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JULY 25,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:53 P.M. ET: 

BE THERE – From CBS:  DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – A group is planning to unveil an 8-foot-tall bronze statue featuring a goat-headed Satan in Detroit during a gathering that’s being billed as the “largest public satanic ceremony in history.”  The Satanic Temple has said Saturday’s private event will be open only to people with tickets, $25 each. Invitations to “The Unveiling” summoned guests to prepare for “a night of chaos, noise, and debauchery… Come dance with the Devil and experience history in the making.” The event location is not being announced publicly and is known only to those with tickets.  Not worth it.  Chaos, noise, and debauchery are free on MSNBC.

SOCIAL NOTE – From The New York Times:  When it comes to registering for gifts, a generational sea change has developed, with more and more millennial couples asking their guests to consider holding the gravy ladles and shelving the dishes in favor of gifts of a very different sort.  Young couples are opting instead to register for cash, home-repair gift cards and lavish honeymoon experiences.  “It’s a generational thing,” said Nina Vitale, who oversees weddings at the Mirbeau Inn & Spa in Skaneateles, N.Y. “During the past two years, guests have been bringing mostly envelopes, no gifts.” Because so many have moved away from registering for traditional dinner and cookware, she’s jettisoned the gift table and substituted cardholders.  Home-repair gift cards?  How romantic.  "Dear Aunt Frances:  Thanks so much for repairing our dishwasher.  Just what we always wanted."

WARMTH – From USA Today:   Iran's supreme leader tweeted a graphic Saturday that appears to depict President Obama holding a gun to his head as Britain relaxed its travel advice to the nation, citing decreased hostility under the Iranian government.  "US president has said he could knock out Iran’s military. We welcome no war, nor do we initiate any war, but.." reads the caption above the tweet sent by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on @khamenei_ir, his English language account.  I'm just thrilled by Iran's new kindness, its love for America, its reasonableness.  Our gracious president made all this possible.

July 25,  2015     Permalink

WARNING ABOUT MOSCOW – AT 12:32 P.M. ET:  When Mitt Romney warned about this in 2012, he was laughed at.  Russia is on the march, and Field Marshal Obama is dining in Kenya.  From Fox:

Russia seeks to test the United States at every opportunity and divide the NATO alliance, posing the most significant long term threat to US national security, the head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, General Joseph Votel , told the Aspen Security Forum.

"Russia is looking to challenge us wherever they can,” Votel told Fox News’ Catherine Herridge. "The intent is to create a situation where NATO can't continue to thrive."

Votel said he did not have "unique insights" into Russian President Vladimir Putin but he believes Putin sees the expansion of NATO "...as a threat to him and I think what they (Moscow) are attempting to do is create these frozen conflicts and create situations that are very, very difficult to resolve along their border."

That "does, could pose an existential threat," Votel added.

He also said Russia is using a "hybrid approach to warfare" where state and non-state actors are mixing military and non-military capabilities. The result is "a coercive effect...using information operations, using manipulation of media , using social media."

Since January, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – three traditional U.S. allies - have completed significant nuclear energy deals with Russia. Asked if this is evidence of Putin's effort to further expand Russia’s reach, and the seeds of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Votel replied it was proof of Moscow's push to challenge the U.S. and expand its influence.

Votel said SOCOM is assisting those countries that want to resist Russian influence.

COMMENT:  Wait a minute.  This is nonsense.  Why, we watched Hillary Clinton when she gave the Russian foreign minister a "reset" button, signifying that we were restarting our relations with Moscow on a friendly basis, not like that big, bad man, George Bush, or the even worse Dick Cheney. 

Why does an American general say these bad things about Russia?  I think SOCOM should be run by someone from Code Pink, don't you?

July 25, 2015        Permalink

MYTH OF LIBERAL SUCCESS – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  We're being told by the mainstream media that liberal social policies are gaining favor all over the United States.  The culture war is over!  Well, not so fast.  Surveys tell a very different story.  From IBD: 

The end of the Supreme Court term was depressing for conservatives. The double-whammy of a 50-state mandate for gay marriage and the upholding of ObamaCare sounded the alarms for religious freedom. All that unease is measurable.

Credit the Washington Post for doing precisely that. The polling team has just reported, "Liberals have won a string of victories on gay marriage and health care reform this year, but a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds a large majority of Americans are unhappy with where the nation is headed on social issues."

They found 63% of respondents are uncomfortable with the country's overall direction on social issues these days; 41% feel "strongly" uncomfortable about the nation's changes.

The spin coming from the media suggesting there is a national celebration underway is simply false. Indeed, the findings aren't encouraging for Democrats: 51% of racial minorities are uncomfortable with the current tide on social issues, along with two-thirds of women and even 50% of adults under age 30. That doesn't sound like the conventional wisdom about the "right side of history" crushing everything in its path.

The left counts on unelected forces to press its agenda. Hollywood's assembly line of products push the LGBT agenda with so much fervor that polls show Americans think about a quarter of the population is gay, 10 times higher than reality. Judges with their fingers in the wind feel "change" is in the air, and bow to media elite pressure.

But the debate isn't over. On the hot-button issues individually, the nation is divided. "History" is incomplete. It's as fluid as the liberals are on gender. It's true that gays have made significant gains in recent years — but how significant? On the Supreme Court mandate for gay marriage, 52% expressed support and 44% were opposed (51 to 45 among registered voters). The public divides more closely on the Supreme Court ruling for ObamaCare (45% for, 42% against).

Nevertheless, media coverage of these issues lines up dramatically for making and solidifying "change" and lectures that the Republican Party would be suicidal to take a stand against the tsunami of social liberalism. It dovetails perfectly with President Obama's spin. Both willfully ignore polls that suggest otherwise.

A new AP-GfK poll also found less of a social revolution in the polls. The survey found support for gay marriage in America slipped to 42%.  Only 39% backed the Supreme Court decision, 41% were opposed, and 18% didn't take a position. When gay rights were placed alongside religious liberty, 39% said it's more important for the government to protect gay rights, while 56% said protection of religious liberties should take precedence. Support for religious vendors being able to refuse to serve gay marriages climbed seven points to 59%.

COMMENT:  Polling is complex.  I'd want to know the way questions were phrased, and who was polled, but I think the article gets it generally right.  There is no real social revolution underway.  Americans are divided, but I think we are still basically a center-right country.  The young generation may actually turn out to be less liberal than previous generations, in part because of the impact of 9/11, which is still felt.

July 25, 2015       Permalink

CLINTON CASH – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Of course, we know this has nothing to do with buying influence.  Why, it's just an effort to help those less fortunate.  Please don't laugh.  From London's Daily Mail: 

Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money has been siphoned through charities linked to Hillary Clinton, it emerged last night.

British politicians – including Gordon Brown – stand accused of diverting huge amounts of cash through the organisations after falling under the spell of the US presidential candidate and her husband Bill.

At least £50 million of taxpayer-funded foreign aid money has gone to Clinton charities, which are at the centre of allegations in the US that foreign governments used donations to buy influence.

The UK is one of the biggest donors, handing over more than £20 million last year alone to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), an organisation chaired by former President Bill, 68, and whose board includes the couple's daughter Chelsea, 35. Since 2011, a total of £48.9 million has gone into the coffers of this charity alone.

And...

Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley, said: 'The fact we are spending more and more on aid when we are massively in debt is bad enough, but when it is being tossed away for vanity reasons to ingratiate UK politicians with the rich and powerful in the US … I think most people would find that distasteful and unacceptable.'

COMMENT:  I wonder what favors the royal Clintons granted for this huge amount of British cash.  I also wonder how much good the "Clinton Foundation" actually does.  Some press reporting please...or is the answer too embarrassing?

July 25,  2015     Permalink

JULY 24,  2015

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

WHO NEEDS INTEGRITY?  The Dems are already working to convince America that Hillary Clinton may be a crook, but she's a competent crook.  From IBD:   Lawyer Lanny Davis, the longtime professional on-air surrogate for the Clintons, has reached so far down into the barrel to excuse Hillary's low trustworthiness ratings, he may end up with a charley horse.  On MSNBC, interviewer Ed Schultz asked Davis about Quinnipiac poll numbers that show trust of Hillary Clinton is between 33% and 39% in important swing states. And these numbers came before the latest revelation that the former secretary of state, contrary to her claims, did indeed send classified emails on her personal Freedom of Information Act-proof computer server. So expect those numbers to drop lower.  Davis conceded, "It's certainly a worry," but added, "All of the polls show that she has strong leadership numbers."  Who cares if we lost the war, Mein Fuhrer.  You haven't lost your leadership qualities.

SICKENING – A further example of how low liberalism is sinking.  From the Sacramento Bee:   California Attorney General Kamala Harris will review whether the nonprofit organization behind controversial Planned Parenthood videos violated state law, her office said in a letter Friday.  Four Democratic congresswomen on Thursday asked Harris and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to determine if officials from the Irvine-based Center for Medical Progress broke any laws when they posed as workers for a biotech company while recording Planned Parenthood physicians without their consent.  Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Zoe Lofgren, Jerry Nadler and Yvette Clarke cited reports that founder David Daleiden filed paperwork to create a phony entity. They also asked the state’s top law enforcement official to look into possible violations of the Invasion of Privacy Act, which bars recording people without their permission.  “We will carefully review the allegations raised in your letter to determine whether there were any violations of California law,” Harris, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, wrote in a reply Friday.  “This office will also review any materials filed by the Center for Medical Progress with the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts to determine whether the organization violated laws including, but not limited to, our registration and reporting requirements.”  Harris will probably be the next senator from California, succeeding the retiring Barbara Boxer.  This episode tells us what we have to know about Harris.  She's another doctrinaire leftist, more concerned about the propriety of the video than with what it revealed about the selling of fetal body parts.  It's also hilarious that the story identifies "four Democratic congresswomen."  Last time I looked, Jerry Nadler was a male, but I'm not up on the latest sex-change announcements.

LOWER STILL – John Kerry is starting to make threats to get his Iran nuclear deal accepted.  From The Times of Israel:   WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Friday that should Congress vote against the Iranian nuclear deal signed last week in Vienna, Israel could find itself more isolated in the international arena and “more blamed.”  “I fear that what could happen is that, if Congress were to overturn it, our friends in Israel could actually wind up being more isolated. And more blamed. And we would lose Europe and China and Russia with respect to whatever military action we might have to take. Because we will have turned our backs on a very legitimate program that allows us to put their program to the test over the next few years,” Kerry told an audience at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York on Friday.  It's an implied threat against Israel, and it is based in part on the fantasy that Europe, China, or Russia would ever join us in military action.  Our foreign policy is in the hands of people who have a certain contempt for their own country.

July 24, 2015       Permalink

AND HILLARY CAVES – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  It's no secret that Hillary Clinton, despite her general awfulness, actually has some (I stress some) moderate, even reasonable views, especially on military policy.  But those views won't get her the nomination of a party that increasingly views Karl Marx as Uncle Karl.  So Hillary is doing what she always does...caving to the left to increase her chances.  From AP:

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — In her second bid for the presidency, Hillary Rodham Clinton is discussing "systemic racism" and making the issue a hallmark of her campaign as she looks to connect with the black voters who supported rival Barack Obama in 2008.

At multiple stops in South Carolina, Clinton on Thursday bemoaned "mass incarceration," an uneven economy, increasingly segregated public schools and poisoned relations between law enforcement and the black community. She praised South Carolina leaders, including Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, for removing the Confederate battle flag from statehouse grounds after a white gunman's massacre of nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, but she warned that the act is only symbolic.

"America's long struggle with racism is far from finished," the former secretary of state said before a mostly white audience at a Greenville technical college. Hours earlier, with a majority black audience at a West Columbia church, she declared, "Anybody who says we don't have more progress to make is blind."

At both stops, she added some symbolism of her own, trumpeting the mantra "Black Lives Matter," which has become a rallying cry of and name for the activists who have organized protests in several cities amid several high-profile cases of black citizens being killed during encounters with police.

"This is not just a slogan," Clinton said. "This should be a guiding principle."

The bold approach is a contrast to her 2008 campaign. That year, she didn't talk so directly about race as she faced off against Obama, who would go on to become the nation's first black president. Instead, she ran as the battle-tested, experienced counter to the first-term U.S. senator from Illinois.

COMMENT:  It's pathetic.  All this pandering.  There is certainly racism.  But there are also terrible cultural problems in black America that must be addressed if the black community is to make progress. 

Hillary is merely shoring up the Democratic base.  But that will not be enough to win a general election.

July 24, 2015       Permalink

JUST A LITTLE HELP FROM FRIENDS – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  The New York Times, always striving for accuracy and kindness, gave Hillary Clinton a helping hand last night.  I'm sure the paper would do the same for, say, Marco Rubio or Scott Walker.  From The Politico: 

The New York Times made small but significant changes to an exclusive report about a potential criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's State Department email account late Thursday night, but provided no notification of or explanation for of the changes.

The paper initially reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state."

That clause, which cast Clinton as the target of the potential criminal probe, was later changed: the inspectors general now were asking for an inquiry "into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state."

The Times also changed the headline of the story, from "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email" to "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account," reflecting a similar recasting of Clinton's possible role. The article's URL was also changed to reflect the new headline.

As of early Friday morning, the Times article contained no update, notification, clarification or correction regarding the changes made to the article.

One of the reporters of the story, Michael Schmidt, explained early Friday that the Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times.

“It was a response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought were reasonable, and we made them,” Schmidt said.

COMMENT:  We all know that any mishandling of sensitive government information on Hillary's personal e-mail account was done by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  Pass it on.

July 24, 2015       Permalink

A NOBEL FOR KERRY?  REALLY? – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  The drums are already being beaten on behalf of a Nobel Peace Prize for John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart.  Kerry wants one desperately, maybe a kind of consolation prize for not being elected president. 

The Nobel Peace Prize is, of course, a joke.  It is not like the real Nobel prizes, in categories like physics, chemistry and medicine.  It is given in Oslo by a bunch of leftist Norwegian parliamentarians.  It has never advanced peace.  Indeed, it has often been given to those whose "peacemaking" actually led to war.  Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe nails it:

On Wednesday, a director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an influential think tank with ties to the Nobel organization, recommended that the 2016 prize be awarded to Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The Vienna deal is a capitulation to one of the worst regimes on earth. Far from requiring the Iranians to dismantle their illicit nuclear program, the accord leaves almost all of it intact. In exchange for little more than a promise to delay its development of nuclear warheads, Tehran is rewarded with $150 billion in sanctions relief and, within a few years, the lifting of the UN embargo on conventional weapons and missile sales. The Islamic Republic is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, yet nothing in the agreement requires any change in its notorious behavior. And despite the regime’s long record of treaty violations and deceit, the deal enables it to stall for almost a month before complying with a demand for access by inspectors — hardly the “anytime, anywhere, 24/7” inspections that the Obama administration had claimed it would insist on.

The White House wanted to sign a deal; Iran’s rulers wanted to ensure their path to the bomb and nuclear legitimacy. Both got what they wanted. The consequences will be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, more Iranian terrorism and subversion, and a greater likelihood of war.

A Nobel Peace Prize — for that?

COMMENT:  Jacoby goes on to note the past failures of the "peace prize."  I would not be shocked if John Kerry gets his prize, and the cash that goes with it.  After all, Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize within a few days of taking office.  Standards are low.

July 24, 2015       Permalink

THE VOICE OF HISTORY – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  The debate over the Iran deal is on, with Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tearing into the agrement in the presence of the secretary of state, while Democrats offered half-hearted defenses.

But perhaps the best statement against the deal was a very practical one offered by the former district attorney for Manhattan, Robert Morgenthau, speaking at the Stop Iran Now rally several days ago in New York.  His words, from The Wall Street Journal: 

The proposal would give Iran access to $150 billion in frozen assets. That provision is particularly galling. Over the years, survivors of Americans murdered in Iran’s terrorist acts have sued Iran, and often won large judgments. The problem is, Iran refused to pay. I fail to see the logic in returning those embargoed funds without first requiring Iran to make good on the debts it owes to those survivors.

Although the proposal was negotiated in good faith, even the administration worries that some of those billions would go toward sponsoring terrorism—what the State Department euphemistically calls “destabilizing actions.” This is not only a strategic issue, but a moral one. We simply cannot give terrorists the means to destroy innocent lives. Until Iran renounces terrorism, we cannot release those funds. And make no mistake: Neither side to this deal predicts that it will reduce Iranian terrorism. An Iranian newspaper that serves as a mouthpiece for the Iranian supreme leader put it this way: “In spite of various pretensions and fantasies, this agreement will not lead to cooperation between Iran and America on regional issues.” And even President Obama, at his recent press conference, conceded that try as we might to curb Iran’s destructive policies, he’s “not betting on it.”

With respect to Iran, an effective international sanctions regime is the only real alternative the world has to war. We must not dismantle those sanctions until we are assured that Iran’s hostile intentions have been thwarted.

As district attorney, some of my most important cases were those in which we ensured that the sanctions against Iran were obeyed. I took on those cases because I believed the sanctions were crucial to prevent Iran from spreading even wider mayhem. We should keep those sanctions in place so long as Iran threatens the survival of its neighbors, and sponsors terror around the world. Near the end of his life, President John Kennedy delivered a speech in which he told Americans of the peace he hoped to bring to the world. He called it “genuine peace . . . not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time.”

This proposal does just the opposite.

COMMENT:  Morgenthau is 95, and his words are ironic.  His father, Henry Morgenthau Jr., was FDR's secretary of the treasury.  It was Henry Morgenthau Jr., a close friend of Roosevelt, who confronted the president with this country's inaction in regard to the Holocaust.  Robert Morgenthau has a historic sense, through his father, of what the failure to confront evil can ultimately mean.   His words should be taken seriously.

July 24,  2015     Permalink