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SEPTEMBER 4,  2015

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

YIKES! – From The Hill:  Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton head-to-head, according to a new poll released Friday.  The poll by SurveyUSA finds that matched up directly, Trump garners 45 percent to Clinton’s 40 percent.  In other head-to-head matchups, Trump beats out Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by 44 percent to 40 percent; Vice President Joe Biden by 44 percent to 42 percent; and former Vice President Al Gore by 44 percent to 41 percent.  The poll also found that 30 percent of respondents believe Trump will eventually be the Republican nominee, leading the field.  Look, it's early.  But Hillary Clinton has been a national figure for 25 years, and all she gets is 40%...against Trump.  Unless she is completely cleared in the federal investigations confronting her, it's hard to see her rising again. 

GIVING UP THOSE FREE CHOCOLATES – From the New York Post:  Donald Trump has been a polarizing figure in liberal Hollywood during his presidential run — and sources headed to the Toronto International Film Festival tell Page Six that some stars may boycott his branded Trump Toronto Hotel, which was buzzing with starry activity just a year ago.  “No one’s staying at the Trump” this year, sniffed one showbiz vet. “People are not going back. Talent does not want to stay there. It’s like the Beverly Hills Hotel.”  Last year, Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Denzel Washington, Tobey Maguire and many more were at endless junkets at the then-2-year-old Trump hot spot. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Wrap hosted events. The Weinstein Co. and Universal’s Focus Features had p.r. offices there, but neither is returning.  I don't get the feeling that Donald is sweating the loss of business.  But it's very important for the Hollywood crowd to make its political statement.

HILLARY HEARTS HUMA – From London's Daily Mail: Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton used a national TV interview Friday to accuse her Republican counterpart Donald Trump of 'innuendo, conspiracy theories and defaming people' starting with her closest aide Huma Abedin.
In the exclusive interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, Clinton said she can take Trump's attacks, but 'I do regret that he’s going after so many people.'  That was a reference to Trump's swipe at Abedin, a decades-long Clinton aide and the wife of former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner.  Hillary Clinton being interviewed by Andrea Mitchell is like Hillary being interviewed by Chelsea.  Mitchell is a reliable liberal reporter, married to former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.  If I were Hillary I wouldn't focus too much public attention on Huma Abedin, who has some reputed family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Muslim Brotherhood is not seen by the American people as the equivalent of the Boy Scouts.

September 4, 2015       Permalink

THE THREAT WE FACE – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  We are committing civilizational suicide.  Clearly explained, from James Lewis, at American Thinker: 

It was V.I. Lenin who sneered that the last capitalist would sell communists the rope to hang him with. That's what happened in the Soviet Empire, which ran Eastern Europe for half a century. But even in the 1930s most European nations were ready to surrender preemptively to the Nazi war machine.

Today Europe has suicidally imported more than 50 million Muslims -- just as Obama wants us to do here. With America failing to provide international leadership, Europe has simply collapsed and surrendered -- hoping the crocodile will eat it last.

Remember how well that worked the last few times?

Since 1945 Europe has been unwilling to defend itself, relying on the US-Anglosphere alliance to pull its chestnuts out of the fire. In the case of Islam, Europe is pre-emptively bowing to the Muslim onslaught. While ordinary people no longer believe pro-immigration propaganda, the ruling class knows it can ignore the people. People with common sense are powerless.

This week a Hungarian Nobelist in Literature, Imre Kertész, himself a WW2 concentration camp survivor, published a book called The Last Escape.

In it he writes

“Muslims are flooding, occupying, ... destroying Europe (with its) suicidal liberalism and the stupid democracy.… It always ends the same way: civilization reaches a certain stage of maturation ... where it is in a seemingly incomprehensible worship of (its) own enemy.”

COMMENT:  And anyone who disagrees is called a bigot or racist. 

September 4,  2015     Permalink

SHARP WARNING ABOUT IRAN – AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  Reality is taking hold.  The Iranian agreement is absurd.  Even people who've been major figures in international organizations are sending warnings.  From The Times of Israel:   

The nuclear deal’s mechanism for inspecting Iran’s Parchin military complex appears to be unreasonably lax, the former number two official at the United Nations nuclear watchdog said this week.

In an interview with The Times of Israel, Olli Heinonen, who served as the International Atomic Energy Agency’s deputy director-general, called on the Vienna-based body to release the as-of-yet undisclosed side agreements with Iran, which are part of broader pact Tehran and six world powers struck in July.

It remains unclear how exactly the IAEA will conduct its inspections at Parchin, which are meant to provide definitive answers on Iran’s nuclear activity at the site prior to the deal. According to a leaked draft of the agreement, published last month by The Associated Press, Iran will provide the agency with photos, videos and environmental samples.

“The key question is: will the IAEA be present during the sample-taking or not?” Heinonen wondered. “It looks to me that they might be witnessing the sample-taking through some camera view, or from a distance. If that’s really the case I have a lot of reservations about the reasonability and credibility of the arrangements.”

Heinonen — who worked for the IAEA for nearly three decades and headed the agency’s Department of Safeguards — explained that taking samples at a site suspected of having hosted illicit nuclear activity is no simple feat.

“You need to know what you sample, how you sample, and if the sample is representative of the object you sample,” he said. It’s difficult to assess changes that might have been done to the facility — such as the installation of false walls or efforts to hide or sanitize equipment — by merely looking at photo or video material. “You need to be present and see physically the place. Therefore, for the IAEA to do a credible job they need to get to that chamber and take independently their samples.”

COMMENT:  The great fear is that the Iranians, once the sanctions are lifted and trade with Europe and Russia start to flow, will stonewall the entire inspections process.  What do we do then?   Our "partners" will never reimpose sanctions because their business interests won't let them.  And the problem will probably be left for the next president. 

Great deal we made.

September 4, 2015       Permalink

TRUMP TRUMPED? – AT 9:32 A.M. ET:   This is getting an enormous amount of play across the internet and in TV news.   It could (I stress could) indicate what will happen to Donald Trump once the GOP presidential field thins out.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Donald Trump dominates the new Monmouth national poll of the Republican presidential race — in every category except one.

Trump leads the horse race, with 30 percent, to Ben Carson's 18 percent, with Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz tied for third at 8 percent. (Marco Rubio is next at 5 percent, Carly Fiorina at 4 percent, and Scott Walker is at 3 percent.) Trump leads among various subgroups sorted by ideology, policy preference, and age. And he leads in head-to-head matchups with other Republican candidates.

Except one. The pollsters asked who voters would choose if the race for the Republican nomination were between Trump and a single other candidate. Trump prevailed over Bush (56-37), over Walker (53-38), over Cruz (48-41), over Rubio (52-38), and the rest of the field, except for Carson. In a Trump-Carson matchup, Trump loses handily, with 36 percent to Carson's 55. That's a pretty vivid measure of Carson's appeal.

The poll shows a few other things. Perhaps the most striking is the fall of Walker, whose three percent rating is down eight points from his 11 percent rating in August. In addition, Rand Paul is now down to two percent, from six percent in July. On the other hand, Cruz and Fiorina are steadily climbing, each up two points from last month. And Marco Rubio, now at 5 percent, remains down from his high of 9 percent in June.

COMMENT:  Ben Carson's rise is more impressive than Trump's, as Trump has been getting all the publicity.  I think the September 16th debate will be critical.  It will start to narrow the field, and we'll see who's likely to survive.  The biggest surprise thus far, to me at least, is the inability of Marco Rubio to gain much traction.  He is an attractive, extremely knowledgeable candidate from the critical state of Florida, but cannot seem to reach the public.

It is still very early in the game.  Once the field narrows, and the public is forced to concentrate on a smaller number of candidates, and to size them up, numbers will change rapidly.

September 4, 2015       Permalink

JOB GROWTH SLOWS – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  The U.S. still added jobs last month, but the total was disappointing.  From Reuters: 

U.S. payrolls rose less than expected in August, but a drop in the unemployment rate to a near 7-1/2-year low of 5.1 percent and an acceleration in wages kept alive prospects of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike later this month.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 173,000 last month as the manufacturing sector lost the most jobs since July 2013, the Labor Department said on Friday. It marked a slowdown from July's upwardly revised gain of 245,000 and was the smallest rise in employment in five months.

The report, however, may have been tarnished by a statistical fluke that in recent years has frequently led to sharp upward revisions to payroll figures for August after initial weak readings.

Indicating that the slowdown in job growth was likely not reflective of the economy's true health, payrolls data for June and July were revised to show 44,000 more jobs created than previously reported. In addition, average hourly earnings increased 8 cents, the biggest rise since January, and the workweek rose to 34.6 hours.

COMMENT:  The issue here goes well beyond "job growth."  What kinds of jobs are growing?  Are wages for the average family increasing?  What are our prospects for the future? 

Most surveys show that Americans remain apprehensive.  That feeling isn't helped when they look at a volatile stock market and uncertainty around the world.

September 4,  2015     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 3,  2015

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

AND NOW THE BAD SIDE – Donald Trump is riding high, but the bad stuff is starting to come out.  He flopped badly on foreign policy on a radio show hosted by conservative host Hugh Hewitt.  And some of Trump's liberal past is becoming known.  From Mediaite:  Long before the Republican presidential candidate became a presidential candidate or a Republican, Donald Trump had a working relationship with Al Sharpton, including doing favors for the racial activist and giving him thousands in donations.  National Review reports that Sharpton and Trump first became partners in the 1980’s when Trump wanted to sell Atlantic City’s casinos as a tourist destination. He reached out to Sharpton to help bring famed boxing announcer Don King into his corner, and the pair became regular boxing buddies and occasional business associates.  Trump went on to donate “anywhere between $20,000 and $150,000″ to Sharpton’s charity the National Youth Movement. News reports during Sharpton’s 2004 presidential run listed Trump as one of Sharpton’s “mentors.”  Trump also stumbled while trying to criticize Dr. Ben Carson.  He charged that Carson never created any jobs, beyond a few nurses.  Not good, not good.  Carson is a beloved figure who saved many lives.  Can't compare it to big business, Donald.

ANOTHER CLOWN HEARD FROM – Why, Hillary Clinton has a new supporter.  From the Washington Free Beacon:   The latest endorsement for Hillary Clinton comes from a New York City politician who has refused to stand during or recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States.  New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and endorsed Clinton on Wednesday, is known for her decision not to stand up during the Pledge of Allegiance as a protest of her home territory’s current status.  Though Mark-Viverito has refused to explicitly state her opposition to pledging allegiance to the United States, her colleagues say it is a symbolic “protest” of the United States.  This woman is known here as a complete jerk.  But in the strange, leftist world of New York politics, she's risen to one of the highest posts in New York City.  Among other things, she claimed that the Puerto Rican terrorist group, FALN, was non-violent.  She said this to a man who'd lost his father in an FALN bombing.  And she's vowed to get the group's leader out of prison.

IFILL TAKES THE HEAT – Vastly overrated "journalist" Gwen Ifill, an Obama groupie, is taking heat for her latest act of stupidity, which even the ombudsman at PBS calls a self-inflicted wound.  From the Spectator:   Gwen Ifill is one of the President Obama’s most prominent cheerleaders in the media. You might remember that she wrote about Obama and despite this was permitted to moderate the 2008 VP debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.  Ifill’s cheerleading skills were put on full display as she, in response to the impending ratification of the Iran nuclear deal by the Senate, retweeted the Obama Administration’s spin on the deal (#IranDeal) while adding her own comment, “Take that, Bibi.” (H/T to Cortney O’Brien of Townhall.com).  She is now getting a pretty big backlash on Twitter. She subsequently tweeted, “But this graphic, created by administration deal supporters and tweeted out by the @StateDept ...is.”  First of all, why does any self-respecting journalist re-tweet White House talking points as if they were the gospel truth? A self-respecting journalist would not have accepted their spin at face value. But most journalists in this country are not self-respecting. As such, most of them have taken a 6½ year holiday from scrutinizing the White House.  No one should be surprised by Ifill.  She's done stuff like this before.  She is a prime example of "journalists" who are in their profession, not to report the news, but to "make a difference." 

September 3, 2015       Permalink

MORE ON "THE FIFTH" – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  We started this subject in our "Short Takes" last night.  It could turn out to be a very big story – one of Hillary's aides taking the Fifth.  From Fox: 

A former aide to Hillary Clinton who helped set up her private email server has told at least three congressional committees that he will invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying against his former boss, Fox News has confirmed.

Bryan Pagliano, who worked on Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign before helping install the so-called "homebrew" server system in her Chappaqua, N.Y. home, was asked to testify about the server by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

"Mr. Pagliano’s legal counsel told the committee yesterday that he would plead the 5th to any and all questions if he were compelled to testify," a spokesperson for Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox late Wednesday.

A letter from Pagliano's attorney Mark MacDougall explaining his client's decision cited the ongoing FBI investigation into whether classified national security information was mishandled when it passed through Clinton's server.

"While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that the members of the Select Committee will respect our client’s right to invoke the protections of the Constitution," MacDougall wrote.

COMMENT:  In political terms, Republicans couldn't ask for a better development.  MacDougall's reply essentially confirms that there is possible criminality here, not the news that the Hillary camp wanted to hear.  I'd love to see what the late-night comedians say about this.

Even though Pagliano has now said that he'd plead the Fifth, he should still be compelled to testify, just to put his plea on the record, before the public. 

Hillary's problems may just be starting.

September 3, 2015       Permalink

CARLY SNAPS BACK – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  While it's not definite yet, it appears that Carly Fiorina will be included in the "senior" debate September 16th, on CNN.   She is feisty and terrific, and it's just possible she will have a breakthrough moment, just as Dr. Ben Carson is breaking through right now.  She doesn't take "no" for an answer, and snaps back when challenged.  From Fox: 

Carly Fiorina said on "Hannity" last night that there's no doubt that she's among the Republican presidential front-runners, and she's excited that CNN amended the criteria for qualifying for the network's September 16 GOP debate.

Fiorina said that she takes great offense when people claim that she's only in the presidential race to get a vice presidential bid. On the "Laura Ingraham Show" today, she even dismissed such talk as "sexist."

"It would be different if all of the other candidates were asked that same question with the same regularity, but they're not," Fiorina said. "I'm the person who's asked that question over and over again. So one can only conclude that I'm getting asked that question because I'm a woman, which is disappointing."

She said that she senses that voters are looking for the most qualified candidate, man or woman, to be the next president, and she believes that is her.

COMMENT:  Good for Carly!  She punches.  And yet, if she can't get the top slot, she'd be excellent in the second.  Don't be shocked, if the next debate goes the way I think it will go, if people start talking about a Carson/Fiorina ticket.  Stranger things have happened, and both those candidates are proving that they have a certain endurance, and public appeal.  Getting interesting.

September 3, 2015       Permalink

IT ISN'T OVER – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  Even though the Iran deal will go through, opponents are not finished.  There are new actions that can be taken to help protect this country from the machinations of Field Marshal Obama and Grand Admiral Kerry.  From the Washington Post: 

The Obama administration’s fight to prevent Congress from blocking the Iran nuclear deal may be won, since there appear to be enough Democratic votes in the House and the Senate to sustain a presidential veto of any resolution of disapproval.

But continued political skirmishing could affect the White House’s broader goal, which is to make certain the deal works.

Several GOP presidential candidates have threatened to “terminate this deal on day one,” as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker did again Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Walker said he was sending a “clear message today” to the rest of the world that if he won the White House, tough sanctions would be imposed on Tehran. And he warned America’s negotiating partners and other nations that start dealing with Tehran: “If you want to do business, you have got to decide, are you going to do it with Iran or are you going to do it with America?”

Walker’s proposal to Iran, he said, would be to “get rid of your illicit nuclear infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) have a pending bill to authorize a 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act, which expires next year. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said last month that the sanctions extension would be brought up and passed after the debate on the nuclear pact.

Iranian officials have said that extending the authorization for sanctions could be considered a violation of the agreement.

COMMENT:  The imperative is to elect a Republican president next year.  He or she will be far better on Iran than any Democrat running.  Hillary probably knows how bad this deal is, but she will be under party discipline to advance it. 

Foreign policy is no longer bipartisan.  Our side, the power-for-peace side, is right,and the other side, the appeasement side, is wrong. 

September 3, 2015       Permalink

IRAN REALITY – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  The Iran nuclear deal cannot be stopped by Congress.  That was assured yesterday when retiring Dem Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland announced her support for the pact, giving Obama the guarantee that his veto of any negative vote on it by Congress would be sustained. 

But where does that leave us as a country?  In a very bad place.  From the Washington Examiner:

On Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., announced her support for President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. This was significant because she is the 34th senator to announce she would be voting for it.

This means that even if the Senate manages to pass a bill blocking the deal later this month, it will lack the two-thirds support necessary to override a presidential veto.

Some have asserted that this means Obama got his Iran deal through Congress. That isn't quite accurate, though. What Obama has done is get his Iran deal around Congress. Lawmakers may not be able to stop it based on the procedure they created to express approval or disapproval, but the deal does not enjoy support on Capitol Hill, nor among the American public.

Despite an extensive and expensive effort to lobby lawmakers and the public, Obama's Iran deal still faces majority opposition in both chambers of Congress. A majority of the public, according to two recent polls by respected pollsters (CNN and Quinnipiac), wants Congress to reject the deal.

This means that Obama will get his deal despite lacking not only the supermajority support that is typically required for a treaty with a foreign country, but also a bare majority or public approval. Whatever one has to say about previous major foreign policy decisions, very few are undertaken under such circumstances as this. Even the Iraq War, a much larger undertaking for the U.S. and very unwise in the opinion of many, was only engaged after very broad public support had been established and Congress provided an affirmative vote for authorizing military force.

And...

Regardless of the outcome of the Iran deal, it never should have become reality like this, and it never should again. Voters should demand that every presidential candidate for 2016 promise to work with Congress to a reasonable extent when conducting foreign policy, rather than using international institutions to pull a fast one on the American people.

COMMENT:  Dead on.  The Democrats are now driving to get enough support for the deal in the Senate to block an up-or-down vote on the deal.  It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and the opponents of the agreement may not get those votes.  If they don't, a determined Dem leadership, encouraged by the White House, can actually block a vote on one of the most important foreign-policy initiatives of our time.  It's hard to believe the Democrats would want to look this bad, but the party seems devoted only to the greater glory of Barack, and not to anything else.

September 3,  2015     Permalink