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JULY 14,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

DO THESE LIVES MATTER? – FROM DAILY MAIL:   Policemen in South Africa have been caught looting goods as the ransacking of stores and warehouses continued into a fifth day - with huge queues forming outside supermarkets amid fears of food shortages caused by the rioting.  Footage showed people accosting a man wearing a police jacket beside a hatchback filled with household supplies, including bread, milk and cooking oil. The woman filming says: 'This is a police officer, in uniform, looting ... This is our SAPS (South African Police Service), guys.'  A second video from the same woman showed another purported officer in plain clothes trying to hide his face from the camera after he was hauled out of his car by locals. His vehicle was laden with allegedly looted products, including a flat-screen television.  'He has looted, he has threatened our lives with firearms, and this is all coming out of his Polo,' the woman says as she films objects on the ground beside the open car boot.   The raging unrest first erupted last Friday after former president Jacob Zuma started serving a 15-month term for contempt, having snubbed a probe into the corruption that stained his nine years in power.  But the wanton lawlessness has lost any political motivation, with gang shoot-outs in the streets, people queuing up in their cars to loot warehouses and malls, and white farmers forming militias to defend their properties.  Wasn't South Africa a big deal once?  Oh, I guess I'm just so yesterday. Please tell me who I'm supposed to root for today.  It's so confusing.  I just want to be sure I know who to cheer for should I be invited to a Manhattan party (some chance). 

BLESS THEM – FROM COLLEGE FIX:    A group of politically moderate students have become targets for name-calling and threats for writing a pro-free speech “UConn Statement” and bringing it before the student government.  The statement reads in part that “Members of the University community are free to criticize and contest the views expressed on campus. … To this end, the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”  Its authors have been accused of white supremacy and one of them even received an ISIS beheading video.  After tempers flared within the student government over the effort, it was shelved during the spring semester, but the student authors said they plan to bring it forth again come fall semester.  “If not us, then who? We’re the last hold,” said co-author John Ross, a senior and one of the few conservative senators in UConn’s student government. “This is going on nationwide. … It has to start with us.”  Fellow co-author, economics and political science major Isadore Johnson, said bringing the statement to the student government illustrated just how opposed students are to free speech.  Johnson, a regional coordinator for Students For Liberty, said that while most of the campus is moderately left, there are activist wings that are “really left and exclusionary,” and some have weaponized UConn’s bias reporting system against people they labeled “dissidents.”  The college campuses are a prime battlefield in the fight to preserve American freedoms.  We've got support the brave students who are fighting the good fight.  They get very little help from faculties.

July 14, 2021       Permalink

THIS IS SICKENING – OVERNIGHT:  The United Nations, champion of dictators, has been invited by the Biden crazies to investigate racism in the United States.  This, while Cuban freedom fighters are marching in the streets of Havana with very little international support.  From the New York Post: 

The United Nations — whose World Health Organization arm was just panned for its probe of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins confined to guidelines set by the Chinese Communist Party — has been formally invited by the Biden administration to investigate “the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia” in the US, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“As the President has repeatedly made clear, great nations such as ours do not hide from our shortcomings; they acknowledge them openly and strive to improve with transparency,” said Blinken in a statement released Tuesday.

Great nations don't commit suicide either.

“It is in this context that the United States intends to issue a formal, standing invitation to all UN experts who report and advise on thematic human rights issues,” he continued. “As a first step, we have reached out to offer an official visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues.”

The Biden administration formally invited the United Nations to launch an investigation on “thematic human rights issues” in the US.

The invitation was extended a little over a year after the lightning-rod death of George Floyd, a black man killed when white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin — since fired and convicted of murder — knelt on his neck during an arrest.

In a global report issued last month sparked by Floyd’s death, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on nations to “start dismantling racism.”

And earlier this month, Bachelet said that nations should “fully fund … a wide range of reparations measures” to make amends for slavery, discrimination and colonial rule.

The invitation also comes less than a year after the US endured a lashing on its civil rights record before the UN — getting scolded by the likes of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and North Korea.

COMMENT:  I'd love to know whose idea it was to invite a corrupt, international farce like the United Nations to investigate us.  I have no doubt that it was the Obama crowd.  I also have no doubt that they will be supported by a good chunk of the woke press. 

I doubt if the result of these "investigations" will advance the life of one black child.  Of course, that's not the objective.  The objective is to degrade the United States and force us to start "reparations," otherwise known as buying votes.

July 14, 2021       Permalink

JULY 13,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

A VICTORY FOR OUR SIDE – FROM FOX:  The California Board of Education is set to push back against implementing an overhaul of its mathematics curriculum after opponents argued the plan needlessly inserts politics and social justice initiatives into lessons.  "California is on the verge of politicizing K-12 math in a potentially disastrous way. This postponement means the State Board of Education has heard the message loud and clear. STEM leaders don’t want California students left behind by introducing politics into the math curriculum," said in a statement Dr. Williamson M. Evers, a senior fellow of the Independent Institute.   The California board is slated to postpone implementing its proposed Mathematics Curriculum Framework during a Wednesday meeting, pushing final action on the curriculum to May 2022, according to the board’s agenda for this month.  Effective pushback prevented a descent into academic Hell, which could have a fatal blow to the once-great California public-education system.  But watch out for more flak, coming from the extreme left.

July 13, 2021       Permalink

THIS IS DANGEROUS, AND PROVOCATIVE – OVERNIGHT:  A new, authoritative report, says that the United States Navy, the primary force with which we confront China, is not ready for major combat operations.  This is a stunning accusation, and you may be sure the conclusions are being studied carefully by Chinese admirals, just as the Navy was studied by Japanese admirals before World War II.  From Daily Mail: 

A scathing new report commissioned by members of Congress has claimed that the Navy's surface warfare forces have systemic training and leadership issues, including a focus on diversity that overshadows basic readiness skills.

The report prepared by Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, came in response to recent Naval disasters, including the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, two collisions involving Navy ships in the Pacific and the surrender of two small craft to Iran.

The authors conducted hour-long interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers, offering them anonymity to identify issues they wouldn't feel comfortable raising in the chain of command.

The report focused on issues within the Navy's surface warfare forces, as opposed to submarine and aviation, and suggested that issues in the surface fleet could be unique due to better funding and training for submarine and aviation units.

One of the key issues raised by the officers interviewed for the report was a concern that Navy leaders spend more time focusing on diversity training than on developing warfighting capacity and key operational skills.

'Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we'll survive a fight with the Chinese navy,' lamented one lieutenant currently on active duty. 
'It's criminal. They think my only value is as a black woman. But you cut our ship open with a missile and we'll all bleed the same color,' she added. 

One recent destroyer captain said: 'where someone puts their time shows what their priorities are. And we've got so many messages about X, Y, Z appreciation month, or sexual assault prevention, or you name it. We don't even have close to that same level of emphasis on actual warfighting.' 

'While programs to encourage diversity, human sex trafficking prevention, suicide prevention, sexual assault prevention, and others are appropriate, they come with a cost,' the report's authors wrote.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  Our lives and the survival of our nation may well depend on how the American people react to scathing reports like this. 

The problems are not entirely new, but they've been inflamed by the behavior of the Obama administration, which had a low regard for national defense, and by American journalism's growing contempt for American power.  Include the deterioration of our schools and the corrupt teaching of American history, and you have the ingredients of a major disaster. 

July 13, 2021       Permalink