In the fast-paced realm of job hunting, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. And if you are an entry-level job applicant, the pressure is a notch higher.

New entrants in any job market today compete with groundbreaking technology like ChatGPT in addition to their peers. In the United States, these applicants have to also wade through an uncertain labor market, inflation, and long lists of job requirements.

Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes and Bhabna Banerjee, using data from Indeed.com, have identified the most sought-after entry level positions for applicants both with and without a degree in the U.S., and the year-on-year growth of these job postings.

Most Sought-After Entry-Level Jobs With a Degree

As the U.S. job market recovers from its pandemic slump, some careers are now booming. This in turn has opened up numerous opportunities for entry-level job applicants.

The demand for sales jobs multiplied this year as customer-facing businesses slowly returned to their pre-pandemic levels.

At the top of this list is the job for an Outside Sales Representative. Paying upwards of $60,000, postings for this job have grown by over 250% in a year, making it the most sought-after position for applicants with a degree.

The healthcare industry has secured its place in the top ranks too. Careers including mental health case managers, speech pathologists, behavioral therapists, and patient access managers dominate the Top 20 list.

Let’s not forget about the tech sector. While entry-level network technicians can earn upwards of $85,000 on average, while IT engineers are paid an entry package of over $90,000.

Most Sought-After Entry-Level Jobs Without a Degree

Nearly 65% of the U.S. working population does not have a four-year degree. However, millions of these workers continue to be highly skilled across professions and have a shot at some of the most sought-after entry level jobs in the country.

One example of this job is that of an Inventory Manager. The demand for skilled inventory managers in warehouses and companies post-pandemic has doubled the position’s job share in a year.

One of the highest paying non-degree jobs in this list—Auto Body Technician—can fetch highly-skilled entry-level workers a salary of $82,000 per year.

These jobs don’t seem to require a degree according to Indeed. However, the rising competition for these positions might give the upper edge to applicants with one, especially for jobs on the list such as Business Analyst and Relationship Banker.

Authored by David Williams via RealClear Wire (emphasis ours)

Once again, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is bilking taxpayers to infinity and beyond. NASA has been busy preparing for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, which is designed to collect samples of Martian soil to determine whether there is life on the Red Planet. According to a recent report, costs are through the stratosphere. The independent review board tasked with evaluating the program concluded in the review that the mission has been marred by “unrealistic budget and schedule expectations from the beginning.” The reviewers found that there is “a near zero probability” that the mission will launch by NASA’s stated 2028 goal. It’s time for NASA to ditch its costly payload and commit to keeping costs down to earth.

For years, NASA has been planning and studying how best to return samples from the Martian surface. Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine even called the endeavor, “a civilization-level changing capability” that may “help us become the first to discover life on another planet.” But talk is cheap, unlike the projected program costs that won’t stop rising. According to a report released by independent reviewers in 2020, the MSR mission was slated to cost $3.8 to $4.4 billion. By June 2023, NASA was busy pushing back against credible reports that the cost had ballooned to $8 to $9 billion. The latest report identifies an upper bound of $11 billion, further eroding the credibility of an agency notorious for underestimating costs.

NASA could lower costs by moving the launch of the lander and orbiter to 2030, but even then, the mission would likely cost at least $8 billion and require $1 billion in steady annual spending between fiscal years 2025 and 2028. The report authors miss an important opportunity to hold NASA accountable for their galactic blunders. Rather than critically assess the importance of the mission, the authors warn that, by abandoning the MSR mission, the US would “abandon…the preeminent role that JFK ascribed to the scientific exploration of space…” At a time when multiple private companies are charting missions to Mars, it is unclear why it is the job of taxpayers to foot the bill for this technical, challenging task. These private ventures have every incentive to keep costs under control, unlike an agency known for chronic cost overruns.

NASA’s mission back to the moon has already been plagued by scheduling delays and cost overruns. Taxpayers will likely have to shell out $100 billion before another “small step” can happen. According to a new audit by NASA’s Inspector General (IG), the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket slated to ferry astronauts to the moon is an astounding $6 billion over budget. NASA had originally thought that using some of its older technologies (e.g., Space Shuttle and Constellation Programs) would save the mission money and incorporated these savings into initial cost estimates. But “the complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated” and costs have skyrocketed out of control. NASA has also had an exceptionally difficult time keeping its contractors at budget. The IG notes, “NASA used cost-plus contracts at times where we believe fixed-price contracts should have been considered to potentially reduce costs, including the addition of 18 new production engines under the RS-25 Restart and Production contract and acquisition of Artemis IV booster long-lead materials under the BPOC letter contract.” Award fees are out of control, and contractors have no incentive to adhere to a bottom line. The IG found that NASA has already spent $40 billion to get astronauts back to the moon and will likely spend close to $100 billion total on the endeavor.

The relevant question is not whether missions to the moon or Mars should happen, but who should blaze the path into the cosmos. NASA has all the wrong incentives that enable cost overruns and mission creep. Funding forays into space is a mission for investors, not taxpayers.

David Williams is the president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. 

Authored by James Fitzpatrick via RealClear Wire,

As those who have ever served in the military know, the United States Armed Forces is one of the most culturally and socioeconomically diverse institutions in America. It is full of patriotic Americans from all walks of life who come together to serve their country, fight for it, and ultimately die for it if called to. To have served in the military in any form is to be a member of an exclusive club in this country. Although there are some barriers to entry, race is not among them.

The Armed Forces have also provided countless opportunities for citizens in our nation who—through hard work, grit, and merit–rise through the ranks, provide a meaningful and fulfilling life for themselves and their families, and are justly proud of their calling. No matter their race, Americans have found comfort in the idea that if you are willing to work and serve your country with honor, the military will reward merit. 

Since January 2021, the Biden administration has made a concerted effort to inject “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” (DEI) into almost every facet of military life. This includes mandatory trainings, a DoD-wide “Equity Action Plan” and an entire day dedicated to “Leadership Stand-Down to Address Extremism in the Force.” Recently, this radical DEI advocacy was taken to a new level.

On August 9, 2022, in his previous role as Chief of Staff of the Air Force, CQ Brown sent a memo to both the Headquarters Offices for the Air Force Academy and the Air Education and Training Command titled “Officer Source of Commission Applicant Pool Goals,” the memo directed officials at those institutions to “develop a diversity and inclusion outreach plan aimed at achieving these goals no later than 30 September 2022.” Among these “goals” Brown directed the offices to implement specific racial quotas broken down by percentage for each race. For example, the goal for “White” officer candidates is 67.5% and for “Black/African American” officer candidates is 13%.

This is disturbing for several reasons and could be potentially catastrophic for the reputation of the military at a time when recruitment and retention is at an all-time low. Just this week, the Navy reported that it will miss its recruiting goal by 7,000 sailors this year and the Air Force reported that it will miss its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999.

First, the military is one of the last institutions that Americans revere. A July 2023 Gallup Poll found that 60% of Americans have a “high confidence” in the military. This is a good thing and is likely due to the military having a reputation for being a nonpolitical meritocracy where decisions are made in the best interest of protecting the country and not based on ideology.

Second, our military exists to protect the American people, our homeland, our interests, allies abroad, neutralize our enemies wherever they hide, and ensure a safe and prosperous future for our children. We will do this by finding, enlisting, training, and retaining the best and brightest men and women the country has to offer regardless of their race. Straying from that principle in the name of filling racial quotas is a disservice to the American taxpayer and makes Americans less safe.

Third, this directive is potentially illegal on its face. The United States Equal Opportunity Commission states on its website, “It is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a job applicant because of his or her race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.” With this memo, Brown is advocating for just that. Air Force Officer applicants would be literally discriminated against because of their race if this new directive is implemented. There is seemingly no way to meet the quotas outlined in the directive without engaging in discrimination against certain applicants because of their race, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Most members of the Air Force and the military generally are honest, hard-working people who do not believe our future airmen should be reduced to racial statistics. Recently promoted, Brown will now leave behind this divisive policy and force those below him, who likely had nothing to do with the idea, to implement the policy. This is wrong.

We must do better. That is why my organization, Center to Advance Security in America, has filed a series of FOIA requests to further investigate the implementation of these discriminatory policies.

The American military is the most powerful force for good the world has ever seen. If we want it to remain that way, we must shift our focus back to recruiting and retaining based on skill, merit, and future abilities – not race. It is not too late to shift course. If we do not, these out-of-control initiatives will continue, and military readiness will suffer.

*  *  *

James Fitzpatrick is an Army Veteran and the Director of the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA), an organization dedicated to improving the safety and security of the American people.

When considering where to live, big cities are attractive to people for a number of reasons, but affordability is usually not one of them.

In the following map, Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop highlights, using data from Demographia, the major cities ranked the worst for housing market affordability on a global basis.

Unaffordable Housing Markets

Demographia’s report looks at middle-income housing affordability in 94 cities in eight countries, many of which are known for having pricy housing markets:

•  Australia

•  Canada

•  China (Hong Kong)

•  Ireland

•  New Zealand

•  Singapore

•  United Kingdom

•  United States

For the 2023 report, it uses 2022 Q3 prices and income levels for evaluation, dividing the median house price by the gross median household income to find the median multiple for housing.

And for the first time in the history of Demographia’s reporting, not a single of the 94 cities scored below 3.0, the cutoff to be deemed “affordable.” Here’s a closer look at the least affordable markets in 2023:

For well over a decade now, Hong Kong has taken the top spot as the least affordable market globally. The only city to become even less affordable year over year was Los Angeles.

On the flip side, the most affordable city in the U.S. was Pittsburgh, with the median multiple sitting at 3.1. As people start to get priced out of certain markets, they may start to move to these more affordable cities.

Zooming out farther, here are the housing market affordability scores for all eight jurisdictions covered in this report:

Again, none of these countries are considered affordable, but within each there is a wide range of scores. Hong Kong is significantly less affordable than the second-place New Zealand and third-place Australia.

Scores across Canada, Singapore, the UK, Ireland and the U.S., however, are quite similar.

Better Cities for Housing Market Affordability

While many people flock to big cities, evidenced by the fact that many of the least affordable places are also among the most populous, others are opting to live somewhere more in their price range.

Here’s a glance at some of the most affordable housing markets worldwide:

All of the top 18 most affordable cities covered in the report are located in North America.

While big, global cities will certainly continue to attract talent and residents from all over, the more affordable cities may gain new residents for more practical financial reasons.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said Monday that his company has been “crippled” by American Express after it allegedly cut MyPillow’s credit line by about 90 percent.

Mr. Lindell, a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, has long said that extensive campaign is being waged by retailers and financial institutions to cancel him and his business ventures following his claims after the 2020 election.

“We really need everybody’s help right now. We have things going on I’m going to let you all know this week,” he told Steve Bannon on his “War Room” Rumble show. “American Express, I wasn’t going to say this, we’ve been with them 15 years and we do all of our online marketing, all our shipping with them, out of the blue they took our credit line from a million dollars down to $100,000, just cripples MyPillow.”

He added that the credit card firm lowered the line for “no reason” and “no explanation was given, adding it “just dropped it down last Tuesday.” The Epoch Times has contacted American Express, which hasn’t released a public statement on Mr. Lindell’s statement, for comment on the matter.

The move, he said, is part of an “all-out attack on MyPillow,” saying his company was also targeted by another company that he did not disclose in recent days.

Over the summer, Mr. Lindell announced he would be auctioning off 700 pieces of equipment, including forklifts, desks, and cubicle units. Speaking to a local newspaper in Minneapolis, he said the auction comes after he said MyPillow lost $100 million in revenue due to retailers and other companies halting sales of his products.

“It was a massive, massive cancellation,” he told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in July. “We lost $100 million from attacks by the box stores, the shopping networks, the shopping channels, all of them did cancel culture on us.”

According to a search of Walmart’s website, the big box retailer doesn’t sell MyPillow products. The company said last year it would stop selling MyPillow items at brick-and-mortar locations. In January 2022, one of his banks, the Minnesota Bank & Trust, described the MyPillow CEO as a “reputation risk” and cut ties with him weeks later.

Other retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Wayfair, H-E-B, and Kohl’s also stopped selling Mr. Lindell’s products, he has previously said. As one of the first companies to cut ties with MyPillow—days after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach—Bed Bath said it would discontinue sales due to a “number of underperforming items and brands.”

And earlier this year, Mr. Lindell told Business Insider that he had to sell a “building I had in Savage, in Minnesota, in October. And I had to borrow 2 million too. I’ve spent it all on fighting for this country.” In March, he told a left-wing news outlet that his business is doing fine after launching what he described as “MyPillow 2.0.”

About a year ago, the pillow magnate also said that agents with the FBI seized his cellphone at a fast-food restaurant, also posting a grand jury subpoena from a federal prosecutor in Colorado and what appeared to be a search warrant. The Denver FBI field office told news outlets at the time that “without commenting on this specific matter, I can confirm that the FBI was at that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judge.”

“The FBI came after me and took my phone,” Mr. Lindell wrote on Facebook. “They surrounded me in a Hardee’s and took my phone that I run all my business, everything with. What they’ve done is weaponize—the FBI, it’s disgusting. I don’t have a computer. Everything I do [is] off that phone. Everything was on there. And they told me not to tell anybody. Here’s an order: ‘Don’t tell anybody!’ ‘OK, I won’t!’ Well, I am.”

Washington has been sinking billions of dollars into the Ukraine conflict, in the name of defeating and ‘weakening’ Russia, and yet Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week highlighted China as the real “threat” to the US and the ‘liberal world order’. 

Biden’s top diplomat was interviewed by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who asked among other things whether Russia or China is a bigger “threat” to the United States. Blinken responded by saying China has a “much greater ability certainly than Russia to try to shape what the international system looks like.”

In reference to China, Blinken answered: “I think they want a world order, but the world order that they seek is profoundly illiberal in nature; ours is liberal with a small ‘L.’  And that’s the fundamental difference.”

On the question of what motivates China, Blinken said, “I think that what it seeks is to be the dominant power in the world militarily, economically, diplomatically.”

Below is the full exchange from the transcript: 

GOLDBERG:  Is Russia a bigger threat to the U.S. and to Western democratic interests now or is China actually the number one?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  They’re very different in their nature.  The – China has – by its military capacity, its economic capacity, although a little bit more challenged these days, its diplomatic capacity, its presence around the world – much greater ability certainly than Russia to try to shape what the international system looks like.  And I think they want a world order, but the world order that they seek is profoundly illiberal in nature; ours is liberal with a small “L.”  And that’s the fundamental difference.  The world that we hope to shape looks very different from the world that they might prefer so ‑-

GOLDBERG:  What does China want, ultimately?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  I think that what it seeks is to be the dominant power in the world militarily, economically, diplomatically.  And depending on the purpose that it brings to that, that can move things in one direction or another.  But I think fundamentally that’s what China is seeking, that’s what Xi Jinping is seeking, and in a sense that’s not a surprise.  There’s an extraordinary history in China, and I think if you look and listen to the Chinese leaders, they are seeking to recover what they believe is their rightful place in the world.

This does reflect recent and broader Washington defense and think tank establishment thinking which sees China as the most severe long-term threat to the US, with Russia in second.

For example, a 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) document produced by the Pentagon identified China as the “most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security strategy” – again despite the bulk of the defense budget and foreign aid now being focused on Ukraine. Some Congressional hawks, particularly among Republicans, have questioned why more isn’t being spent to bolster Taiwan and counter China.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

COVID-19 vaccine was detected in patients who died within a month of vaccination, according to a new study.

U.S. researchers analyzed tissue samples from the autopsies of 25 people, including 20 who were vaccinated.

Samples from the hearts of three patients, all of whom died within 30 days of a Pfizer shot, tested positive for messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA).

Eight bilateral axillary lymph node samples, from people who died within 30 days of a Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, also tested positive. The companies’ shots utilize mRNA.

The research shows “the vaccine can persist for up to 30 days, including in the heart,” Dr. James Stone, with the departments of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, told The Epoch Times via email.

The study was published by npj Vaccines. Authors declared no conflicts of interest. They said the research was supported by Massachusetts General Hospital, which is in Boston.

In testing of heart and bilateral axillary lymph node tissues from other vaccinated people who died, no vaccine was detected.

Additionally, no vaccine was detected in the liver, spleen, or mediastinal lymph nodes—vaccine was detected in the liver and spleen in preclinical rodent studies before—nor was any detected in tissues from the unvaccinated patients.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are known to cause myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that can result in death.

The people who had mRNA detected in the heart did not have myocarditis, though they did have detectable heart injuries, researchers found.

The researchers said they believed the heart injuries stemmed from underlying diseases and not the vaccines.

“There is no indication as yet that the vaccine in the heart is causing any problems in these patients; neither the causes of death nor the causes of the myocardial injury were linked to the vaccines in that study,” said Dr. Stone, one of the authors of the paper.

That position was challenged by Dr. Clare Craig, a British pathologist who reviewed the research.

“The vaccine should not have been there. There was evidence of heart damage. Those three people are now dead,” Dr. Craig told The Epoch Times in a message.

She said the researchers were setting too high of a bar for causality.

The researchers wanted to test the tissue for vaccine in light of research that has found both spike protein and mRNA persisting in axillary lymph nodes and blood for weeks or even months after vaccination. The testing would help “gain a better understanding of the biodistribution and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines,” they said. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

Researchers ended up with tissues from 20 vaccinated patients, including six who received one dose, 12 who received two doses, and two who received three doses. They also formed a control group of five unvaccinated patients.

Six bilateral axillary lymph node samples were available for people vaccinated with Moderna’s shot. Two tested positive for the vaccine. Thirteen were available for people vaccinated with Pfizer’s shot. Six tested positive for the vaccine.

Overall, of the 11 bilateral axillary lymph node samples from patients who died within 30 days of a shot, eight tested positive. None of the samples from patients who died beyond 30 days of vaccination tested positive.

Researchers also examined samples from each of the vaccinated people from the cardiac left ventricle and cardiac right ventricle. Of those, four samples tested positive across three patients. These were the three who received Pfizer’s shot within 30 days of dying. The samples also tested negative for COVID-19.

Vaccine was not detected in any of the unvaccinated people.

The vaccinated patients were on average older, with a mean age of 64 compared to 57. A higher percentage—55 percent to 20 percent—had recent heart injury.

Read more here…

A new report from the right-leaning Media Research Center concludes that Google is burying search results for 2024 presidential candidates, but an expert in search engine optimization has suggested it’s unlikely.

According to various tests conducted by MRC and Just the News, the online visibility of these sites in generic searches for the GOP’s 2024 bench is practically nil, and not significantly better for RFK Jr., Biden’s primary challenge on the left.

Google’s search engine failed to produce even-handed results in multiple searches performed by MRC Free Speech America over the course of a week prior to today’s Republican presidential primary debate. Researchers broadly searched for “presidential campaign websites” as well as two additional searches specifying the party affiliation of the candidates. When MRC searched for “republican presidential campaign websites,” only two candidates’ websites appeared on the first page in the search results — a Democrat candidate and a Republican who is polling at less than half a percent. -MRC

Both MRC and Senator Ted Cruz claim this is unambiguous proof of Google’s bias.

“Google is either the most incompetent search engine on the planet, or it is intentional. This is not a coincidence,” states Dan Schneider, MRC Free Speech America Vice President, following the group’s extensive analysis of search tests conducted between September 20 and 25.

This is ABSURD.

Blatant election interference. #GoogleCensorship https://t.co/qfcSfk1cHx

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 27, 2023

In 2018, Trump accused Google of “rigging” search results against him.

Google responded at the time, saying that “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”

In 2021, the Daily Mail sued Google for ‘illegally building its dominance in ad tech industry by harming rivals, bid-rigging on ad auctions and manipulating news search results.”

And of course, former Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt – who said the Trump administration would do “evil things” – was an advisor to the 2016 Clinton campaign.

Google head Eric Schmidt’s secret strategic plan for the US election #PodestaEmails https://t.co/LskJODXyXn

More: https://t.co/ZUfh7WDAT5 pic.twitter.com/llq5G9kp5V

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 31, 2016

A simple matter of SEO?

While the evidence certainly looks damning, Just the News spoke with Eric Goldman, an SEO researcher and co-director of Santa Clara University’s High Tech Law Institute, who proposed several benign possibilities to explain these search anomalies. Goldman argues for the necessity of a comprehensive academic study into search engine indexing and ordering, terming MRC’s tests an “advocacy stunt”.

“Search engine indexing and ordering is the kind of topic that would benefit from a proper academic study, not an advocacy stunt,” he said.

Yet, Google also told Just the News that it couldn’t explain the replicated results until Friday.

Meanwhile, Google, the world’s dominant search engine, is grappling with a Justice Department antitrust trial. The company’s explanations of its search dominance have raised eyebrows, bringing more scrutiny upon its practices. With accusations flying, former Psychology Today editor-in-chief Robert Epstein states, “Google poses a serious threat to democracy.”

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Two-Punch

“The statement that “Joe Biden wasn’t involved in Hunter Biden’s business,” is absurd in its face. Joe Biden was Hunter Biden’s business.”

– Margot Cleveland

Understand: no amount of political blustering will bring this gaslit nation into daylight when there is no more money and no more credit and no feasible way to feed the blob that ate our government.

The equation is simple. Our country can’t handle normal interest rates; and the value of the dollar can’t withstand more ultra-low interest rates. Someone, please, ask Congress to stop screwing that pooch over there!

Oh, and that “can” we’ve been kicking down the road turns out to be a rusty old 50-gallon drum. Somebody has stuffed America into it and is fixing to drop us overboard beyond the continental shelf off the Jersey Shore. Can that be stopped, too?

So, here at week’s end we see these two rather momentous issues juxtaposed:

1. the battle over how to finance that blob-infested monster in DC; and

2. the battle to expose the crimes of a real-life Manchurian Candidate president.

Neither battle is going all that well for the minority of citizens who want to live in a pro-reality society. If we follow the fiscal trend, all the tax revenue we can grudge up will barely cover the annual interest on our $30+trillion debt. If we can’t boot out the brain-dead cat’s paw in the White House, then say goodbye to the rule of law and liberty with it.

The people we elect to Congress don’t want to be accountable for specifically authorizing spending on the blob’s multitudinous pet projects. So, they depend on multi-thousand-page omnibus bills nobody can ever scrutinize, and continuing resolution dodges to postpone any necessarily painful action on a budget. Therefore, a dissenting coterie in the House proposes to play hard-ball over de-funding the blob, that is, a government shutdown of unknown duration, until gaslight is replaced by sunlight. The blob itself sends out a frantic S.O.S. 

Don’t let these white supremacist, “far-right” MAGA nut-jobs drag us out of the comfortable warm, moist darkness we thrive in — perfect conditions for continued blob growth!

After all, these Congresspersons have their lobbyist-donors to answer to, and they’d better come up with the right answer — or else their chance of eventually retiring as multi-millionaires, like Nancy Pelosi did, might slip away. Of course, the joke would be on them (and the rest of us) if it eventually costs a million dollars for a slice of pizza when they try to cash-out. Or is there some dirty secret involved here — for instance, that the blob has also taken over whatever remained of the US economy, too. So that defunding the blob also blows a hole in that putative economy? Or maybe not. Maybe the regular economy can breathe a little again with the blob’s boot off its neck. Let’s go ahead and shut off the flow for a week or two, see what happens.

I imagine some of you took in the opening of House Oversight’s impeachment inquiry, or at least enjoyed a few choice tidbits on Web video. Chairman Comer (R-KY) tried to proceed gingerly, so as to not appear vicious, and called onstage three witnesses to establish an upright basis for the exercise. Alas, they were led by the earnest but equivocating GWU law professor Jonathan Turley, straining so hard to be above reproach that he seemed to levitate out of his seat. The Democrat minority were allowed to invite their own shill, one Michael J. Gerhardt, a law prof from North Carolina, who was there to make the gaslight flicker, and sho’nuff did.

Ranking (minority) Member Jamie Raskin immediately tried to distract the proceeding with a call to subpoena Rudy Giuliani — supposedly to impugn the process. The majority briskly tabled Raskin’s motion. The old trouper has been worked over pretty severely by a lawless DOJ the past three years, had his client correspondence stolen by the FBI, his law license suspended by a malign New York Bar Association… but don’t forget he is an experienced and resourceful federal prosecutor himself. He spent many months beating the thickets of corruption in Ukraine for then-President Trump, and certainly knows more about what went on in that grubby money laundry than practically anyone. Bring him on. I’d like to see ol’ Rudy joust with the likes of Cori Bush (D-CA) , AOC (D-NY), and Kweisi Mfume (D-MD).

The New York Times pushed the leitmotif of their narrative this morning: there’s no evidence that “Joe Biden” committed any impeachable offenses.

That wasn’t the point of Mr. Comer’s opening exercise, which did not include what are called “fact witnesses” – exactly what The New York Times pretended to not understand. The point was to open this ugly business delicately, with some decorum. It will be interesting to see how long the news media can keep pretending there’s nothing to see in the Biden family’s global business doings when a firehouse of evidence is turned on them.

You can be sure the committee is sitting on some items we have not heard about.

There’s reason to be discouraged that the people we elect can bring the two great issues of the moment – the blob’s budget and the impeachment of “Joe Biden” – to satisfactory conclusions. They are arguably pseudopods of that very blob, whose very existence is being threatened now, and they have to worry about their shots at becoming multi-millionaires, too. The weeks ahead will inform us if there’s anything that can be salvaged of our federal government or whether we must make other arrangements.

*  *   *

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