Tag Archives: political parties

Deliberate Insult?

Posted on by
Reply

Amid the hoo-raw over Hamas claiming to agree to a sham deal for a cease fire and Israel sending tanks into Rafah to secure the Gaza side of the border crossing there despite Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s order not to and his already withholding weapons shipments to Israel, there’s this tidbit:

An Israeli delegation, Hamas officials, mediators from Qatar, and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency arrived in Cairo for discussions on a cease-fire proposal from the militant group. CIA Director William Burns arrived there from Qatar….

Leave aside the WSJ‘s dishonesty in claiming Hamas terrorists are a militant group. Biden sent an underling from an agency that has no authority to conclude any sort of international agreement, nor any sort of agreement between nations and a terrorist network entity. The CIA has no such capacity in its portfolio, not even the Director. Biden has sent his SecState to prior such discussions, and he’s sent his SecDef to prior such discussions. These two do have authority to conclude diplomatic or military agreements. Biden chose, this time though, to send his head spy instead.

So: a calculated insult by Biden aimed at the man for whom he has such blatant and public disdain—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—or just another example of Biden’s oblivious incompetence?

(Aside: one outcome of the IDF’s seizing the Gaza side of the border crossing could be one of making safer and easier the entry into the Gaza Strip of humanitarian aid, done by isolating the terrorists from the entry point. Of course, the press and the Biden administration don’t want to mention that part.)

The Planned Racism of the Illinois State Legislature

Posted on by
Reply

An Illinois legislatively created commission established…to come up with ways to make appropriations to state universities more “equitable” has issued a report delineating how to achieve that.

…lawmakers would determine how much funding a school deserves. They would do this using a variable called the “adequacy target,” which takes into account the school’s mission and enrollment as well as the programs it offers. … Larger amounts would be set aside for groups the commission considers underenrolled—say, with a $6,000 bonus for each enrolled black student, $4,000 for each enrolled low-income student, and $2,000 for each enrolled rural student.

And

The commission pretends that universities charge different prices for different races. Specifically, the plan wants lawmakers to assume that universities will charge minority students a lower tuition rate than whites and Asians, regardless of income.

And so on.

No. This intrinsically racist plan will only codify the inability of minority students to compete in higher ed and subsequently in the work force and in the managerial teams that manage enterprise work forces.

To increase minorities’ educational opportunities and improve their education in Illinois’ colleges and universities, these legislators must lose their DEI sewage. Beyond that, they must take the currently politically unpopular steps of divesting themselves of their teachers unions yokes, and then move decisively to expand parents’ school choices by making K-12—kindergarten, elementary, junior high, and high school—charter and voucher schools, whether privately or publicly run, ubiquitous throughout the State.

And this: to the extent that Illinois insists on using its tax code for social engineering purposes, it should reallocate its existing tax collections toward having school-directed taxes follow the student rather than remaining trapped—along with minority students—in failing public schools. Beyond that, additional existing tax collections should be placed into a fund for providing education scholarships to all students whose parents wish to transfer their children out of failing schools and into different, better performing schools.

Waiting until post-high school to begin even to pretend to address educational failure is far too late to have any serious effect.

For Illinois, I’m not holding my breath.

Suckers

Posted on by
Reply

As the WSJ editors note, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is so desperate in his kowtowing to his terrorist-supporting Left and to the just as enthusiastically terrorist-supporting staff in his administration, that he’s gone so far as to hold up a weapons shipment for Israel. He’s anxiously trying to force Israel to agree a cease fire right damn now.

Meanwhile, he’s ignoring the simple fact that Hamas is demanding a permanent end to the war it began last October 7 and continues to prosecute. Biden also is ignoring that Hamas has walked away from the latest round of cease fire “negotiations” because Israel can’t agree to an end to a war that Hamas can only be trusted to resume.

We’re told that Hamas hasn’t budged on its negotiating demands, which include a permanent end to the war, not merely a cease-fire.

Israel is right on that. Hamas will never honor an agreement for a permanent end to the war: Hamas has promised October 7 attacks until Israel is destroyed. This is just Hamas playing Biden—and far too many others in his administration and in administrations in Europe—for the suckers they are.

Now, as I write this, in the moment Israel has warned Rafah residents to evacuate to a set-up-for-the-purpose humanitarian aid area in al-Masawi (roughly 3-4 miles north of Rafah and within a quarter mile of the sea coast) in advance of an imminent assault on the city, comes word that Hamas claims to have agreed a framework for a cease fire. But framework only, and with no mention of any hostage releases or trades.

That’s another Hamas sucker play.

Presidential Debates in 2024

Posted on by
Reply

Karl Rove wants a return to simplicity:

A return to simplicity would mean fewer diversions….

His idea for achieving this:

The first presidential debates between the parties’ nominees, Kennedy and Nixon in 1960, were done in small TV studios. Only the moderator, a panel of journalists, and a handful of network executives were present.

Except in 1960, the press wasn’t nearly so biased as it is today—and nakedly, proudly so today.

And a pressman moderator? Recall even in the 2015-16 Republican primary debates, how blatantly Moderator Wolf Blitzer, during that debate’s Audience Question Time, took the question that an audience member asked on national television and completely distorted it into something that Blitzer wanted asked instead.

Rove’s idea isn’t particularly balanced in its simplicity.

On the other hand, it’s hard to see how much simpler it could get than a two-hour debate in a town hall setting with Trump and Biden, and RFK, Jr, if he’d be willing to show up; Each debater would take turns taking questions from the audience that each debater then would answer. There would be no moderator from the press to screen the questions; the debaters would simply take their chances on selecting an audience member to ask his/her question.

The two hours would give the viewers and the town hall audience ample opportunity to evaluate policies on offer (if any); the ability of each debater to concretely answer the question asked, even to stick to each question’s subject over the two-hour course; and the ability of each debater to remain focused and clear for the duration.

Then do at least two more such town hall debates. Trump wants more debates than just the three the Commission on Presidential Debates, in its irrelevance, wants; it’d be interesting to learn how many of the other parties’ candidates would be amenable—and who those candidates would be.

Misguided

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal‘s subheadline summarizes the error.

Biden administration, rocked by a wave of protests at college campuses, needs Israel to cut a deal to stop the fighting

The article centers on Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Israel, among other visits in the Middle East, and Blinken’s Presidential charge to cut a deal with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to distract (my term) from the turmoil on so many American college and university campuses and that turmoil’s negative impact on Biden’s reelection chances.

The “deal” is this:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is beginning a visit to Israel to press for a cease-fire deal in the Gaza Strip….

Its relationship with campus turmoil is this:

…as protests against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip spread across US college campuses. Biden needs the Israeli leader to deliver a halt in fighting that could ease domestic pressure over the conflict.

No. The two are wholly unrelated, beyond the tangential point of contact between the disruptors’ claimed purpose and the war Israel is fighting for its own survival against the terrorist gang operating out of the Gaza Strip.

The disrupters—they’ve long since crossed the line between legitimate protest to disruption with their violence, vandalism, threats to murder “Zionists,” active blocking of students from attending class, demands (a toddler’s temper tantrum) that their positions be satisfied entirely and immediately—either are actively supporting the terrorists of Hamas or are toddlers (never mind chronological ages) throwing temper tantrums, and in either case, they are acting out their antisemitic bigotry.

College and university management teams need to stop condoning, if not actively supporting, these terrorist supporters’, bigots’, and toddlers’ behavior, and instead call in the campus and city police to eject them from campus, arrest them, and bring them to trial for their violence and threats of murder and their vandalism.

As a University of Florida spokesman said as UF started just these actions,

This is not complicated. The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children—they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences.

Not complicated at all. It may be that some managers are starting to do that, but it’s far too soon to say with any confidence.

With Israel engaged in its war for its existence, Biden needs to get out of Israel’s way and instead actively support it as it goes into Rafah and a couple of nearby villages to finally destroy Hamas, the terrorist gang that has promised an endless repetition of October 7s.