The First Four Months——————

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                How well has President Joe Biden performed in his first four months in office? How you answer that probably depends upon your political perspective and news sources, so rather than assigning him an arbitrary grade, let’s just review how well the nation has done so far under the new administration.

                On the positive side, the country has made significant progress in dealing with the Covid pandemic with the economy rebounding nicely and things in general slowly returning to something like normal. Much credit is due to the Trump administration’s Project Warp Speed and the brilliant work of the scientists who developed the vaccines in record time. Also on the positive side, Mr. Biden has restored some degree of dignity and poise to the presidency, a welcome relief from the bombast and tweets of the Trump era. But all is not well in America or the world and there is much to be concerned about on the negative side. In his efforts to appease the progressive wing of the party, Mr. Biden has moved with ill-considered haste to reverse many of the Trump administration’s accomplishments, resulting in problems, most of them predictable. Biden poses as somewhat of a moderate, but presides over a mostly progressive agenda

                A sudden reversal of the Trump restrictions on immigration and asylum policies resulted in a foreseeable crisis on the southern border, overwhelming those in charge. To date, the president has not revealed a plan to deal with this crisis except to pass the buck to Vice-president Kamala Harris who says she intends to solve it by addressing the problems in Central America that cause immigrants to flee crime and poverty. Good luck with that.

                A surge in violent crime in America’s mostly Democrat-run large cities has predictably followed efforts to defund or reduce funding for police departments and implement restrictions on policing methods. Murder rates are drastically up in most major cities and are expected to increase this summer. Police are demoralized over a lack of public support and gun sales have reached record levels as citizens lose confidence in the ability of police to protect them. Businesses and residents who can afford to are leaving some large metropolitan areas, taking jobs with them and bidding up the prices of homes in safer communities.

                Employers are complaining that they are unable to fill jobs because generous federal and state benefits often mean that recipients make more by not working. This may be slowing the recovery and may result in more jobs being eliminated by automation and the increased use of robots.

                Mr. Biden’s decision to cancel the proposed expansion of the Keystone XL Pipeline that would eventually extend from Alberta, Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast refineries not only cost at least 10,000 jobs, but was a blow to our Canadian neighbors who invested heavily in the project. That blow was compounded by Michigan’s Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s order to shut down the Line 5 Pipeline carrying fuel across Michigan from Wisconsin to Ontario, supplying much of the fuel that Canada’s most populated provinces, Ontario and Quebec, depend on. The Colonial Pipeline in our southeast states was shut down by hackers, demonstrating both our vulnerability to cyber warfare and our reliance on pipelines which are a far safer way of transporting fuel than surface transport by rail or highway.  The administration’s policies preventing further pipeline construction on U.S soil impede our own efforts at improving the security of our energy supplies while meanwhile enhancing Europe’s access to energy and Russia’s economy by waiving penalties which will permit completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany.  

                The decision to withdraw our armed forces from Afghanistan by September resulted in a surge in terrorist attacks in that country which are predicted to increase as our forces leave. This has set off an effort to find a suitable nearby base for U.S. forces to respond from as necessary to protect the sizeable diplomatic presence that will remain in that unstable country and will probably require keeping an aircraft carrier on station in the vicinity committed to that role. Our carrier force is already severely overcommitted.

                A decision by the Biden Administration to waive patent protection for U.S.-developed Covid vaccines amounts to a confiscation of intellectual property for which the owners, the stockholders of the pharmaceutical companies involved, should be compensated at market value. Otherwise, it will surely have a negative effect on future pharmaceutical research of the type that brought us these life-saving vaccines.

                Finally, Biden’s eagerness to rejoin the nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump withdrew from because it did not prevent Iran from eventually acquiring nuclear weapons has endangered our ally, Israel, which Iran has vowed to destroy. It has also upset our Arab allies in the Middle East who fear Iran’s dominance in the region, hostile intent and sponsorship of terrorism and terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Almost on cue, Hamas launched massive unguided rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, reigniting another major conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and endangering the history-making relations established between Israel and five Arab nations, largely brokered by Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

                This is, of course, only a partial list, and it’s only been four months, so stay tuned.

May 29, 2021

The GOP’s Trump Problem

               A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                The House Republican Conference did what it was expected to do last week and voted to strip Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Ida.) of her leadership position. This action was favored by Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who had previously supported her against such action. He apparently had his mind changed during a visit to former President Donald Trump at his Mir-a-Lago resort in Florida to kiss his ring and seek his blessing.

                Rep. Cheney committed the unforgivable sin of criticizing Mr. Trump and speaking the truth, as leaders are supposed to do instead of just blindly following. She said, among other sensible things, that “We cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy. Down that path lies our destruction and potentially the destruction of our country.” This was more than diehard supporters of Mr. Trump could handle. She was booed amid calls to strip her of her leadership position. McCarthy caved and so they did. It will prove to be a big mistake, in my opinion.

                So much for inclusion and the notion that the GOP is a big tent that can accommodate different viewpoints.  To exercise any position of leadership in this party now, you must, apparently, first pledge allegiance to Donald Trump and agree to not disagree with him when he says that the 2020 election was stolen from him or, for that matter, disagree with anything else he alleges.

                I get it that the party and its leadership wants more than most anything to regain control of Congress in the mid-term elections next year. So do I. I understand that they believe Mr. Trump’s support is needed to win congressional elections. They may be right, but it certainly didn’t help any in the Georgia runoff election for its two senate seats. Trump’s clumsy intervention in that race cost the GOP control of the Senate.

                I’d like to see a unified GOP going into the mid-term elections, also, but not at the expense of truth and integrity. And the truth is that Donald J. Trump is a self-centered divider who can’t handle criticism. He is not a uniter and the best thing he could do for his party and his country now would be to declare that he did most of what he set out to accomplish, which certainly exceeded my expectations, and retire from politics which he is not very good at.

                Mr. Trump is now a disruptive force in the Republican Party and a sore loser.  It’s ironic that Democrat leaders never fully accepted his 2016 election victory over their lady in waiting, Hillary Clinton, a flawed candidate who ran a flawed campaign. They then wasted four years trying to undermine his presidency, pursuing baseless charges of Russian collusion with the Trump Campaign. Trump supporters called them sore losers and they were. Who are the sore losers now?

                Ms. Cheney will not go away nor should she. She is an honest and capable leader who should play a key role in the future of the party. That party needs desperately to move beyond Donald Trump. He is not the future of the party. He certainly deserves credit for what his administration accomplished in four years with no support from the opposition party while enduring constant attempts to undermine his presidency, but it’s time for him to take up another hobby. He lost the 2020 election because of his boorish behavior and character flaws and that isn’t going to change. His approval rating is mired in the 30s. The GOP needs a fresh new leader and Mr. Trump is not that leader.

                There is, fortunately, plenty of talent within the party from which to select that leader. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida comes to mind, along with Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, former Govs. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina, to name just a few. It would be great if the GOP could manage to mend its internal divisions, focus on its alternatives to solving America’s growing domestic and international challenges  and avoid internal disputes between those who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump who, they believe, remains the best hope of the party, and those who want to move on.  That doesn’t seem likely at the moment. However, if they are foolish enough to nominate Mr. Trump to run again, they will lose badly and they will richly deserve to.

May 16, 2021

An Education in Revolution

               A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                China has selectively employed western capitalism, combined with Communist single party rule and oversight of industry, public information and education to grow its economy rapidly without the burdensome constraints of democracy and divided government. Under China’s system, the Communist party has the final say in everything of importance and, as China’s representatives recently boasted at Anchorage, things actually get done without the gridlock and polarization that Americans are dealing with. This comes at a price in personal freedoms for the Chinese people, of course.  Serious dissent is not tolerated for long by the ruling Communist Party.

                At the same time, America’s progressives seem to be borrowing from the Chinese model, as Dickinson College’s Prof. Crispin Sartwell noted in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. Woke progressives in America are appropriating socialist tools of indoctrination and reeducation to cement progressive control of government. They have taken advantage of the current racial unrest to promote, for example, the virtues of racial inclusion over merit. This is at odds with the teaching of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who sought equal opportunity and a truly colorblind society where people are judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.    

                Woke CEOs have jumped on to this bandwagon and engaged in virtue signaling, risking alienating much of their customer base to promote virtues like inclusion and equity even at the expense of merit. They are engaged in reeducating their workforces with diversity and sensitivity training, often under the watchful eye of newly-empowered Diversity Officers. They are enforcing this training by disciplining, demoting or terminating employees who dare to question it, so very few employees who really need their jobs will dare to do so.  

                Adolescents and young adults often tend to be critical of authority and rebellious in nature and that’s widely accepted as just part of growing up. Most university students, tend toward liberal viewpoints which are usually reinforced by their overwhelmingly liberal professors. In most American universities, inclusion reigns supreme, even at the expense of merit, as many Asian applicants to elite universities who are rejected in spite of academic merit know only too well. But inclusion apparently only applies to racial balance, not to other measures of diversity such as political philosophy. Conservatives are a small minority in the student bodies of many of America’s elite universities and an endangered species among faculties.

                But young adults can, hopefully, think for themselves and speak out, if only guardedly, against teachings and policies they find objectionable. But children are quite a different matter. Many elementary and secondary school children are now being exposed to lessons in inclusiveness, revisionary history, white privilege, equity (as distinguished from equality) and critical race theory. The effect in many cases is that they are learning to feel guilty about their own race if they are white and personally tainted by the original sin of slavery. Many also are learning to be ashamed of their country. These topics have no place in elementary or high school curricula, especially at the expense of time that would be better spent teaching math, science and language skills. It amounts to indoctrination of impressionable children and a usurpation of a parent’s or guardian’s responsibility to instil and model values in their children.

                Unfortunately, most American parents are blissfully unaware of the spread of critical race theory in the schools if they are aware of the theory at all. Single parents and working mothers and fathers may have little time to find out what’s being taught to their children. If they did they might be outraged. But before becoming belatedly involved, they need to know what critical race theory is. Former Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy Christopher F. Rufo, in a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College in March, provides a cogent description of this academic theory which was formulated in the 1990s on the intellectual framework of identity-based Marxism. It has recently been injected into training programs for some government agencies, teacher training programs, corporate training programs and, more recently, public school curricula.

                It rejects the notion of racial equality which it regards as merely non-discrimination and an excuse for continued white supremacy. It promotes, instead, equity which sounds benign enough but is, in fact, reformulated Marxism involving the redistribution of wealth and the replacement of private with public or group ownership of property. It also condones the curtailment of speech of those deemed insufficiently anti-racist or anti-woke.

                Lack of space precludes a fuller description of the theory but readers are urged to research the abundant literature on the topic and judge for themselves whether or not they want their children indoctrinated in these concepts and their tax dollars spent on such divisive and un-American efforts. What is going on in America today continues to bear an eerie resemblance to what preceded the Communist revolutions in Russia and China. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jingping must be pleased.

May 9, 2021

All God’s Creatures

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

    ” All things bright and beautiful,

  All creatures great and small,

  All things wise and wonderful,

  The Lord God made them all.”

                   -Cecil Frances Alexander

                Mimi was one of God’s smaller creatures but she played a large part in the daily routines of our household and she was, to me, wise and wonderful in her feline ways. She was an indoor cat and her world was limited to the confines of our home and enclosed patio where she took the sun and chased butterflies. She was very agile and she could have ventured beyond those boundaries if she wanted to but she never did for more than a moment or two so apparently she was happy enough in her space with us.

                We adopted her and her long-haired twin sister, Mewsetta, as kittens thirteen years ago. Both are jet black but strikingly different in appearance. Mimi was short-haired and somewhat feral in manner. Though from the same litter, they apparently had different fathers. Mewsetta boasted that she was a Persian while Mimi claimed that her father was just a street-smart survivor.

                Mimi was my constant companion around the house and yard and especially enjoyed sitting at the table or on my desk, watching me write. She would occasionally tap a key with her paw, trying to inspire me. She often did. In fact, Mimi and Mewsetta were featured a half dozen times in my columns and their photos graced these very pages twice. They would debate current events. Mimi tended toward conservative views, which I guess is why she bonded with me. Mewsetta was more liberal and soft-spoken in her views and favored my wife who is less argumentative than I tend to be. By far, I might add.

                I’ve been asked by a reader to write another cat column but, unfortunately, I can’t. When my wife and I awoke one morning last week, we found that Mimi had passed away during the night, lying peacefully under the chair in our bedroom where she would often sit, waiting for us to arise. She looked peaceful and showed no signs of distress.  She was active and playful and maintained a robust appetite up until the last day of her life but apparently her heart gave out. The average life span of a domestic cat is fifteen years. I wasn’t nearly ready to lose her and I miss her deeply. Mewsetta is still with us but there’s a void now that will be hard to fill for awhile.

                We’ve always had at least two pets and I can’t imagine life without the companionship of God’s smaller creatures. In fact, when we lived in Bonita and had a very spacious yard, we had, at one point, two horses, two dogs, two ducks, two rabbits, sixteen cats (our two adult females had two litters one day apart), a lovebird and a partridge in a pear tree. O.K., I made up the part about the partridge and the pear tree.

                When we had to put down our beloved Doberman, Circe, at age thirteen, I felt that I would never again grieve so hard over the loss of an animal but I was wrong. Pets give us so much companionship and unconditional love that it hurts when you lose them even though you know that you eventually will. Circe’s life ebbed away as I held her in my arms but Mimi died on the floor while I slept. I didn’t get to hold her at the end and tell her that I loved her, but I think she knew.

                Humans, of course must always come first as recipients of our charity but if you can, think about rescuing and adopting one of God’s small creatures. So many of them are alone and abandoned. If you do, they’ll repay you a hundredfold in unconditional love and gratitude. And I’m certain God would be pleased.

May 2, 2021