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JUNE 10,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

ANOTHER WIN FOR FLORIDA – FROM BIZPACREVIEW:  The Florida Board of Education has officially said no to a form of critical race theory in public schools.  Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Republicans opposed the divisive curriculum, which they consider a form of far-left indoctrination.  The newly adopted rule, which occurred after a four-hour meeting Thursday in Jacksonville, where about 30 speakers on both sides participated, does not specifically mention critical race theory per se, but the messaging about how U.S. history, civics, and government should be taught is definitive.  The rule reads: “Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”  It also clarifies the role of teachers in that they “serve as facilitators for student discussion and do not share their personal views or attempt to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view.”  In addressing the state board this morning via a remote hookup, DeSantis similarly said, “We have to do history that is factual. I think it’s important that when we’re doing things like history that it’s grounded in actual fact over narrative…We need to be educating people, not trying to indoctrinate them.” A win for parents and children, and a loss for the militant left.  Ron DeSantis again proves himself to be presidential material. 

AND IN THE REAL WORLD – FROM REUTERS:   Russia is preparing to provide Iran with an advanced satellite that would enable it to track potential military targets across the Middle East, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.  The satellite is projected to have the ability to track long-range targets, including IDF bases, as well as oil refineries throughout the Persian Gulf and Iraqi bases for US troops. The plan would deliver a Russian-made Kanopus-V satellite equipped with a high-resolution camera which could be launched from Russia within months, the Post said.  The report was published days before US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Geneva and as Iran and the United States are engaged in indirect talks on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal designed to put curbs on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for easing economic sanctions.  The satellite would allow "continuous monitoring of facilities ranging from Persian Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases to Iraqi barracks that house US troops," said the paper, which cited three unnamed sources - a current and a former US official and a senior Middle Eastern government official briefed on the sale.   A Russian slap in our face just before Biden meets Putin.  And a very dangerous military development.  We look forward to seeing how President Biden handles this.  Badly, I'll guess, and we'll be seen as losing.

June 10, 2021       Permalink

THEY ARE FIGHTING AMONG THEMSELVES – I LOVE IT! – OVERNIGHT:    The Democratic Party is truly a mess.  Its members seem to realize that the president is barely functioning, the vice president works at a student government level, the Democrats in the House are paralyzed by lovers of Comrade Stalin, and the Dems in the Senate have a one-vote majority, and that vote is Joe Manchin.  This is not a prescription for happiness.  It is a convention of comedians who've been rejected by their mothers.  Oh, I mean birthing persons.  Consider their latest brawl on the Washington mall.  From Fox: 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., issued a strong rebuke of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership for their statement calling out fellow Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar for her comments involving Israel.

"Freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress," Tlaib tweeted Thursday shortly after Pelosi and Democratic leaders issued a statement critical of Omar. "The benefit of the doubt doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress. House Democratic leadership should be ashamed of its relentless, exclusive tone policing of Congresswomen of color."

The endless playing of the race, gender and Muslim cards is becoming tedious.

Tlaib and Omar were the first Muslim women elected to Congress in 2018 and, along with other members of the progressive Squad, have been more critical of Israel, especially during the recent 11-day conflict with Hamas that left more than 250 dead, the vast majority Palestinians.

The Squad rallied around Omar Thursday as fellow Democrats, including House leadership, have lined up to condemn Omar for comments they perceived as comparing U.S. and Israeli "war crimes" to actions by the Taliban and Hamas.

Pelosi and senior Democratic leaders issued a unified statement Thursday, denouncing Omar's comments.

"[T]here is no moral equivalency between the U.S. and Israel and Hamas and the Taliban," the Democratic leaders said Thursday.

The Democratic leadership said they "welcome" the "clarification" Omar released earlier in the day after the Minnesota Democrat was met with a flood of criticism.

COMMENT:  The Squad is the most extreme group in the modern history of Congress.  Its members are unashamedly anti-American and anti-Israel.  Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, possibly the most extreme, has nothing good to say about her adopted country, the United States.  The Squad's godmother, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, contributes virtually nothing to her district and is deeply disliked by her more moderate colleagues.  Her actual influence in Congress is near-zero, but she has a national following that the party can't ignore.

In the 2022 election campaign, the GOP will try to link as many Democrats as possible to the Squad and its comrades.  It's clear that many Dems are running scared, fearing that they will be swept under by their party's embrace of losers like critical race theory and cancel culture.  The party is now engaged in a growing civil war.  Republicans are almost serene compared to the warring Dems.

June 10, 2021       Permalink

JUNE 9,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

KAMMIE, WHAT HAPPENED? – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Biden administration officials are “quietly perplexed” about Vice President Harris’ fumbling multiple questions about the border and are concerned her unforced errors will overshadow her first international trip, according to a report.  Speaking to CNN, administration officials discussed how the question of visiting the border dogged Harris for the whole trip, with her answer to NBC News’s Lester Holt stealing the spotlight from her work.  “At some point, you know, we are going to the border,” a defensive Harris told Holt on “Today” in Guatemala — 1,308 miles away from the southern U.S.-Mexico crossing. “We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border, we’ve been to the border,” Harris said, to which Holt replied, “You haven’t been to the border.”
Biden officials are worried that Harris’s clumsy news conference will overshadow her first international trip as vice president.  Harris, seeming to laugh at her own joke, responded: “And I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”
Administration officials told CNN there was “a real hope” that the trip would be a success, and voiced their concern that “what looked like ill-prepared answers to that inevitable question would overshadow it.” When you choose public officials based on the groups they're from, rather than their ability and experience, this is what happens.

WISDOM – FROM FOX:   A magazine editor explained on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday why he's reconsidering whether to hire Ivy league graduates.  "I would just say that 10 years ago I would have seen that as a big positive on their resume and now I see it as a negative that they have to overcome in the interview because obviously there are going to be great kids all over in higher [education] at different schools," said the editor of "First Things" magazine, Rusty Reno.  Reno said back then, the negative tendencies of Ivy League graduates was that they had a "sense of entitlement" and "arrogance."  "They want to write the lead editorial on day one rather than proofread. But, hey, you can work with that. Because it reflects positives, which are confidence and ambition. These are good things." Reno said.  However, most of the worldviews of Ivy league graduates have changed over the years, Reno argued.  "Now, I'm seeing these young people that they have, to be frank, a kind of a distorted view of reality," Reno said.  Read the whole thing.  Reno says what many think. 

June 9, 2021      Permalink

A WARNING – COMING SOON TO A PLACE NEAR YOU – OVERNIGHT:  Chicago once again serves as a tragic indicator, as crime starts spreading beyond the city, striking first in the expressways leading to the once peaceful suburbs.  From CBS Local:

CHICAGO (CBS) — Expressway shootings are becoming so common around Chicago that there are now more than 10 a month on average.

One of those bullets narrowly missed a northwest suburban man. He spoke exclusively to CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov about what saved his life.

“Just a madman, you know, tried to ram the back of my car several times,” the man said.

That is how he said his expressway ordeal, began last August – with little warning as he and his new fiancée were driving west on Interstate 290 near Thorndale Avenue in Itasca.

“I was just completely caught off guard,” the man said.

But his car’s cameras caught the shooting – capturing the driver of a Nissan Altima flashing his lights and then pulling up beside the victim. The suburban man, who wanted his identity hidden, said he rolled down his window to ask if there was a problem.

“He’s not saying anything. He’s just looking at me, and from there, he lifted up a gun. He already had his finger on the trigger,” the man said. “As he’s rotating it, I’m able to slam on my brakes – and he fired.”

Gunsmoke appears in the security video. The bullet lodged in the door, just below the driver’s side mirror.

“It’s scary,” the man said. “I mean if I didn’t have the camera footages and have his license plates, I’m thinking that people can get away with this.”

And indeed the shooters do get away with it.

A spokesperson for the Illinois State Police said since the beginning of 2020, there have been more than 220 shootings on Chicago area expressways. But there have been only 3 arrests. One of them in this victim’s case

After a nine-month investigation, 26-year-old Micaro Masri was charged with the aggravated discharge of a firearm – a felony – last month. He was out on bond as of Tuesday night.

“I want more eyes to be on him,” the man who was fired upon said. “I want more eyes on all the shooters.”

That is the goal of a multimillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded expressway camera system that was supposed to be up and running more than a year ago.

We have reported extensively on the delays – even asking Gov. JB Pritzker about it last week.

“I am frustrated,” Pritzker said in the interview this past Thursday.

But neither he nor Illinois State Police can give us a date when all 600 cameras will be operational.

COMMENT:  We're moved that the governor is frustrated.  I'm sure the people who drive those expressways are even more frustrated, some of them are going to be dead unless Illinois sharpens its law enforcement.  But how can that be done when woke politicians are trying to defund, not expand, the police?

We have ample warnings that violent crime is moving outward from cities to suburbs.  Where is the outcry?  Indeed, where is our own side?  Republicans, get moving!

June 9, 2021       Permalink