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SEPTEMBER 4,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

THE POISON THEY'RE TEACHING OUR KIDS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A University of North Carolina course titled “Global Whiteness” puts the onus on the United States and the West for the conflict against Japan in World War II.  Professor Mark Driscoll’s class also involves student presentations on topics such as Donald Trump’s racism and “interracial hookups on campus.”  Campus Reform obtained the syllabus for the course, which describes WWII’s Pacific theater fight as “the first global attack on white Anglo-American hegemony” and “Japan’s attempt to roll back Euro-American colonialism.”  The course’s required text is Theodore Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race, vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America.”  Driscoll, an adjunct in Global Studies, notes in the syllabus’s “Methods” section that he cannot “emphasize enough” how “partial and incomplete professorial knowledge is,” and hence students have a “right and duty” to seek out “alternate truths” about topics discussed in the course.  Selected topics throughout the semester include “Introduction: Racial Science” (which includes a reading from Ibram X. Kendi), “Enlightenment or Enwhitenment?,” “Criminalization of Blackness” and “Whiteness Dispossessed (Whiteness After Obama).”   We read this stuff and maybe we start understanding the mentality behind the Afghanistan debacle.  Truly great nations don't have junk like this taught in their schools.

September 4, 2021       Permalink
  

THE START OF THE SEASON – OVERNIGHT:  In the political world, the "season" starts Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.  We'll see a quickening of the pace, and serious planning for the 2022 midterms.  We'll see issues starting to emerge.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the Afghanistan disaster will fade away because voters don't vote on foreign policy.  I reject that.  In normal times it is true that the economy dominates all in political maneuvering.  But these are not normal times.  We can almost feel the power of the political vacuum cleaner sucking us back to south Asia, whether we want to be there or not.  I would not be surprised if we were going into the midst of a foreign-policy crackup that will engulf our political future.  From The Hill: 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said he believed it was "likely" that conditions for a future civil war could develop in Afghanistan following the U.S. troop withdrawal.

The general also stated that civil war in the region could lead to the resurgence of groups like al Qaeda and ISIS, among others. 

During an interview with Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin in Ramstein, Germany, that aired on Saturday, the reporter asked Milley if the U.S. was safer today since the country had withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan.

“Well you know this is something that I've thought a lot about. And I personally think that my military estimate is is that the conditions are likely to develop of a civil war. I don't know if the Taliban is gonna be able to consolidate power and establish governance - they may be, maybe not,” Milley told Griffin.

“But I think there's at least a very good probability of a broader civil war, and that will then in turn lead to conditions that could in fact, lead to reconstitution of al Qaeda or a growth of ISIS or other myriad of terrorist groups,” Milley added, who noted that officials do not yet know for sure the fate of Afghanistan. 

Milley noted that it would be a “very difficult policy choice” when asked if he could envision a situation in which U.S. troops would have to return to Afghanistan.

“I wouldn't say yes or no to anything actually. I think those are, it's too early to say anything like that at this point,” Milley said, adding that they needed to continue to monitor the intelligence situation. 

The general's comments came after a chaotic August, in which the international community watched the rapid deterioration of the Afghan government at the hands of the Taliban. The insurgent group consolidated power in a matter of days, and on Aug. 15 took the capital city of Kabul. 

The U.S. withdrew its troops on Aug. 31, marking an end to a 20-year conflict that was sparked by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on American soil. 

COMMENT:  Trotsky wrote:  "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."  Please remember that.  This nation's destiny can be influenced by factors beyond our borders, and beyond our control.  The next year, leading up to the 2022 elections, will be a year of tremendous uncertainty, with life itself on the line.  What happens if the terror groups based in Afghanistan strike us again?   Many political consultants will be up nights thinking about just that.

September 4, 2021       Permalink

SEPTEMBER 3,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

THIS, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – FROM FOX, OVERNIGHT:   Conservative author and commentator Candace Owens was denied medical care in the form of a coronavirus test by a Colorado laboratory because of her political beliefs, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson reported Thursday.  Owens was sent a letter by Aspen Laboratories co-founder Suzanna Lee informing her that her "booking" was being cancelled and that she would be "denied service" because of both her aversion to governmental facemask mandates and her analysis of the effectiveness of vaccination shots.  "We cannot support anyone who has pro-actively worked to make this pandemic worse by spreading misinformation, politicizing, and discouraging the wearing of masks and actively dissuading people from receiving life-saving vaccinations," Lee wrote in the letter obtained by "Tucker Carlson Tonight."  Carlson noted it has not been unusual for Americans of certain political affiliations to be "singled out, punished and denied services" – but that it is likely one of the first such cases of an American citizen being denied medical treatment on that basis.  "This doesn't sound like America," he said, introducing Owens to the program.  No it doesn't, and I think the Republican Party can turn this case, and others like it, into a major, symbolic issue.   

September 3,   2021        Permalink

THE DEM NIGHTMARE – THE HISPANIC VOTE – OVERNIGHT:  We've discussed it before and we no signs of it letting up.  The Hispanic community is drifting leftward.  If it goes much further, it can destroy Dem hopes of running, and ruining, the country indefinitely.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Yesterday I wrote about the realization among some Democrats that the party's once-hoped-for glorious future based on the support of millions of Hispanic voters might not actually happen.

Democratic political scientist Ruy Teixeira, author of the influential book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, which predicted just such a future, is now warning Democrats that the party is losing support among Hispanic Americans.

To that, add some striking information from the Republican pollster David Winston.  A longtime adviser to some House GOP leaders, Winston notes that in 2020, congressional Republicans won 36% of the Hispanic vote — up from 32% in 2016. That was better than President Donald Trump's performance with Hispanic voters, which was 32% in 2020 and 28% in 2016. And Trump's performance was better than Mitt Romney's in the 2012 election, a defeat that prompted much Republican debate over how the party could increase its appeal to Hispanic voters.

So the GOP's improvement among Hispanic voters, and the Democratic Party's decline among that same group, extends beyond the candidacies of Trump himself. And the 36% for congressional Republicans indicates that a lot of Hispanic voters who think of themselves as independent chose to support the GOP. In the 2020 exit polls, Winston notes, just 20% of Hispanic voters identified themselves as Republicans, while 32% identified themselves as independents, and 48% identified as Democrats. Obviously, Democrats still have an advantage, but a majority, 52%, think of themselves as independents or Republicans.

Perhaps most important is ideology. Hispanics are clearly not as far to the left as today's Democratic Party. The numbers, again from Winston: 32% of Hispanics identify themselves as conservatives, opposed to just 10% of Democrats overall. On the other end of the spectrum, 46% of Democrats identify themselves as liberals, opposed to just 25% of Hispanics.

In the middle, 43% of both Hispanic voters and Democrats as a whole call themselves moderate. But the numbers clearly suggest that Hispanics tilt a bit right, while Democrats tilt much more to the left.

So Teixeira's warning from yesterday's newsletter — "Hispanic voting trends have not been favorable for Democrats" — stands up. This political moment holds great opportunities for Republicans to cement their progress among Hispanic voters — not by pandering, but by offering all voters the same conservative message. We'll see if the GOP can do it.

COMMENT:  I suspect that Asian Americans may well be the next group to defect.  They are natural Republicans – accomplished, entrepreneurial, academic, and independent.  They've been treated badly by the Democratic Party, some of whose base clearly resent Asian-American success.

September 3, 2021       Permalink