FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

US must prepare for cold war with China By Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on March 28th, 2021

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/545215-us-must-prepare-for-cold-war-with-china

The United States and China show growing signs of entering a long-term cold war, strikingly similar to the U.S.-Soviet cold war of decades past and demanding the same dogged determination that Washington displayed during that earlier conflict to protect its interests and defend its allies.

Like the U.S.-Soviet conflict, the Sino-American one is rooted in competition between alternative political and economic systems — one free and democratic, the other unfree and authoritarian — for influence around the world, with enormous implications for the well-being of billions of people.

Also like the U.S.-Soviet conflict, Washington will need a comprehensive strategy to “contain” Beijing’s expansionist impulses. While (hopefully) avoiding a military confrontation with Beijing, Washington will need to maintain an unchallenged military capacity to protect its presence in Asia and other regions as China seeks to dislodge or overshadow it, and to use public diplomacy effectively as the two nations compete for the loyalty of grassroots populations around the world.

The signs of long-term U.S.-Sino conflict are unmistakable, and similarities to the cold war of yesteryear are uncanny.

During the cold war, Soviet leaders boldly predicted an inevitable victory, as the United States presided over what they considered a decaying capitalist structure. Speaking to the United Nations in late 1960, for instance, Nikita Khrushchev mused that “socialism is replacing capitalism” across the developing world.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Gallup CEO Warns Biden: 42 Million Migrants Want Entry to U.S. Catherine Smith

Posted By on March 28th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/26/gallup-ceo-warns-biden-42-million-migrants-want-entry-to-u-s/

The CEO of Gallup has publicly warned President Joe Biden that approximately 42 million people south of Texas want to migrate into the United States.

In a blog post published on Wednesday, Jim Clifton, the chairman and CEO of the Gallup polling company, warned Biden as he and his administration struggle to deal with the surge of migration at the border:

Here are questions every leader should be able to answer regardless of their politics: How many more people are coming to the southern border? And what is the plan?

There are 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Roughly 450 million adults live in the region. Gallup asked them if they would like to move to another country permanently if they could.

A whopping 27% said “yes.” This means roughly 120 million would like to migrate somewhere.

Gallup then asked them where they would like to move. Of those who want to leave their country permanently, 35% — or 42 million — said they want to go to the United States.

Seekers of citizenship or asylum are watching to determine exactly when and how is the best time to make their move.

In addition to finding a solution for the thousands of migrants currently at the border, let’s include the bigger, harder question — what about all of those who would like to come? What is the message to them?

What is the 10-year plan?

330 million U.S. citizens are wondering. So are 42 million Latin Americans.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

A River of Doubt Runs Through Mail Voting in Montana

Posted By on March 28th, 2021

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/03/24/a_river_of_doubt_runs_through_mail_voting_in_big_sky_country_769321.html

MISSOULA COUNTY, Mont.—A mountainous, 2,600-square-mile region with a population of approximately 119,600 does not seem like your prototypical setting for machine politics. Yet a recent audit of mail-in ballots cast there found irregularities characteristic of larger urban centers—on a level that could have easily swung local elections in 2020, and statewide elections in cycles past.

The Biden administration, the Democrat-controlled Congress, and the Democratic National Committee are collectively pressing to both nationalize, and make permanent, many of the extraordinary pandemic-driven voting measures implemented during the 2020 election—particularly mass mail-in voting.

Political leaders and prominent media outlets have dismissed concerns raised by critics that such measures invite voter fraud. But could the election in small-county Missoula call all that into question?

The story at hand begins during the pandemic summer of 2020, when the then-governor, Democrat Steve Bullock, issued a directive permitting counties to conduct the general election fully by mail.  In the run-up to the election, a court also struck down Montana’s law aimed at preventing ballot harvesting.

Missoula, Montana’s second most populous county and one of its most heavily Democratic, opted in to the universal vote-by-mail regime.

In response, in October 2020, several county residents with experience targeting election integrity issues formed a group to ensure the legitimacy of the 2020 vote. The members contended that Missoula County had shown anomalies in elections past.

In November, the group approached state Rep. Brad Tschida, a Republican, to formally take up the issue. Tschida hired a lawyer involved in the group, Quentin Rhoades, to represent him in corresponding with Missoula County Elections Administrator Bradley Seaman, a Democratic appointee and a longtime supporter of progressive causes.

Seaman’s office complied with Tschida’s request for access to all of the county’s ballot envelopes, and on Jan. 4 a team of volunteers, overseen by Rhoades, conducted an audit with the assistance of the Missoula County Elections Office. The audit consisted of both a count and review of all ballot envelopes and comparing that to the number of officially recorded votes during the Nov. 3, 2020, general election.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

D.C. Drive For Statehood Reminds Us Of What’s Gone Wrong With Our Country

Posted By on March 28th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/25/d-c-drive-for-statehood-reminds-us-of-whats-gone-wrong-with-our-country/

The campaign for Washington, D.C., statehood has come up yet again. If nothing else, this shows how far out of control the federal government has become.

The drive to make D.C. America’s 51st state isn’t new. But, with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress, the ruling class is in a mood to consolidate its power, and with the Democrat-media industrial complex demanding that everything must be seen through the lens of race, it’s now an overheated topic.

For decades the pro-statehood forces have complained about being subject to taxation without representation. (We’ll have more to say on this later.) Today’s argument is centered on race. It is “a historically black city,” according to the district government, with 47% of residents black, 41% white.

“This is not about politics. It’s about a fundamental voting and civil rights issue,” says House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney, who is of course a Democrat, the party that’s pushing hard for H.R. 51, which “provides for admission into the United States of the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.” (We’ll have more about the party’s power grab later, too.)

To hear David Litt, a speechwriter for Barack Obama, tell it, “the D.C. statehood fight is part of an ugly effort to disenfranchise black and brown people.” Opposing views, he says, “echo the last gasps of the Jim Crow era.”

While the Democrats and the media put everything they have into dividing the country, allow us to shine a light on what many are missing: When Washington, D.C., was established as the nation’s capital, the founders didn’t foresee it being a city of permanent residents and the base for an intrusive leviathan command center. It was to be merely the seat of the federal government.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Nuclear Energy Is a Reliable Source That Also Shrinks Emissions . By Luke Hogg

Posted By on March 28th, 2021

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2021/03/21/nuclear_energy_is_a_reliable_source_that_also_shrinks_emissions_769131.html

If the near total collapse of the Texas energy grid on the morning of February 15th demonstrates anything, it proves the importance of reliable energy production. In short, federal and statepolicies that pick winners and losers among clean energy sources steered both public funding and private investment away from reliable sources. Hopefully, policymakers will learn their lesson from the events in Texas and wake up to the reality that energy security requires a diversity of reliable sources; chief among them is nuclear power.

While the cold snap froze wind turbines and forced many thermal plants offline, nuclear energy production remained remarkably reliable. In fact, reports show that only one half of a single two-reactor facility was forced offline by the cold. What’s more, this outage was an oddity among nuclear plants and was the direct result of bad management and lack of preparation. The outage at the South Texas Nuclear Power Station — one of Texas’ four nuclear plants — accounted for a mere 1,280 of the nearly 30,000 lost megawatts of production that left the state less than five minutes from a catastrophic failure.

While issues of management, preparation, and weatherization are ultimately to blame for the disaster, had the State of Texas invested more heavily in nuclear energy, the impact of the freezing temperatures may very well have been less devastating. 

Nuclear power is particularly well situated to become even more important in the coming decades. The Biden administration’s push for a “carbon pollution-free electricity sector no later than 2035,” practically necessitates increased investment in nuclear energy if we are to maintain a secure, reliable energy grid. The International Atomic Energy Agency explained it best:

“As they can operate at full capacity nearly uninterrupted, nuclear power plants can provide a continuous and reliable supply of energy. This is in contrast to variable renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, which require back-up power during their output gaps, such as when the sun sets or the wind stops blowing. Nuclear power plants can also operate flexibly to meet fluctuations in energy demand and provide stability to electrical grids, particularly those with high shares of variable renewable sources.”

HISTORY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Taxation with Representation A fair and reasonable alternative to D.C. statehood John Steele Gordon

Posted By on March 28th, 2021

https://www.city-journal.org/an-alternative-to-dc-statehood

Though Democrats haven’t made any formal moves on the idea yet, statehood for the District of Columbia is very much on their wish list. Ostensibly, it would cure a constitutional anomaly that gives the residents of the District no voice in Congress other than a nonvoting delegate in the House. In a country born under the slogan, “No taxation without representation,” it’s more than a bit embarrassing that citizens of that country’s capital city are taxed without representation.

Yet everyone realizes that the real reason behind the move is to create two new Senate seats that would be held by Democrats for the foreseeable future. How certain are we of this? Consider that in 1984, voters reelected Ronald Reagan in one of the greatest landslides in American political history. He carried 49 states and only missed the 50th by a mere 3,761 votes, yet in the District of Columbia he captured just under 14 percent of the vote.

The Framers of the Constitution didn’t want the capital to be located in a state, fearing that the state would have too much influence as a result. So they authorized the creation of a “District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and by the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States.” In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution gives Congress the power “To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District.”

Maryland ceded 63 square miles and Virginia 37 to create the ten-miles-square district. In 1846, Congress agreed to retrocede the Virginia portion back to that state, which is why the Pentagon is in Arlington, Virginia, not the District of Columbia.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The disgrace that was the Biden press conference Joe Concha,

Posted By on March 28th, 2021

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-disgrace-that-was-the-biden-press-conference/ar-BB1eZV0j?li=BBnb7Kz

President Biden called on 10 reporters to answer 30-some questions during his long-awaited first formal press conference on Thursday. But the hour-plus event was a disgrace for some in the press and a dubious performance by the president.

The questions for the president were meek and vague, failing to extract any specific information about policies or solutions to the myriad problems faced by the administration. Take, for example, this activism disguised as a question from PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor on why the president needs to abolish the filibuster in the name of racial equality while combating evil Republicans in their efforts to prevent minorities from voting. Or something like that.

“When it comes to the filibuster, immigration is a big issue, of course, related to the filibuster, but there’s also Republicans who are passing bill after bill trying to restrict voting rights. [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer’s calling it in an existential threat to democracy,” Alcindor, who plays an objective journalist on TV, said to the president after being the second reporter chosen by Biden’s handlers for him to call upon. “Why not back a filibuster rule that at least gets around issues, including voting rights or immigration? [South Carolina Congressman] Jim Clyburn, someone, of course, who you know very well, has backed the idea of a filibuster rule when it comes to civil rights and voting rights.”

That’s not even bias in broad daylight. That’s outright activism in pressing the president on national television to move forward with abolishing the filibuster to advance an agenda she supports. Alcindor also failed to quote Biden’s own words back to him from a speech he called, at the time, one of the most important of his career: “It is not only a bad idea, it upsets the constitutional design and it disservices the country,” Biden argued in 2005 against eliminating the Senate filibuster. “No longer would the Senate be that ‘different kind of legislative body’ that the Founders intended. No longer would the Senate be the ‘saucer’ to cool the passions of the immediate majority.”

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

The Hymn to Him Michael Kile

Posted By on March 27th, 2021

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/03/the-hymn-to-him/

As the gender storms rain down on Capital Hill and feminist rage spreads across the land, another Higgins has escaped the attention of our vigilant media: the phonetics professor in My Fair Lady (MFL) and that song. For some people, MFL is still jolly good fun: an Edwardian comedy of manners kept alive in the last half century by a few memorable songs, thanks to the 1964 American musical drama film, itself an adaptation from Lerner and Loewe’s 1956 Broadway and London stage musical.

Wouldn’t it be loverly if everyone felt that way about it? They certainly did in the 1960s. The 1964 film, with Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle and Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins, was a critical and commercial success. The second-highest grossing film that year, it won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. The American Film Institute in 1998 named it the 91st greatest American film. It was ranked eighth in the AFI’s 2006 Greatest Movie Musicals list.

MFL’s popularity, however, is on life-support. More and more folk are determined to see it as another example of the patriarchy in action. For them, Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering, two older upper-class males exploit Eliza, a young Cockney Covent Garden flower-seller. They bet, for God’s sake, on whether stern elocution lessons and tuition in manners could change her into a  lady. With a Little Bit of Luck, it does, but how dare they try to improve her chances in life’s lottery!

MFL is all about transformation. Yet how many remember that both musicals, and a 1938 film, were based on a 1913 stage play, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion; or that Shaw’s inspiration was an ancient Greek myth in book ten of Ovid’s Metamorphoses?  The Roman poet’s first sentence: “My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a different kind.”  In this case, the dramatic shape depends on directors and actors, as much as on writers and copyright law.

Shaw spent more than two decades trying to rescue his play from chaps determined to romanticise it, as explained in this video. He must have fumed when he saw the 1938 Metro Goldwyn Mayer billboard: “He [Higgins] took a girl off the street and made a lady of her in an amazing experiment to trick society. A thrilling, wise, witty and romantic photo-play.” Yet it was his most popular and financially successful work.

The before and after photos of Eliza had this caption: “Any girl can do it. You need a guy and a trunkful of clothes!” A speech bubble has Wendy Hiller saying to Leslie Howard (below): “Swear at me … even black my eye … but when you’ve made a girl love you … don’t you dare ignore her!” It is probably on the syllabus of a coercive-control workshop.

MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: HAPPY AND SWEET PASSOVER 2021

Posted By on March 27th, 2021

Tonight, after a year of separation and pandemic, my family will gather to celebrate Passover with a retelling of the Jewish exodus from slavery in ancient Egypt, good and plentiful traditional food, political bickering, laughter, love and a prayer for the souls of the Warsaw ghetto who resisted as Rita Kramer details below.

This year so many former Pharaohs have turned to accommodation and recognition of Israel and they too will reap the blessings of Israel’s amazing research and development of life enhancing technology and science.

Thanks to the efforts of President Donald Trump, “this year in Jerusalem” will herald the arrival of diplomats from many nations to their relocated embassies in the nation’s ancient and eternal capital.

May God bless America and Israel and people of good faith everywhere. rsk

HISTORY Comments turned off

BURIED HISTORY: 1943 PASSOVER IN THE WARSAW GHETTO BY RITA KRAMER ****

Posted By on March 27th, 2021

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2015/04/03/buried-history-1943-passover-in-the-warsaw-ghetto-by-rita-kramer/

“What we were unable to cry and shriek out to the world we buried in the ground….So the world may know all….We would [have been] the fathers, the teachers and educators of the future….But no, we shall certainly not live to see [the recovery of the archive], and so I write my last will. May the treasure fall into good hands, may it last into better times, may it alarm and alert the world to what happened…in the twentieth century….We may now die in peace. We fulfilled our mission. May history attest for us.” David Graber 19 year old.”

When families gather around the Seder table, many recall the dark Passover of 1943 and the climax of the months-long battle in which the small number of men and women remaining in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against the Nazi murderers. They knew they were doomed but they were determined to go down fighting. We honor them as heroes.

There are many ways to be heroic. Because of tradition and circumstances Jews were not bred to be fighters. They were thinkers, readers, writers. And among the most heroic of those trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto was a historian named Emanuel Ringelblum, who determined to record life in the Ghetto in its reality, not as it might be misrepresented later in elegiac memorials or accusations of passivity by those who would not really know what it had been like.

In the interwar years Ringelblum had been one of the leading historians of Jewish life in Poland from the earliest times of settlement to the present, when a renaissance of learning and cultural creativity was taking place among the Jews of cities like Vilna, Lodz, and Warsaw. At the time, the greatest number of Jews anywhere in the world lived in Poland. And Warsaw, the largest Jewish community in Europe, was their intellectual center.