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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas last night.  It's here.

FEBRUARY 15,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

WHAT A TRIBUTE – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   About half of New York Times employees said in a recent internal survey that they don’t believe they can speak freely at the paper.  In response to the statement, “There is a free exchange of views in this company; people are not afraid to say what they really think,” only 51% of Times employees responded in the affirmative.  In company comments that accompanied the December poll’s findings, which were viewed by The Post, the 51 percent was noted as being 10% lower than the “benchmark.” One insider said the benchmark likely refers to the average among similar companies surveyed on that statement.  “Although the majority of us feel well-informed, many indicated that differing viewpoints aren’t sought or valued in our work,” read the Times’s internal assessment of the data. “Relatedly, we saw some negative responses on whether there’s a free exchange of views in the company, and scored below the benchmark on this question.”  Once a great newspaper, but it decided to go woke, and this is the result.

REMEMBER WHEN WE REVERED OUR TEACHERS? – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  The crown teachers once put on Shakespeare now lies uneasy upon his head as the English playwright comes under assault from teachers who fault his un-woke attitudes regarding race, sexuality, gender and class.
For the new breed of teachers, William Shakespeare is seen less as an icon of literature and more as a tool of imperial oppression, an author who should be dissected in class or banished from the curriculum entirely.
“This is about White supremacy and colonization,” declared the teachers who founded #DisruptTexts, a group that wants staples of Western literature removed or subjected to withering criticism.  The anti-Shakespeare teachers say fans of the plays ignore the author’s problematic worldview. They say readers of Shakespeare should be required to address the “Whiteness” of their thinking.  If Shakespeare must be taught, these educators say, then it should be presented with watered-down versions of the original or supplemental texts focused on equality issues.  Elizabeth Nelson, who teaches English at Twin Cities Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota, told School Library Journal she gives her students Marxist theory when reading Shakespeare’s tragedy “Coriolanus” about the Roman leader.  Soon our children will be reading,  "To be, or should I change my gender?"  The only redeeming factor would be that they'd be so illiterate they wouldn't be able to read it at all.  What a sad state we're in.

February 15, 2021       Permalink

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN – OVERNIGHT:   Remember the Keystone Pipeline?  President Biden, in one of his first acts, canceled it to satisfy the climate-change religionists, even though there was no evidence that the pipeline would have a significant impact on climate change.  Hey, you gotta feel good about yourself, right? 

Well, it turns out that the decision to drop the pipeline is immensely unpopular, is costing thousands of jobs, and is placing a target on many Democratic members of Congress who are up in 2022 and would like to keep their jobs.  And some are taking action.  Number one on the list is Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a moderate Democrat who's made it clear he will sometimes vote against the president.  From Fox: 

Sen. Joe Manchin wrote a letter to President Biden Tuesday asking him to rethink his executive order revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit.

"Pipelines continue to be the safest mode to transport our oil and natural gas resources and they support thousands of high-paying, American union jobs," the West Virginia Democrat wrote.

On his first day in office, the president canceled the pipeline’s permit, which Donald Trump had reinstated. The long-disputed project was meant to deliver about 800,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil to the U.S.

"In the absence of access to pipelines, crude oil will continue to find its way to market through increased reliance on other modes of transport, like truck and rail, which have a higher number of reported releases of crude oil per ton-mile than pipelines," Manchin noted.

"I encourage you to reconsider your decision to revoke the cross-border permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and take into account the potential impacts of any further action to safety, jobs, and energy security," he added.

Manchin, alongside fellow Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, Mont., joined Republicans in a budget resolution supporting the pipeline.

Biden immediately drew the ire of Republicans in revoking the permit but more recently has drawn criticisms from allies.

"I wish he hadn't done that on the first day," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told "Axios on HBO."  

COMMENT:  This will fall on deaf ears.  The Biden administration, really Barack Obama's third term, is indifferent to Americans who don't work at computers.  It cares little for America's energy independence, as it believes us to be simply another nation, conceived in sin.  The decision deeply offended Canada, which is heavily invested in the pipeline.

The pipeline will be a campaign issue, and good for Republicans.  We hope a Republican president in 2025 reverses the Biden mistake.

February 15, 2021       Permalink

IN THE WAKE OF IMPEACHMENT – AT 7:52 P.M. ET:  It's President's Day.  It's also the first Monday after the farcical Senate trial of a private citizen who used to be president.  And what do we find?

We find a Democratic Party so removed from reality that it wants to continue pursuing Trump.  They'll find a way, and leave the governing to a president surrounded by the failed emissaries of Barack Obama. 

But on the Republican side, despite some bitter disagreements, I actually see a new energy, a determination to drive the party to victory in 2022.  Republicans have been divided and contentious at other times, leading Ronald Reagan, even before becoming president, to enunciate the "11th Commandment" for the party – thou shalt not speak ill of any other Republican.  The party got it together and put Reagan in the White House in 1980. 

Republicans in Congress are now demanding an accounting from Nancy Pelosi about what she knew, and when she knew, of the impending violence that struck Washington on January 6th.  This will not go away.  It's time we started questioning the self-righteous Democrats about their role in the upheavals that have struck this country in the last year, the Washington episode being only one. 

And in New York, we have a fascinating situation.  The man recently crowned "American's governor" by a fawning press is now revealed for what he really is – a deceitful two-face, a monumental incompetent in the battle against a raging pandemic.  This will grow.  Even Democrats are now getting on the anti-Andy bandwagon.  From Fox: 

Embattled Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo admitted Monday that he should have moved sooner to release relevant data related to COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes amid mounting criticism of his administration’s handling of the scandal.

In his first press conference since reports surfaced that his office underreported or withheld critical information on nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic, Cuomo said all relevant information was "fully, publicly and accurately reported." When asked if he felt the need to apologize, the New York governor said his team’s failure to publicly address concerns created a "void" that allowed the spread of "conspiracy theories."

"We made a mistake in creating the void," Cuomo said. "We made a mistake in creating the void when we didn't provide information, it allowed press people, cynics, politicians to fill a void."

Cuomo has faced calls to resign since the Associated Press reported his administration had significantly underreported the number of recovering COVID-19 patients who were sent back to nursing homes to recover under a controversial order he implemented last March. The Associated Press found that nearly 15,000 long-term care patients died of COVID-19 at nursing homes, up from the roughly 8,500 deaths previously disclosed.

Criticism intensified after Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admitted during a private call that the administration withheld data requested by New York State legislatures because they worried it could be "used against us" by the Justice Department under then-President Donald Trump.

Revelations regarding the withheld data triggered a bipartisan outcry, with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio among the local lawmakers who have called for Cuomo to be stripped of his emergency powers. Lawmakers granted Cuomo sweeping authority to enact orders and alter laws without legislative approval at the pandemic’s onset last March.

When asked about the push to remove his emergency powers, Cuomo noted the state legislature could overrule any of his executive actions by vote, but had yet to do so since the pandemic began.
Cuomo argued a "toxic political environment" has contributed to the backlash against his administration in recent days. The governor said his team "paused" a state request for data in order to focus on fulfilling the Justice Department’s request.

COMMENT:  The evolving scandal is becoming a press scandal as well, with observers asking how the press could have not realized something very bad was going on.  Press bias is showing its ugly face, and demonstrating how damaging it really is.

There is talk among Republicans of removing Cuomo from office.  I doubt it will happen, but I doubt Cuomo has much of a future in politics.  He loved basking in the sun of favorable TV coverage.  Now he faces the darkness of political abandonment.  He will not be president.  Presiding over needless death is not a qualification for office.

February 15, 2021       Permalink

FEBRUARY 14,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT

FASCINATING – FROM THE HILL:    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted former President Trump's daughter-in-law Lara will benefit from his second acquittal in an impeachment trial this weekend.   "The biggest winner of this whole impeachment trial is Lara Trump," Graham said on "Fox News Sunday." "My dear friend Richard Burr, who I like and have been friends to a long time, just made Lara Trump almost the certain nominee for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace him if she runs, and I’ll certainly be behind her because she represents the future of the Republican Party.”  Burr, a Republican senator who is retiring,  voted to convict Trump on Saturday on the sole article of inciting an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol earlier this year.  I've seen and heard Lara Trump in speechmaking mode.  She's terrific.  Bright, articulate, knowledgeable.  She could win, but much depends on how the Trump name will play in North Carolina.

I'M SO SHOCKED – FROM FOX:   Minneapolis on Friday backtracked on its original push to defund the city’s police department in the wake of George Floyd’s police custody death after residents begged the city to hire more officers, citing longer response times and increased violent crime.  The City Council on Friday voted unanimously to approve $6.4 million in additional funding that police had requested.  The department says it only has 638 officers available to work — roughly 200 fewer than usual. An unprecedented number of officers quit or went on extended medical leave after Floyd's death and the unrest that followed.  With new recruit classes, the city anticipates it will have 674 officers available at the end of the year, with another 28 in the hiring process, the Star Tribune reported.  I'm shocked that fewer officers have resulted in higher crime.  Why, what true intellectual would think that?

February 14, 2021       Permalink

THE TRIAL IS OVER, THE MADNESS CONTINUES – AT 4:30 P.M. ET:  The Democrats will move on to find some new way to hate Donald Trump.  The Republicans will try to keep their party together.  From Fox: 

There was a palpable sense of relief in Washington as the Trump impeachment trial came to a chaotic but final end. The verdict is in so now the vilification can begin.

Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., immediately weaponized the verdict and demonized those who voted to acquit. While the Democrats insisted that all senators should "vote their conscience," that only meant if their conscience supported their side. Pelosi denounced opposing senators as cowards while Schumer lashed out at them for holding an opposing view of the evidence or the process.

While groups are targeting members on both sides, our leaders should be calling for unity and civility after the trial. Instead, they are fueling the politics of division.

CNN and other media followed suit. While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., denounced former President Trump and said that he could still be held accountable for any crimes, CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash immediately followed his speech by denouncing him as hypocritical.

There was nothing hypocritical in denouncing Trump's conduct as "unconscionable" while also maintaining that the trial was unconstitutional. What Democratic members and commentators would not accept is that anyone could hold opposing views on these questions and not be a shill or coward.

Welcome to unity in 2020. It remains unity on our terms or else. The "or else" was made clear to Trump's defense counsel soon after the verdict. Attorney Michael Van der Veen's home was vandalized. Other lawyers have faced harassment and threats after campaigns targeting them by groups like The Lincoln Project for representing Trump or Republicans.

The media quickly reinforced the rejection of any possibility that senators could have voted their conscience. CNN reporter Abby Phillip stated as a fact that there is no real argument that a former president cannot be tried for impeachment. Thus, any vote on that basis was dishonest and craven.

As with past coverage, the hosts simply ignored professors, judges and legendary figures like Justice Joseph Story who have argued against retroactive trials. Moreover, many academics who have studied this issue (including myself) have said that it is extremely close. While we all reach conclusions, most of us have stated that people of good faith can disagree on where the default should be on the question.

That however is not what CNN viewers were told. Phillip and her colleagues insisted that there is no real debate – as did the House managers. Thus, anyone voting with the view of figures like Justice Story are liars or cowards or lying cowards. You choose.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  The author, Jonathan Turley, a law professor, has been a perceptive and fair-minded observer of the impeachment process, and once participated in an impeachment trial.

February 14, 2021         Permalink