Wednesday Potpourri

First, we have seen the whining and whimpering of Tommy Friedman in the New York Times. We have heard Joe Biden continue to promote Israeli surrender via a cease fire. And we have witnessed an Israeli Prime Minister showing exemplary courage in ignoring the plaintive wails of his supposed Western allies.

For some perspective, we turn to Gerard Baker in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. His is a more muscular defense of the Jewish state.

… Israel has in 12 months done nothing less than redraw the balance of global security, not just in the region, but in the wider world.

It has eliminated thousands of the terrorists whose commitment to a savage theocratic ideology has claimed so many lives across the region and the world for decades. It has, with extraordinary tactical accuracy, dispatched some of the masterminds of the worst evil on the planet, including most recently Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader in Lebanon. It has repelled and then reversed the previously inexorably advancing power of one of the world’s most terrifying autocracies, the Islamic Republic of Iran. It has demonstrated to all the West’s foes, including Iran’s allies in Moscow and Beijing, that our system of free markets and free people, and the voluntary alliance network we have constructed to defend it, generates resources and capabilities of vast technical superiority. Above all, it has provided an unexpected but crucial reminder to our enemies that there are at least some willing and able to pursue and defeat them whatever the risk to our own lives and resources.

As for our own government, the story is a sad one indeed. Baker continues:

Before Israel had even buried its dead last October and as Hamas was busy murdering its hostages, there were calls for Israel to cease fire. For a year we have heard our leaders’ “balanced” condemnations of Hamas and its terror masters on the one hand and the Jewish state on the other, a false equivalence that says more about the moral disorder in our own politics than about Israel’s motives and actions.

Baker adds this:

First, the strategic tactical, intelligence and technological genius Israel has demonstrated over the past year might have done so much damage to Iran’s proxy armies and their military and political leaders that they will be ill-prepared and equipped for the bigger struggle to come, and Israel—and, let’s hope, reliable allies—better placed to defeat its enemies. Second, having observed this Israeli superiority over that time and eagerness not to bring the destruction on itself a wide war would surely bring, perhaps Iran will be deterred.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few, Winston Churchill said of the men of the Royal Air Force after they had repelled Hitler’s Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. 

We should echo those words today as we watch in awe what a country smaller in area than New Jersey, with a population less than North Carolina’s and an economy smaller than that of Washington state, has done for all of us.

As Israelis solemnly mark a year since Oct. 7, we should not only redouble our expressions of sympathy and solidarity. We should show them our gratitude, and if we are willing to be really honest, acknowledge a little of our own shame.

Second, as for Kamala Harris, the Daily Mail has discovered that when she was appointed to the California Medical Assistance Commission, she often missed meetings.

Kamala Harris was frequently absent for California Medical Assistance Commission meetings, even though she was appointed to the position by her boyfriend at the time and then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

Harris and Brown dated for about a year when she was a 29 year old lawyer for the Alameda District Attorney's office and he was the powerful speaker who ran for mayor of San Francisco at the age of 60. 

Brown appointed Harris to the CMAC position in 1994, drawing some criticism for impropriety despite Brown’s willingness to publicly flaunt accusations of political patronage. 

As you might imagine, Harris has been rather defensive about the advantages she gained by being the mistress of an important male.

The Daily Mail quotes a memorable line:

‘Whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work,’ she told SF Weekly magazine in a 2003 profile of her career.

‘Well, I worked,’ Harris said to journalist Joan Walsh when asked about her positions in 2003 for San Francisco City Journal magazine. 

'I’ve worked my ass off for everything I have,' she said. 

That’s the first time I have ever heard it called that.

Third, on the home front, news from college classrooms. Johnny and Janey cannot write. They are barely literate.

Going Godward reports on Twitter:

Was talking to a college professor recently who remarked that the students in her science class could not complete written assignments that made sense or were without serious grammatical and structure errors. I’ve been hearing this kind of feedback from the collegiate level for about five years. You do not know how bad the literacy crisis is. The next two generations, at least, are probably going to be the most incompetent we’ve ever seen in this county. I’m not even being hyperbolic.

Fourth, it will not come as a surprise, but today’s college students have mostly never read a book. It sounds bizarre, but apparently it is true. 

From the Atlantic:

Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

Fifth, the New York Times has an article out naming the horrors inflicted on the nation by Donald Trump. To which Katie Pavlich counters with a list of what the Biden administration has given us. 

From her Twitter:

Just today we have: 

-A dock strike not seen in 40+ years that could cripple the economy 

-Katrina level devastation in a number of southern U.S. states 

-War raging and a stalemate between Russia/Ukraine 

-Hundreds of missile launches from Iran

This is what happens when the adults are in charge.

Sixth, from Philip Klein a comment about Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel:

Reminder that Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal — supported by Biden and Harris — allowed Iran to develop ballistic missiles that are now targeting 10 million Israelis.

Seventh, yes, we have all noticed that dock workers have managed to shut down Eastern ports. They want more income, as it is reported, and yet, we should understand that they are terrified about the advent of more automation.

My best sources tell me, for example, that ports in places like Shanghai and Singapore are five times more efficient than the port of Los Angeles- Long beach. 

The reason, these foreign ports are entirely automated. The cost of having dockworkers is built-in inefficiency. And yet, dock workers want job security. Apparently, they are trying to forestall the inevitable. The rest of us are paying for it.

Eighth, the federal response to hurricane Helene seems to be woefully inadequate. Picking up the slack is the governor of Florida. Ron DeSantis is sending personnel and equipment to North Carolina and Georgia to help out with disaster relief.

He wrote this on Twitter:

We have dispatched a convoy of @MyFDOT staff and heavy equipment, including 7,500 feet of temporary bridges, to North Carolina to help with damage assessments and roadway repairs.

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