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NOVEMBER 13,  2015

(There will be no "Short Takes" tonight.)

PARIS

So it has happened again, and once more we wait for the rationalizations, the excuses, the explanation of the "grievances" that led to the new Paris tragedy.  They're coming, but maybe this time they'll be suppressed by an avalanche of long-missing common sense.

As of this writing, no one has taken responsibility for the Paris attacks.  Some intelligence analysts find that worrying, as the taking of responsibility usually follows the end of an attack.  Does the silence mean there will be more attacks in coming days?  We can't know.   The suspicion, though, surrounds ISIS, which France is fighting in Syria.

The attacks came literally hours after Field Marshal Obama declared that ISIS has been contained.  Yeah, sure.  And the Maginot Line is containing Germany.  And Pearl Harbor is too far from Japan to be bombed.  If the Paris attacks are the work of ISIS, ISIS is expanding, not contracting.  And we in America have a right to ask, "Are we next?"  We know that a small group of ISIS operatives was arrested in the United States just before our July 4th holiday.  Representative Peter King of New York said after the Paris tragedy that, had the arrests not been made, there might have been a similar disaster in New York City.  ISIS will try again, and again.

I could not help but comparing, as I watched the very fine reporting on Paris by both Fox and CNN, the challenge faced by Parisians to the whining of our college students, as they address the crisis of their adolescent stress.  The key phrase on our trendiest campuses is "safe space." No, the phrase doesn't apply to physical safety.  The children want spaces that are safe from dangerous ideas, which means any ideas they don't like.  I guarantee you that the people are Paris are looking for real safe spaces today.  If there is any good that can come out of the attacks in Paris, maybe it will be an understanding of just how childish, selfish, and immature many of America's college students really are.

We await the morning light, and more news from Paris. 

November 13, 2015       Permalink 

HUH? – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:   Have you seen a wanting of Romney recently?  Apparently, some have.  From the New York Post: 

Elite GOP establishment figures are reportedly looking to draft Mitt Romney for a last-minute bid for president as they grow increasingly anxious about the unpredictable candidacies of political neophytes Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

Allies of Romney, who lost to President Obama in 2012, have come up with a strategy for the former Massachusetts governor to make a late entry, according to The Washington Post.

They hope he will be able to carry the mainstream GOP banner and get enough moderates on his side to gain the delegates needed to seize the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next summer.

The supporters are plotting this, the paper said, even though Romney has insisted he is not interested in making another run.
“We’re about to step into the holiday-time accelerator,” ex-Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said. “You have Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, then Iowa and a week later New Hampshire, and it’s going to be over in the blink of an eye.”

Other Romney supporters, such as 2012 campaign national finance-committee member Peter Wish, have been unimpressed with the current GOP front-runners.

“I’m not a happy camper,” Wish told The Washington Post. “Hopefully, somebody will emerge who will be able to do the job.”

COMMENT:  Well, I guess anything is possible in this weird election season, but "draft" movements almost always fail.  Story goes that the Dems drafted Adlai Stevenson in 1952, but old Adlai, the most overrated intellect in all human history, seemed all too willing. 

If a "draft Romney" movement were launched, on what would it be based?  He didn't run a very good campaign in 2012, he isn't exciting, he doesn't seem motivated.  It would be a campaign based on rejection of all the current candidates. 

I think it's more likely that a third-party candidate, possibly even a fourth, might emerge.  And let us not forget that Hillary is not a sure thing.  Her fate may be up to the FBI.

November 13, 2015       Permalink

BECOMING TOAST – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  I've pretty much had it with Donald Trump.  He may have a few good ideas, but his bizarre behavior is beyond the pale.  There is much buzz about a 95-minute, Soviet-length tirade he delivered yesterday in Iowa.  This man cannot be president.  From CNN:

Washington (CNN) Donald Trump on Thursday told Iowa's voters that those who support Ben Carson are "stupid" to believe the "crap" that is his life story, part of a stunning 95-minute tirade that included his most aggressive attack yet on his closest competitor.

The real estate mogul's pugnacious demeanor was a stark departure from the far more restrained Trump on display at Tuesday's debate, when he declined to attack Carson while standing right next to him. He criticized the retired neurosurgeon repeatedly, said Hillary Clinton is playing the "women's card big league," ridiculed Marco Rubio as "weak like a baby" and vowed to "bomb the s*** out of (ISIS)."

Toward the end of his wide-ranging complaints about the country and competition, Trump mocked Carson's narrative about his violent temper as a youth that was calmed only when he prayed to God and asked for deliverance, an event that Carson describes as a miracle. That story of redemption has underpinned much of Carson's support in the Hawkeye State.

At one point, Trump walked away from the podium and flipped his belt buckle up and down to ridicule what Carson has described as a key event in his life: that Carson, as a boy, once tried but failed to stab someone only to have the knife broken by a belt buckle.

"So I have a belt: Somebody hits me with a belt, it's going in because the belt moves this way. It moves this way, it moves that way," Trump told the crowd, which laughed in response. "He hit the belt buckle. Anybody have a knife? Want to try it on me? Believe me, it ain't gonna work. You're going to be successful, but he took the knife and went like this and he plunged it into the belt and, amazing, the belt stayed totally flat and the knife broke."

Moments later, Trump told the crowd in Fort Dodge that he could not possibly understand why anyone supports Carson, who is essentially tied with Trump for support in the first-voting state.

"How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?" he asked.

COMMENT:  Sorry.  I don't buy that style.  We don't have royalty in America.  The president is the chief of state.  He or she represents the American nation.  I cannot see Donald Trump in that role.  He cannot seem to stand the heat of a close competitor.  How would he handle the Oval Office? 

November 13, 2015       Permalink

BEN ON THE PROTESTS – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  We think of Dr. Ben Carson as a surgeon, but please remember that he was also a professor (of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics) who taught medical students.  He functioned within Johns Hopkins University.  And he is a Yale graduate.  His comments on the new round of college protests are thoughtful.  From The Politico: 

Ben Carson decried the ongoing situations at his alma mater, Yale University, and at the University of Missouri, where days of protests and a hunger strike backed by the football team culminated in the resignations of the system president and campus chancellor earlier this week. The problem, the Republican presidential candidate stated on Fox News' "The Kelly File" on Wednesday night, is that there is not a reasonable debate between the two sides in conflict.

"It's part of the problem we have going on in our country right now. We have people who get in their respective corners and demonize each other, but there's no conversation," the retired neurosurgeon said. "And of course, if you ask people to put on the record what their gripes are and what their solutions are, then perhaps they can see that they're not so far apart and they can come up with some reasonable solutions."

But, he added, what happened in the case of Yale and a dispute over offensive Halloween costumes, "is just raw emotion and people being manipulated, I think, in many cases by outside forces who wish to cause disturbances."

The situation at Yale is part of "a very dangerous trend," he said, when a majority of people can say, "'I don't like what you're doing, that's offensive, and therefore I have a right to be violent toward you or to deprive you of rights because I don't like what you're doing.'"

"You know, that really goes against the grain of our constitutional rights, and if we don't see that, we're in really big trouble right now," Carson declared.

COMMENT:  And yes, we are in big trouble.  I heard an off-the-record lecture by a major academic yesterday, one of the mature ones, about conditions on college campuses.  It was pure depression.  He reminded us about the horrible causes that have been helped along in the last century by college students, including Nazism and Soviet Communism.  Colleges have often served as incubators of terrible ideas.  We see it today in American colleges, but even more in European and British colleges.

Toynbee said, "Great civilizations are not murdered. They commit suicide."  Look around.  Are we at the suicidal point?  I think Europe is.  Maybe we'll survive.

November 13,  2015     Permalink 

NOVEMBER 12,  2015

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

STILL NUTS AFTER ALL THESE YEARS – From The Hill:   Author and recording artist Sister Souljah on Thursday blasted Hillary Clinton’s public persona.  “She reminds me too much of the slave plantation white wife of the white ‘master,’ ” Souljah said, according to Time.  “She talks down to people [and] is condescending and pandering,” she said of the Democratic presidential front-runner.  “She even talked down to the commander in chief, President Barack Obama, while she was under his command,” Souljah added, referencing Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.  Souljah’s remarks continue a feud with Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton that began more than a 20 years ago.  There are psychiatric services available for people like this.

ONLY? – From Reuters:  NEW YORK – At least one in five adult New Yorkers suffer from depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts or other psychological disorders every year, according to a report released on Thursday ahead of Mayor Bill de Blasio's new mental-health initiative.  This is great news.  Having lived here most of my life, I would have thought the number was much greater, especially in the Democratic precincts. 

THE MARCH OF MADNESS – From Campus Reform:   On Tuesday, November 10, the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) – the undergraduate student government at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (UMN) – rejected a resolution for a moment of recognition on future anniversaries of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.  Theo Menon, the student group representative to MSA for the College Republicans (CRs) at UMN, introduced the resolution; MSA’s forum voted against it 36-23 (with three abstentions)...At-large MSA representative and Director of Diversity and Inclusion David Algadi voiced severe criticism of the resolution. He also made sure to emphasize 9/11’s status as a national tragedy in his response.  “The passing of this resolution might make a space that is unsafe for students on campus even more unsafe,” said Algadi, “Islamophobia and racism fueled through that are alive and well.”  Algadi added that holding a moment of recognition over a tragedy committed by non-white perpetrators could increase racist attitudes on campus, asking, “When will we start having moments of silence for all of the times white folks have done something terrible?”  This is a state university.  The people of Minnesota might consider a sizable cut in funding until the inmates improve the asylum.

WARNING – From CBS Local:   SAN JOSE, Calif. (CBS Sacramento) — When choosing a smart television, buyers are often presented with a variety of features. One they may not be aware of: that TV could be watching you.  Vizio Smart TVs, one of the most popular manufacturers, can track your viewing tendencies and report them to advertisers, as reported by ProPublica.  The feature, “Smart Interactivity,” is already turned on as a default setting for millions of people who have purchased the device. Viewers are able to turn off the setting, that is, if they know it even exists.  Should be a big warning label as a matter of practice. 

November 12,  2015     Permalink

HILLARY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE, AND THAT'S GOOD NEWS FOR US – AT 9:41 A.M. ET: I still think the Dems will get Hillary out of serious legal trouble, while the Republicans botch their response, but the fact is that the FBI probe appears to be getting very serious.  The bottom line here is that, even if Hillary isn't indicted, results of the probe will leak out.  Can't do her any good.  From Fox: 

The FBI has expanded its probe of Hillary Clinton's emails, with agents exploring whether multiple statements violate a federal false statements statute, according to intelligence sources familiar with the ongoing case.

Fox News is told agents are looking at U.S. Code 18, Section 1001, which pertains to "materially false" statements given either in writing, orally or through a third party. Violations also include pressuring a third party to conspire in a cover-up. Each felony violation is subject to five years in prison.

This phase represents an expansion of the FBI probe, which is also exploring potential violations of an Espionage Act provision relating to "gross negligence" in the handling of national defense information.

"The agents involved are under a lot of pressure and are busting a--," an intelligence source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News.

The section of the criminal code being explored is known as "statements or entries generally," and can be applied when an individual makes misleading or false statements causing federal agents to expend additional resources and time. In this case, legal experts as well as a former FBI agent said, Section 1001 could apply if Clinton, her aides or attorney were not forthcoming with FBI agents about her emails, classification and whether only non-government records were destroyed.

Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said the same section got Martha Stewart in trouble with the FBI. To be a violation, the statements do not need to be given under oath.

COMMENT:  Let's see what they find.  Bottom line, it will be up to the attorney-general, Loretta Lynch, to decide whether to prosecute.  She works for Obama.  He'll make the decision, and he'll do what's good for his "legacy."  Joe Biden is waiting in the wings.

November 12, 2015       Permalink

MAJOR CORONATION NEWS – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:   This is a silly story, but I present it because it's a silly story.  With all that's going on in the world, look what's happening on our college campuses, those $50,000-a-year sandboxes we call "higher education."  From the College Fix:

San Diego State University has axed its longtime tradition of naming a homecoming “king” and “queen,” and this year will go with the gender-neutral term “royals,” the Daily Aztec campus newspaper reports.

As recently as last year SDSU named a homecoming “king” and “queen” during its annual football game, according to the university’s website. But this Saturday when the Aztecs take on the University of Wyoming Cowboys, the Royal Court will end up with the “final two Royals,” the website adds. It’s unclear if those final two “royals” will be one male and one female, or some other iteration of the LGBTQAAII spectrum.

“During the application process, candidates were allowed to select gender-neutral pronouns to identify themselves,” the Daily Aztec campus newspaper reports. “These gender-inclusive pronouns aim to dispel the common gender binary of categorizing people as solely masculine or feminine.”

Not all students are happy with the changes.

“It’s just a case of the PC police feeling the need to screw with an all-American tradition under the façade of ‘progression,'” Jordan Dennison, chairman of the SDSU College Republicans, said Wednesday in an email to The College Fix. “Imagine all of the alumni at the game who are going to see that and wonder ‘what the hell was SDSU thinking?'”

But other students have voiced support for the decision.

“We are lucky to be on a campus that is really diverse, and so I think having systems in place that reflect the students on campus is a really positive thing,” SDSU Women’s Resource Center Coordinator Jessica Nare told the Daily Aztec. “The reality is we don’t live in a gender-binary system and so really recognizing that in a public way is really important and exciting.”

COMMENT:   No, we do live in a gender-binary system, but with exceptions.  We can respect those exceptions without destroying everything else.  The people who are wrecking every tradition say they want respect, but notice that they never show respect for anyone else.  If you disagree with them, they simply
call you a racist or a bigot.

There is a term for that.  It is called McCarthyism.  It is the McCarthyism of the left.

November 12, 2015       Permalink

AIRLINER LATEST – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  I think it's finally dawning on people how serious the alleged downing of the Russian airliner in the Sinai was.  This was a direct attack on the airliner of a major power, a challenge to Russia re-entry into the Mideast.  Our own government is saying little, the president indifferent as always.  Probably sitting around sneering at those "Cold War" thinkers.  From Fox:   

Investigators analyzing the deadly crash of a Russian jet in Egypt uncovered intelligence about “a two-hour timer,” though it is not clear whether the reference came from intercepted communications between known terrorist operatives, or physical evidence, a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News.

A separate source, also not authorized to speak on the record, said that based on the facts so far, one of the working theories is that a bomb was planted at or near the fuel line or where it attaches to the engine, with the fuel burning off the explosive. This theory would explain the apparent lack of residue immediately found, the source says.

Fox News was told both scenarios point to an "airport insider."

"If proven accurate, if ISIS did put a bomb on this aircraft which I believe to be true, it's a new chapter with respect to ISIS," Texas Republican Rep. Mike McCaul told Fox News. McCaul -- who receives regular briefings -- cannot discuss classified information, but said the Obama administration has consistently underestimated ISIS by emphasizing its focus on gaining territory, rather than expanding its reach to global plots.

"We always assumed Al Qaeda had this capability but now if ISIS has this capability, the threat to American airlines as well and our homeland, I think is very significant."

COMMENT:  Last week, a student at a California college went on a stabbing spree.  The student had a Muslim name.  Authorities found religious references in his statement of purpose.  He owned ISIS flags.  Notice the lack of interest.

We are asleep.  We have a president who has put us there.  We'd better wake up.

November 12,  2015     Permalink