Archive for 2021
January 6, 2021
QUESTION ASKED: What does Gov. Andrew Cuomo have against those 75 and older (that we don’t already know)?
75, you say? Future Biden Coronavirus task force member Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel in the Atlantic in 2014: Why I Hope to Die at 75.
Related: New York’s mass-vaccination plans are shelved as Cuomo takes different path.
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Link found between self-control in childhood and success later in life.
JUST NBC THE GASLIGHTING! Hilarious: MSNBC’s Al Sharpton Repeatedly Insists He’s ‘Nonpartisan.’
Flashback: Al Sharpton: Power Dem.
HE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD! Joe Biden taps Merrick Garland as attorney general nominee: report.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Sharp left: the Democrats have taken control of America.
ECONOMIC DEVASTATION FITS ENVIRONMENTALISTS’ GOALS: Study: Cleaner air in pandemic-era NYC reveals possible future.
There’s massive mistrust of our electoral system now. Why don’t we adopt the sort of safeguards other democracies routinely use?
HARSH BUT FAIR: Charter Schools Work. No Wonder Democrats Want To Kill Them.
History forced Al Gore into an awkward moment of irony two months after he lost the 2000 presidential election. He had to preside over the joint session of Congress that officially sealed his political fate — and to rebuff several attempts by fellow Democrats to give him a victory.
“The objection may not be received,” Gore said bluntly and repeatedly during the normally routine counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2001. Federal law demanded that he rule that way, and the joint session eventually confirmed the results of Election Day: George W. Bush defeated Gore by 271–266 electoral votes, the third-closest margin in presidential history.
A similar scenario is expected to materialize next month when Vice President Mike Pence presides over the mandatory vote tally for the 2020 presidential election. It would be the fourth time this century — and only the fifth since the current vote-counting process was enacted in 1887 — that members of Congress have objected to the results of a presidential election.
Democrats picked all four of the previous fights.
Read the whole thing.
President Trump is right in saying that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud. I think he is quite likely right, although no one knows for sure, in alleging that absent fraud he would have been re-elected. But his conduct has nevertheless become indefensible. . . . At this point, it is blindingly obvious that Trump has no pathway to victory. To the extent that Democrats committed or enabled voter fraud, they have done so successfully. There never was a plausible way to challenge the certified results in any state in the 60+ days between the election and the inauguration. Whether fraud occurred, sufficient to reverse an apparent result in any state, is a complicated question of fact that would require months, if not years, to litigate fairly.
Battles in support of election integrity needed to be fought in advance of the election, not afterward, when it is too late. But the Trump campaign, for some unfathomable reason, was seemingly unprepared for the foreseeable prevalence of voter fraud. Even when the election was over, Trump scrambled to put together a legal team.
Actually he had two high-powered law firms, well-equipped for this sort of battle, who were intimidated into dropping their representation by a campaign of social-media threats.
GIDEON RACHMAN: Europe has handed China a strategic victory.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, says she wants to lead a “geopolitical commission”. But Ms Von der Leyen concluded 2020 by sending a truly awful geopolitical message — as her commission signed off on an investment treaty between the EU and China.
Over the past year, China has crushed the freedom of Hong Kong, intensified oppression in Xinjiang, killed Indian troops, threatened Taiwan and sanctioned Australia. By signing a deal with China nonetheless, the EU has signalled that it doesn’t care about all that. As Janka Oertel, director of the Asia programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, puts it: “This is a massive diplomatic win for China.”
It is also a considerable kick in the teeth for Joe Biden. The US president-elect has stressed that, after Donald Trump, he wants to make a fresh start with Europe. In particular, the Biden administration wants to work on China issues together with fellow democracies. Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national security adviser, issued a last-minute plea for the Europeans to hold off on signing the deal — at least until they had a chance to discuss it with the new administration. He was ignored.
Why would Europe listen to the protestations of someone who is just as eager to make deals with Beijing as they were?
NEW CIVIL LIBERTIES ALLIANCE FILES AMICUS BRIEF IN SECOND CIRCUIT AGAINST CORNELL EFFORT TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST MALE FACULTY: From the press release:
NCLA’s client, Dr. Vengalattore, was a tenure-track physics professor at Cornell University when a Title IX investigation launched by a false accusation ruined his promising career. NCLA seeks to reverse the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, which dismissed the case against Cornell and the Dept. of Education without ruling on the substance of the claims presented by Dr. Vengalattore.
NCLA’s brief argues that the disciplinary proceedings violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Cornell is trying hard to deny Dr. Vengalattore his day in court by wrongly interpreting Title IX to allow only students and not faculty a right to sue under the statute. But the overwhelming majority of federal appeals courts have rejected this restrictive reading of Title IX, as it is inconsistent with Supreme Court Title IX case law. Title IX states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance,” which is broad enough language to encompass students and employees.
Cornell’s highly improper investigatory procedures and low ‘preponderance of the evidence’ burden of proof were adopted in response to a threat from the Department of Education (ED) to comply with its Title IX “guidance” or else lose federal funding.
NCLA further argues that the disciplinary proceedings at Cornell that led to the false finding against Dr. Vengalattore were conducted in a racially discriminatory manner in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Faculty members who reviewed Dr. Vengalattore’s employee file made racist comments about Dr. Vengalattore and about his and his students’ national origin in official documents that were reviewed by the dean of the college without any rebuke.
Why is Cornell such a cesspit of racism and sexism?
The brief is here.
THAT NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY ISN’T GOING TO SHRINK ITSELF, YOU KNOW: House Democrats ‘Cancel’ Themselves With Gender-Neutral Rules Excluding ‘Mother,’ ‘Father.’
RASMUSSEN: GOP Voters Strongly Support Senators Challenging Biden’s Election. “More than a dozen senators say they will challenge Joe Biden’s election when Congress meets today to certify the results, and Republican voters overwhelmingly support the challenge. . . . Seventy-three percent (73%) of GOP voters support the Senate effort challenging Biden’s election, compared to just 22% of Republicans who oppose the Senate challenge.”
Playing this to the end will help solidify the base, I suspect. And the Dems’ 2016 intransigence certainly didn’t hurt them in 2020.
POLITICAL SUPPORT HAS “COLLAPSED” BECAUSE TEACHERS’ UNIONS DON’T CARE ABOUT KIDS: Unlearning an Answer Charter schools deliver extraordinary results, but their political support among Democrats has collapsed. What will Biden do?
He’ll do whatever the special interests want. Because that’s his role.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Democrats Go Full Radical Nutjob, Win Anyway.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What did we do to deserve this?
Answer: We don’t have an answer. We just need an existential-level question to ponder to justify our post-election day-drinking.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Karen goes Crazy Train over unmasked coffee drinker
- Portland businesses pay the price for Portland government fecklessness
- Bill Nye isn’t the only “scientish” in town
Bonus Sanity: Antifa “reporter” actually held accountable for lawbreaking.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER: UF grad students host academic town hall open only to students of color.
DON’T BE EVIL: Google Hasn’t Updated Its iOS Apps Since the Day Before Apple’s New Privacy Labels Requirement. “Google has yet to comment on the report, so the reason for the lack of recent iOS app updates is unconfirmed, but Fast Company makes the reasonable assumption that Google might be trying to delay revealing its privacy label information, especially after the negative attention that Facebook received over its very lengthy privacy label.”