Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show covers a lot of ground, because there was a lot of ground to cover! We dissect the growing movement on the Left to declare Republican candidates for federal office ineligible because of...INSURRECTION! We also talk about the political implications of the omicron outbreak, the odds of (and alternatives to) a Trump presidential run in 2024, the Biden-Abrams spat, and the prospects for the Dems' "voting rights" bills in Congress.
When we arrive at "This Day in History", Brian and I discuss the Siege of Leningrad, the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, the failures of the Paris Peace Conference, the decision of the U.S. to rely on nuclear deterrence in the Cold War, and the 1981 premiere of the primetime soap opera Dynasty. Were those the days or what???
Listen in! I dare you!
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-january-12-2022-dr-nick-waddy/
Speaking of efforts to exclude Trump-supporting Republicans from federal elections, look at what's being said about and done to one of the earliest targets: Madison Cawthorn.
And this poll ought to send shivers down your spine: most Democrats favor online censorship to ensure that "some people" (probably Democrats!) aren't "offended". Democracy isn't likely to survive THAT!
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/most-democrats-want-social-media-censorship-poll
One of the biggest threats to our democratic system is the private funding of elections, which the Left would ordinarily find mortifying, but, since most of this money boosts their favored candidates, for the moment they say, "Corporate sponsors, we love you!"
Finally, this poll is extremely interesting. Its questions about January 6th are "leading", to say the least, but its most critical finding is this: only 33 percent of Americans approve of the job Joe Biden is doing. Dems, think insurrection fever will save you from those kinds of numbers? Dream on!
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/biden/2022/01/12/id/1052170/
Dr.Waddy from Jack: So much of substance in the broadcast: Your assertion that the American left is set now upon the oblideration of the GOP upon its prospective widespread condemnation on the charge of insurrection is very supportable. They would, I agree, if they could, use this to disqualify any GOP candidate forfederal or state office. Of course the 14th amendent authorizes only the disqualification of those thus adjudicated, IF they have previously taken an oath of state or federal office to support the Constitution. That would, ehh, cramp the counterintuitive leftiststyle in federal court, especially with this lawful Scotus.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: That the American left (or their captured vehicle, the Dems )seriously pursues this comic tactic may well be strongly indicative of their intensifying desperation! You have asserted, rightly so, that the Dems are "nakedly" undemocratic in this effort. Are they finally discarding their longtime disingenuous cover of loyalty and belief in the fundamentals of American polity and even, civilization? They may well be!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: That blue state officials may actually run with this ball and attempt to remove "insurrectionist" GOP candidates is very plausible. But they would be brought up short in short order by this Scotus, to whom summary timely appeals are acceptable, given past practice. Ahh, but perhaps the goal is to disqualify only the dreaded Donald Trump! Sorry, but given its temporal and historical setting, which is bound to have purchase against the purely emotional pleas of the American left, the14th Amendment would not be brought to bear against him and any campaign to do so would only motivate Trump nation to further determination!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: That Abrams is displeased with a perceived lack of radicalism in Biden's feverish electoral reforms is very plausible and probable. But here is one other possibility: Oh she wants that Governor's office, both to put a thumb in the eye of what she stereotypes as traditional Georgia but also to advance her presumptuous prospects for national office. And to that end she MAY have embraced now classic Clintonesque disingenuous preemption. " Why, I have no problem with Georgia's election laws!Anyone who says I do or did is sadly mistaken!See Georgians, I'm no presumptuous liberal trying to capture your state. Why, I'm one of you. But please do elect me Governor and then I'll, ehh, give you a call. . . "
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy fromJack: I'm for Trump in 2024. But if he were not available, Desantis could be good; I'd gladly support him but about Pence? What's the problem there? He is solid and loyal! No Rino about him!?
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I believe I've read that Hitler insisted that Leningrad be taken, in some part because of its name. His Generals mostly disagreed but Hitler had considerable corporal means of dissuasion at his disposal. It may well be that the considerable force needed to beseige a large city could have served the German cause better in other settings in Russia. How lucky the world is that that THING turned to be, well, a Corporal, which is just fine but perhaps not in high command. For the people of Leningrad, it was an ordeal for which adequate description might be approximated only in book length accounts!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: You are right in noting that invading Gernmans had a chance to win the support of Russians who were desperate to escape Stalin's subhuman rule, but lost it with their beyond sociopathic treatment of the Russian population. That many, many Russians sought any relief from this fiend's oppression is confirmed by Solzhenitsyn and is one of the essentials of his eloquent condemnation of Stalin. But the Boche managed to do him shame, in murderous presumption of their own intent. What a confederacy of hellish monsters the Russians had to survive!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Oh how Dulles is fashionably excoriated today. But just imagine: 1953: Stalin was only recently deceased, or returned to his infernal bed in Dis; the Russkies had the Abomb and were very close (unknown to our intelligence, yes do you think?) to the Hbomb. Stalin's successors, being humanly incapable of his consummate evil, yet had not demonstrated some departure from his policies. We had strategic superiority; we could not countenance a still Stalinist Russian descent on Europe.I mean, why did we land at Normandy? Evidence available after the fall of the USSR shows that Stalin intended this after he secured the Hbomb. (After all, hecould, as he did in WWII, repair to one of his many rural dachas for the duration, so let fly!) Why should we not have used our obviously superior POWER!.When has such puissance been lodged in a nation more just?
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: 1919: The combatants had just emerged, dazed, from an experience of wartime ferocity and astonishing technical advance quite beyond their prewar experience and even their imaginations.The contrast it presented to the optimistic prewar world could not have been more striking! What could have lent them the wisdom to negotiate ,well, wisely? Clemenceaus's Franco-Prussian War generated hatred of the Boche, though justified by Boche oppression in WWI France, contributed to volcanic German resentment. Britain's continued post war blockade of Germany generated much suffering. Germany had at least plausible reason to think its prewar two front of allied Russia and France presented it with unbearable threat. Woodrow Wilson's attempts at conciliation were contemptuously rejected as being naive American fancy.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I should correct myself. Wilson's international organization, later the League of Nations, was adopted but rejected by the US Congress.
ReplyDeleteJack, I would agree that the 14th Amendment clearly didn't foresee that someone who merely raised an objection to a federal election would be declared guilty of "insurrection", but then the framers didn't foresee a lot of things, but that didn't prevent them from happening. But you're right: a commonsensical SCOTUS may have to intervene to keep the GOP on the ballot in some areas, and that's darn scary!
ReplyDeleteMay Abrams "scheduling conflict" reflect her national aspirations? I guess, but disrespecting the sitting Dem President seems like bad form for someone hoping to be the presidential nominee herself someday. Maybe she just doesn't want to be associated with a legislative effort that's bound to fail, and a presidency that's bound to wither and die? That's my best guess.
Ah, Pence! I'm agnostic, but I think A LOT of Trumpers view him as a sellout. For that reason his chances aren't great.
I'm no expect, but I believe it was Hitler who opted for starving Leningrad into submission. Its inexhaustible reserves of gumption must have come as a shock!
Truthfully, I went too far: a lot of Russians (and other Slavs) DID support the Germans, although usually not on the front lines.
I'm honestly not sure what I think of the decision to opt for nuclear deterrence (and simultaneously to weaken conventional deterrence) in the 50s. It was risky, and how! It worked, though. The question is, and always will be, whether we meant what we said...
I tend to agree that the failures of the Paris Peace Conference were entirely predictable, ESPECIALLY in an age of democratic governments accountable to their (enraged) populaces. When one considers the sobering impact of WWII, though, one is almost tempted to opine: maybe WWI was not quite bloody and frightful ENOUGH? Hmm.