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FEBRUARY 19,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

PETTY, PETTY, PETTY – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  Skaters arriving at Central Park’s two ice rinks are in for a cold awakening next week — the rinks, which are both managed by the Trump Organization, are being shuttered by City Hall to punish the former president for the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, The Post has learned.  The Trump Organization says its last day of operating the iconic Wollman Rink and the smaller Lasker Rink at the park’s northern end will be Sunday.  The rink contracts had been set to expire in April, but Mayor de Blasio has moved to ice Trump out a month early, effective Feb. 26.  The Trump Organization is closing its doors after close of business on Sunday, so it will have time to pack up its belongings — including some 1,700 pairs of ice skates — and move out.  The city is terminating all four of its Trump Organization concession contracts.  “Trump has been impeached from operating the ice rink,” a de Blasio spokesman had said Jan. 31 in announcing the concession terminations for Wollman Rink, along with Lasker Rink, the Central Park Carousel and Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx.   Who cares about what's good for the children?  The party line must come first.  New York City is in rapid decline, and this kind of petty thinking is one of the causes.

February 19, 2021       Permalink

SOME CREATIVE THINKING – OVERNIGHT:   It is no secret to readers that we take a very dim view of the quality of American higher education.  Much of the mediocrity and anti-Americanism that we see in our colleges is actually financed, or at least partially financed, by taxpayer funds, as well as the savings of students' families.   Can those funds be used as an effective lever for reform?  Maybe so.  Ideas are being put forward.  From College Fix:   

“When enough parents and students decide that colleges are no longer worth it, campuses will start to fail.”

So said John Ellis, chairman of the California Association of Scholars and distinguished professor emeritus of German literature at UC Santa Cruz.

“The most useful thing that critics of higher education can do is to get the public to understand what’s really happening on the campuses,” Ellis said during a Feb. 11 online Heritage Foundation panel discussion titled “University Indoctrination: How it Started and How to Stop it.”

During the hour-long event, the scholars said to prompt higher education reform, a two-fold approach includes informing the public of the leftist indoctrination on campuses and urging parents, lawmakers and stakeholders not to support such institutions or send their kids there.

They also talked about partnering with sympathetic legislatures, mostly in red states, and calling on them to withhold funding until social justice or critical race theory curriculums and programs are eliminated.

Ellis said college campuses are basically irredeemable in their current form, for one because their leaders and scholars don’t see the need for reform.

“It’s very doubtful that you can regulate them into doing their proper job,” he said, “because that won’t change who they are.”

Fellow panelist Katharine Gorka of the Heritage Foundation said higher education has changed for the worse over the decades.

“Throughout my whole undergraduate and graduate experience,” she said, “I never knew any of my professors’ politics. It was considered unprofessional, even unscholarly, for professors to bring their politics into the classroom.”

“I am shocked by the stories I hear from our young interns about professors who talk openly about the idiocy, or the racism, or the white supremacy of conservatives.”

But they cannot challenge those assertions or they themselves will be labeled white supremacists, she said, adding she wonders why parents would allow — and even pay for — such an education.

“For what? To be taught to hate our country? To be taught critical race theory? This must change.”

COMMENT:  Amen.  The market can work in higher education, but many parents and professors are reluctant to challenge the powers that be.  The punishment for speaking out against the deterioration in colleges is being labeled a racist.  Most people fear that price.

Read the whole thing.

February 19, 2021       Permalink

OUR WORST FEARS – AT 11:06 P.M. ET:  When Joe Biden was elected, many feared that he would return us to the colossal foreign-policy failures of Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president.  As the list of Biden's appointments started to grow, those fears deepened.  We watched as Obama named to his administration virtually the entire Obama team responsible for the horrible Iran nuclear agreement.  Biden made a major speech today about his foreign policy, and it was like turning back every clock in the house.  From The Times of Israel: 

US President Joe Biden said Friday it was imperative that the United States work with other leading global powers to curb Iran’s “destabilizing” ambitions.

Yeah, they've certainly been helpful before.

Addressing the Munich Security Conference, Biden said his administration was “prepared to reengage in negotiations” with the UN Security Council on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran should have been forced to make concessions to get us to reengage.  Instead, we just jumped back in, and, normal for the Obama crowd, we got nothing.

“We must address Iran’s destabilizing activities across the Middle East,” Biden said. “We will work with our European and other partners as we proceed.”

We sense their enthusiasm.  They'll never give up those Iranian contracts.

Biden’s administration had said Thursday it was ready to join talks with Iran and world powers to discuss a return to the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran has demanded that the US lift sanctions before it returns to talks. It has also rejected discussing other issues, such as its regional activities.

Biden was making his first big appearance on the global stage as president, offering allies and other foreign leaders a glimpse into his plans to dramatically reshape US foreign policy even as he deals with a number of international crises that are coming to a head.

Reshape in Bidenland means going back to the losing ways of the foreign-policy establishment.  Biden's record on foreign policy in the US Senate was notably mediocre.  I don't recall him ever being right.

In advance of Biden’s virtual appearances at a G-7 meeting and the Munich Security Conference, the White House sought to underscore that the new administration will move quickly to reorient the US away from Donald Trump’s “America First” mantra by announcing major reversals of Trump administration policies.

COMMENT:  Yeah, America Last is much more attractive to the leftist crowd.  There was not a single major foreign-policy victory during the Obama years.  And America continued to write checks to "allies" who didn't need them.  No wonder they're smiling today. 

February 19,  2021     Permalink

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FEBRUARY 18,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

REAL CLASS – FROM BREITBART:   Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced legislation that would prevent former President Donald Trump from having his name displayed on federal projects, buildings, statues, lands, or other type of commemoration.  According to the bill’s text, which was provided late last month, the legislation would “prohibit the use of Federal funds for the commemoration of certain former Presidents.” While Trump is not mentioned by name in the proposed legislation, he is the only president to have been impeached twice by the House.  The bill, dubbed the “No Glory for Hate Act,” was introduced by California Democrat Rep. Linda Sanchez and has 13 co-sponsors, all of whom are Democrats.
“For years, Donald Trump poured gasoline on lies, encouraging racism and hatred, then lit the match on January 6th,” Sanchez said in a statement last month.  “A president who has been impeached twice does not deserve the honours bestowed on a former president,” Sanchez added. “We should never glorify the hatred Donald Trump personified as President. This bill ensures that there is no glory for hate, not a building, statue, or even a park bench.”  Is it never enough for these immature fools?  They speak of hatred, but they are the worst haters of all.  They are the legislative equivalent of those who tore down statues over the summer.  But let's see how much opposition they get from our pathetic media.

IN OTHER WORDS, DUMB IT DOWN – FROM CAPITOLNEWSILLINOIS.COM:   SPRINGFIELD – A legislative panel on Wednesday allowed the Illinois State Board of Education to move forward with new rules that call on colleges and universities in the state to change the way prospective teachers and administrators are trained in order to make them more accommodating to diverse students.  On a party-line vote, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, or JCAR, declined to block the new “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards” from going into effect, despite objections by Republicans who argued the rules would ultimately require licensed teachers and administrators to adhere to a particular political ideology.  Specifically, the new standards, which will take effect in 2025, define a culturally responsive educator as, among other things, one who will “critically think about the institutions in which they find themselves, working to reform these institutions whenever and wherever necessary,” as well as one who will “assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.).”  “Culturally responsive teachers and leaders understand that there are systems in our society that create and reinforce inequities, thereby creating oppressive conditions,” the standards state. “Educators work actively against these systems in their everyday roles in educational institutions.”   These racketeers do more harm to black children than the Klan could ever do.  Imagine what 20 years of this kind of education will do to black kids.  It will turn them into lifelong supplicants and victims – exactly what the socialist left wants. 

February 18, 2021       Permalink 

BIDEN'S BLUNDER – BUT IS ANYONE WATCHING? – OVERNIGHT:  The Biden administration is moving quickly to return the United States to the failed foreign policy of Saint Barack the First, who seems to be the guiding light behind the Biden presidency.  From Dailywire: 

Top former U.S. officials and national security experts slammed Democrat President Joe Biden late on Thursday following his administration signaling that it was willing to re-enter talks with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, to pursue a nuclear deal.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Biden administration would “accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran’s nuclear program.”

The Washington Free Beacon reported that Iran has increasingly acted aggressively with its nuclear program, stockpiling large quantities of enriched uranium, installing advanced nuclear centrifuges, and blocking international investigators from monitoring its actions.

Left-leaning Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin wrote that the move from Biden comes after alleged Iranian backed terrorists attacked U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this week — to which Biden still does not appear to have responded.

“Other Iranian proxies, such as the Houthis in Yemen, are not rewarding Biden’s more diplomatic approach with restraint — responding to outreach with new attacks on civilians,” Rogin wrote. “Meanwhile, the leaders in Tehran are acting as if they have all the leverage, making demands and escalating their nuclear brinkmanship.”

Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who also served as Trump’s secretary of state, told the Free Beacon that the Trump administration “refused” to “appease the Iranian theocracy.”

“The Ayatollah understands only strength,” Pompeo said. “I led a response to the Iranian threat that protected the American people from its terror and supported the Jewish state of Israel. Adopting the European Union model of accommodation will guarantee Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal.”

Nationally security expert Tim Morrison, who was on Trump’s National Security Council and is currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told The Daily Wire in a statement that the Biden administration was giving up all leverage as it tried to restart the “dangerously flawed” deal.

COMMENT:  A bad move, but expected.  Appeasing Iran is just what the Obama crowd ordered, and is popular with the militant, anti-Israel left of the Democratic Party.  It is not popular with America's friends in the Mideast, Arab and Israeli alike, who regard Iran as an existential threat. 

In a way, it's crazy, rewarding Iran for cheating on the nuclear agreement and wreaking havoc throughout the region.  American allies around the world are watching this absurd maneuver, and undoubtedly asking what kind of a friend America would really be in a crisis. 

The European Union is pleased.  That should scare the hell out of any sane American.

February 18, 2021       Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL! – AT 8:46 P.M. ET:  Enough with the miserable political news of the day.  Enough with the scheming Dems and their prayers to Lenin.  Enough with the RINO Republicans.  It's time for some good news, filled with American accomplishment.  From Fox: 

NASA has unveiled the first pictures from its fifth Mars rover, Perseverance, after a successful landing on the red planet's Jezero crater on Thursday.

Perseverance, the most technologically advanced robot NASA has sent to date, will remain on Mars for nearly two years, searching for signs of ancient life and exploring the planet's surface.

The rover, built in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is about 10 feet long, 9 feet wide, seven feet tall and about 2,260 pounds, about 278 pounds heavier than its predecessor, Curiosity.

Perseverance also has a robotic arm that reaches about seven feet long, containing cameras, a chemical analyzer, and a rock drill, and is nuclear powered using a plutonium generator provided by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Perseverance traveled 293 million miles to reach Mars over the course of more than six months after launching on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral on July 30.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

COMMENT:  Not to be political, but I hope someone gives former President Trump a hat tip for the encouragement he gave the American space program.

February 18, 2021       Permalink