A few weeks ago, Shaun King (AKA “Talcum X”) was getting called out for raising money off another dead black man by said dead black man’s mom, the latest in a long line of alleged grifts. Yesterday, Shaun King was in the news again…for deleting his Twitter account.
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) July 17, 2021
Take it away Bad Boys II:
I’ve got to think that a jumbo-sized lawsuit is barrelling down the pike at King and he wanted to get ahead.
If you think this post is just an excuse to reiterate all the insulting nicknames for Shuan King, you’re absolutely right.
Shaun King is trending…. which means I get to spend the rest of the day laughing at his nicknames Talcum X Cream Abdul Jabbar Tupac Sugar Alexander Scamilton Snow J. Simpson Hueless P. Newton Crooker T. Washington Chalkus Garvey etc etc
The gist of the article is that many Democrats are just noticing the problem, which is laughable. The far-left, ultra-woke territory was staked out by all Democrats years ago. They can’t suddenly act like it’s only the fringe that feels this way and the mainstream Dems aren’t on board with the madness. Virtually every Democrat of note has been slobbering all over chances for woke posturing for years. There has been pushback but they’ve been dismissive of it, resorting to their boilerplate “RACIST!” retort each time.
Snip.
While watching the Democrats go mega-woke — especially this year — I’ve wondered aloud whether any of the party’s Beltway elite have recently had a conversation with a Democrat in flyover country. It would seem not.
It’s not unthinkable that Dems running next year would do a temporary 180 on wokeness in an effort to dupe people into voting for them. In recent weeks, we’ve seen them pretend that it was Republicans who wanted to defund the police and also try to convince the public that they’ve always been fans of voter ID. If they’re now worried about the extremely woke look on top of those two issues, the internal polling must really be rattling them.
Honestly, I don’t see how Democrats can uncouple themselves from the woke train they enthusiastically hooked themselves up to so long ago.
The caveat is that we’ve seen this sort of articles before, and the madness still continues…
When Vice President Kamala Harris finally made the decision to visit the Mexico border last week, people inside her own office were blindsided by the news.
For days, aides and outside allies had been calling and texting with each other about the political fallout that a potential trip would entail. But when it became known that she was going to El Paso, it left many scrambling, including officials who were responsible for making travel arrangements and others outside the VP’s office charged with crafting the messaging across the administration.
The handling of the border visit was the latest chaotic moment for a staff that’s quickly become mired in them. Harris’ team is experiencing low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials. Much of the frustration internally is directed at Tina Flournoy, Harris’ chief of staff, a veteran of Democratic politics who began working for her earlier this year.
In interviews, 22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials and associates of Harris and Biden described a tense and at times dour office atmosphere. Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.
While much of the ire is aimed at Harris’ chief, two administration officials said the VP herself also bears responsibility for the way her office is run. “It all starts at the top,” said one of the administration officials, who like others requested anonymity to be able to speak candidly about a sensitive matter.
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s—.”
Of course, we’ve already seen similar reports before, but this one is a lot more nakedly critical. Having such deeply critical pieces launched at a sitting Democratic Vice President in their first year in office is highly unusual, to say the least. Either Harris really is horribly bad at managing her staff, or powerful people in the Biden administration have the knives out for her. Or both.
Last summer, federal officials in Delaware investigating Hunter Biden faced a dilemma. The probe had reached a point where prosecutors could have sought search warrants and issued a flurry of grand jury subpoenas. Some officials involved in the case wanted to do just that. Others urged caution. They advised Delaware’s U.S. Attorney, David Weiss, to avoid taking any actions that could alert the public to the existence of the case in the middle of a presidential election.
“To his credit, he listened,” said a person involved in the discussions, reported here for the first time. Weiss decided to wait, averting the possibility that the investigation would become a months-long campaign issue.
Translation: They withheld the truth from the public because they wanted the Democrat to win.
Thanks to recently released Labor Department data on unemployment claims, we can now, quite predictably, see the welfare rolls expanding in the states where the unemployment bonus remains in place. Yet the number of people on welfare is rapidly shrinking in the states where the supplement is set to expire or already has expired.
“The 26 states that have announced their plan to end participation in the $300 weekly unemployment bonus have seen a 12.7 percent decline on average in initial claims over the past week,” the fiscally-conservative Foundation for Government Accountability reports. “Meanwhile, states that have indicated they will continue participating in the unemployment bonus programs have seen an increase in initial claims by an average of 1.6 percent during this same period. The 12 states that have officially opted out of the $300 weekly bonus thus far have seen consistent declines each week since ending participation in the bonus.”
In other words, people are leaving the welfare rolls and returning to work in the states where the government is getting out of the way. They are not doing so as much in the states where expanded welfare continues to create dysfunctional incentives.
Tucked deep in San Francisco’s sixth district is Dodge Place, a residential street located in the notorious Tenderloin neighborhood. It’s been overtaken by drug users who come to get high, descend into madness, and then destroy themselves and their surroundings. Dodge is a dead end, literally and figuratively—a combat zone, with all sides fighting for their lives.
Citizens’ cries for backup have gone virtually unanswered. Elected officials and government bodies from the district’s supervisor, Matt Haney, to the Department of Public Health have abandoned residents so completely that it’s hard not to wonder if the neglect isn’t deliberate.
Though most of the sixth district, an area that includes City Hall, already rivals the world’s worst slums for its inhumane conditions, Dodge Place is a particularly intense concentration of immiseration. In effect, the dead-end street is at the end of a funnel, into which flow customers from San Francisco’s most rampant illegal drug trade. In fact, mere steps away from the street, residents recently held a rally against the scourge of fentanyl, the potent synthetic opioid responsible for the majority of the city’s fatal overdoses. Organized by journalist Michael Shellenberger, the rally focused on Jacqui, a distraught mother searching for her addicted, homeless son. Jacqui pleaded for help, and community members raged against the city’s inaction. Politicians gave speeches, including Haney, who proclaimed his outrage, conceded government’s failings, and told the crowd to hold him accountable.
Yet the death toll from drug abuse continues to escalate. Data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner indicate that fatal overdoses this year in San Francisco are on pace to exceed the 2020 total, a record-breaking year in which more than 700 died.
Hanging around in the Tenderloin is dangerous. Gangs rule the drug-dealing business. Scores of dealers, nearly all young males from Mexico and Central America, openly sell narcotics. Gunfire and homicides are common. On June 14, the San Francisco Police Department’s Tenderloin station reported three shooting incidents, with five victims, and 29 arrests on the corner. Law enforcement doggedly does its part, but the arrestees nearly always return to their spots within hours.
As mayhem in the Tenderloin intensifies, many who have just made drug purchases drift over to Dodge Place so that they can use away from the drama. Once there, they create their own brand of chaos. The result is a place so bizarre and horrific that adequate descriptions sound hyperbolic.
At any given time, dozens of people congregate in the small alley to inject or smoke their substance of choice. Teenagers to seniors, of all races and demographics, jab needles into their bloody, bloated limbs, hands, and feet. One inexplicably common figure is a man neatly dressed for a day at the office who drives syringes deep into other people’s necks. Soon after imbibing, users stand still as statues but bent at the waist, colloquially known as the “fentanyl fold.” Some collapse and crawl, while others sit listlessly on the curb, lining the walls. Or they wander, run, or flail, screaming at each other as well as invisible demons. Many urinate and defecate in their clothes, on the pavement or doorsteps.
Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s George Soros-backed DA who refuses to prosecute drug dealers, is facing a recall election. This is the future that awaits Austin if Jose Garza stays in the DA’s office…
Los Angeles: Surprise! The mask mandate is back. Sounds like something that calls for widespread civil disobedience.
Vietnam is not the threat that China is, but don’t forget that their communist government still oppresses anyone who objects to their rule. “Vietnamese Dissident Writer Jailed for Five Years, Six Months by Hanoi Court. Pham Chi Thanh was charged under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, a law frequently used by authorities to stifle dissident voices.”
Being a black Democratic grifter really pays: “Stacey Abrams now owns two homes totaling $1.4M after starting 2018 campaign in massive debt.”
Paul Ehrlich is spewing the same gloom and doom that’s proven wrong for the last half century.
“Basketball player uses nationally televised CBS interview to show off his ‘Free the Uyghurs’ T-shirt.” Good for him. Though, since this is Royce White, the first round draft pick who never suited up for the Rockets, “player” may be misleading in this case…
Democratic megadonor Ed Buck’s murder trial for giving young men fatal drug overdoses for sexual gratification finally gets under way. (Previously.)
Kaseya VSA ransomware attack succeeded because the company didn’t include a NULL test for login bypass. Jesus. Freaking. Christ. That’s one of the first things you should set up in your QA automated regression testing suite.
“A Florida man stole an alligator from a mini-golf course and tried to heave the reptile onto the roof of a building to ‘teach it a lesson,’ authorities said.
Though there hasn’t been a lot of coverage of this among the American MSM, those who watched the #antifa/#BlackLivesMatter riots unfold in real time will find what’s going on in South Africa familiar:
The death toll in South Africa has risen to 72 as violence continues across the country following the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma.
Crowds looting and setting alight shopping centres clashed with police in several cities on Tuesday.
The BBC filmed a baby being thrown from a building in Durban that was on fire after ground-floor shops were looted.
A day earlier, 10 people were killed in a stampede during looting at a shopping centre in Soweto.
The military have been deployed to help police overstretched since the unrest began last week.
South African police said in a statement they had identified 12 people suspected of provoking the riots, and that a total of 1,234 people had been arrested.
If officials are actually arresting rioters, that would be a significant difference from how many Democrat-run cities and counties (especially those with George Soros-backed DAs) handled last summer’s riots.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has called it some of the worst violence witnessed in South Africa since the 1990s, before the end of apartheid, with fires started, highways blocked and businesses and warehouses looted in major cities and small towns in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces.
Ministers have warned that if looting continues, there is a risk areas could run out of basic food supplies soon – but have ruled out declaring a state of emergency.
Post-apartheid South Africa was a relative success story for Sub-Saharan Africa, especially compared to places like Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The collapse of communism allowed F. W. de Klerk to negotiate an end to apartheid with Nelson Mandela and transition to majority rule. But the ruling African National Congress party has long been plagued with rising crime rates and charges of widespread corruption. Indeed, corruption charges against Zuma preceded his ascension to the presidency. Successor Ramaphosa has promised to stamp out corruption…while being accused of corruption himself.
Riots over the arrest of political figures is a sign of a tribal, post-liberal social order. They start as “peaceful protests” and then almost instantly descend into sprees of arson and looting. More than 100 mobile phone towers have been destroyed, which sounds less like a political protest and more like blood-red anarchy. And now there are reports of food shortages. “Kwanalu, the KwaZulu-Natal agricultural union, estimates the losses for the provincial farming community to be in the hundreds of millions of rands.”
In a post-national tribal atmosphere, violence ceases to be a choice of last resort and becomes a tool to address every resentment, to be resorted to to win every argument. And this is the future that Social justice and Critical Race Theory are helping bring our way…
Individuals and institutions were allowed to choose to align their investments with their values. They could sleep at night knowing that their capital was not supporting causes with which they disagreed, morally or politically. The only cost associated with this socially conscious undertaking was a hit to investment returns, which was inevitable but was accepted voluntarily as the price of peace of mind.
But these days, that’s simply not enough for the Big Sisters of Social Justice Warriorhood. Why make something voluntary when they can force it down your throat? Hence the push for Environmental Social Governance (ESG), a backdoor way to impose far-left values on corporations without having to deal with shareholders at all.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is the biggest trend in finance and business. Index funds focused on sustainability oversee $250 billion of assets. Corporate leaders signaled their alignment with ESG when more than 180 CEOs signed the Business Roundtable statement on business purpose.
In contrast to the older ethical investment movement, which accepted that morally constrained investment strategies incur costs, ESG proponents claim that investors following ESG precepts earn higher risk-adjusted returns because companies with high ESG scores are lower-risk. Thus, their stock price will outperform, whereas those firms with low ESG scores are higher-risk, leading them to underperform.
This supposition conflicts with finance theory. Once lower risk is incorporated into a higher stock price, the stock will be more highly valued, but investors will have to be satisfied with lower expected returns. Unsurprisingly, claims of ESG outperformance are contradicted by studies.
Claims that ESG-favored stocks outperformed during the Covid-19 market meltdown disappear once other determinants of stock performance are controlled for. ESG factors were negatively associated with stock performance during the market recovery phase in the second quarter of 2020.
The corollary of the ESG thesis—that low-ESG-rated “sin stocks” are condemned to underperform the stock market—is decisively refuted by the data. When institutional investors “went underweight” by selling down their holdings in tobacco stocks, it made them cheaper for other investors to buy and make money, especially when they subsequently outperformed the market.
The profit opportunities that ESG creates for Wall Street, however, are clear. BlackRock charges 46 cents annually for every $100 invested in its iShares Global Clean Energy ETF and just 4 cents for its iShares fund linked to the S&P 500.
The Trump Department of Labor’s controversial rule on ESG in corporate retirement plans became final in October 2020. In effect, the rule calls Wall Street’s ESG bluff: “You claim ESG investing boosts investment returns net of costs; Show us on the basis of generally accepted investment theories.” Rather than use the Congressional Review Act to nullify this rule, the Biden Department of Labor says it won’t enforce it.
ESG is supposedly about the objective assessment of investment risk. The stated purpose of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), a body supported and funded by Michael Bloomberg, is to provide a disclosure regime that better enables investors to assess risk, climate risk being a major one.
At the same time, the SASB aims to harness the power of capital markets for political ends. Just as the Covid pandemic was sweeping the globe, Bloomberg declared climate change the biggest threat to America and the world. “How do you replace dirty energy?” he asks. “Stop rewarding companies from making it.” ESG thus becomes politics pursued by other means.
Climate risk is primarily about the potential costs of future climate regulation, but the cookie-cutter climate disclosures required by ESG standard-setters are systematically misleading because they treat the world as a homogenous regulatory space. Climate regulations are made by states and vary from the stringent and unachievable in parts of Europe to the virtually nonexistent in many other parts of the world.
Requiring corporations to bind themselves to unilateral greenhouse-gas targets imposes a penalty in competing against companies less beholden to ESG ratings (the unlevel playing field). Forcing corporations to lose market share and shrink their operations constitutes a covert form of divestment. Shareholders lose for no climate gain.
Regulation by governments is not only more efficient but also possesses democratic legitimacy. Proponents claim that ESG is necessary to achieve inclusive capitalism, but political power wielded by a handful of billionaire Wall Street oligarchs provides a pretty good definition of insider capitalism.
The weaponization of finance by billionaire climate activists, foundations, and NGOs threatens to end capitalism as we know it by degrading its ability to function as an economic system that generates higher living standards. This usurpation of the political prerogatives of democratic government invites a populist backlash.
The Real Clear Foundation report leans heavily on the environmental end of things, but ESG also has a strong Social Justice component, as this clip from Joe Rogan’s interview of VJ/Podcaster Adam Curry discusses:
ESG is yet another attempt to impose top-down wokeness by subterfuge on people and institutions that would never voluntarily agree to it.
Greetings, and welcome to the return of the Friday LinkSwarm on Thursday! My Mac is working, my house is clean, and I have a newly painted master bathroom with a new floor and a new toilet.
Some links are new, some from a week or two ago.
Minneapolis: “Black Lives Matter activists block city council member’s car until she signs statement that charges against rioters will be dropped.”
“Peter Daszak – whose ‘EcoHealth Alliance’ funneled U.S. taxpayer cash to the Wuhan Institute of Virology – defended SARS gain-of-function experiments that potentially rendered the virus ‘capable of directly infecting humans’ in a Nature article unearthed from November 2015.”
Know who else was funding Peter Daszak’s research? Google.
The unearthed financial ties between EcoHealth Alliance and Google follow months of big tech censorship of stories and individuals in support of the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory.
The Google-backed EcoHealth Alliance played a critical role in the cover-up of COVID-19’s origins through its president, Peter Daszak.
Daszak served on the wildly compromised World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 investigation team. He championed the efforts to “debunk” the lab origin theory of the virus, despite mounting support for the claim…
The more we learn about Peter Daszak, one of the main villains of the COVID epidemic, the worse it gets.
Daszak is president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nongovernmental organization mostly funded by the US government. EcoHealth passed some of that money on to the lab in Wuhan, China.
It was Daszak who organized the letter in The Lancet from February 2020 dismissing as “misinformation” claims that the virus may have originated from the Wuhan Virology Lab. The letter created the illusion of consensus, which internet companies proceeded to enforce through censorship, and the media reinforced by constantly interviewing Daszak himself.
There might be journalistic value in hearing from the Chernobyl plant director about all those clouds floating over Ukraine. But if he suggests the rash of mysterious sores and cancers were due to a faulty shipment of microwaves recently arrived in Pripyat, you’d probably think he was engaged in a bit of “motivated reasoning.”
Apparently not the World Health Organization, which invited Daszak to join their microwave hunt in Wuhan.
In the last two days, Daszak has been removed from The Lancet’s own UN-backed commission investigating COVID’s origins, though whether he removed himself or was fired remains unclear.
Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated on Tuesday night in an attack on his home, the nation’s prime minister announced.
First lady Martine Moïse was hospitalized for gunshot wounds she received in the attack. Unidentified gunmen broke into the president’s residence on the outskirts of the capital Port-au-Prince during the night and opened fire on the couple.
“A group of unidentified individuals, some of them speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president of the republic and thus fatally wounded the head of state,” Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement. “The country’s security situation is under the control of the Haitian police and the armed forces of Haiti. . . . Democracy and the republic will win.”
Moïse has ruled by fiat for the past two years after Haiti failed to hold elections and the parliament dissolved. Meanwhile, a new prime minister, Dr. Ariel Henry, was scheduled to be sworn in on Wednesday.
Opposition figures said Moïse should have stepped down on February 7 of this year to complete a five-year term, and after Moïse refused to leave office thousands of Haitians protested in the streets. The government responded by arresting 23 people, including a senior judge and police official, whom Moïse accused of conspiring to assassinate him.
He might have been right! But it’s not like Moise was some sort of Jeffersonian paragon:
Haiti has experienced growing instability during the administration of President Jovenel Moïse, withunrest, high rates of inflation, and resurgent gang violence. The government’s failure to hold elections in October 2019 resulted in the terms of most of the Haitian legislature expiringon January 13, 2020, without officials elected to succeed them. Moïse is now ruling by decree. The judiciary is conducting ongoing investigations into Moïse’s possible involvement in various corrupt activities, which the president denies. Haitian Senate and Superior Court of Auditors investigations allege embezzlement and fraud by current and former Haitian officials managing $2 billion in loans from Venezuela’s PetroCaribe discounted oil program.
Speaking of getting whacked: “John McAfee Found Dead In Prison Cell After US Extradition Approved.” Ahem:
Getting subtle messages from U.S. officials saying, in effect: "We're coming for you McAfee! We're going to kill yourself". I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd. Check my right arm.$WHACKD available only on https://t.co/HdSEYi9krq:) pic.twitter.com/rJ0Vi2Hpjj
It took 18 months of steady abuse by rioters and their overlords at city hall for Portland cops to say “no mas” and tap out. As one retired Portland police detective said, “If anyone did to a horse or a dog what has been done to PPB cops for 18 months, that person would have amassed hundreds of counts of felony animal abuse, but it’s perfectly OK to do it to cops, wholesale, and with an army of anarchist pals.”
The police officers in the Portland riot squad, officially called the “rapid response team (RRT),” still work for the agency, but will no longer volunteer themselves for the duty that resulted in “nearly all” members being injured with “broken bones, torn ligaments, and cartilage, traumatic brain injuries, hearing damage, damaged eyesight, lacerations and burns,” in the words of the resignation letter sent to the chief by the squad’s leader.
Expect more of this.
Snip.
The chaos started at the top by assuming rioters were victims and cops were criminals.
In their letter, RRT leader Lieutenant Jacob Clark said rules on the books for dealing with protests and riots didn’t change, but interpretation of those rules changed often and were in conflict with interpretations by council members, the city attorney, and others. Worse, the changes in the interpretations were applied retroactively and officers, staying within the limits of the law, were suddenly written up under a new interpretation of the rules.
Snip.
You can trace the walkout by Portland cops directly to efforts that began with George Soros.
Singer John Legend and BLM co-founder Shaun King followed Soros’s lead and poured money into the campaigns of district attorney candidates who believe cops are the problem, not the solution to keeping order. In fact, keeping order isn’t really a thing for these activists.
In both cities, Leftists poured money behind DA candidates who promised to free criminals and do what they could to stick it to cops and police departments. Portland got Mike Schmidt and LA got carpet bagger George Gascon. These DA’s, aided by unhinged city council members – Jo Ann Hardesty in Portland, Kshama Sawant in Seattle, and their allies in city bureaus – have created less safe cities.
Seattle’s city attorney and King County prosecutor’s lack of prosecutions against actual criminals – because woke ideology – has turned the Emerald City, like Portland and San Francisco before it, into a homeless encampment with no rules, free-flowing drugs, and free rent.
Portland Police union head Daryl Turner is interviewed following the resignation of Portland’s entire riot-response trained police team. pic.twitter.com/dD53nkAGlJ
Nine months after the declaration of a national emergency due to the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. births fell by 8% in a month.
The December drop marked an acceleration in declines in the second part of the year. For the full year, the number of babies born in the country fell 4% to about 3.6 million, the largest decline since 1973.
Michael “Creepy Porn Lawyer” Avenatti sentenced to two and a half years in prison over Nike extortion case. Let’s take a stroll through memory lane over the endless MSM fawning over Avenatti:
May we always remember and cherish the time Ana Navarro compared Michael Avenatti to the Holy Spirit pic.twitter.com/y63JoX4leq
s I previously reported, earlier this year, the University of Texas at Austin (UT) went off the deep end of all things “woke” and politically correct.
Despite warnings from alumni, faculty, and organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the National Association of Scholars, UT quietly adopted a “Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity” that is genuinely chilling. Among other questionable practices, this plan institutionalizes the Critical Race Theory version of “equity” (equality of results, as opposed to equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and meritocracy) as the paramount driver of decisions on hiring, promotion, tenure, leadership positions, and even teaching awards and endowed chairs at UT. It also creates a bureaucracy of diversity commissars in each college to enforce the new orthodoxy and mandates re-education of virtually all faculty in the new catechism.
UT insiders tell me this plan was the brainchild and pet project of UT Vice Provost Edmund Gordon, a pronounced CRT advocate. UT’s adoption of this extraordinarily ill-considered plan was the last straw for me (and, based on responses I have received to my article, apparently many other UT alumni as well). UT President Jay Hartzell’s response to this criticism has been to ignore it, which seems to be his preferred modus operandi. President Hartzell’s calculus appears to be that, with the Texas legislature now safely adjourned from its biennial session. UT can continue on its merry way, unmolested by the unenlightened peasantry.
He may be in for a rude awakening.
Russia unveils world’s largest submarine. I’m sure it will be well-engineered and quite capable (Soviet subs were), but I’m betting those “Intercontinental Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedoes” are almost pure vaporware.
“Hedge Fund That Bet Against GameStop Shuts Down As Backers Pull Money.” “White Square Capital, run by a former Paulson trader, has announced that it will return capital to shareholders. Some of the FT’s sources said the decision was likely due to heavy losses stemming from the firm’s GME short.”
A heart I transplanted recently on the Organ Care System. Amazing technology to benefit our patients on the waiting list. Recipient is doing great! pic.twitter.com/8Zr2MxI1ZX
Today the Texas Special Legislative Session begins:
Governor Greg Abbott unveiled an agenda of 11 items for the legislature to tackle in its first special session of 2021 when it convenes later this week.
The whole agenda includes:
Bail reform
Election reform
Border security
Social media censorship
Article X funding
Family violence protection
Requirement for student athletes to compete within their own sex
Restriction on abortion-inducing drugs
Supplemental payment to the Teachers Retirement System
More comprehensive critical race theory ban
Property tax relief
Foster care system appropriation
Cyber security appropriation
Items like election reform, social media censorship, and a more comprehensive ban on critical race theory were already identified by Abbott as part of the agenda.
After House Democrats walked out of the chamber on the last night of the regular session — breaking quorum and killing various pieces of legislation, most notably the election bill — Abbott declared that he would call a special session to tackle some of those items in addition to the fall special dealing with redistricting and federal coronavirus funds.
Another bill that died that night was bail reform, which was among Abbott’s emergency item list. It is included on the special session call.
Abbott then vetoed Article X of the state budget which governs funding for the legislature due to, in his words, the legislature not “showing up and doing their job.”
House Democrats petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to block Abbott’s veto of legislative funding and also appealed to Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) earlier this week to commit to stalling any special session agenda item until Article X funding is restored.
Here’s Abbott on the special session:
I've outlined a list of Special Session priority items that put TX first. I look forward to working with the #txlege as we build a brighter future for all Texans.
Notably missing from the agenda: A ban on the genital mutilation of minors.
Michael Quinn Sullivan noted via email:
The items placed on the call by Gov. Abbott can be thought of as the “primary effect” – which is to say, how the coming contested primary is impacting the governor’s actions.
The items on the call read like a laundry list of what the Texas Senate under Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has actually done… and what the Texas House under Speaker Dade Phelan failed to do.
The day before Abbott released the agenda, Phelan announced the creation of a new committee: the House Select Committee on Constitutional Rights and Remedies. “The issues that will be submitted by the Governor for our consideration in the upcoming special session impact some of the most fundamental rights of Texans under the U.S. and Texas Constitutions,” Phelan said.
“These issues, by their very nature, are complex. A select committee with expanded membership and expertise is the ideal forum for ensuring the thoughtful consideration of diverse viewpoints as these constitutional issues are expressed, debated, and decided by the House.”
The committee will be chaired by Rep. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin) and vice-chaired by Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston).
The other members on the body include:
John Bucy (D-Austin)
Travis Clardy (R-Nacogdoches)
Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth)
Jacey Jetton (R-Richmond)
Ann Johnson (D-Houston)
Stephanie Klick (R-Fort Worth)
Brooks Landgraf (R-Odessa)
J.M. Lozano (R-Kingsville)
Oscar Longoria (D-Mission)
Joe Moody (D-El Paso)
Victoria Neave (D-Dallas)
Matt Shaheen (R-Plano)
James White (R-Hillister)
That committee doesn’t fill one with confidence. Geran was Joe Straus’ righthand man for many years, and an aide once filed a false child protection report against a primary opponent. Klick was one of only 16 Republicans to vote for creation of a Critical Race Theory-friendly Office of Health Equity in the regular session.
Then there’s a the question of whether Democrats will walk out again to avoid the election integrity bill from passing, just as they did during the regular session.
The Texas Department of State Health Services is using close to $45 million to create the Office of Health Equity Policy and Performance. Purportedly, the office will work with state and local public health entities to address disparities in health outcomes in various demographics.
“Equity” is the CRTspeak tipoff here, because equality and color-bind policies don’t give the hard left enough opportunities to stick their noses into other people’s business to promote their racist theories.
If this sounds familiar, it is because Democrat State Rep. Garnet Coleman (Houston) authored a bill during the 87th Legislative Session that would have created the Office of Health Equity within the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, which is an entity of the Texas Department of State Health Services.
The bill was included in the healthcare legislative priorities of Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan as a part of his “Healthy Families, Healthy Texas” legislative package announced in early April.
The bill passed the Texas House of Representatives on May 5 by a vote of 77-51 and included 16 Republicans.
Those Republicans were State Reps. Steve Allison (San Antonio), Brad Buckley (Salado), Gary Gates (Rosenberg), Dan Huberty (Humble), Todd Hunter (Corpus Christi), Kyle Kacal (College Station), Ken King (Canadian), Stephanie Klick (Ft. Worth), John Kuempel (Seguin), Stan Lambert (Abilene), Morgan Meyer (Dallas), Geanie Morrison (Victoria), Chris Paddie (Marshall), Four Price (Amarillo), John Raney (Bryan), and Jim Murphy (Houston).
Murphy is also the House Republican Caucus chairman.
When the bill arrived in the Texas Senate, it was never even referred to a committee and granted a hearing, sealing its fate—or so you would have thought.
Snip.
When the news broke that the Texas Department of State Health Services was creating this office of its own accord, former State Rep. Matt Rinaldi, a current candidate for the Republican Party of Texas chairman, took to Twitter to ask, “Why is the Texas executive branch using $45 million of taxpayer money to create an agency that will implement critical race theory in health policy after the Legislature defunded the agency in 2017 and the [S]enate blocked its implementation this year?
When Coleman’s bill was being deliberated in the House of Representatives, State Rep. Jeff Cason (R–Bedford) spoke out against the bill on the House floor and said, “Today, we gather here voting on legislation that assumes our healthcare system is institutionally racist and that certain people are oppressed when receiving health care due to their gender or color of their skin.” He continued, “No one in America is turned away from a hospital. Healthcare has been open to all who seek it.”
Absolutely nothing good can come of catering to radical Critical Race Theory proponents, no matter how much proponents might swear up and down that their version of “Equity” somehow won’t be used to carry water for the radical left. You can’t let the camel’s nose in the tent.
Governor Abbott should put a stop to this nonsense, or explain to Republican voters why he won’t.
The Biden administration is failing big time with its inability to control illegal immigration, adding it to one of several issues that could doom Democrats if left unchecked.
In a new Harvard/Harris poll, an overwhelming 80% said that illegal immigration is a serious issue and one that needs more attention than what President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris are giving.
What’s more, 68% said that signals from Biden’s White House are encouraging illegal immigration, and 55% believe that former President Donald Trump’s border closing policies should have been left in place.
The fears of illegal immigration were a key part of Penn’s analysis of his June poll for Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies and the Harris Poll.
He wrote: “Sixty-four percent of registered voters want the Biden administration to issue new, stricter policies to reduce the flow of people across the border. Only 7% of voters could accurately call out the amount of monthly illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. with 84% underestimate the number, suggesting we should expect stronger voter reactions if the crisis evolves further. Overall, 74% of voters view the current surge in illegal immigrants as a crisis that needs to be addressed immediately, and 56% do not view climate change, racism, and sexism as root causes of migration from South and Central America.”
Nor are Americans any more enamored of Critical Race Theory:
And despite liberal media efforts to dismiss the debates in school districts around the country over the teaching of critical race theory, the poll found that it too was a hot issue.
“On schooling and education, another sleeper issue, 61% do not believe students should be taught that America is structurally racist and is dominated by white supremacy,” said Penn in his email.
Americans oppose critical race theory because it’s racism, and they’re not racist.
Will the Biden Administration change directions in the face of these findings? Almost certainly not. Democrats view both Critical Race Theory and amnestying illegal aliens as tickets to permanent electoral majorities. DNC leadership no doubt views all the House Democrats who will lose races in 2022 as acceptable collateral damage to avoid changing course…
I used to follow some college athletics. Now I don’t. At the same time universities were getting more and more expensive, they were also getting more and more woke. College sports used to be an oasis from that nonsense, but so many programs bent the knee to #BlackLivesMatter last year that I just stopped paying attention.
he U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out limits set by the major governing body for American intercollegiate sports on education-related benefits that schools can give players as a violation of antitrust law, handing a big victory to student-athletes fighting for greater financial compensation.
The 9-0 ruling put the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) further on the defensive as it struggles to preserve a business model – huge revenues generated by college sports and big salaries for executives and coaches while players remain unpaid – under assault on multiple fronts.
The NCAA’s curbs on non-cash payments to college athletes related to education – including benefits such as computers, science equipment and musical instruments – were part of what critics have called the fiction of amateurism in college sports, an enterprise that rakes in billions of dollars annually.
These limits, according to the ruling authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, are anticompetitive under a federal law called the Sherman Antitrust Act. The ruling could pave the way for challenges to other NCAA compensation rules, a prospect that Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to invite in a separate opinion agreeing with Gorsuch.
Kavanaugh wrote that those other limits on compensation for players “also raise serious questions under the antitrust laws” and suggested they likely would be struck down if lower courts follow the analysis laid out in Monday’s ruling.
“The NCAA is not above the law,” Kavanaugh added.
For years, football and basketball have been big moneymakers for some colleges and universities (and money losers for others). Why not let student athletes benefit from that? Tradition? Hell, colleges are hellbent on destroying every tradition that made them vital institutions (including freedom of speech, free inquiry and the rule of law), so why not that one as well?
I’ve long thought that traditional football power schools (Alabama, Texas, USC, Oklahoma, etc.) could make a lot more money by leaving the NCAA and forming their own competing football conference of 15 or so teams, playing a round robin schedule plus playoffs. They could pay athletes and forge a partnership deal with the NFL to provide year-round professional coaching. It would provide more entertainment than watching power schools beat up on Rice or UNT every year.
America’s entire higher education system needs a hard reboot: Shut down all colleges and universities for a year, eliminate SJW departments like Women’s Studies entirely, hand every woke professor and administrator a pink slip, and deny federal loan and contracts for any university it costs students more than 10 grand a year to attend. Right now all this is a pipe-dream, but college athletics are one of the last sources of unwarranted affection ordinary people feel toward higher education. (“College is a $120,000 hooker, and you are an idiot who fell in love with her!”) Maybe the demise of the current plantation athletic complex will help pave the way for real reform.
