53percenter's Blog

Jimmy Kimmel is somehow considered a moral barometer on late-night television, which seems funny because, well, I’ve seen his show.

He’s used 5th graders to make political points. His reaction to the rumor that President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was being considered to take over the role of White House chief of staff was that “I guess the thinking is, if he’s good enough to screw my daughter, he’s good enough to screw the country.” He tried to make homophobic jokes about Sean Hannity engaging in grotesque sex acts on the president, and later issued an apology saying he would “give more thought and recognize my role in inciting hatefulness” without actually apologizing to Hannity.

Apparently, you can cry a few times on TV about the right things and you can pretty much get away with whatever you want. That was on display earlier this week, when Kimmel’s disagreement with the administration’s immigration policies led him to suggest that it might be time to put the president’s kids in cages.

The monologue routine came after the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who oversaw the controversial policy of separating children from families who brought their children illegally over the border. You know, as per the Flores settlement, which mandated that children could only be kept in detention with their families for a period of 20 days.

So, time for an inappropriate joke involving an alleged child molester!

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“At this point,” Kimmel began, “Donald Trump has taken more kids away from their parents than Michael Jackson.”

That drew a sound resembling something between astonishment and a boo, which meant Kimmel quickly ushered the audience toward Trump’s own words regarding the policy.

“I’m the one that stopped it. President Obama had child separation,” the president said. “I’ll tell you something: Once you don’t have it, that’s why you see many more people coming. They’re coming like it’s a picnic, because ‘Let’s go to Disneyland.’”

“A laugh a minute,” said the late-night host that just compared Trump to a pop star who supposedly groomed children for his own untoward purposes. But I digress. Continue, lachrymose moralizer!

“Just to recap: Obama did the separations, and they were a good thing, but you stopped it. That makes sense,” Kimmel said.

“You know, if Trump really wants to put kids in cages, he should start with Eric and Donald Junior, just to see how it goes.”

That got cheers, because, you know, this is the left’s moral compass nowadays.

Just to be clear: Kids aren’t in cages. Whether kids were ever really in cages for an extended period of time is a matter of controversy, but the genesis of this whole line of thought — a 2014 photo in which children who had crossed the border illegal were kept for processing and kept in holding pens made out of chain-link fencing — was wholly an Obama thing, though it went viral on social media as being the result of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration.

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Kimmel’s line of thinking is this: He acknowledges “children in cages” was an Obama thing, Trump says he likes it (this is pretty much the exact opposite of what the president said, but OK), which means we should put Trump’s adult children in the cages.

At least he didn’t say Barron, but that’s really the extent of what we can give Kimmel credit for.

This is what counts as “tolerance” in 2019. Kimmel acknowledges that family separation happened under Obama, attributes it to Trump and then makes a bunch of tasteless jokes about it. If only he had cried, we’d have had the full Jimmy Kimmel experience. Come on, Jimmy — give those tear ducts a workout.

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I never thought I would care about the personal life of Aunt Becky from “Full House” or her influencer daughter. I also never thought I would be living in a time when “influencer” could be an actual profession, but here we are: Actress Lori Loughlin is currently one of the most famous high net-worth individuals who bribed to get their children into an elite college when they had no business being there.

In this case, the child is YouTube shill Olivia Jade, who’s apparently furious that her mother ruined her lucrative career of advertising beauty products on social media. More’s the pity.

As we follow the exploits of Loughlin and other rich people who manipulated test scores and managed to pass their progeny off as rowers or curlers or whatever minor sports they played, let’s not forget that there’s almost always some way to connect any scandal to the Clintons.

Really, it’s like magic. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they managed to find a link between the Clintons and the Chicago Black Sox scandal.

No, Hillary and Bill didn’t pass Chelsea Clinton off as a top recruit in water polo to get her into Stanford back in the day, considering the fact that first children tend to be able to go to whatever university they please. But, according to the Washington Examiner, the former president did try to use his influence to advance Chelsea’s then-boyfriend into the final selection round for a prestigious scholarship.

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“Trina Vargo, a veteran U.S. adviser on Ireland, founded the George J. Mitchell Scholarship in 2000. It was named after the former senator who brokered the talks that led to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement,” Alana Goodman reported on Thursday.

“Vargo said that Bill Clinton intervened in the first year of the scholarship, when Kane, whose 3.19 grade-point average was much weaker than those of the top candidates, had failed to make the final selection round.”

“President Clinton, who was in his last weeks in the White House, called Mitchell to express his displeasure, according to Vargo in her new book ‘Shenanigans: The U.S.-Ireland Relationship in Uncertain Times.’ He had submitted a letter of recommendation for Kane, who had already landed an internship in the Clinton White House during his relationship with Chelsea.”

Vargo, also a key foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration, said she saw Clinton’s call as an obvious attempt to use the prestige of the office to try to game the system.

“There’s no way to see that as anything other than an attempt to influence a situation that hadn’t been finalized yet,” Vargo told the Examiner.

“In light of the college admissions scandal, I don’t think it’s very unusual for people who have money or influence to use what means they have, whether it’s for their children or friends.

“If he had called George Mitchell after we had selected the twelve finalists just to say that the organization doesn’t know what they’re doing because they didn’t pick him, that would be fine from my perspective,” she said. “The timing … it was meant to influence decisions.”

According to Vargo, Mitchell was uncomfortable with the pressure allegedly being exerted by the outgoing president.

“It was with some uneasiness that he rang me to say that President Clinton had just been onto him and he was very unhappy that the boyfriend of his daughter Chelsea was not among the 20 finalists for a Mitchell Scholarship,” she wrote in her book.

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“Mitchell made it clear that he was not asking me to do anything; he just wanted to understand the background and asked what he should say to the president.”

Vargo also described running into Hillary Clinton a month after Kane wasn’t shortlisted during a reception at a reception held by our then-ambassador to Ireland.

“It was immediately clear to me that she knew I was the person she viewed as responsible for Chelsea’s boyfriend not getting the scholarship,” Vargo wrote.

“For those few seconds, her eyes closed to a slit, the way they do when one is unhappy and sizing up a person.”

Again, no money changed hands here and we can safely say that the pressure exerted didn’t seem to make any difference. However, it allegedly happened and was clearly out of order if it did.

Not surprisingly, the Clintons deny it. Bill Clinton’s press secretary, Angel Urena, called the allegations “baseless and patently false.”

Again, this is all alleged, but it’s also worth noting that the book came out just before the admissions scandals started breaking, and almost nobody in the establishment media picked up on the story. I’ll admit that books about the United States’ relationship with Ireland aren’t necessarily the most interesting reads in the world, but surely someone somewhere managed to hear that this little tidbit was tucked away and might be timely given the admissions scandal.

Instead, what we got was this report in the Examiner and pretty much nothing. Nobody decided to even pick up on it after the Examiner reported the alleged phone call, even though they can’t get enough of John Stamos’ on-screen wife getting her YouTube-influencer daughter into USC.

You would think the implications of a former president trying to interfere in a prestigious scholarship on behalf of his daughter’s boyfriend would be of interest to more Americans than the alleged transgressions of Aunt Becky. Apparently not.

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Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the controversial “Red Flag” gun bill into law on Friday and several county sheriffs have indicated they won’t enforce it. Some are even willing to go to jail for their beliefs.

CNN:

Known as the “Extreme Risk Protection Order,” the law will allow a family member, a roommate or law enforcement to petition a judge to temporarily seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed a risk to themselves or others. Fourteen other states have passed similar legislation.

Still, the law now faces major hurdles, with a pro-gun lobby group promising to challenge it in court. Additionally, a growing number of sheriffs in the state have vowed to ignore the law when it takes effect next year, calling it unconstitutional.

That will be up to the courts. But just because a law is declared “constitutional” doesn’t make it right. And several sheriffs are prepared to be held in contempt of court rather than enforce what they see as an attack on the Second Amendment:

At least 10 other sheriffs contacted by CNN are lining up behind Reams, saying they are prepared to go to jail rather than enforce a law they believe would violate a person’s constitutional rights.

“How many judges are going to send all the sheriffs in Colorado who are standing up to this to jail?” wondered Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell, who is among the sheriffs willing to choose jail over enforcement.

Garnett said he wasn’t concerned about sheriffs being locked up.

“What I’m going to lose sleep over is, if that’s the choice that they make, and someone loses their life, someone in crisis goes on a shooting spree, (or) someone commits suicide” because a gun wasn’t taken away, he said.

Will it really save lives? What we’ve seen in recent years is that if a crazy person wants to go on a shooting spree, they will find a way to get a gun. Meanwhile, guns will be seized from innocent people who may or may not be a threat to themselves or others. 

Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the controversial “Red Flag” gun bill into law on Friday and several county sheriffs have indicated they won’t enforce it. Some are even willing to go to jail for their beliefs.

CNN:

Known as the “Extreme Risk Protection Order,” the law will allow a family member, a roommate or law enforcement to petition a judge to temporarily seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed a risk to themselves or others. Fourteen other states have passed similar legislation.

Still, the law now faces major hurdles, with a pro-gun lobby group promising to challenge it in court. Additionally, a growing number of sheriffs in the state have vowed to ignore the law when it takes effect next year, calling it unconstitutional.

That will be up to the courts. But just because a law is declared “constitutional” doesn’t make it right. And several sheriffs are prepared to be held in contempt of court rather than enforce what they see as an attack on the Second Amendment:

At least 10 other sheriffs contacted by CNN are lining up behind Reams, saying they are prepared to go to jail rather than enforce a law they believe would violate a person’s constitutional rights.

“How many judges are going to send all the sheriffs in Colorado who are standing up to this to jail?” wondered Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell, who is among the sheriffs willing to choose jail over enforcement.

Garnett said he wasn’t concerned about sheriffs being locked up.

“What I’m going to lose sleep over is, if that’s the choice that they make, and someone loses their life, someone in crisis goes on a shooting spree, (or) someone commits suicide” because a gun wasn’t taken away, he said.

Will it really save lives? What we’ve seen in recent years is that if a crazy person wants to go on a shooting spree, they will find a way to get a gun. Meanwhile, guns will be seized from innocent people who may or may not be a threat to themselves or others.