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FEBRUARY 21,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

THE REAL THREAT TO OUR COUNTRY EXPOSED! – FROM FOX BUSINESS:  Before playing the music and lighting the lights, fans who choose to binge "The Muppet Show" on Disney+ will be shown an "offensive content" warning ahead of select episodes. The classic series, which first aired in 1976, was released on the streaming service on Friday.  “This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together,” the disclaimer states. "Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe."  Variety reported the disclaimer has been added to a total of 18 episodes throughout the show’s five seasons, including those guest hosted by Jim Nabors, Joel Grey, Steve Martin, Peter Sellers, Cleo Laine, James Coco, Spike Milligan, Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, Beverly Sills, Jonathan Winters, Alan Arkin, James Coburn, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Debbie Harry, Wally Boag and Marty Feldman. The disclaimer appears at the beginning of these episodes for 12 seconds.  Our children are finally protected against the Muppets.  I will sleep easier tonight.

February 21, 2021       Permalink

APPALLING – AT 11:30 P.M. ET:   Most Americans are no doubt unaware of attempts to change the magnificent American military from a fighting force into a leftist social agency.  Yes, those attempts are underway, and they will get worse under the Biden presidency.  Read this.  It's hard to believe it.  From Fox: 

The recent revelation that a senior Navy task force is proposing an oath to be taken by every member of the Navy was a warning of how deep woke-think has penetrated American institutions – even the Defense Department.

Consider this pledge proposed by Task Force Navy One, which was formed in June to develop strategies to combat discrimination in the Navy:

"I pledge to advocate for and acknowledge all lived experiences and intersectional identities of every sailor in the Navy. I pledge to engage in ongoing self-reflection, education and knowledge sharing to better myself and my communities. I pledge to be an example in establishing healthy, inclusive and team-oriented environments. I pledge to constructively share all experiences and information gained from activities above to inform the development of Navy-wide reforms."

Reread this pledge and think of the young men and women who will be asked to commit to it.
First, how many new recruits will have any idea what this "intersectionality" they have pledged to advocate for and acknowledge actually is?

As wikia.org defines it:

"Intersectionality is a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another."

The website goes on to say it is "largely used in critical theories, especially Feminist theory, when discussing systematic oppression."

It is profoundly wrong to have our young men and women in uniform take a pledge like this.

Since most of the sailors will not know what "intersectionality" is, they will be instructed by woke professionals who make a living teaching wokeness in government, corporations and educational systems. There is now an entire industry of woke instructors and woke experts who make pretty good livings putting on mandatory woke lessons – where people are trapped by the power structure and forced to learn left-wing nonsense as a condition of keeping their jobs.

So, should this pledge be instituted, we will soon have a brainwashed military spouting largely partisan ideological nonsense. Members will be told their survival in the military and their chance for promotion is dependent on learning left-wing baloney.

This isn’t what we want in a military.

COMMENT:  No it isn't.  But that's what we're getting.   What it will do to recruitment and officer training programs is too grim to contemplate.  You may be sure that the nation's press will avert its eyes.  After all, we don't want to be called "racist," do we?

And what if we had to go to war?  Douglas MacArthur wondered just before his death whether Americans of the future would be willing to defend their country.  I'm convinced we'll always have a core in the heartland that will.  But will they be enough?

February 21, 2021       Permalink 

THIS MUST STOP – AT 8:30 P.M. ET:  There are signs that Republican disunity may boil over, seriously compromising the push to take back control of Congress in 2022.  From Fox: 

Former Vice President Mike Pence has declined an invitation to attend this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, Fox News has learned.

Pence was invited to speak at the annual event but turned it down, according to a source familiar with the event planning.

Former President Donald Trump will be in attendance, however, as he is scheduled to make his first major public appearance since leaving office.

Two sources told Fox News that Trump is planning to address the conference on Sunday, Feb. 28. The event will kick off in Orlando, Fla., on Thursday.

Members of Pence's team had said that Pence harbored some "bitterness" toward Trump after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol building.

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace reported earlier this month that according to Pence's aides,Trump's failure to call off the mob and ensure the safety of his loyal second-in-command represented the "ultimate betrayal."

Former Pence chief of staff Marc Short, however, told Fox News on Friday that Pence and Trump still speak.

Trump is expected to talk about the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

Also, look for him to take on President Biden's "disastrous amnesty and border policies," according to a source familiar with Trump's speech.

The former president has stayed relatively quiet since leaving the White House on Jan. 20, but he has indicated he wants to stay politically active and told his supporters after his impeachment acquittal the MAGA movement is still going strong.

"Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again (MAGA) has only just begun," Trump said in a statement last week. "In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!"

COMMENT:  These tensions are rising to the surface.  Trump needs Pence on his side as much as Pence needs Trump.  The Biden/Obama team in its first month has done about as much damage as any administration can do, and prospects down the line look grim – a grim economy and a failing foreign policy. Republicans will be well positioned to undo the damage via the 2022 elections, if they can keep the party together.  Republicans must come to understand that the enemy is the Democratic Party, not fellow Republicans. 

February 21, 2021       Permalink

FEBRUARY 20,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

HE'S BACK – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  Former President Trump will be a keynote speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., a spokesman for the organization confirmed to The Post on Saturday.  Trump is expected to speak on Sunday, Feb 28, the last day of the conference.  Trump has regularly spoken at the annual event during his presidency, but his participation amid the change in administration was uncertain.  The annual conference, which is usually held in Maryland has been moved to the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida this year to escape coronavirus lockdowns.  The event will run from Thursday, Feb 25 to Sunday Feb. 28.  Of course, it will be a major political event.  You may be sure that CNN is already writing its negative reviews.  I hope Trump is tough but elevating.  He should show America what a real leader sounds like.  He should act as if he's running for president again, in the best possible way.

SOMETIMES JUSTICE IS DONE – FROM DAILY MAIL:   Every member of a school board in Northern California resigned on Friday after a video revealed they mocked parents during a virtual public meeting about reopening schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic.   Lisa Brizendine, president of the Oakley Union Elementary School District, resigned with members Kim Beede, Erica Ippolito and Richie Masadas, Fox News reported.  Schools Superintendent Greg Hetrick described the comments as 'truly inappropriate' and issued an apology on Thursday.  'Last night at the Oakley Union Elementary School District Regular Board Meeting there were unfortunate and truly inappropriate comments made that were heard by many. These comments are not typical and more importantly they are not what the community should expect from our school district,' he said.  'The comments made were not in alignment with our Vision and are definitely not what any of us stand for as leaders.'   Some school boards around the country have been among the most reckless institutions in their communities.  We too often get the wrong people on school boards – political activists who rarely have children's interests in mind, but believe themselves to be superior to the people in their neighborhoods.  School boards have been among the most effective weapons of leftist infiltration into the educational system.  Sometimes they're your good neighbors.  Sometimes they're your bad neighbors.

February 20, 2021       Permalink

TRAIN WRECK – OVERNIGHT:  The post below explores the wokism that is driving America apart, and driving it downward.  And our downward spiral goes far beyond that.  Our new president, in office for a month today, has brought in the stars from the age of Barack to make things even worse.  From the sharp mind of Michael Goodwin at the New York Post: 

As winners never fail to remind losers, elections have consequences. But rarely is there a  single day where consequences pack as much wallop as Friday, where the irrationality of Joe Biden’s policies came into full view.

From the border with Mexico, where the new administration started opening the doors to at least 25,000 migrants seeking asylum, to the Mideast tinderbox, where it moved to rejoin the misbegotten Iran nuke deal, the new president appears fixated by the desire to turn back the clock to 2016.

It’s as if Biden has been seized by a sentimental longing to try to make the world like it was when the Obama-Biden administration left office. Unfortunately, “The Way We Were” is a nice song but not much of a guide to the future.

Still, trying to recapture the past would be reasonable if those years had created prosperity at home and peace abroad. In fact, the world Donald Trump inherited was bristling with trouble and America’s economy was moving forward at a snail’s pace.

Despite revisionist efforts by the media and the left to erase the achievements of the president they hated, Trump had major policy successes that benefited all Americans. It’s especially unnerving, then, that Biden is choosing to reverse the very policies that produced those benefits.

Trump Derangement Syndrome leads people to do weird things, but Biden’s attempt to cancel Trump’s biggest victories is among the weirdest.

The migrant admittances, through a border crossing in San Diego, came after Biden scrapped his predecessor’s policy of having asylum-seekers wait in Mexico. The “Remain in Mexico” program was an effective solution to the endless stream of caravans of Central Americans that moved north to escape violence and find work in a booming US.

The Obama-Biden policy had been to admit the asylum applicants and turn them loose pending hearings. Naturally, many never showed up because they knew they could not qualify as refugees from persecution. But their ability to stay here illegally served as an incentive for others to follow.
Instead of building on the program that reduced mass migrations, Biden returned to the broken system Trump had fixed. Biden also pledges not to build another foot of border wall and pause nearly all ­deportations for 100 days.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  We are in trouble, and the trouble is just starting.  Every move Biden makes is a move backward.  "Destroy Trump!" seems the only battle cry of this new administration.  The shock may well come when the economy starts to falter and our European "allies" turn to China, not to the United States.  The woke left will love it.  We hope that enough Americans will turn toward the Republican Party to stop the madness.

February 20, 2021       Permalink

A BRILLIANT INDICTMENT – AT 11:36 P.M. ET:  Sometimes there comes a piece so strong that it defines the full nature of an issue.  We've noticed a dramatic number of those pieces recently, and all on one side – the fight against the new McCarthyism of the woke crowd.  Is it a coincidence, or our our allies waking up themselves and finally fighting back against what is happening to our country? 

Bari Weiss, who resigned from The New York Times in protest against the racialized, hard-left hostility that she encountered, runs a website.  She is featuring a brave woman at Smith College, a bastion of the feminist establishment, who has risked her financial existence to speak out against the horror in her midst. Please send this around to others.  From Bari Weiss: 

We all know that something morally grotesque is swallowing liberal America. Almost no one wants to risk talking about it out loud.

Every day I get phone calls from anxious Americans complaining about an ideology that wants to pull all of us into the past.

I get calls from parents telling me about the damaging things being taught in schools: so-called antiracist programs that urge children to obsess on the color of their skin.

I get calls from people working in corporate America forced to go to trainings in which they learn that they carry collective, race-based guilt — or benefit from collective, race-based virtue.

I get calls from young people just launching their careers telling me that they feel they have no choice but to profess fealty to this ideology in order to keep their jobs.

Almost no one who calls me is willing to go public. And I understand why. To go public with what’s happening is to risk their jobs and their reputations.

But the hour is very late. It calls for courage. And courage has come in the form of a woman named Jodi Shaw.

Jodi Shaw was, until this afternoon, a staffer at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She made $45,000 a year — less than the yearly tuition at the school.

She is a divorced mother of two children. She is a lifelong liberal and an alumna of the college. And she has had a front-row seat to the illiberal, neo-racist ideology masquerading as progress.

In October 2020, after Shaw felt that she had exhausted all her internal options, she posted a video on YouTube, blowing the whistle on, what she says, is an atmosphere of racial discrimination at the school.

“I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself,” she said. “Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color.”

Watch the whole thing here:

Now today, she is resigning from the college.

In doing that — and in speaking out — she is turning down a settlement that would have given her a much easier way out. We need more people like her.

Here’s how Shaw put it in her resignation letter to Smith College President Kathleen McCartney, which she sent to me to publish in full:

Dear President McCartney:

I am writing to notify you that effective today, I am resigning from my position as Student Support Coordinator in the Department of Residence Life at Smith College. This has not been an easy decision, as I now face a deeply uncertain future. As a divorced mother of two, the economic uncertainty brought about by this resignation will impact my children as well. But I have no choice.

The racially hostile environment that the college has subjected me to for the past two and a half years has left me physically and mentally debilitated. I can no longer work in this environment, nor can I remain silent about a matter so central to basic human dignity and freedom.

I graduated from Smith College in 1993. Those four years were among the best in my life. Naturally, I was over the moon when, years later, I had the opportunity to join Smith as a staff member. I loved my job and I loved being back at Smith.

But the climate — and my place at the college — changed dramatically when, in July 2018, the culture war arrived at our campus when a student accused a white staff member of calling campus security on her because of racial bias. The student, who is black, shared her account of this incident widely on social media, drawing a lot of attention to the college.

Before even investigating the facts of the incident, the college immediately issued a public apology to the student, placed the employee on leave, and announced its intention to create new initiatives, committees, workshops, trainings, and policies aimed at combating “systemic racism” on campus.
In spite of an independent investigation into the incident that found no evidence of racial bias, the college ramped up its initiatives aimed at dismantling the supposed racism that pervades the campus. This only served to support the now prevailing narrative that the incident had been racially motivated and that Smith staff are racist.

Allowing this narrative to dominate has had a profound impact on the Smith community and on me personally.

COMMENT:  I ask you to read the whole thing, and watch the YouTube video.  I hope you'll be seeing more heroism like this, but I wonder if it will be shut down by the social networks.

Eric Hoffer, the so-called "longshoreman philosopher" of the 1950s, once wrote that all causes become businesses, and then they become rackets.  We are at the racket stage of wokism, a strange blend of racial politics and know-nothingism.  In better times, the American press would be raising its voice in protest against this grotesque and damaging development.  These are not better times.

February 20, 2021       Permalink