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December 2016

Nice little company you got there. Wouldn't want to see nuthin' happen to it . . . CNN's Alisyn Camerota suggested this morning that Donald Trump used a "threat" against United Technologies to get its Carrier subsidiary to agree to keep manufacturing jobs in Indiana. Even the Indianapolis Star reporter who had criticized the deal as being "an extremely expensive campaign promise" took issue with Camerota's suggestion of a "threat." CNN: the network that would depict President-elect Trump as using mob-boss tactics.

There is a mad rush among progressive academics to institute "sanctuary campus" polices which will harbor illegal immigrants much in the same way as sanctuary cities. It's largely due to Trump's stunning election victory and the left is trying to make it happen before the President Elect is sworn in. Meanwhile, opponents of this policy are working on possible consequences for these actions. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is one of those people.

The Accomack County Public Schools in Virginia has suspended the classics To Kill A Mockingbird and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn over racial slurs after a parent filed a complaint:
"I keep hearing, 'This is a classic, This is a classic,' ... I understand this is a literature classic. But at some point, I feel that children will not -- or do not -- truly get the classic part -- the literature part, which I'm not disputing," she said at a Nov. 15 school board meeting. "This is great literature. But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can't get past that."

With President-elect Donald Trump a month away from taking the White House, President Barack Obama's administration has put pressure on Cuba's regime to make deals with GE and Google for the companies to operate on the island:
White House officials are unsure how Mr. Trump, the president-elect, will approach Mr. Obama’s Cuba policy. He has said he would reverse the effort to build relations, and this week wrote on Twitter that “if Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate the deal.”

Cosmopolitan writer Helin Jung wrote that Victoria's Secret has developed racist lingerie for its annual fashion show. Yes, apparently lingerie can be racist:
None of that even sounds nice, but if it does, don't let yourself be hoodwinked by Victoria's Secret's brazen attempt to re-label what is clearly cultural appropriation by turning it into a celebration of "culture." The brand and its creative leads shamelessly cherry-picked imagery, breaking apart aesthetic references from wherever they wanted and stitching them back together again. They're telling us it's worldliness. It's not, it's a hack job.
As Emily Zanotti at Heat Street points out, when anyone tries to celebrate culture, people will greet it "with charges of bigotry."

Today begins the recount in Wisconsin. Failed Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein filed for a recount suggesting that by doing so, Americans will have greater faith in the election process. Stein had to fork over $3.5 million for the recount in Wisconsin alone.

The VA in Tomah, Wisconsin, has become entangled in a scandal after a dentist may have infected veterans with hepatitis or HIV:
Nearly 600 veterans who received care at the Tomah VA may have been infected with several types of disease due to violations in infection control procedures. VA administrators made the announcement Tuesday afternoon at a press conference. The Tomah VA says it's in the process of notifying 592 veterans that they may be infected with Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, or HIV after they received care from one particular dental provider. Acting Medical Center Director Victoria Brahm said the dentist was using his own equipment, then cleaning it and reusing it, which violates the VA's regulations.

Our talented Mary Chastain blogged on the deal reached between President-Elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence and HVAC company Carrier. Rather than exporting jobs, Carrier will remain in Indiana, saving approximately 1,000 jobs. Mary expressed concern that if this was a firm-limited approach, Trump would be simply picking winners. The exact details about the deal have been slow to emerge.
"The incentives offered by the state were an important consideration," to staying, Carrier said in a statement Wednesday. Pence is the governor of Indiana. Carrier didn't specify what the incentives were. Trump threatened Carrier with stiff tariffs during the campaign, but Carrier's statement depicted a friendlier negotiation.
However, it must be noted that another Indiana plant is closing...and that Pence did not hesitate to act to take back incentives previously given.
Carrier’s announcement in February that it was eliminating the 1,400 jobs was paired with grim news from another Indiana company, United Technologies Electronic Controls, that 700 jobs would be eliminated at its facility in Huntington. ...After the [original] February announcements, Gov. Mike Pence and the state legislature went after the two companies to claw back hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-state agency that made grants to the companies to train new and existing workers and to keep jobs in the state.