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SEPTEMBER 10,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

YOU MEAN, WE HAVE A MOMENT OF TRUTH? – FROM FOX:    Portland, Oregon, city leaders used a "hands off" approach Aug. 22 when groups of armed protesters clashed in the city – but on Wednesday Mayor Ted Wheeler admitted it was "not the right strategy."  "It is clear, based on the public outcry, on the media outcry, on the national front, that that strategy was not the right strategy," Wheeler said during a Portland City Council meeting, according to The Associated Press.  "I think we can all acknowledge that," he added. "I take full responsibility for it."  He said Portland was still "trying to find the right recipe" for handling riots – seeking a solution somewhere between an "overwhelming police presence" and restrained law enforcement, the AP reported.  State lawmakers representing the northeast section of the city spoke out against the decision to keep police from intervening in the clash between crowds from the political left and right.  Local residents also claimed they felt "terrorized and abandoned" as rioters in helmets and gas masks – and some armed with baseball bats and chemical guns – confronted each other.  A spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau said authorities monitored the clash from an airplane, the AP reported.  Gee, even the fashionably left mayor of Moscow on the Pacific concedes that those crazy right-wing nuts might have been accurate – you have to confront violence and snuff it out.   Psychiatry rarely does the trick.

September 10,  2010     Permalink

HOW TO LOSE – OVERNIGHT:  The people of California will vote this week on whether to retain Gavin Newsom as governor, or recall him.  There will be two questions on the ballot.  The first asks voters whether the governor should be recalled.  If the vote is no, the contest is over.   If the vote is yes, voters will go on to the second question, choosing the next governor from a list of those Republicans and others running.  Frankly, it doesn't look very good for our side, which is a major disappointment.  From The Hill: 

California voters appear poised to deliver a solid endorsement of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) as opposition to the recall election mounts and Democratic voters return ballots at a rapid pace.

A new survey conducted by the University of California-Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies for the Los Angeles Times shows 60 percent of California voters would reject the recall, while just 39 percent say they will support removing Newsom from office.

Those results show a substantial change from late July, when just 50 percent said they would vote to retain Newsom and 47 percent said they would vote to oust him a year before his term expires.

It is the latest in a series of polls that show opposition to the recall growing in the closing weeks as Newsom and his allies blanket the airwaves and mount a furious get-out-the-vote effort.

Polls released in recent weeks by SurveyUSA and the Public Policy institute of California both show opposition to the recall expanding over previous surveys from the same firms. New polls from Suffolk University and YouGov, the first time those firms have sampled California voters, also show Newsom surviving the recall by wide margins.

Pollsters, and both Democratic and Republican strategists, say the landscape in California has changed with the emergence of conservative radio host Larry Elder as the most prominent Republican challenging Newsom. Newsom’s campaign has focused on Elder’s opposition to mask mandates and vaccine mandates and tied him to former President Donald Trump, who lost California by a huge margin.

 “In the early going it was probably more about whether they liked Newsom or not. It was personalized,” Berkeley pollster Mark Di Camillo told the Los Angeles Times. Making Elder the face of the opposition, he said, “changed the whole dynamic of the vote.”

Elder remains the favored candidate of voters who will choose a candidate to replace Newsom, the second question on a two-part ballot. Just over a third, 38 percent, said they would back Elder; 10 percent said they would favor Kevin Paffrath, a Democrat who dispenses financial advice on YouTube and the only other candidate to top double digits.

COMMENT:  A classic variation on the old adage that you can't beat somebody with nobody.  Newsom has done an awful job.  He has the intellectual maturity of a 12-year-old.  California is a mess.  As the story notes, Californians were heading toward a position where removing the governor looked quite possible.  But if you're going to recall a governor, you'd better have a high-profile, magnetic candidate to replace him.  Larry Elder is a nice guy, and a good talk-show host, but he doesn't fit the picture of a man riding in on a white horse to save the state.  Apparently, most Californians feel they'd rather stay with what they have.   The devil they know.

This is a great opportunity lost.  If California could be flipped, it would be the political story of the year, maybe even the decade.  But Republicans in California, like Republicans in New York, have gotten used to losing.  They're comfy with  it.  Not much fight in those veins.

We have to do better, and not assume that the 2022 midterms are in the bag.  Democrats fight back, and they have the media with them.   We should accept that it will be very tough to return both houses of Congress to the Republican column, and fight accordingly.  It can be done.

September 10,  2021     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 9,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

VIGILANCE – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  New York City is preparing for an “elevated threat environment” on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Saturday because of the recent Kabul airport bombing and increased al Qaeda propaganda, though there are currently no specific threats, officials said.  “We have developed a robust security overlay for the upcoming ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks,” Martine Materasso, chief of the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau, said Wednesday during the mayor’s daily press briefing.  “We will be using all of our counterterrorism resources to ensure a safe event,” she added.  Those tools include explosive detection canines, uniformed police presence by the former site of the Twin Towers, heavy weapons teams, explosives detection instruments, a bomb squad at the site, license plate readers, radiological and chemical sensors and surveillance cameras.  The NYPD takes these things seriously.  I wonder if the Biden administration does.  Biden will be visiting all three 9-11 attack sites.  It will be interesting to see the kind of reception he receives. 

MADNESS – FROM BREITBART:  Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) says President Joe Biden is seeking to execute a plan that would give “unlimited green cards” to unvetted Afghans evacuated from Afghanistan in recent weeks.  As Breitbart News reported on Wednesday, Biden turned the fast-track citizenship for Afghans plan into a budget request to Congress.  The request asks Congress to allow Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to give green cards, and eventually naturalized American citizenship, to at least 50,000 Afghans by waiving standard vetting procedures.  Cotton slammed the request as “just another chapter in Biden’s rolling fiasco of an Afghanistan policy” in a statement.  Cotton’s office said the Biden plan would allow “any Afghans who come to the United States over at least the next year to obtain green cards, backdated to the day they entered the country, without completing the normal refugee screening or approval process” while also not counting the Afghans against annual refugee caps.  The security risk to our country is vast in such a lax process, but the political left will rejoice.  More Democratic voters.  The Dems have a remarkable capacity to benefit from any disaster.

September 9, 2021       Permalink

HOW MANY MORE DISGRACES LIKE THIS MUST WE ACCEPT? – OVERNIGHT:  Even our founding documents are under threat from the crazed militants who have infiltrated into our government.   From Fox: 

FIRST ON FOX: Members of the National Archives' task force on racism have recommended removing the "charters of freedom" description for America’s founding documents, such as the Constitution, arguing that it did not initially grant freedom for all individuals.

Approximately 800 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) employees from across the country attended a town hall meeting of the Archives’ Task Force on Racism on May 11, according to FOIA documents obtained by America Rising and shared with Fox News.

During the presentation, a museum subgroup recommended that NARA "retire" the term "charters of freedom" as descriptors for the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence.

"We should retire the term charters of freedom and remove it from our web pages, publications and exhibits because, as we learned, these documents did not result in freedom for everyone," said one presenter, whose name was redacted.

Another presenter of the same museum subgroup, whose name was also redacted, said members were tasked with recommending policies and procedures that "ensure that everyone feels welcomed, included and represented at our museums and presidential libraries."

The presenter told a story about a Black congressional staffer who took issue with the "charters of freedom" label, which currently appears on the Archives' website and in exhibits.

"It happened during a tour of the Rotunda led by the congressional office," the presenter said, according to a transcript of the event. "During this tour, the leader referred to the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights as the charters of freedom, which many of us often do.

It was at this point that one of the tour members, a Black congressional staffer, turned to him and said, ‘Those are not my charters of freedom.’

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  In what way will any minority child benefit from this tearing down of our history?  We know we're not perfect.   Indeed, the preample to the Constitution calls for a "more perfect" union.  It does not assume automatic perfection.   But we also know that we're a great nation, and a major force for good in the world.  Why do so many millions, of all races, want to come to the United States?  Are they all misinformed?  Have they been watching the wrong movies?   

It is sickening to see how this nation is being torn down from within.  And the American press is so very silent.  They will pay a price.

September 9, 2021       Permalink