Still a Bankrupt Message

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Rahm Emanuel, late of the Obama White House and the Chicago Mayor’s Mansion, wrote of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s golden opportunity in the Tuesday Wall Street Journal‘s editorial pages.

Many of his points are valid, and Republicans and Conservatives ignore them at their and our nation’s peril. But then he closed his piece with this:

The next 10 months will be about branding Republicans in Congress as Mr Trump’s enablers. Beyond that, we need to focus on speaking to the interests and sensibilities of those who considered or took the Faustian bargain Mr Trump offered them last year and are uncomfortable today with all the chaos they got in return for little economic benefit.

Here is the Republicans’ and Conservatives’ golden opportunity, if they will find some backbone and make use of it. Enablers. Faustian bargain. Branding. This is Party’s sole and constantly delivered message: everything anti-Trump, and those not for Party are just ignorant or foolish or both. Party is against a man and against millions of average Americans.

Party has not a word, not a syllable, about the policies its members would work for and how those policies would strengthen our nation and its security and increase the prosperity of us citizens. [S]peaking to the interests and sensibilities of those who are so ignorant or foolish as to be suckered by the man on which Party focuses its enmity? And say what, exactly? Even as Emanual warns his Party against its common error of smug “I told you so,” here he is recommending Party do exactly that. Addressing the interests and sensibilities of those he says are disgruntled or uncomfortable says nothing about what Party would intend to do to satisfy those disgruntlements.

Republicans’ and Conservatives’ golden opportunity consists of this, and it’s simple and straightforward. Don’t get sucked into a contest of personal opprobrium. Point out Party’s focus on the empty ad hominem of personal opprobrium, briefly; point out the lack of policies and policy goals on which Party campaigns, briefly. Then spend the large bulk of their messaging on their own policies and policy goals; how those enhance our nation and especially the lives of us citizens, individually and as groups; and be specific, fleshing out the glittering generalities with the specifics of carrying them out and the specific, measurable benefits to Americans that would ensue, including anticipated time frames for their coming to fruition and any pain points that might come from the transitions to those goals.

Being specific, of course, invites criticism and attack; staying with glittering generalities ducks them. This is where the backbones of Republicans and Conservatives come in, backbones that too many claiming to be Republican or Conservative have for too long lacked. Specifics are necessary to make the claims concrete and so to attract voters. This is where these wonders must, finally, step up.

Jumping the Gun

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The headline is…optimistic.

China Loses a Foothold in Panama

The headline heads off an op-ed centered on the Panamanian Supreme Court ruling that the contracts giving management of, and so control over, the Panama Canal ports to CK Hutchison’s Panama Ports Co unconstitutional, and so illegitimate.

That’s a good, solid step in the right direction, but follow through is required.

CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd, which owns Panama Ports Co, which in turn is the owner of the port concessions at either end of the Panama Canal, has not withdrawn its subsidiary, nor has it withdrawn itself. Both are People’s Republic of China companies, and so both are obligated to the PRC government and to that government’s intelligence community.

The PRC does still control the canal, and it will until CK Hutchison and Panama Ports are both gone.

Cancel Culture of the Left

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Education Secretary Linda McMahon was scheduled to speak and interact with children and their parents via an appearance at McKinley Elementary School in Fairfield, CT. Within hours of DoEd’s announcement of the visit, the school canceled the visit. Fairfield Superintendent of Schools Michael Testani [ellipsis in the original]:

…we heard from many families who expressed concerns and shared that they were considering keeping their children home[.]

The editors of the Hearst Connecticut Media crowed:

The appearance was billed as part of the US Education Department’s “History Rocks Tour!” aspiring to visit all 50 states on America’s 250th anniversary.
History does rock. And on this day, Fairfield, Connecticut, was on the right side of history.

This would have been a excellent opportunity for the kids and their parents to have heard thoughts with which they’re not familiar (at least the kids are not) and to interact with, ask questions of, and express their own concerns to the leading government official overseeing so many facets of American education systems.

Instead, this is the school’s management team’s, backed by news opinionators, terror of folks of whom he disapproves saying things of which he disapproves.

The editors added this in their piece:

We don’t know precisely what concerns were expressed.

Nor do they know how many of those parents actually were concerned. Testani chose to not make that datum public, either.

That didn’t stop these worthies, though, from clutching their faux pearls and celebrating another “success” at avoiding hearing a differing opinion.

Reapportionment

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There is a flurry of domestic migration from Blue States to other States, usually Red. That could prove costly to the Blue States’ representation in the US House of Representatives.

The left-leaning Brennan Center has taken a look at the Census and finds Democratic-controlled states are likely to lose at least 10 House seats.
If recent trends in population growth and migration continue, the Brennan Center projects that Texas would gain four seats, Florida three, and Georgia, Arizona, Utah, North Carolina, and Idaho one each in the reapportionment after the 2030 Census. California would lose four, and New York two. Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island would give up one apiece.
This would give Southern states 164 House seats, which is 19 more than in the 2000s. The Northeast would have 81 seats, down from 92.

That representation reallocation isn’t all. That’s also a shift of Electoral College votes from Blue States to Red to the tune of 30 votes shifting right.

Which is why the Progressive-Democrats are so shrilly against requiring US citizenship as a criterion for voting in Federal elections, requiring proof of US citizenship in order to get a ballot for Federal elections, and—especially—against excluding non-citizens present in their States from the census count that’s used for apportionment. It’s also why Progressive-Democrats so shrilly push for open US borders and welcoming all comers, including illegal aliens, into their jurisdictions. If they succeed in keeping non-citizens in the apportionment count and blocking Voter ID, that would strongly favor apportionment toward them, even with the ongoing domestic outmigration from those States.

Progressive-Democrats are more interested in their political power than they are in free and fair elections.

Stop Wasting Time Arguing the Matter

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Hillary and Bill Clinton have ignored Congressional subpoenas to testify under oath at deposition(s) before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding the Epstein Files matter, and they are currently being considered for Contempt of Congress and referral to DoJ for prosecution.

Now the Clintons’ lawyers are dickering over mechanisms for getting some of their testimony, and Committee Chairman James Comer (R, KY) has rejected the lawyers’ latest stall effort offer.

It’s long past time, I say, to stop wasting time arguing this inarguable matter. The Clintons are bound by law—those subpoenas—to appear and sit for the depositions.

The Committee, through its Chairman, should invoke the precedent set by Jurney v MacCracken and send the Capital Police to arrest the Clintons and hold them in House custody until they agree to be deposed as subpoenaed and do, in fact, sit for those depositions.

Stop wasting time arguing with obstinate intransigents.

Update: since I wrote this and scheduled it for posting.

Attorneys for the Clintons said their clients would “appear for depositions on mutually agreeable dates” and requested the lower chamber not to move forward with its contempt vote on Wednesday.
“They negotiated in good faith. You did not,” spokesmen for the Clintons said in a statement. “They told under oath what they know, but you did not care. But the former president and former secretary of state will be there.”

That’s an improvement, but there’s no need for “mutually agreeable dates.” There’s no need for anything beyond setting a date and haling the Clintons, via Jurney if needs be, in should they choose to ignore the new date. The House should proceed with its contempt vote this morning, just in case. The House can easily rescind its contempt finding should the Clintons actually appear for the depositions.

And: there being nothing to negotiate, there can have been no bad faith negotiation by anyone.

One last thing: the Clintons should testify separately, not at the same time.

Update update: Success. The Clintons have agreed to sit for their depositions on 26 and 27 Feb, they will be closed door (which supports a no holds barred and no time limits imposed) transcribed, filmed, and last as long as the House deems necessary for each of them. Even more important, the reason for the two days is that they’ll be deposed separately: Hillary on 26 Feb and Bill on 27 Feb,.