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JUNE 7,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:57 P.M. ET: 

GOOD NEWS – From PJ Media:  "Turks went to the polls today in parliamentary elections, and the era of single-party Islamist rule appears to be over.  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been counting on the continued rule of his AKP party to change the country’s constitution after these elections, consolidating his already increasingly authoritarian rule into something even more dastardly.  But a 2/3 majority of AKP in parliament is needed to change the constitution.  Today, the Islamist party walked away with only 41 percent of seats.  That’s an eight percent drop from 2011.  In a country where the Islamists have garnered the animosity of all manner of opposition groups, from nationalists to Kurds, good luck forming a coalition."
Obama once described Erdogan as his best friend in the Mideast.  Now we'll see how Obama defines "best friend."  I'll bet Erdogan winds up under the same bus where Obama's other best friends wound up.

MAJOR SCIENCE NEWS – From Buzzfeed:  "Malaysia’s government is blaming a group of foreign tourists for causing a deadly earthquake on one of the country’s sacred mountains.  The magnitude 5.9 earthquake on Mount Kinabalu killed at least 13 people on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Authorities are still searching for at least six missing people.  On Saturday, the deputy chief minister of the state of Sabah told reporter that he believes the earthquake was caused by a group of 10 tourists who stripped naked on the mountain a few weeks ago.   Tan Sri Joseph Pairin said that the earthquake was a 'confirmation' that the mountain is sacred, and humanity 'cannot take it lightly,' according to the Malay Mail Online."  I don't know what we're going to do about the naked tourist problem.  It's reached crisis proportions.

THEIR GOOD HEARTS – from freebeacon.com:  "A little-known private foundation controlled by Bill and Hillary Clinton donated $100,000 to the New York Times’ charitable fund in 2008, the same year the newspaper’s editorial page endorsed Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary, according to tax documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.  The Clinton Family Foundation, a separate entity from the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has been the family’s vehicle for personal charitable giving since 2001.  It is funded directly by the Clintons and distributes more than $1 million a year to civic and educational causes."  I'm sure the Clintons weren't trying to buy influence.  Who would accuse them of that?

June 7, 2015       Permalink

THE REALITY OF ISIS – AT 1:16 P.M. ET:   Obama called ISIS the "junior varsity."  It is junior no more, if it ever was.  In fact, it potentially is far, far more frightening than Al Qaeda.  From IBD:

Jihad: In the latest edition of its propaganda rag, the Islamic State says it has enough cash to buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan and smuggle it into the U.S. through Mexico. This is the sum of all fears, and it's not overblown.

The new issue of "Dabiq," IS' English-language webzine, includes a chilling article, "The Perfect Storm," that claims the group has amassed enough funds to purchase a "nuclear device" from Pakistan.

"The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilayah (province) in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region," the magazine says. The weapon could be smuggled through drug-running routes from Islamist-controlled Nigeria to Central America to Mexico "and into the U.S.," it adds.

Far-fetched? Not when you consider that IS has the means to buy nukes or dirty bombs, and the opportunity to smuggle them through our porous borders.

A Rand Corp. study says IS has more than $2 billion in assets from seized oil fields and refineries, kidnap ransoms and taxation. The think tank figures the terror group now controls fields with a production capacity of more than 150,000 barrels a day. It smuggles this oil out in tanker trucks and sells it at steeply discounted rates to buyers in Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan and elsewhere.

Despite falling world oil prices that have slowed IS energy revenues to about $2 million a week, the terror group is still raking in more than $1 million a day in extortion and taxes alone. IS has also stolen some $500 million from state-owned banks in Iraq.

This is far more cash than al-Qaida had access to before 9/11. And IS is more ambitious — and fanatical enough to actually detonate a nuke inside a U.S. city.

"ISIS has billions of dollars, and if they plan an attack from over there, it's going to be 75% successful and larger than 9/11," warns terror expert Jeffrey Addicott of St. Mary's University. Indeed, IS's magazine boasts that IS is "looking to do something big, something that would make any past operation look like a squirrel shoot."

COMMENT:  I would take this very seriously.  I'm sure many of our intelligence people do, but I wonder if the man at the top does.  He has done nothing about our borders, and his appeasement policies are undoubtedly noticed by the ISIS high command.

I fear it will take another huge event to wake us up again. 

June 7, 2015       Permalink

THE HILL GAME – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  An excellent New York Times piece outlines the emerging Hillary Clinton campaign strategy – consisting of a cynical attempt to scare the Democratic base into voting, but very else.  Look for cries of "racism" and "war on women."  That kind of thing.  From The Times: 

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be dispensing with the nationwide electoral strategy that won her husband two terms in the White House and brought white working-class voters and great stretches of what is now red-state America back to Democrats.

Instead, she is poised to retrace Barack Obama’s far narrower path to the presidency: a campaign focused more on mobilizing supporters in the Great Lakes states and in parts of the West and South than on persuading undecided voters.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides say it is the only way to win in an era of heightened polarization, when a declining pool of voters is truly up for grabs. Her liberal policy positions, they say, will fire up Democrats, a less difficult task than trying to win over independents in more hostile territory — even though a broader strategy could help lift the party with her.

This early in the campaign, however, forgoing a determined outreach effort to all 50 states, or even most of them, could mean missing out on the kind of spirited conversation that can be a unifying feature of a presidential election. And it could leave Mrs. Clinton, if she wins, with the same difficulties Mr. Obama has faced in governing with a Republican-controlled Congress.

Already, it is causing consternation among Democrats in conservative states that could be given short shrift by her campaign or bypassed altogether.

COMMENT:  The Obama coalition is based on identity politics, and has failed at governing.  Clinton, an even more divisive figure than Obama, is pursuing a two-nation strategy rather than a one-nation strategy.  It is bad for the country, bad for her party, but may work for her.

And in Hillaryland, anything that works for the Clintons is fine. 

June 7, 2015       Permalink

IRAN COUNTDOWN – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  There are 23 days to go to the deadline for the Iran nuclear talks to produce an agreement.  Now an Iranian official tells us that there's no trust among the parties, not a good sign.  From AFP:

A top Iranian official, in an unusual declaration Saturday, said there remains no trust between Tehran and world powers and either side could yet abandon a nuclear deal after signing.

In comments that laid bare a paradox of long-running negotiations between Iran and the West, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said an agreement — due by June 30 — was “very slowly” nearing despite neither side trusting the other.

A final accord could rein in aspects of Iran’s nuclear program while allowing it to continue to enrich uranium in exchange for a lifting of sanctions, but breaches could see the deal being ripped up.

“Our basis is mistrust and this is the reality,” Araqchi was quoted by state television as saying at the end of the latest round of talks in Vienna with the P5+1 group of nations that has been talking to Iran for almost two years.

“We don’t trust the other side at all and they don’t trust us either,” Araqchi said, noting so-called “snapback” provisions would be as relevant to Iran as to the United States if measures are reneged on.

“Thus all the provisions in a deal… whenever each party feels the other side is violating the commitments, they can snap back and implement whatever existed before the agreement.

“We have taken every necessary measure so this would happen for us. Naturally, the other side will do the same for sanctions,” he added.

US officials have also said they are negotiating under a policy of “distrust and verify,” in touting what they say are robust safeguards built into the emerging agreement.

COMMENT:  Reagan said "trust but verify."  His agreements lasted.  The reason they lasted is that Reagan, unlike Obama, was a serious man, and a man with a spine.  His spine was enhanced by the American military power he brought into being.  Obama is reducing our power, and his spinelessness and lack of seriousness are matters of record.

We should know the story of this "agreement" in about three weeks, unless there's an extension.

June 7,  2015     Permalink

JUNE 6,   2015

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

HEAD CASE – From TIME:  "A Chinese doctor has been surgically transplanting the heads of mice—and he eventually wants to perform head transplants on humans, too.  Surgeon Xiaoping Ren has performed roughly 1,000 head transplants on mice since 2013, and has had more success than anyone else with the surgery, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The mice—whose new heads sometimes have different colored fur than their bodies—have lived as long as a day after the operations."  Hillary Clinton showed up at his office with a photo of Angelina Jolie and told him, "I want that."

VICTORY – American Pharoah won the Triple Crown in racing today through its victory in the Belmont Stakes.  President Obama is reported to have expressed frustration and annoyance.  He'd been told all his life that he was the American Pharoah.

HYPOCRISY – From American Thinker:  "You can’t get much more hypocritical than the New York Times, which acted as a megaphone for the oppo research efforts of American Bridge, the pro-Hillary operation founded by David Brock. The 'scandal' amounted to four traffic tickets for Marco Rubio over 18 years, puffed up by including his wife’s driving record into a headline of 17 violations for the couple.  The problem is that the Times studiously ignored the scofflaw behavior of Barack Obama, who ignored 15 outstanding parking tickets until his run for the presidency forced him to clean up his record."   A demigod doesn't have to pay parking tickets.  Those are the rules posted at the Democratic national headquarters.

June 6, 2015        Permalink

THIS DAY – AT 11:31 A.M. ET:   This is D-Day, the sixth of June.  It was 71 years ago today that the largest invasion in human history was launched at Normandy, on the coast of France. 

For those of us of a certain age, commemorations of D-Day were major events.  Perhaps the greatest of those commemorations was in 1984, the 40th anniversary, when President Ronald Reagan delivered one of the most stirring speeches of his career, at Normandy, with veterans of D-Day present:

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

And...

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

And...

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your ``lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.''

And...

We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: ``I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

COMMENT:   Compare please the words of Ronald Reagan to what we have today.  I'm afraid we have forsaken, at least for now.

A recurring theme of current commemorations is that we must not permit D-Day to be forgotten.  The youngest veterans of World War II will this year be 87.   Their numbers are diminishing rapidly.  In 13 years, the youngest vet will be 100. 

Will Americans still remember in 13 years?   I think enough will to make a difference.  And if our leadership remembers, that will make a great difference.  Reagan at Normandy showed us that great leadership uplifts the nation.

June 6, 2015       Permalink

OH, I BELIEVE, I BELIEVE – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  Isn't it wonderful how Comrade Putin seeks to assure us, to put us at ease, to resist the warmongering class in American politics?  He is a peacemaker, just like our magnificent Saint Barack the First.  From AFP: 

Moscow (AFP) - Russia is not a threat to the West, President Vladimir Putin insisted in an interview published on Saturday, saying he was still committed to a Ukraine peace deal after a fresh flare-up in the country's east.

"I would like to say - there's no need to be afraid of Russia," Putin told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published Saturday, ruling out a major conflict between Russia and NATO member countries.

"The world has changed so much that people in their right mind cannot imagine such a large-scale military conflict today."

"We have other things to do, I can assure you," the Russian president said.

"Only a sick person -- and even then only in his sleep -- can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO."

The Russian president spoke ahead of his visit to Italy next week that will include a meeting with Pope Francis.

COMMENT:  Oh, it's so comforting.  I shall go through this weekend recalling his words.  I will not think about Ukraine today.  I'll think about it tomorrow.  After all, tomorrow is another day.

June 6, 2015        Permalink

ANOTHER NIGHT IN CHICAGO – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  It's so routine, it doesn't even bother a mother trying to put her kids to sleep.  From CBS: 

(CBS) – The projectiles were flying were flying in a West Side neighborhood. It wasn’t gunfire, but it wasn’t exactly safe, either.

CBS Roseanne Tellez checked out a recent video that shows young people dueling in Garfield Park with roman candles, the tubelike fireworks that emit fireballs.

The “fight” among young men stopped traffic on busy Western Avenue and left debris strewn from Adams to Madison streets.

“I heard it through my window, i came outside, I saw them chasing each other with Roman candles, like battling each other in the middle of the street with Roman candles holding up traffic, it was crazy,” said Bridget Williams, who lives nearby. “Better that than guns and violence, I guess, but that’s still not safe.”

The Chicago Fire Department stresses that fire balls could ignite clothing, burn skin or even cause blindness if they hit eyes.

Chicago police were called and responded Tuesday night, but by then the crowd had dispersed. No one was arrested, and there were no reported injuries.

“It don’t bother me,” said Chaquita Lane, another neighbor. “Sometimes they do it when I try to put my kids to sleep. I guess that’s how they play over here.”

COMMENT:  Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it "defining deviancy down."  People get so used to something awful that it becomes normal.

We're getting there, we're getting there fast.

June 6,  2015     Permalink