of it. A bilingual national survey conducted in December 2019 by the Pew Research Center found that a mere 3 percent of Latinos use the descriptor. And yet, the “new, gender-neutral, pan-ethnic label, Latinx, has emerged as an alternative,” the report observes. It is what prominent progressives—from Elizabeth Warren to Ibram X. Kendi—insist on using to describe a community to which they do not themselves belong. During the Democratic primaries, Senator Warren tweeted, “When I become president, Latinx families will have a champion in the White House. #LatinxHeritageMonth.” “When [Latinx] is used I feel someone is taking away some of my culture,” Gallego wrote in response to Reid’s question. “Instead of trying to understand my culture they decided to change it to fit their perspective.” The disagreement over such progressive jargon may seem like inside baseball to those who aren’t extremely online, but it is worth considering seriously, emblematic as it is of deeper fissures in the always tenuous patchwork of identity groups and economic classes that constitutes the contemporary Democratic coalition. The lives of progressive, college-educated, predominantly white “coastal elites” have become far removed from those of white Republicans, but more significantly from those of the nonwhite voters their party depends on to remain electorally viable—and whose validation lends them an air of virtuousness. The battle over “Latinx” might be understood as an instance of what the conservative commentator Reihan Salam has called “intra-white status jockeying”—an opportunity for “those who see themselves as (for lack of a better term) upper-whites . . . to disaffiliate themselves from those they’ve deemed lower-whites.” What Gallego knows, and can’t help but bristle at, is the fact that this semantic gatekeeping is ultimately not even about Latinos. Last February, whites on the left expressed shock and disappointment when Joe Biden beat the surging Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary, due in large part to moderate and conservative black primary voters who chose to reject the socialism they’d been told was in their best interest. Why should this have been surprising? Again, according to widely publicized research conducted by Pew, black Americans’ self-reported ideology has remained relatively stable throughout the twenty-first century. In 2019, about 40 percent of black Democratic voters considered themselves “moderate,” while an additional 25 percent identified as conservative. Just 29 percent of black Democrats described their views as “liberal.” Yet these glimpses into the heterogeneity of black and Latino—to say nothing of Asian—political preferences did not prepare influential progressives for the far less welcome November revelation that Donald Trump—whose behavior and associations have earned him the reputation of a kleptocratic xenophobe, if not an outright fascist—had gained traction with every major demographic (including Muslim voters, despite his travel ban). In a year of inescapable talk of racial identity and white supremacy, mass protests against systemic and interpersonal racism, and a fifteen-thousand-person rally in Brooklyn for black trans lives during the height of the pandemic, the extraordinary irony was that one of the very few groups whose support for Trump declined even modestly was white males. “This is so personally devastating to me,” began an emotional thread of tweets from the New York Times columnist Charles Blow the morning after the election. “The black male vote for Trump INCREASED from 13% in 2016 to 18% this year. The black female vote for Trump doubled from 4% in 2016 to 8% this year.” Analyzing the exit polls (which are admittedly imperfect), he also picked out white women and LGBTQ voters for opprobrium—“the percentage of LGBT voting for Trump doubled from 2016. DOUBLED!!!”—before landing on an insight that should spur an enormous amount of introspection on the left:The percentage of Latinos and Asians voting for Trump INCREASED from 2016, according to exit polls. Yet more evidence that we can’t depend on the “browning of America” to dismantle white supremacy and erase anti-blackness.Not only did Latinos, Asians, and, it must be reiterated, black voters join whites in delivering Trump more votes than the record 69.5 million Barack Obama got in 2008—more votes, that is, than any candidate in the history of the United States except Biden—they also upended assumptions down-ballot as well. In California, Proposition 16, the lavishly funded proposal to once again allow race and gender to be considered in government hiring and contracting and in public-university admissions, was roundly defeated, despite the state’s shifting demographics in the twenty-four years since the ban on affirmative action was imposed (white people now make up 36 percent of the population, second to Latinos at 39 percent). The measure commanded strong support in just five counties in the Bay Area as well as the city of Los Angeles, Alexei Koseff noted in the San Francisco Chronicle: The “yes” campaign “vastly outspent opponents and drew high-profile endorsements from across the political spectrum,” yet the supposed progressive landslide didn’t come. Fashionable narratives about the Democratic coalition and its members’ goals and ambitions can efface what many minorities think is in their best interest. Such misreadings are not just insensitive but dangerous. They can lead Democrats to pursue ill-conceived, poorly articulated policies that backfire to the benefit of conservatives, or worse, inflict harm on vulnerable communities. The recent push to defund the police is one of the most extravagant examples of what is, at best, high-minded intellectual recklessness. Those calling to do so “have shown a complete disregard for the voices and perspectives of many members of the African American community,” Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil-rights lawyer who formerly led the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, told the Star Tribune in July, after the city council moved to defund the MPD in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. “We have not been consulted as the city makes its decisions, even though our community is the one most heavily impacted by both police violence and community violence.” The tragic reality is that homicides in Minneapolis increased by 50 percent in 2020. More than 500 people had been shot by December, the most in a decade and a half. Meanwhile, the city’s mayor noted a “historic” rate of attrition among Minneapolis police, with twice as many leaving the force as in a typical year. Though 2020 was exceptionally frustrating for many reasons, most notably the substantial loss of life and of economic security wrought by COVID-19, it’s hard to imagine that a stark drop in officer morale didn’t contribute to the mayhem. Like the niche semantic preference for “Latinx,” but with far more direct and dire consequences, viral slogans such as “abolish the police”—created by people of color, but powerfully amplified by whites situated at a considerable remove—have been foisted on black communities that have a far more equivocal relationship with policing than is often acknowledged. Online, some very audible voices argue for the abolition of prisons and police departments. Offline, countless black Americans are forced to confront the harsh inadequacy of stark rhetorical binaries. They are overpoliced and underpoliced at the same time. Outside the brutal videotaped killings by police that fill our news feeds, or the numbing grind of quotidian degradations like stop-and-frisk, it is underpolicing that causes the most harm. Jill Leovy’s masterly 2015 book, Ghettoside, presents a thorough, unsentimental account of the social dynamics plaguing American cities and the senseless killings that routinely occur in them—often perpetrated, as we are so frequently reminded, by other black people. Leovy quotes the Harvard legal scholar Randall Kennedy: “The principal injury suffered by African-Americans in relation to criminal matters is not overenforcement but underenforcement of the laws.” The late Tupac Shakur put it most vividly in making a case for black self-defense in a 1994 BET interview: “We next door to the killer,” he practically screamed. “We next door to ’em, you know, ’cause we up in the projects, where there’s eighty n——s in the building. All them killers that they letting out, they right there in that building. But it’s better just ’cause we black, we get along with the killers or something? We get along with the rapists ’cause we black and we from the same hood? What is that? We need protection, too!” Anyone who speaks with black people outside of academic or activist circles knows that this is hardly a fringe view...
Still more.
It's at Gallup, "Americans' Worry About Catching COVID-19 Drops to Record Low."
Obviously this is monumental news, and it's especially big because this data goes against practically everything the elites in D.C. and virtually all the "blue states" are telling everyone --- which means, of course, they're lying.
The only thing more they needed at the report here is a breakdown by party identity, because while the huge overall majority reports little to no worry about catching the "'rona," no doubt idiot leftist Dems are swallowing everything that comes out of the D.C. swamp (and the stupid so-called progressive "blue state" capitals, with their idiot governors, and Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer come to mind), and, naturally, these "woke" Democrats love their masks and social distancing, and are ready to keep up with this crap until mid-century, if not later.
No need to quote the whole thing (just read it at the link above), although I'll post the conclusion here:
Americans have become substantially less worried about contracting COVID-19 as a growing proportion of adults have been fully vaccinated and as satisfaction with the vaccine rollout has improved. These shifts have occurred while coronavirus infection rates have fallen substantially from highs reached in January of this year. Optimism about the COVID-19 situation has also spiked to a record high. Gallup previously observed a meaningful relationship between Americans' perceptions of the coronavirus situation and changes in reported numbers of daily new cases. After the March survey was conducted, infection rates began to rise again. This may be at least partially connected to the decrease in reported strict social distancing by Americans at a time when more contagious variants of the virus are spreading. Public health experts see the U.S. now in a race to get large numbers of Americans vaccinated before those variants spread further. The outcome of that race will determine the future course of infections in the U.S. and will likely determine whether Americans show continued increasing optimism about the COVID-19 situation or a course correction in their attitudes.
So, if you do decide to "RTWT," the graphs at the peace are real nice.
UPDATE: Idiot me spoke too soon without checking on the tables (rather than the graphs), although, despite that, I'm not much wrong: Still half of all Democrats surveyed reported being being "worried" about catching the virus; although Dems are more likely to see things as "getting better," but that's an artifact, no doubt, of having the "Harris-Biden" administration in power, and these still stupid "woke" Dems are more likely to be "swallowing down" all the new "regime's" lies and propaganda --- so, I guess I wasn't too off in my estimations, despite the absence of a couple of more detailed graphs.
Mea culpa! Mea culpa, lol!
I actually wanted to blog more tonight, but, alas, there's too much stuff going on around here at home (including responding to loads of student requests for "extensions" on their semester term paper assignments, which I scheduled to be due BEFORE the Easter break, so students could actually chill while they're supposed to be on vacation; though now that I've actually given some of those "extensions," they'll actually be working over the same Easter break, that I told them, *sigh,* they needed to have off to relax, recharge, and reflect).
Oh brother, what's to come of this country?
(Well, I guess that's a rhetorical question, "shouting to the wind," with no other purpose, in a sense, but to rant helplessly).
Well, for one thing, we have to endure at least, what, the next 18-months with these idiot leftist totalitarian crackpots now hunkering down in the "Capitol," and I don't mean Washington, D.C., but the "Capitol of Panem," from the film (and novels) "The Hunger Games"?
Because, like just suggested, we're at the mercy of stupid, privileged, and hypocritical elites, like A.O.C., "Transportation Secretary" and now "climate expert, former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, and, last but not least, lying "Fauxcahontas" Senator Elizabeth Warren, who wants to raise your taxes (but not hers) for you to pay for all of this "new" technology (which isn't; I mean "windmills"?, c'mon, how long has world civilization relied on those ancient dealybobs, until these same starving and freezing folks, actually, didn't have to rely on that ancient technology that much anymore, because fossil fuels made their lives and work less burdensome and onerous, while at the same time improving the economic/material quality of life at rates that had never been seen in human history); but what do I know? If I don't shut up soon, I'll be up at the "Capitol" competing in some to-the-death "reality show" that would be a bit "too real," with me being called up from the "district" of KKKalifornia, to fight and, perhaps, die, for the entertainment of the same stupid "elites," who'd be stuffing their faces with the most obnoxious and expensive foods and wine, looking ahead to the next "spectacles," like those they had in Ancient Rome, and where human life was devalued and squandered (then, just like now), without so much as the bat of nicely, and cosmetically touched-up, eyelashes.
In any case, here's Marc Marano, at Amazon, Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal Is Even Worse than You Think.
Marano was on "Tucker" earlier this evening, and the both of them, thankfully, I guess, inspired me to spin out this little tale of our coming "utopia" over this next 18-months; and frankly, if we do, indeed, survive until the next election, the 2022 midterms, maybe all us "rubes" in "flyover country" back in the "districts," will, at last, freakin' rise up and kick some muthaf*ckin' ass, and boot these "Green New Infrastructure" idiots back to the own sh*thole "blue states," where they can choke on their own, environmentally-friendly, and non-carbon baked, arugula cream pies.
It's been a big day, again, with work and family stuff, so blogging has been light.
But I did see the story earlier this morning, on "CBS This Morning," when at that time the San Francisco lady's "GoFundMe" hadn't yet reached $600,000.
Now the Guardian's reporting it's getting up to $800,000, and I won't be surprised if it passes a cool million over the weekend. (And I hope that helps the woman with all her medical bills, and what not, and perhaps she'll be able to "spread the wealth" to some of her neighbors, who many, no doubt, could use a hand, as this pandemic hurts everybody, even generally hard-working Asian families living up that way).
(ADDED: Of course the Guardian had to get in the obligatory, "Anti-Asian rhetoric, fueled by Donald Trump and the far right’s insistence on using offensive, stigmatizing language to describe the coronavirus, has helped provoke violence," blah, blah.)
In any case, and good for them, but some of lady's younger Asian-American neighbors are forming "citizens' patrols" to, frankly, stand guard and protect their communities from these kinds of attacks; and remember, most of these attacks are not from "white crackers," but black "hoodlums" whose culture is already anti-social, and committing crime for these idiots is just another day "on the job."
At KPIX News 5 San Francisco:
Following-up once again, "Thousands of Unaccompanied Minors Are Crossing Over to the U.S., as the Biden Administration Continues to Hide From the Media's Questions (VIDEO)."
Here's Molly Hennessy-Fiske, who's about as "woke" a journalist you can find, reporting on the humanitarian disaster of the Biden administration's making.
At LAT, "Surge of migrant families and youths overwhelms Border Patrol in Texas":
MISSION, Texas — The priest arrived to bless about 90 Central American families Tuesday at an old parish hall that had been converted into a shelter to absorb the rising number of migrants and unaccompanied children streaming into Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. The Rev. Roy Snipes, a native Texan who preaches in a straw cowboy hat, stood in front of a portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He prayed in Spanish over the families, sprinkling them with holy water drawn from the Rio Grande, the same river many had crossed just days before. “You made it here, and here you are,” said Snipes. The parents — some holding infants — applauded. Migrant families and unaccompanied children are overwhelming U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding areas and federal youth shelters even as the facilities are being expanded. The surge is happening as families flee gang violence, unstable governments, poverty and hurricane damage at a time many believe the Biden administration will be more welcoming than the former Trump White House. “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said Tuesday. “We are securing our border, executing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s public health authority to safeguard the American public and the migrants themselves.” The number of migrant families has doubled this year but remains below previous spikes, including the most recent influx in 2019. But the flow of youths arriving without adults has increased to near-record levels, to 9,457 last month from 5,858 in January — more than the number who arrived in the same period in 2019. The influx is straining U.S. immigration resources and intensifying pressure on the Biden administration to stem an emerging crisis Republicans say it should have been prepared to handle. Federal officials have reopened a migrant youth shelter for 700 in central Texas and created a temporary shelter for another 700 at a former oil camp in west Texas. The Dallas convention center will house up to 3,000 youths. Some shelters have faced criticism in the past amid allegations of mistreatment, and migrant advocates oppose reopening them. The Border Patrol’s main holding center for migrant families in the Rio Grande Valley is closed for renovation. About 600 families and more than 1,800 unaccompanied migrant youths were held at a nearby Border Patrol tent facility last week, some sleeping on the floor because there were not enough mats, according to Leecia Welsh, one of the lawyers who interviewed about 20 youths held there Thursday. She said some young migrants told the lawyers they had been held at the facility for more than a week, despite the federal government’s three-day limit for detaining children. Many said they had not been allowed to phone their parents or other relatives. Some parents have been unable to locate children for more than a week after they arrived in the U.S., said Dr. Amy Cohen, co-founder and executive director of Every Last One, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that works to reunite separated migrant families. “We are forcing the hand of these parents who are in a situation of tremendous danger in Mexico, where they are seeing or experiencing being kidnapped again and again,” Cohen said. “I’ve had parents who were in the situation where they were afraid they would be murdered and their child left alone.” Two Honduran children, ages 11 and 9, were separated from their uncle recently. The man was returned to the Mexican border city of Miguel Aleman, where he was kidnapped and freed only after his relatives in the U.S. paid $5,000 ransom, Cohen said. Relatives in Texas are still trying to find out where federal officials are holding the children. By law, children are supposed to be transferred by Border Patrol to Health and Human Services shelters within 72 hours, but there have been delays because of pandemic restrictions. Some children have also been transferred out of state to federal foster care, Cohen said...
And as always, the despicable Dems blame on it "Texas Republicans." Well, now, maybe A.O.C. can fly back down to Hidalgo and Zapata Counties, right near the border, where the surge of illegals continues unabated. And while she's there, maybe she can do some fundraising for the AMERICANS getting hammered by her party's clusterf*ck policies?
I wanted to post this one earlier, but I'm glad I waited until after I found the Tucker segment posted earlier, "Spectacular Tucker Carlson Episode 'On Assignment' in El Salvador! (VIDEO)."
At one point at the video below, CBS News correspondent Mireya Villarreal is near tears, as she watches a young boy start off down the highway into the U.S., with no one "accompanying" him, so who knows what fate awaited that child, because the "bad hombres" prey on children not just south of the border, but inside the U.S. as well?
And I've got Fox News on right now as I'm working on this, and they've already had three segments blasting Jen Psaki and other administration officials for their lies and deceit, and it's not just Fox's Peter Doocy doing the grilling.
No doubt I'll be keeping up with this story, because it's one of the most volatile for Biden, as he's just not up to the task on this issue, or any other, dealing with actually helping Americans rather than foreign "migrants," many of whom have in fact been designated as "terrorists," especially the untold number of "MS-13" gang-bangers and murderers Biden's now letting into the country, to kill, maim, and rape U.S. citizens, who're being literally f*cked by the ghouls now in charge in D.C.
Shoot, I'm surprised Fox News actually posted this whole segment, because as I've mentioned before, they're kinda stingy on posting Turker's stuff to YouTube. But this one is phenomenal, and I'm glad they did!
(Maybe they're just really "pumping up" some of the new content that will be part of the new "Fox Nation" package of specials, of which Tucker's new programming will be the highlight.)
Anyway, he keeps getting better, that's for sure, and as always, I can't stop laughing when I'm watching his segments.
Here:
It's Mollie Hemingway, at the Federalist.
She's day in and day out, a one-woman wrecking-crew demolishing the endless lies streaming from all the hate-addled (and despicable) leftist media outlets, be they print, broadcast, cable, or whatever. I'm glad she's on our side.
She's the author, most prominently, of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court, but also, Trump vs. the Media (Encounter Broadsides Book 51).
Also, my apologies for the light blogging today, but the pace of posting should pick up a bit over the next couple of days, and into the weekend.
Be well.
"Controversial." Wait, what?
I used to watch "The Talk" years ago with my wife, who was an absolute fan of Julie Chen. But when she left the show when her husband, Leslie Moonves, got caught up in the "MeToo" witch hunt (which might not have been the biggest "witch-hunt" in his case, since the man HAD been engaged in bad behavior, the details of which I can't exactly recall, because there were so many top leftist execs just like him who did the exact same things, and worse), my wife was still pissed that Ms. Chen quit --- and she quit, because, actually, all the show was really about is a bunch of privileged women sitting around gossiping about how horrible their privileged lives were, and of course, inevitably, Ms. Chen would have actually been attacked mercilessly for her husband doing something (indeed) horrible and unforgivably un-woke.
And I never personally could stand founding host Sara Gilbert, whose only real claim to fame is having starred as Darlene Conner on "Roseanne" for so many years. And the real Rosanne Barr made whatever stupid remarks she made after the "reboot" appeared, and the über-woke Gilbert had a hissy-fit, and ultimately quit "The Talk" after ABC canceled the second season of the re-branded "Roseanne" show, "The Connors."
So, here we are, and the one remaining smart and decent personality on the show, Ms. Osbourne, wife of the notorious heavy (and early "death") metal icon, Ozzy, is now about to be canceled, because she defended Piers Morgan?
This country if f*ked. And it's leftists who've f*cked it all up.
At the Hollywood Reporter, "'The Talk' Extends Hiatus as Claims Mount Against Sharon Osbourne":
After a controversial defense of friend Piers Morgan during a conversation about racism, Osbourne is facing accusations of further misdeeds on set. The Talk will remain silent for another week.
After going dark on Monday and Tuesday, CBS' panel series is extending its brief hiatus from live shows until Tuesday, Mar. 23, as the network continues a review stemming from last Wednesday's heated debate between Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood. Initially planning to return to live episodes on Wednesday, Mar. 17, the show will stay dark as Osbourne's defense of Piers Morgan and comments on racism — particularly her confrontation with Underwood, her Black colleague — go under the microscope internally. A CBS spokesperson sent The Hollywood Reporter the following comment about the extended hiatus on Tuesday: “CBS is committed to a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace across all of our productions. We’re also very mindful of the important concerns expressed and discussions taking place regarding events on The Talk. This includes a process where all voices are heard, claims are investigated and appropriate action is taken where necessary. The show will extend its production hiatus until next Tuesday as we continue to review these issues.” Fallout for Osbourne (and the show) was swift following the longtime panelist's teary defense of friend and fellow Brit, Morgan, who stormed off the set of (and ultimately quit) ITV's Good Morning Britain — which he'd co-hosted since 2015 — after his vitriolic criticism of Meghan Markle was read by most as racist. At one point in her defense of Morgan, Osbourne went on the offense and demanded that Underwood tell her what Morgan had done wrong. "Educate me, tell me when you have heard him say racist things," Osbourne said. "I very much feel like I'm about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend, who many people think is a racist, so that makes me a racist?" Since then scrutiny has only increased...
Well, naturally, the scrutiny was never going to "decrease," because CBS, craven as can be, is just letting all the controversy hang in the wind, without doing a thing to defend Ms. Osbourne, who will soon enough, probably early next week, be fired.
Now, this is my wife's theory, but she's been predicting the actual cravenness of the network's execs since the story first broke. My wife says if the media outrage dies down over the remainder of this week, the execs will be "in the clear" to keep Ms. Osbourne on the show. But if by next Monday, the clamor is continuing, the wife of the "Iron Man" vocalist will be melted down and dribbled along with the rest of the (cast) iron dregs of the nearest ironwork's foundry.
So disgusting. I say it every time, but these people (leftists) are despicable.
(The "controversial" portion of the episode, with the "controversial" comments by Ms. Osbourne, can seen at the beginning of the video above.)
You know why these ghouls won't go live on air to take real questioning about the administration's so-called "BFD" victories --- they'e scared sh*tless to actually have to face the music. And I freakin' watched "Face the Nation" this morning, because Margaret Brennan's the only Sunday morning host who I can take seriously (not to mention, she's quite easy to gaze upon).
And who does the administration give the "O.K" to appear? This Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who is not just "Chair of the White House's COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force," but is also the "Associate Dean for Health Equity Research" at Yale. Now that's some privilege, dang! I think I barely made it through the interview, but I did listen to this women's "equity speak," and she's got the whole "equity, inclusion, and diversity" boondoggle down cold.
So, in the end, Biden had to send, really, a lower-lever White House aide, who is a black woman, and thus pretty much impervious to criticism, lest anyone who does have a word of opposition wants to be branded a "racist."
These people are despicable, and even Ms. Brennan, who is noticeably pregnant (which is admirable and shows that women do have incredible opportunities in the leftist media world these days), didn't drill down hard enough against this "woke" medical "social justice warrior" administrative shill as she could have.
Oh brother. It's bad. And it's going to be a long-four years; and keep in mind, my family's not opposed to getting the checks. But I'll bet like millions of other Americans, we're definitely not so happy about the, what?, near-90 percent of the bill which is practically a $2 trillion grab bag of pork-ladened goodies for far-left constituencies that helped these clowns gain office in the first place.
I can't even. *Sigh.*
At Politico, "POLITICO Playbook: Biden stiffs the Sunday shows":
President JOE BIDEN just signed the first BFD of his administration — a massive Covid relief bill to boost the fortunes of everyday Americans. But you barely heard a peep about it from his own administration on the Sunday shows. Yes, Biden is hitting the road this week to sell the package. But on his way out the door, he skipped a major audience on Sunday — a day many people will actually sit back and watch something of substance, hence the gangbuster ratings for CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Just one senior administration official was booked on the five major Sunday shows: Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN on ABC’s “This Week.” She fended off questions on whether $1.9 trillion in new spending would drive inflation and balloon the debt. Sunday show producers tell me the White House only offered medical staff like ANTHONY FAUCI, who appeared on CNN, NBC and FOX, and MARCELLA NUNEZ-SMITH, who went on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” This was despite requests for chief of staff RON KLAIN, VP KAMALA HARRIS and Biden himself. Senior communications staffers like JEN PSAKI, KATE BEDINGFIELD and SYMONE SANDERS were not even offered to explain the bill. “They’re leaving a vacuum on the Sunday shows,” said one senior producer, who called the whole thing “baffling.” A senior administration official downplayed the light presence on the Sunday programs, saying that Biden and Harris “look forward to hitting the road this week and engaging directly with the American people through events and interviews.” The official noted that the administration has done and will continue to do plenty of other press — national and local — on the Covid bill. But the Sunday shows combined reach an audience of about 10 to 15 million each weekend and help drive newspaper coverage on Monday. Biden himself has said BARACK OBAMA erred in not selling the 2009 economic rescue package to the public aggressively enough, and they paid a price for it in the 2010 midterms. Biden, who hasn’t held a news conference since he took office, is expected to interview with local media during his roadshow...
There's still more, but all it says is that "China Joe's" gonna talk sometime soon with fake journalist and high-paid Democrat-media-shill George Stephanopoulos, on ABC's morally bankrupt "Good Morning America," and KAMala (don't you dare say KaMALa) Harris will sit down with "CBS This Morning's Gayle King who is nice, but she's got heavy baggage as an Oprah lackey, and she's one who's guaranteed to be soft as a feather in interviewing the actually not-truly "black" vice president (at least, not truly black in the sense that she's never experienced the grinding poverty of real inner-city blacks who've been screwed by Democrat policies in the big urban leftist strongholds for decades), not to mention that King for sure won't press the former high-falutin' Brentwood local who's lied through her teeth about "marching" for civil rights, and don't you dare mention she's just as bad a plagiarist as Joe "Neil Kinnock" Biden (and both her parents, minorities they might be, earned doctoral degrees at U.C. Berkeley), so cry me a river about our "oppressed" second-in-command, who is perhaps more than any V.P. in history, literally a "heartbeat away" from taking her seat at the "resolute desk" for herself.
See what I mean, how bad things are? Gosh, the 2022 midterms can't come soon enough.
At LAT, surprisingly, "Inside U.S. troops’ stronghold in Syria, a question of how long Biden will keep them there":
KHSHAM, Syria — At a makeshift military outpost abutting a natural gas field in eastern Syria, the signs of the country’s violent upheaval are everywhere. Bombed-out concrete buildings lie in ruins. The pipes that once carried liquefied natural gas are shredded and twisted. A tattered U.S. flag strung between 40-foot-tall gas processing towers flies high over the base, a visible symbol that American troops are here — and not planning on leaving soon. “We’ve got the flagpole planted,” said Army Lt. Alan Favalora, a Louisiana National Guard soldier at Conoco, the name the base acquired from the long- departed U.S. oil and gas firm that once operated the wells. “We want them to know we are committed to this region.” How committed President Biden will be to keeping troops in Syria is uncertain, however. The Biden administration does not appear to be in any rush to pull out the 900 U.S. troops who remain in the country, a relatively small force that some White House officials see as key to preventing a resurgence of Islamic State and a rush to reclaim the area’s oil fields by Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. But White House officials have said they are reviewing the troop presence in Syria — an announcement that has raised concerns that Biden could reconsider the deployment as part of a larger scaling back of U.S. troops in the Middle East and a planned shift of Pentagon focus to Asia. What Biden is going to do “is the one question I got from everybody,” Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie Jr., the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said in an interview after visiting eastern Syria on Friday. “I think the new administration is going to look at this, and then we’re going to get guidance.” Robert Ford, who was an ambassador to Syria during the Obama administration, called the U.S. strategy “deeply flawed” and said Biden should withdraw the remaining troops who have helped the Syrian Democratic Forces — a Kurdish-led militia — carve out a semiautonomous enclave in the country’s northeast. “I don’t think it’s worth it,” Ford said about the American deployment in an interview. Islamic State “is largely contained and not in a position to threaten the U.S. homeland or even to send fighters to Europe.” The Arab population in northeastern Syria initially supported Kurdish militias’ efforts to oust Islamic State. But many Arabs now resent being under the Kurds’ governance, creating a new source of recruits as Islamic State tries to recover, Ford added...
Well, of course Biden's policy is "deeply flawed," because his foreign policy advice has been "deeply flawed" all around, particularly during the Obama administration, when the "red line" fiasco basically put Russia in the driver's seat, giving that neo-imperialist power strategic advantage, of which it hasn't wasted, to the disadvantage of U.S. interests. Now Biden's just trying to salvage his own reckless legacy and save whatever loss of face he can for all the f*cked up Democrat foreign policy fiascos. These people are liars and hacks.
