Insanity Wrap needs to know: What are you doing today instead of watching the fauxnauguration?
Answer: We’re day-drinking and hoping you’ll join us.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Fox News does what it should have done on November 4: Fire Chris Stirewalt
- Biden Center at center of questions about Communist Chinese influence-peddling
- Trump’s final middle-finger salute
And so much more.
Shall we begin?
This Is Not a Sane World, Exhibit #1,000,006
It’s the dawn of a New Era.
An era of retreads from the Obama administration, whether it’s personnel, policy, or both.
An era of decreased energy independence.
An era of presidential family members less interested in negotiating Middle East peace deals and more interested in hookers and blow.
An era of increasing surveillance and silence, disguised as a “War on Domestic Terror.”
So maybe not such the dawn of a new era but the return of the malaise of the Obama years, with the added touch of Cancel Culture becoming official.
Insanity Wrap tries not to be too cynical, but today of all days that might not just be possible.
With that in mind, here’s Insanity Wrap’s completely non-patented recipe for the Stripped Down Bloody Mary.
You’ll need:
- 2 oz decent quality vodka
- 4 oz Low Sodium V8
- 1/4 oz fresh lime juice
- 1/4 oz fresh lemon juice
- 2 dashes Worcestershire
- 2 (or more) dashes Tabasco
- Fresh grated horseradish
- Garnish of choice
Stir liquid ingredients over ice in a tall glass. Grate horseradish on top then stir again.
Garnish.
Drink.
Repeat until your brain is as addled as Joe Biden’s.
Insanity Wrap is kidding about that last part, mostly.
Too Little, Too Late?
BREAKING –> Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt was laid off today alongside just under 20 Fox News staffers. Stirewalt sat on the Fox News decision desk, which has come under fire for its early call on Arizona election night. Story forthcoming…
— Sarah Ellison (@sarahellison) January 19, 2021
Fox News called Arizona so early that it might very well have affected the outcome of the race in a state where the margin of victory was fewer than 11,000 votes out of more than 3.3 million cast.
That’s close — too close to call the moment the polls closed.
How many Trump voters, sick of waiting in line, left without voting upon getting the “news” from Fox?
We’ll never know. But a lot of Republicans, conservatives, and MAGAs will never watch Fox again.
Probably no matter who they fire.
And So It Begins
Biden Will Sign More Than 10 Executive Orders on Day 1, Gutting Some of Trump’s Policy Legacies
Elections have consequences.
Western Journal’s Christine Favocci has collected ten of them, including rejoining the Paris accord, reversing the travel ban, and a “100-Day Masking Challenge.”
Did you make that Stripped Down Bloody Mary yet?
82 Million Votes Or Whatever
Good to see DC packed with supporters of the most popular president in American history
The overflowing joy and universal reception of this president guarded by 25,000 troops, armored vehicles, and miles of impenetrable walls is beautiful!
Touching
pic.twitter.com/FjUZFJuF0O— ELIJAH SCHAFFER (@ElijahSchaffer) January 20, 2021
Nobody goes to inaugurals anymore — they’re too crowded.
Previously On Insanity Wrap: Why Joe Manchin Is Never Going to Switch Parties
Better Late Than Never?
WaPo Admits Trump DIDN’T Incite Riot With Speech… ‘Planned In Advance’
“Written by three non-political reporters, the Washington Post story illustrates just how out of control the blatant misinformation about ‘incitement’ by the President has been over the past two weeks.”
Fear not, gentle reader — the link goes to The National Post’s writeup of the WaPo report, so you can click freely.
Mostly what Insanity Wrap is waiting for is for the media to notice Trump’s accomplishments now that he’s out of office.
We always enjoy witnessing former Republican presidents’ transmogrification from Literally Hitler™ to Strange New Respect.
Of course, that’s only to make way for the next Literally Hitler™.
The Big Whiff
Had meeting with senior GOP.
My advice:
The 74 million Trump voters only want to see 2 things out of the Republicans:
– Action on Election Integrity
– Stopping Big Tech fascism
Fail to do that and the party is finished.
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) January 17, 2021
That’s about right.
In hindsight, Trump’s biggest mistake in his first two years in office was not taking on Big Tech.
But it’s only with hindsight.
Remember: Donald Trump actually tweeted his way into the White House. Twitter, everyone thought, couldn’t afford to alienate the man who brought them so much traffic, so much engagement. Trump played Twitter like a violin, keeping his fans enthused and his critics frothing.
Twitter was Trump’s bitch, or so most everyone thought.
By the time Big Tech figured out that their bread would be better buttered by putting a compliant Democrat in the Oval Office, it was too late to alter Section 230, or to break them up before the election.
Where we go from here is a thought for a day involving fewer Bloody Marys.
Xi’s Gotta Have It
‘Biden Center’ at UPenn named in complaint alleging undisclosed China funds
While the press prepares to rerun its “Shockingly Scandal-Free Administration” stories from 2009-2017, changing only the names and dates, Insanity Wrap will continue bringing you stories like this one:
The National Legal and Policy Center said in a May 21 announcement that “since 2017 alone,” the year the Biden center opened, it has received “over $70 million from China, of which $22 million were listed as ‘Anonymous.'” The complaint specifically names the Biden Center, which is part of the University of Pennsylvania. The foreign gift reporting, however, only includes a list of foreign donations, both “monetary gifts” and contracts, to UPenn and does not distinguish which may have been earmarked for the Biden Center.
The entries do acknowledge that the foreign gifts came from China. However, because the gifts from China are more than $250,000, federal law requires that the specific name of the individual donor to disclosed, not just the country of the gift’s origin.
The complaint includes a footnote, which states that the amounts in question lack the name of a specific donor.
Biden, Inc. was and remains a mostly-owned subsidiary of the CCP.
Insanity Wrap’s only comfort rests with this thought: Military procurement has a life of its own, so there’s a good chance that Biden, Inc. won’t be able to gut the Air Force’s modernization and the Navy’s expansion begun under Trump.
Your Daily Dose of Sanity
Minimum wage increase already affecting local restaurants
If Insanity Wrap were to stipulate for the moment that there’s ever a good time to raise the minimum wage, increasing labor costs and hiking prices at a time when jobs are scarce and incomes are down would be the worst possible time.
And yet here we are.
Colorado’s minimum wage increased on January 1st this year, up 2.7 percent to $12.32 per hour. Plenty of industries, including restaurants in particular, have already been affected by the change.
Some local restaurants are already having to adjust, as many restaurant rely on low-wage workers to survive. Less than three weeks into 2021, Sunrise Restaurant in Grand Junction is already considering raising the price of certain menu items.
“We’re looking at doing a small price increase,” says Lena Combs, co-owner of Sunrise Restaurant. “Cost of goods has went up, now cost of payroll is going up also. The margin in the restaurant industry is typically very small, so we’re looking at increases just to make it viable to keep going.”
Economics is still sane: Raise costs by legal fiat, and prices will go up, too.
This isn’t exactly the kind of sanity we rejoice in reporting, but today’s it’s all we’ve got.
Drain the Swamp Or Whatevs
Trump just revoked the executive order that banned administration officials from becoming lobbyists within five years of leaving government pic.twitter.com/H4GboXs8il
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 20, 2021
For those of us, like Insanity Wrap, who got on board the Trump Train late, and mostly because of his promises to remake the judiciary and to drain the swamp, this last-minute move is about the nastiest blowoff imaginable.
There will some miserable choices in Trump’s final round of pardons and commutations, too. That’s up to and including corrupt former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Democratic super-donor Salomon Melgen, who abused the elderly in the biggest, worst case of Medicare fraud.
Insanity Wrap has no way of knowing what led to Trump deciding to wave goodbye with a Middle Finger Salute. We’re certain however that whatever infinitesimal chance he might have had at making a political comeback, this just drove a stake through its heart, chopped off its head, shot it with a silver bullet, burned the remains, and scattered the ashes.
The good news? Biden will do worse literally every day of his (truncated?) administration, and Insanity Wrap will be here to skewer him for it every single day.
One More Thing…
Too soon?
That’s a Wrap for today.
Come back tomorrow for another Insanity Wrap…
…assuming we make it that long.
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