Trump Team ‘Having a Good Laugh’ Over Michelle Obama’s ‘Deliberate’ Decision to Skip Inauguration

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MAGA sources could not care less that Michelle Obama is snubbing Donald Trump’s inauguration, a source tells Page Six.

“They are having a good laugh,” a source says of those involved in planning the inaugural festivities.

“They didn’t expect her to come anyway.”

A Democratic source tried to play down the diss, noting, “Donald Trump and Melania didn’t go to Joe Biden’s inauguration and nobody cared. No one said anything.”

Barack and Michelle Obamas’ office announced this week that Michelle will skip the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies on Jan. 20th, but that the former president will attend.

Michelle also skipped Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Jan. 9 because she was on an “extended vacation” in Hawaii. (Read more from “Trump Team ‘Having a Good Laugh’ Over Michelle Obama’s ‘Deliberate’ Decision to Skip Inauguration” HERE)

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As the Smoke Clears, Will Dumb, Rich Voters Finally Get It?

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Will the wildfires finally wake up Los Angeles? Adam Carolla, evacuated from home and ranting into his mic in a Los Angeles hotel room, seems to think so.

When the fast winds that fueled two of L.A. County’s largest wildfires on record die down, wealthy residents of Pacific Palisades rushing to rebuild their homes will crash headlong into a thicket of state, county, and local permitting and building codes. Then, Carolla predicts, and only then will they vote differently, with the neighborhood in ruins and the state’s phalanx of environmental regulation turned against them.

It’s a common fantasy. Rich lefties getting their comeuppance and said comeuppance finally beating sense into the next election result is a daydream outnumbered conservatives know too well. In bizarro, chronically mismanaged California, it’s bread and butter.

But such an outcome is a long way off, even as mainstream coverage untangles the lasagna of bad policy, corruption, ill-maintained infrastructure, and outrageous DEI priorities that overshadowed prevention and doomed the fight against the Palisades and Eaton fires. Like Sacramento, one party and one party alone runs Los Angeles. Fairly or not, that’s where the blame will land for empty reservoirs, hydrants that ran dry, and the frenzied evacuations of nearly 200,000 people. . .

While no one can control 100-mph winds or California’s predictably dry weather, a sense of outrage over preventable measures that could have saved homes is understandable. Like the power lines a co-worker of mine saw banging against trees in Studio City last week, talk of recall is already sparking.

Political careers have been ruined for far less. A search for culprits is rarely fair or thoughtful, and yet Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D), who upon rushing back from Ghana appeared dumbstruck, before reading a speech that wasn’t even proofread, and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who has been more vocal about destroying dams along the far-north Klamath River to restore salmon than ramping up reservoir storage, aren’t doing themselves any favors. (Read more from “As the Smoke Clears, Will Dumb, Rich Voters Finally Get It?” HERE)

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Biden Makes Decision on Whether to Enforce TikTok Ban Just Days Before Trump Returns to White House

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President Biden will not enforce a law banning TikTok that is set to take effect the day before he leaves office, according to a US official.

The official indicated that Biden, 82, has decided to pass the buck to President-elect Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press, leaving the implementation of the law targeting the Chinese-owned social media app up to the incoming administration.

The law, which cleared both chambers of Congress and was approved by the president last year, compels TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest itself from the social media app by Jan. 19 or face a US ban.

TikTok — used by more than 170 million Americans monthly — is reportedly planning to shut down the app on Sunday.

Trump, who has repeatedly expressed a desire to “save” TikTok, is reportedly considering executive action that would delay the implementation of the sell-or-ban law of the ban for up to 90 days.

“We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” incoming White House national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News on Thursday, noting that the new law allows for an extension preventing it from taking effect “as long as a viable deal is on the table.” (Read more from “Biden Makes Decision on Whether to Enforce TikTok Ban Just Days Before Trump Returns to White House” HERE)

Supreme Court Sides With Businesses in Overtime, Minimum Wage Case

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The Supreme Court made it easier for some businesses to prove employees are exempt from overtime and minimum wage standards in a ruling Wednesday that set a relatively low bar for the firms.

Lower courts had split on the burden of proof for the companies.

Some judges said the businesses had to have “clear and convincing evidence” that someone was exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and wage rules. Other judges said the businesses needed to have only a “preponderance” of the evidence in their favor — a lower level of proof.

The justices said the law requires only that lower level of proof.

“We conclude that the default preponderance standard governs when an employer seeks to prove that an employee is exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for the court. (Read more from “Supreme Court Sides With Businesses in Overtime, Minimum Wage Case” HERE)

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Why Do Red State Policymakers Fund DEI Required Course in Public Universities?

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No one is surprised that the cows in the Chik-fil-A ads advocate for eating more chicken. It would be shockingly irrational, however, if the chickens joined the campaign by paying the cows to carry their “Eat Mor Chikin” signs. Yet, this is exactly what Republican state legislators in 10 conservative states are doing when they devote several hundred million dollars each year to pay for diversity, equity, and inclusion required courses in their states’ public universities.

According to a new study by the Goldwater Institute, 30 states have public universities that require their students to take at least one course on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” to graduate. Ten of those states have Republican-controlled state legislatures, including Texas, Ohio, and North Carolina. It makes sense that state legislators in California or Massachusetts support having their public universities indoctrinate students in the radical ideology that informs the DEI movement, but it is unclear why those in red states stand for this and even allocate public funds to pay for it.

The Goldwater Institute offers very conservative estimates that likely understate the true cost to taxpayers and students of these required DEI courses, placing the price tab at $1.8 billion over a four-year period. In the 10 states with Republican-controlled legislatures, the total is over a half billion dollars.

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State legislators have historically been inclined to defer to the faculty and administrators who work for public universities to determine how those institutions are operated. While public universities are public agencies, much like the Department of Motor Vehicles, they have grown accustomed to receiving taxpayer dollars without having to answer to the people or their elected officials for how those funds are used.

The days of handing cash without string to public universities are coming to an end. Several states, including Florida, Texas, and Iowa, have adopted measures to eliminate DEI bureaucracies in their public universities. But so far, only Florida has taken the extra step to review the general education requirements to ensure that DEI-infused courses are not required for students to graduate. Doing so would not only spare students being compelled to endure political indoctrination, but it would also save taxpayers and students several hundred million dollars each year. (Read more from “Why Do Red State Policymakers Fund DEI Required Course in Public Universities?” HERE)

Republicans Need A Forceful Answer To Democrats’ Deceptive Questions On The 2020 Election

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Democrats continue to play games with the Senate confirmation hearings. And while the Trump nominees remain unscathed by the “gotcha” questioning, someone needs to forcefully, substantially — and in a sound-bite — answer their query about whether Donald Trump “lost” the 2020 election.

Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, sidled near the sweet spot when Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked her if she was “prepared to say today under oath without reservation that Donald Trump lost the presidential contest to Joe Biden in 2020.”

“Ranking Member Durbin, President Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in, and he is the president of the United States,” the attorney general nominee replied.

Durbin persisted, though, asking whether she had “any doubts that Joe Biden had the majority of votes, electoral votes necessary to be elected president in 2020.”

Bondi reiterated that she “accept[s], of course, that Joe Biden is president of the United States, what I can tell you is what I saw firsthand when I went to Pennsylvania as an advocate for the campaign. I was an advocate for the campaign, and I was on the ground in Pennsylvania and I saw many things there, but do I accept the results? Of course I do. Do I agree with what happened, and I saw so much. You know, no one from either side of the aisle should want there to be any issues with election integrity in our country. We should all want our elections to be free and fair and the rules and the laws to be followed.” (Read more from “Republicans Need A Forceful Answer To Democrats’ Deceptive Questions On The 2020 Election” HERE)

These Servicemembers Punished For Refusing The COVID Jab Are Counting On Hegseth To Make Things Right

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Veterans and current members of the U.S. military who refused to submit to the once-mandatory Covid shot are hurt, some say “morally injured,” by the mandate’s lingering consequences. They hope the Department of Defense, and its likely new Secretary Pete Hegseth, will restore a culture that respects religious freedom within the ranks.

During his Tuesday confirmation hearing, Hegseth showed he understands how the military culture has changed.

“… I’d been identified as an extremist, as someone unworthy of guarding the inauguration of an incoming American president,” Hegseth said Tuesday. “And if that’s happening to me … how many other men and women? How many other patriots? How many other people of conscience? We haven’t even talked about Covid, and the tens of thousands of service members who were kicked out because of an experimental vaccine. In President Trump’s Defense Department, they will be apologized to. They will be reinstated, reinstituted with pay and rank. Things like focusing on extremism … have created a climate inside our ranks that feel political, when it hasn’t ever been political.”

In a decision that weakened the military and destroyed thousands of careers, President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, announced in August 2021 that the Covid shot would be mandatory. The move made many bristle for various reasons. Some already had Covid and they believed they did not need a so-called vaccine. The shot was developed through the cell line of aborted baby tissue, a reason the faithful had religious objections.

“The people who were most affected were those midway through their career that were at a point where, whether it’s because they felt religiously called to this by God, or they spiritually felt connected to the values and rituals and the life that the military provided them, they were forced to choose between their faith and conscience or the military,” Current U.S. Navy Chaplain Jonathan Shour, who did not take the shot, told The Federalist. “They’ve been injured morally, spiritually perhaps even, if you look at it that way. It’s hard to recover from, but not impossible. And what would hopefully happen under future leadership is an acknowledgement that the military didn’t live up to the moral and ethical values that it espouses on paper.” (Read more from “These Servicemembers Punished For Refusing The Covid Jab Are Counting On Hegseth To Make Things Right” HERE)

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Denmark’s PM Just Provided an Update About the US Purchasing Greenland

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On Wednesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that she spoke to President-elect Donald Trump and explained “it is up to Greenland itself to make a decision on independence.”

This conversation came after Trump began saying that the United States should purchase Greenland. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Frederiksen explained that Danish companies have contributed to jobs and growth in the United States and that they both have a common interest in strengthened trade.

In the 45-minute conversation, Frederiksen and Trump also discussed the war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and the relationship with China.

“The Prime Minister and the incoming President have agreed to continue the dialogue,” the press release said. (Read more from “Denmark’s PM Just Provided an Update About the US Purchasing Greenland” HERE)

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Now It’s Time for Kamala Harris to Give Her Cringeworthy Remarks

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Wednesday night brought us President Joe Biden’s farewell address. On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris gave remarks of her own, and they were just as bad as you were expecting. Harris gave brief remarks before signing the desk drawer in her Ceremonial Office. It’s a tradition going back to the 1940s, and she only spoke for about five minutes, yet there was still plenty of cringe.

Although Harris failed in her bid as Biden’s replacement nominee, even losing the popular vote against President-elect Donald Trump last November, she still began by declaring, “I just have to say again, I am so proud of our team, and this is a team that spans many years of doing extraordinary work.” Not only did Harris fail in her presidential bid, her vice presidency was also rocked, and early on, by exits from staff and anonymous reports about a difficult work place.

Her remarks only got more bizarre from there. “On behalf of the people, and as you have all heard me say many times, I am fully aware that I am the public face of a lot of our work, and so I have the benefit of running into people all over our country who thank me,” she continued, already sounding as if she was slurring her words a bit. Beyond that, though, it was quite the pretentious claim to make, though she sort of tried to turn that around by continuing to thank her team.

“And I will tell you I am fully aware that when they are thanking me, they are thanking our team for the extraordinary commitment that you each have and as a team have, to lifting up the American people, lifting up their condition, lifting up their hopes and dreams and understanding, through it all, the nobility of public service,” Harris continued. Those might sound like nice words, but the American people have suffered mightily under the Biden-Harris administration, and responded by rejecting Harris and giving Trump a second term. (Read more from “Now It’s Time for Kamala Harris to Give Her Cringeworthy Remarks” HERE)

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‘So Much Distrust’: Incoming Trump NSA Disputes Report That Neocons Are Influencing MAGA Staffing

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Incoming national security advisor Mike Waltz disputed a report that neoconservatives are helping staff the National Security Council (NSC) for President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, claiming no one is making personnel decisions outside of Trump and his transition team.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller, Waltz responded to a Tablet Magazine report that says Republican Ohio Rep. Mike Turner is boasting that he is “taking over Trump’s IC (Intelligence Community)” by trying to get his staff director, Adam Howard, hired as the NSC’s senior director for intelligence. Tablet reported that Howard “is meant to be [Turner’s] instrument” in the position.

However, Waltz and Turner both denied the report to the Caller. Waltz said he has not discussed NSC staffing or policy issues with Turner since he was nominated by Trump. Turner also claimed he has not been any part of the Trump transition team and that the anonymous report is false.

“President-elect Trump has a fantastic National Security team that will reverse the dangerous policies of the Biden Administration. I have not sought to participate in any part of the Trump transition team and have not participated. Anonymous reports to the contrary are false. I look forward to working with the Trump Administration,” Turner told the Caller. (Read more from “‘So Much Distrust’: Incoming Trump NSA Disputes Report That Neocons Are Influencing MAGA Staffing” HERE)

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