Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. H1B
2. McKinley
3. J6
4. Montana
5. Fire
6. Greenland
7. Votes
1. H1B. The big news of the week was the argument on the political right over immigration, specifically H1B visas. As with most arguments on the right, it was enthusiastically reported by the media as chaos in MAGA-land as they gleefully threw as much gasoline on the fire as humanly possible hoping and praying for destruction. But it was a good argument, one we publicly have to have. It also demonstrates why the political right is fundamentally different from the left. All their positions are formulated and promulgated top down. The members of the political left simply do what they are told to do. On the right, it all bubbles up from the grass roots, whatever you believe that to be. There are harsh words, a bit of name calling, some arm waving and chair throwing to be had before we arrive at a consensus or at least take a small step toward defining the problem. Best of all, Trump demonstrated one of his (many) superpower(s), the ability to listen, staying out of the fray until everyone had weighed in.
- The trigger for the discussion was support for the H1B visa program by Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and Steven Miller. This immediately led to a strong counterreaction by the grass roots who have been jerked around over immigration since the Reagan Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, nearly 40 years ago. Worse, we all suffered under Harris – Biden opening the borders for nearly 4 years, allowing 15 – 25 million illegals to cross the border.
- I agree with Elon and Vivek that there needs to be a pathway for the smart people from the rest of the world, call them the geniuses, to come to America. I also agree that the public no longer trusts anything out of Washington DC on the subject. We’ve been regularly and painfully taught not to.
- This means that if you want to bring the geniuses into the country, you have some other things to do first. This was argued for two solid days on the Scott Adams morning podcast, as the group arrived at a consensus. And that consensus is that the order of events is important. Here is that proposed order:
- Close the border. This is completely non-negotiable.
- Completely destroy DEI everywhere it exists. Note that some flavor of DEI exists everywhere in the corporate world and it has made it possible (and necessary in the minds of employers) to discriminate against white men for over 40 years
- Fix the thoroughly broken H1B (and the F1 student visa) processes so they can no longer be abused by the next democrat regime.
- Only after all that is in place, can you have a discussion about bringing in Elon’s and Vivek’s geniuses, who, from where, what they are here to do, etc.
- Now, this is not a final solution. Think of it more as an opening bid to at least define the system in light of what MAGA-land is demanding. All the major players seem to be onboard with this at some level. We will see how far we get. I think I am hopeful.
2. McKinley. Alaska senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski is one of the more virulent Trump haters in congress. She promised to make his life miserable if possible, during his second term. His response a week ago in a speech before Turning Point USA was to rename the current Denali back to Mount McKinley. Lisa rose to the bait like a hungry rainbow to a well selected and presented fly. But the story behind naming the mountain is a long, moderately sordid story, typical for history up here. Before the Americans showed up, every tribe in Alaska that could see it had a name for it. There were at least 4 passed down. When the Russians showed up, they had another name for it, different from any of the native names. The Athabaskan name “Denali” is a heavily modified word that originally meant some version of “the high one”, aka “big rock.” Here’s the funny part: this name wasn’t exclusively assigned to the former McKinley. Rather, it was assigned to the biggest hill / mountain / rock that particular band of natives could see where they lived. Americans arrive in Alaska after the purchase in 1867 to exploit a couple gold rushes. One of them was a prospector in 1896 who had newspaper connections. When he goes back to the Lower 48 after getting tired of the cold and wet, he writes about his adventures, naming the mountain McKinley (he was originally from Ohio) after Ohio Favorite Son, William McKinley recently elected president. The USGS adopts the name (along with 2 others) in 1900. It is finally adopted by the government on maps in 1917. At the time, Alaska was a territory without any congressional representation until statehood in 1959. Fast forward to 1975, when the Alaska legislature and newly elected governor Jay Hammond pass a resolution that Alaska wants its own name for the mountain. Congress, led by the Ohio congressional delegation disagrees and no legislation is forthcoming. ANILCA passed in late 1980 in response to Jimmy Carther’s threat to turn all of Alaska into a National Monument. It expands the park around McKinley, renaming the expanded park to Denali while leaving the name of the mountain McKinley. One of Lisa’s pet projects during her time in the US Senate since 2002 has been to rename the mountain Denali. O’Bama comes along with his governing via phone and pen initiative and instructs his Interior Secretary to rename the mountain. His regime at the time was busily pandering to natives nationwide, so this seemed a good idea to them. Sally Jewell renames the mountain via an administrative process in 2015 and O’Bama announces it on a trip up here that summer. Trump is elected the next year and asks Alaska US Senators Murkowski and Sullivan if they want Denali reverted to McKinley. They both say no, and he drops it. His speech last week to rename it afterwards is a not-so-subtle reminder to Lisa that she needs to choose her battles wisely, something she is not known for doing. From here, Trump, while trolling, is right, as McKinley was named by congress in 1980 in actual legislation signed by an actual president, one Jimmy Carter. Sally Jewell had no right to rename it. Trump ought to revert the name back to Denali and invite congress to pass legislation to change the name to Denali with the promise to sign that legislation should it make it to his desk.
3. J6. We finally got actual numbers out of the feds on their participation in the Jan 6, 2021 riot. Do(In)J IG released a report last that claimed the FBI had 26 confidential sources (paid informants) on the ground during the riot. 4 entered the capitol. 13 went into a restricted area. 9 were found not to have participated. FBI response to the report was to agree to disagree. Sounds like Do(In)J is clearing the grounds for the incoming administration. No word on what these people were told to do, who they were reporting to, or what else they were involved in doing. I expect this report is just the tip of the iceberg, and that 26 participating feds is on the low end, perhaps the very low end. Consider it to be an opening bid on a future discussion.
4. Montana. 10 days ago the Montana Supreme Court delivered an opinion on one of multiple “children’s climate lawsuits” against the energy companies. The kiddos and their activist mouthpieces ended up with an opinion finding that they had a constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment,” and that this right was being violated by the state’s support for fossil fuel projects. The 6-1 opinion extended this right to one of a stable climate system. Yeah right, tell that to the next incoming comet or asteroid. The black-robed activists found that Montana’s CO2 emissions are a substantial factor causing harm to the kiddos. Dr Judith Curry analyzed the case, noting that the claims relied heavily on discredited climate model results, ignoring historical climate variability before fossil fuels were a factor. Worse, they relied on emotion rather than evidence conflating local climate issues with global phenomenon, as Montana’s emissions are statistically insignificant. They relied on the precautionary principle mantra that “every ton of emissions count,” something Curry dismantled with simple arithmetic. There are governance costs when you import large numbers of California escapees. In this case they were more missionaries than escapees.
5. Fire. Ugly story out of NYC demonstrating the sheer damage to civil society done by Alvin Bragg’s race-based persecution of Daniel Perry for acting against a threatening predator on a NYC subway train. This time around, an illegal decided it would be a good idea to torch a sleeping woman on the train. He watched while she burned to death and wandered off before being arrested. Nobody on the train lifted a finger to help the woman. All fire extinguishers were locked up so they couldn’t be used to save her life. The media excoriated the passengers for watching, completely ignoring the impact of Bragg’s prosecution of Penny for being a Good Samaritan who happened to be white. The perp has been arrested and arraigned for murder. It remains to be seen how competently Bragg’s office prosecutes him as he is not white.
6. Greenland. We also saw a pair of geopolitical moves by Trump last week as he reopened the discussion on Greenland. This time around, he also added the Panama Canal. These along with renaming Denali were all part of his TPUSA speech. Regardless of what you think of the idea, from a persuasion standpoint, this is brilliant, as the first thing you need to do before entering any discussion like this is for the mind to think this is possible. Denmark currently owns Greenland, though it does have its own leftist government. It also had an electrical outage.over the weekend. Rationale given for the acquisition is the need for strategic minerals / metals. Let that discussion begin. In a similar vein, he started negotiation with Panama over its management of the Panama Canal gifted Panama by Jimmy Carter for a dollar. He noted that Panama was gouging passing US flagged ships with exorbitant fees. He also noted that China rather than Panama was actually managing the canal. This gives the US a vehicle to reclaim control of it, as the treaty for transfer has a provision that the canal needs to be managed by Panama otherwise ownership reverts back to the US. The speech got the expected reaction by El Presidente of both Panama and Columbia. The entire Trump TPUSA speech is at the following link:
7. Votes. Shawn Steel, one of the Republican National Committee members form California claimed democrats won 4 congressional seats in Cali because ballots received after election day were counted. Looks like the technique was to keep sending in ballots and counting them until the democrat won. Steel is the husband of Rep Michelle Steel, who lost to a democrat by 603 votes after leading on election day by 10,000. If you count long enough and allow democrats to continue to create ballots after the fact, you eventually get to the point where you are ahead, which mysteriously is also the point where you stop counting. This technique was used many years ago in a WA State gubernatorial election eventually won by Christine Gregiore in 2004. That variation was to keep finding uncounted ballots until they were ahead at which point they stopped looking for them.
More later –
- AG