Here are my observations on a few news briefs I thought would be of interest to you.
SCORCHED EARTH LEADER Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) followed his pathetic tearful airport performance on President Donald Trump’s moratorium on immigration from seven Muslim countries with a speech on the Senate floor citing Acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ refusal to defend the president’s order in court as – wait for it – a profile in courage. Yates, a Democrat leftover from the Obama administration, was kept on board pending the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as the new attorney general. President Trump has summarily relieved her of that position. The vote on Sessions’ confirmation is now due Feb. 1, 2017
NBA COACHES – Steve Kerr of the Warriors and Earl Watson of the Suns – have joined Hollywood celebrities in criticizing the president’s immigration moratorium. Who cares what they think? And in case you haven’t heard, there’s a group of anti-Trumpers who are asking people to boycott the Super Bowl, because Patriots’ Owner Robert Kraft, Coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady are friends of the president. Yeah, right. Play ball.
MORE MEDIA BIAS was evident on page one of the Jan. 29, 2017 edition of USA Today as the paper clearly sided against the president’s immigration moratorium by printing a quote in bold headline type by Lena F. Masri of the Muslim advocacy group Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR). “There is no evidence that refugees – the most thoroughly vetted of all people entering our nation – are a threat to national security,” read the quote. President Trump is not so sure and has repeatedly stated his case for extreme vetting during his campaign.
BETSY DEVOS FACING STIFF UNION OPPOSITION to her confirmation as secretary of education, has passed with a slim partisan vote in committee, but not before Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) accused her of plagiarism as DeVos cut and pasted her way through some 1,400 written responses, including 139 from Murray herself. Two Republicans, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins, continue to cast doubt on voting for her when the full Senate vote is taken. The National Education Association (NEA), the largest teacher’s union, is looking for a payback from Murkowski for supporting her in her 2010 reelection.
SPEAKING OF UNIONS – Membership is down. The NEA has lost 100,000 members since 2010, a 16 percent drop. The union’s share of the U.S. workforce dropped 10.7 percent last year, following an 11 percent decline in 2015. Just 6.4 percent of private workers belong to a union. “Since Michigan’s right-to-work law took effect in 2013,” the Wall Street Journal reports,“ the share of unionized workers has fallen 2.2 percentage points. Last year union membership declined by about 290,000 in the 25 states that had right-to-work laws.”
WHEN DEVOS TAKES OFFICE one of her first tasks will be to do a top-to-bottom review of student loan records. In President Obama’s last days in January it was revealed that there was a “coding error” that incorrectly computed loan repayment rates that led to the undercounting of some borrowers, who had not reduced their loan balances by one dollar. Today, fewer than half of undergraduate borrowers in college are paying down their debt. In addition, the Government Accountability Office projected that loan forgiveness for borrowers enrolled in the plans could cost some $100 billion. I have often criticized Obama’s takeover of the student loan program. Now we learn that he left office saddling we taxpayers with hundreds of billions (that’s correct) in losses.
ANOTHER BUSY DAY IN THE WHITE HOUSE – After meeting with a group of small businessmen and women on Monday, President Trump began Tuesday with a meeting of executives from the Pharmaceutical sector to make his pitch for lower prescription costs. He also met with a group of military and intelligence agency people, who will address cyber security under former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The president will be working into the evening with his scheduled announcement of his Supreme Court nominee. The scorched-earth Dems can’t keep up with what they refer to as Trump’s “cacophony of terribleness.”
LOOK FOR THE DEMS to build a case against newly nominated Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch, an individual who earlier won their support when he was confirmed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. I believe the American people are soon going to tire of the blanket obstruction by the Dems.
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