Reds Under the Bed

For John, BLUF:  We have had Communists in the Treasury Department since at least World War II, the Big One.  However, this seems a little blattant.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Treasury Department Nominee Says Biden Administration Purposefully Wants to Bankrupt Oil, Coal and Gas Companies

From The Conservative Tree House, by Sundance, 9 November 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

Against catastrophic outcomes, we have been pointing out how the people within the Biden administration are not incompetent; they know exactly what they are doing, and they are destroying the U.S. economic system on purpose.  All of their economic damage is by design, it’s a feature – not a flaw.

An example today is so demonstrative of that point, it’s almost a parody.  Joe Biden’s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a branch of the Treasury Department that polices some 1,125 banks, is a communist ideologue named Saule Omarova.  She is directly from communist central casting and literally from Kazakhstan in the former Soviet Union.  Ms. Omarova graduated from Moscow State University in 1991, and Joe Biden nominated her for the OCC job in September.

Today, Ms. Omarova is caught on tape saying it is the intent of the Biden administration to use the treasury department to bankrupt oil, coal and natural gas companies.  This is what happens often with avowed ideologues; they are so focused on their mission to destroy the U.S., they often just say the stuff out loud

I would say Ms Omarova is problamtic as a high level Tresury official.  I was thinking that before this most recent revelation.  Before this she was talking about eliminating local banks.

What are they thinking?  Who are they paying off?  For sure, this kind of thinking is not good for our Capitalist system, for Citizenry across the fruited plain, or for the environment.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Doubling Down

For John, BLUF:  This is how gamblers go deep into debt and nations lose wars—they double down on a strategy that isnt going well.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Biden Advisor Ignores Warnings From Election Defeats, Wants to Push Further Left

From PJ Media, by Writer A.J. Kaufman, 7 November 2021, 2:16 PM ET.

Here is the lede plus four:

Blind to reality and wholly dedicated to partisan politics, Democrats have ignored their major electoral setbacks last week and doubled down on their radical agenda.

The party even refuses to listen to its own strategists, or a Democrat congresswoman who’s been successful in the very places where they received backlash last week.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who’s twice won in a suburban Richmond district that was held by Republicans for 40 years prior, is someone with credibility.  After the Tuesday shellacking, she told the New York Times “nobody” made Joe Biden president to pursue sweeping legislation similar to former President Franklin Roosevelt’s transformative New Deal, but rather they elected Biden to “be normal and stop the chaos.”

Needless to say, that has not occurred.

Asked on “Fox News Sunday” if Spanberger was wrong for this view, Biden’s senior advisor and former congressman Cedric Richmond surprisingly said she was.

In the article the veteran non-partisan election analyst Charlie Cook is quoted:

They are pretending they have political capital in the bank when the reality is, they are overdrawn.

I see the Administration, and the Democrat Party Leadership in Congress taking a big leap of faith.  I am guessing they won't be able to make it to the other side in 2022, or maybe even 2024.

That said, in these United States the side in power manages to alienate the voters, after a while, and we have a reversal of fortune.

Regards  —  Cliff

Call to Action

For John, BLUF:  This talks to a problem which is often misidentified, but a problem that needs to be fixed nevertheless—voter turnout.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Solving the national civics crisis begins in our homes

From The [Lowell] Sun, by Ms Katharine C. Gorka, 5 November 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

As the election results in Virginia and elsewhere demon-strate, many parents are upset with how American history and civics are being taught in schools.  And it’s hard to blame them.

Some feel we are tearing down our nation’s past.  Others believe we are not doing enough to tell the history of all Americans, particularly those in communities that have long been marginalized.  The good news is that discussions are taking place in school districts nationwide over what we should teach our children.  The bad news is that those debates may not resolved anytime soon.

But parents can take an active role in ensuring their children receive the education they want them to have.

Yes, the problem Lowell faced a while back with the lawsuit about how we elect local officials was really about a failure of the School Committee to ensure we teach civics.

Lowell has a new system for electing local officials.  Now we have to knucle down and make it work.  That means serious civics instruction.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Citizen Journalism

For John, BLUF:  The story is summed up in these two sentences:  "Captain Lorenzo [Die Hard 2] understood this.  The officers in Laredo should have, too….".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Right to Ask Government Officials Questions

Here is the sub-headline:

The Die Hard 2 Principle makes a special appearance

From Reason, by Lawyer Eugene Volokh, 3 November 2021, 2:39 PM.

Here is the lede plus one:

From Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho's Monday opinion, joined by Judge James Graves, in Villarreal v. City of Laredo (Chief Judge Priscilla Owen dissented and stated she "will file a forthcoming dissenting opinion"):

If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being imprisoned.  Yet that is exactly what happened here:  Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question.

If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it's hard to imagine what would be.  And as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, public officials are not entitled to qualified immunity for obvious violations of the Constitution….

Priscilla Villarreal is a journalist in Laredo, Texas. She regularly reports on local crime, missing persons, community events, traffic, and local government.  But Villarreal is not a traditional journalist.  Instead of publishing her stories in the newspaper, she posts them on her Facebook page.  Instead of using a tape recorder to conduct interviews, she uses her cell phone to live-stream video footage of crime scenes and traffic accidents.  Her reporting frequently includes colorful—and often unfiltered—commentary.  Perhaps because of this, she is one of Laredo's most popular news sources, with more than 120,000 Facebook followers. See, e.g., Simon Romero, La Gordiloca:  The Swearing Muckraker Upending Border Journalism, N.Y. Times (Mar. 10, 2019) ("[Villarreal] is arguably the most influential journalist in Laredo, a border city of 260,000.")….  [But] local law enforcement officials [have been] less than enthused with Villarreal's reporting….

Once in a while the Courts protect the rights of the Citizens against the Government.

I am hoping that this Court decision holds up.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Confusion in DC

For John, BLUF:  It appears that there is not a strong voice in the Executive Branch, guiding policy.  Thus we have gridlock.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Klain in Vain

Here is the sub-headline:

#43: Did Biden's chief of staff make a fateful blunder?

From Kaus Files, by Political Analyst Mickey Kaus, 2 November 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

There’s a remote—but increasingly less remote— possibility that Dems will wind up with neither of their two big spending bills:  1) the bipartisan “BIF” hard infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc.) bill and 2) the partisan Dem social spending laundry list, aka “Build Back Better” (BBB).

Why would that happen?  Because Terry McAuliffe’s upset loss in Virginia could freak out vulnerable Dems, who then bail from the second, BBB bill — the way an Eric Cantor loss in Virginia freaked Congress out about “comprehensive immigration reform” and sank that legislation in 2014.  But if BBB dies … well, since many progressives only support the bipartisan “hard” infrastructure bill if it’s twinned with BBB, it’s possible enough of them might vote against the bipartisan bill to sink it too.  (It would only take 4 or 5, out of a “Progressive Caucus” of 94 members, to do that.) Biden’s agenda dies in a Tarantino gunfight.

Still an unlikely scenario, as it’s always been almost inconceivable that the Democrats would screw things up so badly they’d end up passing nothing.  But this achievement is now within reach, and if it happens, it looks like there will be an obvious fall guy: Ron Klain, President Biden’s chief of staff.

I find it hard to believe that the Troika (Biden, Pelosi and Schumer) can't make it happen.  Surely the staffs will eventually get together and find a compromise.  Compromise is what the system is set up to force on the elected officials.  So why isn't it happening?  If you think the system is hard broke then you take an all or nothing position.  I would describe it as a repudiation of our American experiment.

On the other hand, if President Biden is not exercising a strong hand, then power is fragmented in the Executive Branch.  There is not a clear voice, a certain trumpet, as the Good Book says, and we will have problems.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

We Are Making Progress

For John, BLUF:  I expect the Progressive Democrats will draw a lot of wrong lessons from Tuesday's election, as will the Republicans.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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New Virginia Lieutenant Governor

Here is the Tweet:

Iris Miller
@IrisCMiller

Can’t wait to see the media talk about her historic victory breaking down barriers in a former slave state.

Oh wait, she’s a Republican.

Mollie
@MZHemingway

First black woman elected statewide in Virginia is conservative Winsome Sears.

Good on Virginia.

Good on Winsome Sears.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Shanksville Monument

For John, BLUF:  A quick loook at the monument outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to the passengers aboard Flight 93, who took down the hijacked airliner, at the cost of their own lives.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A SHANKSVILLE MEDITATION

Here is the sub-headline:

It took the passengers of Flight 93 less than 20 minutes to decide that they would rather risk death as free men and women than submit to certain destruction as submissive captives of evil men intent on mass murder.

From The Pilot, by Mr George Weigel, 27 October 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

The most moving feature of the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, are the pictures of the 40 brave men and women who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, while preventing al-Qaeda terrorists from destroying the U.S. Capitol.  At this moment of intense divisiveness and polarization in America, it's important to reflect on those images and learn from them, however peripheral they may be to the memorial's design.

At 8:42 a.m. on 9/11, United 93, a Boeing 757, took off on a flight from Newark to San Francisco.  The north tower of the World Trade Center was struck by a hijacked airliner four minutes later.  At 9:03 a.m., the south tower was hit.  Some 25 minutes after that, terrorists seized control of United 93.  And a few minutes later, the Pentagon was struck by another hijacked plane.  The next 20 minutes wrote an epic story of courage and resolve into the annals of American history.

Thanks to cell phones and on-board airphones, Flight 93's passengers, who were herded to the back of the plane after the hijackers seized the cockpit, learned what had happened to the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.  Thirty-seven phone calls, plus the fact that the plane had reversed its course and was heading east toward Washington, convinced the passengers that the hijacking of United 93 was part of a coordinated terrorist plot to cripple the United States.  After discussing their situation and responsibilities, the passengers voted to try and retake the plane, tackling the hijacker who remained in the passenger cabin (and claimed to have a bomb), and then forcing their way into the cockpit to regain control of a 65-ton jetliner careening through the sky.

Passenger Todd Beamer, whose call, "Let's Roll" has lived beyond the day is the known hero.  That said, all the passangers on that flight acted like Americans and came together to do the right thing I thank them for their fine example.

Mr Weigel is not all that impressed with the Shanksville Monument.  But he is very impressed with the dignity of those passangers on that flight.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff