Impeachment Distractions

            While the media’s attention is riveted on the Impeachment circus playing under the Senate’s big tent, it is paying little attention to four important developments elsewhere.

            Results in early primaries are driving Democrat party pooh-bahs into a panic at the increasing prospect of a Bernie Sanders coronation at July’s Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. They fear this will result in a disaster for the party, not only in the re-election of Donald Trump, but in the defeat of federal and state office holders down the line. If Sanders eliminates his rival candidates in the early primary states, the pooh-bahs may have no choice but to turn to Michael Bloomberg to save the party, even as Hillary continues to remind voters that the crown really belongs to her.

            If it weren’t for President Trump drawing attention yet again to his genius at deal-making, the public would hardly be aware of his meeting with Israeli party leaders Netanyahu and Ganz to announce the “latest and greatest” two-state solution to the intractable conflict in the Promised Land. Unsurprisingly, Palestinian authorities rejected the plan even before they knew what was in it. Perhaps they will reconsider. Among other things, the plan calls for a tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank. That alone should get the attention of Hamas, world experts at building tunnels under enemy territory.

            As happens in every presidential year, Democrats must renew their fealty to Big Labor to ensure that their biggest donors will shower them with generous contributions to their re-election campaigns. Traditionally, these contributions have been massive, drawn from dues extracted from union members who may not support union causes. Unfortunately, dues fell precipitously after 27 states adopted Right-to-Work laws that give workers the right to opt out of unions and thus deny union bosses the funds meant for Democrat candidates. Ah! But the House of Representatives, now controlled by a Democrat majority, has a solution. Look for the House to resurrect the Protect the Right to Organize Act (or PRO Act) that would essentially reverse all the benefits workers enjoy in Right-to-Work states. This may not be the smartest move. Not only will the PRO Act never pass a Republican-controlled Senate, it will give Republicans more ammunition to convince workers that incestuous relations between unions and Democrats do not benefit workers.

            The coronavirus epidemic is sucking all the wind out of news from China. The media no longer dwells on demonstrations in Hong Kong. It no longer stresses the importance and enormous consequences of Taiwan’s pro-independence elections. And it is silent about the on-going atrocities perpetrated by the Chinese government against the Muslim Uighur majority in Xinjiang. A million souls have been re-located into prison camps to be “re-educated.” Resistors are being deprived of sleep and food. Others are tortured. Worse, some are killed for the purpose of harvesting their organs. Massive crematoria eliminate all traces of those who do not survive. We have recently marked the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, a worthy reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. Yet, I do not recall reading or seeing anything to demonstrate to us on this occasion that the Chinese are the Nazis of our time. In Xinjiang.