DeVos pleads with Education Department staff to 'be the resistance': report

 Fox News   

'Be the resistance against forces that will derail you from doing what’s right for students,' DeVos said

"Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday pleaded with department staff involved in transitioning to the Biden administration to "be the resistance" against not doing what's right for students.

"Devos made the statement during a virtual Department of Education meeting to discuss transition plans as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office, as Politico first reported, citing a recording of the meeting obtained by the outlet.

"Let me leave you with this plea: Resist," DeVos said. "Be the resistance against forces that will derail you from doing what’s right for students. In everything you do, please put students first – always."

"Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday pleaded with department staff involved in transitioning to the Biden administration to "be the resistance" against not doing what's right for students.

"Devos made the statement during a virtual Department of Education meeting to discuss transition plans as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office, as Politico first reported, citing a recording of the meeting obtained by the outlet.

" 'Let me leave you with this plea: Resist," DeVos said. "Be the resistance against forces that will derail you from doing what’s right for students. In everything you do, please put students first – always.' " . . .

CNN liberal apologists caught burying The Post’s Hunter Biden exposé: Devine

 

Miranda Devine  "The collusion of mainstream media and Big Tech to censor The Post’s Hunter Biden story now is laid bare in leaked recordings of CNN’s news meetings from the time.

"CNN boss Jeff Zucker is heard instructing his staff to downplay the bombshell story that implicated Joe Biden in a shady foreign influence-peddling scheme, according to audio released Tuesday by undercover news outlet Project Veritas.

"On the morning of Oct. 14, the day we published an email from Hunter’s abandoned laptop in which a top executive from corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma thanked Hunter for arranging a meeting with his then-VP father, CNN political director David Chalian is heard telling Zucker and his underlings that the news network would not cover the story.

“ 'Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” said Chalian. “We’ll just continue to report out this is the very stuff that the president was impeached over . . . that Senate committees looked at and found nothing wrong in Joe Biden’s interactions with Ukrainians.”

"Chalian, who oversees all of CNN’s political coverage, was not being straight with his colleagues.

"This was new evidence reflecting on Joe Biden’s integrity, suggesting that despite repeated denials, he had met with an executive of the company that was paying his wayward son up to $83,000 a month to sit on its board, at a time when Burisma was looking for favors from the US government and he was vice president.

"This was the first concrete link between Joe and his family’s shady foreign business deals, and there was much more to come over the next few days, all ignored or pooh-poohed by CNN in a naked bid to protect the Biden campaign from legitimate scrutiny." . . .

'A self-portrait of America': Andrew Cuomo unveils 10-foot-tall mask sculpture amid PPE shortage

 

http://www.terrellaftermath.com/

Washington Examiner  . . . "During his Wednesday press conference addressing the pandemic, New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled the sculpture, which he called "a self-portrait of America."

" 'I'm going to show you a self-portrait that was done by American people," he said. "This is a self-portrait of America, OK? That's a self-portrait of America, and you know what it spells? It spells love. That's what it spells. You have to look carefully, but that's what the American people are saying."

"Cuomo said his office received "thousands of masks" from people who wanted to show their support for New Yorkers in the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

" 'A little bit more of this and a little bit less of the partisanship and the ugliness, and this country would be a better place," he added.

"The masks, which were mostly made of cloth, are not medical-grade equipment and would not be effective in a hospital scenario. However, spectators online pointed out the spectacle comes at a time when residents are required to wear face coverings in public." . . .

House GOPs Call on Nancy Pelosi to Remove Eric Swalwell from Intelligence Committee

 Breitbart

"A group of House Republicans called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to remove Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the House Intelligence Committee following a report that he was targeted by a suspected Chinese spy in a years-long political intelligence operation.

"The letter, signed by top Republicans in the House, said:

Because of Rep. Swalwell’s position on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, his close interactions with Chinese intelligence services, however unintentional they may be, are an unacceptable national security risk. HPSCI handles some of the most sensitive information our government possesses — information critical to our national defense. As such, we urge you to immediately remove Rep. Swalwell from his position on the House Intelligence Committee.

"Last week, Axios reported that a suspected Chinese spy named Christine Fang, or Fang Fang, believed to be working with China’s Ministry of State Security had developed extensive ties with Swalwell as part of a multi-year spy operation that lasted from 2011 to 2015.

"Fang reportedly met Swalwell when he was a council member for Dublin City, California, between 2010 and 2012. Swalwell was elected to Congress in 2012. Fang reportedly had romantic relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, and Swalwell has refused to say whether his relationship with Fang was romantic. Fang reportedly raised campaign funds for Swalwell as a bundler and helped place at least one intern in his congressional offices." . . .

Tony Branco

Introducing the man slated to run the Department of Transportation

DonkeyHotey

Andrea Widburg  "Joe Biden is continuing to hand out spoils based upon his claimed election
victory. Some positions are going to the technocrats who ran cover for him when his massive family corruption came to light. Other positions are going to leftist activists. Biden has selected Pete Buttigieg as his pet gay activist. After mulling making Buttigieg the Ambassador to China, Biden opted, instead, to hand him the Department of Transportation. That’s quite a plum assignment for a guy with a pathetic administrative record." . . .

. . . "South Bend, incidentally, while it’s the 306th largest city in America is 69th in a list of America’s most dangerous cities. Another site explains that both its violent crime and property crime rates are almost twice the U.S. average.

. . . "Our potential future Transportation Secretary had the following accomplishments:

• He demoted the city’s first black police chief for illegal conduct and then groveled apologetically when BLM became a thing.
• He presided over the gentrification of black neighborhoods.
• He helped create a nightly laser light show, paid for with privately raised funds.
• He made a budget proposal that would have combined three separate departments into one to save costs and improve efficiency . . . but his proposal failed.
• He opposed Indiana’s Senate Bill 101 (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act), which allows individuals and companies to assert as a defense in legal proceedings that charges against them or demands on them violate their religious freedom. That’s when he came out of the closet and found his political identity: The Gay Mayor.
• He invested in city parks and leveraged federal funds to help prevent sewage overflow.
• He launched a “home repair” initiative, making funds available to residents wanting to do home repairs, especially Green repairs.

"There’s more at the Wikipedia link but, generally speaking, color me underwhelmed." . . .

Black Lives Matter Opposes Pete Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary  . . . "As Fox News noted, Buttigieg was criticized in South Bend for failing to fix potholes in his city, whose roads were regarded as among the worst in the state.

"In addition, Buttigieg faced opposition from the local black community after he demoted the city’s first black police chief, and after a white police officer shot and killed a black man named Eric Logan. Black Lives Matter activists followed Buttigieg on the campaign trail and protested him repeatedly.

"His attempts to reach out to the black community — including obsequious visits with Al Sharpton — struck many as pandering. In South Carolina, for example,Buttigieg told black voters that he did not have their “lived experience.” He also routinely drew criticism for overstating his black support." . . .

How NASA’s Leadership and Policy May Change Under the Biden Administration

"Whoever President-elect Biden selects as the next chief administrator of NASA, it is crucial they support commercial space partnerships that have thrived under the Obama and Trump administrations.. . . "

 Reason  . . . "Despite increased investment in space operations world-wide, space policy was hardly included in President-elect Joe Biden’s policy planning discussions. As The Verge put it, “The Biden campaign has said virtually nothing about how the president-elect would set space policy, other than noting that climate change and Earth science would be a big focus of the upcoming administration.”

"We do know that NASA’s current chief administrator, Jim Bridenstine, announced he will be stepping down as the organization’s top executive after Biden takes the oath of office. And some space professionals have predicted Biden will likely look to appoint the first female NASA administrator in replacing Bridenstine.

"The Biden administration recently released its National Aeronautics and Space Administration transition team which includes a multitude of experienced and respected space professionals. Not only will this team help advise Biden on who the next NASA chief appointee should be but should also help lay the groundwork for Biden’s NASA policy and transition the agency to fit these goals." . . .

"Rebecca van Burken is a technology policy analyst at Reason Foundation. van Burken contributes to Reason’s technology policy efforts and to work regarding privatization and the technology sector.."

Man Frequently Compared To Hitler Recognizes Jerusalem As Israel's Capital

 Babylon Bee

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—A man whose detractors frequently compare him to Nazis and even Adolf Hitler fulfilled a promise Monday by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and officially recognizing the historic city as the capital of Israel.

The man, none other than President Trump, made the move long requested by Jews living in Israel in a show of good faith, all while being called a “fascist, Nazi dictator” by various media outlets.

“This man is even worse than the Nazis,” a commentator on CNN said during a live report on the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. “President Trump is literally—and I say this without any exaggeration or embellishment—he is literally Adolf Hitler reincarnated.”

At publishing time, multiple sources had confirmed that the man who has been called “Hitler” more often than any other public figure in recent history has a daughter who married a Jew and converted to Judaism.

John Kerry's Tough 'Climate Diplomacy' With China To Likely Be Mere Exercise In Political Point Scoring

Zero Hedge

"The incoming Biden administration will be the first ever to allow a 'climate envoy' to serve on the National Security Council. The man tapped for the job, John Kerry, has been hailed as "a long-time climate champion" with vast foreign policy experience to boot given he was formerly Obama's secretary of state. 

"Though it remains hotly contested and disputed the extent to which climate change is a matter of national security, the two things will now be bound up, and even more so given the US and China are widely considered as the world's two top polluters, and given Sino-US relations are at an all-time low within these last weeks of the Trump presidency. 

"A lengthy essay in South China Morning Post explores the prospects of Biden getting "tough" on China in the area of combatting climate change with Kerry running point. "The prospect of a return to a joint effort by the world’s top two polluters to combat the climate crisis has set off alarm bells among some political circles in the US, amid a hardening of attitudes towards Beijing," SCMP Beijing Bureau Chief Jane Cai along with co-author Owen Churchill write.

"Specifically they cite the foremost example of Republican Congressional hawk Tom Cotton, who fears steep reversals of Trump's pressure campaign on Beijing in the name of "smooth relations" based on nebulous "commitments" on climate change. 

"Weeks ago Cotton said on Twitter that Biden is surrounding himself with "panda huggers" who will ultimately be "soft" on China, before adding:

"John Kerry will jet off to Beijing in pursuit of a climate accord with the world’s biggest polluter, the Chinese Communist Party. If Xi Jinping plays along, he’ll demand concessions. And we know what that means: more shuttered factories in the U.S., more hot air from Beijing." . . .

Can the mainstream media be punished for Hunter Biden election interference?

Bookworm Room

The drive-by media committed election interference by lying about Hunter Biden. I think there’s a common law remedy against them.

"In October, the New York Post revealed that Hunter Biden was in bed with Russia, China, and Ukraine, and that Joe Biden was a part of it. As I like to say, the information from what is indubitably Hunter’s hard drive showed that Joe Biden pimped his son to various countries with interests antithetical to America. In exchange, Biden got a cut from the money that flowed in. He did the same with his brother, James.

"The evidence was incontrovertible: Joe Biden is not just corrupt in the way of an ordinary politician making money from graft; he sold out America for his and his family’s enrichment. Rather than seemingly heading for the White House, he should be heading for Club Fed (where he should have a cell next to Bill Clinton, while Hillary tries to dominate her sector in the women’s Club Fed). But nobody said that life was fair and America has become, I think, an irredeemably corrupt nation. Trump tried valiantly, but the task of cleaning out the Augean stable was too great for one man.

"Of course, the Hunter Biden scandal isn’t just Hunter Biden — it’s also the media. The media did everything possible to squash the story:" . . .

. . . "We know that this media cover-up affected the election — so much so, that it’s reasonable to believe that, but for the cover-up, Trump would have sailed to victory. Even fraud would not have been enough to scale that difference.

"Now, though, the media have a different goal: They believe they got Trump out of the White House. Now they need to get Biden out too. After all, we all understand that he was a mask, a puppet, a figurehead, and a phony. He existed solely as a vehicle to get Kamala Harris into office. She will be Obama’s third term and America’s Chavez/Maduro. That’s why the media, which could have continued to stifle the Hunter story, is suddenly reporting it. Joe Biden needs to be tainted and given the boot ASAP.

"What the media did was extraordinarily corrupt and it constituted very real, very effective election interference. The problem, as many have pointed out, is that the media didn’t break any laws. I wonder, though, if they can be sued. This is a very inchoate idea, but wouldn’t it be lovely if the media could be financially broken?" . . .

Even if Biden gets the White House, it will be a misbegotten presidency

http://www.terrellaftermath.com/

Even if Biden gets the White House, it will be a misbegotten presidency   . . "Democrats, though, built a fragile constituency based upon identity politics and the chimerical belief that "intersectionality" binds these disparate groups together.  In fact, The only thing that binds Democrat voters together is their hatred for America and their sense of victimization.  It's that victimization that's going to be their undoing because Democrat voters are in a race for the dross crown at the bottom of the sewer.

"Each identity group, to get its share of the government spoils that make up a socialist oligarchy, must prove that it is the most downtrodden.  These disparate groups can point at white men and other evil white people for only so long.  At a certain point, they're going to have to break down and start fighting each other.

"Over at the Power Line blog, Steven Hayward has identified a beautiful moment of Democrat infighting that's already shot down Biden's first choice for head of the Environmental Protection Agency.  (We'll take it as given here at American Thinker that any Democrat choice is going to be a disaster for America.  This post is not about that issue.)" . . .Andrea Widburg

Rep. Dan Crenshaw rips into Pelosi for her moral corruption and hypocrisy

Andrea Widburg  

 But this is unscientific nonsense, and we all know it. Study after study shows outdoor dining is safe, that outbreaks are not occurring because of our small businesses, our gyms, our restaurants, our salons, and yet these small businesses are in the crosshairs of cowardly politicians across the country. This madness has to stop. This arbitrary application of executive orders is deeply, deeply unconstitutional.. . . 

Must Watch: Crenshaw Torches Pelosi, Unscientific COVID Restrictions   . . . "Pelosi -- a multi-millionaire who has not suffered much or any hardship this year, infamously carving out special exception for an unlawful hair appointment while businesses struggled and faltered -- steadfastly opposed every option brought to her. But she's suddenly open to a much more modest compromise than her previous supposed "red line" dictated. Asked why she's changed her posture, she angrily scolded a reporter who suggested her prior all-or-nothing approach may have been a mistake (some of her own members have said as much, but she called it a choice of which she's "proud") and explained that the forthcoming vaccines and a new incoming president were the "game changers." As journalist Byron York has noted, the vaccine talking point is totally illogical: . . ."

. . . "The true strategy behind her approach was to deny any credit to Trump and Republicans, then parlay the resulting public anger into electoral success, further empowering her and her party. This cynical, callous, astoundingly selfish ploy only partially worked. She has her new president, but her party suffered down ticket. With her heartless, power-hungry calculus laid bare, Crenshaw took to the House floor to turn the speaker on blast. What Republicans had been alleging over her many months of stonewalling, he said, has now been confirmed by her own words. After ripping into Pelosi, the congressman turned his attention to some of the anti-science, ruinous COVID restrictions and lockdowns being imposed on Americans by politicians -- far too many of whom, like Pelosi, have gotten caught playing by their own special set of rules. All four-and-a-half minutes of this righteous indignation are worth your time:" . . .

Crenshaw Gives Red-Hot Speech Condemning Pelosi And Dem Leaders Imposing Lockdowns

"It’s hard to imagine a more awful and heartless strategy."

California under Democrat rule

 

Bar Owner In Los Angeles Shreds Democratic Leaders Following Forceful Shutdown — ‘I’m Losing Everything’ . . . “ 'I’m losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me and they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio, which is right over here. And people wonder why I’m protesting and why I have had enough.”  “They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive, my staff cannot survive.” . . .