Being Diplomatic Toward Allies

For John, BLUF:  French President Emaneuel Macron denounced the incoming Italian Prime Minister, Ms Gioria Meloni.  She did not take it well.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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MACRON VS. MELONI

From Power Line, by Blogger John Hinderaker, 29 September 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

France’s Emmanuel Macron, like a number of other world leaders, has denounced Italy and its incoming Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.  I will chalk that up as a mistake.  I don’t think a lot of people have seen this amateurishly-filmed response by Meloni, but it is scorching.

It is not hard to understand why colorless leftist leaders fear Meloni and denounce her as a “fascist.”  I think that means she gives speeches that are effective and that people like.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything Meloni says here, but she makes some good points about illegal immigration and Africa:

It the You Tube doesn't pop up. clock here.

I think Ms Meloni's critique is a fair one.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Objections to Dilbert

For John, BLUF:  The Woke world is spreaking in all directions and many are not able to resist the urge to cancel those who are different.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Then they came for “Dilbert”…; STEM academics defending the indefensible as ‘recalibration’

From Spin, Strangeness, and Charm, by Blogger Nitay Arbel, 23 September 2022.

Here is the lede plus five:

(a) So Scott Adams sees his strip “Dilbert” canceled by nearly 80 newspapers, which represents a serious hit.

Now Adams has been poking fun at corporate wokebaggery for many years, and has been a Trump supporter. The latter got his lecture invitations to dry up.  So what is new?

Is it simply the “banana republic without bananas” kicking into higher gear?

Or is it that his latest target have become ESG (economic environmental and social governance) scores — which are big, big business for firms like Blackrock Capital?

My money is on… follow the money.

(b) Seemingly unrelated, the Powerline authors are mystified why what I will in code-speak call “trans-butadiene hair grooming” of young children — a policy that is deeply unpopular with the electorate — became a hill for the Brahmandarin Left to die on.

Fortunately, my newspaper, The [Lowell] Sun has not cancelled Dilbert.  The Scott Adams strip is an island of sanity in the churn of business culture.  Perhaps I am lucky to have retired a decade ago.  Even so, there were some strange rules from HR even then.  Referencing item (b), one can only imagine the turmoil in the minds of teachers and other eduction staff.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Location

For John, BLUF:  An anti-Abortion activist was arrested by a couple dozen FBI agents in front of his family for shoving a man who had talked crudely to his then 12 year old son.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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25 FBI agents with guns drawn reportedly raid pro-life activist's home to the horror of his family; he faces 11 years for pushing a man outside an abortion clinic

From The Blaze, by Reporter Psul Sacca, 24 September 2022.

Here is the lede plus three:

A pro-life activist and author had his home raided by as many as 30 FBI agents with guns drawn, according to his wife. The sidewalk counselor and father of seven now faces up to 11 years in federal prison for allegedly pushing a man to the ground outside of an abortion clinic in Pennsylvania nearly a year ago. The pro-abortion man allegedly harassed the Christian man's young son.

Mark Houck is a Catholic author, lecturer, radio host, and co-founder of The King's Men – a club for men "to unite and build up other men in the mold of leader, protector, and provider through education, formation, healing, and action."

On Oct. 13, 2021, Houck allegedly went to sidewalk counsel at the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center in Philadelphia. He brought his eldest son with him – who was 12 years old at the time.

An abortion clinic volunteer named Bruce Love and Houck allegedly got into an altercation outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic. Houck's wife claimed that her husband was on the sidewalk of the abortion clinic and not the property of Planned Parenthood.

I can understand the FBI going in with mass and guns drawn.  I understand both Mr Mark Houck, and his Wife, Ryan-Marie, are trained Ninjas, with a complete arsenal of weapoons.  My understanding is that he even has a technical in his garage, with a Ma Duece mounted on the bed.  Once can understand the concern of the FBI.

What I don't understand is how the FBI thought it was OK to clog all the local residential street parking with their operation.  Was there no more congeniel setting for arresting Mr Houck?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Verizon Lags

For John, BLUF:  Verizon is not the forward leaning 21st Century operation I had expected.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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I have a cell phone plan with Verizon.  It includes my Wife, myself and two of our children, plus two iPads.

I wanted to upgrade one of the Apple iPhones, which is currently in Illinoi.  I thought I could waltz into the Verizon Store in Tewksbury, arrange a deal and have the iPhone holder go into a store out in Belleville, Illinois, and be off with a new phone.

Not so fast.

This is not the 21st Century I had envisioned.  No, at the Verizon Store it is still 1999.  They are not able to cut such a deal.♠  I could shut down the Cell Plan from here, but I couldn't purchase a new phone.

I think it is time for the Verizon CEO to call for an upgrade to his opersting methods.  It might even make him more money.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  On the other hand, the previoous week I was able to go to the Tewksbury Verizon store and activate the cell capability on an iPad out in Belleville.

Getting the Holocaust Strait

For John, BLUF:  The performance of the United States Goveernment toward Germany's handling of Jews in the 1930s and early 1940s was abominable.  Including the actions of President Franklin D Roosevelt.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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PBS Holocaust documentary perpetuates well-worn myths to glorify FDR, says historian

Here is the sub-headline:

Streaming this week, historian Rafael Medoff says ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’ misrepresents President Roosevelt’s actions leading up to and during the genocide

From The Times of Israel, by Reporter Matt Lebovic, 18 September 2022, 10:11 pm.

Here is the lede plus four:

Early in his new film “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” documentarian Ken Burns claims the United States admitted more Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany than any other country on Earth.

The problem with this statement, according to historian Rafael Medoff, is that it flies in the face of publicly available data on refugees from that period.

Clocking in at six hours, “The U.S. and the Holocaust” begins airing on PBS this week.  In recent press interviews, Burns said he attempted to handle Roosevelt “more critically” for “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” compared to the previous, somewhat glowing treatments of FDR in his other documentaries on the period.

Calling Burns “seriously mistaken” about the issue of Jewish refugees, Medoff told The Times of Israel that the discrepancy is connected to several other “well-worn myths” that appear in “The U.S. and the Holocaust.”  These myths, said Medoff, run the gamut from why the US could not rescue Anne Frank to Roosevelt’s role in the “St. Louis” affair, alongside the perennial debate on bombing the tracks to Auschwitz.

Medoff is an American professor of Jewish history and the founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is based in Washington, DC.  He is the author of “America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History,” among other works on the Holocaust and Zionist history.

Yes, this is one historian's view of the work of another historian, but it should cause us to be cautious in acceptying whst is presented to us about the Holcaust.  Some don't even accept the existence of the Holocaust as an historic event.  During an interview on CBS's '60 Minutes" The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, commented that “there are some signs” that the Holocaust happened but that the issue required more research.  Perhaps I should sent the Irnian UN Mission a book for the President.

Here is another view on the Ken Burns Documentsry, by Ms Carla Seaquist, "'The U.S. and the Holocaust': Documentary Throws Harsh Light on 'Immigrant Nation'".

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Is Abortion an Absolute Right?

For John, BLUF:  Author carla Seaquist doesn't seem to thinkk abortion is an absolute right and she counsels going forward with an eye toward other rights.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Dear Feminists:  On Abortion, Shall We Finally Embrace the Golden Mean?

From Medium, by Writer Carla Seaquist, 31 May 2022.

Here is the lede plus three:

Abortion is every woman’s concern and every feminist’s issue.  We feminists, the advocates of the species, array ourselves along a spectrum on the issue of abortion — over viability of the fetus, over religious injunction, over access to the procedure, over restrictions to access.  It is perhaps the latter — unrestricted versus restricted access — that causes the most argument among our number.

A defining moment for me came in the mid-1990s.  I was in New York on business and was to meet a friend there for coffee during my break (from rehearsal for a play of mine).  When I called to arrange where to meet, my friend informed me of a scheduling conflict:  As a board member of an abortion rights group, she had committed to a march that would take place during our coffee-time.  I’d read of the upcoming march, a major event involving feminists from across the country. “You can come march with us and we can talk,” she said.  I demurred:  “I don’t think so, but thanks.”  What ensued got prickly, as it came out her advocacy of abortion was stronger than mine.

Finally, in exasperation, my friend asked:  “What kind of feminist are you?”  And out of my mouth came my position on abortion, finally:  “One who believes in limits, in restrictions.”

By then, in the 20-some years since the 1973 Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Roe v. Wade granting the right to abortion, when the ruling was operationalized — women getting abortions, feminists touting women’s progress with this signal right — I became increasingly unsettled by how seldom I heard reference to, or concern expressed for, that which was aborted: the fetus.  Too often I heard relief expressed that abortion was a fix for a “wild weekend of unprotected sex.”  Also unsettling was what I took to be specious rationales about when life begins, with the more extremist voices arguing for later and later in the term, with fewer and fewer restrictions, including into the third trimester.  But, but, but:  Left to its own, the fetus will grow, I felt; it is a living thing.  “Safe, legal, and rare” seemed a sound dictum to me, but the “rare” part was losing ground.

What are the limits to abortion?  The receond governor of Virginia, a pediatric neurologist, Dr Ralph Northam, said that we birth the child and set it aside and consult with the Mother as to if the child should live.  On the other hand, we have Professor Peteer Singer, who thinks that abortion is ethical up to two years post-oartum.  I think I am with Ms Seaquist in thinking the first trimester is a time of confusion and an area where action might be reasonabe.♠  Beyond the first trimester there should be a lot more clarity, and lesss action.  Are Mothers and Schools not teaching young women to recognize the signs in their own bodies?

Ms Seaquist supports a reformed strategy, once that sounds more responsible:

One that resets its parameters: away from the extreme of unrestricted abortion through the third trimester — and back to the more defensible parameter of abortion restricted to the first.  In other words, the Golden Mean, not the extreme.

. Here is the style being advocated bt Ms Seaquist:

In my early career in civil rights, in the 1970s and ’80s, when I organized the women’s caucus of a major think-tank (Brookings Institution) and served as an equal opportunity officer for a major American city (San Diego), I found that, for a policy to stick, not trigger reactionary resistance, the Golden Mean worked — moderation in goals (if you keep meeting your goals, over time you make real headway), moderation in implementation (making yourself helpful in reaching those goals), moderation in style (don’t scare people).  I also saw how extremes, expressed as cultural trend (dressing sexy), could hurt “my” women.  “Nothing in excess,” as the ancients put it.  This isn’t about panache (“living big”), but policy: bringing the masses over to our side.

I am a pro-life kind of person, but we live in a pluralisti society.  Is there some medium point at which we can meet?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Not that I am advoacting abortion at this point.  I am recognizing that for many fellow Americans it seems a reasonable and legal option.

Hillary Says No

For John, BLUF:  Ms Hillary Clinton goes all William T Sherman on us.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Hillary Clinton says she will never run for president again

From The Hill, by Reporter Chloe Folmar, 6 September 2022, 8:25 PM ET.

Here is the lede plus four:

Former secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said she will not run for president again.

“No, no,” Clinton said when asked by “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell if she would ever run for president again.

“But I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that we have a president who respects our democracy and the rule of law and upholds our institutions,” Clinton continued.

Clinton said former President Trump would not fit into that category and that “he should be soundly defeated” if he runs again.

“It should start in the Republican Party,” Clinton said.  “Grow a backbone. Stand up to this guy.”

Why now?  What is the hidden message Mrs Clinton is trying to send?.

She did say she is backing Joe Biden in 2024.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff