DEI

A Chinese American, Linda Sun, was charged with being a spy. She was an assistant for two NY Governors. The interesting thing about this incident is that she was a great proponent of DEI. Probably the furthest people from DEI are Asian Americans. Their work ethic in unmatched and is exemplified by their academic records and their economic success after school. They do not wait around for a helping hand from the government they just put their noses to the grindstone go at it. It is a cultural thing where Asian moms demand the best from their children and lead the way by example. That attitude and living in a free country like the US explains why these Americans gravitate toward the top in many different areas.

Think

As people mature they learn to think before they speak or at least strive for that. When VP Harris said five years ago that she would ban fracking did she not realize that 95% of all new oil and natural gas production comes from fracking. This would mean no gasoline for your car, no diesel for delivery trucks leading to empty store shelves, no heat in the winter for your home, shutting down businesses and falling into a deep depression which would drag down the rest of the world. She reconsidered and changed her mind but what was she thinking when she first made the remark. Was it just an idea that popped into her head like when Secretary of Energy Jennifer Grandholm said that military tanks can run on batteries. When an ordinary person decides to leap before they look they can get hurt but when people in positions of leadership do that whole countries can get hurt.

Door

The news today about another school shooting reminded me of an incident that happened about five years ago. I was in Middle School shortly after a shooting, in Alabama I believe, where the door to the room had a glass window about one foot wide and three feet long. I put some paper over the glass so that no one could see in and since we kept the door locked, I felt we were safe. In the middle of the next period I was notified to take down the papers on the glass. Some students were scarred by what I did and reported it to the office. It shows how students can be effected by in unexpected ways.

Speech

The federal government has now put the country on alert that the Russians are trying to interfere in the upcoming presidential election. Most people know that this has been going for years stretching deep into the cold war years. Because of what happened the last election there is some concern that the government will use the threat of Russian disinformation to encourage news outlets not to publish information deemed to be damaging to government policy. Many still recall the shutting down of information about the Hunter Biden laptop as being Russian disinformation even though the FBI had evidence that is was legitimate. This kind of activity is considered by many as a threat to free speech.

Climate

Over the past 50 years God has been removed from general society under the pretext that Church and State must be separate. Humans must believe in something as it gives them sense of purpose. It allows people to perceive the world as a place where extraordinary things can happen, giving them a sense of wonder and excitement. G K Chesterton said “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” One of the more popular beliefs is climate change. People used to make themselves right by God now it has become right by nature. It is like the story of the original sin. We were living in concert with nature and then with the onset of the industrial revolution we turned our backs on nature and now we must be reborn and return to nature. The climate god is angry and is sending natural disasters to punish us. The only redemption is to get back in harmony with nature by eating organic food and replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar. While this may be a far fetched story it is having the effect of interfering with nuclear energy which has been put on the back burner.

News

Over my life I have seen many changes in the news business. Starting with the days before TV our main source of info was the local newspaper. In most towns like mine there was usually only one paper and often times they had a morning and afternoon addition. They were profitable because they had a monopoly and were either slightly left or right in their political coverage. Since I grew up in Central Illinois the extremes were the Chicago Tribune and the St Louis Post Dispatch. In the 50's TV news came along with a 15 minute evening report of the days activities. They mostly got their stories from the NY Times which became known as the paper of record. In the early 1960's the TV news expanded from 15 minute to 30 minutes and we all wonder what are they going to talk about for a half hour. Later a late night segment was added which just repeated what was said during the early evening broadcast. The next big change happened in 1980 when CNN opened a 24 hour news station. The plan was to just repeat the evening news over and over all day but it soon weaned its way from the NY Time stories and started its own news. Since it was visual they just videoed some odd thing and had people talk over it. This then led to programs where people would take sides of an issue and argue and this of course opened the door to political differences. Then in 1988 a new kid appeared on the block when Rush Limbaugh started his AM radio show. Up to that point AM radio was mostly music and other shows with people preaching the word of God. Limbaugh quickly gathered a large audience with his conservative views and many others soon joined the AM parade. Then in 1996 Fox News joined in the foray and presented a more conservative view than was was portrayed in the rest of the TV news. The FCC limited the number of stations so they were profitable businesses because of the lack of competition. This cozy little news business was suddenly challenged, almost overnight, when in the late 80's and early 90's the Internet arrived on the scene. The competition of millions of individuals having their own news shows soon took its toll on the local TV and newspapers and profits began to fall. This resulted in the closing of many news outlets. Prior to 1980 there was something called the fairness doctrine which stated that news must show both sides of an issue. That was abandoned in 1987 and opened the door for Limbaugh. He was on afternoon radio which was called drive time when mostly working class men were coming home so he pushed views that appealed to that group. Fox News seeing the success of Limbaugh put on a TV station that appealed to the same group. Today news outlets seek out specific audiences and feed the beast and thus it is necessary to visit various news sites to get a balanced understanding of what is happening.

Page

The story of Carter Page has added credence to the idea that the Justice Department has become politicized or as they say these days, lawfare Page was an oil industry consultant and foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign. When Trump announced his run for president the FBI began investigating all of the people in the campaign who had ties to Russia meaning they had met with Russian officials. Page graduated from the Navel Academy and spent five years in the Navy as an intelligence officer. He later received a Phd from the University of London and his thesis was how countries made the transfer from communism to capitalism. Page founded his own firm where he worked in the Russian energy sector. In his work he became close friends with pro Russian business people and often wrote pro Russian articles. The FBI used FISA warrants to listen in on Page's conversations as early as 2014 more than two years before Trump decided to run. They not only listen to his private conversation during his time with Trump they issued a special warrant after he left Trump to read his saved emails believing there was probable cause that he was a Russian agent. In 2017 Page's name was in the now infamous Steele dossier and he was under investigation by the CIA, National Security Agency, Director of National Intelligence and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. No evidence of a crime was uncovered. In 2017 the FBI received confirmation that Page was an operational contact that supplied the CIA with information about Russia. This report was then doctored by FBI attorney Clinesmith and used it to get warrants from the FISA court. Clinesmith pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months in prison. In 2020 the Justice Department declared invalid two of the four surveillance warrant against Carter. Page was not convicted of any crime but the warrants against him were used to surveil other members of the Trump team. Over time the FBI had access to most of what the Trump team members were saying or emailing and in the end the Mueller investigation found no collusion. The ACLU was and is today very concerned about the FISA court which is still very active.