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JUNE 25,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET:

THE SUPREMES ON OBAMACARE – From Fox:   While Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a blow to ObamaCare foes with a majority opinion upholding subsidies, he backed up the law's opponents on one point: The language in the Affordable Care Act was kind of a mess.  "The Affordable Care Act contains more than a few examples of inartful drafting," he wrote.  And many examples of inartful thinking.

STRANGE HOLIDAYS – From AP:   SUSAN-RI, North Korea — June is something like Hate America Month in North Korea.  Officially, it’s called “Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism Month” and — more so than usual — it’s a time for North Koreans to swarm to war museums, mobilize for gatherings denouncing the evils of the United States and join in a general, nationwide whipping up of anti-American sentiment.  Sounds like an average week on an American college campus.

NO MORE SEEING THE USA IN YOUR CHEVROLET – From Reuters:  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Two self-driving prototype cars, one operated by Google Inc and the other by Delphi Automotive Plc, had a close call on a Silicon Valley street earlier this week, a Delphi executive told Reuters on Thursday.  It was believed to be the first such incident involving two vehicles specially equipped for automated driving.  The incident occurred Tuesday on San Antonio Road in Palo Alto, said John Absmeier, director of Delphi's Silicon Valley lab and global business director for the company's automated driving program, who was a passenger in one of the cars.  It was the other robot's fault.

WHY NOT JUST TURN OFF THE COMPUTER? – From Financial Times:  Desperate times call for desperate measures. One luxury hotel company has come up with the ultimate way to help its guests to relax: a switch that kills the internet.  A silver switch next to the beds in the Villa Stéphanie spa resort in Baden-Baden activates a copper grid in the walls to block all wireless internet signals.  Seems like an excessive solution to a small problem.  I mean, you can turn off the computer.  You can pull the plug.  Is there an extra charge for the switch?  What if you want gold?

June 25, 2015       Permalink

OBAMA WINS IN COURT – AT 10:22 A.M. ET:  This is just developing:  The Supreme Court has sided with President Obama over Obamacare.  From Fox: 

In the second major court win for President Obama on his signature health care law, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld ObamaCare subsidies in states that did not set up their own health care exchanges.

The decision was 6-3.

A ruling against the administration would have threatened subsidies in nearly three-dozen states. For months, though, the administration said it had no back-up plans, confident the Supreme Court would rule in its favor.

The Supreme Court previously upheld the law's individual mandate in 2012, in a 5-4 decision.

This time, the justices said the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live, under the 2010 health care law.

Chief Justice John Roberts again voted with his liberal colleagues in support of the law. Roberts also was the key vote to uphold the law in 2012. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in 2012, was part of the majority on Thursday.

COMMENTS:  Roberts is becoming the Earl Warren of today.  President Eisenhower appointed Warren as chief justice, thinking he was getting a Republican.  He got Earl Warren.  George W. Bush thought Roberts was a reliable conservative vote.  He is not. 

June 25, 2015       Permalink

BERNIE KEEPS RISING – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:  Socialist Bernie Sanders keeps gaining against Hillary Clinton.  If truth be told, Clinton's support has very little depth.  From Bloomberg: 

Bernie Sanders is gaining on Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, with an appeal as an issue-oriented protest vehicle potentially capable of slowing any coronation of the popular front-runner.

In simultaneous surveys, the U.S. senator from Vermont received nearly a quarter of support from likely Democratic caucus and primary voters in the states that host the first presidential nomination balloting early next year, cutting sharply into Clinton's still-huge lead.

The polls suggest substantive and symbolic support for the socialist, as well as a craving among some Democrats for a Clinton rival to rise.

“I want to try to get him along as far as I can,” said Democratic poll participant John Murphy, 74, a retired railroad worker in West Des Moines, Iowa. “He’s going to bring up some issues that she may not want to talk about.”

The surveys were commissioned to test sources of strength for Sanders, who has seen audiences at his campaign events swell in recent weeks. The polls were conducted June 19-22 by West Des Moines-based Selzer & Co. in Iowa and Washington-area Purple Strategies in New Hampshire, the latter done in cooperation with Saint Anselm College. The margin of error on the full samples—401 in Iowa, 400 in New Hampshire—is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

COMMENT:  Clinton surrogates are already describing Sanders as an "extremist."  There is concern about him.

I don't agree with Sanders on much, but he's an admirable man in that he actually tells you what he believes.  You don't have to go along; I don't, but at least you know where the man stands.  By contrast, Hillary Clinton is a living embodiment of Groucho Marx's line, "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

June 25, 2015       Permalink

BLACK JOBS MATTER – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  Black business people are coming down hard on the EPA, warning that some of its extreme measures will mean an increase in black poverty.  From CNS:

(CNSNews.com) - A study commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce, which represents 2.1 million black-owned businesses in the United States, found that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan would increase black poverty by 23 percent and cause the loss of 7 million jobs for black Americans by 2035.

The study also found that the EPA's plan would increase Hispanic poverty by 26 percent and cause the loss of 12 million jobs for Hispanic Americans by 2035.

The EPA proposed the Clean Power Plan on June 2, 2014 to cut carbon emissions from power plants. The National Black Chamber of Commerce commissioned the study to evaluate the potential economic and employment impacts of the plan on minority groups.

National Black Chamber of Commerce President Harry Alford explained the results of the report, “Potential Impact of Proposed EPA Regulations on Low Income Groups and Minorities” at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Tuesday.

“The study finds that the Clean Power Plan will inflict severe and disproportionate economic burdens on poor families, especially minorities,” said Alford in his prepared statement. “The EPA’s proposed regulation for GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions from existing power plants is a slap in the face to poor and minority families.

“These communities already suffer from higher unemployment and poverty rates compared to the rest of the country, yet the EPA’s regressive energy tax threatens to push minorities and low-income Americans even further into poverty,” Alford added.

COMMENT:  Some of this administration's policies will do far more harm to blacks than Confederate symbols will.  But don't tell that to the politically correct crowd.

June 25, 2015       Permalink

EXTRAORDINARY – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  When his own former advisers publicly warn President Obama about his Iran policy, that is serious.  Former advisers don't normally lecture their former boss.  From The New York Times: 

Five former members of President Obama’s inner circle of Iran advisers have written an open letter expressing concern that a pending accord to stem Iran’s nuclear program “may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement” and laying out a series of minimum requirements that Iran must agree to in coming days for them to support a final deal.

Several of the senior officials said the letter was prompted by concern that Mr. Obama’s negotiators were headed toward concessions that would weaken international inspection of Iran’s facilities, back away from forcing Tehran to reveal its suspected past work on weapons, and allow Iranian research and development that would put it on a course to resuming intensive production of nuclear fuel as soon as the accord expires.

The public nature of the announcement by some of Mr. Obama’s best-known former advisers, all of whom had central roles in the diplomatic, intelligence and military efforts to counter Iran’s program, adds to the challenge facing Secretary of State John Kerry as the negotiations head toward a deadline of next Tuesday.

COMMENT:  And France is also warning that the agreement shaping up is unacceptable.  It would be wise for President Obama to pull out of the talks, warning that the Iranians were not being cooperative.  They need this agreement more than we do.  If he pulls out, while threatening more and stiffer sanctions, the Iranians might just come to their senses.  But Obama is a weak president, with a bizarre sympathy for the Iranian regime.  His chief adviser, the hard leftist Valerie Jarrett, was born in Iran.  I doubt if Obama will do anything as sensible as putting more heat on Tehran.

June 25,  2015          Permalink

JUNE 24,  2015

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

NO CONFIDENCE – From Fox: Voters are worried about Iran developing nuclear weapons -- and they doubt the White House can negotiate a deal to stop that from happening.  That’s according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday.  Nearly three-quarters of voters are concerned about Iran getting nukes (74 percent), including 31 percent who say they are “extremely” concerned.  At the same time, many lack confidence in the Obama administration’s ability to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear program: 48 percent are confident, while 50 percent aren’t. Moreover, nearly twice as many voters are “not at all” confident (31 percent) as are “very” confident (17 percent) in the White House’s negotiating skills.  I have seen nothing to suggest that any informed American should be confident in this administration's ability to negotiate even the transfer of a used car.

BOBBY IN – From Gateway Pundit:  Governor Bobby Jindal became the 13th Republican to announce his entry into the 2016 presidential race today.  Jindal is the first Asian-Indian to ever run for president.
He won reelection in Louisiana with 66% of the vote.  It's strange, but among polite intellectual society Jindal isn't considered a minority.  The groups he comes from are too successful, too studious, too scholarly.  A group of Asian Americans is currently suing Harvard for admissions discrimination.  Jindal's speech today was superb and inspiring, but he's been around for a time, and it would be a struggle for him.  I think he'd make a fine president.

JEFFERSON DISSED – CNN, which has gone completely nuts over racial issues in American society, now has one of America's greatest founders in its sights.  Ashleigh Banfield, who never ceases to amaze with her on-screen mediocrity, suggested that we should look at whether it's appropriate to have a memorial to Thomas Jefferson in Washington.  Jefferson, and it's hardly a secret, was a slaveholder.  He was also the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia statutes on religious freedom.  And he lived in the 18th and early 19th centuries.  Slavery, an awful institution, was accepted in his day.  But the ideas he put forth provided the intellectual foundation for its abolition later on.  The left would love to bring down Jefferson, and another slaveholder, George Washington.  I don't think it will happen, but a move to banish them from American history would have wide support on college campuses. 

NUTS – From Breitbart:  When it comes to the Left, it is always only a matter of time before they show their fascist colors. We’re seeing it all over the place in a media frenzy that began with a cause I agree with (removing Confederate Flags from state capitols) into what is now a full-blown mob waging a bullying witch hunt to completely memory-hole the flag.  Wednesday, the thing that you believe could never happen, did happen: a New York film critic has called for the banning of The Greatest Movie Ever Made.  In just three days, the left’s mob mentality took us from removing the Rebel Flag from a state capitol to banning “Gone with the Wind.”  Everyone knows that Scarlett O'Hara is a threat to civilization. 

June 24, 2015       Permalink

CHARLESTON – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:   With all the self-righteousness thrown around, its time for some thought.  From Jonah Goldberg at NRO:

‘Lots of folks expected us to do something strange and break out in a riot. Well, they just don’t know us,” the Reverend Norvel Goff told the packed, multiracial congregation of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., on Sunday. It was the first service since the horrific slaughter of nine innocent souls by a racist fanatic.

Not being a Christian, I can only marvel at the dignity and courage of the victims’ relatives who forgave the shooter. If I could ever manage such a thing, it would probably take me decades. It took them little more than a day.

Less shocking, but almost as uplifting, was the conduct of the broader Charleston community, which has been unified and dignified, despite the expectations of some in the media — and the accused gunman, who had singled out Charleston because of its success at racial integration.

And this points to Goff being right, not just about Charleston but about the South in general.

There are few subjects that ignite more casual, uninformed bigotry and condescension from elites in this nation than Dixie. “Practically the whole region has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment,” the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky wrote last year.

How then to explain the tens of thousands of South Carolinians, white and black, marching in unity across the Ravenel Bridge on Sunday night? Did the city bus in decent Northerners?

COMMENT:  Wonderfully said.  Read Jonah's whole piece.  It's an elegant attack on Northern presumption and arrogance, something I've seen all my life.

June 24, 2015       Permalink

RIDICULOUS JOURNALISM – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  The New York Times, once a great paper, has gone completely berserk since Charleston, reflecting the radical views of its publisher.  Every second article is about race, race, race.  The paper's return to the sixties is almost complete.  And it's gone even further left on the Middle East.

Yesterday, in an absolutely disgusting display of intellectual corruption, The Times ran an editorial essentially exonerating Hamas, and stating that the extremist group could not be expected to live up to international norms because, get this, as a terrorist entity it couldn't meet those standards.  But Israel would be expected to.  Talk about cynicism.  Give the terrorists a break.  They are, after all, terrorists.  Next we'll be told that kids in school who fail should be given A's since we can't expect much of them, so why not make them feel good?

This morning The Times runs a story that equals any in cynicism, as follows:

WASHINGTON — In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media rants.

But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.

The slaying of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church last week, with an avowed white supremacist charged with their murders, was a particularly savage case. But it is only the latest in a string of lethal attacks by people espousing racial hatred, hostility to government and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies the legitimacy of most statutory law. The assaults have taken the lives of police officers, members of racial or religious minorities and random civilians.

Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period.

COMMENT:  What deceptive rubbish.   The whole purpose of that piece is to take attention away from radical Islam and put it on "right-wing" groups.

Of course domestic terror organizations will produce greater casualties.  In fact, it's stunning that there aren't more.  Domestic groups are here.  They're organized here.  They operate easily on American soil, and blend in.  Jihadist groups have a tougher task, but that didn't prevent the Fort Hood jihadist from murdering 13 people on his base.

Ignored by the story are the attempts at mass terror by jihadists that have failed, like the attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit or to set off a large bomb in Times Square in New York.  Also ignored are the terror attempts by jihadists that have been broken up by law enforcement.  And while no one really believes that white supremacist groups are trying to get weapons of mass destruction, it's a foregone conclusion that jihadist groups are working on just that.

The objective of The Times, as a leftist paper, is to link domestic terror with "conservative" causes.  It's downright dishonest, but typical.

June 24, 2015       Permalink

ANOTHER ACT OF NUTTINESS – AT 8:53 A.M. ET:  It is hard to figure out the logic behind something like this, except to do as much damage to American credibility and strength as possible.  From CNN: 

Washington (CNN) The White House will release on Wednesday a presidential directive and an executive order that will allow the government to communicate and negotiate with terrorist groups holding Americans hostage, a source briefed on the matter told CNN.

While the government will maintain its policy of not making "substantive concessions" to captors or paying ransoms, the White House will announce that officials will no longer threaten with criminal prosecution the families of American hostages who do pay ransoms to their relatives' captors, according to a senior administration official.

Family members of former hostages were meeting at the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday to learn of the administration's decisions after a months-long review of U.S. policies in dealing with American citizens held captive. The families were set to meet with President Barack Obama on Wednesday.

COMMENT:  The change may be presented as "compassionate," but the practical effect will be to put a target on the back of every American working in a dangerous area.  Why not take hostages if there's money to be made? 

And what of families who can't afford ransom?  Are we to have a caste system? 

There is a history of paying ransom.  Even the tough Israelis have often gotten people back by releasing prisoners.  But there is no evidence that payments or concessions have ever resulted in anything good.  The same process – capture then ransom – is just repeated over and over.

June 24, 2015       Permalink

SIX DAYS TO GO – AT 8:19 A.M. ET:  The deadline to complete a nuclear arrangement with Iran is six days away.  It doesn't look as if the sides are close, but never underestimate the willingness of Barack Obama to make enough concessions to get a piece of paper.  From Fox:

The United States and its allies are willing to offer Iran state-of-the-art nuclear equipment if Tehran agrees to pare down its atomic weapons program as part of a final nuclear agreement, a draft document has revealed.

The confidential paper, obtained by the Associated Press, has dozens of bracketed text where disagreements remain. Technical cooperation is the least controversial issue at the talks, and the number of brackets suggest the sides have a ways to go, not only on that topic but also more contentious disputes, with less than a week until the June 30 deadline for a deal.

However, the scope of the help now being offered in the draft may displease U.S. congressional critics who already argue that Washington has offered too many concessions at the negotiations.

The draft, titled "Civil Nuclear Cooperation," promises to supply Iran with light-water nuclear reactors instead of its nearly completed heavy-water facility at Arak, which would produce enough plutonium for several bombs a year if completed as planned.

COMMENT:  It is such a farce.  The idea of Iran having any nuclear capability is frightening, but apparently not to the Obamans, who live in the world of the left – every country has its own "validity" and its own legitimate "grievances." 

A wise American strategy would be to pull out of the talks, rejecting Iranian demands, and stating that we would look to alternative means of bringing Iran to accept our demands.  That means sanctions.  It means not taking military force off the table. 

However, there is no chance of that strategy being implemented.  It goes against every grain of Obama's being. 

June 24,  2015     Permalink