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DECEMBER 5-6,  2022

GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS:  The feared disappointment has come.   Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock has defeated Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker in a runoff election, and will remain United States Senator from Georgia.  Warnock received 51.31 percent to Walker's 48.69 percent.  So, Georgia, a conservative state, now has two liberal senators.  Republicans might contemplate what went wrong.

First,  you've got to start with a strong candidate.  Herschel Walker gave it his best, and never gave up, but he couldn't overcome the image of someone with no political experience.  Recruiting candidates for 2024 must start right now.

Second, you've got to have a positive program.  It's not enough to be against something or someone.  Republicans are often seen as lacking real, new ideas.

Third, you've got to look at the calendar.  The era of the one-day election is over, but only the Democrats have adapted to early voting, voting by mail, and other easy-voting devices.  Republicans still like to vote on election day itself.  That's like saying that the only desirable way to start a car is by cranking it. 

Fourth, The Republican Party must be more spirited.  It's not enough just to show up with a check for the campaign.  One of the best GOP candidates this year was Lee Zeldin, who ran for governor in ultra-blue New York, and almost made it.  He was alive, passionate, committed, and always there to help other Republicans.  His efforts were critical to New York Republicans taking out four Democratic members of Congress.  New York, thanks to Lee, had its own red wave.

Fifth, emphasize women.  Republican women are particularly dynamic, and a number are sitting in Congress.  The Republican Party used to be called the party of green eyeshades.  Today's party is alive with women, many young, who give the organization a sense of verve.  No old boys club anymore.

To be continued. 

WHAT'S THIS?  WHEN DID SHE BECOME A PERSON?  Hillary Clinton, not my favorite movie star, has surfaced again, and her advice to the Biden administration is strangely centrist, almost conservative.  Hmm.  Is she really going after the Obama crowd?  Is she making a 2024 move as elder stateswoman?  From CNN:

The US should not be negotiating with Iran “on anything right now,” including a nuclear agreement, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday.

“I would not be negotiating with Iran on anything right now, including the nuclear agreement,” Clinton told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday, adding that the horse is “out of the barn.”

“When [former President Donald] Trump pulled us out,” she said, “we lost the eyes that we had on what they were doing inside Iran. And I believe that they started those centrifuges spinning again.”

Discussions between the US and Iran on the 2015 nuclear deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, have been pushed to the sidelines since protests erupted across Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested by the morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab correctly.

In addition to Iranian authorities’ brutal crackdown on protesters, the US has also taken issue with the country’s cooperation with Russia during the war in Ukraine...

...Clinton emphasized her support for focusing on the protestors on Thursday, saying that the United States should not “look like we are seeking an agreement [with Iran] at a time when the people of Iran are standing up to their oppressors.”

“We are giving them hope and heart. I think we’re doing something else,” Clinton said. “We’re sending a message to whoever the few possibly concerned people are about what’s happening to the tens of thousands of Iranians being imprisoned, and the many hundreds who are being killed, that maybe they are willing inside to speak out. Not just within the government, but more importantly with the clerics to say that this is not sustainable.”

“You can’t premise a theocracy on covering up women’s hair. That doesn’t mean that we are going to overthrow the regime and they are going to leave peacefully,” Clinton told CNN.

“I’m hoping that there can be some kind of internal discussion that might lead to, you know, more freedom, but also less oppression,” she said.

COMMENT:  That's definitely not a Biden or Obama position.  They are appeasers of the regime, especially Obama.

We'll watch closely to see if Hillary distances herself further from her party's policies. 

December 5, 2022       Permalink

WHY SO LITTLE COVERAGE?  This should worry the daylights out of any anti-terrorism official, but it's getting minimum coverage.  I wonder why.  From Fox: 

Over 40,000 Moore County, North Carolina residents were powerless on Sunday afternoon after two substations were taken out by gunfire on Saturday night, according to police.

Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said in a Facebook post on Saturday that just after 7 p.m. on that night, several communities across the county began to experience power outages.

Duke Energy, which operates the power grid in the county, responded to at least two different substations and there was evidence of intentional vandalism at both, Fields said.

"We faced something last night here in Moore County we have never faced before," Fields said during a Facebook Live press conference on Sunday afternoon.

The sheriff gave a few more details about the situation, saying there was extensive damage found at two substations caused by multiple gunshots, which caused power outages primarily in the central and northern portions of the county.

As of Sunday afternoon, PowerOutage.us said 40,679 customers were without power.

An investigation into the vandalism at the substations is underway by the FBI, State Bureau of Investigations, and local law enforcement agencies, around the clock.

Moore County Directory of Public Safety said during the press conference that the Moore County Sportsplex was being opened as a shelter at 4 p.m. on Sunday for those without power.

The facility can hold from 225-250 citizens and will remain open until the county feels it is unnecessary.

Jeff Brooks from Duke Energy said a full power restoration may not occur until Thursday.

He explained that unlike a storm where power can be rerouted, there is equipment at the substations that needs to be replaced or repaired because of the gunfire.

The power company is pursuing multiple paths of restoration, Brooks said, and its number one priority is to get the power back on for customers.

As a result of the power outage, Moore County Schools Superintendent Tim Locklair announced schools would be closed on Monday and the situation would be evaluated on a day-by-day case.

"Folks, this was a terrible act," State Senator Tom McInnis said, adding that the perpetrator who did the "terrible" act would be brought to justice.

Sheriff Fields would not go into the specifics of the investigation because he did not want to jeopardize it in any way.

But he did reaffirm the FBI and SBI were working every avenue they can to find the individual or individuals responsible.

No group has accepted responsibility for what Fields called at targeted attack – not calling it domestic terrorism.

"We have no motivation," he said. "I call them cowards."

COMMENT:  It's that easy to take out a power station?  What about the rest of the nation's power grid?  We've had warnings before that it is vulnerable.  Just how far does that vulnerability go?

I'm afraid this story will fade away, without answers.  But hostile nations are watching.

December 5, 2022     Permalink

DECEMBER 3-4,  2022

YIKES!  TRUMP DOES IT AGAIN:  They used to say about Harry Truman that he did the biggest things in the biggest ways and the littlest things in the littlest ways.  

They never heard of Donald Trump who, sadly, continues to diminish himself by doing too many big things in little ways. 

The revelations of the last few days, that Twitter (along with others) withheld critical information about the Biden family from the American voting public just before the 2020 election, are major in themselves.  They raise the gravest questions about the integrity of the press, and the sanctity of elections.

This was a moment made for Donald Trump who, all along, has said the election of 2020 was not on the level.  It was a time for a thoughtful, patriotic, dignified reply by Mr. Trump, who could claim some kind of vindication.

And what do we get?  Read on, from CNN:

Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution to overturn the 2020 election and reinstate him to power Saturday in a continuation of his election denialism and pushing of fringe conspiracy theories.

"Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused "Big Tech" of working closely with Democrats. "Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!"

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Saturday that Trump's remarks are "anathema to the soul of our nation, and should be universally condemned."

"You cannot only love America when you win," Bates said in a statement. "The American Constitution is a sacrosanct document that for over 200 years has guaranteed that freedom and the rule of law prevail in our great country. The Constitution brings the American people together -- regardless of party -- and elected leaders swear to uphold it. It's the ultimate monument to all of the Americans who have given their lives to defeat self-serving despots that abused their power and trampled on fundamental rights."

Trump's post came after the release of internal Twitter emails showing deliberation in 2020 over a New York Post story about material found on Hunter Biden's laptop. Employees on Twitter's legal, policy and communications teams debated -- and at times disagreed -- over whether to restrict the article under the company's hacked materials policy. The debate took place weeks before the 2020 election, when Joe Biden, Hunter Biden's father, was running against then-President Trump.

Trump announced his third presidential bid last month and is still widely considered the leader of the Republican Party. Party leaders had hoped that the former president would drop his election denialism rhetoric after lackluster results in the midterms.

COMMENT:  Trump botched it.  As usual, he went overboard, and blew a chance to show that some of his concerns over the election were valid.  Instead, he winds up almost throwing the Constitution down the incinerator chute.

Not good.  And not good for 2024.   Some recent surveys show Trump losing support among Republicans for the 2024 presidential nomination.  And he has major legal problems ahead.  He is not handling himself well.

December 3-4, 2022       Permalink 

DECEMBER 1-2,  2022

THE REVELATION – IF YOU WANT TO CALL IT THAT:   No matter what you think of Elon Musk, he is doing a real service by releasing the documents from his newly acquired Twitter service that prove how Twitter suppressed the truth about Hunter Biden and alleged corruption in the Biden family...and did so only weeks before the 2020 presidential election.  Polls show that most Americans might have voted differently had this information been public. 

The sleeziness is pathetic, not only on the part of Twitter and its ideological masters at the time, but on the part of the American press, which has largely refused to pursue the truth of the issue.  As more information comes out, our so-called "journalism" will look worse and worse...and more and more useless.  If the news business does not improve its product, and there's not much evidence that it's even interested, then visionaries with major resources will have to step forward and form new news organizations based on the principles of Joseph Pulitzer – to report the news without fear or favor, and leave opinion to the editorial page.

From Fox:

Twitter owner Elon Musk released bombshell revelations about what led the tech giant to suppress the Hunter Biden story in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election. 
After a lengthy delay, Musk outsourced his findings to Substack journalist Matt Taibbi, who published a lengthy thread about what had transpired behind the scenes at Twitter. 

"Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly," Taibbi wrote. "By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: 'Handled.'"

Taibbi shared a screenshot of that October 2020 exchange featuring links to tweets Biden's team allegedly wanted taken down.

"Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However…  This system wasn't balanced," Taibbi wrote. "It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right."

"The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives," the journalist teased. 

He then quickly pivoted to the "Twitter Files" regarding the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. 

Taibbi tweeted "there’s no evidence - that I've seen" that the federal government had a role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story but that "the decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role."

COMMENT:  By any standard, this should be a major, continuing news story.  An election was influenced.  It is the kind of thing you'd expect in a third-world country, at least one that has the internet. 

But the mainstream media, in my view, will try to crush the story by simply ignoring it.  The very people who shout regularly that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy are unlikely to concede that they are a threat to democracy.  Confession is not part of the leftist culture.

I'm not even sure there'll be a big book. 

The question remains as to whether other platforms will, in future election seasons, try again to tamper with the vote.  Unless there is a severe punishment for the people who worked the system at Twitter, I can't see why they won't try. 

December 2, 2022       Permalink

ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE – IRANIANS CHEER U.S. SOCCER VICTORY.  From Fox: 

Amid protests in Iran that have lasted close to three months, many Iranians were rooting for the United States to defeat their own home country in Tuesday's World Cup match.

Tuesday's match was pivotal for both squads. Iran would have advanced to the knockout stage with a draw, while the USMNT needed a win, which it got, to advance.

However, some protesters feel an Iranian loss or draw will now hurt the regime on the world stage and give fuel to the protesters' fight.

In an encrypted telephone interview with Fox News Digital Monday, an Iranian woman who called herself "Mahoora" and lives in southern Iran, said, "It's not just some people in Iran, it is the majority of people in Iran that want the U.S. to win (on Tuesday). The silent majority [of Iranians] did not celebrate the regime team’s victory over Wales."

Celebrations occurred in many districts of Tehran, the capital of Iran, as well as the highly populated cities of Mashhad, Isfahan and Karaj.

Ali Safavi, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, released the following statement:

"The jubilant reaction across Iran over the regime soccer team’s defeat tonight reflects first and foremost the degree to which the Iranian people loath and detest the ruling mullahs and want to see it overthrown. They knew that the regime was trying to exploit the presence of its team in the World Cup to overshadow the ruthless manner with which it has cracked down on the nationwide uprising, which has left 660 protesters, including at least 60 children, dead and 30,000 (arrested). At no time in its 43-year rule, has the regime been so isolated in the eyes of the Iranian people who are determined as ever to topple it."

COMMENT:   And yet, at this electric moment in the history of Iran and the region around it, the United States is remarkably silent.   The Obama crowd, which clearly controls our Iran policy, has no sympathy for freedom fighters.  They truly believe that Iran can replace Israel as our primary ally in the region.  They also believe that the Edsel will return to American highways.

December 1, 2022       Permalink