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Thursday, May 16, 2024

Ike's Last Gasp

 


Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show reaches way, way back to 1960 to analyze President Eisenhower's failed summit meeting with Premier Khrushchev in Paris, which was scuttled by the U-2 incident and the perfidy of one Francis Gary Powers.  Who would have thought that the fate of the world, and the integrity of an elder statesman, could both be jeopardized by the unlikeliest of airborne mishaps?  Find out more in this week's broadcast.


In addition, Brian and I cover the blockbuster announcement that Joe Biden will consent to debate Donald Trump, the shocking assassination attempt against the Slovakian Prime Minister, the bold decision of the Biden Administration to apply severe sanctions against Chinese exports, the significance of recent Russian advances near Kharkov, the GOP veepstakes and the viability of Marco Rubio, and the startling appearance of a vigorous anti-Israeli movement in (of all places) the United States.

 

What does it all mean?  Simple: it means whatever I say it means!  Or at least it might...


https://wlea.net/newsmaker-may-16-dr-nick-waddy/

 

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In other news, here's a very perceptive analysis of Joe Biden's decision to debate DJT -- especially impressive because it comes from a leftist who (amazingly) acknowledges the weakness of Biden's position.

 

https://www.natesilver.net/p/what-bidens-debate-gambit-reveals 


Here's a thought-provoking exploration of the consequences of an "aging" society.  Will it be necessary to redefine our notions of education and retirement, for example, to accommodate legions of oldsters?  It may.


https://www.ft.com/content/a8f33209-3507-4364-98be-61b3bb464fbb?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9

 

Finally, it hasn't escaped my notice, and I know it hasn't escaped yours, that much leftist rhetoric involves the repurposing of elements of the English language to fit neo-Marxist ideological and political imperatives.  "Democracy" is a great example of an idea, and an institution, that has been shamelessly perverted by those who claim to love it most.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/marxism-is-a-gulag-of-the-mind-soviet-union-campus-protests-3e7176c7?mod=opinion_feat2_commentary_pos2 

11 comments:

  1. Dr. Waddy from Jack: Couldn't get most of the WSJ article. But yeah, the fact that we can use "People's Democratic. . . whatever" as an understood bitter sarcasm, plainly shows how Marxist totalitarians have preempted the term. Of course in their hellish redoubts they need fear no contradiction. Some of them actually believe themselves in this: " the people universally desire our "guidance" and since we give them what they want, they are by definition democratically fulfilled by our largesse ".

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  2. 'guidance' rather - Jack

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  3. Dr. Waddy from Jack: Re your latest Newsmaker broadcast: I've been around a lot of really tough guys; every IDF soldier knows tough, PM Netanyahu knows tough, Mayor Guiliani knows tough and DJT knows tough! Biden is a four flusher fronting " tough." What may be dawning on him and the dem mob is that they have done their disdainful and vicious best to break DJT and he ain't broke, he seems only to be getting more and more determined. Yes , almost anyone, especially a later septuagenarian, would fold under the killing stress they have directed at him. Maybe he will give in to it but he shows little sign of it; he was in fine fettle in front of some myriad thousands of heretic New Jerseyites on one of the days off from his model totalitarian "trial" grudgingly granted him by the tribunal. A reckoning with his "judges", who are jurists professionally disgraced beyond measure, is in the offing should DJT tough all this (and 'this" shows every sign of becoming unimaginably trying) out to redemption. The more they task him the gutsier he gets and the ever more gratitude America owes him. He could have been enjoying a luxurious retirement; instead he has chosen to stand for us and pass through a crucible only the truly tough can endure. Ego could never sustain one through such personal travail.

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  4. Dr. Waddy from Jack: You are right in maintaining that we need to think it out and have a coherent policy toward China . The surely electorally motivated gesture he made recently lacks this conception. The monumental Marshall Plan and Containment stand exemplary of the well thought out firmness we require now in dealing with a China restored to its characteristic national integrity and power.

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  5. Dr. Waddy from Jack: Hochul is a Governess faithful to the predominant leftist bias of NY State. She would be a competent factotum for the deadly serious antiamerican left which will bustle should Biden win.

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  6. Dr. Waddy from Jack: Ike gave us just what was richly earned by those who endured the Depression and WWII with unshakeable resolve: NORMALCY. Though Khruschev had served hellhound Stalin as a murderous hatchetman in Ukraine in the '30s perhaps he did manage to retain some humanity. He had seen the worst of war at Stalingrad; maybe that moved such as him. In the late '50s and early '60s he may have been under great pressure from Soviet hardliners who wanted him to kick the West out of their hard won Berlin. He demonstrated in the Cuban Missile Crisis, after attempting to give them some satisfaction, that he could not stomach bringing another and infinitely worse maelstrom on a still terribly wounded Russia. I guess we did what we had to do with the U2 overflights and he did what he had to do when one was shot down.

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  7. Dr. Waddy from Jack: Though DJT's VP choice, unless it falls on a senior prospect clearly free of ambition, will of course be sized up as his faithful successor. In that I agree, Rubio would not be promising. BUT: that must be a secondary consideration in this vital election. If he appears
    to enhance the ticket more than anyone else, then bring him on board!

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  8. Dr. Waddy from Jack: A contested dem convention: the possibility of an enthroned, even very much more vindictive Hillary, while distant still onerous in the extreme, continues to plague America.

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  9. Right, Jack. To a leftist, all complimentary/positive terms mean the same thing: "in accordance with our will", since their glorious crania are the only source of goodness known to man...

    Very true: the Dems are a long, long way from "breaking" Trump or his supporters, although, should they win the election AND contrive to lock up DJT, that would go a long way to driving a stake through the heart of conservative populism...and they're closer to achieving both objectives than you or I would like to admit.

    Honestly, Jack, I think there's a lot we don't know about China, and a lot the Chinese may not know about themselves. Do they really and truly want to dominate the world, with all the obligations that entails? Would they spill blood to accomplish that? We'll find out in the next few decades, but I certainly see no need to push them into a corner and make it a fait accompli.

    I know very little about the Paris Summit in 1960, but it sounded like Ike got steamed by K's castigation and left. Maybe that wasn't the best play. I'm sure Ike felt humiliated by the whole affair, but it's possible he took it a little too personally?

    Jack, if I was Trump, I'd be thinking hard about who could succeed me. Of course, if I was Trump, Trump would be me, and this wacky world of ours would be a completely different place. I guess you're right that Job One is winning the election. Other matters can be addressed at a later time. Frankly, I'm skeptical that DJT will or could have a successor anyway. He's one-of-a-kind, surely.

    I still hear a few Dems crying out in the wilderness, ready to abandon the S.S. Biden (to mix metaphors), but the hour grows very, very late for those kind of heroics. It might be easier to cancel the election!

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  10. Dr. Waddy from Jack: I do not know if China intends to dominate the world in any way but I am convinced it means to assure its national security and integrity. Should they conclude that world domination (if only of a sort realized by America after WWII) is indispensable in realizing this end, I expect they would pursue it. No, I think Ike, like Washington ,was as self abnegatingly and truly modest as to dismiss the negative aspects of the U2 incident and do the right thing. How great he was and how blessed America was in his tenure.

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  11. Hmm. Is "world domination" ever necessary to achieve "national security"? I suppose it might be, based on an argument of contingent necessity... I personally find it very hard to imagine the Chinese projecting power to every corner of the globe.

    Yes, Ike often "did the right thing", but what, in your view, Jack, was "the right thing" vis-a-vis the U-2 incident?

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