Category: Uncategorized

Wokeism Context: Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has been getting slammed by some on the left for his opening Judiciary Committee comments to federal circuit court judge nominee Lucy Koh. As a preamble to his questions, he complimented her as a Korean-American, noting the community’s traditional “hard-work ethic.” Then he said: “I congratulate you and your people.” Then came the knee-jerk criticism. To wit: “Even as a compliment, assigning any trait to a whole community is the definition of prejudice.” That was Democratic Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus. Or: “At minimum, he owes Judge Koh an apology.” That was Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee adviser Kurt Badella, who should be doing the apologizing.

No, this wasn’t Mickey Rooney with an unconscionably insulting Asian caricature in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s.” This wasn’t Jon Gruden with an old email that trafficked in an insulting black racial stereotype. And this really wasn’t woke; this was a joke, only unfunny and unfair. Political correctness on ‘roids. Doesn’t intent, let along content, matter?

BTW, Sen. Grassley was saluting Judge Koh for being the first female Korean American circuit judge in U.S. history. And Grassley’s daughter-in-law is Korean-American.

The deadline that Congress set for the release of the remaining John F. Kennedy assassination archives is later this month—Oct. 26. It will be President Joe Biden’s call. What’s at issue is transparency about what is officially known about what unconscionably and tragically happened 58 years ago. Potential embarrassments over a government agency—such as the CIA—complicity are not sufficient cause to override democratic transparency. Rogues were not unknown during the height of the Cold War.

Lee Harvey Oswald was involved, but he wasn’t, of course, on the grassy knoll. There’s a reason why he called himself a “patsy” and why a mob-related, strip club owner took him out. Leave it at that for now. Let us all see what still remains suspiciously opaque in the archives.

• The good news: Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell announced an agreement to extend the government’s borrowing authority. The less-than-good news: The debt ceiling crisis–and fiscal-cliff scenarios–has now been re-scheduled for December.
• In the meantime, talk about curbing the filibuster has picked up. “I think people feel the supermajority on the debt ceiling is a bridge too far.” That was Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat.
• President Biden will not invoke executive privilege and will not block documents—including communication within the Trump White House—sought by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Trump has pledged to try and keep WH records from being turned over to investigators. BTW, Courts have traditionally left questions of executive privilege up to the current president.
• Totally appropriate—and a long time coming—that President Biden’s precedent-setting proclamation and celebration of Indigenous People’s Day was Oct. 11—Columbus Day.
• Less than 2 percent of West Virginia’s workforce is employed in the mining industry. Federally subsidized health care is particularly important in a state where Medicaid beneficiaries are 25 percent of the population. A stronger social safety net would go over well with most West Virginians—as Sen. Joe Manchin surely knows. He also knows the difference between “needs” and “entitlements.”
• President Biden quickly expanded eligibility for federal subsidies for the Affordable Care Act plans—and created a 6-month special enrollment period. The result: adding 1.6 million enrollees to the 10.6 million previously covered.
• Speculation is already ramping up about next year and Democratic gubernatorial races in three key battleground states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Govs. Tony Evers of Wisconsin and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are incumbents; Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania is term-limited.
• Two years ago Andrew Yang was running for president in Democratic primaries. Then he acknowledged that he felt confined, limited and “stuck” in the two-party system. He became an independent. Apparently not independent enough. He has since announced plans to start his own political party: “The Forward Party.”

• Just 4 percent of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated.
• Approximately 98 percent of those eligible for vaccines in Portugal have been fully vaccinated.
• Pfizer/BioBTech has formally asked the FDA to authorize their COVID pediatric vaccine for emergency use for children age 5-11. An estimated 28 million children in the U.S. would be eligible if regulators give the go-ahead. Authorization could occur some time between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
• According to Pentagon data, about 24 percent of (2.8 million) active-duty troops, National Guard and reserves had received no vaccine.
• More unconscionable misappropriations of famous quotes from vaccination-mandate protesters in New York. “We the people tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us.” And “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Arguably, neither Ronald Reagan nor Martin Luther King Jr. would feel honored.
• 67 million: The approximate number of unvaccinated American adults.
• The U.S. has surpassed 700,000 Covid deaths.
• An overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months were unvaccinated.
• The number of Americans now in the hospital with COVID has declined by about one fourth since its recent peak of almost 94,000 a month ago.
• The indie-pop duo Tennis has canceled its Jannus Live concert because the venue refused to allow them to require a vaccine or a negative COVID test for entry. It speaks pandemic volumes when a band is more public-health conscious than a concert venue.

• Thank you, Texas. Were it not for your cultural warfare and defiant, democracy suppression, even more focus would be on Ron DuhSantis and “Flori-duh.”
• About 63 percent of eligible Floridians have been fully vaccinated.
• Here’s the bottom line when it comes to Florida threatening school-district funding cuts over mask mandates. Should parents more interested in ideology and bumper stickers than science have full discretion in deciding whether a student should wear a public-health protecting mask during a pandemic?
• “I would think, certainly, by the end of the year Democrats would like to have some viable, quality candidatesin place.”—UCF political science professor Aubrey Jewett, on the challenge of Dems to find a credible slate of Florida Cabinet candidates.
• Florida-based Publix has announced plans to hire about 30,000 associates in the upcoming months across the company’s seven-state operating area.

• Hipster Update: Among the upgrades and makeovers in and around downtown Tampa, now add this: a luxury garage condo. It’s high-end storage space for upscale cars and is now under construction on Adamo Drive–61 units with prices ranging from $255,000 to $345,000—by Paddock1. It also comes with a clubhouse with a lounge, bar, temperature-controlled wine bar and cigar lockers, a specialty car showroom and event space.
• Royal Caribbean will resume its operations at Port Tampa Bay this Saturday (Oct. 16). It’s the first cruise-line sailing since the pandemic began in March 2010.
• The number of COVID cases in Tampa Bay area schools last week was 1/10 what it was when the school year began.

• “The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed.”—Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.
• According to a Pearson Institute and AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 79 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of Democrats said social media companies bear a great deal or quite a bit of responsibility for misinformation.
• The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that 274 journalists were imprisoned in 2020, the most since 1992.
• Grandstanding centrist Sen. Krysten Sinema, sometimes referenced as the “GretaGarbo of Congress,” has received a well-earned spotlight—well outside her chosen role as a reconciliation-bill-obstructionist Democrat. She was featured, as it were, in “Saturday Night Live’s” cold opening. She was played, all too accurately, by a SNL cast member as a silly, absurdist narcissist.

• Confronted by yet another round of debt-ceiling chicken, how is Congress “the world’s greatest deliberative body”? Hell, Kim Khardashian has a more deliberative body.
• Properly trained, a Man can be Dog’s best friend.
• Yo, Facebook and Instagram were down for hours because of an outage. The upside: Unexpected found time to maybe read a book or write a letter. Maybe.
• The Welsh actor Matthew Rhys is a big Ernest Hemingway fan. He even named his charter-boat company “Moveable Feast” and its website asks, “For whom the boat tours?”

• The Rays have contributed $50,000 to the mayoral campaign of Ken Welch. In 2017, the team made a $50,000 contribution to the re-election campaign of Rick Kriseman.
• Prominent locals in MLB playoffs: pitcher Lance McCullers, Houston (Jesuit H.S.); outfielder Kyle Tucker, Houston (Plant H.S.); manager Tony La Russa, Chicago White Sox (Jefferson H.S., USF); pitcher Shane McClanahan, Tampa Bay Rays (USF).

• “I would not run (in 2024) if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it.”—Nikki Haley, former U.N. Ambassador and ex-governor of South Carolina.
• Former Vice President Mike Pence has apparently weathered the “Hang Mike Pence!” threats of Jan. 6—and has found a self-serving focus. No, he hasn’t decried the “Stop the Steal” movement. To the contrary, he’s now dismissive in accusing the media of “demeaning” Trump supporters. Including, presumably, those who wanted to throw him an old-fashioned necktie party. “They want to use that one day to try and demean the character and intentions of 74 million Americans who believed we could be strong again and prosperous again and supported our administration in 2016 and 2020,” said Pence, with that implacably straight face, on Fox News. Pence also accuses the media of trying to distract attention from “the Biden administration’s failed agenda by focusing on one day in January.” More to the point, Pence is also trying to salvage some hope for his own political orbit by not unnecessarily disparaging the Trump base. Hang in there, Mike.
• “The whole (GOP) charade involves Republican officials—many of them educated at the nation’s top schools—betting that their constituents are too dumb to know they’re being lied to.”—Eugene Robinson, Washington Post.
• “In attempting to enlist DOJ for personal, political purposes in an effort to maintain his hold on the White House, Trump grossly abused the power of the presidency.”—Outtake from a report by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Sen. Lindsey Graham was booed and heckled at a South Carolina country club when he suggested folks “ought to think about getting (the vaccine).” Yes, that basket of self-defining deplorables is still there.