KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Stacey’s Right — Republicans Could Still Ruin Everything. “I was called a ‘sell-out’ for wanting the GOP to embrace the 21st century and pitch a story that would make undecided voters show up for them. The Capitol Hill Club Republicans all live in 1988. The new stuff scares them.”
Archive for 2022
February 16, 2022
THE TYRANTS OF THAT AGE WERE MORE CIVILIZED THAN THE “DEMOCRATIC LEADERS” OF TODAY:
THE PARENTS’ REVOLUTION GATHERS STEAM: San Francisco recalls 3 members of city’s school board.
Three members of San Francisco’s school board were ousted Tuesday in the wake of widespread backlash over the slow reopening of schools shut down by COVID-19 and a controversial plan to rename dozens of school sites.
School board president Gabriela López, vice president Faauuga Moliga and commissioner Alison Collins were all stripped of their positions during a special election, according to tallies by the San Francisco Department of Elections.
Furious parents launched the recall effort in January 2021 after arguing the school board was pushing progressive politics instead of acting in the best interests of children amid the pandemic.
“The city of San Francisco has risen up and said this is not acceptable to put our kids last,” said Siva Raj, a father of two who helped launch the recall effort.
More like this, please.
DECOUPLING: America Is Showering China With New Restrictions. “In recent years, Washington’s China policies have expanded rapidly into technology sectors such as telecommunications, semiconductors, data security, and financial services. Growing bipartisan concern about Beijing’s actions and intentions have fueled these developments, with little difference between the Trump and Biden administrations or between the White House and Congress.”
Well, good.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Trust in elected leaders and media hits bottom.
REVOLUTION WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A SLOGAN, NOT AN EVENT: Why They’re So Afraid of the Truckers: When real labor awakens to the true parasitic nature of the Left, the whole system comes crashing down.
DON’T GET COCKY: Republicans Hold a Massive 13 Point Lead on a Generic Ballot — Don’t Underestimate Their Ability to Blow It. “What Republicans should not be doing is unveiling plans that include amnesty for millions of illegal aliens as seven House members are.”
THE ABA NEEDS TO LOSE ITS ROLE IN ACCREDITATION, IT’S TOO PARTISAN AND IDEOLOGICAL: How the American Bar Association Just Radicalized Law School.
BE PREPARED: Augason Farms Breakfast and Dinner Variety Pail Emergency Food Supply Everyday Meals 4 Gallon Pail. #CommissionEarned
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Seattle’s Transit System ‘Unusable’ due to Toxic Fentanyl, Meth Smoke.
The Times reported the transit system has become overloaded with reports of toxic fentanyl, meth smoke and volatile behavior. It has created a toxic work environment for employees and has scared off travelers.
In an attempt to turn things around, the city plans to release a new “Safety, Security and Fare Enforcement Initiative” in February. The initiative incorporates surveys and comments from 8,000 people.
The Times reports that plan hopes to improve the dangerous environment, welcome back commuters, but also show compassion to those who are doing drugs, and especially homeless people, as “a necessary step on its journey to becoming an anti-racist mobility agency” according to the King County website.
Translation: They’re doubling down on stupid.
YOU DON’T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO SEE WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS: 30 retirements and counting: Moderate House Dem Kathleen Rice throws in the towel.
#HIMTOO? Chris Cuomo fired after CNN learned of alleged sex attack during office ‘lunch:’ report.
And if you missed it last night: Allison Gollust Has Resigned from CNN Following Warnermedia Probe of Cuomo, Zucker.
I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY WAS A LIBERTY DESTINATION: Liberals and Conservatives Agree: Florida Leads in Liberty — and in Tourism.
February 15, 2022
PUSHBACK: Judge blocks Michelle Wu’s Boston employee vaccine mandate, orders injunction.
An appellate judge has ruled against Mayor Michelle Wu, indefinitely extending the court-ordered pause on enforcement of Boston’s employee coronavirus vaccine mandate as the public-safety unions further prevailed in a lawsuit against the city.
Massachusetts Appeals Court Association Justice Sabita Singh issued the order on Tuesday, overturning a lower-court judge’s decision to let Wu go ahead with disciplining city workers who didn’t get the shot.
“Given the limited harm to the city and the public health interest it seeks to promote, and the substantial harm likely to be sustained by the unions in the absence of an injunction, the balance of harms favors the issuance of an injunction to preserve the status quo, in view of the unions’ likelihood of success on the merits,” Singh wrote.
She added that “an injunction would avoid the risk of loss of essential public employees, a harm suffered by the unions and the public alike.”
This stems from a lawsuit filed by the International Fire Fighters Association Local 718, Boston Police Superior Officers Federation and Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society against the mandate Wu announced in December. As the omicron variant surged, the mayor rolled out a policy that all municipal workers would need to get one shot of the vaccine by Jan. 15 or face discipline — up to firing.
But the unions argued that Wu didn’t have the authority to override the memoranda of agreement they’d signed with the city in the fall under a previous vax-or-test rule, and that this new requirement doesn’t have the same urgency as the city was claiming.
“The employees represented by the unions — members of the police and fire departments — ‘are vital to the City,’ as the motion judge noted,” Singh wrote, citing the lower-court judge’s comments that were complimentary of the first responders.
After a January hearing days before enforcement was due to begin — and as the omicron-driven surge was right around all-time highs — Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke said that the unions’ collective-bargaining arguments likely had a leg to stand on, but that he wouldn’t rule on that at the time, and he ultimately said he would not enjoin the city from taking action during a public-health emergency.
The Boston Police Superior Officers Federation said Tuesday’s decision is “a thoughtful and independent review of the facts and the law.”
I sense a change in the weather. Something’s happening here. Storm warning and it looks like rain.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: ‘Trudeau is Alone’: Fifth Canadian Province Abandons Vaccine Passports Amid Crackdown on Freedom Convoy.
Related: Trudeau the Thieving Bully. “Which of these limited powers is Trudeau invoking first? None of them. He’s using it to track and steal the money of people who dare to disagree with him. . . . How quickly government power went from ‘We’re only taking money from druglords and terrorists’ to ‘We’re tracking all transactions of peaceful protestors.’ Imagine if the U.S. government announced it was going to freeze the bank accounts and impound the cars of everyone marching in Selma. That’s what’s going on in Canada. All over a vaccine mandate that was never enacted into law by Canada’s parliament.”
That’s dangerous. He certainly doesn’t want anyone looking into his money.
As the US Department of Justice says, a riot is the voice of the unheard.
THE LATEST FROM PROJECT VERITAS: FDA Executive Officer on Hidden Camera Reveals Future COVID Policy: ‘Biden Wants To Inoculate As Many People As Possible. . . Have to Get an Annual Shot.’
FDA Official Statement: “The person purportedly in the video does not work on vaccine matters and does not represent the views of the FDA.”
ALLISON GOLLUST HAS RESIGNED FROM CNN FOLLOWING WARNERMEDIA PROBE OF CUOMO, ZUCKER:
Allison Gollust, the chief marketing officer at CNN, has resigned from the network following a WarnerMedia investigation into “issues associated with Chris Cuomo and former Governor Andrew Cuomo,” according to a memo from Jason Kilar, the company’s CEO.
“Performed by a third-party law firm and led by a former federal judge, the investigation was comprehensive and definitive. It was commissioned in September and concluded this weekend, which now allows me to share additional information with you,” Kilar said. ” Based on interviews of more than 40 individuals and a review of over 100,000 texts and emails, the investigation found violations of Company policies, including CNN’s News Standards and Practices, by Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust, and Chris Cuomo.”
As The Wrap noted at the start of the month, Gollust, “who had worked with Zucker for decades and rejoined CNN in 2013 as his ‘closest colleague,’ has been identified as the woman with whom Zucker had a ‘consensual relationship’ that he did not disclose to CNN owner AT&T in apparent violation of company policies:”
“Jeff and I have been close friends and professional partners for over 20 years. Recently, our relationship changed during COVID. I regret that we didn’t disclose it at the right time,” Gollust said in a statement on Wednesday. “I’m incredibly proud of my time at CNN, and look forward to continuing the great work we do every day.”
Many media insiders have questioned that the pair’s romance only began in the last two years; Zucker and his wife Caryn Nathanson separated in 2018 and later divorced; Gollust is also divorced from her husband, Tradewell Markets president William Hult. The couple have two children, Olivia and Ava.
In her 2021 memoir “Going There,” Katie Couric recalled how Zucker pressed her to hire Gollust to handle publicity on her short-lived syndicated show “Katie” (2012-14). “I had to wonder why Jeff was angling so hard to bring Allison on board. She and her husband and kids had moved into the apartment right above Jeff and Caryn’s—everyone who heard about their cozy arrangement thought it was super strange,” Couric wrote. “By that point, Caryn (Zucker’s ex-wife) had become a close friend and it made me really uncomfortable.”
According to Zucker himself, Gollust has been his “closest colleague” for two decades now, first at NBCUniversal — where he served as president and chief executive of the company and she was the EVP of corporate communications.
Gollust briefly served as the communications director for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo before rejoining Zucker at CNN shortly after he was named the network’s president in 2013.
As the New York Post reported on February 3rd: Zucker, Gollust’s cozy ties with Andrew Cuomo included coaching him on COVID briefings.
UPDATE: Here we go!
(Updated and bumped.)
OPEN THREAD: California, as it used to be.
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! Chinese Media Gloat about PRC Influence on the NBA as Enes Kanter Freedom Is Cut.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: A Chinese spacecraft is testing out a new orbit around the moon. “The service module, which played a large part in delivering 1.731 kilograms of fresh lunar samples to Earth in December 2020, is now in a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) of the moon, according to amateur satellite trackers. China has not published an update on Chang’e-5’s activities since May 2021, when the China Lunar Exploration Program released images the spacecraft had taken from deep space. However amateur satellite tracker Scott Tilley and others, including Jean-Luc Milette and Edgar Kaiser, have been following Chang’e-5’s travels through space and provide evidence for the new lunar orbit following months of observations.”
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Mayor Eric Adams rips press, claims white journalists misrepresent him.
“If you want to acknowledge or not, I have been doing a darn good job and we just can’t live in this alternate reality,” a clearly angered Adams said.
Adams also warned that if the coverage of him doesn’t improve, “I’m just going to come in and do my announcements and bounce.”
Adams repeatedly suggested that race played a factor in news coverage of him, telling an almost all-white group of reporters who were hand-picked by his office and invited to cover the City Hall news conference, “I’m a black man that’s the mayor but my story is being interpreted by people that don’t look like me.”
“How many blacks are on editorial boards? How many blacks determine how these stories are being written?” he said.
“How many Asians? How many East Asians? How many South Asians? Everyone talks about my government being diversified, what’s the diversification in the newsrooms?”
Adams also accused the reporters of “writing through your prisms” before adding: “Diversify your newsrooms so I can look out and see people who look like me.”
The article reads like a scene from Bonfire of the Vanities — it’s good to see the version of the Matrix that Tom Wolfe programmed shortly before his death in 2018 is still running smoothly.