Homeland Security, Alejandro N Mayorkas, plans to stem the expected flood? The migrants are already coming in at record numbers. If 42 goes, the numbers will snowball.

So far, the secretary has distinguished himself by unfairly accusing his border patrol of whipping migrants and proposing a group to stop what the department considers “misinformation.”     

The Biden Administration failed to rein in the teacher’s unions, especially in blue States, leading to further educational losses. Secretary of Education Miguel Gardonna resides on the unions’ side rather than the children. So far, he has done nothing to address learning loss and curriculum problems. Kids trying to learn at home led Parents to find things taught they consider out of line. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland highlighted his growing reputation as one of the political cabinet members by threatening parents as terrorists for expressing disagreement at a school board meeting. Even though we are experiencing the worst crime upsurge in decades, the nation’s top law enforcement officer is strangely absent. 

Eric Lander has flown so far under the radar I forgot we ever had a Presidential Science Advisor and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. All we hear is how China is outpacing us in science and technology. Russia and China have hypersonic missiles. We don’t. Where is Mr. Lander?

Our present baby formula crisis is a staff failure. In programs like the West Wing or Madame Secretary, the Chief of Staff appears to be the ringmaster of the executive circus. The person that’s supposed to coordinate everything. Somebody had to see how FDA actions and trade policy could result in endangered babies, but Ron Klain was asleep at the switch on this and many other things.

I included all the names to look them up and decide for yourself if you consider them a positive in their position. To me, this is the least accomplished group ever.

If you put a group of bright competent people together, probably something worthwhile will result. Put people together to fill some group slots, and maybe you will get a good photo. If you think I’m harsh, look at what they’ve done or not done. What have they accomplished to improve the nation’s performance?

Diversity can mean many things. Race, sex, sexual or religious preference is one kind of diversity, but if they all adhere to the same dogma, there is little or no diversity of thought. This limits ideas and choices. Is this a way to achieve the best results?

Recently a California superior court judge struck down a state law requiring diversity on corporate boards. This ruling followed an earlier order blocking the need to appoint members of underrepresented groups to corporate boards. The courts held the State failed to show how in either case would improve economic performance. If diversity does nothing to enhance performance, these cases caused me to ask, why did it influence president Biden’s cabinet appointments? Could his idea of diversity impede his government’s performance? Did we get one kind of diversity rather than capable people?

The photos and biographies of the 15 department heads and the nine cabinet-level appointees show a varied group. Unfortunately, the mixture hasn’t produced anything close to success. The President’s team may look good, but it can’t put points on the board.

The national security section of the cabinet set an early standard of ineptitude. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III joined with the Director of National intelligence Avril Haines to produce the disastrous Afgan withdrawal. Not satisfied with that failure, this bunch failed to get sanctions and needed armament to Ukraine before the Russian invasion. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield cannot bring about meaningful U.N. action.

We’ll never know if our incomprehensible Afgan withdrawal encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine, but it seems likely. Our policy of doing nothing meaningful until after Russia acted prevented nothing. You can’t stop what has already taken place. These geniuses felt Ukraine was doomed, so it wasn’t worth the effort. How did they get things so wrong? 

Continue reading →

Nothing should surprise me about the present administration. Consistently on the wrong foot, it bounces from one failure to another. They finally caught up to the fact Ukraine wouldn’t fall anytime soon. Given the right help, it could win. After denying the Ukrainians MIGs from Poland, we now send heavier and more sophisticated weapons with proper training. Again, better late than never.

I recommended not only sending light and old Soviet weapons with ammo but also sophisticated and powerful weapons. Using contractors to facilitate their introduction and use would align with Russia’s reliance on the contractor Wagner Group. The point was to keep the fight between the Goliath Russia and the Ukrainian David while quietly doing a lot for Ukraine to win.

Having the world view the war this way rather than Russia vs. NATO is in our best interest. It’s much easier to make a nationalist case against an attack by the 30 NATO nations rather than taking a licking from a much smaller country. 

So why did it leak out that U.S. intelligence played a significant role in the sinking of the Moskva and the loss of several Russian generals? This information changes the narrative from little Ukraine inflicting extensive damage to the U.S. and NATO taking a leading role. 

What idiot thought this was a good idea to leak this information to the press? The administration did come to its senses and condemned the leak, but too late.

It’s hard to believe some minor player in the Defence or intelligence community took it on themselves to place the leaks. More likely, they came from the top. Why else would the press give it so much coverage?

With nothing positive to point to, the administration might view this as a way to get some needed kudos. Perceiving the U.S. more directly in the conflict isn’t the way to get it.

Joe Biden has a history of grabbing acclaim from the work of others. A serial plagiarist, he is known for inserting himself into the limelight. With no one fired for the leak, you have to entertain Biden initially O.K.’d the leak.

It fits the administration’s M.O. It inherited Project Warp Speed’s vaccines and the program giving a million shots a day on Inauguration Day. At the same time, the economy was strongly rebounding. While taking credit for the vaccine program, they fired key Warp speed players. Biden touts last year’s economy as his own doing. The reality is our GDP shrunk in the previous quarter under his policies. 

With Biden’s history of improper credit appropriation, it isn’t hard to surmise where the foolish Ukraine leaks originated.

A draft Supreme Court decision leaked in a Mississippi abortion case has caused a firestorm. While highly harmful to the functioning of the high court, the leak might bring unintended results. The draft shows a majority reversing Roe v. Wade and returning the regulation of abortion to the states. That means restoring the decisions to people elected to make and sign laws.

The basis of the Roe Decision is a right that appears nowhere in the Constitution. Even though other decisions link to privacy rights, Due Process is mentioned and supports these decisions. The problem with abortion is how to get “Due Process” for an unborn child?

Gay or inter-racial marriage deprives no other parties of rights. Who you marry harms no one. In abortion, we end a life.

Many pro-abortion people contend there is no life until birth. Try telling that to Grandparents showing their grandchild’s first sonogram. That’s generally at nine weeks, give or take a week. The question then becomes, how do we weigh the mother’s needs against the baby’s needs? We have a representative government to make the rules. While judges adjudicate the laws, they don’t make them. Overturning Roe reaffirms the proper roles.

Roe and the subsequent Casey decision placed the U.S’s lack of restrictions on abortion near the extreme edge. Other governments have faced the same abortion questions and passed their laws.

It may surprise many people, but the U.S. is among the least restrictive nations on abortions. Most offer much less time for the mother to have an unrestricted abortion. They defer more to life. This chart tells the story:

Fifteen weeks looks closer to the world’s middle ground. Surprisingly, this is what Mississippi’s law, the Supreme Court, is considering requires. The state seems to be in line with lawmakers worldwide. After all, only about 5% of abortions occur after 15 wks. 

I think the leak months earlier than the scheduled decision changed the landscape. A decision handed down just months before the midterms would’ve seen protests organized to occur if it overturned Roe.

Not knowing if this leaked draft reflects the actual decision, the public actions are muted and reflective. The idea is that elected representatives should be the ones to achieve the balancing of rights and will have time to take hold. By the time we get the decision, we’ll have months of needed discussion on the issue. 

The extremes of both sides are on display. We know of those demanding a total abortion ban, but the recently defeated Democratic Senate bill showed the other side is equally extreme. Elsewhere, people have found a political solution. 

This outcome probably wasn’t what the leaker or leakers had in mind, but I feel with a Roe reversal, we will join the rest of the world in having laws the majority of people can live with rather than our present judge rendered division. 

My morning paper brought another column hammering Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Just another in the constant drumbeat of media criticism of the Floridian. Anytime I look at my Smartnews app, there is at least one and usually several negative DeSantis articles. Froma Harrop’s ad hominem attack today was especially fact-free.To her, Gov. DeSantis is only a grunting “new Donald Trump.” “DeSantis, sadly, was born without a sense of humor.” In short, she found no redeeming features in the DeSantis makeup.

It got me thinking that the Governor is a regular feature on the right of center media but rarely seen left of center. This difference allows the left to paint an unflattering portrait. “Almost every picture of him shows a scowling face with mouth open. There is no charm to smooth over the meanness,” claims Harrop:

Yet, while accessible to Floridians and many on the right, Desantis makes little effort to court the mainstream media. This absence leaves those receiving news from these outlets with an almost grotesque view of him. Is this a fatal oversight for someone with the highest aspirations or a clever strategy?

Consider Ukrainian President Zelensky. Before the war, Russia and others pictured the President as a corrupt, lightweight ex-comedian. This characterization was echoed in the U.S. by the far-right and libertarians. A whiner always asking for arms for a military Russia could overrun in a day.

Under Zelensky, the Ukrainian military evolved into a solid war machine, able to effectively use the arms it had. The army and the President trusted each other to do the job. Many NATO members contributed to training and sending weapons to Ukraine after the 2014 Russian invasion. The Russian-backed separatists in the east fought to a standstill. 

Continue reading →