Interesting Items 05/20

Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information.  Enjoy –

In this issue:

1. Muslims
2. Abortion
3. Harvard
4. China
5. Harris
6. SF Raid
7. Species

1. Muslims. Much has been made on the right side of the political divide about the growing anti-Semitism in the democrat party in recent years.  It got really bad in 2018 when a Palestinian (Rashida Tlaib) was elected to the US House from Detroit, a Somali (Ilhan Omar) elected to the US House from Minneapolis both ended up in the defacto leadership of new congress critters in Pelosi’s newly reconstituted majority in the House.  Both ladies are virulently anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and no small part anti-American.  Both have spent the better part of the year making outrageous statements.  Tlaib was the most recent contestant, describing the Palestinian fantasy that Jesus was really a Palestinian who died at the hands of the Jews.  No surprise, as this is what she grew up with and was inculcated to believe as a child.  Given the almost universal, lockstep support of democrats by the secular Jewish community over the last 80 years or so, particularly on the coasts, one would wonder why the party leadership is putting up with this, especially when significant amounts of money used to come from wealthy Jewish donors.  I think I have an explanation, perhaps two of them.  Donations, fundraising, and other monies to democrat candidates have swung hard left in the last decade, particularly as democrats have become one with Silicon Valley.  They now rely on donations and support from a handful of billionaires for much of their money and those monies that used to come from the coastal Jewish donors are quickly becoming small fish.  We know from the Soros example what sort of mischief a single billionaire can wreak.  Imagine what 20 or 50 of them can do to this political system.  As to the voters, the lifelong Jewish supporters are aging out of the system and must be replaced.  Who replaces them?  How about the Muslims that Bush and O’Bama imported in from the Middle East?  Detroit is at the heart of a huge, growing, and virulently anti-American Muslim community.  Minneapolis is similar with an imported Somali community.  And the Muslims vote for democrats somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:1. They are young and need special help to turn out for elections.  I guarantee the democrats will make every effort to turn them out.  Pelosi and the democrats are pandering to the Muslims in an effort to flip Michigan back to democrat, costing Trump 16 electoral votes.  It is up to us to make sure they are not successful.  https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/443972-rep-tlaib-is-wrong-jews-were-never-given-a-safe-haven-in-palestine

 

2. Abortion. Georgia, Alabama and Missouri took legislative action that demonstrates the observation that the Laws of Physics apply to the political world, but as that world is a non-linear system, you rarely get an equal or opposite reaction.  All three states passed legislation all but banning abortions outside the life of the mother being at risk.  Alabama’s restriction was passed specifically to force the SCOTUS to take the case up and hopefully reverse Roe, sending the entire mess back down to the many states to figure out what to do via the political process.  All the usual suspects on the left were aghast.  The most intelligent response (and this is saying something) was actress Alyssa Milano’s call to not have sex until the Georgia law was repealed.  As history is written by those that show up, lefties failing to reproduce would be a feature rather than a bug.  But the discussion should go further.  Precisely what did the democrats and their media cheerleaders think the rest of us would do after passage of infanticide abortion legislation in NY, and attempted to pass in VA and VT?  Legislation that legalized what Kermit Gosnell was sent to jail for doing?  And after the cheers, applause and pink lights in buildings in NYC following passage of the NY legislation, what did they expect?  For the rest of us to simply lie back and take it?  Not hardly.  They have chosen this fight.  And are about to get it good and hard.  I hope they enjoy what they have chosen to start.  https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dan-gainor-alabama-abortion-law-other-legislation-has-liberal-media-letting-out-an-almost-primal-scream

 

3. Harvard. When you give yourself over to the outrage mob, all sorts of odd things are possible.  Harvard removed the Winthrop House Dean Ronald Sullivan who is representing Harvey Weinstein in his sexual harassment / sexual abuse trials.  The Dean, Harvard’s only black law school dean, is being punished for the sin of representing his client.  The very expensive education offered by Harvard has apparently failed its pre-law students completely.  It has also failed the Dean of the College, Rakesh Khurana who ordered the removal.  For their part, the students claimed that Sullivan’s very presence in Winthrop House was “trauma inducing,” that “he does not value the safety of students he lives with in Winthrop House,” and that he has made Harvard an unsafe and hostile educational environment.  Khurana foolishly gave into these demands a few weeks ago agreeing to an investigation and rendered his verdict.  In giving in to this idiocy, the Dean now agrees with the woke bullies that representing a sexual predator in court is the same as being a sexual predator.  This will only embolden the mob.  It also tells us which lawyers to never hire, starting with anyone who has graduated from Harvard since 2018.  https://reason.com/2019/05/12/ronald-sullivan-harvard-fired-student-mob/

 

4. China. Latest media-driven hysteria last week was reaction to tariffs Donald Trump announced on Chinese goods.  This was in response to typical underhanded Chinese reaction to the latest round of trade talks.  Essentially, the ChiComs agreed to a trade framework and then changed their minds.  Trump levies tariffs on around $200 billion of Chinese goods.  China responds with tariffs on $60 billion of US goods and Monday the stock market crashes, down by a mere 600+ points, losses far in excess of the total of goods tariffs are now being applied to.  At the center of it all is the media, pouring as much gasoline on the roaring fire as humanly possible.  As of this writing, the market bumped up regaining most of the losses.  This is typical ChiCom, agreeing to something, signing it (though no signature on this one yet), and doing whatever they want to do afterwards without fear of retaliation.  Trump is not playing that game after all.  And will not.  The thing the ChiComs need to figure out is how long they can afford to wait and play.  Can they make it all the way until January 2021, expecting a Biden victory?  Their cash flow is going to take a real hit should they decide to play that long.  And if Trump wins reelection, they are well and truly screwed.  Perhaps we will find they are not as smart as they think they are.  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-media-is-lying-to-you-about-trumps-china-tariffs-2019-05-14

 

5. Harris. I am not alone about the real danger to this nation that Kamala Harris poses.  Unlike Bernie Sanders, who has a moral compass (one that is completely communist), Harris, like Joe Biden is completely amoral.  After her boyfriend Willie Brown got her elected as SF Prosecutor and helped her get elected as California Attorney General, Harris pushed anti-truancy legislation that allowed her to arrest parents of children who were truant from the government schools.  She denied sending parents to jail under her laws last week on CNN.  While she didn’t personally send any parent to jail, people did go to jail based on her legislation and enforcement.  She wants to bring that same mindset to the Oval Office, where she, like the Big O, proposes to rule by pen and phone.  I think Harris is very likely to be on the eventual democrat ticket as she fills two of the favorite intersectionality squares.  Dangerous woman.  Be very, very careful about letting her get near the levers of power.  https://reason.com/2019/05/13/kamala-harris-truancy-law-lies/

 

6. SF Raid. Big government fascism was also on display in SF last week when the mayor sent local police to the home of a journalist who published a leaked confidential police report containing the salacious details of the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi.  His home and office were raided by police and FIB agents who demanded the name of the source.  They spent at least six hours pawing through his materials, seizing his computers, smart phone, and a copy of the police report held within a safe.  Essentially, they put a guy who traffics in information out of business at least for a little while.  Police justified the raid claiming they had a warrant.  Adachi dedicated his career to uncovering police conduct.  His friends and supporters believe the raid is political retribution.  Note to self:  Every single one-party locale turns into a Police State.  Every single one of them, especially those being run by leftists.  https://www.sfexaminer.com/the-city/san-francisco-police-raid-home-of-journalist-to-find-leak-in-adachi-death/

 

7. Species. The same organization that gave us scientific fraud in climate change set up another group of “experts,” this one specializing in biology, to further the climate change agenda.  A new 145-member expert committee just published their first conclusions, that million species are now at risk due to manmade global warming caused by CO2 emissions.  This is not the first claim of species extinctions, as Edward O Wilson from Harvard (junk law and junk science seem to be fellow travelers at Harvard these days) who claims that 50,000 species go extinct every year, though he has no data or publications to support this claim.  This is a revival of the old climate change species extinction scare of the Carter years.  Of course, whatever we have to do to keep this from happening must be done instantly, require larger government involvement in our daily lives, and most important of all make energy unreliable and expensive.  Fortunately, we know three things that we can do to save life on earth.  We know that the worst pollution is from countries with the lowest per capita income.  We know that only rich nations have the resources to save the environment.  Finally, we know that countries that produce more CO2 are richer.  Solution?  Make everyone rich and produce as much energy as humanly possible for them.  This group of scientific frauds did learn from their most recent jousts with facts, as they didn’t go as far as calling what is going on today the Sixth Great Extinction mostly because current rates of die-offs aren’t anywhere close to the 75% level of other mass extinctions.  James Delingpole published six reasons to ignore the new claim:

• The usual suspects are crying wolf again. More UN-funded scientists using UN data.
• These people are making the same claims for the same reason with the same proposed solution. They are a stuck record.
• Nature is in its worst shape in human history – yet another claim being made without any factual data.
• The most overhyped of all doomed species – polar bears and tigers – are doing quite well.
• Read the small print. While the study doesn’t tell governments precisely what to do, it does give some very strong hints.  For instance, the notion of a “good quality of life” is going to have to change.

https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/05/08/delingpole-six-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-the-uns-species-extinction-report-its-politics-not-science/

More later –

– AG