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Tidbits and outrages

Posted: February 21, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

It is inconceivable that anyone should disagree that John Fetterman should resign from the U.S. Senate.

He’s suffered a stroke, has trouble reading and hearing, and just checked into the hospital for clinical depression.

In this woke world, Fetterman is somehow brave for admitting he’s depressed and shouldn’t be held to task for his physical and mental woes.

If Fetterman and his wife—the real power in the family—would see their way through this situation, the guy would be better off staying near home and getting healthy rather than hanging on to his seat.

I’ll admit I am not a fan of Fetterman. We, Republicans, selected the wrong candidate to run against him—a guy with extreme liberal ideas and no practical experience to draw on.

Fetterman’s resignation wouldn’t hurt the Democrats, and the Democrat governor would pick a Democrat to take over the seat until a special election. Since we Republicans can’t seem to get our act together in Pennsylvania, another Democrat would likely be ushered into the Senate, where the other Democrat is struggling with pancreatic cancer.

In another bit of idiocy, citizen journalist James O’Keefe has been pushed out as the leader of Project Veritas.

Ten years ago, I interviewed O’Keefe for my column in The Washington Times and was suitably impressed. See https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/31/harper-guerrilla-journalism/

Many journalists “want me silenced and shut down,” O’Keefe said back then. “They don’t want to let people into their cartel.”

He confronts the powerful, asks them questions, and often gets shocking answers. He has also done far more serious journalism than many Washington reporters.

Some of his employees claimed that O’Keefe was disrespectful toward them, including one who said he was called a “pussy.”

Having worked in the media for a long time, I consider that sobriquet about as mild as they come.

I hope O’Keefe starts up another band of media mercenaries to confront the comfortable.

Finally, a Temple University policeman was murdered over the weekend as he tried to stop a carjacking on campus.

I got into trouble with the Temple cops and some colleagues when I wrote a few years back that teachers and students should be allowed to carry weapons on campus.

I’d been surrounded by a group of young teenagers from a nearby high school, spat upon, and threatened. Having studied martial arts for many years, I was able to scare the group off.

But I pondered what would have happened to some of my less prepared colleagues and proffered that weapons should no longer be banned at a public school in the middle of public streets.

One colleague slammed her office door in my face. Later, I got a call from the Temple cops that I would be fired if I was found carrying even a legal weapon on campus.

I hope next week is a better one!

Don’t know much about history

Posted: February 14, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

In a bow to political nonsense, a new Pennsylvania law will likely curtail the reenactment of historic battles in the state, a key battleground in the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War significantly.

Without a public vote, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission restricted reenactments, including any battles with blank ammunition or physical altercations.

Gee, folks, you mean people can reenact a battle without guns, bullets, knives, or people playing dead? That sounds rather unhistorical.

The so-called “no force-on-force standard” maintains such reenactments are “disrespectful” to the memory of those who died in or were affected by the conflicts.

“There are more impactful and safer educational methods through which we can teach the public about the complex mix of ideas, events, social structures, etc., that led to violent conflict,” PHMC official Howard Pollman wrote via email. Museum staff decided without a vote from the commission, which includes elected officials and other state leaders because the decision fell under the so-called “professional interpretation standard.”

That’s government-speak for the lower-case deep state knowing elected officials might actually listen to their constituents and stop such nonsense.

Furthermore, the staff determined that Native American reenactors must be Native Americans. The museum consulted representatives of the Seneca, Seneca-Cayuga, Shawnee, and Delaware tribes regarding its interpretation of Native American history. All of these tribes, which are located in New York, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, consider Pennsylvania to be their ancestral homeland, Pollman said, but the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does not recognize any Native American groupings in the state itself.

During conversations with representatives, Pollman said they have repeatedly shared concerns that museum sites lacked Native American perspectives on history. Also, the Native American tribes have refused to participate in the reenactment events in Pennsylvania.

“To continue this interpretive programming without evaluation and significant input from those tribes connected to Pennsylvania would go against the best practices of the public history field,” Pollman wrote. “It also undermines the Commonwealth’s efforts over the past two years to develop channels for communications and to establish trust with these sovereign nations.”

Although it’s unclear how many reenactments may suffer as a result of these actions, one significant event has already been canceled. The annual reenactment of the battle in August 1763 between British and Native Americans was halted in Penn Township, near my home in central Pennsylvania. The event took place on Bushy Run, a site under the control of the museum commission.

The battle reenactment was Bushy Run’s biggest fundraiser, drawing hundreds of historical reenactors and thousands of observers. But leaders of the reenactment decided that the lack of battlefield actions and Native American tribes’ prohibition against participation in the event made it impossible to move forward.

Fortunately, the new state regulations do not stop the annual reenactment at Gettysburg, which is held on private land.

Simply put, it’s incredible how much government can muck up good ideas.

Chinese spying: It’s time to draw the line

Posted: February 7, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

For those of us who lived through the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the Chinese spy balloon seemed like déjà vu all over again. The incident seemed far more dangerous than President Biden and his administration believed it was.

Sure, a balloon isn’t a bomber. But past spy vs. spy endeavors have had near-disastrous consequences.

In May 1960, American pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his CIA spy plane over Russia. President Eisenhower thought the pilot had died and declared the mission was aimed at surveying weather. The aircraft had accidentally wandered off course.

The Russians quickly showed the spy plane and the pilot, embarrassing the Americans just before a critical summit with Russia. The incident seriously affected East-West relations, ultimately leading to the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis.

It’s unclear what will happen because of the Chinese balloon, but it’s unlikely to be anything good.

The Chinese have engaged in ongoing espionage in the United States, and little has been done to stop it. Now is the time to do so.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has found 160 serious incidents of Chinese spying in the United States since 2000. See https://www.csis.org/programs/strategic-technologies-program/archives/survey-chinese-espionage-united-states-2000

U.S. companies have also filed more than 1,200 cases of intellectual property theft against Chinese companies and their agents.

The results of the investigation are rather chilling:

–42% of the spies were Chinese military or government employees.
–32% were private Chinese citizens.
–26% were non-Chinese, usually persons recruited by Chinese officials.
–34% of the incidents sought to acquire military technology.

The investigation also found that the Chinese have become far more aggressive in recent years. More than three-quarters of the espionage incidents happened between 2010 and 2021. Also, the number of hacking incidents has dramatically increased, particularly from Chinese government operations known as People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398 and APT4.

Moreover, the investigation found that various university professors had used their positions to obtain funding from the U.S. government and then provided the results to China in various scientific fields.

The balloon incident should underline the need for greater emphasis on battling Chinese espionage. If the Biden administration fails to stand up to China, the Beijing government and President Xi will only become more emboldened in their efforts.

A journalistic trifecta

Posted: January 31, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Associated Press combined to create arguably one of the worst weeks ever for mainstream media.

Although I realize that most of us have given up on news organizations, the outrage has grown among some of the media’s longtime defenders.

The Columbia Journalism Review, a left-leaning organization tied to Columbia University, published a four-part series that savages The Times’ coverage of Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

“No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate. The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes as well as embarrassing retractions and damaged careers,” CJR executive editor Kyle Pope wrote in an editor’s note. 

Jeff Gerth, the critique’s author and a former Times reporter, said he believes the Times damaged its credibility outside of its “own bubble” and that even famed journalist Bob Woodard told him coverage of the Russia probe “wasn’t handled well.” 

The Associated Press, once a venerable outpost for objectivity, fairness, and balance, has lined up with the woke crowd.

Last week, the AP, where I once worked, issued a directive for its stylebook, once regarded as the most important set of guidelines for journalists.

The organization tweeted advice not to use generic labels for groups of people who share a single common trait, giving as examples the poor, the mentally ill, and the college-educated.

But the AP backed down after the guideline came under fire. The French embassy in the United States joked that it should possibly change its name to the Embassy of Frenchness.

Then The Philadelphia Inquirer weighed in on the foibles of a private restaurant’s failure to uphold political correctness.

Restaurant critic Craig LaBan decried the Union League Club for honoring Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“At the end of December, the Union League announced plans to build a $25 million rooftop restaurant with an expansive terrace. Imagining the gorgeous city views from atop the elegant red brick bones of this ornate 1865 building, with breezy outdoor dining and a more casual dress code planned to debut later this year, I’d begun to think this grand addition to the city’s culinary skyline might be just the cue for me to finally write about the city’s reviving private club restaurant scene.

“Or maybe not. This week’s gold medal celebration of Florida governor and potential presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was a stark reminder that the Union League isn’t just a private social club with pretty good food: its mission is served with an increasingly MAGA-flavored side of political ideology.”

I realize that business and sports reporting had been taken over by leftists, but I was surprised that food reporting had been usurped by lefties.

Nevertheless, all three of these once-venerable institutions got a fair amount of grief from nearly every slice of the political spectrum.

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