From the Heartland

Blog Template.
For John, BLUF:  The Democrats, with a magnificant machine, lack a selling message.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Does Tim Walz think we still want to hear from him?

Here is the sub-headline:

A disastrous campaign doesn’t seem to have sparked any reflection

From The Spectator, by Millinneal Grace Curley, March 24, 2025

Here is the lede plus three:

If you thought an embarrassing loss in November would result in Tim Walz taking a hint, you thought wrong. The Democratic party is seeing its popularity continue to decline, even from that low point. A recent NBC poll showed the party’s favorability rating hitting a low not seen since 1990.

Yet Walz seems hell bent on sticking around. This leads those of us who just suffered through his three month stint as a vice presidential candidate to ask: are the Dems really doing this again?

Despite the lack of demand, Walz is riding a non-existent wave of momentum and making headlines as he goes. While appearing on the This Is Gavin Newsom podcast, Walz and Newsom tried to unpack why the Democrat party is losing support from men.

Of course, who better to expound on this topic than the man who was specifically selected as Harris’ running mate to help improve her standing with the male demographic, and managed to make things worse for her! He is an expert in this field.

I think Grace Curley captures it here.  Governor Tim Walz may represent some vision of masculinity, but he falls well short in appealing to the young male demographiv.

The Democratic National Committee seems to have lost the sent along the campaign trail.  Yes, it is still early days for the Mid-Terms, but still, the need to be thinking about getting their act together, rather than rely on saying "Orangeman Bad" and vandelizing Teslas .

Regards  —  Cliff

Former Mass First Lady Passes Away

For John, BLUF:  Another heads off to Heaven.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Kitty Dukakis, wife of former Massachusetts governor and failed Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, dead at 88

From The New York Post, by Reporter Christopher Scarglato, 22 March 2025, 10:47 a.m. ET.

Here is the lede plus two:

Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, died on Friday, her family said.

The cause behind her death was complications from dementia, said her son John, according to The Washington Post.

Dukakis, 88, was Massachusetts’s first lady from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991 while her husband spent three terms as governor.

She is survived by her husband, Michael, who is 91.

May she rest in peace.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

When Does the Economy Rebound

For John, BLUF:  Senator Warren is correct, the econoomy didn't recover on dayy one, but the steps are beingh taken to move it ahead.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/03/02/bessent-calls-out-media-for-hiding-economic-crisis-until-trump-took-office-n4937486

Bessent Calls Out Media for Hiding Economic Crisis Until Trump Took Office

From PJ Media, by Columnist Catherine Salgado, 2 March 2025, 1:45 PM.

Here is the lede plus two:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent started off his CBS News interview Sunday by ripping leftist media — including CBS — for pretending Joe Biden’s horrible economy was great until he left office.

As We the People picked up extra jobs or lost jobs, as we struggled to pay bills and saw inflation eat up our savings, mainstream media swore we were fools who didn’t appreciate a booming economy. But as soon as Donald Trump took office and inherited Biden-Harris’s economic morass, the media began screeching hysterically about egg prices and insurance costs. As Bessent said, these stooges are total hypocrites.

Addressing the ever insidious “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, who expressed concern about prices and economic backsliding, Bessent said, “You know, Margaret, what I find interesting is, for the past year and a half, and during the campaign, most of the media said, Oh, the economy is great. It's just a vibe session. Now that President Trump's in office, there's an economic problem. And I'll tell you what the problem was–”

Why, yes, it is Moderator Margaret Brennan, of CBS Face the Nation, one more time.  She comes across as an apologist for the AutoPen Administration.  In this case she is covering for that Administrations sad economic policies.

President Trump may have thought that he was going to turn the economy around on day one, just by his personality and promise to Make America Great Again.  It didn't happen.  The economic drag of the previous Administration has held us back.

But, I am optomistic that the economy is sound and with the efforts of the current Adminiistration to provide more energy and to reduce regulations thihngs will free up and the economy will forge ahead. Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Burning Teslas Warm the Climate

For John, BLUF:  .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Tesla Vandalism

From Rasmussen, by Rasmussen Reports.

Here is the text:

"Tesla automobiles and Tesla dealerships have been vandalized by anti-Trump protesters.  Is vandalism against Tesla an appropriate form of protest?"

NO -
DEM:  61%
IND:  79%
GOP:  78%
All Voters:  72%

I am disappointed that the numbers are so low for Independents and Republicans.

But, the percentage for Democrats is significantly lower.  Do these people not realize that they are abandoning the crusade of climate change?  Do they like being opposed to making Government better?  Do they realize that they are making a mockery of previous demonstrations?  And what does the use of the swastika say to Native Americans?

I am glad to see that our Attorney General is taking this seriously.  These perpatrators are domestic terrorists and deserve punishment.  Feloony convictions♠ are totally appropriate.

This Tesla Protest is far worse than the supposed Insurrection on 6 January 2021.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  And in many places a felony connviction means a loss of one's right to vote.

Truth Emerging

For John, BLUF:  Mnetioned in Dispatches.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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'We Were Badly Misled' About COVID Origin, Says ...

From Hot Air, by Capotain Ed Morreissey, 17 March 2025, 9:20 AM.

Here is the lede plus one:

Were they 'misled'? Or did they lead the charge against anyone who dared question the consensus?

Now that the cat has come out of the bag, suddenly the New York Times feels the need to get out in front of the backlash. For years, the NYT ran story after story, scathing column after column, about anyone who dared to challenge The Science®. How dare people suggest that a novel coronavirus might have emerged from the nearby lab being run under questionable practices doing exactly the kind of research intended to produce novel coronaviruses! Those dissenters were all raaaaaacists, remember?

Now, the NYT -- and not even in its own editorial voice -- wants to play victim of The Science®:

Since scientists first began playing around with dangerous pathogens in laboratories, the world has experienced four or five pandemics, depending on how you count. One of them, the 1977 Russian flu, was almost certainly sparked by a research mishap. Some Western scientists quickly suspected the odd virus had resided in a lab freezer for a couple of decades, but they kept mostly quiet for fear of ruffling feathers.

Yet in 2020, when people started speculating that a laboratory accident might have been the spark that started the Covid-19 pandemic, they were treated like kooks and cranks. Many public health officials and prominent scientists dismissed the idea as a conspiracy theory, insisting that the virus had emerged from animals in a seafood market in Wuhan, China. And when a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance lost a grant because it was planning to conduct risky research into bat viruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology — research that, if conducted with lax safety standards, could have resulted in a dangerous pathogen leaking out into the world — no fewer than 77 Nobel laureates and 31 scientific societies lined up to defend the organization.

So, the Wuhan research was totally safe and the pandemic was definitely caused by natural transmission: It certainly seemed like consensus.

We have since learned, however, that to promote the appearance of consensus, some officials and scientists hid or understated crucial facts, misled at least one reporter, orchestrated campaigns of supposedly independent voices and even compared notes about how to hide their communications in order to keep the public from hearing the whole story. And as for that Wuhan laboratory’s research, the details that have since emerged show that safety precautions may have been terrifyingly lax.

And it goes on and gets better.  Read the whole thing.

There is little doubt in my mind that we, the Citizenry, were fed disinformation about the COVID-19 Pandemic.♠  I would like to put all the blame on Dr A Fauci, but that would not be fair.  He was aided and abetted by others in the medical community.  And, there was the Trump-despising Press, who went with Dr Fauci, because it was the easy way to place the burden on President Trump 45  Sad.  Very sad.

It is going to tqke time for experts, in and out of Government, to regain the confidence of the American People.  I hope those "experts" starat working on it soon.  I owuld like to get back to the time that Sergeant Friday and Inspector Lewis Erskine represented what was best in Government.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  An Undertaker friend of mine pointed out early on that the typical surgical mask was not suited to dealing with the COVID-19 virus.  Rather, we needed the N-95  But, I have been at hospitals that rejected the N-95 and asked me to don the ineffective mask.

England Now Has a Version of DOGE

For John, BLUF:  When Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer looks to be adopting a reform of the Bureaucracy, maybe DOGE isn't so off base.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Starmer to abolish NHS England

Here is the sub-headline:

KEY MOMENTS

From The aatelegraph, 13 March 2025 3:05pm.

Here is an extract:

Starmer: We’ve created ‘watchdog state’ out of step with the public Sir Keir Starmer said: “I’m going to send teams into every government department with a clear mission from me to make the state more innovative and more efficient. But we also need to go further and faster on regulation.”

The Prime Minister insisted it was “not about questioning the dedication or the effort of civil servants” but rather “the system we’ve got in place”.

“Over a number of years politicians have chosen to hide behind vast arrays of quangos, arms-length bodies, regulators, you name it, a cottage industry of checkers and blockers, using taxpayer money to stop the Government delivering on taxpayer priorities.”

Sir Keir admitted “we always knew it was going to be contentious” to promise to build 1.5 million homes during the current Parliament, adding: “Some parts of the state haven’t got the memo.”

He warned an office conversion into 139 homes was in jeopardy “because the [cricket] ball strike assessment doesn’t appear to have been taken by a specialist qualified consultant”.

“People across Britain are frustrated, they don’t think politics works for them, it doesn’t deliver on its promises... Parts of the state see their job as blocking government from doing great things it was elected to do... We’ve cleared a watchdog state, completely out of whack with the priorities of the British people.”

It sounds to me like British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has broken the code and realizes that the Bureaucracy has become its own self-perpetuating organism.  It reminds me, in a way, of the 1983 film, War Games.

This suggests that maybe President Trump and Elon Musk may be on a good path.

Regards  —  Cliff

A Way Forward?

For John, BLUF:  While many are ooutraged at President Trump's words and actions with regard to Ukraine and the Middle East, some see that perhaps there is a path to peple in both locations.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Thanks to Trump, Saudi Arabia Gets a Big Week in International Diplomacy

Here is the sub-headline:

Riyadh is hosting U.S., Russian and Arab officials for high-stakes talks on Ukraine and Gaza, more proof of its regional clout and warm relations with President Trump.

From The Old Gray Lady, by Reporters Vivian Yee and Ismaeel Naar, Feb. 20, 2025.

Here is the lede plus four:

Only a few years ago, Washington was calling Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over its headline-making human rights violations. Western business leaders canceled investments in the kingdom. Celebrities and sports stars took flack for doing events there.

With its oil and its regional clout, however, Saudi Arabia proved too useful for the Biden administration to push the kingdom away for too long. And just a few weeks into the second term of President Trump, who nurtured a cozy relationship with the kingdom when he was last in office, Saudi Arabia’s stock is once again on the rise — even if Mr. Trump’s approach to the region is not always to the Saudis’ liking.

This week, all of the diplomacy is in Riyadh, the kingdom’s capital. On Friday, Arab leaders are expected to gather to hammer out a counterproposal meant to persuade Mr. Trump not to deport all of the some two million people in Gaza to Arab countries, mainly Egypt and Jordan, and transform the strip into a “Riviera of the Middle East.”

On Tuesday, senior American and Russian officials met in Riyadh for opening talks over ending the war in Ukraine and re-establishing normal relations, another major foreign policy priority of Mr. Trump’s. The Russian delegation was based at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, once locked up hundreds of powerful businessmen and royal family members in an early quest to consolidate power. (Saudi Arabia said it was a crackdown on corruption.) This time, Saudi Arabia was presenting a very different image, facilitating the talks on Tuesday with a lunch menu of Arab and Western specialties that included a “symphony of scallop, shrimps and salmon” and knafeh cheesecake, according to Russian state television.

> “Country of peace,” read the hashtag accompanying some social media posts about the Tuesday talks from government and state media accounts. Others had a hashtag calling the kingdom “capital of world decisions.”

I note this because there is a chance that President Trump is trying to tie Saudi Arabia into the Ukraine peace effort as a way of tying that Kingdon into peace efforts in the Middle East.  There should be little double that peace is needed in both places.  And no doubt that peace is difficult in both places.

In the Ukraine Russia is fighting a war to ensure that Ukraine does not become part of a NATO threat to themselves.  While NATO may not think of itself as a threat, a long look at history suggests that some small spark can ignite a big blaze.  An assassination in Serejavo ignited World War One.  It didn't happen in a flash, but from the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on 28 June 1914 it was only a month until Austria-Hungary declared waron Serbia on 28 July, and then things unraveled from there.  In the case of Ukraine and Russia it is not just the secure border, but also actions that Russian President Putin has found disrespectful, such as breaking away the Ukraine Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church.

As for Gaza, the Nakba. as seen from the Palestine side, is a never ending tragedy.&nbp; The election of Hamas to power in Gaza in 2006 led to an even more militant approach to Israel.  The current crisis jumped into open warfare with the 7 October 2023 Al Aqsa Flood operation by Hamas against Israel, where 1,180 Israelis were killed and 251 taken as hostages.

The Hamas led Palestinans of Gaza are not prepared to accept Gaza as their permaent home, but rather are intent on returning to their 1947 homes in what is now Israel, except it is now 2,1 million Palistinians, vice the 710,000 displaced in 1947.  No one has come forward to suggest a workable method for squaring this circle.  It would appear that President Trump believes that the involvement of Saudi Arabia in this probglem might provide a solution; an Arab solution.

Regards  —  Cliff