LEAVWORLD: GRAFFITI POLITTI

   It's almost certain that Ketanji Brown Jackson will be approved by the Senate to the Supreme Court, because the Democrats have enough votes, and no dissenters. That makes the hearings and questioning of her almost a pro-forma theater. What is interesting is the d ifference in the media coverage between Democrat and Republican nominees, and the scrutiny of the nominees. The Left wing media has decried the GOP senators' questions, and tone toward Judge Brown Jackson, while they supported the much rougher and insulting questioning that Justice Kavanaugh received at his hearings. That's partisan political media at work, but I also saw some other reporting, that wasn't as one-sided.     Let's face it: Republicans tried to go for the jugular, but they didn't go as far as Dems did, in creating a fictitious rape story against Justice Kavanagh. They stuck to factual matters, but many of their attacks were a waste of time. Sen. Graham going after her for representing

      When Pres. Obama came into office, he had at least two concrete foreign policy goals: Step away from Israel, our only democratic ally in the Middle East, and rapprochement with Iran, the biggest state sponsor of global terrorism in the Middle East. He succeeded in both of these, and the whole region suffered for it. Iraq, Syria, and Libya all were devastated by the rise of ISIS, and every nation that was touched by the "Arab Spring" ended up worse off, thanks to unfocused, if not non-existent US leadership.     In Iraq, the unconditional withdrawal was a disaster that directly led to ISIS filling the power vacuum. Worse was Pres. Obama's denial of it, until they had established a caliphate that spread across much of both Iraq and Syria. His focus on appeasing Iran for the JCPOA nuclear pact blinded him to anything other that doing what they wanted, which was for the US to just leave. Only when Iran realized they couldn't fight ISIS alone did Pres. Obama make a

   I often generalize about "progressives," which I also define as the "far-left" wing of the Democratic party. These are the ones who agree with the Socialists, but don't have the guts to join that party. There are quite a few of them, it turns out. Enough that the Democratic leadership, and the Democratic president are following their lead, instead of vice versa. Many of my conservative, libertarian, or Republican friends just lump all Democrats into that "far-left" or "Socialist" category, because they vote in lockstep with the leadership. It's very rare that any of them defy the leadership, as evidenced by the uproar over Sen. Manchin and Sinema's recent opposition to the Build Back Better bill.    Republicans, on the other hand, often have a few members of the House and Senate that seem to vote with Democrats, occasionally. These are called "RINO's" by the GOP base, meaning "Republicans in name only." The

       The war in Ukraine is far from over, and the outcome is unknowable at this point. The reports in the media so far emphasize the bravery and valor of the Ukrainian troops and people, in the face of Russian aggression that has crossed the line into war crimes territory. The EU and NATO have responded to this crisis as a serious wake-up call, with nations like Germany upending decades of energy policy . There has also been an unprecedented stiffening of the spine among those nations geographically closest to Russia. The US seemed to be on board with this uniting of the Western allies, for the first week or so. Pres. Biden, in his State of the Union speech , sounded triumphant, as if the tough new rhetoric alone had won the war already. It was the first of many political blunders he made in that speech.    Unfortunately, Pres. Biden's bluster was just that, and in the face of it's first real test, Biden folded like a cheap suit. Apparently, Pres. Putin decided that he had no