POLITICAL WARNING:
Cuomo Under Fire, Finally
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has finally begun to feel the heat for decisions he made in reaction to the COVID scare. Unfortunately, it was the deaths of thousands of the state’s seniors who were trapped in care facilities that were never reported that may be his downfall. New York Assemblymen are uniting to fight the governor, and they may strip him of his emergency powers that he’s abused so flagrantly.
From targeting the orthodox Jewish community to punishing businesses that didn’t obey his dictates, Cuomo has a laundry list of abuses to answer for. The group of Democratic Assembly members signed a letter that said in part, “This is a necessary first step in beginning to right the criminal wrongs of this governor and his administration.” The use of the word “criminal” is very telling.
Facebook and Australia
Facebook has suspended all news sharing in Australia. The move came after the Aussie parliament vowed to implement the News Media Bargaining Code that would force U.S.-based social media companies to pay Australian publishers to use their content. The shutdown that prevents Aussies from posting, sharing, or even viewing news content came without warning and is being decried for limiting outreach in the pandemic. Facebook has said the shutdown of government pages was “inadvertent,” and that they will restore them. It’s worth noting that Google also threatened to block Australia from its search engine over the same piece of legislation. I guess the richest companies on the planet don’t like the idea of paying for service.
Biden Immigration Reform
The Biden administration has released details of its planned immigration reform that will provide a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S. The plan would provide immediate green cards for farm workers (this isn’t a bad idea and is how it used to be done), those with temporary protected status, and young people who arrived in the country as children. For the rest that were here on January 1, 2021, there is a five-year path to temporary legal status if they pass background checks, pay taxes (nothing is free folks!), and fulfill other requirements. After completing all the steps, there is an additional three-year wait to gain citizenship. What they fail to mention in this is that in several states, illegal aliens are allowed to vote, and they will certainly turn out in larger numbers given the soft approach from Biden.
Pelosi Names General Honore’ to Head Capital Breach Investigation
Speaker Pelosi has named General Russel Honore’ as the lead into the investigation of security lapses that allowed protestors to breach the Capitol on January 6th. Honore’ is best remembered for heading up the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina which led to people being stranded in the city at gunpoint as well as unconstitutional unilateral gun confiscations. Honore’ is also an ardent anti-Trumper, and there is plenty of evidence on his now deleted Twitter feed. This is hardly a non-partisan affair and is designed to lay the blame on Trump since “Tipsy” Nancy’s impeachment failed so miserably.
CONFLICT WARNING:
2020 SolarWinds Attack
Microsoft engineers have been hard at work analyzing the data left behind after the massive cyber attack that affected major governmental departments as well as Fortune 500 companies. The conclusion: Russia did it. And while this is a common narrative for the Left, in this case, it may just be true. Engineers at Microsoft say they estimate it took more than 1,000 programmers to pull off the attack. For comparison, the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iranian enrichment centrifuges was the work of 30. An effort this large is certainly the work of a nation state as the resources used were massive. It will be months more before the true scope of the resulting damage of the attack will be known.
Biden Rolls Over For Iran
In a sudden, if not expected reversal today, the Biden administration has signaled it is ready to talk with Iran. A senior official today said, “The United States would be ready to hold talks with Iran if the European Union extended an invitation.” The official went on to say the administration’s “goal was to get both sides back into compliance with the nuclear deal. Let’s talk about how to get there.” I wonder if this includes more pallets of cash for Tehran.
SOCIAL WARNING:
Texas Freeze
Thursday saw a major drop in the number of Texans without power, down to 350,000 customers. While still a big number, it’s nowhere near the millions it was earlier in the week. With warmer weather on the way in the coming days, the numbers of structures that will be hit with burst pipes will probably increase. Thousands of homes and businesses were flooded when pipes burst during the power outage causing water treatment plants to lose pressure and boil water notices to go out to the public. This was an insult to injury for people living in homes without power or running water due to frozen pipes. Texas seldom sees this level of cold and is ill equipped to deal with such low temperatures. The current death toll from the winter vortex stands at 30.
Dumpster Diving in Oregon
Breitbart news ran a story about a Fred Meyer’s grocery store in Hollywood, Oregon that tossed out several dumpsters worth of perishable food after a prolonged power outage at the supermarket. In the piece, Breitbart says about 50 people showed up to try and salvage the food that was deemed “unfit for consumption or donation.” This caught my eye as yesterday I saw several tweets from ANTIFA affiliates about this very thing. The 50 people were all ANTIFA or those sympathetic to their cause. While I understand it’s a shame to see so much food go to waste, especially when so many are suffering from severe weather and the economic downturn brought on by COVID, a business must act to protect itself. It is a certainty that anyone who would have consumed something they salvaged ended up sick, they would sue for it. We live in a litigious society so I cannot fault the store. And Breitbart should do a better job and point their finger at those that tried to create a mob to take the discarded food.
WORTH NOTING:
Perseverance Lands on Mars
The Mars rover Perseverance landed on the red planet today. Launched July 30, 2020 from Cape Canaveral, the rover traveled 292MM miles. Perseverance is the most sophisticated and expensive instrument to send to Mars with a price tag of $2.7 billion. With the successful landing complete, the search for microbial life will begin.