Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show sets a new standard in analytical excellence. Brian and I cover captivating and critical themes, such as: Nikki Haley's curious stubbornness about pursuing her quest for the GOP presidential nomination, despite an 0-6 record in the primaries and caucuses; French President Macron's wild suggestion that NATO troops might need to deploy to Ukraine; where responsibility lies for the escalating border crisis and the American casualties it produces; whether or not the Chicom elite is losing its grip in the PRC; the social ramifications of the widespread digitization of commerce; the prospects for Tulsi Gabbard as DJT's running mate; the prospects for RFK, Jr. as a Trump ally and possibly even a cabinet officer after the 2024 election; the shocking resurgence of standardized testing; and the marvelous renaissance in lunar exploration, led by the private sector.
Where else on the various "internets" can you find a discussion this wide-ranging, and that takes just 20ish minutes of your time??? You tell me!
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-february-28-2024-dr-nick-waddy/
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In other news, Mitch McConnell had a brainstorm yesterday and decided to retire as the GOP leader in the Senate. Maybe it was something he ate? Whatever caused it, I, along with most Republicans, applaud his sudden mental clarity and thank him for his past service as we anticipate a new (and improved) Senate leader in the years to come!
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/28/mitch-mcconnell-replacement-battle-00143910
Finally, in a move that will surprise no one, especially Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a federal judge has placed an injunction on Texas' new law criminalizing illegal immigration (at the state level). This naturally offends the Biden Administration, which believes -- probably rightly -- that it has the Constitutional prerogative to enforce, or ignore, whatever federal immigration laws it wishes, and the states can just sit there and take it. Alas, we won't get much progress on this issue, as I've said, until we have an ultra-MAGA president in the White House again.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Ehh, so Pres. Macron of France publicly muses on sending troops to the aid of Ukraine. First, isn't France still aloof from military membership in Nato; Le Gloire France and all that you know?Does he consider sending French forces there? Its almost mirthfully absurd to imagine . . almost. Actually the French are capable of good fighting and would strengthen Ukraine (and they do have nukes) but. . . . it always comes back to this inescapeable fundamental reality, I think: let much of the world ruminate on perceived possible future Russian aggression beyond that Russia so cruelly advances in war with Ukraine; Russia gives not a tinker's damn other than to bid caution. What Russia thinks is ALL that matters in this, ALL!That is a terrible reality which transcends right or wrong no matter how much we may denounce it. Russia will never accede to Ukraine in Nato; NYET! It is near insupportable to think it could and madness to act upon such a presumptuous tragic misperception. If you approach an Alaskan Brown Bear and do that which it understandably and predictably sees as a threat, it will surely react with maniacal resolve.This truth transcends morality with an animal and so with a hard, hard nation like a Russia so imprudently tasked. It flies in the face of common sense to dismiss this. Russia has what it sees as compelling geographical, historical, fundamental national security and cultural reasons for striving to eliminate this unendurable threat and it is firmly set to act decisively. What can we say to gainsay its reasons? Does any country possess the knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian matters requisite to a responsible opinion on this?Mostly, we speak from ignorance if we try.Much of the world doesn't like it but it can't change it by force without foolishly risking utter catastrophe. So, M. Macron, please take very great care and avoid reckless public speculation. There is only one way to end Ukraine's agony: swallow our pride (we brought this on ourselves and Ukraine and Russia), assure Russia that Ukraine will never be admitted to a now even stronger (with hard fighting Sweden and Finland added)Nato which Russia has never attacked and then offer help to rebuild Ukraine. To persist as we have is, for any country, to risk a new Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse. Needless bear baiting is insanity. To realize this is not apology for Russian brutality,it is solemn truth.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Maoist China was catastrophically totalitarian; present day China is, rather,I think, highly authoritarian. There is benefit in remembering the difference in such government expressed by the late Jean Kirkpatrick, which had a strong influence on President Reagan. China has always been to some extent authoritarian though in imperial China it was only remotely as centralized. I fully agree with your comments on China in the Newsmaker broadcast . Those who minimize the goodness and attraction of prosperity need to fully consider the wretchedness of want. Perhaps it must be seen or experienced to be appreciated. Many millions of Chinese have living memory of it.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: That memory is made immeasurably more appalling and embittering when today the obvious power of Chinese enterprise emphasizes how very unnecessary all that was!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Macy's: the thought of Macy's outside of NYC has always been a curiosity to me. Your perception of its cutbacks as a reflection of an increasing dependence , especially among the young, on digital technology is well taken. Its so well ingrained in them though that there is probably nothing for it, yes?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: DJT and Gabbard are both hombres and if they could get along they'd make a heck of a team. But can they and is it worth the risk?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: For those who have suffered physical injury , rehabilitation in order to reacquire basic skills, is often necessary. Our country has been put in need of similar therapy by the incalculable injury to common sense purposefully done by the anarchic far left on our civilization. Especially considering that faction's disingenuous animus toward "judgementalism", enforced with career threatening vigor in so much of secondary education , high school grades are increasingly discredited as accurate predictors of success in college. Those who hold standardized tests to be unfair are simply setting up those they seek to advantage for failure somewhere down the line, since even top universities like Harvard place obviously paramount importance on inherent political correctness and disdain achievement and merit. It is encouraging that some previously much respected universities are emerging from the foggy counterintuitive artifice this manifests.
ReplyDeleteDre. Waddy from Jack: Good luck to Mitch. He has earned an enjoyable retirement and his apparent intention to endorse DJT is gracious. The positive legacy of his leadership is in the incalculable good done already and promised by a Scotus restored to lawfulness. His work is established - at least as long as the Critical Legal Studies school fails to discredit precedence -in monumentally significant case law (eg. that which gives the unborn some measure of protection from the ghouls who celebrate - yes, celebrate! - a ghastly "right" to dismember and scald them, often at their convenience). There are children enjoying life's infinite possibilities today only because he defied savage calumny and the prospect of far leftist and hominem lawfare to help redeem Scotus. Well done Mitch!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I agree, we won't realize any Federal resolve to enforce immigration law until this lawless administration is defeated and brought to justice for its crime. But Gov. Abbott, by his courageous stand, may be bringing this to a Constitutional crisis, which is as it should be. The Constitution has been the foundation of a mostly stable US polity (except of course for 1861 - 1865, though even then, defense of the Constitution was one of Lincoln's chief motivation for fighting). The anti American left intends unfettered invasion of our country and defiance of the Constitution to destabilize it in preparation for its totalitarian takeover and, naturally, the death of the Constitution. Good for Gov. Abbot and nobleTexas!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I would think Mitch's successor as Leader will be solidly Maga; Maga and DJT rule! But I'm glad Mitch will be in the Senate until' 27. Kentucky has been showing some accomodationist trends lately and its certainly the wrong time for it. This is the time to stand firm; our way of life is at severe hazard from neomarxists.Mitch's continued presence will help to raise a GOP Senate with which , if DJT wins, can very much good can be done. The years directly following a dem defeat in November could be most opportune. The dems may well be in catastrophic disarray as they try to endure the unendurable; we would need to make haste to "drive tanks thru their loopholes". Failure to do so would be tragic. The continued guidance of DJT and Mitch (albeit in a senior advisory capacity for Mitch) would be indispensable because those two are blooded combat veterans of the '"cold civil war " brought on by antiamerican far left determination to destroy America.
ReplyDeleteJack, I personally don't take seriously Macron's prattling about NATO forces in Ukraine, and I doubt Russia does either. He said himself that France's policy is one of "strategic ambiguity" -- meaning that, in all likelihood, he's trying to "keep Russia honest" just by talking about sending troops, as we might be accused of doing re: Taiwan. And I would agree that, in the final analysis, if the Russians actually thought a vast NATO army was on the way, the logical thing for them to do would be to nuke Ukraine into radioactive dust before they got there.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Jack -- we should acknowledge the accomplishments of the Chicom regime as well as condemn its excesses. How many Chinese remember grinding poverty and will happily endorse any government, no matter how tyrannical, that delivers them from it? Hard to say. My guess is that that justification is wearing thin, but as long as most Chinese can barely imagine an alternative to CCP rule it hardly matters.
Jack, the shift away from old-fashioned human interaction (including the carnal variety) seems inexorable, but I don't rule out the possibility that the momentum could swing back in its favor. But when? How? I dunno.
Jack, the abandonment of standardized testing does indeed set some up for failure -- but only if success is still contingent on performance, which I'm not so sure it is, or need be. It frankly surprises me, in a good way, that the Ivy League universities even care that many of the their students are half-wits. I mean, why not hand out degrees in "Equity Studies" to everyone?
Yes, old Mitch made some sage maneuvers as the Republican leader in the Senate, but would a different leader have made worse ones or better? Awfully hard to say. Certainly a different leader could be more popular, and that would have its advantages too.
You mean the Constitution isn't dead already? That's news to me!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: When I was at already politically correct SUNY New Paltz in '72 I saw a toilet paper roll with the following written on it " New Paltz degrees, take one". No doubt soon in the fortresses of DIE it will be judged that study itself is by definition inimical to "equity"since some people are unforgivably more devoted to it than others. Residency for the purpose of enlightenment about and permanent certification in, either exalted or proscribed groups, would be the only rationale for maintaining "universities". Soon enough such evaluation would be deemed unnecessarily "judgemental" and one's social status would be confirmed at birth ( uh, gee, in what historical institution have we seen that before?). For those automatically deemed pariah, the far left would graciously provide easy access to "disposal".
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Oh, no need to have degrees in "equity". First, declare and ENFORCE that all degrees are of equal value(except for some which are less equal). Second, make enthusiastic participation in required core studies in DIE a prerequisite for further pursuance of subject degrees. Well after all, it is probably useful to have experts around, as long as they know their place. Seem impossible?Check out the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the '60s; why even PhDs in botany or agronomy made less than ideal farmhands - a pity that.Actually, isn't a prototypical form of neo "struggle sessions",in which the exalted joyfully accuse and the proscribed cringe, already at work in some reeducation camps (nee universities, even state tax payer owned universities)?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I remember the '50s with some clarity and that is when dreamy Mao's insane "Great Leap Forward" ,which conveniently starved many millions, occured. The Depression permanently traumatized so many in the US and we, their children and grandchildren, certainly heard about it and saw it reflected in their gratitude for citizenship in a consequently prosperous country and in their appreciation of an economy which afforded so much opportunity. They knew how bad things could be.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Those who benefit from the sham accreditation afforded them by DIE often eventually fluff somewhere. They do bear personal responsibility for going along with the charade. I worked for someone like that; it was when she got the idea that she was actually capable of performing her nominal duties that she piled up on the rocks. Many universities apparently shrink from the onerous duty of informing such people that they do not measure up; they pass it on to employers or settings in which disingenuousness is difficult to conceal (eg. the courtroom, at least for now) or to disenchanted"subjects". Of course the anti American left in the total power it seeks would savagely enforce comprehensive artifice in all phases of public and vestigial private life and would have much use to make of such pitiable souls.
ReplyDeleteJack, you make many excellent points. The very notion of "grading" smacks of phallocentrism, Eurocentrism, and -- worst of all! -- rationalism. Would it not be more progressive to leave a bunch of knowledge lying around at our most hallowed universities, and, if someone should happen to pick a bit of it up, even by accident, so much the better! Meanwhile, let's give everyone an A (except for members of protected classes, for whom anything less than an A+ would be triggering.)
ReplyDeleteYes, the struggle sessions are back, like it or not (you're almost guaranteed to be in the "not" category)! And, as far as I know, some grounding in DEI principles already IS mandatory if you want to get a degree, at least at most universities.
I'll disagree in one respect: it isn't (sadly) inevitable that people thrust into positions for which they're utterly unprepared and unqualified will be called to account and will ultimately fail. It isn't inevitable because of the sophisticated DEI architecture (and cultural norms) created by the Left to ensure that no such thing happens. If A.I., or your coworker Gary, ends up doing all or most of your work because Google, or GM, or Nabisco, wants to pat itself on the back for being diverse, then so it shall be.