Don Surber on Illegal Immigration Reform

For John, BLUF:  This is a different person's take on illegal immigration and the Biden Administration sham effort at reform.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Turning the border against Trump

Here is the sub-headline:

Democrats and RINOs desperately try to wipe the open borders off their shoes

From Don Surber Substack, by Reporter Don Surber, 30 January 2024.

Here is the lede plus six:

If President Trump wins in November, he can thank Texas Governor Greg Abbott for the win.  No one has done more to change public opinion about Biden’s Open Borders policy than Abbott.  He shipped the invaders to sanctuary cities and lo and behold, black voters suddenly rose against Democrats who bent over backward for the illegal aliens.

In November, the Wall Street Journal reported, “By championing legal and illegal immigrants and largely ignoring border security, the Democrat Party has alienated key voting groups—including Hispanics.”

Hispanics?  It us worse than that because the invasion of illegal aliens puts the black vote in jeopardy for Democrats.  Black voters provide one out of four Democrat votes.

The New York Times chimed in, “Black voters are more disconnected from the Democrat Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many see as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House just three years ago.

“New polls by The New York Times and Siena College found that 22% of black voters in six of the most important battleground states said they would support former President Donald J. Trump in next year’s election, and 71% would back Mr. Biden.

“The drift in support is striking, given that Mr. Trump won just 8% of black voters nationally in 2020 and 6% in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center.  A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12% of the black vote in nearly half a century.”

The black vote is only part of the problem. Most Americans oppose Biden’s refusal to enforce immigration laws.

President Biden is in a bit of a bind.  He, along with a big chuck of his Party, want an open border.  Some see it as the "Die Lösung" policy.  However, a significant portion of the Party is opposed to free and open borders, and the resulting influx of peope (302,034 last month).♠  For President Biden, and his handlers, the question is how to appease both factions of the Party, without sending voters to the Republican side in November.

The solution, for the Democrats, seems to be to have Congress pass an immigration refor4m bill that appears to limit the number of illegal immigrants, but only slightly throttles the flow.  Under the bill, as Mr Don Surber points out, the President would be forced to act if the number of illegal immigrants exceeds 5,000 per day.  However, that is a large number.  Granted, in December the aversge was 9,743 per day, but still, 4,999 (under the limit) is 1,824,635.  That is 36,492 per state.♥

For President Trump to oppose the supposed compromise bill being drafted behind closed doors in Congress is not just smart politics.  It is smart policy.  The bill is a clock behind which the Biden Administration wishes to continue to conduct business almost s usual, while being able to say it has control of the Border Crisis.  I am with President Trump on this.♦

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  For some opposed it appears to be an issue of allocation of resources,  The illegal immigrants are not only consuming tax dollars, but are also overrunning physical facilities that take time to build, like schools and recreation centers.
♥  While Alaska, Hawaii and Rhode Island will receiver fewer illegal immigrants to settle, California and Texas, for example, will receive more.
♦  There is the issue of funding for Israel and Ukraine, which Republicans in the House have used as leverage to gain reform on the Southern Border.  This is not the reform they are looking for.  I would suggest they provide the funding for Israel and Ukraine and look to fix the border crisis in January of 2025, or before, if the opportunity presents itself for real reform, rather than sham reform.

The Immigration Bill in Congress

For John, BLUF:  President Biden and his fellow Democrats, up on Capitol Hill, and, to a lesser extent, the Media, are scsmming us with regard to illegal immigration reform.  The solution is, as it has always been, in his hand, but he is trying to pull a fast one on the American Public.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Awkward silence hits CNN airwaves when Gov. Kristi Noem confronts host for defending Biden on border crisis

From The Blaze, by Writer Chris Enloe, 29 January 2024.

Here is the lede plus four:

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) beclowned CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday for defending President Joe Biden over the border crisis.

On CNN's "State of the Union," Bash asked Noem about ongoing negotiations to pass a controversial border bill that Republicans believe will do little to stymie the border crisis.  Biden, over the weekend, committed to shutting down the border only if Congress passes the bill.

The bill, however, is unlikely to pass the Senate because an increasing number of Republican lawmakers oppose the bill.  That opposition is giving Democrats a talking point to use against Republicans, and Bash deployed it in her interview with Noem.

"Why not take 'yes' for an answer?" Bash asked, referring to Biden's willingness to sign the bill.

In response, Noem correctly pointed out that Biden doesn't need the bill to fix the border crisis.  Congress, she explained, has already given the president authority to enforce immigration law.  Instead, she argued that Biden's policies need to change.

President Biden is trying to pass off the situation by saying once Congress passes a bill he can act.  That is false.  It is in need of "fact checking", if that is a real thing in the Main Stream Media.  President Biden, and his Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, brought us to this point by executive actions reversing the program being conducted by President Trump and his Administration.  If President Biden was able to vitiate all of President Trumps efforts by executive orders, why can President Biden not reverse course and reinstitute those previous rules?  What does he need from Congress?

Well, it turns out, per the rumors, that he needs Congress to allow him to keep the flow of illegal immigrants going.  The word on the street is that Congressional Democrats want to give President Biden a trigger level of illegal immigrants for controls to be implemented.  And what is that trigger level?  It is 5,000 illegal immigrants a day.  That is just shy of 2 million people a year (1,825,000) coming across our borders.  That is not fixing the problem.  Just ask the Man on the Clapham bus

What the Democrat plan does is somewhat stretch out the arrival of illegal immigrants.  Asuming that the Democrats and the Cartels don't become greedy, and bring only 4,500 illegal immigrants a day over the border,♠ when my youngest Great-Grandchild reaches thirty-five we wikl have drained 63,236,250 people out of Latin America.  That is a 10% reduction in their population.  It would be a 20% increase in our population today.  How is that fixing our immigration problem?

The United States needs immigration.  Legal immigration.  Our treatment of illegal immigrants is a slap in the face to legal immigrants, the ones who do it the right way,

Frankly, the President, Joseph R Biden, Jr, is being dishonest in his presentation of the situation with regard to illegal immigration.

Further, he is failing in his responsibiliity to lay out how we are going to absorb those millions of people, how we are going to house them, educate them, get them jobs and assimilate them.  How we are going to make them good US Citizens.  And, he is whistling past the graceyard when it comes to the question of terrorists coming across our border, with the intention to do us grevious harm.

Kudos to Governor Kristi Noem, and to Governor Greg Abott.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  That is not conting the "got aways".

Misunderstanding the Holocaust

For John, BLUF:  The Holocaust killed 12 million people during World War Two.  The death of six million Jews has the Hebrew name of Shoah.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Whoopi Goldberg’s Ignorance About The Holocaust Is What Happens When Intersectionality Rots People’s Brains

Here is the sub-headline:

The Holocaust was not, as Goldberg put it, about ‘man’s inhumanity to man.’ It was about man’s genocide of Jews.

From The Federalist, by Ms Eve Barlow, 1 February 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

It’s a chilling concern that corporate media repeatedly get matters of Jewish life and identity wrong.  What happened on “The View” Monday morning was a perfect capture of the absolute ignorance about the Holocaust of American non-Jews with captive audiences in major media.

In a panel segment, host Whoopi Goldberg began, “the Holocaust isn’t about race.”  She said it four times:  “It’s not about race.”  When asked to explain what it was about, Goldberg responded:  “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”

She continued, “These are two white groups of people.”  This is the version of the Holocaust that Goldberg and her cohorts agree children should be taught.  A butchered, ahistorical, Americanized, watered-down, downright incorrect version of the Holocaust, in which white people were being – I guess – unkind towards one another.

What Ms Goldberg seems to have not learned in school was about the story of eugenics and the fact that German Furher Adolf Hitler, looking to the United States, saw Jews as an inferior race, lesser than the German Aryans.  And then he acted on that theory, killing about six million Jews in various death camps.♠

We are looking at a failure of Ms Goldberg's teachers, duirng the 1960s, at St Columba's Catholic school and Washington Irving High School failed to teach her the history of our larger culture, much of which we inherited from Europe.  This is a major FAIL.  I sure hope we are doing better today, but I have my doubts.  Look at the antics by Harvard University Students after 7 October events in Israel lat year.  You could check the Pioneer Institue's book Restoring the City on a Hill:  U.S. History & Civics in America's Schools, by Mr Chris Sinacola, released in September of last year.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  And, he killed another six million people he saw as inferior (e.g., Romani) or otherwise bothersome

He's Back

For John, BLUF:  Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned over allegations of sexual abuse.  But, at 66, he has time for one more term in public office.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Andrew Cuomo plots comeback with border attacks on Biden

From The New York Post, by Columnist Bob McManus, 26 January 2024, 5:17 p.m. ET.

Here is the lede plus four:

Here he comes.  To save the day?

Andrew Cuomo, always intrusive and never in doubt, just tucked into Joe Biden and the Democratic Party on America’s self-inflicted border-hopper crisis.

“The migrant issue is creating mayhem across the country and showing the ineffectiveness and schisms in the Democratic Party,” writes ex-Gov. Bigfoot for The Hill — a policy-wonk-centric, Washington-based venue.

That is to say, a site watched closely by political pros from sea to shining sea: Cuomo sent a message not likely to be missed — on two levels.

“President Biden’s administration has not been able to solve the migrant problem,” he continued, “primarily because of the divided opinion within our own party.”

This is an opinion piece and as such, it is a little tart about former Governor Cuomo.  Plus, the Newspaper itself is not in the Progressive Camp.

The above notwithstanding, I am not surprised that Governor Cuomo is making a bid to come back.  And, he couldn't have picked a better topic.  Given the apparent lack of depth on the Democratic Bench, he is, in my mind, a possible replacement for President Biden some time before the November Election.

For sure illegal immigration is a major issue at this time.  Further, the Administration is not using the authority available to it to solve the problem.  I am very doubtful that the mystery bill♠ being developed on Capitol Hill will provide the relief teh American People are looking for.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Here is a take by NPR.  However NPR does not present up front the concerns about rumored high number of illegal immigrants required to trigger action.

Put Down the Cheeseburger

For John, BLUF:  Be affraid.  Our betters, the bien pensant are coming for your meat consumption.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Klaus Schwab and the UN Still Want to Purloin Your Sirloin to Make the Weather Gooder

From PJ Media, by Opinion Writer Kevin Downy, Jr, 28 November 2023, 1:05 PM.

Here is the lede plus one:

Klaus Schwab and his flunky buds at the United Nations (UN) are, as advertised, attempting to remove meat from our diet to make the clouds more tolerant.

This isn't surprising since the World Economic Forum (WEF) has, like many tyrants before them, given us their evil playbook.

Who is Klaus Schwab?  The head of the Anti-Western World Economic Forum.

Wikipedia sums up the World Economic Forum this way:

The Forum suggests that a globalised world is best managed by a self-selected coalition of multinational corporations, governments and civil society organizations (CSOs), which it expresses through initiatives like the "Great Reset" and the "Global Redesign".

Like a Matryoshka Doll, there are layers here.  The important one is The Great Reset.  This is the plan to take away the power of the electorate and give it to various non-governmental agencies..

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Countering the Trump "Dictatorship"

For John, BLUF:  Some, like Ms Mary B McCord, thinks it is close to 27 February 1933.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Hysteria on the Left Grows That Trump Will Use the Military in 'Dictatorial Ways' If He's Elected

From PJ Media, by RICK MORAN | 1:16 PM ON JANUARY 14, 2024.

Here is the lede plus five:

Every time I read an article that imagines a dystopian world if Donald Trump is elected,  I say to myself, "Well, surely they've reached the limit of anti-Trump hysteria, right?"

Not by a long shot.  And don't call me Shirley.

This one on the NBC News website took four leftists to write.  "Fears grow that Trump will use the military in ‘dictatorial ways’ if he returns to the White House" is a fantasy worthy of Tolkien.  It's Trump teams up with Sauron; all that's missing are some orcs.

Peter Nicholas, Katherine Doyle, Megan Lebowitz, and Courtney Kube all work for NBC News and are fearful that because all the adults in the room who made sure that Trump didn't blow up the world and do very bad, very un-American things during his first term are gone and Trump wouldn't have any adult supervision in a second term, he would therefore establish a military dictatorship...or something.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

The premise of this fantastical thesis is that even though Trump didn't even try to do unconstitutional stuff in his first term, it's guaranteed that Trump, the authoritarian, will do it this time because...because...because the left says so.

Yes, Candidate Trump did say, in a jocular manner that on Day 1 he would be a dictator and close the border and restart energy independence.  He then said that after that we would proceed in natural order.

In my mind I find the current occupant of the White House to be fringing on Dictatorship.  For example, he seems to be ignoring the Constitution in waiving student loan debt.  Washington State Democrat Representative Pramila Jayapal has recently accused President Biden of violating the Constitution in his attacks on Houthi units attacking shipping in the Red Sea.  Then there is the question of if President Biden is turning us into a Banana Republic by conducting Lawfare against a likely opponent in the 2024 Presidential Race.

Candidate Trump did say that winning would be his best revenge.

On the other hand, thre is a theory out there amongst the supporters of Candidate Trump that Alex Soros, son of the wealthy George Soros, Tweeted out a suggestion that Mr Trump needs to be assassinated.  Ugh!

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Legal vs Illegal Immigration

For John, BLUF:  The issue of immigration is heating up in this Presidential Primary Season.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

A 2024 Vulnerability

Here is the sub-headline:

The Democrats are out of step with public opinion when it comes to immigration.

From The Old Gray Lady, by Columnist David Leonhardt, 17 January 2024.

Here is the lede plus one:

The first thing to know is that views on immigration aren’t static.  During Trump’s presidency, Americans became more favorable to immigration, evidently in reaction to Trump’s opposition to it.  Consider this:  By the end of his presidency, the number of Americans who favored increasing immigration exceeded the number who favored decreasing it for the first time in six decades of Gallup polling.

That trend has since reversed, as you can see in the chart.  The biggest reason seems to be a surge of illegal immigration during President Biden’s term.  One cause of that surge has been the Biden administration’s approach.  Many would-be migrants now believe — correctly — that so long as they can reach U.S. soil, they will be able to stay for years.

I think I missed the part where the poll looked at the difference between legal and illegal immigration.

I favor increased legal immigration.  Don't you?

On the other hnd, I deplore illegal immigration.

1. In makes a mockery of the work of those coming legally.  I know a Canadian, retired on US Social Security, with Daughters born in the US (thus Daughterscould be President—just the risk they have to take), who is spending several thousand dollars and a lot of time doing it legally.  What a slap in the face to her for illegal immigrants to be walking free in the US, flying on airliners without IDs.
2. While we endured the ever-changing demands of Dr Fauci and company, for public health reasons, illegals come in lacking tests and shots.  The picture in my mind of legal immigrants is a long line of individuals holding chest Xray folders outside the US Embassy in Manila.  My above mentioned friend spent $300 for a chest X-ray to help satisfy the US legal requirements.  Illegal immigrants, maybe never, but if required, for free.
3. Illegal immigration is about human trafficking, which should be abhorrent to decent people.  And, some of it is sex trafficking, including under age girls.
4. Illegal drugs and fentanyl overdose deaths.
5. The Cartels use illegal immigration to reach into US towns and cities, for corrupt purposes, while we weaken police forces.
6. The danger of terrorists infiltrating our nation, so they can give us a dose of 7 October, as a way of weakening support for Israel.  That would be an affront to God, which is a thing I like to avoid.

So, yes, views change over time.  Rep Jerry Nadler wants the bracero program back.  I guess.  But, I want a steady stream of immigrants, at a pace our infrastructure (including schools) can absorb.  People coming here not just as economic migrants, but as believers in our concept of freedom.  That should be rewarded.

As to the last para of the article, it reminds me of the Bertolt Brecht♠ poem, The Solution.

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.  Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another

Which reminds me of Ms Joy Reid's comment about the Iowa Caucuses and results, noting parts of Iowa are too White and too Evangelical.  Does she wish for them to be redistributed, or just diluted?

Hat tip to my Middle Brother.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  It the name Bertolt Brecht does not ring A bell, think Three Penny Opera, and in particular the Bobby Darin classic Mac the Knife.

Is Michelle Obama the Eventul Candidate?

For John, BLUF:  For me one of the most interesting question for 2024 is who will be the Democratic Party Candidate for President.  If not Ms Obama, who?  Hunter Biden?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Megyn Kelly says if Michelle Obama launches 2024 presidential run, ‘it’s a whole new ballgame’

From The New York Post, by Shannon Thaler, 10 January 2024, 9:49 a.m. ET.

Here is the lede plus four:

Megyn Kelly said that if Michelle Obama launches a candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, “it’s a whole new ballgame.”

“There’s no question she’s more talented than Joe Biden is politically. No question,” Kelly added during Tuesday’s episode of her SiriusXM podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show.”

Though Kelly said she’s unsure whether the former first lady would vie for the commander-in-chief role, she called Obama “a powerful Democratic weapon” during her husband’s two terms in the White House.

“Whether it works this time, as a pundit, I remain skeptical,” Kelly said.

The former Fox News personality pointed to Obama’s appearance on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast as a hint that she could launch a presidential bid.

My Wife fully agrees with Megan Kelly.

My expectation is that President Joe biden will not be the candidate for President on the November Ballot.  Which leaves us with two questions: Who and When?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Goodbye President Gay

For John, BLUF:  What will be the long term consequence of Dr Claudine Gay stepping down from bzeing President of Harvard.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Claudine Gay Has Gone Away

Here is the sub-headline:

Is this the dawn of a new day?

From InstaPundit, by Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 2 January 2024.

Here is the lede plus two:

Harvard President Claudine Gay has resigned.  She follows Penn’s president Liz Magill, and leaves only MIT President Sally Kornbluth surviving among the three university presidents who disgraced themselves in their testimony over campus antisemitism.

So what’s next?  And what should be next?

I’ll approach those in reverse order.  Kornbluth should resign too.  Her performance was just as bad as the other two, and the plagiarism charges against Gay, while apparently well-founded, aren’t why Gay resigned.  She resigned because she sounded like a gray bureaucrat when confronted with the bloody reality of terrorism and antisemitism abroad, and shameless support for terrorism and antisemitism at home.  Kornbluth sounded no better.  University presidents are supposed to be leaders, and you don’t lead by retreating, squid-like, behind a cloud of gray technicalities and evasions.

I agree, 7 October may be the day DEI took a fatal blow.  But that does not mean the Faculty and Administrators at Harvard have seen the light.  The are probably still teaching the old lines (Prof Reynolds mentions in the article Frantz Fanon and Hebert Narcuse).

Only when our betters, such as the staff at Harvard, realize what our two and a quarter centuries have done for the world, and acknowledge its progress, will we be able to move on in the direction of progress, acknowledging our problems, but thankful for those who went before us and hopeful for the future.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Honoring and Learning from History

For John, BLUF:  Our inability to learn from history is only exceeded by our unwillingness to learn history.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Under Fire, Biden Admin Scraps Plan To Remove William Penn Statue From Philly Park

Here is the sub-headline:

‘No changes to the William Penn statue are planned,’ National Park Service says

From The Washington Free Beacon, by Jessica Costescu, 9 January 2024.

Here is the lede plus one:

The Biden administration scrapped its plan to permanently remove a statue of William Penn from Philadelphia’s Welcome Park, claiming the controversial proposal "was released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review."

President Joe Biden's National Park Service announced the reversal Monday evening, just days after it unveiled its "rehabilitation proposal" for the park. That proposal called to remove the Penn statue and replace it with "an expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia," which the agency said would bring "a more inclusive experience for visitors."

One would think a park would have a theme, an idea around which the visitors can gather.  In my mind this park and the surrounding environs represent the founding of William Penn's Woods, with its new burst of freedom and the events flowing from it, inclusing the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.  Where was all that history going to be represented if the park was repurposed?

It is important to remember and celebrate those cultures that went before us.  We need an appropriate location.  However, this was not the appropiate place.

If we lose the history of these United States, how soon after will we lose the nation and its institutions?  Who will the survivors blame?  The oppressors, the colonists, the old caucasians males from Europe, of course.

In the mean time we confront several crises around the world (Israel/Gaza, Ukraine/Russoa, Houthi/Yemen and Saudi Arabia, ROK/DPRK, China/Taiwan, China/South China Sea Neighbors), crises where reconciliation is needed.  Yet we just tore down a monument in Arlington Cemetary that symbolized and actuated reconciliation between the North and South (Union and Confederacy) in our own Civil War.  Not perfect reconciliation, but a start.  Have we dilligently mined that history or just dismissed it as too racist to bear?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

LA National Cemetery Protest

For John, BLUF:  When you protest, is nothing sacred?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Protest in LA

Here is the sub-headline:

From X, by Libs of TikTok, 8 January 2024, 12:28 AM.

Here is the post:

Pro-Palestine protesters vandalize and deface a US Military Cemetery in Los Angeles where 85,000 war veterans are buried.

They need to be arrested and the non citizens need to be deported. This is completely unacceptable. Where are the police?

Video at the Link.

Something like 85,000 of my fellow vets are buried in that Cemetary and it is being defaced?  For what?

And I agree with the ideas of arrests and deportations.

Hat tip to a friend of mine, a Veteran, like me, unhappy with this kind of disrespectful action.

Regards  —  Cliff

Clarity in Pennsylvania

For John, BLUF:  In the 2022 election I saw Candidate John Fedderman as weak and undesirable.  As he has recovered his health he has shown his true colors and his down the middle views.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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John Fetterman Plays Against Type

Here is the sub-headline:

His emergence as a pro-Israel moderate hasn’t surprised Pennsylvania political observers.

From The Wall Street Journal, by Reporter Salena Zito, 1 January 2024, 1:09 pm ET.

Here is the lede plus three:

It’s a warm December morning, and Sen. John Fetterman is walking along the Great Allegheny Passage across the Monongahela River from his home in Braddock.  “I spend as much time as I can out here,” he says of the trail, which runs 150 miles from downtown Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md.

Mr. Fetterman has been in the U.S. Senate just under a year, during which he’s recovered from a campaign-season stroke, checked himself into Walter Reed hospital for depression, and ruffled feathers on both sides of the aisle.  In September it was reported that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had relaxed the Senate’s unofficial dress code to accommodate Mr. Fetterman’s preference for wearing hoodies and shorts.  (That move backfired, leading the body to adopt a formal requirement of business attire.)

Of late, however, Mr. Fetterman has drawn the ire of the Democratic left for his unapologetic support of Israel, for his support of a bipartisan solution to the border crisis, and for his cheeky criticisms of the indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.).

None of this is a surprise to Pennsylvania political observers.  “Now that his health has finally improved, the national press and the country are finding out the real John Fetterman,” says Jeffrey Brauer, a political scientist at Keystone College.  Mr. Brauer thinks that Mr. Fetterman’s difficulty communicating after his May 2022 stroke, combined with his casual dress and his combative approach to moderate primary opponent Conor Lamb led outsiders to assume Mr. Fetterman was a card-carrying progressive.

I admit that Ms Zito provides a different picture of Senator John Fetterman from the one I have been holding up until just recently.  I will say that I have a lot of trust in what Ms Zito says on the political front.  She always rings true to me.

The question is, oin my mind, how will this impact any shake-out in the Democatic Party.  For sure the war between Israel and Gaza has brought strains within the Party,♠  Part of our natinoal strength over the last two and a quarter centuries has been our ability to cut a deal.  The last time we forgot how to do that we had a Civil War.&nbs; I am hoping the varioous strains in the Democratic Party will find a way to work together, for the good of the nation.

Mr. Fetterman said “I would be the last man standing to be absolutely there on the Israeli side on this with no conditions.”  On this point he will not be alone.  I will be there with him.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Is Israel at war with all of Gaza or is it just at war with Hamas?  This may sound like a nuance, but if there are two million Gazans made at Israel it is a major issue.  It is just tens of thousands of members of Hamas it is a different issue.  The hopes for peace turn on this.

The Emperor Has No Cloths

For John, BLUF:  The people inside the Biden Administration, and its supporters, remind one of New Yorker Writer Pauline Kael, who said, in December 1972, "I only know one person who voted for Nixon.  Where they are I don’t know.".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The suffering public aren't imagining things. -- Larry Summers

From X, by wretchardthecat, 3O December 2023, 3:15 PM.

Here is the X Post:

Lawrence H. Summers

@LHSummers
No question, things are more symmetric now than they were a year or a year and a half ago.  Whatever economy patricians may think, the American people are very unhappy with the state of the economy.  That's manifest in how they see confidence in institutions.  Confidence in our political leaders and their own reporting on consumer sentiment.  And I think that anyone looking at the situation has to say that while some of that may have to do with a lot of cultural issues, at least some of it has to do with the inflation we've been through, with the increase in interest rates that's been necessary.  And so I think we need to be very careful about giving policy any kind of buy given how the American people are expressing their own sentiments.
https://bloomberg.com/news/videos/2023-12-30/summers-responds-to-krugman-on-recession-risk… 7:48 AM · Dec 30, 2023

We all remember Larry Summers, don't we?  He was the President of then Harvard University, fired for having the temerity to challenge then (and now) acceted progressive wisdom,  It was a candid moment, for which he had to pay.  Not like today, where plagerism and anti-semitism are acceptable activities at Hamas University.

But, Seccretary Summers is again bucking the Progressive Party Line, noting the Emporer has no cloths.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Happy New Year

For John, BLUF:  A new year starts, and with grave predictions.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The year 2024 promises to be very exciting, from disease to immigration to a US Presidential Election to various wars and power grabs to DEI and all swirling about it.

That said, we should be optimistic.  We have had rough stretches before and managed to come out the other end better than we went in.

Good luck in the new year to those few ["We few, we happy few"] who read this blog.

Regards  —  Cliff