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JUNE 22,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

A WARNING – FROM DAILY MAIL:   Russia's defense ministry has announced it sank an aircraft carrier just 35 miles off the coast of Hawaii in a huge war games exercise that has alarmed the US.   At least 20 Russian warships, submarines, and support vessels, flanked by 20 fighter jets, are taking part in the exercises - the biggest since the Cold War.   Russia says that they are 300 miles off the coast of Hawaii, yet unconfirmed satellite images from June 19 appear to show them much closer - within 35 miles of the U.S. state.  Russia says their forces are at a distance of about 2,500 miles southeast of the Kuril Islands.   The location would correspond broadly with reports from U.S. media channels that Russian warships were conducting their maneuvers between 300 and 500 miles west of the main Hawaiian islands, The Drive reported.  Their actions have alarmed the Pentagon.  Twice this month - on June 14 and 18 - the U.S. scrambled F-22s from Hawaii in response to Russian bomber flights.  Neither time did the bombers enter the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) perimeter, and so they were not intercepted.  On June 17 the Navy admitted that the USS Carl Vinson and her strike group were operating near Hawaii, without revealing when they had arrived, or why.   Anyone in Washington interested?  Or are we still fighting over voter I.D.?  Russia now joins China as a threat to the United States in the Pacific.  Notice the deep concern in the American media.  This news report came to us from Britain's Daily Mail.

IS IOWA AN INDICATOR?  FROM FOX:  President Biden's approval rating among voters in the state of Iowa has plummeted in recent months.  More Iowans disapprove of the job Biden is doing than approve – Biden has a 43% approval rating and 52% disapproval rating, according to a recent Des Moines  Register/Mediacom Iowa poll. Five percent of people polled said they are not sure whether they approve or disapprove.  Vice President Harris faced similar numbers. Fifty percent expressed disapproval of Harris' job performance compared to 42% who approved.  Biden's job approval numbers among Republican versus Democratic Iowans are miles apart. Eighty-nine percent of Democrats approve of Biden compared to just 6% of Republicans, according to the June Iowa poll.   Iowa is an early primary state.  State polls are often indicators that presidents or candidates are in some trouble.  National polls can take time to catch up.

June 22, 2021       Permalink

LATE WORD FROM THE NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL PRIMARY – OVERNIGHT: 

Vote counting has stopped for the night in the Democratic primary, with Eric Adams, the only candidate advocating anything close to a law-and-order policy, leading.  Adams, an African American with a police background, has about 31 percent of the primary vote.  About nine points behind is AOC's hand-picked radical leftist, Maya Wiley, who was a virtual unknown before Ocasio-Cortez anointed her.  Wiley is quite the image of the woke white New Yorker – fabulously wealthy, with a private security detail, yet talks about disarming the police, which serves the peasantry.

New York is now using something called "ranked choice" voting, an invention that few voters asked for, which allows the voter to name his or her first five choices for mayor.  Unless a candidate gets more than 50 percent in tonight's first round, which looks impossible at the moment, the new mechanism goes into action.  Through magic calculations reflecting the dark mystery of big-city politics,  the new system will determine the actual winner of the primary by combining first, second, and third choices.  I don't quite understand it, and have my serious suspicions.

What happens in the Democratic Party here will affect party thinking around the country.  If Adams pulls out an ultimate win in the primary and becomes the Dem nominee, he will almost certainly be the next mayor.   That will be a huge rebuke to the woke crowd and send a signal that New Yorkers are tired of crime and decline.  But if Wiley pulls an upset, it will vastly advance the power and prestige of AOC, lurching the party even further to the left.   Such a victory could even encourage Ocasio-Cortez to challenge U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is up for re-election next year.  A victory by Ocasio-Cortez over a Senate giant would probably split the Democratic Party and force the formation of a new center-left party.  It might also hurry the exodus of citizens from New York, which now has the largest out-migration of any of the 50 states.

New York City is crawling back from the pandemic and the suicidal policies of current Mayor Bill de Blasio, a fan of Fidel Castro.  Voters have a choice between a better future and a Marxist present.  Adams is hardly my ideal, but he's the best candidate running.

Oh, what about the Republicans?  True to Republican New York tradition, they've pretty much given up before the general-election campaign begins.  They had a mayoral primary, won by anti-crime crusader Curtis Sliwa.   But the party bigs, or smalls, show little interest in Sliwa or in putting up a fight.  A good Republican could possibly win in a year when voters are desperate for personal safety, but there is no well-known figure, like Rudy Giuliani, on the horizon.

June 22, 2021       Permalink

JUNE 21,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

YOU TRULY CANNOT MAKE THIS UP – FROM BREITBART:  Portland ran a pricey full-page Sunday ad in the New York Times promoting tourism after the Portland police riot squad quit Thursday.  “Some of what you’ve heard about Portland is true. Some is not. What matters most is that we’re true to ourselves,” Travel Portland wrote in the ad that could have cost up to $250,000.  “You’ve heard a lot about us lately. It’s been a while since you heard from us,” it continues.  “After a year of encouraging visitors and locals to support small businesses here and from a distance, it’s time to issue an invitation to come back to Portland,” the ad states. “Two sides to the same coin that keeps landing right on its edge. Anything can happen. We like it this way.”  The ad also says “new ideas are welcome” in the city, a place where “you can be yourself.”  “This is the kind of place where new ideas are welcome — whether they’re creative, cutting-edge or curious at first glance. You can speak up here. You can be yourself here,” it continues.  The ad comes after Portland’s voluntary rapid response team of 50 resigned Thursday to protest charges against a police officer who allegedly hit an independent journalist in the Black Lives Matter riots that lit a federal building ablaze in August 2020.  I can see the new cocktail-party crowd rushing to buy their first-class air tickets to Portland, just to show that they're truly woke, and committed, and feeling, and understanding.  Add a couple of other words, will you?

HYPOCRISY, THY NAME IS WHITEHOUSE – FROM BIZPACREVIEW.COM:   Liberal Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is defending his decision to remain a member of an all-white exclusive club in his state, explaining that it’s one of many “traditions” and pledging that the club is working to expand to minorities.  “I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet,” he said in response to a question from a reporter at GoLocalProv.com.  Pressed for further explanation, Whitehouse added before being rushed away by a staffer, “It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island and there are many of them and I think we just need to work our way through the issues.”  It isn’t clear what issues he’s referring to, or what, specifically, the establishment — Bailey’s Beach Club — is doing to attract minorities.  The local outlet reported that Whitehouse pledged in 2006 to quit the elitist club after he won his first U.S. Senate term. He also pledged to leave the all-male, all-white Bellevue Avenue Reading Room.  Oh, don't worry, Shelly.  Nobody really cares.  They only pretend to care.  The whole thing will blow over in a few days, as long as you vote right. 

June 21, 2021       Permalink

OUR NEWLY STRANGE CORPORATIONS – OVERNIGHT:  We are in a time when Americans are justly asking about the state of just about every institution we have.  Can we depend on our institutions, especially the press and our universities?  Are the pillars of stability starting to crumble?  And what about corporations, who appear to be getting more and more involved in very public politics?  Where did this come from?  Is it dangerous?

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has written a fine piece questioning the new corporate role.  It's a fake, he says, and he won't make many friends saying it.  From the New York Post: 

I used to think corporate bureaucracy was bad because it’s inefficient. That’s true, but it’s not the biggest problem. Rather, there’s a new invisible force at work in the highest ranks of corporate America, one far more nefarious. It’s the defining scam of our time — one that robs you of not only your money, but your voice and your identity.

The con works like a magic trick, summed up well by Michael Caine’s character in the opening monologue in Christopher Nolan’s movie “The Prestige”:

“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called The Pledge. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. … The second act is called The Turn. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call The Prestige.”

Financial success in 21st-century America involves the same simple steps. First, the Pledge: You find an ordinary market where ordinary people sell ordinary things. The simpler, the better. Second, the Turn: You find an arbitrage in that market and squeeze the hell out of it. An arbitrage refers to the opportunity to buy something for one price and instantly sell it for a higher price to someone else. That much is well known.

But here’s the dirty little secret underlying the third step of corporate America’s act, its Prestige. Here’s how it works: Pretend like you care about something other than profit and power, precisely to gain more of each.

All great magicians master the art of distraction — flashing lights, smoke, beautiful women on stage. Today’s captains of industry do it by promoting progressive social values. Their tactics are far more dangerous for America than those of the older robber barons: Their do-good smoke screen expands not only their market power, but their power over every other facet of our lives. As a young 21st-century capitalist myself, the thing I was supposed to do was shut up and play along: Wear hipster clothes, lead via practiced vulnerability, applaud diversity and inclusion, and muse on how to make the world a better place at conferences in fancy ski towns. Not a bad gig.

The most important part of the trick was to stay mum about it. Now I’m violating the code by pulling back the curtain and showing you what’s really going on in corporate boardrooms across America.

Why am I defecting? I’m fed up with corporate America’s game of pretending to care about justice in order to make money. It is quietly wreaking havoc on American democracy.

COMMENT:  Definitely read the rest.  He provides a very good picture of what many have suspected – that all this corporate "woke" business is just that, business.  It has nothing to do with contributing to society.  It is a con in every sense, but a con with a great deal of money behind it.

June 21, 2021       Permalink