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JANUARY 8,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES – OVERNIGHT – FROM FOX:   Hundreds of convicted sex offenders are no longer being monitored by sworn police officers in Austin, Texas due to the city’s move to defund the police and cut police academy classes.  As of 2019, there were about 1,600 registered sex offenders in Austin according to the state's sex offender database. There is no law preventing any of them from living near schools or other places where children tend to congregate, according to a local news report. About 650 of those cases were handled by officers who checked in on the registered sex offenders weekly to ensure they were where they reported themselves to be. But three of those officers were sent back to patrol as a result of the decision to defund the police, including slashing three cadet classes at the police academy, in August 2020. Defunding the police forced the department to cut the Sex Offender Apprehension and Registration Unit (SOAR).  Those cases once handled by sworn police officers are now being monitored by civilian employees, including two who only work part-time. The civilian monitors lack arrest authority and some question whether they are able to keep up with the increased caseload.  We now know from bitter experience that defunding the police has catastrophic consequences.  The question in Austin is whether the leftist establishment in that very un-Texas-like city actually cares.

January 8, 2022       Permalink

WE REGULARLY REMIND READERS THAT, WHILE WE FIGHT OUR POLITICAL WARS AT HOME, OTHERS PLAN REAL WARS AGAINST US ABROAD.  IT IS EASY TO FORGET THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF FOREIGN POLICY WHEN WE HAVE SUCH ENTERTAINING POLITICIANS HUMORING US IN WASHINGTON EVERY DAY.  FROM THE SUN: 

As Tehran’s diplomats play for time in Vienna, President Biden’s team is settling on a new plan: accept a near-nuclear Iran — and blame President Trump.

Officially, spokesmen for the Islamic Republic claim progress in talks to renew the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the administration likes to call the articles of appeasement.
“We sense a retreat, or rather realism, from the Western parties in the Vienna negotiations,” Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, told reporters recently.

Meanwhile, according to an Axios report, National Security Adviser Jacob Sullivan told his Israeli counterpart, Eyal Hulata, that “to deter Iran from increasing uranium enrichment to 90 percent purity” America would consider a renewal of tough global sanctions on the mullah regime.

To do that, a mechanism known as “snapback” would need to be triggered at the United Nations Security Council. America, though, needs a fellow JCPOA member, such as Britain, to demand such a reimposition of full global sanctions.

That’s because Security Council members rebuffed President Trump when he tried to trigger snapback, arguing America lost its privilege to employ that measure when it withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.

Even if snapback succeeds in reimposing global sanctions — a big if, to be sure — would it deter Iran from enriching uranium to 90 percent? And wouldn’t Iran by that time be too far gone? In other words, is it a real threat?

Since President Biden vowed to re-enter the JCPOA, arguing that it is the best way for blocking Iran’s path to a bomb, Tehran has amped-up enrichment levels. At first, last January, it started enriching up to 20 percent.

That itself was in violation of the JCPOA. Shortly after, using new machines, it has stockpiled at least 55 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent — getting ever closer to becoming a nuclear power.

The Institute for Science and International Security reports that Iran can have enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon in as little as three weeks. It could detonate a nuclear explosive underground in as little as six months.

While enriching uranium at even the 60 percent level has no civilian use, CIA director William Burns said recently that the agency “doesn’t see any evidence that Iran’s supreme leader has made a decision to move to weaponize.”

Messers. Burns and Sullivan are considered the hawkish members of the Biden administration, at least in comparison with Robert Malley, the aide who is the top appeaser and who leads the Vienna talks.

Even the administration’s relative hawks are warming to the idea of at least allowing Iran to make the decision when to go kaboom. The idea is that Mr. Biden would be able to crow his policies “slowed” Iran, in contrast with Mr. Trump’s decision to replace the JCPOA with “maximum pressure.”

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  It appears that Joe Biden is walking us into another disaster, a gift to an enemy nation, which will use that gift of appeasement to hurt us or our allies, or both.  What we see here is the third term of Barack Obama, a super appeaser who now views the world from his $17-million mansion in Massachusetts.   Indeed, the American team negotiating over Iran's nuclear program is led by the same Robert Malley who performed that function for Obama.  He apparently has learned nothing from his failure.

January 8,  2022     Permalink

JANUARY 7,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

EVEN A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE – OVERNIGHT,  FROM FOX:   Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor came under withering criticism Friday after she falsely suggested that upwards of 100,000 children in the United States are hospitalized from COVID-19, many of them on ventilators.  During oral arguments on the Biden administration's mandate on private businesses for employees to be either vaccinated or frequently tested, Sotomayor drastically overstated the number of young people who have fallen severely ill from coronavirus.  "We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we've never had before, in serious condition, many on ventilators," she said.  While there are more children hospitalized now than at any point during the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the seven-day average of pediatric hospitalizations was around 3,700 this week, according to the Washington Post. As with prior strains of the virus, younger people are at far less risk than old ones of severe outcomes from the coronavirus. "Fact-checkers. Hello?" Fox News contributor Joe Concha asked in response to Sotomayor.  I hope the justice is more careful with facts when she decides cases that involve human lives.  She was Obama's first Supreme Court pick, as you'll remember.

January 7, 2022       Permalink

ABOUT A WORD – OVERNIGHT:  The word is "insurrection."  You've been hearing it many times this week as the Democratic Party tried once again to pin the ugly events of last January 6th on Donald Trump, and suggested that the "storming" of the Capitol was a true insurrection.  Trouble is, the American people, despite the best efforts of our leftist press, really aren't buying it.  I call your attention to Jonathan Turley's excellent analysis, as published on his own website.  One of the best things I've recently read: 

In the day long events commemorating January 6th, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a telling statement to her fellow members and the public at large. Pelosi declared “It is essential that we preserve the narrative of January 6th.” Part of that narrative is that this was not a riot but an “insurrection,” an actual “rebellion” against our country. Pelosi’s concern over the viability of that narrative is well-based as shown by a recent CBS News poll. The majority of the public does not believe that this was an “insurrection” despite the mantra-like repetition of members of Congress and the media. The public saw that terrible day unfold a year ago and saw it for what it was: a protest that became a riot. (For full disclosure, I previously worked as a legal analyst for CBS News).

Not surprisingly, the poll received little comparative coverage on a day when reporters and commentators spoke of “the insurrection” as an undeniable fact. Yet, when CBS asked Americans, they received an answer that likely did not please many. Indeed, CBS did not highlight the answer to the question of whether the day was really a “protest that went too far.”   The answer was overwhelming and nonpartisan.  Some 76% believe that this was a protest that went too far.

That, however, was not one of the four options to the matinee question featured by CBS. It did not allow the public to call this a riot when it asked them to describe “What happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021?” Why? There was the ever present “insurrection” and “trying to overthrow government.” However, the other two options were “patriotism” or “defending freedom.” That is perfectly bizarre. The most obvious alternatives to an actual rebellion in a violent clash would be a protest or a riot. However, the public was simply not given those options.

The result was predictable. Some 85% of Democrats dutifully checked “an insurrection” or “trying to overthrow government” while only 21% and 18% of Republicans agreed respectively.  For those who did not see the riot as an act of patriotism or defending freedom, they were simply left without a choice.

The poll perfectly captured the state of our media. There is no choice. Using the term insurrection is now a litmus test.  In the age of rage, one’s legitimacy is based on your volume and fury. After the attack, I wrote that this was not an insurrection, but it was a desecration of our constitutional process. When I have used “riot” in columns, I have received a torrent of emails objecting to the characterization as proof of being an apologist or “Trumper.”

Yet, “insurrection” and “sedition” are legal terms. They have a meaning. The FBI investigated thousands after January 6th and charged hundreds. Not one is charged with insurrection or sedition or conspiracy to overthrow the country. The vast majority are charged with relatively minor offenses of trespass or unlawful entry or property damage- the type of charges that are common in protests and riots.

None of that takes away from the disgraceful conduct of these people or the legitimacy of their prosecution. It is simply not an insurrection. This was a protest fueled by reckless rhetoric that was allowed to become a full riot by a shocking lack of security preparations by the Capitol police and the District of Columbia. A large national guard deployment was rejected and critical intelligence not shared by officials planning for the long-planned protests. Again, the fault still remains with the rioters themselves but this would have remained a protest if Congress had taken obvious steps of fencing and guard deployments. Indeed, those measures were used previously in Lafayette Park when the White House security was almost breached by rioters.

Yet, there remains a determined effort to keep the “insurrection” narrative “preserved.” the New York Times recently declared “Every Day is Now Jan. 6.” This is not simply important for political purposes. Democratic members and groups are again calling for members (and Trump himself) to be disqualified from running for future offices under the 14th Amendment. The “disqualification clause” was created for actual rebels who attempted to overthrow the government in the Civil War. Self-described “pro-democracy” advocates like Marc Elias believe that nothing says democracy like barring people from voting for the candidates of their choice.

If January 6th was an insurrection, then members challenging the electoral votes were little more than Confederate rebels. As with villages in Vietnam, it seems that democracy will be saved by destroying it.

The problem is that the public is not buying it. Even when the public is not given the choice by CBS of calling this a riot rather than an insurrection, the truth emerges like water finding a way out. The poll also shows the limits of not just Speaker Pelosi but the mainstream media in preserving such narratives. Despite the endless drumbeat of coverage referring to the day as an “insurrection,” the media cannot get the public to ignore what they witnessed — any more than getting viewers to accept reporting on largely “peaceful” protests with images of burning buildings in the background. 

COMMENT:  Do read the entire piece.  It is worth the time, and the piece is worth sending to friends.  This is clear, logical analysis, something that is increasingly rare.

January 7,  2022     Permalink