Only Some Immigrants Are Really Welcome

On September 25th, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the Romeike family. This family fled Germany in 2008 because the German government would not allow them to home-school their children.

The article reports:

The Romeike family fled Germany in 2008 after authorities cracked down on the practice of home-schooling, and applied for asylum in the US. Initially, a judge granted their asylum request, but when the Obama administration appealed the decision, that started a long legal odyssey that may have come to an end late last week:

The family moved to the U.S. from Germany in 2008. Their application for asylum said they were fined by the German government roughly $9,000 after homeschooling their children, court documents show.

An immigration judge initially granted the family’s application for asylum. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the decision, and the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals revoked the family’s asylum status, documents show.

The family, with the help of the U.S. Home School Defense Association, appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel unanimously ruled against the family.

“They have not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school-attendance law amounts to persecution against them,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the court.

Did the Biden administration find out that they might be conservative Christians?

Please follow the link to read the rest of the article.

This is ridiculous. We have an open southern border that is letting in murderers, terrorists, cartel members, gang members, etc., and the government had decided to deport a family that includes American citizens. What level of insanity is this?

Does Anyone Actually Believe This?

On Saturday, Hot Air reported the latest amazing statement by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

The article reports:

The Biden administration thinks you are stupid. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Joe Biden has “done more to secure the border than anybody else.” She delivered that statement with a straight face to the press corps and no one laughed at her.

She has stated:

“Look, the president has done what he can from here, from the federal government, from the White House to put forth and manage our border in a safe and humane way to respect the dignity of every human, as he says all the time, and making sure that our communities are safe, and you have seen him do that,” Jean-Pierre said.

She later said: “The president has done more to secure the border and to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else. He really has. June saw the single largest month-to-month drop in unlawful border crossing because of the policies this president put in place.”

The problem with the border is bi-partisan. As long as we keep electing Republicans who want cheap labor and Democrats who want future voters, we will have an open border. If the voters want change, they will have to vote in change. The conclusion of the article is very telling.

The article concludes:

Not only has Joe Biden thrown open the southern border to prove he is not Donald Trump, which we already knew anyway, but he is prosecuting Governor Abbott who has been left to fend for himself in protecting the Texas border with Mexico. Abbott began Operation Lone Star in March 2021 and the Biden DOJ has fought him ever since. Abbott is defending his buoy barrier in the Rio Grande River at Eagle Pass now. Think about that – the American president is trying to stop a governor from protecting a sovereign border. Biden’s top job is to protect the homeland, but, never mind.

The administration describes Abbott’s efforts as political stunts.

Jean-Pierre also said at the time: “We continue to see political stunts from many Republicans out there and that’s not how we’re going to fix this issue. They want to secure the border, we’ve been doing that work on our own, and we’re asking them to, ‘Hey, you know what? There’s an immigration reform plan that the president put out on the first day, they should work with us and do this in a bipartisan way.’”

You can’t make this up.

The problem with the Democrats’ “immigration reform” plan is that they demand blanket amnesty of all illegal aliens. That’s a deal-breaker for Republicans. Why would we reward law-breakers? Republicans were burned when Reagan agreed to amnesty during his administration. Democrats want the future voters. Republicans want law and order on the border. Just enforce the laws already on the books and put enough personnel on the border. That would be a solid start to bringing the situation back under control.

As long as you put a ‘poison pill’ in the bill that the Republicans cannot accept, you can continue to blame the Republicans for the lack of reform. Until the Republicans learn to (or want to) stand up to those tactics, we will have an open border.

Forgetting Their Oath

According to chron.com:

The CIA oath reads: “I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” Schooled CIA employees know that the Constitution also defines the role of federal employees: “To establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.”

On Friday, David Strom posed the following question at Hot Air:

Did the CIA work to rig the 2020 election?

The article notes that there are many ways to rig an election–illegal voters, fraudulent ballots, faulty voting machines, etc., but there is also the matter of spreading disinformation.

The article reports:

I couldn’t say if the 2020 election was stolen–there certainly were irregularities as there always are in elections–because any vote changes or illegal ballots have to be in the right place in the right numbers, and no evidence has been accepted by courts indicating that enough illegal votes to change the results were cast.

But certainly, the election was rigged. Lots of illegal changes to election laws were made without legislative approval, Big Tech censored conservatives based on phony claims, and the media colluded with outside groups to distort the truth or deny facts.

Among the riggers was the CIA, apparently. Not just former CIA agents, about which we already knew, but the CIA as an organization.

At least that is what has been asserted by Judicial Watch, and the evidence on its face supports that conclusion. So Judicial Watch is suing the CIA to force them to divulge what ought to be public information about events near the end of the campaign.

Note the statement “no evidence has been accepted by courts.” This may be the Achilles Heel in the indictments against President Trump. He may force that evidence to be heard in court.

The article concludes:

It issue is that letter that gave cover to Joe Biden when the Hunter Biden laptop, where 50 former intelligence officials claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.”

However deceptive this letter was, in itself, it was perfectly legal and I would oppose censoring it once it was published. It was a low-down dirty trick and it worked, but low-down dirty tricks are generally legal. Of course, media outlets should not have taken their claims at face value in the middle of a campaign, but that is a separate issue.

However, the wrinkle is this: because of the high rank these officials had the CIA had to preapprove the publication of the letter, and the CIA almost certainly knew the laptop was real (as the FBI also did, having had it a year). Further, there is substantial evidence that the CIA helped recruit further signatories for the letter, which would be a definite no-no. The CIA isn’t even supposed to be involved domestically, and certainly shouldn’t get involved in political campaigns.

Did those in the CIA violate their Oath of Office?

Tell Us How You Really Feel

David Strom posted an article at Hot Air on Thursday titled, “Christopher Wray is a low-down dirty liar and should be gone.” Wow. That’s a strong statement.

The article explains the reason for the headline:

FBI Director Christopher Wray has a habit of lying before Congress.

This is in addition to his running the FBI like a secret police force determined to take down anybody the current regime dislikes.

Last month, during hearings about the government’s surveillance of Catholic Churches in America, Christopher Wray claimed that Richmond memo which called for the surveillance of Catholic Churches was the result of a rogue set of FBI agents who worked alone and didn’t represent a larger movement within the FBI to go after political conservatives. Wray assured us that he was deeply concerned about this and was investigating how it happened. It turns out that his statement was totally false.

The article reports:

That investigation, by the way, was his excuse for withholding information from the committee, including redacting documents and not allowing the agents involved to speak to the committee. In itself, this is a bizarre standard, as there are no criminal charges involved and the Congress is charged with oversight of the Executive Branch. Is it now the case that any time the FBI or any other agency wants to hide information from Congress they can just claim they are “investigating” the matter and will tell Congress nothing?

…So what did Wray lie about specifically?

On July 25 the FBI finally provided the committee with a less-redacted version of that Richmond document. The report says that its information on Catholics was “primarily derived” from an “FBI Richmond contact”; an “FBI Portland liaison contact” who informed on a subject who “gravitated to” traditionalist catholicism; and an “FBI Undercover Employee” who reported on a subject who attended a Catholic church in California.

It also says the FBI’s Los Angeles field office “initiated an investigation” into a subject, and that the Richmond office “[c]oordinated with” FBI Portland to prepare the field report. In other words, this was a widespread bureau effort. Why was this suspicion about religion so widespread at the FBI?

Also troubling is the FBI’s decision to redact the Portland and Los Angeles roles from the original version of the Richmond document it provided Congress in March. In a letter with the less-redacted version, acting assistant FBI director Christopher Dunham said the redactions had been necessary to protect “information specific to ongoing criminal investigations.”

It may be time to scrap the current FBI and start from scratch!

Looking At The Big Picture

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the efforts to put President Trump behind bars.

The article is titled:

Why are so many people determined to defend Donald Trump, including me?

The author of the article, David Strom, admits that he does not like President Trump and thinks he is a bad human being, but still defends him.

The article explains a few of the reasons for this:

I ran across a reminder of why I reflexively defend Donald Trump against his critics, despite not liking the guy.

The answer is simple: the people going after him are tyrannical liars, or at the very least so blinded by their hatred that they have abandoned reason. And because they hate Trump with a white-hot passion that outshines the sun they are willing to destroy America.

Donald Trump is their Great Orange Whale, and they are determined to kill him whatever it takes. Law, truth and reason all must bend or be broken if the destruction of Trump is the end result.

The article cites an article by Max Boot titled, “Donald Trump Is Guilty, The only remaining question is what exactly he’s guilty of.” Compare that with the way the political left is reacting to the mounting evidence against President Biden.

The article notes:

Who thinks like that?

Totalitarians, like Soviet Secret Policeman Lavrentiy Beria, who famously said “Show me the man and I will show you the crime” do.

That Max Boot, a prominent neoconservative, could become so twisted that his hatred of Trump that he became a distorted version of a Soviet secret policeman should be amazing, but it is actually quite a common occurrence in the annals of Trump hatred.

Totalitarianism is a small price to pay if Donald Trump is put behind bars.

…What they all have in common is a blindness or indifference to the facts: Donald Trump is many things, but a traitor or insurrectionist he is not.

Moreover, he actually abused his power as president less than most. Perhaps this is so because he was less sophisticated in the ways of Washington than his cosmopolitan predecessor and successor, but the reality is that both Obama and Biden abused the intelligence and justice systems and turned them into their personal Stasi, while Trump did not.

Trump never sent the FBI to raid Hillary Clinton’s or Joe Biden’s house. Guess who did?

Trump SAID “Lock her up,” but left her alone. Biden is actually trying to lock up Trump and has turned the Justice Department into his family’s legal team. His Justice Department just tried to give a plenary “get out of jail free” card to his son by deceiving a judge. Imagine if Trump did such a thing.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It illustrates how warped our media, justice system, and political system has become in recent years.

A Major Green Energy ‘Whoops’

On July 3, a website called environmental progress posted the following:

Last August, in an amalgamation of ‘The Green New Deal’ meets ‘Build Back Better’, President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gifted the renewables industry with billions of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded subsidies. What few backing the bill realized was that the largest beneficiary would likely be China due to its expansive grip on the global solar photovoltaic (PV) industry.

Worse than that, it might end up misdirecting the world’s clean energy efforts into dirtier than appreciated energy technologies because of the country’s ongoing dependence on coal-fired energy.

Information unearthed by Environmental Progress points to a gaping oversight in how the figures influencing government net zero policy and investments in solar worldwide are compiled and collated due to the difficulty of collecting accurate information out of China, especially for the purification processes used to create silicon wafers.

Key to this blind spot is that the source material for most of the assessments is provided by a small number of data compilers, many if not all of them working in collaboration with the International Energy Agency (IEA). The data is voluntarily submitted by the industry in response to academic surveys. The nature and profile of the respondents is never publicy revealed, so that there is the potential for conflicts of interest to develop.

A further puzzle is how that data feeds into an organization called Ecoinvent, a Swiss-based non-profit founded in 1998 that dubs itself “the world’s most consistent and transparent life cycle inventory database”. This data is relied on by institutions worldwide, including the IPCC and IEA itself, to calculate their carbon footprint projections, including the sixth assessment report published as recently as March 2023.

Based on such data, the IPCC claims solar PV is 48 gCO2/kWh. But, as we’ll see below, a new investigation started by Italian researcher, Enrico Mariutti, suggests that the number is closer to between 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh, depending on the energy mix used to power PV production. If this estimate is accurate, solar would not compare favorably with natural gas, which is around 50 gCO2/kWh with carbon capture, and 400 to 500 without.

On July 24, in a similar article, Hot Air noted:

I think we all know how the Chinese came to be at the forefront of solar panel manufacturing – the same way they’ve done everything else. They don’t have an innovative bone in their collective billion bodies, but what they do have is conniving. Plus cheap labor, no environmental strictures, and enterprise once they steal what they need to make something. And that’s exactly what happened with the solar industry. There were once German leaders in solar technology who are long out of business because of the Chinese filching their designs.

I think it’s time to rethink this ‘green energy’ thing.

 

I Thought Hostile Work Environments Were A Problem

On Monday, Hot Air quoted an Axios article about what it is like to work for President  Biden.

Axios notes:

Zoom out: Biden’s temper comes in the form of angry interrogations rather than erratic tantrums.

He’ll grill aides on topics until it’s clear they don’t know the answer to a question — a routine that some see as meticulous and others call “stump the chump” or “stump the dummy.”

Being yelled at by the president has become an internal initiation ceremony in this White House, aides say — if Biden doesn’t yell at you, it could be a sign he doesn’t respect you.

Hot Air notes:

[Yeah, and if he hits you, it means he *really* loves you. Axios tries mightily to normalize this behavior, but it’s disturbing, especially for someone Biden’s age. He’s always been needlessly combative; one clip from the 1987 campaign showed him challenging a critic to a fight, and he did something similar in the last presidential campaign with an auto worker defending the 2nd Amendment. His natural pugilism is the kind of overcompensation one usually sees from stuffed suits, but this sounds as though it’s being compounded by Biden’s cognition issues. And if a Republican president exhibited this kind of behavior, Axios and other media outlets wouldn’t hesitate to point that out. Beege will have more on this later today. — Ed]

Angry outbursts are part of the disease of dementia, but of course no one is willing to talk about President Biden’s not being able to find his way off a speaking platform or making odd remarks during speeches. It doesn’t sound as if working in the White House is very much fun right now. Evidently the civility that Joe Biden claimed he would bring back to America does not extend to his own staff in the White House.

Yuengling Does It Right

On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about Yuengling Beer. I am not a beer drinker, so I am not qualified to comment on the quality of their beer, but I can comment on how well the company handled a tricky situation.

The article reports:

Yuengling Brewery has a unique story. It is a sixth-generation family-owned and family-run American brewery. It is America’s oldest brewery, celebrating its 194th anniversary. Wisdom is often a bi-product of age and I think it applies in this case. The company’s president is listed as Richard Yuengling Jr.

…Ironically, Yuengling is a German-origin name that means “young man” in English. Four women run the business now. To celebrate 194 years in business, Yuengling rolled out limited-edition, 12-ounce cans that read, “Let’s Go USA,” while featuring a Stars and Stripes design. No Pride rainbows or transgender characters to draw attention to the brand or insult regular Americans in order to attract The Woke. The pride this company is celebrating is old-fashioned patriotism. How refreshing. The sisters attribute the company’s continued success to “amazing employees and very loyal consumers.”

Even with such an All-American kind of family and business brand, a little scandal may fall. In 2016, for example, the patriarch, billionaire Dick Yuengling, publicly endorsed Donald Trump and Eric Trump visited him. The two men held a press conference. The rainbow mafia went nuts and D.C. gay bars started to boycott the beer, followed by other bars.

This week the brewery found itself dragged into another controversy. For many years, Yuengling has been a sponsor of Musikfest, an annual festival held in Pennsylvania. On Monday, the festival shared a promo on its Facebook page about this year’s event. Yuengling was included in the post, as a sponsor. Four days later the post was edited and Yuengling was removed from the text of the promotion. Why? Because social media followers went nuts.

A “family-friendly drag show” is a part of the festival’s events this year. The original promotion said that “babies in arms” would be admitted. Children under 2 “may not be recommended for some performances.” After the backlash began, ArtsQuest — the venue hosting the event — issued a statement absolving Yuengling of any involvement. And the age for admission into the show had been raised to 18+.

The article contrasts the actions of Yuengling with the actions of Budweiser:

And that, my friends, is how a company does damage control. Mind you, Yuengling has nothing to do with the drag show, “family-friendly” or not, and was only mentioned in the Facebook promo because it was listed as a sponsor. Yuengling quickly worked to nip the backlash in the bud. The well-respected brewery’s name was immediately removed and then the venue changed the age of admission to 18+. Bud Light waited too long to correct the damage brought on by its woke marketing director. They then half-assed the response – they suspended or fired a couple of people and hemmed and hawed about the whole situation. The CEO has still not apologized to Bud Light’s customers (now former customers) and three months down the road, Anheuser-Busch’s CEO is still trying to do clean-up. The CEO refused to do the one thing that would have started a thawing of the chill that Bud Light’s boycotters began – a simple apology. Now it’s too late.

If I drank beer, I would go out and order a Yuengling. They handled the situation correctly.

Please follow the link above to read the entire story.

The Discussion Expands

Today, Hot Air posted an article reporting that the New York State legislature has passed to form a commission to study reparations to address the lingering, negative effects of slavery.

The article quotes an Associated Press (AP) report:

New York would create a commission to consider reparations to address the lingering, negative effects of slavery under a bill passed by the state Legislature on Thursday.

“We want to make sure we are looking at slavery and its legacies,” said state Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages before the floor debate. “This is about beginning the process of healing our communities. There still is generational trauma that people are experiencing. This is just one step forward.”

The state Assembly passed the bill about three hours after spirited debate on Thursday. The state Senate passed the measure hours later, and the bill will be sent to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for consideration.

The article concludes:

The history of slavery in New York is complicated, as are most things from that era. Slavery certainly took place in the earliest years, as it did pretty much everywhere Europeans went. (And as it did across most of the globe in various forms for nearly all of recorded history, if we’re being honest.) But nobody has legally owned a slave in New York State for almost two centuries. It was one of the earliest states to outlaw the practice. Not only are all of the slaves and the owners dead, but their great, great, great, great descendants are as well.

So if the New York legislature wants to have the same conversation that California’s lawmakers did, they will be dealing with the same reality. Any potential reparation checks that are decided on will be paid to people who have never been slaves and paid for by people who have never owned slaves in a state that was among the earliest to free slaves, even before it was mandated by the federal government. If you want to talk about the generational social and financial impacts of racism up through the early second half of the 20th century, that’s certainly a conversation we can have. But nobody today owes anyone anything based on the practices of people who lived more than two centuries ago.

So what will happen when the State of New York realizes that it is going bankrupt and cannot pay reparations? How will the people anticipating a cash windfall react when they find out that the cash windfall is not coming? Unfortunately, we may be paving the way for a ‘summer of love’ event in New York and California similar to what happened in many states during the summer of 2020.

Holding People Accountable

On Thursday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about a recent common-sense ruling by the Supreme Court.

The article reports:

Alternate headline: Pottery Barn rules apply to walkouts. In an 8-1 decision in which only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fully dissented, the Supreme Court ruled today that unions have to reimburse employers for damages caused by striking workers. The National Labor Relations Act does not confer immunity to unions or workers — the latest ruling from a court that has stiffened the boundaries for labor activities in the last few years:

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that federal labor law did not protect a union from potential liability for damage that arose during a strike, and that a state court should resolve questions of liability.

The majority found that if accusations by an employer are true, actions during a strike by a local Teamsters union were not even arguably protected by federal law because the union took “affirmative steps to endanger” the employer’s property “rather than reasonable precautions to mitigate that risk.” It asked the state court to decide the merits of the accusations.

The opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Three conservative justices backed more sweeping concurring opinions. A single justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.

The case involved Teamsters who created truckloads of cement and then walked off the job–leaving the trucks full and no one to offload the trucks. Obviously, if the cement was left in the trucks, it would ruin the trucks. The Supreme Court (with the exception of one Justice) held the Teamsters liable for the damage they had caused. Striking is legal–damaging property is not.

The article also notes two important aspects of the case:

The Teamsters argued that they can’t be responsible for hypothetical risks to employer property in the absence of workers. Barrett emphatically rejects that, and concludes that the union organized the walkout specifically to create the highest potential risk of catastrophic damage when they had a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent it…

…Congress created the National Labor Relations Board to deal with labor disputes, not property torts. The latter are matters for civil litigation separate from labor-management negotiations. It’s this argument from KBJ that has Thomas call for an end to the Garmon precedent, and which Alito et al expressly reject in their concurrence. To think otherwise would be to create an Open Season on employers’ property under the guise of ‘negotiations.’

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It includes some very interesting arguments.

Dealing With Crime In New York City

Mayor Adams has released his plan to deal with crime in New York City. On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about the plan.

The article reports:

New York, as with other Democrat-run cities, is experiencing a crime wave. Retail theft–shoplifting–has gone through the roof. Gangs of people go into stores and steal with impunity, leaving with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. It is both organized crime and disorganized. Thousands of people engage in the practice, with hundreds at least who do it as a living.

The article reports the plan:

The new crackdown includes giving first-time offenders intervention programs instead of prosecution, de-escalation training for retail employees, establishing neighborhood retail watch groups to share information about a theft in real-time with one another and the police, and installing kiosks in stores to connect would-be thieves with social service programs.

No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee.

The article concludes:

Kiosks offering social service programs. Neighborhood groups to watch the crime happen–nobody, after all, is authorized or encouraged to interfere. We all know what interfering with a crime will get the good samaritan: time in Riker’s.

De-escalation training? Now that is funny. Expect to wind up on YouTube being smeared as a White Supremacist for not allowing yourself to be victimized. Oh..you don’t have to imagine it. It happens, and the MSM and the Left work overtime to destroy you.

…It took 6 months to come up with this plan.

Six months.

What is the point? When the tough-on-crime ex-cop suggests that kiosks with social service information are the solution to an ongoing crime wave, there really isn’t a point in sticking around. Pick up and leave.

As long as actions don’t have negative consequences, they will continue.

Even Legal Immigration Has Consequences

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about some employee changes in big tech.

The article reports:

Another sort of talking out-of-one-side-of-the-mouth while doing something entirely different example today.

We’ve been keeping abreast of the lay-offs in the tech sector here as part of our watching the Biden economy teeter and totter precipitously, and there has been quite an adjustment in those overall numbers since last fall.

…The employees that are retained are dealing with a vastly rejiggered cultural landscape as far as the perks, expectations, work from home, and general employment indulgences that were an ingrained part of their jobs for decades. Suck it up and tighten that belt if you want to stay.

In one example of shifting business practices in “subdued” times, Microsoft is still paying people, but they’ve announced they won’t be handing out annual raises this year.

Heartbreaking? Oh, those poor companies are struggling. Wait. Not so fast.

The article continues:

Based on data the government just put out, it seems Google, Meta, Zoom – shoot, they all went on a hiring spree last month for visa recipients. It’s a schweet workaround for tech firms, big and small.

The top 30 H-1B employers hired more than 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022 and laid off 85,000 employees

The article concludes:

Of course, if you’re already a visa worker and included in the lay-offs, you’re screwed. You have 60 days to find a new gig or you’re supposed to leave/be deported.

Rather a kick-in-the-teeth for the American techs they could have rehired who might well have been willing to work for less as their severances packages eroded or were already gone, if they got one.

And that’s how the visa game is played, ladies and germs.

This is how our government subsidizes corporations while giving Americans a raw deal. The practice of laying off Americans and employing foreign workers needs to end. We encourage our children in STEM studies then undercut them in their search for jobs. That is not a good business model.

 

Is This Fair Competition?

On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the Tour of the Gila. The Tour of the Gila is what’s known in cycling as a stage race, i.e. a race which takes place over several days. Each stage of the race has a winner, and the person with the lowest overall time wins the overall race. Earlier this week, the race was won by Austin Killips, a trans women.

The article reports:

…Killips also won the climber’s jersey (called the “Queen of the Mountains” jersey in this race) which is a competition within the overall race for those who score the most points on the climbs. To be fair, the overall winner in these type of races is often one of the top climbers so this isn’t unheard of but it’s a sign this was a fairly dominant performance. Killips apparently only started racing in 2019.

The fact that Killips began racing only four years ago and is now winning major victories is telling. Like it or not, men have different body structure than women.

The article notes that not everyone celebrated Killips’ victory:

This isn’t the first time Killips has stirred up controversy in the sport. Last month former champion racer Hannah Arensman quit the sport over having to compete with men including Killips.

…Decisions about who can compete aren’t up to the individual race organizers. Races of this type are governed by a world body called the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) which sets the rules for all sanctioned races including the rules allowing trans women to compete in women’s events. So after the race there were complaints that UCI needed to do something about the rules. Former tennis champ Martina Navratilova was one of the people who complained.

On May 5th, The U.K. Telegraph reported:

The International Cycling Union [UCI] is discussing the possibility of banning transgender athletes from female categories amid the outcry over Austin Killips’s first prize for women at the Tour of the Gila.

Killips’ victory in the premier road race in New Mexico prompted immediate calls for a rethink on rules drafted just last year and the governing body has now announced it is “reopening consultation”.

Telegraph Sport reported on Tuesday how UCI hierarchy is divided at the highest levels over calls to tighten international protections – but it now appears new rules could be agreed upon by August.

In a statement the body said on Thursday “participation of transgender athletes in international competitions was discussed” at a UCI management committee meeting. 

“The management committee decided to analyse the current situation by reopening consultation with the athletes and national federations, and therefore agreed to debate and take an eventual decision at its next meeting, in Glasgow, in August.”

The fact that trans-gender women are competing in women’s sports has cost many young women scholarships and opportunities to compete at higher levels. This is something that needs to change. It may be necessary to create a separate category for trans-gender women to compete in sports. I wonder how many would be competing if they did not have an advantage. Please follow the link to read the entire article at Hot Air. Some of the comments are very interesting.

This Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Serious

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the ongoing battle between Congress and the Supreme Court. According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress and the Supreme Court are co-equal branches of government–neither has oversight responsibility over the other.

The article reports:

According to both Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, 15 Democrats from the Judiciary Committee have sent a letter to the Appropriations Committee asking that funding for the security that defends the lives of the Supreme Court Justices and their families be denied until the Court buckles to the demands of the Democrats.

The article reports those demands:

The Democrats are making demands that the Court accept a Code of Ethics being pushed by the Left, and apparently, they have threatened to withhold funding for the security details that protect the Justices unless Chief Justice Roberts caves to their demands.

The article quotes The Washington Post:

Justice Samuel Alito was supposed to speak to law students at George Mason University in Arlington, Va., but when they showed up, he wasn’t there. “That Alito was speaking via closed circuit from a room at the Supreme Court seven miles away, rather than in person, was a sign these are not normal times,” the Washington Post reported. The Post didn’t explain what made the “times” abnormal.

It wasn’t a lingering fear of Covid-19. In a mid-April interview in his chambers, Justice Alito fills us in on the May 12, 2022, event: “Our police conferred with the George Mason Police and the Arlington Police and they said, ‘It’s not a good idea. He shouldn’t come here. . . . The security problems will be severe.’ So I ended up giving the speech by Zoom,” he says. “Still, there were so many protesters and they were so loud that you could hear them.”

…He adds that “I don’t feel physically unsafe, because we now have a lot of protection.” He is “driven around in basically a tank, and I’m not really supposed to go anyplace by myself without the tank and my members of the police force.” Deputy U.S. marshals guard the justices’ homes 24/7. (The U.S. Marshals Service, a bureau of the Justice Department, is distinct from the marshal of the court, who reports to the justices and oversees the Supreme Court Police.)

A federal law called Section 1507 makes it a crime to picket or parade “in or near” a federal judge’s residence “with the intent of influencing” him “in the discharge of his duty.” During a hearing last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland told Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) that the marshals have “full authority to arrest” violators of Section 1507. But according to training slides obtained by Sen. Katie Britt (R., Ala.), deputies on the justices’ residential details are told to enforce the law only as “a last resort to prevent physical harm to the Justices and/or their families.”

Maybe it’s time to send our Justices through Concealed Carry Training and issue them weapons. I am not sure the police are able or willing to protect them.

The Exploding Number Of Migrants

On May 1, Hot Air reported that over 15,000 migrants have illegally crossed the river near Brownsville, Texas, since last week. This is a sharp increase over the 1,700 migrants Border Patrol agents encountered in the first two weeks of April.

The article reports:

Chavez (Gloria Chavez, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley Sector) said the reason for the sudden increase isn’t clear yet but it may have to do with migrants being frustrated with the government app that allows them to seek asylum at a port of entry. The app is plagued with problems. Some migrants who crossed the border last week said cartel threats motivated them. Brownsville is across the Rio Grande River from Matamoros, Mexico, there is a huge camp of tents that house 2,000 people waiting to cross into Texas. Some of these tents were set on fire last week. Migrants blamed the cartels but government officials said the fires may have been set by frustrated migrants angry about their long wait on the border. Imagine that – migrants are so arrogant now that they expect to cross the border on their time schedule. This is what Biden’s border crisis has created.

The article notes:\

DHS Secretary Mayorkas still refuses to take accountability for the Biden border crisis. He put all the blame on Congress during an appearance on Meet the Press Sunday morning.

“We are seeing a level of migration not just at our southern border but throughout the hemisphere that is unprecedented,” Mayorkas said Sunday, adding that he believes our hemisphere is seeing the greatest level of migration since World War II.

Mayorkas said President Joe Biden “delivered a solution” to the crisis “on Day 1” of his term in the form of immigration reform legislation, and Mayorkas put the blame on Congress for being slow to act.

“Within the constraints of a broken immigration system, we are doing so much,” he said of the Biden administration.

“Our approach is to build lawful pathways, cut out the ruthless smugglers, deliver the lawful pathway so people can access humanitarian relief without having to take the dangerous journey from their home countries,” Mayorkas continued. “And at the same time, if they arrive at our southern border in between ports of entry, we will deliver consequences.”

It is very obvious that no one in the Biden administration takes any responsibility for the mess they have created.

A Scary Thought

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about President Biden’s re-election campaign. The theme of the campaign is going to be “Let’s finish the job.” That is a scary thought. So far we have through the roof inflation, the loss of energy independence, domestic spying, misuse of the Justice Department to target political opposition, and seemingly major corruption. What does the President want to finish?

The article reports:

Now that President Biden has rolled out his first campaign advertisement of the 2024 cycle, we’ve learned that his theme is going to be “Let’s finish the job.” As with so much else that we’ve watched unfold over the past two years, that video left me feeling like I was watching some sort of poorly scripted dystopian movie. He’s hardly the first president to adopt such a theme, but surely he’s aware that most of his target audience (likely voters who are interested in the election) have access to the internet or at least a television, right? We’ve all witnessed “the job” that he’s done thus far and the results that have been produced. Can Biden actually believe that people like the way things have been going? Let’s take a brief walk down memory lane, even though “memory” might not be Uncle Joe’s strong suit these days.

The article concludes:

So what was that you were saying about how everyone needs to give you a chance to “finish the job?” If the “job” in question was to completely wreck this country for far too many Americans, you probably don’t need a second term. The job looks like it’s nearly done already. But if you’re somehow arguing that your plans will make life better for everyday Americans, take a look around at all that you have wrought in barely two years. Why on earth would we believe you?

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. When you write it down all together, what the Biden administration has done to America is scary.

Who Has The Right To Compete In Women’s Sports?

On Tuesday, Hot Air reported that H.R. 734 is currently making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is how Congress.gov (you have to type in the bill number as the specific page expires) summarizes the bill:

Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023

This bill generally prohibits school athletic programs from allowing individuals whose biological sex at birth was male to participate in programs that are for women or girls.

Specifically, the bill provides that it is a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 for federally funded education programs or activities to operate, sponsor, or facilitate athletic programs or activities that allow individuals of the male sex to participate in programs or activities that are designated for women or girls. (Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs or activities, including in public elementary and secondary schools and in colleges and universities.) Under the bill, sex is based on an individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.

The bill does not prohibit male individuals from training or practicing with programs or activities for women or girls as long as such training or practice does not deprive any female of corresponding opportunities or benefits.

This sounds like common sense to me. However, not everyone agrees with the concepts stated in the bill.

Hot Air reports:

A new bill (H.R. 734) titled the Protection of Women and Girls Sports Act is currently making its way through the House with a vote anticipated later this week. The measure would prevent biological males from competing in women’s and girls’ sports in schools. The bill has even attracted some bipartisan support in the Senate, meaning that is should have a realistic chance of making it out of the legislature. But yesterday, the White House issued a statement saying that Joe Biden will veto the bill if it reaches his desk. This statement is the clearest sign yet that the President has fully bought into the ongoing transgender craze. But one aspect of the legislation could provide a watershed moment if a challenge to it reaches the courts.

…One interesting twist in this debate comes with the bill’s references to Title IX. For a long time now, starting with Barack Obama, Democrats have been fighting to expand the definition of the protections offered in Title IX to include transgender definitions. H.R. 734 seeks to turn the tables and invoke Title IX to apply directly to actual women as it was originally intended.

The second and more important facet of the legislation is found in its definition of the word “sex.” It clearly defines sex as being “based on an individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” This is precisely the sort of legal barricade that we need to drive home and put before the Supreme Court. The unscientific nonsense driving the entire transgender debate can’t be allowed to impose insanity on our legislative process and the laws of the land.

The fact that this bill is drawing at least some bipartisan support could be a signal of things to come.

What would happen if I decided to identify as a six-year old and signed up for t-ball? I might score a lot of home runs. Generally speaking, the physical structure of a man has more muscle mass than that of a woman. Men have no place competing in women’s sports. It’s not a fair competition.

When The Article Has No Relationship To The Truth

On Friday, Hot Air posted a story about a recent article in the Miami Herald that totally mislead readers regarding an arrest. The article in the Herald claims that the 13-year-old son of Rebekah Jones was arrested over memes he posted. That is totally misleading. Ms. Jones claimed that her son was kidnapped by the police, yet the article contains a video of her sitting in the police station as her son is arrested by a Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Deputy for threatening to shoot up a middle school.

The article includes a screen shot of the case. The screenshot includes the following:

This is obviously a disturbed child. His arrest may have prevented a school shooting. He is not a victim. He is suffering the consequences of his actions.

If is a safe bet that if this child had shot up the school, the media would blame the gun. This is one of many reasons the mainstream media is never to be believed.

Please follow the link above for the rest of the story.

 

 

Does Anyone Actually Believe That The United Nations Is A Positive Force For World Peace?

On Sunday, Hot Air reported that due to the normal rotation of leadership, Vladimir Putin has now become the president of the United Nations Security Council.

The article reports:

The United Nations Security Council rotates new members in as the president of the council on a monthly basis. This month it was Russia’s turn, making Vladimir Putin the president. While this was no doubt an annoyance to most of the NATO allies in the UN, it was particularly bothersome to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski. Last night he took his complaints to the press, describing the move as “absurd and destructive.” He pointed out that a five-month-old child had been killed by a Russian missile strike only the day before. His Foreign Minister joined him in protesting the situation, calling it “a slap in the face to the international community.” But the position is almost entirely ceremonial and it’s unlikely that Putin will be showing up for any meetings in the near future.

The article also notes:

Look at the current membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Some of the most autocratic nations guilty of massive human rights abuses are seated there, including China and the United Arab Emirates. (And Russia, of course.) Other examples abound throughout the entirety of the UN.

But how likely is it that Vladimir Putin will actually show up to gavel a meeting into session? Keep in mind that the International Criminal Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Putin over war crimes committed in Ukraine. The court isn’t technically part of the UN, falling under the Assembly of State Parties, but it runs pretty much in parallel. Wouldn’t the other members of the council feel obligated to slap some handcuffs on Putin if he showed up?

That would make for an interesting wrinkle in this story. If anyone had the audacity to actually arrest him, Russia would almost certainly retaliate, potentially expanding the conflict to dangerous levels. Then again, Putin may be counting on everyone being aware of that possibility. While it seems unlikely, he might just show up to prove a point.

Let’s kick the United Nations out of New York City and turn the building into affordable housing!

When The Department Of Justice Decides To Enforce Only Some Of The Laws

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the protests outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices after the leak of the Dobbs decision.

The article reports:

Freshman Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) exposed an inconvenient truth Tuesday during a budget hearing. Attorney General Merrick Garland was questioned during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing about the fact that U.S. Marshals guarding the homes of Supreme Court justices have been instructed not to arrest protesters even though Garland previously claimed that the marshals have a free hand when it comes to making arrests.

Senator Britt came with proof that the marshals are instructed in the training package that arrests of protesters outside of the homes of Supreme Court justices are not priorities. The protests are regularly held outside the homes of the conservative Supreme Court justices in response to the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v Wade. Ever since a draft was deliberately leaked last spring that indicated the Court would overturn Roe v Wade, protesters have violated a federal statute that outlaws protesting at a judge’s home with the intent to influence a ruling. That is exactly what the protesters are doing.

In today’s highly-charged political atmosphere, such protests have the potential to turn deadly. Last June, local police arrested an armed man who traveled from California to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in suburban Maryland with the intention to kill him. He told police he was angry about the Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and guns. He was charged in federal court with seeking to assassinate the Supreme Court justice. That incident highlighted the potential danger the justices and their families are in while they are in their homes. Congress approves additional security for the justices.

There are a number of problems with the protesters at the justices’ homes. First of all, protesting at a judge’s home to influence a ruling is illegal. Secondly, Justice Roberts created a problem when he voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. Because his vote made the decision a 5-4 decision rather than a 6-3 decision, it sent a message to the abortion lobby that all they need is one justice to reverse the decision. That was a bad move on Justice Roberts’ part and may result in violence against one of the other justices. Meanwhile the protesters breaking the law don’t have to worry about the fact that they are committing a crime.

Watching America Become A Banana Republic

On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the latest January 6th conviction. My heart hurts for the people who have been unconstitutionally kept in jail in less than idea conditions for more than two years. Meanwhile, actual rioters during the summer of 2020 have had their charges dropped.

Just to refresh your memory, Real Clear Investigations has reported (posted September 9, 2021, revised and updated 2022) the following:

  • The summer 2020 riots resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 19 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 740 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot.
  • Authorities have pursued the largely Trump-supporting Capitol rioters with substantially more vigor than suspected wrongdoers in the earlier two cases, and prosecutors and judges alike have weighed Capitol riot defendants’ political views in adjudicating their cases.
  • Dozens of accused Capitol rioters have been held in pretrial detention for months, where they have allegedly been mistreated.
  • In the summer 2020 riots, the vast majority of charges were dismissed, as they were in the Inauguration 2017 unrest. 

Meanwhile, Hot Air reports:

Riley June Williams has been sentenced to three years in prison along with three years of supervised release and a $2,000 fine. You’re to be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Ms. Williams since she isn’t exactly a household name, but she was one of the rioters who went into the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. She was just 22 years old at the time. Prosecutors had done their best to throw the book at the young woman, asking for more than seven years in prison. Her attorney requested one year and one day. The judge apparently felt that three years was a compromise. But as with so many of these show trials, a closer look at what Williams was actually accused of and the charges where they managed to obtain convictions doesn’t exactly paint the picture of a dangerous desperado.

…She eventually reached Pelosi’s office and, as mentioned above, she later claimed to have stolen a gavel from the then-Speaker’s desk. I did some shopping online and found that most of the really nice wooden gavels can be purchased for less than fifty bucks. But let’s just say that Nancy Pelosi had a really top-of-the-line gavel made of crystal. That’s still less than 200 dollars. With apologies to the prosecutors, there’s no such thing as Grand Theft Gavel. But while the AP article claims she stole the gavel, there is no indication in the Justice Department report that she was even charged with theft, to say nothing of being convicted. Given how desperately the prosecutors seemed to be trying to charge her with everything under the sun, why would they pass on the opportunity to take her down for theft? We may never know.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. I started this blog as an outlet so that I wouldn’t throw shoes at the television. This situation might drive me back to throwing shoes.

Sunlight Is The Best Disinfectant

On Monday, Hot Air reported that at least temporarily Microsoft has ‘suspended’ the use of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) as a result of The Washington Examiner’s exposing their blacklists.

The article reports:

It’s a win. It might only prove temporary, but it’s still a win for now.

Last week, the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky exposed secret blacklists of conservative sites created by the “Global Disinformation Index.” Those blacklists included Hot Air, Townhall, RedState, and Twitchy, and lots of other conservative sites under the ambiguous guise of “disinformation.” No one from GDI or its sponsors ever bothered to contact us to discuss their “assessment,” nor did their reports ever cite any specific data for any of the sites blacklisted, despite a lengthy yet completely data-free discussion of their “methodology.”

…Several House Republicans demanded hearings on GDI in the immediate future. It will fit nicely into the GOP’s efforts to expose the political weaponization of government. It also comes at the same time that the Twitter Files and a lawsuit against Facebook have exposed government efforts to quash and silence dissent and debate on social media platforms. This takes that effort several steps further — attempting to strangle conservative voices even outside of the Big Tech platforms.

The article notes:

Once again, this is why we fight. We knew that we could not rely on Big Tech to provide us easy access to advertisers, but we didn’t know they’d adopt blacklists to cut us off entirely. Our members are what keep us going, and we appreciate them for standing up to the GDIs and the other McCarthyists.

The squeaky wheel gets the oil. The only way to change things is to speak out.

Targeting The People Who Can Least Afford It

On February 8, Hot Air posted an article about the Biden administration’s plan to crack down on unreported tips.

The article reports:

Remember when we were told that the army of new IRS agents Biden wants to hire was only going to go after billionaires? Good times. If that’s the case, somebody should check to see if Bill Gates and Elon Musk have taken some side gigs slinging hash at a diner somewhere. (Of course, in Musk’s case it may come to that if he can’t get 10 million more people to sign up for Twitter Blue.) As it turns out, the Tax Man is launching a new program to crack down on tips received by wait staff in the food and beverage industry. That’s right. The IRS thinks that waiters and waitresses are pocketing too much money in gratuities, and Uncle Sam plans on getting his piece of the action. (Fox News).

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed a revenue procedure this week cracking down on service industry’s reporting of tips.

The so-called Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program would be a voluntary tip reporting system in which the IRS and service industry companies cooperate, according to the announcement Monday. As part of the proposal, the IRS will give the public until early May to provide feedback on the program before implementing it.

“Those 87,000 new IRS agents that you were promised would only target the rich…” Mike Palicz, the federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform, tweeted. “They’re coming after waitresses’ tips now.”

The article concludes:

The whole concept of an “income tax” is based on the compensation a person is paid by their employer. The wait staff’s tips shouldn’t be taxed at all because the patrons are not their employers and are under no obligation to tip them. It’s really more of a gift given in appreciation for good service.

But that probably won’t stop the IRS from doing this. And it’s policies like these that have made me develop a habit of always tipping in cash when we dine out, even if we pay for the meal with a debit card. I tend to be a bit of an exorbitant tipper (at least according to my wife) but regular customers who tip well generally wind up getting much better service in my experience. And I enjoy the looks on the faces of hard-working servers when they find some twenty-dollar bills that they can just stick in their pockets waiting for them. As far as I’m concerned, owners of bars and restaurants should tell the IRS to keep its nose out of their employees’ tips.

At some point, I wish the government would realize that what people earn is theirs and the government actually has no right to any of it. If the spending habits of our government were a bit more sane, some of us might not mind paying the ridiculous taxes that we pay. Right now–in
America–taxpayers pay more money to the government than the Midievil surfs did to the lords of the manor. That is not acceptable.

The Jury Gets It Right

On Monday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about the federal court jury that found Mark Houck not guilty. As you may remember, Mark Houck was arrested in an early morning raid on his house by an armed swat team in front of his children. What was his crime? He was charged with violating the The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act). Mr. Houck leads a pro-life group that provides sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics in Philadelphia. The incident in question involves one of the abortion clinic escorts harassing Mark Houck’s son. When the case was originally brought to court, the court threw it out. Then the federal government decided to get involved.

The article at Hot Air reports:

By the way, this isn’t over yet. Eleven others face prosecution for FACE Act charges for allegedly blocking access to abortion clinics, as Greg points out in a subsequent tweet. The Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan covered this in October:

…Amid accusations that it is targeting pro-lifers to silence and intimidate, the Justice Department has charged 11 more pro-life activists with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act for blocking the entrance of an abortion clinic in 2021.

The 11 activists were charged with FACE Act violations stemming from their 2021 “blockade” of an abortion clinic in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. This blockade was peaceful, pro-life activist AJ Hurley told The Daily Signal on Wednesday evening.

Several of the activists were arrested on the day of the blockade, after reportedly successfully preventing abortions from taking place at the clinic for most of the day, but police reportedly released these activists later in the day after they posted bail for misdemeanor charges, the pro-life news outlet Live Action reported.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, the FBI has done little to pursue actual acts of vandalism and political violence that targeted pro-life clinics. Two people got indicted last week in Florida. but most other victims have barely heard from the FBI — and the 30-agent raid model somehow didn’t get deployed in these cases, either.

It seems that the process is the punishment at the Department of Justice. It’s yet another good reason that Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans have established a new select committee on the weaponization of federal law enforcement. Mark Houck will no doubt provide chapter and verse on that subject, starting with the astonishing raid over an argument.

 

Good News For Covid Patients In California

On Thursday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about a recent ruling by US District Court Judge William Shubb on enforcement of AB 2098.

The article reports:

Can the state of California enforce its own idea of “scientific consensus” on doctors who treat patients for COVID-19? Not after last night, when US District Court Judge William Shubb slapped an injunction on enforcement of AB 2098. This undoubtedly sets up a showdown at the Ninth Circuit, but for the moment the gag rule on doctors has been shut down.

After reading Shubb’s opinion about how badly the state legislature crafted the law, however, Gavin Newsom might want to think twice about further exposure. In the first place, the law forces doctors to only convey the “scientific consensus” on COVID-19 rather than their own judgment, when no one — not the legislature or its attorneys — can provide a definition of that term in relation to COVID-19:

…Shubb agrees with the plaintiffs in this action, noting that the “scientific consensus” regarding a novel virus only under study for three years is at best an aspirational concept. In practice, as Shubb notes, the “consensus” — as defined by California’s reliance on public-health officials — has changed repeatedly in that time. That puts every doctor at risk for prosecution in California no matter what they might say in any given moment, a standard so unreliable as to practically embody the terms “arbitrary” and “capricious”:

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Physicians know their patients better than the government. A physician is much more able to look at a patient, understand the degree of risk that person will have in dealing with Covid. There doesn’t seem to be logic in the way different people react to Covid, and doctors should be allowed to do what they think is best for their patients. For example, the doctors at Frontline Doctors had a very high success rate in treating Covid patients, yet the government did everything possible to silence them and to prevent them from successfully treating patients.

Hopefully this case is the beginning of patients and doctors reclaiming the rights of Americans to good medical care.