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FEBRUARY 28,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

GREAT WAY FOR A NATION TO STAY GREAT (CHOKE) – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  The Boston Public Schools will be suspending an advanced learning program for its fourth, fifth and sixth graders because too many white and Asian students are participating.  According to WGBH, Superintendent Brenda Cassellius recommended a one-year enrollment suspension for what’s known as the Advanced Work Class due to COVID-19 worries and “concerns about equity.”  According to the district website, the Advanced Work Class “provides an accelerated academic curriculum” for students in the grades noted. Those enrolled study “in greater depth” [with] more schoolwork and more home study than the traditional curriculum. ”Over 70 percent of students in the AWC are white and Asian, despite the district being 80 percent black and Hispanic. Acceptance to the program is (was) decided via third-grade test scores on the popular TerraNova standardized test. Those who obtain the necessary scores are then put into a lottery for admission.  Maybe there's a better way to run things, with more emphasis on preparing the students for exams.  But suspending an advanced program is not the way to do it.  What a message that sends.  The Chinese must be laughing their heads off.

ANOTHER CULTURAL BREAKTHROUGH – FROM DAILY MAIL:   Mr. Potato Head is no longer a mister.  Hasbro, the company that makes the potato-shaped plastic toy, is giving the spud a gender neutral new name: Potato Head. The change will appear on boxes this year.  Toy makers have been updating their classic brands to appeal to kids today. Barbie has shed its blonde image and now comes in multiple skin tones and body shapes. Thomas the Tank Engine added more girl characters. And American Girl is now selling a boy doll.  Hasbro said Mr. Potato Head, which has been around for about 70 years, needed a modern makeover.  I've been saying for years that Mr. Potato Head needed an upgrade if this nation was to survive.

February 28, 2021       Permalink

TRUMP IS BACK IN TOWN – AT 11:40 P.M. ET:  The former president made his first public appearance since leaving office at the CPAC convention in Florida.   The hall was his, heavily pro-Trump.  Anderson Cooper was not invited.  Nancy Pelosi sent regrets.

It was classic Trump.  He made no announcement of a 2024 run, but made it clear that his calendar had some open space that year.  He hit the Trump issues hard, to cheers.  From Fox: 

ORLANDO, Fla. – Former President Donald Trump on Sunday tore into President Biden on issues ranging from the brewing crisis at the border to foreign policy – while mapping out what he believes is the future of the conservative movement, and pledging not to create a new party.   

"Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history," Trump said, calling the new administration "anti-jobs, anti-families, anti-border, anti-energy, anti-women and anti-science."

"In one short month we have gone from America First to America Last," he said.

Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), marking his first major speech since leaving office. He spoke to a raucous pro-Trump crowd at an event where his influence was felt throughout.

He focused predominantly on the escalating border crisis, which he returned to frequently as he ripped into Biden’s rollbacks of a number of Trump-era policies – which has in turn seen a surge in migrants at the border.

"It took the new administration only a few weeks to turn this unprecedented accomplishment into a self-inflicted humanitarian and national security disaster," he said.

"By recklessly eliminating our border, security measures, controls, all the things we put into place, Joe Biden has triggered a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country like we've never seen before."

He also hit Biden on the failure to re-open schools, which Biden has promised to do, but is so far struggling to deliver amid fierce resistance in a number of states from powerful teachers unions.

"Joe Biden has shamefully betrayed America's youth and he is cruelly keeping our children locked in their homes, no reason for it whatsoever," he says.

He accused Democrats of wanting Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion "boondoggle" to open schools.

"On behalf of all the moms and dads, I call on Joe Biden to open the schools and get them open now," he said.

COMMENT:  If there was one discordant note, and there usually is in a Trump speech, the former president could not resist the temptation to attack those in the Republican ranks who have opposed him.  He made it clear that he believes he has won the loyalty of the vast majority of the party.   I think some uniting talk may be in order.

A poll of the CPAC delegates showed Trump to be their overwhelming favorite for president in 2024.  If he chooses not to run, their favorite is Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. 

Republicans first must win the 2022 midterms.  Trump is clearly available to help with the effort, and accept the credit if the party is victorious.

February 28, 2021       Permalink

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