Friends, you must pardon my tardiness (really, you must!), for I have tarried in conveying to you this week's Newsmaker Show, on which so many of you rely for inspiration and ennoblement. Your long wait is over! Here is the show that was broadcast yesterday, Thursday, and which primarily analyzes the big debate and its likely political impact:
https://rumble.com/embed/v5ch55x/?pub=b4cbh
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In other news, Donald Trump is attacking Kamala Harris' record as the San Francisco District Attorney, which is smart, because tying Kamala in any way to the chaos -- or at least perceived chaos -- in her home state could go a long way to pegging her as a dangerous and radical leftist. Why Trump didn't mention Kamala's California origins and record in the debate is a mystery. What he did mention was rumors that migrants are eating pets, which the media has roundly condemned as false. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but why not concentrate instead on the people who have been killed by migrants, since those incidents are rarely in dispute, and, arguably, killing people is slightly worse than kills ducks or kitty cats. Depends on who you ask, of course.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3wp6q132p2o
North Korea has released a picture of Kim Jong Un -- may his name be praised! -- at a uranium enrichment facility, presumably to underline that country's growing nuclear arsenal. It is indeed impressive what a robust nuclear program North Korea has, and it makes one wonder how many bombs Iran has stashed away, as indeed I speculated on this week's Newsmaker Show.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly9ypzq8qeo
Finally, you know mankind's collapsing birth rate is a problem when China, which now has the world's largest economy, decides to increase its statutory retirement age. The Chinese see the writing on the wall: generous retirement benefits for people arguably in what is now middle-age cannot be sustained, fiscally speaking. One assumes that further increases in the Social Security eligibility age and the Medicare eligibility age are coming here too, although politicians may wait until either we have a depression, or genuine political pluralism has been extirpated, to act.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I have not listened to the Newsmaker broadcast yet so I don't know if you discussed this there. By your leave, I'll comment on it here.
ReplyDeleteThe news over Ukraine is ominous. Biden and the UK PM are going to consult on whether or not to "allow" Ukraine to launch missiles supplied by the US and UK deep into Russia. Putin has declared that if they are used so he would consider Nato and Russia to be at war. He may mean it. Uhh. . . !?
The dismal performance of Russia's army and air force in Ukraine and , for the luvva, in the Kursk region , casts much doubt over a finally affronted Russia presenting a conventional threat. The potentially dreadful credibility of Putin's warning rests then with Russia's nuclear forces.
We are represented in this critical dialogue , with our closest ally and a country which can turn much of metropolitan America into parking lots, by a mentally impaired man. This is an appalling situation.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: As a parting gift to America from its most counterproductive generation, the still multitudinous boomers would not allow any diminution of their benefits and would be characteristically dismissive of the economic hazards of failing to remedy unsustainable programs. It would have to come to catastrophe for any decisive action to be taken.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Re the Newsmaker broadcast of 9/12:
ReplyDeleteYeah, I see your point; I thought DJT's campaign saw some advantage in facing ABC's guaranteed lack of journalistic integrity but it looks now like a mistake. Good point also that perhaps most independents will form their opinion of it from MSM misinformation. But some of ABC's blatant bias had to have come thru even past MSM obfuscation.
I agree; lawfare would continue against him if DJT wins. It would cause no end of dysfunction. A GOP Congress would help to damper it though. "Total resistance" would be the antiamerican left's byword together with their ever maxim "by ANY means necessary".
Has Russia deployed most of its conventional power against Ukraine, I wonder now. Do they retain enough to raise the stakes without resorting to nukes? BTW, what the . . . . do they need Iranian missiles for? Ukraine seeking to enhance its bargaining power by bombarding Russia: the problem there is that there is a fundamental original difference between Russian and Ukrainian motives. Russia sees the prospect of Ukrainian membership in Nato as an absolutely unendurable affront and threat and invaded in order to prevent it. Ukraine saw in the prospect of membership a greater degree of security than it already had; Russia had, after all, assented to its independence but it understandably hoped for more. Nuclear armed Russia has been, in Russia's view, goaded by a West which no longer respects its interests and it may be reaching the end of its endurance. Drones, missiles, actual land invasion of a Russia savaged in WWII, British made tanks on Russian roads now and who knows, F16s in its skies soon ?! Bargaining power may become an afterthought. As much as we deplore Russian cruelty it defies hard, hard reality to think them ever assenting to such national humiliation and decisive compromise of their national security. It was utter irresponsibility to ever think that rugged nation capable of it.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: What might follow, Russia might wonder, were they to allow unthinkable Ukrainian membership in Nato?! Nato gunboats plying Russian rivers; extraterritorial enclaves in St. Petersburg; Hong Kong on the Black Sea?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I was reading about Khrushchev: he said he napped during the day in order to avoid dozing off during one of Stalin's interminable night sessions. Stalin was known to take corporal vindication against any insolent enough to do that. Its grimly fascinating to recall the comment made by a Russian after Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956: " if he had done that while Stalin was alive there wouldn't even have been a wet spot left of him!"
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack:I agree with you on the list of most excoriated Presidents you discussed in the broadcast,(Trump, Nixon, Reagan), with one addition. Never thought I'd see anyone catch more hell than Nixon did but Trump has. Reagan and Johnny Carson were similar in their ability to play the media like fish on a line (Carson had Mike Wallace on one night and parried all his "gotchas" with ease) so Reagen was perhaps least scathed. I'd put Lincoln at the head of the list as most savagely excoriated. Aside from the insults he garnered from such as Edwin Stanton ,Gen'l. McClellan and newsmen who yet lacked the consummate viciousness of today's compromised "journalists", his election sparked a civil war and he was assassinated .The one most deserving of condemnation, Slick Willy, largely escaped it. Go figure!
ReplyDeleteRAY TO DR. WADDY AND JACK
ReplyDeleteTrump must know that he lost the debate with Harris, and he is wise to back off from a second one with her. I'm relieved he made that decision, in that another debate with her would be equally disastrous. He needs to concentrate on his base support at rallies, and should have declined the debate in the first place. What really counts now is Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Beria: he's not well known today but he could have made history if he had succeeded in taking Stalin's place. He was of the particularly odious misfit sort that totalitarian regimes seem so often to offer "gainful" employment (eg. Himmler). His secret police regime was savage and in full keeping with Stalin's comprehensive sociopathic evil; he did advocate some political reforms that might have endeared him to the people (for what that might have been worth) but perhaps that was a Kamala type disingenuous transformation meant to give him a counter to the mortal opposition which eventually did finish him. He no doubt was hated by those who had lived for so long with the possibility that Beria's torturers would summarily invest them in the deep Russian winter night at Stalin's casual behest. I wonder what a lasting Beria regime would have been like? Would he have manifested Khrushchev's relative restraint from seeking war with the West? Some sources hold that Stalin intended to attack W. Europe once he had the H bomb. Would Beria have carried this out?
ReplyDeleteRay and Dr. Waddy from Jack: I don't think DJT's base was at all reduced by the debate. It was an honest display by her patronizing and contemptuous opinion about an America which resists unwanted and unneeded "fundamental transformation".If anything, the base was motivated by Harris's haughty dismissal of him ,to turn out. Is his base enough to take him over the top, if it is sufficiently aroused by the onerous possibility of a Harris win and resolves to flock to the polls?
ReplyDeleteAgain, I can't really imagine many"independents" being on the fence; the differences between the two are so obvious. I agree, DJT should keep hammering away with what has convinced so many Americans that he stands for them against the antiamerican left hate filled elite which despises them, especially on the solid "San Francisco liberal" theme and on the very deliberate radical surrender at the border and the coddling of criminals nationwide. No need for him to redefine himself; stick with it DJT! The "deplorables" are with ya! The onerous idea of the left coast and the eastern megalopolis, (i.e. NY and CA) dictating to the rest of America, ought to be so unendurable as to convince all who cherish America to VOTE! It's easy enough and the Electoral College was established to reduce the power of concentrated populations with cultures hostile to the rest of America from dominating the rest of the country by numbers alone. It saved us from Gore and Hillary. Consequently, with this additional advantage we have REAL POWER to turn back the incipient leftist totalitarians, even in a tight election. But we must VOTE!
Jack, we must hope that Putin's latest line in the sand is as meaningless as all the others. Of course, Hitler must have thought the same of Britain and France's guarantees to Poland...
ReplyDeleteI agree, alas: there will be no belt-tightening until America's trousers have already fallen below her ankles.
Jack, I too have wondered whether Russia is shepherding additional conventional resources that it could, in extremis, deploy against Ukraine. It's hard to imagine that a nation of 140 million can't put up more of a fight, but it's also hard to imagine why they wouldn't want to finish this fight sooner rather than later.
You have to feel for a man like Khrushchev and indeed anyone who went through Stalinist terror. Stalin would probably say that if he had learned the proper lessons he never would have been ousted!
Excellent point that Lincoln was vilified with no less viciousness than Trump. That must make someone like Trump feel like there's hope for his historical legacy...although I rather doubt there is, knowing the historical profession as I do.
Ray, I'm not sure a second debate would have gone the same way, but it would have attracted a far smaller audience and probably would have done little to move the dial. It's a shame Trump blew this chance, because he doesn't get many opportunities to speak directly to the American people. This may well have been his last.
Interesting speculation about Beria! I know next to nothing about him, but it's noteworthy that he was dethroned as secret police chief, kept in the inner circle, and given supervision of the all-important atomic bomb program. One wonders how he kept himself mostly on Stalin's good side...
Will the GOP base turn out as never before? Or might it turn out precisely as it did in '20 (all 74 million of 'em), but with better results, since it's unlikely that the Dems can repeat Biden's suspiciously superlative turnout figures. Will it be a high or low turnout election? I'm pretty sure it won't be low, but there are so many gradations of "high"! Based on the ads I'm seeing during football, which is the only time I watch live tv, Harris has a lot more money than Trump. That could prove important.
RAY TO DR. WADDY
DeleteTrump does speak directly to The American People, at his rallies.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: But some historians have modified their once generally shared low opinion of Pres. Grant. One reason I see this election as so critical is because I think quite possible that a Trump - Vance tenure could turn back the antiamerican leftist onslaught on all we hold worth conserving and preserving. If so, it might well take much time for them to have any chance of objective evaluation from a grievously and absurdly antiintellectual American academy now in its third generation.
ReplyDeleteRay, I disagree. Trump speaks directly to those who already support him at his rallies. He has great difficulty communicating with undecided voters, and the media won't be any help.
ReplyDeleteJack, I would love it if Trump and Vance could reverse the tide of history and evict the Left from our major institutions. I'll believe it when I see it, mind you.