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Glynn Lunney RIP

March 25, 2021

You all know what a supporter of the space program I am, and what heroes the early NASA astronauts were to me when I was a boy. But not all the heroes got their names and pictures in the newspapers. Just as important as the astronauts were the NASA engineers who accomplished the miracle of space travel.

One of the most important was Glynn Lunney, who joined NASA in 1963; led the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs; then spent another 10 years leading spaceflight activities in private industry for Rockwell and United Space Alliance before retiring in 1995. Lunney received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for the Ground Control efforts that brought the ill-fated Apollo 13 team back home to Earth safely.

On Friday, Glynn Lunney died at 84 after a long illness. You might not know his name, but read his obituary and you’ll be amazed at the impact this man had on so many historic landmarks of the space program.

I’ll bet this is the last thing all those young “progressives” who dreamed of working in the Biden White House expected: dozens of his staffers have been suspended, asked to resign or put in remote work programs over their prior marijuana use.

They revealed their pot use in their background checks, having been told it wouldn’t disqualify them from their positions. But like many voters, they made the fatal mistake of believing Biden’s promises. Even in states that have legalized pot, it’s still illegal on the federal level, so that means they admitted to a crime on their background checks. Bet they don’t think background checks are such a great idea now!

Of course, judging by the policies coming out of this White House, maybe they were suspended for smoking too much pot.

No word yet on whether Kamala Harris, who admitted to using pot during the campaign, will be removed from her job as President…sorry, Vice President…or whether Barack “Choom Gang” Obama will be barred from dropping by.

Speaking of states stepping up to oppose the radical left agenda from Washington, on Wednesday, a Florida House committee passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which would require anyone participating in girls’ sports in the K-12 or college levels to be biologically female.

It passed 13-4, with all the “no” votes coming from Democrats, who made the usual arguments that it would demonize and stigmatize transgender students, and that it’s inspired by hate and transphobic hate, which is ludicrous. It’s inspired by biological reality. Nobody is arguing that transgender students should be discriminated against in any way. They should be free to participate in any sports they want, as long as they’re competing against students of the same biological gender. Schools could even start a sports league for transgender students if they want. But it’s undeniable scientific fact that a biological male has inherent physical advantages over a female, such as height, muscle mass, lung capacity and bone density, that no amount of hormones, surgery or wishful thinking can alter.

If identifying as the opposite sex makes you the same physically, then why are male-to-female transgender athletes smashing all records, while female-to-male transgender athletes are not?

One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Kaylee Tuck, pointed to Allyson Felix (pictured above), the fastest woman in the world with six Olympic track and field gold medals. Tuck said Felix’s personal best in the 400 meters could be beaten by hundreds of high school boys. Allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports would insure there will never be another Allyson Felix. This bill isn’t anti-transgender athletes, it’s pro-female athletes, pro-science and pro-common sense.

The Florida bill still has to make it through the legislature, but Mississippi just passed a similar bill, and one in Idaho has been blocked by a federal judge while a lawsuit challenging it proceeds. Let’s hope this swiftly makes it to the Supreme Court and that the Justices there, both male and female, have the sense to affirm that biology is real.

A study by two university professors of the people charged in the January 6th Capitol riot found that, contrary to Democrat/media claims, 90% of them had no ties to or affiliations with any rightwing groups. Rather than being underclass yahoos, 85% were business owners or white collar workers, including doctors, attorneys, architects and a bank manager. And the overwhelming majority lived in predominantly Democratic areas.

The surprised researchers said this shows the anger over the 2020 election is much more widespread than just a handful of radical groups, and “this is a very big sign that we’re dealing with a new political movement with violence at its core that can’t be reduced to the usual suspects.”

Talk about tunnel vision! That sounds like a feeble excuse to brand half the nation as a violent political threat, which is exactly the fantasy the left would like you to believe.

Maybe those who live in predominantly Democratic areas weren’t violent and paranoid, but they just spend so much time around leftists that they know what they say and what they’re capable of, and that’s why they didn’t trust the results of the election. And maybe instead of using this study as proof that half the country should be demonized, it should be taken as a sign that half the country isn’t buying the narrative, particularly not when every question about the election is met with censorship and “canceling,” while all attempts to investigate such questions are fought and stonewalled.

Maybe it means that if Biden wants to end the suspicions and get the entire nation to accept him as the legitimate President, he should call for an open, bipartisan, transparent examination of the 2020 election. You know, exactly as I suggested right here, about three days after the election.

The Atlantic magazine published an article about Xiyue Wang, a Princeton grad student who was doing historical research in Iran when he was arrested and put in prison for 40 months. He suffered abuse such as being blindfolded, restrained, yelled at and told he’d never see his wife and son again. He was accused of stealing documents when all he’d done was make copies of publicly-available records. He was forced into signing a false confession that he was a spy. And he finally learned that his captors didn’t care if he was guilty or innocent. They told him matter of factly that he was a hostage and being held as a bargaining chip.

Wang said he once had the notion that Iran was the way it is because of something dreadful we did to them, but “I slowly saw: They don’t want to be our friends. They don’t want to reconcile.” The state propaganda he saw in prison made it clear: “They want us as an enemy, because that is the reason for their existence.”

President Trump was finally able to arrange a deal to exchange him for an Iranian scientist and bring him home. But when he got back to Princeton, a professor blamed his arrest on Trump and said he must’ve been mistaken for one of our spies who infiltrates Iran.

Wang was furious. He said, “I was arrested three months before Trump was elected. And I was told I was a hostage—that they knew I did nothing against Iran, and that I was nothing but a pawn…This is what they believe at my own university! What are they teaching their students? The facts just don’t matter.” (I’d say that sums up a lot of what they’re “teaching” in universities these days.)

Wang said of his previous liberal illusions about Iran, “I was (bleeping) stupid. Unbelievably stupid. If I could go back, I would slap myself.”

Read the entire article, just to see what he now has to say about Iran and his attempts to slap some sense into the Biden Administration, to dispel its cockeyed delusions about what Iran is really like.

President Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki announced that he will finally hold his first White House press conference on March 25th. That will mark 66 days since he took office, breaking a record for going without facing the press that stretches back over a century.

In what has to be the understatement of the century, Psaki added that it’s possible Biden will be presented with a list of approved journalists. I would imagine that not only will the journalists be approved, but their questions will be written for them well in advance, and the answers will be on the TelePrompter. If he manages to get through it without saying something like “Indian immigrants are taking over the country” or calling someone a dog-faced pony soldier, it will be hailed by the media as the greatest press conference any President has given in the history of ever.

The New York Post’s Michael Goodwin also expects the media will lower their expectations and raise their partisan enthusiasm. He cites this astounding quote from Politico:

“The President so far has surprised some of his former colleagues and allies with a largely gaffe-free White House debut after a lifetime of verbal stumbles.”

Goodwin notes that it’s easy to avoid gaffes when (A.) you never give press conferences, and (B.) when you do speak and make a lot of gaffes (the White House had to issue three “corrections” after Biden spoke to CBS), the media simply refuse to report it.

Last night, President Biden finally gave his first prime time address, on the first anniversary of the WHO declaring COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. The top takeaway is that he said all Americans would be eligible to receive the vaccine by May 1st. Here’s video.

And here’s a full transcript.

I think it’s safe to say that he cleared the low bar set for him. He read a scripted speech that was heavy on emotion with no obvious mistakes (and of course, no questions.) But if your standard for a Presidential address is that he look you in the eye and tell you the truth, then he tripped over the first hurdle.

He talked a lot about truth, and how Americans are owed the truth. But this was his third sentence: “A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked.” That’s a blatant lie.

One year ago today was March 12, 2020. The virus was the lead story on all newscasts. The lead headline of the New York Times was “US to Suspend Most Travel from Europe as World Scrambles to Fight Pandemic.” That very night, President Trump held his own televised address, informing Americans of the latest travel ban and other steps being taken to fight the virus. He’d already cut off travel from China back on January 31st, a move Biden condemned at the time as xenophobic.

Biden also seemed to imply that he inherited a chaotic vaccine program with no distribution plan, but because of his efforts, “we’re actually on track to reach this goal of 100 million shots in arms on my 60th day in office.” In fact, the week he was sworn into office, an average of 983,000 people a day were already receiving vaccines developed in record time thanks to Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program. On three of those days, over a million shots were given. That put us on track for 100 million shots by the end of March, Biden or no Biden.

There’s also plenty of backlash over Biden generously telling us what we’ll be allowed to do after getting vaccinated, like having small family barbecues by the 4th of July, but still no large gatherings.

As many Republicans pointed out, once someone is vaccinated (or has already had COVID and recovered), and we’ve long since passed herd immunity, why do they have to keep living in a cave for the rest of their lives?

In a related story, once again, Texas ignores Biden’s nannyism, as the Rangers announce that they’ll return to 100% stadium capacity for opening day on April 5th, with all attendees required to wear a facemask.

The World Is Going Insane

March 15, 2021

Just in case you were wondering if the news could get any weirder under Democratic leadership, a former employee of a Panda Express in California is suing, claiming she was ordered to strip to her underwear and hug a partially-clad co-worker as part of a “training seminar.” Sounds like she was training to work for Andrew Cuomo, not Panda Express.

Also, the California Department of Education is about to vote on a proposed new public school ethnic studies curriculum that will reportedly stress “decolonization” of American society, teach kids that the US is filled with racism, oppression and white supremacy, and replace the Christian God (white supremacy) with kids chanting to the Aztec god of human sacrifice.

Let me point out the one thing common to both of these insane stories: “California.” That’s the state the Democrats in DC think that all of America needs to be like.

The Senate has confirmed Merrick Garland as Attorney General by 70-30 (GOP leader Mitch McConnell was among 20 Republicans voting to confirm) and Martha Fudge as Secretary of HUD by 66-34.

I generally think that unless there are serious reasons to reject a nominee (like that Xavier Becerra is a vicious leftist partisan with zero qualifications for running Health and Human Services), then Presidents should be allowed to pick the people they want for their team. Elections have consequences, and this is one of them, as unhappy as it might be.

However, in these cases, the Republican confirmation votes are drawing heavy criticism.

Garland was so evasive and acted so clueless when asked about major issues he’ll be dealing with that he was either lying under oath or he hasn’t looked at a newscast in 20 years. Neither bodes well for his job. His refusal to say whether he would kill the Durham investigation or prevent its findings from being made public virtually insures that the only plotters of a genuine coup against the legitimately-elected government in the past five years will get off scot-free.

As for Fudge, as Matt Margolis recounts at the link, she carries more baggage than American Airlines. She has a long history of being a radical race-baiter, viciously insulting Republicans, and spouting insane racial conspiracy theories. And she got the votes of 16 Republicans.

Again, while I generally think Presidents should be allowed to pick their teams, both of these nominations could have been confirmed 51-50. It wouldn’t have prevented them from taking office, but at least it wouldn’t have given Americans the impression that these are acceptable, bipartisan, mainstream choices when they are anything but.

The EO Pen Strikes Again

March 12, 2021

In a little-reported executive order, President Biden, having already issued an order championing transgenderism in the military, ordered that the taxpayers will now pay for “medically necessary” gender transition drugs and surgery for military members and veterans.

It was bad enough when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was accused of covering up the true number (about 11,000) of COVID deaths in nursing homes that he'd forced to take in coronavirus patients. But here’s a new wrinkle: Fox News reports that the state has a similar directive barring group homes for those with developmental disabilities from requiring COVID tests for admission and readmission. According to state records, 6900 residents of those homes got the virus, and 552 died.

All this is in addition to two…no, three…no, four…no, five…wait: SIX sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Cuomo.

Cuomo is denying any wrongdoing and dismissed these as minor incidents. He said, “There is a spectrum of allegations. There’s capital crimes, there’s physical violence, right? Down to more minor allegations…There’s allegations and there’s allegations.” He explained, “No one ever told me at the time that I made them feel uncomfortable. Obviously, there are people who said after the fact they felt uncomfortable.”

I’m sure that sounds perfectly reasonable to him, but I can’t help imagining how the media would eviscerate any “clueless, Neanderthal” Republican who said it.

Disney

March 11, 2021

If the phrase, “Get woke, go broke,” is true, then the Disney Corp, which had revenues of over $65 billion last year, is risking an awful lot just to virtue signal its leftist intolerance.