Smart Talk #12

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has written a piece critical of the current administration’s effort to remove from service a reported 60,000 Army Guardsmen and Reservists alone for lack of COVID vaccinations.  She then quotes Defense Secretary Austin as having warned that the “the virus takes our servicemembers out of the fight.”  OK, let’s see now.  The virus takes our military members “out of the fight,” and firing 60K of them, or more, takes them “out of the fight” as well.  There’s no “win” with this ultimatum.  Well, perhaps there is a win….for the power-seeking Central Government.  Their real objective here may well be continuing, and growing, their hold over the American citizenry.  Wrote Blackburn: “Joe Biden and the Democrats are doing all they can to use the pandemic to seize control over the way Americans live their lives.” Instructive to remember, at this point, with military careers on the line, that word now coming out from those in the know clearly indicate that the vaccinations actually do not prevent Covid infection, despite what America was mistakenly told back in 2020-2021.  They may well limit the severity of the infection, but they do not prevent becoming infected.

Reducing the size of our fighting forces, via the re-heightened emphasis on the continually-convenient pandemic, hampers our ability to defend ourselves and our allies. “Overseas, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are watching as our commander in chief destroys his own fighting force,” said Blackburn.  To hopefully help combat this potential decline in our military forces, the Senator has introduced the “Stop Firing Our Service Members” bill which, if passed with bi-partisan support (for the good of the country), might be effective in slowing or ending the current erosion among those wanting to continue in service.  Aimed ultimately at the administration’s thirst for power, Senator Blackburn concluded her article with this: “I’m working tirelessly on Capitol Hill to stop them from keeping their ‘forever pandemic’ alive at the expense of our armed forces.”  And at the expense of our national defense stature, with seems not to be an apparent concern of the reality-ignoring appointees in D.C.

A Tennessee U.S. District Court Judge has temporarily stopped the Biden administration’s order that forced states to permit biological males (you know, real males) to use female’s restrooms, along with allowing males to participate in female sports!  The consequence of not complying was the likely loss of federal funding.  In determining his ruling, “the judge cited Tennessee laws, which organize school sports teams by the student’s sex at the time of birth, and allow students and employees to sue a school that deliberately allows people of the opposite sex to use a single-sex bathroom.”  Hopefully the common sense illustrated here will continue, as the issue moves up through our court system.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, a tenured professor has quit teaching at UCLA, due to the smothering atmosphere imposed by the “Woke” movement. Said the professor: “I strongly suspect that mainstream U.S. higher education is morally and intellectually corrupt, beyond the possibility of self-repair, and therefore no longer a worthwhile setting in which to send my time and effort.”  Jonathon Turley, well-known and respected law professor at George Washington University, has backed the concerns voiced by the now ex-UCLA professor: “He is the latest example of the not-so-subtle lie that pervades our institutions of higher education.  We mouth principles of academic freedom and free speech while allowing colleagues to be hounded and harassed.”  One would certainly hope that the “Woke” fantasy hasn’t become as ingrained as it seems within all of our universities and colleges, but the demonstrations on campuses and elsewhere of late, often objecting to speakers representing differing ideas and politics, may be a clear indication that our UCLA professor concerns about the unfortunate trend in higher-ed may be all too real and will likely take a generation or more to correct, if that is by now even possible.

Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) is an organization created by some very influential business and political individuals, the purpose of which is to hopefully broadly restore faith in our election system.  Said one of the more visible founders, Karl Rove: “RITE exists to help protect the right of states to legislate reasonable measures like voter I.D. and other election procedures that make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.  That will help assure confidence in our democratic process.”  Certainly, a worthy and badly needed effort following the 2020 election with its lingering questions, concerns, suspicions about the legitimacy of the national vote. The legislatures of Florida, Georgia, and Texas, among other states, have already put into place voting integrity provisions.

On the subject of renewables vs. the fossil fuels needed to generate our electricity as a nation, in his article “America Wants Oil,” John Hinderaker has written: “Fossil fuels underlie every single aspect of our lives.  There is noting you eat, use, look at, wear, live in, travel with, or anything else that isn’t completely dependent on fossil fuels.  Remove those fossil fuels (without a nuclear substitute) and you are suddenly returned to life in a wood or dirt shelter, with only the most limited food and clothing, and really nothing else.”  He continued: “The fact is that no transition to wind and solar energy is taking place.  Those remain trivial sources of energy, world-wide.  If they worked, someone would adopt them, but no one has.”  Smart talk and some needed push back against an administration fully enraptured by the progressive-globalist fantasy that fossil fuels are bad and that renewables (other than nuclear) could ever replace them.  Our current administration is just flat out wrong, on purpose (=control) about the long-term future and need for fossil fuels to drive energy generation.

Speaking of the one renewable that is dependable and should be our future, hand-in-hand with oil & natural gas, and that gem is nuclear.  Robert Hargraves has written a comprehensive article about the advantages of nuclear-produced power. He writes: “Nuclear plants heat water, producing steam that spins turbine generators.  The turbines convert about a third of the steam’s heat into electricity.  The other two-thirds (steam) is wasted, typically absorbed by river water or cooling towers.” That’s the process, and now his conclusion: “Nuclear power can be the cheapest, fastest way to provide reliable heat and power and to halve emissions.  Let the U.S. lead in regulatory efficiency and put a nuclear power plant in every city’s backyard.”  We’ll need a whole new set of leaders for this to happen.  The current day-dream-believers in D.C. have purposely allowed wind and solar to dominate their politically-forced, financially-driven, and globally ‘cloudy’ thinking.

And to wrap up this Smart Talk edition, the thoughts of an opinion writer, born in the Soviet Union, and mighty thankful and proud to be living in the United States. Karol Markowicz is her name and she’s not terribly happy with native born Americans who persist in putting down their blessing-of-a-country.  As she recalls looking back here in the U.S., the late 1970’s were, in some respects, much like these current days, it would seem. Wrote Karol: “Inflation was high, crime was everywhere, there was an energy crisis.  But more than any of that, there was a crisis of identity and the pervasive ideas that America was not that great and not worth saving.  There’s a reason Ronald Reagan was such a popular president, winning 49 states in his re-election bid!  He reflected America’s greatness, and he did not for one moment allow Americans to forget how lucky they were.”

Ms. Markowicz concluded her thoughts on the greatness of our magnificent country: “The luckiest people in history somehow don’t know it! My ‘Americaversary’ (date she & her mother arrived here) is a pause for me to say a quiet thank you to the country that took us in and has given us so much.  But the calendar is filled with days for all of us to pause and do the same.  Don’t let the entitled few take it from us.  We are lucky every single day to be Americans, and we can’t ever forget that.”  Just a part of what she stated throughout her article, titled: “I’m proud to be an American because I’ve lived without freedom.”

Perspective is what way too many native-born U.S. citizens are lacking when they choose to put down their own country, this tremendous land of opportunity available to all. Opportunity for those who wish to learn, strive, and become successful at whatever employment endeavor provides them with financial support and fulfillment.  Those who prefer to sit, be dependent, and let the government take care of them are more likely to be the ones who express distain for America, which for the rest of us, with clear-eyed, reality-focused vision, is the very best land of self-reliance and individual freedom on earth.  We Americans are truly blessed to be residing in this great land, despite its current faulty and painful leadership direction, which hopefully will be corrected, at least in part, three months and a couple of weeks hence!

 

(Senator Blackburn quotes via newsmax.com, Marsha Blackburn, 7-21-22; Same sex bathrooms, et. al., via dailywire.com, Mairead Elordi, 7-22-22; Departing professor & Turley quotes via newsmax.com, Charlie McCarthy, 7-22-22; RITE voting integrity quotes via foxnews.com, Kyle Morris, 7-21-22; Fossil fuels quotes via powerlineblog.com, John Hinderaker, 7-21-22; Nuclear quotes via The Wall Street Journal, Robert Hargraves, 7-14-22; Proud to be an American quotes via foxnews.com; Karol Markowicz, 7-21-22).