Disgusting Disrespect

In celebration of Pride Month, President Joe Biden (D) hung two American flags and a Pride flag from the balcony of the White House.

Biden actually is proud of this disgusting display. My disgust does not concern the Pride flag, it’s over the deliberate disrespect for our national flag that Biden is demonstrating with this display.

Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch President, has the right of it:

To advance revolutionary transgender agenda targeting children, Biden violates basic tenet of US Flag Code and disrespects every American service member buried under its colors[.]

He then cited cite US Flag Code §7(e):

The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs.

Biden had only two things he needed to get right with this display, and he chose to ignore both of them. Our American flag is not at the center of that display, nor is it displayed higher than the pride [sic] flag.

For all that, Fitton is being generous. Biden didn’t choose only to disrespect every American service member buried under our flag; Biden has chosen with this display to insult every colonial, every militiaman, every service member who, for generations, have fought to defend our flag and the things for which it stands, who were maimed in that defense, and those who died in that defense, and Biden has chosen to denigrate every Gold Star mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter who has lost a member of that Gold Star family defending our national flag and everything our flag symbolizes. Including Biden’s right to be cavalierly insulting.

But that contempt for Americans and America is par for the course that the Left, the Progressive-Democratic Party, and Party Leader President Joe Biden have been setting for our nation.

Will there ever be an American Pride Month for our nation? Not as long as this gang of miscreants remain in power.

NYT’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Performance

Now The New York Times is pushing the wokeness of gender “alteration” and associated child abuse directly to children. New York Times for Kids is a section aimed directly at children ages 8-13—prebuscent children up through children whose hormones are starting into an uproar as their bodies begin to change from a child’s to an adult’s body. The current rendition of this section includes things like

…suggest[ing] finding a “supportive space with friends or a counselor” to “let you safely explore what feels best, like changes to your name, pronouns, or style of dress.” This process of making outward gender changes is often referred to as social transitioning.

And

“Trans kids in trouble.” … “Healthcare for transgender kids has been in the news a lot,” lamenting that “at least 15 states have banned treatment for gender dysphoria.” It went on to tell readers, “The laws keep trans kids from getting the treatments they need. But experts are clear: Access to care saves trans kids’ lives.”

And

One article [in the section], headlined “When it doesn’t feel right,” talked about what to do about gender dysphoria. A doctor explained, “I’ve had a good number of young people describe it as having really intense feelings of anger, sadness, or insecurity about themselves or their bodies.”

Which, in particular, is nothing more than that hormonal uproar.

This section is disgusting even for tabloid journalism. The paper of record? Say, rather, the paper my cat wouldn’t tolerate under her litter box.

This will be the last time I reference this…outlet…by name. My blog may be meager, but I decline to give this birdcage reject any further air time or space.

Republican Ego-Ridden Obstructionists

The “conservative” House Freedom Caucus now is holding its collective breath until the dozen, or so, members are blue in the face if they can’t have their way every time. As a practical matter, they’re blocking the Republican Party from passing bills strongly favored by Republicans, including those self-styled Freedom Caucus Republicans, bills like a procedural rule for a vote on a bill to stop the Biden administration’s efforts to curtail the use and sale of gas-powered stoves.

We hold the floor, crows Matt Gaetz (R, FL). As of last Wednesday, all votes for the rest of the week had to be canceled because of the temper tantrum of these Precious Few.

Just to illustrate the utter foolishness of the children of the tantrum, Congressman Chip Roy (R, TX) complained that the gas stove bill wasn’t thrown into a Christmas tree version of the debt ceiling and spending cuts bill that was just passed. Then he said—and he actually was serious,

We should be serious about forcing votes to get it done[.]

And then he participated in blocking that vote.

This is the same mistake the then-newly elected Tea Party Caucus made, and those members were personally responsible for the failure to repeal Obamacare during the early months when repeal had the best chance. The repeals weren’t pure enough to suit them, they said their version or the highway, and they got the highway on any repeal. Most of those Congressmen learned the lesson of the failures caused by “their way or the highway” virtue-signaling obstructionism.

It’s time now for the crop of Republican virtue-signalers in that “Freedom” Caucus to (re)learn the same lesson, a crop led by Congressmen Roy, Gaetz, and Andy Biggs (R, AZ). Or at least to acknowledge that their “Freedom” Caucus stands for freedom for them and eh for everyone else, and therewith give fatal credence to what used to be a mere trope that Republicans cannot govern.

Aiding and Abetting?

Acting as an accessory?

Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald is defending with a straight face his decision to fire two employees who, while thieves were robbing a Lululemon store, verbally objected to the thefts, filmed the thieves in the act, and called the police.

McDonald insists that employees should “let the theft occur.” He went on:

We put the safety of our team, of our guests, front and center. It’s only merchandise. They’re trained to step back, let the theft occur, know that there’s technology and there’s cameras and we’re working with law enforcement.

This is, to use the technical term, a crock. The employees he fired used cameras—the ones in their cell phones—and they worked with law enforcement—they called the cops on the thieves.

Stepping back and letting the theft occur: that puts the safety of Lululemon employees front and center how, exactly? Allowing the crimes to occur unhindered only makes Lululemon stores—and other stores in the immediate area—even more susceptible to crime. And that endangers even more store employees and those customers who are present when criminals accept the McDonalds of the nation’s invitations.

I report. You decide. Or something like that.

Hype that Deadline

Even The Wall Street Journal is in on the artificial…excitement…act. Congress has just a few days to pass a bill before June 5 deadline goes the subheadline.

It’s not much of a deadline, with revenue flowing in under existing tax laws that’s more than sufficient to pay as scheduled the principal and interest on our nation’s debt, and then the scheduled payments for our soldiers and veterans, and then the scheduled payments for Social Security and Medicare along with the scheduled transfers to the States for Medicaid, and then the scheduled payments for HHS, then DoT (for good or ill), then DoEd (for good or ill), then….

You get the idea.

There are only a couple of things of note should a debt ceiling deal not be enacted by 5 June (or whatever becomes Yellen’s deadline du jour). One is that much of the Federal government would have to shut down. That amounts to a big so what.

The other is that a number of Federal government contracts with private businesses would have their payments HIAed, to the detriment of those businesses. The failure to pay on time also would strongly negatively affect our economy and to a large extent our reputation around the world.

That last is a consideration worth taking very seriously, but not at the expense of enacting a debt ceiling deal, any deal. Republicans and Conservatives in the House need to stand firm. The present deal isn’t all that, but, to coin a phrase, think of the (Progressive-Democratic Party’s) alternative.

The deal also shouldn’t be stand-alone.

Some conservatives in the House and Senate have said they would oppose the deal because it doesn’t go far enough to limit federal spending….

One way to show they’re serious about that is via the as yet undeveloped Federal budget for the next fiscal year. Beginning Thursday (assuming today’s vote is up rather than down), the House—which is to say, the Republican caucus, since they’ll get no cooperation from the Never-and-Nothing-Republican Progressive-Democratic Party caucus—needs to begin work on that next Federal budget, a budget that codifies reduced Federal spending, reduced Federal tax rates, and reformed Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid transfer payments, and have that budget passed and ready to send to the Senate the day after that body votes on the debt ceiling bill.

And then the House—the Republican caucus—needs to get to work on the dozen separate appropriations bills that are due by this fall.

There’s no need to wait on a President’s budget proposal (what President Joe Biden (D) tossed over the House’s transom this winter is not one that can be taken seriously) or to put up with Progressive-Democrat obstructionism and knee-jerk “No.”

Press ahead.