SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:  

THE PUSHBACK GETS UNDERWAY – FROM GATEWAY PUNDIT:  Several state attorneys general wrote a letter to Joe Biden slamming him for signing a record number of executive orders in his first week in office.  Dictator Biden has signed approximately 3 dozen executive orders in his first week in office.  Biden is unilaterally legislating and has completely ignored Congress – the Democrats control both the House and Senate yet Joe Biden is moving full speed ahead issuing executive fiats.  Attorneys general of Texas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana and Indiana, signed a letter to Joe Biden reminding him that a US president has “limited power.”  The top lawyers of each state argued “State Attorneys General in particular serve as an important check and balance as the President carries out his constitutional charges.”
“Under the Constitution, the principal political control of our government is entrusted not to the President, but to the carefully constructed Congress which serves as both sail and anchor of the federal ship of state,” they wrote. “Congress writes the laws and the President and his officers are limited under the Constitution to the role of faithfully carrying them out.”  “But a president is not a Prime Minister or a King and must respect that his constitutional office is a limited Chief Executive, not the supreme authority of the state,” they wrote, adding that “overreaching and defying Congress will not be rewarded or succeed.”  Very well said, but the Democratic Party increasingly is drifting toward totalitarianism. It's just so efficient, and doesn't require all those pesky legislators and judges. 

ANOTHER WINNER – FROM FOX:  Suzi LeVine, the departing head of Washington’s Employment Security Department (ESD), reportedly will run a federal agency office that assists states in processing unemployment claims.  But LeVine’s transition into a White House role comes amid an unemployment fraud scandal at her department that cost the state over $600 million. Her forthcoming role will be interim assistant secretary of the Employment and Training Administration, part of the Labor Department, five people familiar with the transition told Bloomberg Law.  The new job would put her at the front of President Biden’s economic recovery plan, after the economy shrunk by more than 10 million jobs since the start of the pandemic. With an annual budget of roughly $9 billion—about three-quarters of overall DOL dollars, the ETA will have a key role in patching up the scarce labor market.  It’s not clear if LeVine will ever drop the "interim" part of her title, but to transition into the permanent role she must be confirmed by the Senate, and questions of her record in Olympia could arise. A recent Washington state audit faulted the ESD under LeVine for failing to fix a software vulnerability that contributed to last spring’s massive unemployment fraud, according to the Seattle Times.  LeVine, announcing the staggering blow to the state’s finances in May, said that officials were working to recover as much of the money as possible. She said the state had taken steps to prevent new fraudulent claims, but did not detail the steps.   With all the qualified people available, why has Biden selected so many duds? Because duds are fine as long as they check off one or more boxes in the diversity contest.

January 30, 2021