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JANUARY 20,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

FIRST BLUNDER – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday said he was “disappointed” in President Biden’s pledge to revoke a permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline — as the company behind it said work on the project was being suspended.  In a statement issued following Biden’s inauguration, Trudeau said he “spoke directly” to Biden about the $8 billion project in November, and other Canadian officials “made the case” in favor of it “to high-level officials in the incoming administration.”  “While we welcome the President’s commitment to fight climate change, we are disappointed but acknowledge the President’s decision to fulfill his election campaign promise on Keystone XL,” Trudeau said.  Trudeau noted that “Canada is the single-largest supplier of energy to the United States, contributing to U.S. energy security and economic competitiveness, and supporting thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.”  Biden caved to the woke environmentalists, and that hurts the national interest of the United States and sends a message to other allies that between our alliances and wokeness, wokeness will always win.

A NEW AGE OF INTELLECT – FROM GATEWAY PUNDIT:   Joe Biden’s White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki held her first press briefing a few hours after Biden was sworn into office and it’s all rainbows and unicorns.  A brave reporter asked Psaki if Joe Biden will keep Trump’s Air Force One color scheme.  “This is such a good question!” Psaki said smiling. “I have not had the opportunity to dig into that today…”  Rather than ask questions about the investigation into Hunter Biden’s money laundering scheme and how Joe Biden turned his son into a bagman, the reporters ask about paint.  And it will continue.  The press is well past the age when it thought reporting the news was a noble calling.

January 20, 2021       Permalink

OKAY, BIDEN'S HONEYMOON IS OVER – OVERNIGHT:   I've had enough good will and "unity" today to last me a lifetime.  Let's get back to basics.  This new administration is sending signals, and I'm not too pleased.  From Fox: 

President Joe Biden took the oath of office Wednesday, and with new presidents come new White House decorations – especially in the commander-in-chief’s official workplace.

And so it’s no surprise that staffers have moved around a lot of things, from artwork to the carpeting inside the Oval Office.

One change the Biden administration made was to remove the military flags that had been on display during Donald Trump’s term in office.

The absent flags were first reported in the Washington Post Wednesday evening. Trump kept them near his left side against the window for years.

New photos of Biden’s makeover show they’ve been removed.

Most modern presidents, but not all, have displayed only two flags behind the Resolute Desk – the American flag and the presidential seal, according to the Atlantic.

Archival photos show former Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon had displayed military battle flags in the office.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a five-star general during World War II, acknowledged his background by planting just the Army flag across from the desk.

COMMENT:   I want to see the military flags.  They underline the president's role as commander-in-chief, but they would probably offend the "woke" crowd that now has considerable sway over the Democratic Party.

January 20, 2021       Permalink

PRESIDENT BIDEN – AT 7:30 P.M. ET:  Overall, it was a perfectly acceptable, average inauguration.  No one misbehaved, although the tan winter jacket modeled by Bernie Sanders was judged inappropriate by fashion watchers.  The national anthem was sung with reasonable correctness by Lady Gaga.  The speeches said all the checklist things about unity and American greatness.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor, when swearing in Vice President Kamala Harris, mispronounced her first name, but that was the worst mistake made.  Even Hillary Clinton smiled.

But most inaugurations are that way.  And most inaugural addresses are thrown out with yesterday's paper.  One, Lincoln's second inaugural, achieved true literary and political greatness.  FDR's first inaugural, with its ringing line, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," is probably the most quoted.  John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, probably the most inspiring, with its declaration of freedom and its pledge to "pay any price" in its defense, is quoted less today, since the cultural powers that be consider it a throwback to Cold War American exceptionalism, which, I proudly say, is exactly what it is and should be. 

Maybe it is wise to reprint here the inaugural that truly stands out, Lincoln's second, and contemplate why it achieved greatness: 

"Fellow countrymen: at this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends is as well known to the public as to myself and it is I trust reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it ~ all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war ~ seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

COMMENT:  Part of Lincoln's brilliance lay in his ability simply to tell a story.  The Gettysburg Address begins, "Fourscore and seven years ago..."  Lincoln told the nation's story, and gave it a moral framework.  He did it with remarkably few words. 

I don't think we have Lincoln's equivalent today.  But someone may surprise us.

January 20,   2021       Permalink

JANUARY 19,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

IT'S ABOUT TIME – FROM FOX:   Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., walked back his criticism of the National Guard on Tuesday, one day after he remarked that Trump supporters within the military reservist branch "might want to do something" to endanger President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.  Critics, including former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., ripped Cohen after he suggested during a CNN appearance that the National Guard was a potential threat to the president-elect. In an attempt to clarify his remarks, the Democratic lawmaker said he was responding to reports that officials were conducting background checks on National Guard members – through efforts to vet security personnel are standard procedure.  "I commend the work of our law enforcement professionals and of the National Guard that supplements their efforts during major events," Cohen said in a statement. "I appreciate the assurance their presence provides that we will have a successful inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris."  Another progressive who got caught making a fool of himself. 

WHAT A STRANGE REQUEST – FROM AP:    TEHRAN, Iran — Iran urged the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog to avoid publishing “unnecessary” details on Tehran’s nuclear program, state TV reported Sunday, a day after Germany, France and Britain said Tehran has “no credible civilian use” for its development of uranium metal.  The report quoted a statement from Iran’s nuclear department that asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to avoid publishing details on Iran’s nuclear program that may cause confusion.  “It is expected the international atomic energy agency avoid providing unnecessary details and prevent paving ground for misunderstanding” in the international community, the statement said. It did not elaborate.  I'm sure we wouldn't want some misunderstanding to influence our opinion of the fine scholars in Tehran.  Choke.

January 19, 2021       Permalink

FIGHTING BACK – OVERNIGHT:  Even as Biden takes over as president, and Donald Trump leaves Washington, a movement is building to prevent the country's political class to move too far to the left.  It is made up of parents.  Watch this grow.  From College Fix: 

A movement among parents to fight left-leaning indoctrination in K-12 schools today boasts chapters in 18 states, an exponential growth rate that came in less than six months.

How did a group launched by one concerned mom get so big so fast?

“They have woken up the giant,” said Elana Yaron Fishbein, the organization’s founder.
Fishbein, in an interview with The College Fix, attributed the astronomical growth of her group to the fact that parents are fed up with far-left curriculum because “it’s threatening their kids.”

And not only that, she added, “it’s threatening their family. It’s threatening their way of life. It’s threatening their livelihood. So, it’s not something abstract, it’s very, very real.”

No Left Turn in Education is a grassroots movement of concerned parents, teachers, watchdogs and others. It essentially launched in Fishbein’s living room late last summer and today boasts chapters in 18 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

“We believe that K-12 education should be free from indoctrination and politicization,” the group’s website states. “Radical teachings motivated by a political agenda and deliberately spread by teachers, administrators, school board members, and even state officials have infiltrated schools across the nation.”

Fishbein, a doctor of social work, said in a telephone interview with The College Fix that her journey as leader of this movement began after she wrote to the superintendent of her school district, its principal, and the school board, voicing concerns about the elementary school’s new “cultural proficiency” curriculum.

“When they announced the change of the lesson plan a couple of days before the end of the school year, I opted my kids out of those lessons because they seemed to my husband and myself as ‘racist,’ and we did not understand what they wanted to achieve in it, and we felt they were really pandering to some political agenda and virtue signaling,” she said.

After weeks of not hearing back, Fishbein said she made her letter public by posting it to the group Facebook page of the school’s parents as a way to encourage discussion, but instead was “butchered online” by about 15 parents.

Before her post was taken down, parents she described as “woke” publicly denounced her and her letter as “racist.”

COMMENT:  I want to see this movement grow.  Parents angry at their school systems are a new and potentially powerful constituency.  It's true that many parents are afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation against them or their kids,  But those who do are performing a noble and heroic service. 

January 19, 2021       Permalink

INAUGURATION EVE – AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  There have been happier ones.  We are inaugurating a new president, with almost no fanfare.  People on our side are demoralized, wondering what will come next from a Democratic Party, and its mouthpieces in the press.  We are told, after all, that we are the real problem, something next to terrorists, people who need to be deprogrammed to exorcize the evil within us.  If it sounds like the old Soviet Union, you're right.  Add in Nazi Germany, where the propaganda minister understood the power to shape public opinion. 

Sometimes we see a prize example of exactly what we're facing, a way of thought, a way of presenting a new reality that isn't real at all.  Consider this, from Fox:   

An op-ed published by The Washington Post last week has raised eyebrows over its explanation of why President Trump gained among minority voters despite his 2020 election defeat.

"To understand Trump’s support, we must think in terms of multiracial Whiteness," was the headline of the piece by New York University associate professor Cristina Beltrán, who pointed out that despite Trump's appeal to "white [sic] nationalists," she noticed quite a few "Latino or African American" faces among the FBI wanted posters of Capitol Hill rioters.

"Yes, Trump’s voters — and his mob — are disproportionately White, but one of the more unsettling exit-poll data points of the 2020 election was that a quarter to a third of Latino voters voted to reelect Trump," Beltrán wrote. "And while the vast majority of Latinos and an overwhelming majority of African American voters supported the Biden-Harris ticket and were crucial to its success, many Black and brown voters have family and friends who fervently backed the MAGA policy agenda, including its delusions and conspiracy theories."

Beltrán then asked, "what are we to make of unmistakably White mob violence that also includes non-White participants?" She answered her own question by introducing the "phenomenon" of "multiracial whiteness [sic] — the promise that they, too, can lay claim to the politics of aggression, exclusion and domination."

"Multiracial whiteness [sic] reflects an understanding of whiteness [sic] as a political color and not simply a racial identity — a discriminatory worldview in which feelings of freedom and belonging are produced through the persecution and dehumanization of others," Beltrán attempted to explain. "For voters who see the very act of acknowledging one’s racial identity as itself racist, the politics of multiracial whiteness [sic] reinforces their desired approach to colorblind individualism. In the politics of multiracial whiteness, anyone can join the MAGA movement and engage in the wild freedom of unbridled rage and conspiracy theories."

The Post op-ed was widely panned on social media.

"Fascinating attempt to reconcile the fact that so many non-whites [sic] voted for Trump (more than 2016), and that some of the key participants in the Capitol riot and related groups are non-white [sic]:

'Multiracial whiteness' [sic]: they're white [sic] even when they're not," journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote.

"The point of this racist WaPo piece attacking black [sic] Trump supporters is basically: We the media created a 'white [sic] nationalism' narrative about the Capitol Hill riot and now we need backfill & erase these minorities' existence," Grabien Media founder and news editor Tom Elliott reacted.

"To understand Trump's support, we must think in terms of hot coldness," Ben Shapiro quipped.

COMMENT:  Do you realize that trash like "multiracial whiteness" is being taught to children in American schools?  Find out if it's taught in a school near you.  Go to a School Board meeting.  Make sure parents know.  On the college level, make sure the person who writes the tuition checks knows.

January 19,  2021     Permalink