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FEBRUARY 13,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

HAVE YOU NOTICED? – FROM TRENDING POLITICS:  After four years of stable gas prices under President Donald J. Trump, Americans may have to get used to some pain at the pump.  Former Vice President Joe Biden hasn’t even been in the White House for a month and gas prices are already up a whopping 18 percent with at least one analyst predicting that they could hit $4 per gallon in the near future.
Biden’s ideologically-driven decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and the expectation that his Green New Deal policies will place onerous regulatory burdens on domestic energy producers in the fossil fuel industry is already hitting Americans in their pocketbooks. Sadly, the worst may be yet to come.  I assume the Republicans are aware of this.  They should be screaming it from the rooftops.

MADNESS – FROM FOX:   The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) recently encouraged teachers to register for training that encourages "ethnomathematics" and argues, among other things, that White supremacy manifests itself in the focus on finding the right answer.  An ODE newsletter sent last week advertises a Feb. 21 "Pathway to Math Equity Micro-Course," which is designed for middle school teachers to make use of a toolkit for "dismantling racism in mathematics." The event website identifies the event as a partnership between California's San Mateo County Office of Education, The Education Trust-West and others.  Part of the toolkit includes a list of ways "white supremacy culture" allegedly "infiltrates math classrooms." Those include "the focus is on getting the 'right' answer," students being "required to 'show their work,'" and other alleged manifestations.  Nothing more than an enormous excuse machine.  No foreign enemy could do more damage to our kids than these "educators" are doing.

February 13, 2021       Permalink

SHE'S NUTS, AND TWO HEARTBEATS AWAY FROM THE PRESIDENCY – OVERNIGHT:  Nancy Pelosi makes Joe Biden look sane.  She's was out on patrol, or parole, right after the acquittal today breathing fire, and losing her mind.  From The Hill: 

After the Senate voted to acquit former President Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday ruled out censuring the former president — an idea that several Republicans had floated in recent days.

“Censure is a slap in the face of the Constitution. It lets everybody off the hook, it lets everybody off the hook,” Pelosi told reporters following the Senate impeachment trial at the Capitol. 

“Oh, these cowardly senators who couldn’t face up to what the president did and what was at stake for our country are now going to have a chance to give a little slap on the wrist?” Pelosi said while slapping her own wrist. 

“We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose," said Pelosi, referring to an episode that led Republicans to censure former Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.). "We don’t censure people for inciting insurrection that kills people in the Capitol.”

Moments earlier, the Senate voted 57-43 to acquit Trump, short of the two-thirds needed to convict him.

Seven Republicans voted with all 50 Democrats that Trump was guilty of inciting a violent insurrection against the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a failed bid to halt the certification of President Biden’s election victory.

COMMENT:  It might be nice if Nancy returned to the business of government, rather than constantly kowtowing to the most radical leftist members of her party.

February 13, 2021       Permalink

TRUMP ACQUITTED, DEMS LOOK TO SOME OTHER GIMMICK – AT 3:57 P.M. ET:  President Trump, as expected, was acquitted today.  He has now been acquitted in two impeachment trials, although the constitutionality of this one is still widely questioned.  The Dems will now move on to try some other device to punish the former president and keep CNN's ratings high.  From Fox: 

Former President Trump was acquitted in an unprecedented second impeachment trial on the charge of inciting an insurrection for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, making him the first and only president to impeached and acquitted twice in history.

A majority of senators found Trump guilty on Saturday in a 57-43 vote, but the number fell short of the supermajority needed to convict the president. Had Trump been convicted, the Senate would have moved to bar the 45th president from holding federal office ever again.

The seven GOP senators who joined with all Democrats in finding Trump guilty were: Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

The acquittal means that as of now Trump can leave the door open to another White House bid in 2024, though senators have hinted they may still try to bar him from office in a separate 14th Amendment measure.

Trump's second impeachment trial spanned just five days of arguments, making it the shortest in presidential history. The previous record was held by Trump in 2020 when his trial related to inviting foreign interference into the election spanned 21 days.

The trial surrounded the Jan. 6 riot when pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, beat police officers, chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and forced lawmakers to take shelter. The mayhem temporarily stopped Congress' certification of President Biden's Electoral College win.

House impeachment managers accused Trump of inciting the insurrection by spreading a "big lie" the election was stolen from him, summoning his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, telling them to "fight like hell" and then refusing to call off the attack once the mob violently took over the Capitol.

Trump legal's team denounced the proceedings as an unconstitutional "sham impeachment" against a private citizen, driven by Democrats' "hatred" for Trump and desire to silence a political opponent.
Trump lawyers also argued the former president's political speech is protected by the First Amendment and his words on Jan. 6 to his supporters to "fight like hell" were not meant literally. To drive home that point during the trial, Trump's defense played an 11-minute video of nearly every Democrat in the chamber using the words "fight" in their past speeches and interviews.

COMMENT:  So we've now had an attempt to impeach and remove a man who is no longer in office.  What a concept.  Next, Democrats will try to impeach George Washington for cutting down that cherry tree.  Cherry trees matter! 

February 13, 2021       Permalink

FEBRUARY 12,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

END OF A TRADITION – FROM THE HARTFORD COURANT:   Colt Holding Co. has been purchased by a Czech firearms company, ending a 175-year run as an American company and helping to establish a “small arms powerhouse,” the two companies announced Friday.  It also marks a new chapter for Colt, a one-time financially troubled company that, with its new Czech owner, is now expected to generate $500 million in revenue.  Z?eská zbrojovka Group, or CZG, said it signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of Colt Holding Co. LLC, the parent company of Colt’s Manufacturing Co. and its Canadian subsidiary, Colt Canada Corp., for $220 million in cash and more than 1 million shares of the Czech company.  The agreement also calls for potentially issuing up to 1.1 million shares of newly issued CZG stock if defined profit thresholds are achieved between 2021 and 2023.  Lubomír Kova?ík, president and chairman of CZG, said the deal is a “strategic step for both companies.”  “The acquisition of Colt, an iconic brand and a benchmark for the military, law enforcement and commercial markets globally, fits perfectly in our strategy to become the leader in the firearms manufacturing industry and a key partner for the armed forces,” he said. “We are proud to include Colt, which has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. Army for over 175 years,” It's sad to see an iconic American name pass to foreign ownership.  But it won't bother anyone in the Washington establishment. 

ANOTHER GREAT MOMENT IN EDUCATION – FROM BREITBART:   Whistleblower documents revealed a Philadelphia elementary school, ranked as one of the worst-performing schools in Pennsylvania, forced fifth graders to act out a “Black Power” rally in honor of radical Marxist Angela Davis and to celebrate “black communism.”  According to Critical Race Theory investigator Christopher Rufo, who obtained the documents and spoke to a source within the William D. Kelley School, a fifth-grade teacher designed a social studies curriculum “to celebrate the political radical Angela Davis, praising the ‘black communist’ for her fight against ‘injustice and inequality.’” ... An author and filmmaker, Rufo reported in a Twitter thread that, after asking students to “describe Davis’s early life” and her vision of social change, the teacher led them to the school auditorium to “simulate” a “Black Power” rally to “free Angela Davis” from prison.  The students marched, holding signs that read, “Black Power,” “Jail Trump,” “Free Angela,” and “Black Power Matters,” and shouted, “Free Angela!”  We have to ask what impact this will have on black children.  What will this kind of "education" affect their future?  Doesn't take much to figure it out.

February 12, 2021       Permalink

THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL WINDS DOWN – OVERNIGHT:   It's almost over.  The Washington farce, the second impeachment of Donald J. Trump, is nearing its end.  The former president's representatives did rather well in the closing hours of the formal statements.  From Powerline: 

The defense of Donald Trump at his impeachment trial got off to a rocky start earlier this week.

There’s no denying that.

Today, however, the defense team came back strong in its closing argument. Trump’s lawyers used only about two and half hours of their allotted 16 to respond to the House managers’ case. That was enough to demolish it and to show the dishonesty of the managers’ presentation...

...As I’ve said before, I think there is a decent, although ultimately unpersuasive, case for impeachment. But the House was in too big a rush to have made that case. The Article of Impeachment is an embarrassment, so it’s not surprising that the managers relied on emotion and distortion, rather than reason, in presenting it.

I doubt that more than five Republican Senators — the hard core anti-Trumpers — will vote to convict the former president. A sixth Republican, Sen. Cassidy, voted with the five on the question of whether a former president can be tried. Cassidy said that this vote, defensible on the merits, resulted from the weakness of the defense team’s argument on a close constitutional question.

Today, the defense team’s arguments were strong, so that any inclination Cassidy might have had to vote to convict has probably vanished.

The defense team took plenty of heat for arguing the constitutional question so poorly, and rightly so. But it should be commended for the substance and brevity of today’s effort.

COMMENT:  Agreed.  The Democrats act as if we have a student government, not a real government.  Or, they're getting practice for running a co-op board in a retirement community. 

It'll be over soon, but the Dems will find a way to punish Donald Trump.  It's good for CNN's ratings.

February 12, 2021       Permalink

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED TO ANDREW CUOMO ON THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE – AT 10:58 P.M. ET:    Look, this is really getting serious.  I've seen falls from grace before, but Cuomo's is a jump out of the grace plane without a parachute.  Not many months ago this New York windbag won an Emmy for sounding good during a pandemic.  Now he's being accused of the kind of cover-up that would have had Richard Nixon at the end of a hanging rope.   From Fox: 

New York, NY – EXCLUSIVE: New York Assemblyman Michael Montesano said he plans to ask the state legislature to consider impeaching Gov. Andrew Cuomo after a bombshell admission by his top aide that their office allegedly covered up data on COVID-19 nursing home deaths to shake off a Justice Department probe on the matter.

"We've been calling for subpoenas and a hearing for quite a while," Montesano, a Republican member of the state’s Oversight and Investigations Committee, told Fox News. "This news of the last several days is extremely troubling to me and I'm going to be asking today for his resignation and I'm also going to be asking the legislature to look into, to explore filing articles of impeachment against the governor if he doesn't resign."

Calls for a criminal probe against Cuomo and his staff mounted after Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to the governor, told top New York Democrats on Thursday that Cuomo's administration feared the data about COVID-19 deaths could "be used against us" by the Justice Department in the midst of its federal probe initiated against four states regarding nursing home deaths, including New York, and thus the administration withheld the actual death count.

"This is now criminal," Montesano, a Republican who represents District-15, said. "The governor wants to talk about how our attacks on him are political. They're not political, we've had an inkling all the while that they were covering stuff up, and now she admitted that she covered stuff up because she knew the Department of Justice has an active investigation going on of the nursing home problems which a lot of us in the legislature, especially in the minority, requested that they do.

"She's obstructing an investigation. This is what makes it even more troubling," he added.

"If I had to make an educated guess, I believe she realizes DOJ is doing an investigation, things may be getting close, and she wants to divest herself of whatever wrongdoing she may have done if she's covered something up and if she's trying to get out in front of it," Montesano said of De Rosa's shocking admission, which she tried to walk back in a statement released Friday.

COMMENT:  The bottom line here is that Cuomo will still be protected by many journalists.  Also, to get some relief for New Yorkers, the United States Department of Justice will probably have to intervene. even though it is now run by the Democratic Party. 

Cuomo was the golden boy during much of the early period of the Covid 19 assault.  "America's governor," some in the bought press called him.  Now he's becoming the goat.   Nobody's governor.

February 12, 2021       Permalink