RUTHFULLY YOURS

Passengers reportedly fled a flight before it could take off on Saturday — after a United Airlines pilot went on a bizarre rant over the intercom.

In a ball cap and casual shirt, the pilot remarked on her appearance after she boarded the flight at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in the late afternoon, passenger Randy Reiss wrote on Twitter.

21h
Randy Reiss @undeadsinatra

So, y’all. I’m shaking right now. I just left my @united flight 455 ‘cos the captain demonstrated that she was not mentally in a safe space.

“So I’ll stop, and we’ll fly the airplane,” she says in another passenger’s video. “Don’t worry. I’m going to let my co-pilot fly it. He’s a man.” Reiss got out of his seat, collected his bag and made for the exit. “Half the flight followed my lede,” he wrote.

“Okay, if you don’t feel safe get off the airplane, but otherwise we can go,” the pilot says in the video, still cheerful, as her passengers begin to revolt.

“Did I offend you?” she says to someone in first class.

“Disarm the doors,” a flight attendant says.

Whoa! Who says women are prone to hysteria under pressure?

United Airlines did not immediately reply to The Washington Post’s questions about the incident: who the pilot was, whether she would have been allowed to fly had her passengers not fled, and whether she had been disciplined. “We removed her from the flight,” a spokesman for the airline told the Austin American-Statesman. “We’re going to discuss this matter with her.”

Texas media has more:

United Airlines says it’s investigating after a pilot was removed from a San Francisco-bound flight before it left Austin, Texas, Saturday.

Passengers say the pilot wasn’t wearing a uniform when she boarded the plane. She got on the intercom system and reportedly talked about politics, the presidential election and her divorce. Passengers also say she asked for a vote on whether to change her clothes to her uniform or fly as is. At that point, about 20 passengers got off the plane because they felt uncomfortable.

United Airlines spokesman Charlie Hobart confirmed the pilot wasn’t in uniform when she boarded the plane Friday. He says another pilot was brought in and the flight was delayed about two hours. Hobart also confirmed the pilot was the woman shown in videos posted on social media talking to passengers over the intercom.

Something new is happening before our eyes. Radicals are completing a takeover of the Democratic Party. Sure, there’s been a lot of mockery among conservatives about hyperventilating Democrats. Pundits point out the obvious: that Democrats screaming that Trump is illegitimate deliver no positive message for working class voters who want jobs and that mobs in black masks are not appealing. Such analyses fall short.

After 8 years of exploiting and enflaming the grievances of identity politics, the Democratic Party is being eaten by the monster they rode to power.

Radicals don’t need to be a majority – they never are. They dominate through mob violence, media manipulation and threats. They are now dominating Democrat politicians, not allowing them to “normalize.”

The Los Angeles Times: Democrats in Congress began the year less defiant, with a more tentative, case-by-case approach to an untested new president. They were ready to work with Trump, they said, if he met them halfway. Democratic senators confirmed a few of Trump’s Cabinet nominees without much fuss. Then their base erupted.

The Wall Street Journal: Leftist throngs have been gathering outside Mr. Schumer’s residence in Brooklyn, N.Y., demanding that the Senate minority leader “get a spine” and oppose President Trump on everything.

That probably isn’t his natural inclination. Mr. Schumer once said that a “pause” in Syrian immigration “may be necessary,” and after the election he declared himself ready to “work with” Mr. Trump. But now he has yielded to the noisy crowd.

The always insightful John Hinderaker has noticed something is up in, “What Part Of ‘You Lost’ Don’t Liberals Understand?”

The Democrats need to understand that when you lose an election, the other guys get to take office. You don’t stamp your feet and demand that they quit.

(At) a town meeting conducted last night by Congressman Tom McClintock in Roseville, California. Liberal activists … behaved so … threateningly that the Congressman had to be escorted from the hall by armed policemen.

Another disgusting moment in the history of liberalism, but this is what I find mystifying:

“I can no longer just sit back. … These people need to understand, we want them out,” said Vietnam War veteran Lon Varvel, referring to Trump and McClintock.

One of the less understood criticisms of progressivism is that it is totalitarian, not in the sense that kale-eating Brooklynites want to build prison camps for political nonconformists (except for the ones who want to lock up global-warming skeptics) but in the sense that it assumes that there is no life outside of politics, that there is no separate sphere of private life, and that church, family, art, and much else properly resides within that sphere.

Earlier this week, I expressed what seemed to me an unobjectionable opinion: that politics has a place, that politics should be kept in its place, and that happy and healthy people and societies have lives that are separate from politics. The response was dispiriting but also illuminating.

Among those who directed tut-tuts in my direction was Patti Bacchus, who writes about education for the Vancouver Observer. “That’s one of the most privileged things I’ve ever heard,” she sniffed. Patti Bacchus is the daughter of Charles Balfour, a Vancouver real-estate entrepreneur, and attended school at Crofton House, a private girls’ school whose alumni include Pat (Mrs. William F.) Buckley. It is one of the most expensive private schools in Canada. I do enjoy disquisitions on “privilege” from such people. But of course her criticism is upside-down: It is exactly we privileged people with education, comfortable lives, and spare time who expend the most energy on politics. But there are other pressing priorities, like paying the rent, for poor people. If Ms. Bacchus would like to pay a visit to West Texas, I’ll introduce her to some.

Another objection came from a correspondent who demanded: “What if politics greatly impacts every facet of your life?” That would be an excellent question if it came from some poor serf living in one of the states our American progressives so admire, such as Cuba or Venezuela, where almost every aspect of life is under political discipline, where government controls whether you eat — and, indeed, whether you breathe. But if you live in the United States and politics greatly impacts every facet of your life, you have mental problems, or you are a politician.

(But I repeat myself.)

Esar’s Comic Dictionary (1943) contains two definitions of the word “fanatic,” often wrongly attributed (by me, among others) to Winston Churchill: First, “A person who redoubles his efforts after having forgotten his aims.” Second (my favorite), “One who can’t change his opinion and won’t change the subject.”

If you want to see fanaticism at work, try looking for a roommate in Washington or New York City.

From the New York Times we learn of the emergence of the “no-Trump clause” in housing ads in our liberal (which is to say, illiberal) metropolitan areas. The idea is nothing new — I saw similar “No Republicans Need Apply” ads years ago when looking for apartments in Washington and New York — but the intensity seems to have been turned up a measure or two: In 2017, the hysteria knob goes up to eleven. Katie Rogers of the Times offers an amusingly deadpan report:

In one recent ad, a couple in the area who identified themselves as “open-minded” and liberal advertised a $500 room in their home: “If you’re racist, sexist, homophobic or a Trump supporter please don’t respond. We won’t get along.”

Washington: It took a historic tie breaking vote cast by Vice President Pence on Tuesday to get President Donald Trump’s education secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos, confirmed by the Senate.

A few months ago, very few people would have predicted DeVos would be confirmed on a 51-50 vote, the narrowest confirmation vote of a Cabinet nominee ever. Two Republicans, Senator. Lisa Murkowski , Alaska, and Susan Collins, Maine, joined the entire Democratic caucus to oppose her.
Pence breaks Senate tie to confirm DeVos

The Senate has confirmed school choice activist Betsy DeVos as Education secretary, with US Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-50 tie. It was the first time a vice president had to break a tie on a Cabinet nomination

But in retrospect, what happened to DeVos makes sense. Her inexperience in public schools, her alienation of some moderate Republicans, a powerful populist movement against her and Senate Democrats’ will to oppose Trump at every turn came together to create the perfect storm.

There are several dynamics going on here, so let’s break down DeVos’ troubled confirmation into four factors.

1) She’s a one-issue nominee

DeVos, a Michigan billionaire philanthropist, is a national figure on the cause of giving vouchers to parents so they can choose whether to send their kids to private or public schools. That is mostly a non-starter for Democrats. But the school-choice-above-all-else narrative also doesn’t fit with some red-state Republican senators, whose rural states don’t necessarily have a ton of private or charter schools to choose from.

“If you are a senator who disagrees with DeVos on the issue of school choice and vouchers,” said Elizabeth Mann of the Brookings Institution, “there aren’t a lot of other places to find common ground.”

2) She doesn’t have experience in public schools

DeVos has not attended, sent her children to, or worked in public schools. And that’s a big problem for people who see the education secretary’s primary role as managing public schools, which a majority of American students attend.

“[L]ike all of us, Mrs. DeVos is the product of her experience,” Collins said on the Senate floor explaining why she’d be voting against DeVos.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, poses with boy and his sign for a family member during a rally in Portland, Oregon. Photo: AP

DeVos’ viral confirmation hearing – where she seemed unfamiliar with basic laws and suggested guns in schools could help protect students “from potential grizzlies” — did nothing to assuage those concerns. And it even added a few more, like whether she’d support students with disabilities.

3) A united opposition, a split front of support

The increasingly nationalised debate over school reform has propped up a sizable, well-organized and often powerful coalition of labour and progressive groups that are opposed to DeVos’ school choice position.

But it’s not just teachers unions opposing DeVos. The Washington Post’s Emma Brown talked to parents across the country who opposed Devos and found them to be part of a surprisingly diverse group:

“[A] small army of parents, teachers and others around the country who have risen up against DeVos as President Trump’s nominee heads toward a breathtakingly close confirmation vote. They come from places as diverse as rural Alaska, inner-city Detroit and — suburban Nashville.”

“Vouchers don’t come with any oversight of the schools in which they’re spent,” Anna Caudill, a Tennessee mother of two, told Brown.

Very few Cabinet nominees have such a built-in and well-organized opposition, said Frederick Hess, a DeVos supporter with the American Enterprise Institute. “I don’t know who has that kind of mobilisation on the secretary of state, no matter how much more high-profile the position is,” he said.

In a recent column titled “The Elephant in the Living Room,” I surmised that liberals and Democrats are playing a very dangerous game by continuing to question the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency. What makes that bit of nonsense so dangerous for Democrats is the fact that, by continuing to question Trump’s legitimacy, they could easily invite renewed interest in Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility… an issue that lies festering just beneath the surface.

In Obama’s case, enough is known about his lack of presidential eligibility to invite future researchers to dig deeper into his personal history. As a result, the American people will one day be shocked to learn that, between January 20, 2009, and January 20, 2017, a period of time during which the forces of Islamic jihad made the greatest gains in the conquest of the Christian world since the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, the United States was governed by a half-Muslim impostor with no legitimate claim to the presidency.

But man is a curious animal, and if he feels that he’s been lied to or that certain historical facts have purposely been kept from him, he will move mountains to discover the truth.

A great many major historic events and mysteries remain unresolved and unexplored for years… often for decades, centuries, and even millennia. For example, as World War I raged on in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson (D) reassured the American people of U.S. neutrality. He said, “The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men’s souls. We must be impartial in thought, as well as action, must put a curb upon our sentiments, as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another.”

However, what the American people did not know was that Wilson, himself, was violating U.S. neutrality by supplying war materiel to the British and, with no apparent regard for the safety of the traveling public, shipping it to England aboard passenger ships. The German spy network in the United States was fully aware of the deceit, causing the German government to publish an April 22, 1915, warning in 50 major newspapers, urging travelers not to sail aboard the RMS Lusitania. And when travelers expressed concern, the Wilson administration assured them that trans-Atlantic travel was safe and that there was no reason for concern.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals violated both judicial precedent and the Constitution’s separation of powers in its ruling against President Trump’s executive order on immigration. If the ruling stands, it will pose a danger to national security.

Under normal rules of standing, the states of Washington and Minnesota should never have been allowed to bring this suit. All litigants, including states, must meet fundamental standing requirements: an injury to a legally protected interest, caused by the challenged action, that can be remedied by a federal court acting within its constitutional power. This suit fails on every count.

The plaintiff states assert that their public universities are injured because the order affects travel by certain foreign students and faculty. But that claim involved no legally protected interest. The granting of visas and the decision to admit aliens into the country are discretionary powers of the federal government. Unadmitted aliens have no constitutional right to enter the U.S. In hiring or admitting foreigners, universities were essentially gambling that these noncitizens could make it to America and be admitted. Under the theory of standing applied in this case, universities would be able to sponsor any alien, anywhere in the world, then go to court to challenge a decision to exclude him.

It is also settled law that a state can seek to vindicate only its own rights, not those of third parties, against the national government. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923) that it is not within a state’s duty or power to protect its citizens’ “rights in respect of their relations with the Federal Government.” Thus the plaintiffs’ claims that the executive order violates various constitutional rights, such as equal protection, due process and religious freedom, are insufficient because these are individual and not states’ rights.

Even if states could articulate a concrete injury, this is not a case in which the courts ultimately can offer redress. The Constitution grants Congress plenary power over immigration, and Congress has vested the president by statute with broad, nonreviewable discretionary authority to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens . . . he may deem to be appropriate” to protect “the interest of the United States.” Numerous presidents have used this authority to suspend entry of aliens from specific countries.

Further, as the Supreme Court explained in Knauff v. Shaughnessy (1950), the authority to exclude aliens “stems not alone from the legislative power but is inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation.” In issuing the order, the president was acting at the apex of his authority. As Justice Robert Jackson noted in Youngstown v. Sawyer (1952): “When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate.” That point the Ninth Circuit ignored entirely.

The order, frequently mischaracterized as a “Muslim ban,” is actually directed at seven countries that the president believes present a particular threat to U.S. security—a view with which Congress agreed in 2015. All are beset by terrorists and so uncertain and chaotic that proper vetting of potential refugees and immigrants is virtually impossible. CONTINUE AT SITE