In Which the New York Times and the BBC Miss Again

It seems the women journalists in the pay of the BBC were being paid significantly less than their male colleagues, to the point that Carrie Gracie, BBC’s China Editor, resigned her position in protest (I’m citing a New York Times report about the BBC.  Why that’s important, rather than citing a BBC report directly, will come clear in a bit).  Gracie has returned to London, still a BBC journalist, but there she’ll be paid the same as her male colleagues.

And how did that equal pay come about, you might ask?

According to “the organization” (presumably a BBC mucky-muck or BBC mucky-muck’s spokesman),

The BBC has agreed to pay cuts with a number of leading BBC News presenters, and others have agreed in principle[.]

Jeremy Vine, one of the high-powered, and highly paid, journalists getting his pay cut, agreed with the move, and he did so in all seriousness.

I think it needs to be sorted out, and I support my female colleagues who have rightly said they should be paid the same when they’re doing the same job.  I think the BBC’s on it, and this story is part of it.

Wow.  Just wow.

If Gracie really is the doing substantially the same work as her colleagues, why shouldn’t she get a pay raise to get to substantially the same pay?  That’s how bad it is, folks.  This is the Left’s mindset.  It doesn’t even occur to them to raise the pay of the lower paid.  All they can think of is to cut the higher paid.

Hold back the successful.  Don’t push forward those behind.  Instead of a win-win outcome, the Left prefers the everybody loses outcome.

On second thought, the NYT, which was as silent on the pay cut/pay raise question as the BBC, and the BBC didn’t miss.  This is what progressives, the Liberal NLMSM, and the US’ Progressive-Democratic Party want.  Hold back the ones ahead, don’t help the ones behind catch up.

Another Reason

Now it’s just getting petty.  For the period surrounding this year’s Super Bowl, P Boston is banning anything to do with Philadelphia from the city.

Boston is banning cheesesteaks, Philadelphia cream cheese, beers associated with Philadelphia.  One Boston-based bakery chain even has cut ties—permanently—with its Philadelphia cream cheese distributor.

Boston is getting hysterical, too.  In addition to banning foodstuffs, that city is banning people: Will Smith and Sylvester Stallone, one because he was raised in Philadelphia, the other because he set the Rocky series of films in that city.  Even bald eagles—can you believe it?—are banned from the Esplanade.

This is another reason not to bother with the Super Bowl, at least for this year.

Withholding Evidence

Ex-Vice President Joe Biden (D) appears to have confessed to it.

Biden said a Congressional “gang of twelve” met with Obama White House officials on the matter and laid out what they knew.

Biden’s and Obama’s reaction?

“The president and I sat there and said ‘what the hell are we going to do?'” Biden said. “You go out there and unilaterally say ‘this is what’s happening,’ you’re going to be accused of…trying to tip the election.

So they sat on the information—us uninformed voters are just too grindingly stupid to be trusted with this sort of information, the Progressive-Democrat says.

The former Delaware senator said he and Obama were concerned that describing alleged Russian involvement to a higher extent “could be used as a weapon against” nominee Hillary Clinton.

Biden added,

The die had been cast here. This was all about the political play[.]

There it is, straight from the Progressive-Democrat’s mouth.  Party politics was more important than pursuing a possible Russian interference, more important even than letting us voters know about the potential.  The withholding is the Progressive-Democratic Party’s own attempt to “tip” the election.

All for the sole reasons of protecting his BFF’s (ex-President Barack Obama (D)) reputation and of protecting their Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Remember this duplicity in the fall.

Distraction

Top Democrats are calling on Facebook and Twitter to investigate and release information behind potential Russian-linked accounts pushing for the release of a sealed congressional memo allegedly containing details on US government surveillance abuses.

It couldn’t possibly be that there really is a broad public hue and cry to that information released.  Us uninformed voters, denizens of fly-over country, couldn’t possibly know enough to demand the release on our own.

No, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) and Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA), the two “top Democrats” in the quote, are desperate to have a distraction.  Us uninformed might find out too much.

It’s rich coming from a Senator who released to the public, unethically, a Senate Judiciary Committee report concerning Fusion GPS and then blamed her unethical behavior on having taken cold medicines and so she wasn’t thinking clearly.  Feinstein and I are of an age, and I’ve taken cold medicines, too.  They’ve never addled my brain.

It’s also a bit much coming from a Congressman who’s not the least bit curious about the Steele dossier; he just wants that matter dropped.

Federal Funds Redistributions

The Department of Justice says it’s going to issue subpoenas, if necessary, to get sanctuary-related documents from cities who have proclaimed themselves sanctuary cities.  Sarah Isgur Flores, DoJ Public Affairs Director:

These are the jurisdictions that have politicians that release criminal aliens back onto the street.

In conjunction with that, she says that, if further necessary, DoJ will redirect Byrne Grant* funds to other jurisdictions that actively support law enforcement rather than picking and choosing those laws that are convenient to them and ignoring others.

Strange bedfellows: this sort of thing should get the Progressive-Democrats fronting for sanctuary jurisdictions on board with many of us Conservatives working to end Federal funds redistribution of one State’s citizens’ tax monies to another State’s government.  That would reduce the ability of the Federal government to push around any of the States on domestic matters.

 

*Byrne Grant: Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, a major source of funding for state and local (and tribal) jurisdictions in their fight against crime.  Ironically, it’s named for NYPD Officer Edward Byrne, who was killed 40 years ago protecting an immigrant witness who was to testify against drug dealers.  Two things that sound mighty familiar today.