Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show will knock not just your socks, but possibly your bloomers, off. In terms of current events, Brian and I cover the recent "pause" in the administration of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine, the tragic death of Prince Philip, the silencing of President Trump, Senator Joe Manchin's seemingly indefatigable resolve to uphold the filibuster, the viability of boycotts as a strategy to advance conservatism, the vile MSM attacks on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and much more!
In our historical segment, Brian and I tackle the German invasion of Norway in April 1940 and its earth-shattering political consequences, the Nazi roundup of foreign Jews in France, the last, fateful night of R.M.S. Titanic, the Allied victory in North Africa in 1943, the dastardly Vietminh, the Catch-22 of the U.S. opening to China, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the brilliant military and political career of Dwight David Eisenhower.
Sure, you could miss this week's show...but would you ever forgive yourself??? I think not!
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-april-14-2021-dr-nick-waddy/
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In other news, Mitch McConnell is trying to be the "bigger man" when it comes to his feud with Donald Trump (kind of a low bar). I'm no fan of Mitch, but I question the usefulness of Trump's barrage of insults against him. Unless, that is, Trump thinks Mitch can be persuaded to retire?
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/548061-mcconnell-seeks-to-end-feud-with-trump
Big corporations are doing more virtue signalling on the issue of "voting rights" -- unsurprisingly -- but their statements are so vague as to be arguably ineffectual.
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/voting-laws-georgia-corporations-companies/2021/04/14/id/1017535/
Lastly, there are signs that voters are starting to punish the Dems for their embrace of open border policies. This will be, in all likelihood, one of the determining factors in the GOP's push to recapture the House and Senate in 2022.
The fickle vagaries of moderate voting patterns will forever dismay me.
ReplyDeleteVote for "X," be upset when you get, "X". Stunning.
I cannot hope fervently enough for a curtailment of the franchise before I die. Though I suspect that should such a curtailment occur it would inevitably be to the detriment of the political health of the nation, maybe with racial voting quotas, or college degree requirements. Yippee.
- Lee
Ha! I share your disdain for "swing" voters, Lee. Their vapidity and irresolution defies belief. If the country's future is in their hands, then the country is surely doomed.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree that, should the franchise ever be altered, it will probably be by subtraction. You and I are undoubtedly at the head of the line of potential subtractees.
On the other hand, mandating the elimination of all voter integrity measures in the interests of anti-racism would be a neat trick. That would be crushing democracy by addition. 150 million real voters, plus, oh, 50 million imaginary voters, equals...President AOC!
DR. NICK
ReplyDeleteThat is to say, IF the Grand Old Pissants "recapture" the House and Senate in 2022. That's my preferred name for what that party stands for now. Is this some sort of damn game playing by a bunch of well heeled politicians? Seems the general populace is held hostage by these people. What IF voter/election fraud is rampant again, so the DemoCommunists can hold power. That's what that party should be called now. They have NOTHING in common with the traditional Democrats who were mostly anti-Communist in just about every way. I would say, that ended with The Clinton regime back in the 1990s. In the meantime, and for the next four years, there probably will be an open border even if the Grand Old Pissants "recapture" anything. The best border is a militarized/fortified border. Anything short of that tells me that neither party has ever been very serious about border security, but pretend to be. Now everything is wide open, and the cartels are operating with impunity.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: As usual, so much of s
ReplyDeleteubstance on which to comment, from your broadcasts. Filibuster: So very much is brought to the fore by today's astonishly blatant leftist move to swing Scotus to their control! Its very obvious; they are goingfor it now and they do not care who knows it! That concentrates very much crutiny on their antifilbuster effort. Arguments holding that they may regret this in the future are ofNO moment to them now;the near future is NOW in their view! We must face it; the battle is joined!
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Senator Joe Manchin's opposition to filibuster "reform" is vital. The far left, in characteristic frantic overreach, may be staking all on this. They know they risk Reaganesque, Trumpesque backlash but they persist, thinking their moment is nigh!
ReplyDeletesist,
Ray, I will disagree in one sense: borders aren't either "open" or "closed" -- they are always somewhere in-between. Even Trump didn't shut down illegal immigration totally, and he was quite tolerant of the illegals already here. For that matter, even Biden is capable of reversing course and making the border LESS open. I hope that's the path he chooses. If he's smart, he will.
ReplyDeleteJack, it's true that discussion of court-packing raises the stakes in the battle over the filibuster yet higher! My guess is, though, that the sheer audacity of the maneuver makes it exceedingly unlikely to work. If Manchin can't bring himself to "weaken or abolish" the filibuster, how likely is he to sign on to an effort to pack the court? Not very, thank heavens!
Dr. Nick
DeleteForget "open" and "closed". Our border with Mexico is NOT SECURE. A secure border is a fortified border, period. Even under Trump we did not have a SECURE border. Those walls and fences can be blown open and tunneled under, and have been. A SECURE border means a PERMANENTLY militarized border guarded by the U.S. Army. That would be totally legitimate since it is an international border, with the constant threats of illegal drugs, illegal weapons, potential terrorists, potential pandemics, and gangs coming across, plus illegal immigrants.
The reason our border with Mexico is not secure, is that ALL administrations (including Trump) have decided to leave it as it is. There was the pretense under Trump that the border was somehow secure.
What's going on now is a flood of mostly unskilled Central American peasants who have been invited by the fools who run our government, with no facilities to accommodate them. The ones who can be processed will become wards of the state. They sure as hell are not going to become our future neurosurgeons, now are they?
Interesting that the rise of the Mexican drug cartels coincide with NAFTA isn't it? When NAFTA "kicked in" in 1994, most of the immigrants (millions) came through the ports of entry legally and then never showed up for court dates. Loads of drugs also came through by truck, through legal ports of entry. Go figure.
If I did not know better, I would say that the damn border with Mexico is a racket with lots of American politicians being paid off. Drugs alone are a multi-billion dollar industry, and the U.S. has millions of addicts. What kind of country do we have that so many people need drugs to live in it?
Dr. Waddy from Jack? That makes sense. What accounts for their recklessness?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I thoroughly enjoyed sailing to Britain on Queen Mary II but I could have done without the Captain announcing that we were passing near the wreck of Titanic. Given the setting, it was somewhat eerie.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Prince Philip: For a man at one time in line for both thd Danish and Greek thrones( what an interesting combined monarchy that might have been) his subordinate position might have been difficult. But Churchill exclaimed: "famous are our Queens!"ElizabethI and Victoria were glorious and Elizabeth II has conducted herself with dignity befitting her rightfully exalted position. Elizabeth I commanded many willingly faithful male subordinates and Victoria was no man's fool, though she apparently fully appreciated Prince Albert's administrative and leadership skills. Too, as very great a leader as Churchill appeared to have been very comfortable with deference to the monarchy, including Elizabeth II. Perhaps the Brits are ok with all this.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I strongly suggest that most schools of journalism (including broadcast journalism)now explicitly support and advance
ReplyDeleteleftist bigotry and promote and enforce it within their schools and their profession with vicious ap!omb! Woodward and Bernstein have had two generations to "inspire" yes! But conservatives have also the benefit of decades of leftist onslaught and the Florida Governor may app!y those lessons. Accordingly
y, he may have fully anticipated such as 60 Minutes' tiresomely characteristic smear! We will see! DeSantis could be the real thing.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: A key difference between the French and American efforts to defeat Vietnamese Communism was that France was exhausted and militarily humiliated by WWII and its objective was to reestablish a colonial control clearly by then discredited! Ours? Bythen we were the obvious opponent to militant world communism.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddyfrom Jack: Our effort in Vietnam was blocked only by campus Marxists and their baby boom stooges. The Soviets knew this and were unwilling to bet their future on such fools! By the 90s they knew the U.S. could not be defeated, an already long held reality. So they gave up their economy destoying military buildup. Vietnam was not a waste!
ReplyDeleteg held
nd their baby boom stooges.
s
Dr.Waddy from Jack: My point on journalists that especially many young ones now consider it part of journalistic integrity to be openly biased for the left. Accusations of unprofessional lack of objectivity are of no moral concern to them; the cause of wokeness is all!
ReplyDeleteRay, you point the way to a totally secure border, but I rather doubt (as I'm sure you do) that any such thing will ever come to pass. Yes, the flow of illegals and illegal drugs could be interdicted with huge walls, minefields, machine gun nests, drones, etc etc., but none of that would enhance our image as a "kinder and gentler" superpower. Frankly, I'm not even sure that level of militarization would work, because, as you point out, there's a substantial element of corruption involved. There's lots of money to be made in smuggling, and it's the differential in wealth between Norte America and America del Sud that underlies much of the problem. That differential isn't going away anytime soon. Moreover, we think of the northern border as quiet and contained, but I wonder how many drugs cross it? And how many drugs WOULD cross it if the southern border was magically sealed shut? I guess my point is that what I want from our southern border is a substantial reduction in illegal migration. Trump achieved that. And bully for him! The drug situation seems to me to be a far more vexing, and essentially domestic, problem. Like you said, the tragedy is that so many Americans live such empty lives that drugs seem like the only answer. Militarization won't fix that. Putting civilization back on the path of God, family, and personal responsibility might. But how likely is any of THAT?
ReplyDeleteJack, re: the QM2, I expect they get better attendance at lifeboat drills when the remind passengers of the Titanic disaster...
Good point that monarchy teaches, and requires, deference. That's one quality that's in frightfully short supply in the modern age. Deference is the opposite of entitlement, after all.
Jack, activist journalism is here to stay, and its practitioners grow bolder and bolder all the time. I'm sure DeSantis saw 60 Minutes' hit piece coming, and if he's smart he'll gird himself for far worse.
I agree that it's a false comparison to suggest that we were the inheritors of French colonialism in South Vietnam. We were responding to a real need for assistance. Our allies were never quite as worthy of that assistance as we would have liked, but surely the tidal wave of communism had to met somewhere? As you point out, it was ultimately the Reds who were exhausted by the struggle, not us. Modern Vietnam is a testament to that fact.