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donsurber.blogspot.com Highlights of the News
Donald John Trump is still our president.
ITEM 1: President Trump to Congress: shove your Fake Covid 19 Relief where the sun does not shine.
Congress sent him the biggest Christmas Tree in history.
He had the onions to send the bill back to Congress.
As proposed, the Christmas Tree would cost $900 billion but would give American families only $600.
President Trump wants actual relief for citizens in America, and none for Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, and just about every other country in the world, as the bill now contains.
Americans are as ticked as Clark Griswold when he learned he was enrolled in the Jelly of the Month Club.
Uncle Sam is not Santa Claus.
ITEM 2: The Wall Street Journal reported, "The Trump administration sued Walmart Inc. on Tuesday, accusing the retail giant of helping to fuel the nation’s opioid crisis by inadequately screening for questionable prescriptions despite repeated warnings from its own pharmacists.
"The Justice Department’s lawsuit claims that Walmart sought to boost profits by understaffing its pharmacies and pressuring employees to fill prescriptions quickly. That made it difficult for pharmacists to reject invalid prescriptions, enabling widespread drug abuse nationwide, the suit alleges
"Walmart didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
"The country’s largest retailer by revenue, Walmart has been expecting this complaint and sued the federal government in October to fight the allegations pre-emptively.
"In its suit, Walmart accuses the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration of attempting to scapegoat the company for what it says are the federal government’s own regulatory and enforcement shortcomings.
"The Justice Department’s lawsuit alleges Walmart created a system that turned its network of 5,000 in-store U.S. pharmacies into a leading supplier of highly addictive painkillers. The allegations date to June 2013, according to the suit."
Purdue and Walmart pushed a highly potent strain of heroin.
I hope someone goes to prison, but I know inside, someone will write a check to make the problem go away.
ITEM 3: Via Breitbart, Tucker Carlson said, "The military, we have all been told since childhood doesn’t care what you look like. They don’t care what your parents did. They don’t care where you’re from. Your identity is irrelevant to the Armed Services.
"The U.S. military cares about your performance. That’s it. That’s why the U.S. military is impressive. That’s why they’ve been able to keep us from being invaded because they only care about what matters and what matters is protecting the United States. Not anymore.
"Last week, the Acting Secretary of Defense, a man called Chris Miller announced that the U.S. military will be changing its standards from top to bottom, not to create a more effective fighting force to save your children from China or other foreign domination, no.
"In order to conform to policies formulated by the Pentagon’s so-called Diversity and Inclusion Board — and you can imagine what those policies are — strict affirmative action, hiring and promoting by appearance, the elimination of objective standards."
That is the key.
Communists and fascists don't care about performance. They care only about loyalty. Ahead of a world war, Stalin purged his military of competent generals. This likely cost millions of Russians their lives. Stalin did not care. All he cared about was maintaining power.
So it is with Washington.
ITEM 4: Steven Hayward reported, "Last month Nature Communications published a deep-dive analysis of statistical differences in the academic careers of female scientists who had female mentors versus male mentors. Alas for the study, it found better outcomes for female scientists who had male mentors.
"The study was conducted by three Arab scholars at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, and it went through four peer reviewers on the first round, and a second round of review following suggested revisions with three new expert reviewers."
The study said, "We also find that increasing the proportion of female mentors is associated not only with a reduction in post-mentorship impact of female protégés, but also a reduction in the gain of female mentors. While current diversity policies encourage same-gender mentorships to retain women in academia, our findings raise the possibility that opposite-gender mentorship may actually increase the impact of women who pursue a scientific career."
Maybe the male mentors know the subject better.
ITEM 5: Simon Black reported, "A very angry Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to take to Twitter and lament, 'This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it. Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours. This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.'
"For once I actually agree with AOC. This is an absurd process that exemplifies everything wrong with government: it’s wasteful, ignorant, out of touch, oblivious, embarrassing, shameful, and corrupt."
On this the left and the right agree: the middle is spending way too much money battling a disease that has a survival rate of 99.9%.
ITEM 6: Just the News reported, "Rep. Ilhan Omar is a member of The Squad, four first-term Democratic lawmakers that includes Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
"But that didn't stop Omar from blasting one of her Squad members for getting the COVID-19 vaccine before the millions of health-care workers and seniors across the U.S. have been inoculated.
"Omar called it shameful that healthy, young lawmakers — such as the 31-year-old Ocasio-Cortez — are getting the vaccine before those most vulnerable to the virus."
First AOC says something I agree with, then Omar does.
2020 may have knocked some sense into them.
ITEM 7: The Washington Post reported, "Trump issues 15 pardons, including former Reps. Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins."
And the Democrats go wild.
'Tis a glorious sight to behold.
I say pardon Hillary and Obama as well. They'll never be jailed for their crimes. Have fun with it.
ITEM 8: The forecast for Friday in Poca is a high of 25 and a low of 15 with a 20% chance of snow.
I'm dreading a white Christmas
Just like the ones of long ago
Where the treetops glisten
And children listen
To hear me shoveling the snow.
I'm dreading a white Christmas
With every synapse in my brain.
May all your days be merry and sane.
And may all your snow come down as rain.
ITEM 9: Sean Davis tweeted, "The White House announced today that Trump signed an order on Dec. 18 giving John Durham the authority to present classified information to a grand jury investigating the Russian collusion hoax.
"Previous DOJ regulations required the consent of the specific classifying agency."
No excitement without an indictment, but the fact that this was signed and not announced is encouraging. Maybe we will see some trampling where the grapes of wrath are stored.
ITEM 10: The Western Journal reported, "In a video released on Friday, two Minnesota lawmakers called for a full audit of all death certificates marked as COVID-19 deaths.
'In the video, state Rep. Mary Franson and Sen. Scott Jensen revealed their own findings after look over thousands of 'death certificate data points' and found that the number of COVID deaths was being inflated by roughly 40%.
"According to Rep. Franson, the investigation uncovered various un-COVID related deaths being counted as COVID deaths, including a freshwater drowning and a vehicle fatality, among others."
Never trust a 10-year-old with the car keys.
Never trust the government with anything.
ITEM 11: The Pulitzer Board announced, "The International Reporting Pulitzer jury chose a New York Times story and accompanying podcast, Caliphate, as one of three finalists in the category. In 2020, after Canadian authorities charged a figure profiled in the entry with perpetrating a terrorist hoax, an internal Times investigation concluded that the work failed its standards for accuracy. The Board accepted withdrawal of the entry as an appropriate resolution of this matter."
Good.
Now the board must rescind the actual prizes awarded in 2018 and 2019 for coverage that promoted the Russian Collusion conspiracy, which has since been debunked.
ITEM 12: CNS News reported, "The four most populous states in the nation as of July 1, 2020 were California, Texas, Florida and New York, with California and New York declining in population and Texas and Florida increasing, according to the annual population estimates released today by the Census Bureau.
"The resident population of California declined slightly from 39,437,610 as of July 1, 2019 to 39,368,078 as of July 1, 2020."
The wall has slowed California's ability to illegally add foreigners to replace the native Americans who are leaving in droves as their state turns into a Third World nation.
ITEM 13: Becker's Hospital Review reported, "Many employees at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., have reservations about taking the COVID-19 vaccine, and CEO Anita Jenkins is trying to get workers to follow her lead by getting vaccinated, according to CNN.
"The hospital, a major healthcare provider for the Black community, received 725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine Dec. 15 and expects to receive a second shipment this week. As of Dec. 18, only about 600 of the hospital's 1,900 employees had signed up for the shots, according to Kaiser Health News. "
Don't follow the science.
Follow the scientists.
ITEM 14: Reuters reported, "When a major healthcare organization asked A.R. Bernard, the black head of a Brooklyn megachurch, to sit on a committee tasked with boosting acceptance of covid 19 vaccines in communities of color in New York City, he demurred.
"Bernard, who leads the Christian Cultural Center, the largest church in the city, said he turned down the offer because he worried some members of his congregation could view his participation as 'joining forces with the system' to use African Americans as guinea pigs for vaccines that have been developed in record time.
"Like most of the dozen black faith leaders Reuters interviewed, Bernard did not yet want to show public support for an inoculation he feels he does not know enough about and risk jeopardizing his community’s trust."
ITEM 15: Universal Cargo reported, "U.S. Forces China Out of Port of Long Beach Terminal Ownership."
The story said, "It’s probably not a good idea for a country you’re fighting in a trade war to control one of your biggest ports. That’s a situation that was set to happen because of COSCO Shipping’s deal to buy Orient Overseas International Limited (OOIL) back in 2017 and President Trump starting a battle of escalating tariff hikes with China in 2018.
"OOIL owns the Long Beach Container Terminal. That’s the company that operates the Long Beach Container Terminal at the Port of Long Beach. Yes, the company shares the same name as the terminal, rather than OOIL using an Orient Overseas moniker.
"COSCO shipping is a Chinese state-owned company. Taking over its Hong Kong based rival OOIL means COSCO would take over Long Beach Container Terminal. You can connect those dots with the transitive property.
"While the topic didn’t get much press, probably because this is the generally thought of as dull topic of international shipping we’re talking about here, the Trump Administration obviously didn’t like the idea of the Chinese government controlling the operations at one of America’s most important ports. Yes, this could fairly be classified as a national security issue.
"Therefore, the U.S. government required OOIL to sell the Long Beach Container Terminal. It took some time for OOIL to find a buyer and the sale to get approval, but things are moving forward with the transaction. Though that isn’t to say the process of regulatory approval is complete."
Obama approved this in 2012, selling out the country again.
Does anyone expect a Democrat president not to reverse this and pocket a nice bribe from Chairman Xi?
ITEM 16: The Daily Beast reported, "Biden Calls Fox News Reporter ‘One-Horse Pony’ After Hunter Question."
Huh?
Did he mean one-trick pony or one-horse town?
This malarkey sounds like Plugs fumbled another witty retort written by a staffer.
ITEM 17: Taiwan English News reported, "An explosion at a pharmaceutical factory in Taoyuan City left two injured and caused a fire early this afternoon, December 20.
"People as far as Tamsui District in New Taipei City reported hearing the massive blast shortly after noon. Immediately after the blast, thick black smoke could be seen pouring out of the SCI Pharmtech factory."
The last paragraph said, "Liberty Times reported that the factory produces hydroxychloroquine APIs, and is the world’s second largest HCQ raw material supplier."
Hmm.
Big Pharma hit job?
FINALLY, the artwork today was sent in by readers. I thank them.
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