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JANUARY 9,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

THIS IS CHILLING – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:   Iran’s imposition of “sanctions” on dozens of Americans amounts to an assassination threat against members of former President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a senior U.S. official who threatened “severe consequences” for any harm done to them.  “Make no mistake: the United States of America will protect and defend its citizens,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday. “This includes those serving the United States now and those who formerly served.”  Iranian officials have made explicit their interest in killing one of the people involved in the U.S. strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The regime observed the second anniversary of his death last week, which occasioned a flurry of truculent rhetoric and the unveiling of economic sanctions by Iran that U.S. observers take as a proxy for a threat of violence.  “Wherever it is needed, we will provide for the basis of revenge against the Americans from within their houses and by people by their side without us being present,” IRGC Quds Force Commander Sardar Esmail Qaani said in remarks published by Iranian media. “If wise people in America are found who deal with those who committed the atrocity of assassinating Commander Soleimani, this action will be much less burdensome for America than if the offspring of the Resistance Front, who know no bounds, to themselves go and take this revenge.”  And we are now involved in talks with Iran which are likely to give them a clear path to a nuclear weapon.  Not smart.  Not smart.

January 9, 2022       Permalink

ANOTHER SIGN OF HOPE – OVERNIGHT:  Day by day, little by little, we are seeing signs that the rational elements in our society, and those who understand the brilliance of this country's founding, are striking back against the woke culture.  The University of Chicago (my alma mater), has been one of the leaders in the battle for free speech.  Now, members of its faculty are taking the correct path again, demanding not the defunding of the police in the university's neighborhood, but greater police protection.  Common sense on the march.  Wish them luck.  From College Fix: 

Nearly 400 professors at the University of Chicago, on the city’s South Side, have urged the administration to expand policing after several killings in the most recent semester and three in 2021.

“Anti-violence should be made the TOP priority at the University,” the faculty members wrote in an open letter to the administration. But unlike some of the activist groups on campus that want to abolish the police, the University of Chicago faculty want more cops and security guards.

The letter asks for the university to “[e]nlarge the borders of UCPD (University of Chicago Police Department) territory to the Hyde Park neighborhood” and “dramatically increase surveillance camera systems in the entire Hyde Park community, making sure that every block and every street is covered by surveillance cameras.”

“Security guards need to patrol every road crossing in the neighborhood,” the faculty letter said.

They also want to see accountability for the murder of Shaoxiong Zheng, a Chinese student who died soon after graduating with his graduate degree from the university.

Beyond that murder, there needs to be more accountability from local police, the faculty said.

A committee should be formed to “address the serious violence and security issues in Hyde Park.”

The letter said:

Every gun robbery or other crime that has occurred on campus requires attention and a final report. We cannot afford to let these slip away, begetting eventual further loss of life as we have witnessed repeatedly in the last few years. Criminals need to be identified, arrested and sentenced — this is essential to rebuild public trust.

Professor Rachel Fulton Brown, a signer of the letter, told The College Fix that previous calls to defund the police were likely seen by most people as “unrealistic.”

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  When I was an undergraduate at Chicago in the late 1950s, the university faced the same threat of violence.  It actually bought up large tracts of the surrounding neighborhood to build new and safer housing.  Strange how the situation hasn't changed much in six decades.  Blame that largely on the leftist mentality of Chicago politics, and the inability of the Democratic Party to free itself from racial influence. 

You may be sure that the Marxist crowd at Chicago is already penning a demand that the professors who wrote the above letter be punished.  The mature adults at the university must stand firm, and not back down.  They are in the majority, and it is time they threw their weight around. 

January 9, 2022       Permalink

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