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JANUARY 31,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

SCOTT SURGES – I can't say I'm surprised.  When voters get a good look at Scott Walker, they like him.  Or, at least enough like him to win elections.  From Bloomberg:  "Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is surging, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is an also-ran and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is dominating in a new poll of Iowans likely to vote in the nation's first presidential nominating contest.  The Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, taken Monday through Thursday, shows Walker leading a wide-open Republican race with 15 percent, up from just 4 percent in the same poll in October. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was at 14 percent and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, stood at 10 percent.  Bush trailed with 8 percent and increasingly is viewed negatively by likely Republican caucus-goers. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is in even worse shape, with support from just 4 percent. More troubling for Christie: He's viewed unfavorably by 54 percent, among the highest negative ratings in the potential field. At 9 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson pulls more support than either Bush or Christie."  It's very early, but, once Scott Walker jumped in and gave a major speech in Iowa, his race was off and running.  The man refuses to lose.

BLUNDER – From redalertpolitics.com:  "This is one of the worst cases of 'judging a book by its cover' that we’ve ever heard… When Wilmington, N.C. resident Mary Claire Caine went to the grocery store last Friday, she was excited to pull into one of the reserved 'Veteran Parking' spaces. As a veteran of the Air Force who served in Kuwait and on the flight line of the F-117 Nighthawk, it made her feel a sense of pride, local news station WECT reported. But when she walked back out to her car that day she found a nasty note taped to the side window.  It read, 'Maybe [you] can’t read the sign you parked in front of. This space is reserved for those who fought for America….not you. Thanks, Wounded Vet.'  Caine told WECT that she felt confused and certain that there was a mistake.  'For a split second I thought, "Am I a worthy enough veteran to park in this spot?" And, then I got very angry at myself for even considering that,' Caine recalled to the TV station....Since the incident went public Caine has received an outpouring of support from other veterans and community members, as well as an apology from the grocery store for their other patron’s behavior."

SO MUCH FOR THE FIRST AMENDMENT – From The Politico:  "Reporters covering the House Democrats' retreat in Philadelphia this week are having a much different experience than when they’re on their home turf on Capitol Hill.  Reporters are being escorted to and from the restroom and lobby and are being barred from entering the hotel outside of scheduled events, even if they've been invited by a member of Congress.  During Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at the retreat Friday, reporters were required to have a staff member, usually a junior member of the press team, escort them when going to the bathroom or to the lobby. The filing center for reporters was at a separate hotel from where the retreat was taking place, so access was limited to members of Congress specifically made available to the press.  'It was a police state. It was absurd how heavy handed the capitol police and Democratic staff were in trying to control everywhere the press went,' New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters said in an interview...Peters said he was told by a staffer they were being escorted to prevent them from talking to members of Congress."  When the real left is in power, this is what happens.  Their belief in freedom is limited.

January 31,  2015    Permalink

PERRY'S LINE – AT 12:14 P.M. ET:  Former Governor Rick Perry of Texas is making a serious run for the presidency.  He should be regarded as a credible candidate.  Although he showed himself to be woefully unprepared when he ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, he has made the necessary corrections.  He brings a fine record as governor of Texas.  His argument is that governors make better presidents.  From The Hill:

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) says that governors are much better suited for the presidency than senators — a useful argument for him to make as he looks to position himself for a potential 2016 bid against a field likely to include several senators.

“Governors have to make choices every day. Governors are judged on the results of what we do,” Perry told The Daily Caller Friday. “Senators talk.”

He added, “United States senators, by choosing to go into that line of work, don’t get to do that. They don’t get to learn, or to exhibit their leadership ability and have clear results of their actions.”

While the 2016 Republican field is hardly set, potential candidates who are current or former governors include Chris Christie (N.J.), Scott Walker (Wis.), Jeb Bush (Fla.), Mike Huckabee (Ark.), John Kasich (Ohio), Mike Pence (Ind.), Bobby Jindal (La.), and Perry. Also at the center of speculation about running are serving Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Ted Cruz (Texas), and Lindsey Graham (Ala.) as well as former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.).

Perry said that someone who had served as governor was typically a “grizzled vet,” and asked rhetorically whether the country would want someone who’s all talk, or all action.

“Would you rather have someone who talks about aviation a lot and really gives a great speech about aerodynamics and about navigation and about weather and about all of the different things a pilot needs to know, but have only about 100 hours of being behind the yoke of an airliner?" he said.

“Or would you rather have a 10,000-hour individual who has had to fly through storms?”

COMMENT:  It's a powerful argument, and it will be tested well in 2016, when the GOP has a number of senators and governors running at the same time.  The Dems have Hillary, whose executive experience is extremely limited.  She was secretary of state, but the executive aspects of that office are minimal.  It's a traveling salesman job, and she never made a sale.

Perry would probably make a very good president, but his poor performance in 2012 continues to dog him.  And other governors, particularly Scott Walker of Wisconsin, are seen as more "current."  Still, Perry is not a man who loses elections.  I'd watch him closely.

January 31, 2015       Permalink

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN – AT 11:08 A.M. ET:  We have cheered in recent years as North Dakota went through an oil boom, contributing mightily to making America energy-independent, and helping to drive down prices at the pump.

Trouble is, we're now seeing the other side of high oil production.  Prices are becoming too low to sustain the boom and the state's revenue base.  From Fox: 

North Dakota lawmakers are now expecting billions less in tax revenue during the next two and a half years.

Blame falling oil prices.

A report from Legislative Council downgrading revenue projections by $5.5 billion points mostly to the impact of oil tax exemptions the Legislature previously failed to reform.

During the 2013 legislative session multiple bills to eliminate the exemptions in exchange for lower top rates were rejected. Now plunging oil prices are expected to invoke those triggers causing a multi-billion swing in the state's expected revenues.

In early January, lawmakers began their 2015 session under what was described as a "black cloud" of oil price concerns. Now a projection released by lawmakers Thursday expects the state to lose $680 million in income and sales tax revenue between now and June 30, 2017.

North Dakota likely will lose another $4.8 billion in oil and gas tax revenue during that same period.

The impact on the state's finances could be dramatic.

COMMENT:  There are reports of oil-exploration companies in serious financial trouble because their return, due to low prices, is too small to warrant exploration.

Don't expect any help from Barack Obama or the Beverly Hills environmentalists who despise the oil industry.  But we must find a way to balance our need for independence-producing production against the desirability of low prices at the pump.  This won't be easy, but creating the oil boom wasn't easy either.  It was fought bitterly by the ideological left.   

In making adjustments we must be wary of those who want to kill the boom, who don't want us energy-independent, and who have substantial resources to pursue their ways.  That includes foreign interests like Saudi Arabia, which depends on America's need for foreign petroleum. 

I'd imagine that, if production slows in North Dakota due to lower prices, the result will be a tightening of the supply, which in turn should lead to somewhat higher gasoline prices.  That in turn will lead to an increase in production and exploration.  The market might just sort this out.

January 31, 2015       Permalink

THE PAIN IN SPAIN – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  We are still absorbing the news that Greece, a NATO member, has just elected a radical leftist government, whose instincts are opposed to much of what the West presumably stands for.  We're now seeing the rapid rise of a radical leftist movement in Spain.  From AP:

MADRID (AP) -- Tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid on Saturday in a show of strength by a fledgling radical leftist party, which hopes to emulate the success of Greece's Syriza party in the Spanish general election later this year.

Podemos supporters from across Spain converged onto Cibeles fountain Saturday before packing the avenue leading to Puerta del Sol square.

State broadcaster TVE said that hundreds of thousands were at the march, but no official attendance figures were provided.

Podemos ("We Can") aims to shatter the country's predominantly two-party system and the "March for Change" gathered crowds in the same place where sit-in protests against political and financial corruption laid the party's foundations in 2011.

The party's rise is also greatly due to the charisma of its pony-tailed leader, Pablo Iglesias, a 36-year-old political science professor.

And...

Opinion polls show the party could possibly take the No.1 spot in upcoming elections and thus trigger one of the biggest political shake-ups in Spain since democracy was restored in 1978 after decades of dictatorship.

COMMENT:  Spain is also a NATO member.   This is serious stuff.  Europe is plagued with problems.  It allowed crazed immigration levels from hostile societies.  Its human reproduction rate will mean, essentially, the near-elimination of some countries, like the Netherlands, within 40 years.  Its defense budgets have been cut to the bone to make way for the welfare state.  And now we have the rise of the far left. 

Will Western Europe even be important in 40 years?  I'm not so sure.  It may be just a museum piece.

The far left is not friendly to the United States.  But I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, the current occupant of the White House is cheering them on.

January 31,  2015     Permalink

JANUARY 30,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

A GOOD LEARNING EXPERIENCE – From The New York Times:  "Scientists will have to wait a while longer to find out what kicked off the Big Bang.  Last spring, a team of astronomers who go by the name of Bicep announced that they had detected ripples in space-time, or gravitational waves, reverberating from the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second of time — long-sought evidence that the expansion of the universe had started out with a giant whoosh called inflation.  The discovery was heralded as potentially the greatest of the new century, but after months of spirited debate, the group conceded that the result could have been caused by interstellar dust, a notion buttressed by subsequent measurements by the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite that the part of the sky Bicep examined was in fact dusty.  Now a new analysis, undertaken jointly by the Bicep group and the Planck group, has confirmed that the Bicep signal was mostly, if not all, stardust, and that there is no convincing evidence of the gravitational waves. No evidence of inflation."   A good lesson in humility for those who feel we've had the last word on global warming.  Science is never settled.

WELL, IT'S A THEORY – From Breitbart:  "Right wing hero Boris Johnson has launched a blistering attack on Jihadi killers, calling them 'losers' who have been 'rejected by women.'  The London mayor, who is the candidate for the West London constituency of Ruislip, cited an MI5 report into Muslim extremism in an interview with The Sun.  'If you look at all the psychological profiling about bombers, they typically will look at porn. They are literally w***ers. Severe onanists' the blond politician said.  'They are tortured. They will be very badly adjusted in their relations with women, and that is a symptom of their feeling of being failures and that the world is against them.  'They are rejected by women, they are not making it with girls, and so they turn to other forms of spiritual comfort – which of course is no comfort.'"  I cannot comment on the accuracy of that.  In this country men who are rejected by women are called liberals.

COLORADO RETHINKS IT – From AP:  "Welfare money or food stamps for marijuana? It's an urban legend that won't go away in Colorado, and state lawmakers this year are poised to pass a law clarifying that public benefit cards can't be used at dispensary ATMs.  A bill facing its first hearing next week in the state Senate would add marijuana businesses and strip clubs to the list of Colorado businesses where electronic benefits cards — called EBTs — can't be used to withdraw cash. Liquor stores, casinos and gun shops already have such limitations.  Republican Sen. Vicki Marble said marijuana dispensaries need to be added to avoid possible federal intervention if there's evidence of public benefits being spent on pot.  'We stand to lose a lot if we don't show we are trying' to prevent tax money for pot, Marble said.  'The growers here put in a lot of time and effort. A raid would be absolutely devastating to our state.'"  Legalizing marijuana has proved to be a lot more complicated than the lawmakers in Colorado thought.

January 30, 2015       Permalink

BULLETIN – ROMNEY OUT – AT 11:28 A.M. ET:  Mitt Romney has just told his supporters that he will not be a candidate for president for 2016.  From Fox:   

Mitt Romney announced Friday he will not run for president in 2016, after briefly flirting with a third White House run -- a decision that only slightly narrows the crowded field of potential Republican candidates.

"After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I've decided it's best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee," Romney told donors on a conference call Friday morning.

The announcement comes after the 2012 GOP nominee, who repeatedly denied interest in another campaign, surprised donors earlier this month by telling them he was considering it.

Since then, the former Massachusetts governor spent three weeks calling donors and strategists and giving a handful of addresses, including to a Republican National Committee summit. But while some from his former campaign team were willing to wait for his decision, others were already gravitating toward the budding campaign of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

The two heavyweights were seen as competing for many of the same donors and supporters and strategists. And some doubted whether Romney, who lost to President Obama in 2012 after a campaign in which Democrats cast him as out-of-touch, would be able to connect on a third run -- even as early polls showed him leading the GOP field.

Romney, in a written statement which he also read from on his conference call, said he believes he could win the nomination, and that he would have enough funding and support.

COMMENT:  Conventional wisdom holds that the chief beneficiary from Romney's announcement is indeed Jeb Bush. 

But hold on.  I'm getting the feeling that Republicans want to look over the whole field.  There is support building for Scott Walker, for example.  And Marco Rubio, who, it was felt, would not run if Bush ran – Bush was his mentor in Florida – is showing signs of independence. 

What I'd like to see is some great Republican women up there.  The party has a cadre of young, female leaders who are already making names for themselves.  Some, like Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez, are governors.  Kelly Ayotte is an outstanding senator and an authority on national security.  If Bush is the nominee, he would have to look to the group of Republican women leaders for a possible running mate. 

Two exciting years in politics coming up.

January 30, 2015       Permalink

TALIBAN TRUTH – AT 10:21 A.M. ET:  The first reports we heard of the Taliban in Afghanistan dealt with its unspeakable abuse of women, and its murder of anyone who did not go along with its bizarre interpretation of Islam. 

But now the Obama administration, in another of its dishonest narratives, is trying to tell us that the Taliban is simply an insurgency, as opposed to Al Qaeda, which is a terror group.  Even the normally complacent White House press corps has become frustrated by the word games.  From Fox: 

Just days after an Obama administration official went to great pains to explain that the Taliban is not considered a terrorist group, the Afghan-based organization on Friday took credit for an attack that killed three American contractors and said it was carried out by a fighter who had infiltrated Afghanistan's security forces.

The attack came Thursday evening at a military base at Kabul's international airport, and also left one Afghan dead. The Taliban's claim of responsibility came in a message on Friday from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who identified the attacker as a man named "Hessanullha," from Laghman province, just east of Kabul. Hessanullha "penetrated into the security forces and was waiting for such a target for a long time," Mujahid said.

"Yesterday in the evening he managed to get to a crowd of invading and infidel American military forces where he turned his gun towards them and opened fire," he added. "During the gun battle, Ehsanullah was also killed by the enemy."

Mujahid said that the militant had infiltrated the ranks of Afghanistan's forces to stage the attack and wore an Afghan police uniform. An Afghan official with the country's Defense Ministry said the attacker was in an Afghan army uniform. According to The Washington Post, Mujahid added in a tweet that the terrorist had "opened fire on invaders" before he was "martyred by return fire." It was not immediately clear if the Afghan confirmed dead was the gunman.

The attack came after a White House spokesman described the Taliban as an "armed insurgency," not a terrorist group. However, Press Secretary Josh Earnest later acknowledged that the Treasury Department had put the Taliban on a terror list as far back as 2002.

Earnest also acknowledged that the Taliban "carry out tactics that are akin to terrorism, they do pursue terror attacks in an effort to try to advance their agenda." The Obama administration has repeatedly said the U.S. government does not negotiate with terrorists, despite trading five Taliban fighters held at Guantanamo for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

COMMENT:  The behavior of the Obamans make me once again suggest the need for a Constitutional amendment that would permit the removal of a president for incompetence.  Right now a president can be removed only for high crimes and misdemeanors, or for medical reasons. 

The administration has become a dishonest disgrace.  In other democracies, a vote of no-confidence by the parliament would send a prime minister packing.   We prize stability, so removal should, under terms of my proposed amendment, only come if high standards are met.

January 30, 2015       Permalink

ISIS ATTACKS – AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  ISIS has launched a major attack in Iraq.  We've been told  previously that anti-ISIS forces have been advancing in Iraq.  Once again, the enemy surprises us, and even Barack Obama might have to show some interest.  From CNN:   

Amman, Jordan (CNN)ISIS militants have launched an attack on the oil-producing northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

There had been recent speculation that ISIS might attack Kirkuk to force Kurdish troops to divert their efforts away from Mosul, ISIS's stronghold in Iraq, about 100 miles to the northwest.

Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have moved in around the outskirts of Mosul recently, backed by airstrikes by the U.S.-led international coalition against ISIS, forcing the Sunni extremist group onto the defensive.

ISIS has been facing off with the Peshmerga -- armed fighters who protect Iraqi Kurdistan -- to the west of Kirkuk for months.

The extremist group has previously held areas on the outskirts of Kirkuk but not the central city.

On Friday, however, ISIS militants took over Maktab Khalid, an area about 12 miles southwest of the city, after heavy clashes with Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga troops.

Among those killed was Brig. Gen. Shirko Fateh, the highest-ranking operational commander of the Peshmerga brigade located in Kirkuk.

Peshmerga fighters continued to battle, attempting to retake the area.

COMMENT:  We are being warned by real experts that ISIS is strong and resourceful, and should not be dismissed because it suffers temporary setbacks.  It still controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, and is seeking to expand throughout the Mideast, just as the United States is seeking to reduce our presence in the region.

January 30, 2015       Permalink

OH DEAR, OH DEAR, THIS WASN'T THE SCRIPT – AT 9:04 A.M. ET:  The American economy ended 2014 on a very down note.  Will someone please tell the president.  Well, maybe it's better not to tell him.  Children must have their fantasies.  From CNN:

The U.S. economy gained steam last year, but it closed out the year with a big disappointment, raising more questions about 2015.

America's economy grew only 2.6% in the final three months of the year, much lower than the estimate of 3.3%.

Overall for 2014, U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity rose 2.4%. That's the highest mark in four years, according to the Commerce Department, but economist and policymakers want to see growth this year of a lot closer to 3%.

There are many signs the economic recovery is stronger. The U.S. had its best year of job growth since 1999 last year. The Federal Reserve ended its stimulus program in October, which is like taking off the training wheels. Consumer confidence levels hit their highest mark in 2014 since the recession began.

The disappointing growth at the end of the year comes on the heels of the economy's incredible 5% growth in the third quarter, which was the best since 2003.

COMMENT:  We knew that the administration's propaganda was too good to be true, and it was.  We applaud any progress, especially when that progress lifts up the average American.  But reports of progress must be guarded.  We're still in the woods.  Many new jobs are at a low level.  Wages are frozen.  Mr. Obama doesn't seem to notice.

January 30,  2015     Permalink