SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:21 P.M. ET: 

THIS IS NUTS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   The University of Missouri believes that asking someone on a date can violate Title IX in certain situations. Its officials can’t agree on which situations, however.  In a motion for summary judgment filed on Christmas Eve, Jeremy Rowles shared excerpts of depositions with Mizzou officials from his federal lawsuit against the public university.  They suggest that male students should avoid asking out female students at all, particularly when the male is physically larger than the female.  A bit of background: Judge Brian Wimes greenlit the doctoral student’s lawsuit this summer, saying there was no evidence that Rowles had done anything more than make his dance fitness instructor, student Annalise Breaux, “uncomfortable” by asking her out in spring 2016.  The University of Missouri was almost destroyed by racially charged disruptions in 2015.  It appears they haven't learned much.

I'M REASSURED, BUT CHECKING WITH AL GORE – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   An explosion at a Con Edison facility in Astoria, Queens, shot a streak of blue light into the night sky on Thursday, causing power outages and some locals to fear an extraterrestrial invasion.  Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office quickly made an announcement on Twitter that the situation was being addressed and there was no threat from outer space.  “*Not* aliens,” Mayor de Blasio spokesman Eric Phillips wrote. “Blown transformer at Queens Con-Ed facility. Scattered power outages, including LGA. Con-Ed, FDNY, PD, OEM all working on it.”  LaGuardia Airport suffered power outages and all outgoing flights were temporarily suspended, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said.  This is New York.  Had it been an extraterrestrial invasion, the mayor would have instantly declared New York a Universe Sanctuary City, and offered all extraterrestrials a driver's license and college education.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  The IRS overpaid nearly $4 billion to Obamacare customers through tax credits last year, and because of the way the law is written it can’t even try to collect on a quarter of that, the Treasury Department’s inspector general reported this week.  All told, the Treasury Department paid out roughly $27 billion in Obamacare subsidies in the 2018 tax-filing season, with overages accounting for $3.7 billion of that. Only $2.7 billion was recaptured.  The $1 billion left over is small compared to the overall federal budget, but it is 20 percent of the president’s border wall funding request that’s spurred the current government shutdown.  Overpayments were built into Obamacare, with most people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges collecting subsidies through the IRS to help them afford their plan premiums.  The amount they get during the year is based on their expected earnings.  At the end of the year they’re supposed to square what they expected to earn with what they actually got, and since some of them saw higher incomes — through raises, promotions or better jobs — they have to repay the IRS.  Yet the authors of the 2010 law were afraid if people faced the threat of a big tax bill they would shirk Obamacare coverage altogether, so the law set limits on how much the government could claw back.  Another bit of brilliant government planning.  And the "progressives" want to control the entire medical system.

December 27, 2018