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FEBRUARY 27,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

ANDY WE HARDLY KNOW YE – FROM FOX:    A second former aide to Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has come forward with allegations of sexual harassment, which came just days after his first accuser made her claims public.  Charlotte Bennett, who is described by The New York Times as "an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration until she left in November," alleges that Cuomo "asked her questions about her sex life, whether she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had ever had sex with older men."  The 25-year-old staffer described to the Times an incident that took place in June when she was "alone" with the 63-year-old governor in his State Capitol office. According to the report, he allegedly asked her if she thought age made a difference in romantic relationships and that he was open to having relationships with women in their 20s, which were noted by the Times as "comments she interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual relationship."  While Bennett alleges that Cuomo never tried touching her, the governor's "message" during that exchange was "unmistakable to her."  "I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared," Bennett told the Times. "And was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job."  Thus far the charges made by the first woman haven't done much damage to the governor, who is already under federal investigation for his handling of the Covid 19 virus.  The major news networks have largely given Cuomo a pass, as they generally do if the accused is a prominent Democrat.  But, as we've noted here before, Cuomo is heavily disliked by many figures in the Democratic Party.  If the heat from serious charges made by women increases, the governor may be sacrificed in a ritual cleansing that can benefit his party enemies.

A TIMESMAN MAY BE GETTING RELIGION – FROM FOX:    In an opinion article published online Thursday, a top liberal columnist for The New York Times blamed Democrats for the harm being inflicted on millions of the nation’s children by a year of school closures – describing it as a "tragedy we haven’t adequately confronted."  Writer Nicholas Kristof also suggests that many Democrats may have been blinded by animus toward former President Trump when they enacted the coronavirus-related school shutdowns.
"Many Democrats seemed to be more suspicious of in-person schooling last summer when President Donald Trump called for it," he writes, adding, "We shouldn’t let ourselves be driven by ideology rather than science."  He notes that at least one Democrat, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, pushed for schools to reopen in her state, "and kids there are better off because she did."  Elsewhere, however, millions of the nation’s schoolchildren have missed in-person learning for many months because of coronavirus mitigation policies, a situation that may result in "permanent damage" -- both to the children and the nation’s future, Kristof writes.  "The blunt fact," he continues, "is that it is Democrats – including those who run the West Coast, from California through Oregon to Washington State – who have presided over one of the worst blows to the education of disadvantaged Americans in history."  It's a bit comforting to see a liberal New York Times writer have a come to the Lord moment.  I wonder if his career will survive.  Kids have been badly damaged, and hard leftist "educators" and teachers unions have used this difficult period to drive the curriculum further to the left.  We may be educating young Americans out of existence. 

February 27, 2021       Permalink

THE KAMALA BUZZ – AT 11:40 P.M. ET:  Buzz is increasing in Wshington that Vice President Kamala Harris is moving into position, or being moved into position, to take over the presidency at a moment's notice.  There was plenty of talk during the campaign that Biden was just a stalking horse, and that the party's liberal wing wanted him out and Harris in.  From Politico: 

After insisting for the last few months that she didn’t need a clear-cut portfolio in the Biden administration, Vice President Kamala Harris is now trying to carve out a niche in foreign policy, with the president’s encouragement.

But after a political career focused on domestic issues, particularly law enforcement, it’s going to take some time to get her up to speed.

Compared to the current occupant of the Oval Office, Harris comes to the vice president’s job as a neophyte on foreign policy. Biden developed relationships with foreign leaders over decades in Washington, including as a longtime member and later chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as vice president under President Obama, which took him to more than 50 countries over eight years.

Harris spent the bulk of her career as a prosecutor, rising to become California’s attorney general. While she served on the Intelligence Committee during her four years in the U.S. Senate, foreign affairs was not a major policy focus either during her time in Washington or her presidential campaign.

Biden wants Harris to catch up and has urged her to engage with foreign leaders directly and develop her own rapport with key U.S. partners. Another, more strategic reason for the encouragement: as the heir apparent to the Democratic Party—especially if Biden, who is 78 years old, doesn’t run for re-election—Harris needs to bulk up her foreign policy expertise, and fast.

“The interest in her from outside is really about: Is she the future of the Democratic Party?” said one Asian ambassador, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preserve their relationship with the new administration. “Biden in a way represents the traditional white male politician. And Vice President Harris is in many ways the future: female, blended family … But her policy views, they are still waiting to be shaped out.”

The push started early: the day after the inauguration, Harris called the director-general of the World Health Organization to discuss the U.S. role in the global Covid-19 response. Since then, she has held solo calls with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, given a speech at the State Department and on Tuesday participated in the first bilateral meeting of the new administration between the U.S. and Canada—an opportunity Biden himself was not afforded when he was vice president.

Harris has also had weekly lunches with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a veteran foreign policy and national security official whose experience rivals Biden’s. And her national security advisers, Nancy McEldowney and Philip Gordon, are themselves long-serving diplomats.

COMMENT:  The question remains:  Is Biden pushing Harris into foreign policy, or is she propelling herself, with the full expectation that she'll soon be president?  Harris got her current job almost entirely on the basis of identity politics.  Powerful factions among the Democrats demanded a woman of color.  Her ideas on foreign policy had nothing to do with it. The left sees her in the Oval Office, no matter what her ideas are on anything.

February 27, 2021       Permalink

FEBRUARY 26,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

WELL, IT'S A LITTLE RELIEF – FROM PAGE SIX:    Get ready for a kinder, gentler Golden Globes now the king of cringe Ricky Gervais has retired his hosting role: Tina Fey says she and co-host Amy Poehler won’t get political.  Fey told Jill Rappaport on her “Rappaport to the Rescue” podcast, “We just want to make it a fun hang out for people at home — kind of a stress reliever, so I don’t think you can expect much politics at all. “  She added, “It doesn’t seem like a venue for political jokes.”  And when asked what she will wear for the big night, Fey reminisced about her last time co-hosting with Poehler in 2015, “It’s been five years and the places we would go, Jill — couture houses, we would meet with the designers, there were muslins, mock-ups, and the jewels!  “Now it’s … like ‘Nordstrom Rack, what do ya got?’”  No politics?  Maybe I'll even tune in for 30 seconds.

WELCOME TO THE SOVIET UNION – FROM DAILYWIRE:  A New York university has suspended an education student from mandatory teaching programs for posting Instagram videos expressing conservative ideology.  State University of New York (SUNY) Geneseo sent an email to education student Owen Stevens placing him on suspension from his field teaching programs after his peers uncovered videos of him preaching conservative dogma. The school claims that Steven’s videos “call into question” his ability to “maintain a classroom environment protecting the mental and emotional well-being of all of [his] students.”  According to a copy of Steven’s suspension obtained by The Daily Wire, the education student will remain suspended from participating in in-school field experiences and courses that have field experiences until he completes a “remediation plan.” The remediation plan includes taking down his Instagram videos, toning down his social media presence, and attending school-sanctioned training.  Stevens told The Daily Wire he refuses to take part in “re-education” training.  This is happening all over.  You won't see it on CNN.

February 26, 2021        Permalink

CONSERVATIVE EGGHEADS STRIKE BACK –  OVERNIGHT:  Stanford's fringe-left faculty started harassing scholars from the university's conservative arm, the Hoover Institution.  Now comes the reply.  Our side should be doing this more often.  FROM COLLEGE FIX: 

A trio of fellows at Stanford’s Hoover Institution has fired back at an attempt by other faculty members to investigate the institution for making, in their words, “a travesty of honest intellectual debate.”

“If Hoover fellows continue to be targets for character assassination, it will be clear to us what the true nature of free speech at Stanford has become—and not only to us,” wrote Hoover fellows Victor Davis Hanson, Scott Atlas and Niall Ferguson in The Stanford Review this week.

In a presentation to the Stanford Faculty Senate on February 11, Stanford professors Joshua Landy, Stephen Monismith, David Palumbo-Liu and David Spiegel gave a presentation in which they harshly criticized statements made by Hoover fellows in the past year, arguing the conservative-leaning Hoover Institution’s relationship with Stanford damaged the school’s reputation.

“While Stanford is an academic research institution, we believe that the Hoover is a partisan think-tank, and this has deep consequences with regard to the way each defines the roles its citizens should play,” the professors argued, saying some public actions by Hoover fellows were “so problematic that to move forward without addressing them would be a disservice both to Stanford and to the Hoover.”

The professors asked for “an impartial committee to be appointed by the Committee on Committees to delve deeper into the relationship between the Hoover and Stanford.”

Ultimately, the motion was amended to simply require “increasing interaction” between Stanford Provost Persis Drell and Hoover Director Condoleezza Rice.

Wasn't she secretary of state under George W. Bush?  Hmm.  Highly problematical for the woke left.

During the debate, Drell — a supporter of Hoover’s continued relationship with Stanford — noted she was “left quite confused” at what the goal of the presentation and the motion was. It passed with the votes of three-quarters of the Senate.

And Rice said after the vote: “If it is a matter of cooperation, of integrating more deeply into Stanford, working more effectively with Stanford, I am committed to that. And I do believe that I know how to do it.”

After the vote, Palumbo-Liu acknowledged defeat.

COMMENT:  The leftist suppression of free academic speech is no longer hidden.  Free speech is fine, the academic left says, as long as we agree with it.   This is what our children are being taught.  Imagine an America of the future where this kind of thing becomes the standard.

February 26, 2021       Permalink 

A VERY BIG STORY – OVERNIGHT:  There is almost a sense of shock in diplomatic and journalistic circles over President Biden's air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria yesterday.  You mean Biden did something like this?

Yeah, he did.  Republicans are supportive, Democrats rather muted.  Reports say that most of the Arab world, which despises the Iranian government, is also supportive.  The Israelis are very supportive.  The president is giving no vague excuses.  He's holding firm, at least for now.  From Reuters:

"You can't act with impunity. Be careful," US President Joe Biden told reporters in Texas when asked what message he was sending Iran with the US airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in eastern Syria.

Syria said the strikes were a cowardly act and urged Biden not to follow "the law of the jungle."

An Iraqi militia official close to Iran said the strikes killed one fighter and wounded four. US officials said they were limited in scope to show Biden's administration will act firmly while trying to avoid a big regional escalation.

Washington and Tehran are seeking maximum leverage in attempts to save Iran's nuclear deal reached with world powers in 2015 but abandoned in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, after which regional tensions soared and fears of full-scale conflict grew.

"Syria condemns in the strongest terms the cowardly US attack on areas in Deir al-Zor near the Syrian-Iraqi border," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"It (the Biden administration) is supposed to stick to international legitimacy, not to the law of the jungle as (did) the previous administration."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the US strikes, calling them "illegal aggression" and a violation of human rights and international law.

The air strikes, early on Friday local time, targeted militia sites on the Syrian side of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier, where groups backed by Iran control an important crossing for weapons, personnel and goods.

Western officials and some Iraqi officials accuse Iranian-backed groups of involvement in deadly rocket attacks on US sites and personnel in Iraq over the last month.

Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, also criticized the US strikes and called for "unconditional respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria."

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the air strikes in Syria were meant to send the message that Biden will act to protect Americans.

Future US actions in the region will be deliberative and will aim to deescalate tensions in Syria, Psaki said.

And...

US lawmakers from both political parties welcomed the strikes but a number of Democrats questioned the legal justification under which they were carried out and the continuation of military operations in the Middle East.

"I am very concerned that last night's strike by US forces in Syria puts our country on the path of continuing the Forever War instead of ending it," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the US strikes totally destroyed nine facilities and partially destroyed two facilities at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision to carry out the strikes was meant to signal that, while the United States wanted to punish the militias, it did not want the situation to spiral into a bigger conflict.

COMMENT:  We are somewhat reassured by these strikes that Biden will not be another Obama, but we certainly want further assurance.  Our allies are backing us, and were probably consulted in advance. 

Biden has, over his career, generally been wrong on foreign policy, favoring responses that were too soft and unconvincing.  We trust that, as president, he will see the world differently.

February 26,  2021       Permalink