By Milt Harris ——Bio and Archives--July 22, 2023
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A quick review of some of the Biden administration’s important appointees may bring back memories of the “Island of Misfit Toys.” The difference of course is that the train with square wheels and the water pistol that squirted jelly were all lovable characters. That description doesn’t fit the Biden group. However, incompetent, and hypocritical, combined with a healthy dose of the unorthodox seem to describe them quite well. Let’s take a look at a few past appointees as well as his most recent.
Pete Buttigieg is a gay man that was the mayor of tiny South Bend Indiana. For Joe Biden, those qualifications were all that was required to be appointed Transportation Secretary. The U.S. Department of Transportation consists of over 55,000 employees and thirteen agencies, which includes the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The person that holds this position serves as the principal advisor to the President of The United States on all matters relating to transportation.
In August of 2021, with store shelves emptying and supply chain issue mounting, Buttigieg, a man, took a full 2-month maternity leave. In June of 2022, with flight cancellations and delays spiraling out of control because of staff shortages, Buttigieg essentially sat on his hands. While airlines were knowingly scheduling flights they knew they couldn’t provide, costing consumers time, money, and inconvenience, he scheduled what was essentially a photo op meeting with the airlines and washed his hands of any responsibility. Instead, he chose to wait and see how July 4th, a hectic travel time went.
Next is Sam Brinton. Brinton was Biden’s non-binary addition to his island. Brinton’s title turned out to be longer than his tenure. He began serving on June 19th of last year as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy. Unfortunately, he had a penchant for stealing other peoples luggage and even wearing some of the women’s clothes that he pilfered. Brinton stole the luggage from airports in Las Vegas and Minnesota. In a bizarre twist, he was actually spotted by fashion designer Asya Idarous Khamsin wearing one of her designer dresses while watching Fox News. Hey, no-one said kleptomaniacs can’t have good taste. Brinton was fired from his position on December 11th meaning his tenure lasted 176 days. He was subsequently arrested, signed a plea agreement, and received a slap on the wrist for his crimes.
Then, who can forget Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden’s Supreme Court Justice appointee. Jackson is a black woman that refused to define what a woman is when asked to do so. Jackson’s woke defiance was applauded by the left, but her refusal to answer is a red flag for future women’s right’s disputes. It is difficult to defend what you can’t define.
Last week Biden’s latest appointee, Kalpana Kotagal, was approved as Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Throughout history, the EEOC has played a key role in ensuring that Americans weren’t discriminated against for their race, sex, age or any other characteristics regarding employment. The agency’s powers are not limited only to the protection of reported rights violations, it can bring charges against an employer even if no employee complaints have been filed.
With such wide-ranging powers, the head of the agency needs to be above reproach. The commissioner must understand that true equity includes fairness to all races in all situations and that establishing and enforcing quotas does not accomplish equity. The question that should concern all businesses is will Kotagal embrace that logic.
Based on her history, businesses should worry. Kotagal is a lawyer and an unapologetic liberal activist. Her resume includes representing transgenders and forcing insurance companies to pay for breast implants on biological males. She is on the University of Pennsylvania Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team and contributes left leaning articles to major publications.
Perhaps her most visible, woke accomplishment involves the film and streaming industry’s contractual agreements. Kotagal, in conjunction with law professor Stacy Smith, co-created the “inclusion rider.” These riders specify defined levels of diversity in both the staff and cast. The riders essentially force studios to include a certain percentage of minorities or “underrepresented groups,” whether the story line or historical context would normally do so or not.
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The inclusion rider templates are at Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll, which is Kotagal’s law firm.
In the rider, underrepresented groups are defined as:
“The term “under-represented group(s)” means people who identify as women of all backgrounds and identities, people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Asian American & Pacific Islander, or other Non-Black people of color, people of Hispanic or Latino descent, people with disabilities, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender or Queer (‘LGBTQ+’) people, people over age 40, people from religious minorities, or people having a combination of these identities or attributes.”
The rider also requires a company to adopt “gender-neutral facilities” and to deliver a “land acknowledgement.”
Land acknowledgments are generally considered empty gestures that are only done to appease the left. They are simply either a written or verbal statement recognizing that the land on which one is standing once belonged to Indigenous people.
On the transgender issue, the rider requires the company to compile an accurate total of everyone that self identifies as transgender that are involved in the production. That information is then required to be turned into an “expert.”
At times using the term “radical leftist” can be considered extreme, but in Kotagal’s case it may be an understatement. If Kotagal doesn’t expand her vision to understand that race/appearance only represents visual diversity, all she will create is division. Hiring practices should always be based on employing the most qualified or the person best suited for the job.
For all of their talk about being progressive, the left continues to sink into a mire of regression that they themselves have created. What their followers don’t understand is that they’re not trying to save themselves or anyone, their goal is to take us down with them.
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Milt spent thirty years as a sales and operations manager for an international manufacturing company. He is also a four-time published author on a variety of subjects. Now, he spends most of his time researching and writing about conservative politics and liberal folly.