Posse Incitatus

Shut Up And Sit Down!

The arrogance of the left has been put on full display by the egregious Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and the Democrat propaganda rag the Washington Post.

As Powerlineblog's Steven Hayward pointed out, The Post recently ran an op/ed piece with the headline, "Parents Claim They Have the Right to Shape Their Kids' School Curriculum. They don't."

And of course, McAuliffe shot himself in the foot a few weeks ago by stating, “Parents have no right to tell schools what to teach." Talk about bad timing. Has this clueless idiot not watched one minute of the Loudoun County School Board meetings in recent weeks?

Is he aware that hundreds of parents have lambasted the school board for Critical Race Theory being taught in the schools, as well as for draconian mask rules for children? Does he know that a transgendered biological male wearing a dress sexually assaulted a female student in the girls restroom? And that reprobate Loudoun County Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler lied through his teeth in claiming he had no record that the assault took place? 

Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin is demanding Ziegler's resignation after it was revealed Ziegler had sent out an email to board members several months ago alerting them of the assault.

Over the weekend, uber-demagogue Barack Obama was stumping for McAuliffe, and he made the asinine claim that concerns about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools are just a phony issue full of "fake outrage." What an arrogant ass!

Here's some good news: A Cygnal Poll states that in blue Virginia, McAuliffe and Youngkin are tied 48-48 percent, and that Virginia voters with K-12 age children are breaking for Youngkin by about a 60-40 margin.

Additionally, voters are shifting to down-ballot Republicans, as well, with the GOP holding a R+1 advantage on the generic General Assembly ballot. 

Sleepy Joe Biden has been like a wrecking ball these past nine months, and he will do more damage in the months to come. But the great news is that voters are waking up, and the pendulum promises to swing back tremendously in the opposite direction a year from now.

In the meantime, expect the Democrats to continue melting down with off-the-charts arrogance, conceit and obnoxiousness. It's who they are and what they do.

Idiocy in Government: Part XMLXXXVIII

Nothing is certain but death and taxes, the adage goes. In 2021, we must expand that observation. Certainties now include hypocrisy, idiocy, and mendacity by the ruling class.

I'd be just spinning my wheels if I started ranting about the mountain of lies told by the legions of disgraceful hacks abiding inside the Beltway cesspool. And it goes without saying, the pandemic itself has done a wonderful job of exposing blatant hypocrisy among our so-called leaders -- especially the nauseatingly sanctimonious Democrats who look down their noses at the common people and arrogantly think they're above the law.

The Biden administration's 24/7 lying (complemented, of course, by the vermin of the corrupt media), comes with a backdrop of nonstop, in-your-face hypocrisy by a long list of Marie Antoinettes -- Gavin Newsom, Lori Lightfoot, Bill de Blasio, Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, and Nancy Pelosi, to name just a few.

Occasionally we get a two-fer: A transparent, idiotic and expedient attempt at covering up a conflict of interest or double-standard. (Maybe I should have used "frequently" instead of "occasionally"...)

Case in point: The Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) is seeking to hire a new executive director to replace an interim director who is moving on. The MSHDA board voted to conditionally hire Amy Hovey, who had previous experience with a major nonprofit foundation. There's just one catch: Hovey's husband is an active developer with MSHDA, with a number of properties that have received help from MSHDA in the past.

Not a problem, says the MSHDA board. According to MIRS, a Lansing-based political newsletter, the board plans to set up a "conflict wall" between Hovey and the MSHDA employees who work in the programs associated with her husband's properties. (Kinda reminds me of Jamie Gorelick's infamous wall between law enforcement and intelligence operations that helped grease the skids for the 9/11 terrorists.)

According to MSHDA, Hovey would not be allowed to communicate with her own staff on the other side of the conflict wall about programs dealing with at least four federal and state programs. This is ludicrous! The board  voted to approve a resolution to conditionally offer the job to Hovey, with the idea that if the "wall" is determined to be unworkable, her offer will be withdrawn and another candidate chosen.

Talk about a convoluted Rube Goldberg management structure. This is beyond the pale, and speaks to horrible judgment by board members who voted in favor of it. This cockamamie scheme screams UNWORKABLE.

MSHDA is going to ask for an advisory opinion from the State Ethics Board to see if the measures it is implementing to address the conflict is permissible under state law. Gee, don't you think that would've been part of the due diligence before extending the offer of employment?

If MSHDA gets the all-clear from the State Ethics Board, the next step would be to go to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to ask for exceptions for a few of the affected federal programs. If the MSHDA board succeeds in jumping through all of these hoops, Hovey could start her position. (Why do I suspect it may be a moot point by the time this dog-n-pony show is wrapped up, as Whitmer looks to be going down to defeat in her re-election bid a year from now.)

It's a given that in government, and to a lesser extent in the private sector, unsavory practices like nepotism, cronyism and favoritism play a big part in hiring decisions. Hovey definitely has connections, but also screams CONFLICT OF INTEREST! so loud that the board has to be delusional to think it can circumnavigate around this ethical disaster in the making.

Your tax dollars at work!

The Benjamins Trump PC Wokeness at Netflix

Dave Chappelle is what a comedian should be: Someone who indiscriminately gores sacred cows and doesn't give a shit who he offends. Like the old-school guys I grew up with who really kicked butt -- the likes of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, and Sam Kinison, among others.

Contrast Chappelle with the rigid, ideological left-wing parrots of late-night TV -- egregious bores like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon. These guys are angry leftists with tiresome potty-mouths. And they bow down to the uber-woke PC bullshit that is corrupting our culture. They are utterly, entirely predictable, and that's a big reason why they're so worthless.

Chappelle, on the other hand, mocks the LGBTQ alphabet soup sociopaths who maintain there are dozens of genders. He doesn't so much as oppose trans-genderism as he is against the trans gender community's tendency to want to ramrod their beliefs down everyone's throat and demonize those who object.

“Gender is a fact,” Chappelle said. “Every human being in this room, every human being on earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on earth. That is a fact."

Trans activist groups like GLAAD "pounced," to use a favorite term of the media jackals when they describe Republican criticism of idiotic Democrat policies or statements. There are threats of boycotts against Netflix, and the usual denunciations by the likes of the trans activists, pandering politicians and dim bulbs on "The View," MSNBC and CNN. Yawn.

Well, how about a breath of fresh air? The Netflix co-CEOs, Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos, have defended Chappelle and increased their financial contributions to his comedic endeavors. Now, granted, the two executives have canned or disciplined several lesser known, white employees who uttered politically incorrect words or proved disruptive to company operations with their protest actions. But those are the type of employees who can be thrown under the bus without hurting the bottom line.

Chappelle is a cash cow, and Netflix revenues have been on the rise. He's also black, and once again the left-wing calculus must balance appeasing or offending one identity politics faction vs. another. Hastings and Sarandos are doing what CEOs are supposed to do: Looking out for the interests of their shareholders.

I am no fan of Netflix -- I happen to think it's a sewer of violence, graphic sex and general garbage. (I also shake my head in disgust at the galling hypocrisy of Barack and Michelle Obama taking millions from this company, yet continuing to bash America as if they're struggling peons who are down with the revolution.

But it's good to see this corporation at least has the cojones to bluntly confront the militant trans lobby. It's about time someone faced down the bullies.

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Tyrant

Today's headline is a paraphrase of a Beatles song title from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart;s Club Band." The original title (substitute "Mr. Kite" for "Mr. Tyrant") was a goofy composition of the strange 1960s milieu probably emanating from the drug-addled mind of one John Lennon. Today's reality is much more stark.

What it refers to is the Biden administration's unwitting support and furtherance of totalitarian regimes via a lame-brained energy policy.

Recall that the Obama administration complained and obsessed bitterly over income inequality (the second coming of Satan, in their opinion), yet pursued wrongheaded policies that worsened income inequality. And so today does the Biden administration talk a good game about human rights and continue to harp on the tired Trump/Russian collusion fantasy, yet pursues policies that enrich the coffers of the most oppressive despots on the planet. Biden has done more to benefit Putin in six months than Trump has done in his entire lifetime.

The Bidenites have sought to kiss ass with the green lobby by demonizing fossil fuels, suppressing oil exploration and cracking down on fracking. Their fantasy of quickly converting the United States into an economy dependent upon renewable sources of energy promises to bring about widespread blackouts and brownouts, a la California. It has already resulted in gasoline prices rising over $1 a gallon in the past 8-10 months.

Sleepy Joe made quite a show of it when he signed a stack of executive orders on his first day in office before heading off for his afternoon nap. One of his actions was to halt construction of the Keystone pipeline. You can bet Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, the mullahs of Iran, the brutal Venezuelan communists and the corrupt Saudi royal oligarchy were delightedly licking their chops.

It's really quite simple: Former President Trump encouraged domestic exploration and production of oil, petroleum products and natural gas. This marginalized the tyrants of Russia, China and the Middle East while lowering prices for American consumers and helping our economy roar. Our old nemeses, the Middle Eastern extremists who have supported terror networks for decades, were rendered impotent.

But leave it to Biden and his cabal of incompetent hacks to reverse that progress in short order. They have succeeded in spiking fuel prices, weakening our economy, making us more vulnerable to the extortion of dictators, and beefing up the resources for despots to oppress and spy on their own people, support terrorists, and engage in imperialism and mischief across the globe.

Heckuva Job, Joe! Build Bumbling Bureaucracy.

Failure of the Magic Wand

 

Getting right down to it, the basic philosophy of leftists is that humanity and life can be perfected with the right recipe of laws, regulations, mandates and indoctrination. They believe in the perfectibility of man in the temporal world -- that we can in effect create our own utopia right here on earth.

Those who believe in God and understand human nature regard that as utter rubbish, which it is. What limited writings of Karl Marx I've read, I've shaken my head at how simplistic and sophomoric it is.

But millions of progressives and ultra-liberals believe they have the answers and can make the world a better place in large part because many of them are atheists, agnostics or lukewarm at best when it comes to their religious faith. Of course, there are plenty of Democrats who are people of faith, and not all of them are all-in for what the far left is dishing out. But too many of them are naive and easily gulled by the sophistry of the left.

When Barack Obama was president, the so-called Affordable Health Care Act promised all sorts of fantasies about "bending the cost curve" and putting severe caps on prices for pharmaceuticals and health care services. But as the expression goes, something's gotta give. When artificial price controls are implemented in disregard of market realities, scarcity (i.e., rationing, long lines and waiting lists) occurs. And/or, monthly premiums and deductibles are exorbitant.

And so it goes with Obamacare, which dramatically increased individual and family premiums, yet retained high deductibles. Many of the new enrollees were simply dumped into Medicaid, which is a flawed program on shaky fiscal ground. And because large employers were mandated to provide coverage to full-time, permanent employees under Obamacare, many of them simply resorted to hiring temp workers, offering contract positions, and reducing full-time jobs to part-time jobs. They also off-shored many of their jobs to evade the mandate. So "Bending the cost curve" really means distorting the market -- human fodder be damned.

In recent weeks, we've been noticing a ripple effect of President Biden's ill-advised and totalitarian vaccine mandate. Although official regulations have not been implemented, the president wants to mandate that most federal employees and members of the military be vaccinated, as well as private sector employees working for businesses with at least 100 employees.

As this piece notes, the mandate is having a deleterious effect on companies, healthcare providers, families and the economy. Across the nation, police officers, firefighters, nurses, teachers, and many others are either being fired, suspended or are walking off the job in protest. Some have quit and are seeking employment in other fields. 

Southwest Airlines claims that its recent cancellation of thousands of flights, which snarled airports and disrupted travel plans for thousands of passengers, were due to technical issues and weather. I call major league gaslighting. It's no coincidence that the cancellations came shortly after the pilot's union filed for a restraining order against the vaccine mandate. This appears to be similar to the corrupt media's blatant lies about the Hunter Biden laptop story ("It's Russian disinformation!") shortly before the 2020 election.

The media jackals have something in common with Joe Biden and many members of his cabinet full of hacks: They have no qualms about brazenly lying to advance a narrative. Mendacity is a given with politicians; lying is a given with politicians and the media. And it's like Goebbels on steroids. It just doesn't quit; it grows worse by the day. Is it any wonder tens of millions of Americans hold the government and media in utter contempt?

Progressive Left: Not Just Ignorant and Asinine, But Downright Stupid!

If I wanted to, I could rant 24/7 about misguided progressives and the havoc they wreak throughout society and the world. I have chastised them many times in past postings, but truth be told, it gets to be downright wearying.

So for many months, I avoid pummeling progressives because it's kind of like bitching about how much I hate pedophiles, cock roaches, pornography and Adolf Hitler. It's a given.

But today I read something that really caused me to shake my head and grumble under my breath. It was further evidence that progressives are not just idiotic and sick in the head,;they may well be unwittingly doing the devil's work. (They most likely don't even believe in the devil, so I'm sure they think I'm a P.O.S. for suggesting this!)

Kendall Qualls reports in The Federalist that some leftists are now calling two-parent families ....wait for it...RACIST!!! Yes, you heard me right.

The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) contends that the two-parent home represents 'family privilege' and create barriers to equal opportunity. It claims that the nuclear family — consisting of father, mother, and children — is merely an extension of white supremacy. And no surprise here, Black Lives Matter is simpatico with this warped perspective. Why, it fits right in with that steaming pile of Marxist garbage known as Critical Race Theory.

It's obvious, from years of studies as well as anecdotal evidence, that children raised in two-parent homes are much less likely to engage in criminal activities, abuse drugs or alcohol, or end up dying at a young age. Chances are slim that they will ever spend a day in jail. Rather, they're likely to be productive, law-abiding citizens who impart their wisdom and values to future generations.

But as is customary for the left, they put depravity up on a pedestal and glorify dirtbags (see rap music), while demonizing good people (e.g., the police) and lifestyles that are pleasing to the Creator. It takes a certain amount of humility to admit that we don't have all the answers, there is a Supreme Being, and we will benefit if we get on our knees and engage in that tried-and-true Christian acronym of PAT: Praise, Ask, and Thank. Praise the Lord, for he is good! Ask for wisdom, judgment, patience and strength to navigate life, and ask for other important priorities, such as the safety and health of loved ones, or the ability of your spouse to survive cancer or some other health scare. And thank the Lord for your many blessings, including good health, plentiful food, and freedom.

We're in an uphill struggle. The NCFR website states that its members come from more than 35 countries and all 50 states, and work as teachers, program developers, and counselors. It has thousands of active members, who participate in focus groups, discussion, and networking. NCFR has 10 state and regional-level affiliates and 26 student chapters at universities. No doubt the reprobate George Soros has seeded this diabolical organization with millions of dollars.

I guess if I wanted to play the progressives' juvenile games, I would tweet out complaints about "progressive privilege" (i.e., Big Tech, academia, the federal government and mainstream media all are on their side). But being a whiny wimp ain't my schtick. I've long complained that progressives tend to behave like two-year-olds. Why would I want to imitate them?