NYC and Washington
Let’s start in New York where the Democratic Mayor blasted the Biden administration for “turning its back on NY.” The Mayor was talking about the arrival of thousands of immigrants and the lack of support from the administration causing, he said, a $4.2 billion budget shortfall.
Thus, the crisis that isn’t (see Mayorkas yesterday in Washington), is a crisis in a sanctuary city?
It’s only not a crisis when it’s not impacting you?
NYC doesn’t have enough issues, but now their financial officer managing city pensions has decided not to invest for the best return. With the $170 billion assets he manages for pensions, he has decided to disinvest with anything doing with fossil fuels connections, but invest with ESG in mind.
He is proud that his move will be the most “ambitious” undertaken by a U.S. Pension Fund.
Well, if you’re a pension holder, I would think you would want the best return, not the most climate friendly one.
Also in NYC yesterday, DA Bragg lost his court case to block a former prosecutor from appearing before the House Judiciary Committee. The prosecutor had quit because Bragg wasn’t going to indict former President Trump, and even wrote a tell all book. What’s Bragg worried about he might say at the hearing?
On to Washington:
This story broke late yesterday. An anonymous whistleblower, from the IRS, has come forward with a complaint that the Biden administration is improperly handling an investigation into the President’s son, Hunter, and giving him preferential treatment.
In a letter to House and Senate lawmakers, the whistleblower is described as a “career IRS criminal supervisory special agent who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject.”
We’ll have to see if this story has legs, and my bet is the MSM will have to cover this; it could break the tax investigation wide open.
Then there was a second breaking story on the Biden investigation that I know won’t get coverage. I write it here only because one of congressman involved (Nancy Mace) is a more reasoned and moderate Republican.
Two Republicans on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee say the Biden family profited from a human trafficking scheme that included a prostitution ring in the U.S. and countries such as Russia and Ukraine. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina said they have viewed bank documents at the Treasury Department that contain “jaw-dropping” evidence of an extensive web of Biden family foreign business deals, including human trafficking and prostitution rings.
It’s important to note that with all the investigations underway there have been no charges against anyone.
Then the Supreme Court extended the availability of the Abortion Pill through Friday, as they consider what position or action to take. This supported the overturn of a Texas Judge decision by the 5th circuit to disallow it.
If only the two sides could get together and do the right thing for the baby, the mother, father and nation. But, then again, we need statesmen for that, and we have nothing but politicians who are looking to make points for their side.
Homeland Director Mayorkas took the heat we expected at his House hearing yesterday. I hope you never have a day at work like the ones he has had before the House or Senate. It’s a brutal bashing he takes.
Now yesterday, the aforementioned Congressional representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, managed to be so abusive to him and Congressman Swalwell that she was reprimanded.
She lost speaking privileges and gave the MSM something to cover.
Then, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Robert Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, announced he’s a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2024. An activist, he has been a vocal leader of the anti vaccine movement.
There was more.
Speaker McCarthy unveiled a debt limit bill from Republicans, proposing to either raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or until the end of March 2024, whichever comes first.
The bill, which is dubbed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, includes provisions rolling back the Inflation Reduction Act measures. McCarthy said the bill would save $4.5 trillion for taxpayers. (We’ll take it.)
On the other side, the President said that the Republicans have no plan and want the economy to falter.
Here’s a little hope, if they can get traction from the bipartisan (64 congressional members) known as the “Problem Solvers Caucus:
They have a plan to avert a default if the President and congressional Republicans fail to come to an agreement.
They are proposing to suspend the debt ceiling through the end of the year and, in the meantime, set up an “independent fiscal Commission” to come up with a plan to confront the $31 trillion national debt.
The commission’s policy recommendations would be due to Congress after the 2024 presidential election and would get a mandatory vote no later than February 2025.
Sound reasonable?
Then there’s the continuing controversy over where the Covid Virus originated. In hearings on the hill the evidence leans more and more to the Wuhan lab.
John Ratcliffe, who served as the director of intelligence during the first year of the pandemic, said if you put the competing theories side by side, the lab-leak side of the ledger would be long and convincing.
He pointed to China’s efforts to destroy lab samples at a Wuhan lab known for risky research, and Beijing’s efforts to coerce witnesses and strong-arm global health investigators as the virus spread around the world.
He added, “Let me state the bottom line upfront:
My informed assessment, as a person with as much or more access than anyone to our government’s intelligence during the initial year of the virus outbreak and pandemic onset, has been and continues to be that a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science and by common sense.”
I agree completely, you?