Money Mania

Why the idea of "free money" doesn't work:

Woke Lives

Woke is still with us:

the conceit underlying the broad umbrella of wokeness — that any and all statistical disparities among demographics are entirely socially constructed and can be eliminated with enough will and spending and credentialed experts put in charge — remains the core legitimating ideology of Western governing institutions, especially as they spiral ever further from meaningful accountability to the electorates they ostensibly represent. Even as Scranton Joe revived soothing old hokum from the 1940s, the Biden-Harris administration has tirelessly worked to embed the latest diversity, equity, and inclusion dogma and gender Gnosticism into every last corner of the federal government and affiliated institutions, including NASA and the military, with what in its own words is a “whole-of-government approach.” So the suggestion that we’re actually past “peak woke” is inherently dubious and often made disingenuously in the context of boosting Democratic candidates facing tough elections: “Nothing to see here, folks, show’s over, problem solved!” But given that wokeness by any other name is still subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions, it’s more likely that we’re in a temporary ebb tide before it roars back more totalizing than ever.

Wokeness is alive and well...

Jack Attack

The NY Times, of all places, finally notices actualy election interference:

The need for an explanation is heightened because this is not the first time Mr. Smith has appeared to disregard relevant department rules. In December 2023 and February 2024, he urged the Supreme Court to hear Mr. Trump’s immunity claim on an expedited basis because of the “imperative public importance” of trying Mr. Trump as soon as possible. Mr. Smith never explained the need for speed. Many concluded, plausibly, that he wanted his trial evidence in the public realm so that the electorate could make a fully informed decision. This motivation would violate the Justice Department rule that prosecutors “may never select the timing of any action” for the purpose of “giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” Mr. Smith at a minimum created a strong appearance of impropriety without any explanation in a context where public confidence in the integrity of his decisions is vital. Some will blame the Supreme Court for Mr. Smith’s predicament. The court declined to follow Mr. Smith’s requests for expedition. And its immunity decision made a pre-election trial impossible and requires a complex analysis by Judge Chutkan to decide which charges against Mr. Trump can go forward. These considerations are irrelevant to Mr. Smith’s duty to comply (and appear to comply) with the relevant rules, which, as former Attorney General Eric Holder once explained, are designed to “maintain the public trust in the department’s ability to do its job free of political influence.”

You can't blame Russia this time...

Teleworker's Paradise

HUD gets hammered over abuse:

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa requested in August 2023 that government agencies conduct audits of telework and remote work, citing a media account of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who attended a staff meeting while taking a bubble bath. The HUD report, released Tuesday, found that several employees lived over 2,000 miles from the offices they were supposed to work in. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: EPA Agrees To Audit Telework Policies One Year After GOP Senator’s Request) “Five of these employees had Flexiplace agreements indicating that they commuted more than 2,000 miles every week from one side of the United States to the other or from the mainland United States to Hawaii,” the report said. HUD established the Flexiplace program to regulate remote and telework in 2022, defining teleworkers as employees who report to the office on a set number of days and remote workers as employees who don’t show up at an office, according to the report. The report also noted that at least 30 employees lived more than 1,000 miles away from their on-site work location, while another 35 did not have valid data. “The calendar just flipped to October, but with so many ghost employees and haunted empty halls, it has been spooky season at the Biden-Harris HUD office buildings for four years,” Ernst told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This audit has unveiled a true house of horrors for taxpayers. Federal employees need to get back to work and stop treating the office like a werewolf treats sunlight.”

Laziness is a full time job...

Double Dose

There's been more blue fraud in Michigan:

State Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Friday that her office had secured felony charges against the seven individuals in St. Clair Shores, part of Macomb County and located in suburban Detroit, for allegedly double voting, or facilitating it, during the state’s August primary. Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are fiercely competing for Michigan’s 15 electoral votes, separated by no more than 1 or 2 percentage points in most polls, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Nessel said that double voting is rare, but in this case, it was caught. “It took a confluence of events and decisions to allow these four people to double vote,” Nessel said in a public statement. “Nevertheless, the fact that four incidents occurred in a municipality of this size raised significant concerns and is simply unheard of.” Democrats frequently insist that voter fraud isn’t real, when opposing voter ID measures and other election reforms.

They want to "save democracy" by any means necessary...

The Bad Lawyer

Doug Emhoff was apparently a very bad boy:

Attorneys who worked with Doug Emhoff at his former firm Venable say he yelled expletives, held a men-only cocktail hour in the office, revoked work perks from women who didn't flirt with him, and took only young, attractive associates in a limousine to a ball. A 2019 lawsuit also claimed sex discrimination by other partners in the LA office Emhoff ran, and that while engaged to Harris, he hired an 'unqualified' part-time model as a legal secretary 'because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office'. The claims are the latest in a string of allegations revealed by DailyMail.com that threaten to shatter Emhoff's image, heavily promoted by the Harris presidential campaign, of a feminist ally and 'wife guy'.

He sure seemed to like other women...

Medicare Madness

Harris has a new plan to "save" Medicare:

The new benefit would cover long-term home care services, including in-home health care aides. Families could spend up to $75,000 a year on home healthcare aides while Medicare only covers part of the costs if the senior is homebound. At the other end of a voter's lifespan, Harris is proposing making the pandemic-era child tax credit permanent as well as establishing a $6,000 tax credit for parents of newborns. Harris will unveil the new home care benefit for seniors during her appearance on "The View" on Tuesday. Politico: Harris plans to pay for the new senior home care benefit by expanding Medicare drug price negotiations, increasing discounts for certain brand-name drugs in Medicare that drug companies are required to provide, and reducing hidden costs associated with the middlemen in the drug pricing process known as pharmacy benefit managers, among other measures. Medicare currently only covers at-home skilled nursing care, home health aides and other kinds of assistance under specific circumstances, leaving families to foot the costs of in-home care on their own. The issue is also personal for Harris, who has talked on the campaign trail about taking care of her mother, Shyamala, when she was dying of cancer. Browbeating drug companies to lower the cost of drugs won't even come close to paying for this new benefit. The Harris campaign is bragging about reducing drug prices for 10 drugs that will supposedly save Medicare $9 billion. The next round of browbeating will include 15 more drugs. This is a program that will cost Medicare at least $40 billion a year, according to the left-wing Brookings Institution.

Maybe they really will kill Medicare, after all...