Or So He Says

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian claims his company’s decision to cut ties with the National Rifle Association to the extent it will no longer offer discounts for NRA members was apolitical.

While Delta’s intent was to remain neutral, some elected officials in Georgia tied our decision to a pending jet fuel tax exemption, threatening to eliminate it unless we reversed course. Our decision was not made for economic gain and our values are not for sale[.]

Of course.

Bastian maintains that in cutting its affiliation with the pro-gun rights group, Delta tried to remove itself from the gun control debate.

Never mind that Delta was never in the gun control debate until it chose to enter it with this move.

Bastian also claims that the company is “reevaluating the group discounts” it offers to members of other organizations that are “politically divisive.”

Sure.  Two things about that, though.  Delta actually has stopped the discounts for NRA members; it’s only “evaluating” that move for other groups.  And: Bastian has chosen, so far at least, to decline to offer his criteria that define “politically divisive.”

I won’t be flying Delta anytime soon.  Or United Airlines, which is perpetrating a similar boycott.  I will be using FedEx, which says that while it disagrees with the NRA on some questions, it won’t discriminate against any of its customers over political beliefs.

A Mayor and Violent Illegal Aliens

Some numbers are in following an ICE raids in northern California last week that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf warned her illegal alien constituents was coming before the raids went in [emphasis added].

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announced this week that the four-day raid led to the arrest of 232 illegal immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Of those 232, 180 “were either convicted criminals, had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States, or had been previously removed” from the country and had come back illegally.

Another 115 “had prior felony convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes, weapons charges and assault, or had past convictions for significant or multiple misdemeanors.”

Acting ICE Director Tom Homan said that, as a result of Schaaf’s heads up [FoxNews‘ paraphrase],

there are roughly 800 illegal immigrants they were unable to locate.

Including how many more with prior felony convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes, weapons charges and assault a reader might wonder.

Schaaf is proud of herself, too.

I did what I believe was right for my community as well as to protect public safety[.]

Especially the safety of her illegal alien community members.

Now we know where the mayor stands on gun control.  And on protecting the children of any of her constituents.  On the safety of any of her legal constituents, come to that.

Arms Keeping and Bearing “Reform”

The House passed a bill last December that greatly expands background checks and that mandates concealed-carry reciprocity among the several States.

The Senate should take up that bill without further delay and pass it as well.  With the much broader background checks, there’s no longer any rational argument for opposing concealed-carry reciprocity.

It’s a pipedream, though; there aren’t enough Progressive-Democrat Senators willing to vote for cloture.  The lack of progress is too important to them as a campaign issue.

Census and Ethnicity

The Census Bureau is revising its role in government-mandated identity politics, and not necessarily for the better.  For decades, it has been directed to sort Americans into ethnic groups so Federal funds could be allocated to those Americans held to be minorities (never mind that with all Americans being equal under law, there are no minorities—and that the lack of practical truth in that is a failure of enforcement not an indication of any fundamental falseness in that).  The government-required bigotry even went so far as, when Americans were allowed to check off more than one ethnicity, the Census Bureau, rather than leaving it at that, would re-identify such a misguided person as a member of the smaller “minority,” and if an American checked “Caucasian” and a “minority,” that unfortunate was re-identified as the “minority” member.

Now the Census Bureau is looking at revising how it collects its identity politics data for the 2020 census, and a social scientist, David Hollinger has a suggestion.

Mr Hollinger has proposed to do away with the pan-ethnic groups altogether and “count instead those inhabitants who identify with descent communities from specific countries.”

As long as we’re revising the census, here’s my suggestion: just add a box for “American,” with no “Government will re-identify you” capability.

Where is self-identifying when it’s useful?

Constitutions

The Communist Party of China has before it a Constitutional amendment that would abolish term limits for the Presidency of the People’s Republic of China.  The CPC is expected to ratify the amendment, along with a number of others that also will enhance the power and apparent prestige of the incumbent, Xi Jingping.

The CPC is expected to ratify….

It’s interesting that the Chinese people aren’t allowed a voice in the document the CPC uses to subjugate them. This is the contempt for ordinary citizens that the men of the government of the People’s Republic of China will inflict on all the nations over which the PRC gains control.