Tag: Democracy

A Quote and a Message Following the Latest Indictment

 

Bravery by Maxwell D. Taylor, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army: “The greatest military operation of history was the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Probably no other operation ever received such careful planning and meticulous attention to the smallest requirements.”

His commander read these words as their meetings and preparations for battle commenced:

He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.
Marquis of Montrose

Job Opening at Fox

 

“But during the last thirty years, this artificial reality has collapsed like a house of cards; the demons which haunted the brains of those outcasts have invaded the world of men and have become its masters.  The old landmarks of good and evil and truth and falsehood have been swept away and civilization is driving before the storm of destruction like a dismantled and helmless ship.  The evils which the nineteenth century thought that it had banished forever — proscription and persecution, torture and slavery, and the fear of sudden death — have returned and with them new terrors which the past did not know.  We have discovered that evil too is a progressive force and that the modern world has unlimited prospects for its development.”  —  The Judgement of the Nations by Christopher Dawson, 1942.

The exit of Tucker Carlson from Fox News felt like an earthquake in the news world.  It came as a shock to those who watched his show, and was a mere flip of the wrist from his competitors and those who claim they no longer follow cable news.  I learned about it from my sister, who called me from another state, who heard it on the radio.  Tucker was a popular commentator with a mere hour-long program.  Yet his appeal went beyond the confines of his seat at Fox.  Why?

He seemed to go to the edge when he presented. Tucker brought guests to us that witnessed and lived through storm after storm to tell their survival story when other outlets were banning commentary.  For example, the Covid shots and severe after effects, the Canadian Truckers and their standoff against big government mandates, the presidential election and election integrity, gender ideology in grade school books, and many other subjects.  He allowed his guests a forum to talk and tell us what is happening to our culture, our kids, our freedom, and our democracy.  No topic was off limits and he seemed to care about their suffering and shared their concerns.

Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as “friends.” Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents’ rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present.

More on Dr. Koganzon, https://uh.edu/class/political-science/faculty-and-staff/professors/koganzon/

This week on The Learning Curve, Cara and Gerard interview Gurcharan Das, author, public intellectual, and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India. Mr. Das gives a short history of the rise of India since independence in 1947 to become a thriving, incredibly diverse nation of 1.4 billion people—the world’s largest free-market democracy. He explains how the economic reforms of 1991 removed the restraints of a centralized, bureaucratic state, helping drive the economic dynamism of an IT and knowledge economy that has helped 415 million people escape poverty over the last 20 years. India’s remarkable story, Mr. Das notes, is showing the world an alternative to the Chinese model of autocratic, centralized control.

Stories of the Week

Join Jim and Greg discuss how the 3 Martini Lunch factored into a major debate Tuesday night! Then the turn to the martinis as they welcome polling evidence that even more House races are tilting towards the Republicans and nearly all generic polls show a GOP edge…but you still need to vote! They also groan as Saudi intelligence suggests Iran is planning an “imminent” attack but also note the likely return of Benjamin Netanyahu to in Israel. And President Biden plans to discuss why voting for his party is needed to save democracy after his party spent millions trying to get Republicans nominated who they considered the most extreme.

Democracy Is a Threat to Democracy, Say Democrats

 

Voting has already begun for the 2022 midterm elections, and if the polling trends are right and the middle-of-the-night junk-mail ballot drops don’t do for the country what they did for New Jersey Democrats last year, Republicans are in a position to take a majority in the House and have an outside chance of taking the Senate.

It seems the people are dissatisfied with the policies of the party in power and, through the power of the ballot, will express their dissatisfaction by electing greater numbers of what passes for an opposition party.  According to a lot of people who proclaim themselves “pro-democracy,” the expression of political power at the ballot box is a threat to democracy. We will start with Washington Post opinion columnist Max Boot.

[Member Post]

 

Thanks, President Brandon, for letting us know under no uncertain terms that your administration’s official position is that only left-wing politicians can legitimately win elections. President Joe Biden cited the far-right’s election success in Italy as evidence of what he said was a danger to democracy around the world, including in the United States. Preview […]

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Remembering 9/11 and Comparing Today

 

I remember 9/11 like most of you.  Time seemed to stop that day and the clock didn’t seem to resume for weeks and longer.  I was at my desk at work, and our receptionist came running through the front door and hollered, “Smitty – turn on the radio!  Something happened at the World Trade Center!”  I was known as Smitty because there were too many Lindas in my office.  I turned on the radio near my desk.  A plane had crashed into one of the towers. I thought like many that it was an accident, a control tower errored.  We were protected – how could it be anything else?

Another co-worker had a small, hand-held TV, and we huddled around it.  While the news and details were sketchy, another plane hit the second tower and I knew this was no accident.  Hell had descended in front of me on a hand-held TV.  I lived in Boston, and suddenly life changed.  Air space and Canadian borders closed.  We later learned a plane went down in Pennsylvania, diverted because it was headed for Washington, DC, and the courageous on board overcame the terrorists and it crashed in a field while those on board said goodbye on their cell phones.

Walmart Shopper: “May God Bless You”

 

We ran into our local Walmart for a few items.  Every aisle I went down, I encountered a younger, overweight fellow riding on one of those driving carts. He seemed to always be in front of me.  Sometimes things happen for a reason.

In Walmart, as in every grocery store these days, most including me are fixated on prices.  There are things I can’t find anymore like frozen pineapple juice concentrate – or any pineapple juice.  Sometimes common items are almost empty or stock is very low.  I see carts with not much in them.

Today there was a young guy on the vitamin aisle. He asked the clerk for help.  He said he just had leg surgery and was told he needed to boost up his immune system.  Don’t we all?  He scanned the immune boosters as I scanned his leg. Massive stitches in his calf, swollen foot, he shook a bit as he stood.  It looked like a shark or alligator bite or a bad accident.  I thought he needed one of those driving carts – how did he even make it into the store?

Who’s Putting Our Democracy in Peril?

 

The Democrats have once again taken a word that is a treasured symbol for our country–Democracy–and has tried to desecrate it by assigning blame to Republicans for imperiling it. The irony is that they apparently don’t know what a Democracy actually is, having chosen to mis-define it, celebrate Marxism, and use their new definition to incriminate Republicans. I thought I could help them out by clarifying the characteristics of a Democracy, and we can all reflect on who is doing the most damage to our country.

Let’s start with the border—you know, the southern border that is supposed to indicate the line where we begin to protect our national security. Oh wait, that’s right, we have no security in the south . . . due to the neglect of the Biden administration. And then we have the overwhelming abuse of fentanyl, which no one has addressed . . . well, probably because we have no southern border to provide national security, and we don’t want to offend the Chinese. And then we have illegal immigrants bearing down on our borders, even though our borders are closed . . . except that they are not closed. And what about the fact that sex trafficking is taking place due to the dominance of the cartels . . . but of course, those are just rumors . . . as is the news that children may be being kidnapped to harvest their organs.

Join Jim & Greg as they roll their eyes in anticipation of the primetime hearings of the January 6th committee. They also laugh as former Obama communications director Dan Pfeiffer suggests Ben Shapiro having a larger online following than CNN or the New York Times is a “threat to democracy.” And they discuss the Washington Post newsroom fiasco as reporters openly condemn each other and demand punishment for their colleagues’ comments.

 

[Member Post]

 

We didn’t really discuss politics at Christmas dinner this year. The conversation was actually funny and disturbing at the same time, even minus the politics.  I’ll save parts of it for later. I did have a somewhat political conversation with a dear friend and client, when we met to share lunch and gifts. She asked […]

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Join Jim and Greg as they welcome the news that it looks rather unlikely that the Senate Democrats will be able to pass a version of the Build Back Better legislation by it’s self-imposed Christmas deadline. They also unload on the Biden administration after it cut the video feed of a presentation by a Taiwanese official who offered a presentation showing Taiwan as a different color than China on the map. And they react to Chris Wallace bolting Fox News for CNN while offering a modest suggestion for his replacement.

 

[Member Post]

 

They say COVID was and is an “opportunity” to “Build Back Better”. This is the mantra of the World Economic Forum, our current president and other world leaders.  It includes many goals that seem good, even virtuous and “inevitable”. I appreciate learning. I also don’t want to become an older person who is closed-minded to […]

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QQ For You and Me: Bubble Tea, Diplomat

 

You may know it as bubble tea, tapioca tea, pearl milk tea, or boba tea. You may not know it at all. But, like popcorn chicken and scallion pancakes, bubble tea is a Taiwanese invention that’s grown to be beloved worldwide. And it’s not just a culinary triumph for the tiny democracy; it’s also become a symbol of important, and strengthening, international ties in the modern age. 

Ayaan talks with Flemming Rose about publishing the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in the Danish publication, Jyllands-Posten, in 2005. Flemming and Ayaan cover the series of events, including a debate over self-censorship and freedom of speech in Denmark that later exploded into international protests, demonstrations, and hysteria abroad.

Flemming Rose is a Danish journalist, author and editor-in-chief of the The Freedom Letter, a new Danish media.

[Member Post]

 

The latest so-called cyber hit landed on one of the U.S.’s biggest meat suppliers, JBL, today.   “The world’s largest meat processing company has resumed most production after a weekend cyberattack, but experts say the vulnerabilities exposed by this attack and others are far from resolved. Preview Open

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What is iCOP? Not What You Think

 

I almost choked on my beverage in the car when I heard an ad from cyber-security guru Kim Commando, warning that the government has enlisted the United States Post Office to spy on our social media content and report it back to certain agencies. Then the same story was being discussed on two different radio stations. From Business Insider:

According to a Yahoo News report, the law-enforcement arm of the US Postal Service is running a “covert” program that monitors Americans’ social media posts for “inflammatory” content and then passes those posts along to other government agencies.

The surveillance effort, which falls under the agency’s Postal Inspection Service, is known as the Internet Covert Operations Program, or iCop, the outlet reported. Prior to the Yahoo News Wednesday report, details of the program had not been made public.

Changing America – The World is Noticing

 

“The Europeanized USA” by Dr. Alex Joffe, published at the BESA Institute, is worth your time. This story sums up, in a not-so-tasty nut-shell, how the last bastion of the Free World, The “United” States of America, is doing, and how both our allies and enemies are viewing our current “situation” (demise).  Here’s the opening:

“America is undergoing a rapid transformation founded in a moral panic over race that masks the exercise of class-based power in which technology companies and left-wing politics have united to wield unprecedented control. The outcome will likely be a union of Europeanized states where freedoms are severely curtailed and social cohesion is minimized in favor of dependency.”   A slap in the face of Lady Liberty at best, who welcomed our ancestors to her shores –  a place of safety and freedom, based on a Declaration, and a Constitution, written with the blood of patriots, and the courage of those that fled the tyrannical control from another continent.  At its worst, the imports of slavery and inequality, who saw its imperfections and ugliness, through MLK and JFK and sought a path of reconciliation and opportunity – paths only found in a free society.

[Member Post]

 

Neither conformity nor non-conformity are value propositions in and of themselves outside the context of the object or the impetus of the subject. To do as others do simply because others do is no more informative than not to do as others do simply because they do. The problem with conformity today as it reaches […]

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