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SEPTEMBER 11,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

HOW IMPRESSIVE – FROM PJ MEDIA:   They call them “public servants,” although that usage is a bit quaint in this age of staggeringly corrupt, self-serving politicians, and it’s good to know that Biden White House staffers are hard at work, doing everything they can to improve the lot of Americans and protect our nation and its allies. Politico reported Tuesday that “some people in the Biden administration are huge Harry Potter fans” and are spending a lot of time choosing “magic spirit animals” for themselves. Will the magic spirit animals, or patronus, in Harry Potter terminology, of Biden’s handlers, help get the remaining Americans out of Afghanistan, end the crisis at the Southern border, or turn around the tanking economy? Politico didn’t say.  The crack Politico “journalists” have, however, been on this story for a long time. Back on January 7, they first reported that Merrick Garland, who was soon to become attorney general, was “a Harry Potter fanboy.” And not just someone who enjoyed the books and movies: Garland, according to Politico, was “such an earnest fan of the series that President Barack Obama’s aides nicknamed him ‘Dumbledore’ [although some said that was also due to his genial manner].”  These are the people who are entrusted with our safety.  Look at their record so far.

September 11, 2021       Permalink

THE RIGHT AND WRONG WAY TO REMEMBER – OVERNIGHT:  I don't have to review for our alert readership all the fine remembrances of 9-11 that we have just seen and heard.  For the most part, Americans behaved well on the solemn day, with the exhibitions of poor taste kept reasonably under control.

But we're becoming increasingly aware of things that aren't under control, especially our inept, pro-leftist, often deceptive educational system.  Too many youngsters are being taught terrible things about 9/11, and it is hard to see a bright future for our country if this continues.  The takeover of much of American education by Marxists and other left-wing creatures came quietly, took decades, and is ongoing.  The intent is quite obviously to destroy the America we love.  From the Federalist: 

The 20th anniversary of 9/11 looms large in the wake of the catastrophe in Afghanistan. Much has changed in these past two decades. At the time, the Taliban were no more to us than a remote band of bearded fanatics in baggy shalwars and tunics.

Not any more. Enabled now by the feckless cruelty of a cretinous administration, the Taliban have triumphed over the United States. They did it as easily as if this nation were made of the same sandstone as the Bamiyan Buddhas they pulverized in March 2001.

Radical change occurred in the blink of an eye. Catapulted to global stature, the Taliban now have a defense minister. They are poised for access to the international monetary system. And you can follow them on Twitter.

One thing has not changed. Still intact but more anti-American than ever is the American education system. This is the behemoth that will school the children of the tens of thousands of largely unvetted Afghan nationals who filled flights out of Kabul.

Thought of that sent me hunting through notebooks and journals for comments jotted down about some of the events marking the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. One series of notes applies here. It was a log of observations made at the exhibition “9/11: Through Young Eyes” at Manhattan’s DC Moore Gallery in September 2011.

The exhibition was a collaborative series of 31 narrative collages by then-eighth graders at the progressive Calhoun School on New York’s Upper West Side. They were toddlers in 2001, too young for any recollections of their own. Their interpretation of the day was an exercise in political mythology that illustrated what they had been taught.

A quarter of the panels—a full eight—preened themselves on the sly implication that America is just one more rogue state. There were no references to al-Qaeda or enemy assault. Instead, cartoon Marines head to Afghanistan. Bombs drop on Afghanistan. A soldier lectures on “bad” Arabs. Americans start “using the flag as a symbol of war.”

One panel growled: “War was glorified and commercialized.” Such wording hardly came unprompted from the mouths of babes who seem never to have heard the word jihad. In context, the censure applied not to fanatics who shout “Allahu Akbar” in bloody ecstasy but to Americans.

That and similarly weighted captions sacrificed historical understanding to bien pensant avoidance of the obvious. Viewers were expected to applaud the program for its enlightened refusal to see evil anywhere but at home.

It was here in this country that “mosques were burned” and “Muslims were dehumanized.” And “some Arab-Americans were even murdered.” In a perverse inversion of selective sympathy, the tragic splendor of victimhood accrued to Muslims, not to annihilated New Yorkers.

And finally...

Childhood innocence is a powerful political tool. By now those youngsters are grown up. They have graduated from college, entered professions, begun corporate careers, and become voters. Some are teachers. They bring with them into adult life the attitudes they have been carefully taught.

There is more than a single cause for the ruin of a nation. Still, historical ignorance and its harvest of disbelief in the rightness of this country—generated in classrooms—is a powerful destroyer.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  We've been told many times that civilizations don't die, they commit suicide.  From the determination we showed on September 11, 2021, down to to the humiliation we've suffered in the last four weeks, our suicidal route would appear pretty obvious. 

September 11,  2021     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 10,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

YOU MEAN, WE HAVE A MOMENT OF TRUTH? – FROM FOX:    Portland, Oregon, city leaders used a "hands off" approach Aug. 22 when groups of armed protesters clashed in the city – but on Wednesday Mayor Ted Wheeler admitted it was "not the right strategy."  "It is clear, based on the public outcry, on the media outcry, on the national front, that that strategy was not the right strategy," Wheeler said during a Portland City Council meeting, according to The Associated Press.  "I think we can all acknowledge that," he added. "I take full responsibility for it."  He said Portland was still "trying to find the right recipe" for handling riots – seeking a solution somewhere between an "overwhelming police presence" and restrained law enforcement, the AP reported.  State lawmakers representing the northeast section of the city spoke out against the decision to keep police from intervening in the clash between crowds from the political left and right.  Local residents also claimed they felt "terrorized and abandoned" as rioters in helmets and gas masks – and some armed with baseball bats and chemical guns – confronted each other.  A spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau said authorities monitored the clash from an airplane, the AP reported.  Gee, even the fashionably left mayor of Moscow on the Pacific concedes that those crazy right-wing nuts might have been accurate – you have to confront violence and snuff it out.   Psychiatry rarely does the trick.

September 10,  2010     Permalink

HOW TO LOSE – OVERNIGHT:  The people of California will vote this week on whether to retain Gavin Newsom as governor, or recall him.  There will be two questions on the ballot.  The first asks voters whether the governor should be recalled.  If the vote is no, the contest is over.   If the vote is yes, voters will go on to the second question, choosing the next governor from a list of those Republicans and others running.  Frankly, it doesn't look very good for our side, which is a major disappointment.  From The Hill: 

California voters appear poised to deliver a solid endorsement of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) as opposition to the recall election mounts and Democratic voters return ballots at a rapid pace.

A new survey conducted by the University of California-Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies for the Los Angeles Times shows 60 percent of California voters would reject the recall, while just 39 percent say they will support removing Newsom from office.

Those results show a substantial change from late July, when just 50 percent said they would vote to retain Newsom and 47 percent said they would vote to oust him a year before his term expires.

It is the latest in a series of polls that show opposition to the recall growing in the closing weeks as Newsom and his allies blanket the airwaves and mount a furious get-out-the-vote effort.

Polls released in recent weeks by SurveyUSA and the Public Policy institute of California both show opposition to the recall expanding over previous surveys from the same firms. New polls from Suffolk University and YouGov, the first time those firms have sampled California voters, also show Newsom surviving the recall by wide margins.

Pollsters, and both Democratic and Republican strategists, say the landscape in California has changed with the emergence of conservative radio host Larry Elder as the most prominent Republican challenging Newsom. Newsom’s campaign has focused on Elder’s opposition to mask mandates and vaccine mandates and tied him to former President Donald Trump, who lost California by a huge margin.

 “In the early going it was probably more about whether they liked Newsom or not. It was personalized,” Berkeley pollster Mark Di Camillo told the Los Angeles Times. Making Elder the face of the opposition, he said, “changed the whole dynamic of the vote.”

Elder remains the favored candidate of voters who will choose a candidate to replace Newsom, the second question on a two-part ballot. Just over a third, 38 percent, said they would back Elder; 10 percent said they would favor Kevin Paffrath, a Democrat who dispenses financial advice on YouTube and the only other candidate to top double digits.

COMMENT:  A classic variation on the old adage that you can't beat somebody with nobody.  Newsom has done an awful job.  He has the intellectual maturity of a 12-year-old.  California is a mess.  As the story notes, Californians were heading toward a position where removing the governor looked quite possible.  But if you're going to recall a governor, you'd better have a high-profile, magnetic candidate to replace him.  Larry Elder is a nice guy, and a good talk-show host, but he doesn't fit the picture of a man riding in on a white horse to save the state.  Apparently, most Californians feel they'd rather stay with what they have.   The devil they know.

This is a great opportunity lost.  If California could be flipped, it would be the political story of the year, maybe even the decade.  But Republicans in California, like Republicans in New York, have gotten used to losing.  They're comfy with  it.  Not much fight in those veins.

We have to do better, and not assume that the 2022 midterms are in the bag.  Democrats fight back, and they have the media with them.   We should accept that it will be very tough to return both houses of Congress to the Republican column, and fight accordingly.  It can be done.

September 10,  2021     Permalink