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FEBRUARY 15,  2017

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

DIETARY BULLETINS – FROM DAILY CALLER:    Oakland schools partnered with the environmental group Friends of the Earth (FOE) to fight global warming by making student lunches climate-friendly.  FOE gave kids a lunch menu designed to eliminate foods it says are “unsustainable for our planet.” The new menu features far less meat and more plant-based food. Any meat or cheese the school did use came from “pastured, organic dairy cows.” The student’s lunch menu went from beef hot dogs and pepperoni pizza to vegan stir fry tofu and vegan tostadas. The new FOE-approved menu served meat and cheese-less frequently and reduced the portion sizes.  “This is a landmark moment for school food,” Jennifer LeBarre, head of nutrition services for Oakland Unified School District, said in a FOE press statement. “We were so excited to see how the data showed that we could reduce our carbon and water footprint by serving healthy, delicious food –– like the vegetarian tostadas with fresh made in-house salsa, that kids absolutely love –– all while saving money.”  I wonder if anyone consulted the parents, or asked the kids.  I haven't heard any word about vegan stir fry tofu becoming the national dish, and maybe there's a reason.

STUNNING – FROM BREITBART:   William Binney, a former highly placed NSA official turned whistleblower, contended in an exclusive interview today that the National Security Agency (NSA) is “absolutely” monitoring the phone calls of President Donald Trump.  Binney was an architect of the NSA’s surveillance program. He became a famed whistleblower when he resigned on October 31, 2001 after spending more than 30 years with the agency.  Asked whether he believes the NSA is tapping Trump, Binney replied: “Absolutely. How did they get the phone call between the president and the president of Australia? Or the one that he made with Mexico? Those are not targeted foreigners.”  That is a creepy idea.  If true, who authorized the tapping of the president's phone?  There are clearly attempts in Washington to bring down Trump, and they may succeed. 

TRUMP RETURNS TO THE PEOPLE – FROM FLORIDA TODAY:   President Donald Trump's visit to Melbourne has been confirmed.  He will appear at a rally that begins at 5 p.m. Saturday in the AeroMod International hangar at Orlando Melbourne International Airport. Doors will open at 3 p.m.  People seeking the free tickets are asked to provide their name, cellphone number, email address, state of residence and ZIP code. There is a limit of two tickets per cellphone number.  Don Tosti, a retiree who is a seasonal resident of Melbourne, was among the first to register for tickets on Wednesday.  "I'm a big supporter of him," Tosti said. "His phrase 'drain the swamp' was all I needed to hear. I'm really excited. I'm anxious to see him."  Volusia County Republican Party Chairman Tony Ledbetter, who is a volunteer coordinator for the Melbourne event, advised people who want to see the president to get there early.   I'm glad to see he's getting out among the people again.  It'll be good for the morale.  I wasn't a Trump supporter in the primaries, but I've never seen a new president treated so badly.  The country deserves better than the media/permanent government complex that runs Washington.

February 15, 2017        Permalink

WE ARE SO UPSET – AT 11:25 A.M. ET:   We are anxious people according to the latest head studiers.  From Bloomberg: 

If misery loves company, it should be thrilled: Americans left and right are under so much stress it's now registering on the American Psychological Association's anxiety meter.

For 10 years, the APA has been running its "Stress in America" survey, usually finding that stress is caused by three primary factors—money, work, and the economy. Those factors clearly play a role in the current national mood. Younger Americans are worried about college debt, older ones about retirement, and everyone, it seems, about the economic prospects of the next generation. In the study, respondents with incomes below $50,000 reported higher stress levels than those with higher incomes.

Still, over the course of the decade, the psychologists found that stress in American life, on the whole, has been gradually decreasing.

Then came the election. The APA's members were picking up the campaign as a new stressor in their patients. The group added some election-related questions to its annual poll, conducted in August, and released the results in October. The findings: At 52 percent, more than half of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, were anxious about the vote.

So last month, just before President Donald Trump's inauguration, the APA conducted an additional poll to check on the nation's mental health. The picture isn't pretty.

"The results of the January 2017 poll show a statistically significant increase in stress for the first time since the survey was first conducted in 2007," the APA said on Wednesday in a report on the survey of 1,019 adults living in the U.S., conducted from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19 by the Harris Poll.

COMMENT:  Oh, we're just so sensitive.  Compare please to our parents and grandparents, who had such minor issues as the Depression and World War II on their plates.  But they didn't have TRUMP (!!) or CHENEY (!!!!).  What are we to do?

February 15, 2017       Permalink

THE COMMERCIAL VALUE OF THE PRESIDENCY – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:  Of course, we're talking about Saint Barack and Mother Michelle, so I'm sure every red cent involved will go to good causes, like putting Barack on Mount Rushmore.  From Fox:   

The White House doors may have closed on former President Barack Obama’s presidency, but for him and his wife Michelle, the path to lucrative new book deals and paid speeches is wide open.

The Obamas recently hired top-dollar attorneys Robert Barnett and Deneen Howell to handle their book contracts, and a high-profile public relations agency – known for repping the Clintons and Mia Farrow – to coordinate speaking appearances. The Obamas haven't yet set book-release dates or announced any scheduled speeches.

The Harry Walker Agency, which exclusively represents former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former vice presidents Dick Cheney and Al Gore, will handle the Obamas’ post-White House speeches, according to Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis.

In the private sector, the former president stands to earn more than half of his $400K annual presidential salary – per speech, Peter Shankman, founder and CEO of social media, marketing and PR strategy firm The Geek Factory, told FOX Business.

“No doubt [former President Obama’s] first speech could easily [command] $250k at minimum,” Shankman, whose firm’s clients have included American Express, Walt Disney World and The U.S. Department of Defense, said.

It’s not only the former president who will be fetching the big bucks. The former first lady will likely rake in an equal share, Shankman said.

“Michelle will also see numbers around [$250K per speech] for the first year as well,” he said. “Those fees probably won't drop anytime soon, when you stop and think about it, especially if Obama continues to be vocal, as he [has] said he would.”

COMMENT:  I wonder how much of this road to riches will be covered by the mainstream media.  I'm guessing it will be a non-story. 

But let Kellyanne Conway, in a throwaway humor line, ask people to buy "Ivanka's stuff," and the high hand of the ethical "experts" slaps her face. 

Presidents today are for sale, although I don't know of any great riches earned by the Bushes.  George W. Bush left the presidency and never marketed the office.  It's the Dems who seem to clean up, all the while bashing capitalism.

February 15, 2017       Permalink

THE FLYNN CAPER – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  We stress that this story depends on anonymous sources, and proposes one notion of what happened to General Flynn.  But it seems to me to have a great deal of substance and logic, and is worth examining.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

The abrupt resignation Monday evening of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump's national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, according to multiple sources in and out of the White House who described to the Washington Free Beacon a behind-the-scenes effort by these officials to plant a series of damaging stories about Flynn in the national media.

The effort, said to include former Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes—the architect of a separate White House effort to create what he described as a pro-Iran echo chamber—included a small task force of Obama loyalists who deluged media outlets with stories aimed at eroding Flynn's credibility, multiple sources revealed.

The operation primarily focused on discrediting Flynn, an opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, in order to handicap the Trump administration's efforts to disclose secret details of the nuclear deal with Iran that had been long hidden by the Obama administration.

Insiders familiar with the anti-Flynn campaign told the Free Beacon that these Obama loyalists plotted in the months before Trump's inauguration to establish a set of roadblocks before Trump's national security team, which includes several prominent opponents of diplomacy with Iran. The Free Beacon first reported on this effort in January.

COMMENT:  Please read the entire story carefully.  If true, it is a major scandal that will be suppressed by the mainstream media to protect the Obama legacy.  If true, it must be exposed by the Trump White House or by a congressional investigation. 

And the question must be asked:  What did Obama know and when did he know it?

February 15,  2017     Permalink

FEBRUARY 14,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:58 P.M. ET: 

INCREDIBLE – FROM BREITBART:   Leftists are attacking President Donald J. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, for daring to sit behind the president’s desk in a photo taken in the Oval Office with President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  The photo of the trio taken during the Canadian leader’s visit to Washington D.C. on February 13, features Ivanka sitting at the famed Resolute Desk in the Oval Office flanked by her father, President Trump, to her right and PM Trudeau to her left.  Ivanka later Tweeted out the photo saying, “A great discussion with two world leaders about the importance of women having a seat at the table!”   Clearly the photo was staged in order to show a woman literally “having a seat at the table” with two world leaders.  But as soon as the photo was released to the public, Ivanka came under attack. Some complained that the photo was evidence of “nepotism,” while others called it “inappropriate” and “disrespectful.” Others even attacked her for sitting at the desk reserved only for presidents.  Some of the comments were vile.  Ivanka could have spent her life going to parties, but instead devotes herself to building a company and empowering women.  And it is not a sin to sit at the president's desk, if asked by the president. 

AND MORE CLASS – FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:   Tiffany Trump was given the cold shoulder at New York Fashion Week.  The first daughter was spotted sitting front-row at the Philipp Plein show Monday night — her first official appearance since her father Donald Trump took office — but apparently her presence wasn't all that welcomed.  Several fashion editors took to Twitter revealing that people were scrambling to move their seats because they didn't want to be near the 23-year-old.  "Seating s---show at Philipp Plein because no editors want to sit near Tiffany Trump," tweeted Alyssa Vingan Klein, editor-in-chief of Fashionista.com. "SHOCKER."  Nikki Ogunnaike, senior fashion editor at Elle, responded to Alyssa's post writing that she and other editors decided to relocate because of the first daughter.  I'm sure these little children are very proud of themselves.  Tiffany carried herself with style.

HOW CUTE – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   Students at Elizabethtown College this month are wearing white pins in the shape of puzzle pieces to remind them of their white privilege.  The campaign was launched over the weekend by the Elizabethtown College Democrats, who say it aims to make students at the small and private liberal arts college in Pennsylvania more introspective about issues of race, especially in their predominantly white region of Lancaster County.  “Discussions about race are often perceived as being only open to people of color, but I think it is just as important for white people to partake in conversations about race,” Aileen Ida, president of the College Democrats, told The College Fix via email.  Ida said white people are continually allowing for a societal system of oppression to occur unless they work against it. The white puzzle piece pin represents racial struggles of all sorts.  I'm so moved.  Have any of these snowflakes ever considered taking time out to mentor some minority children in physics, chemistry, math, or engineering?  Or is that too much trouble?

February 14, 2017       Permalink

A TRUE EDITOR – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:    Not all press executives today are wimpy troops in the Democratic army of biased journalists.  Some are standing up for traditional values.  We must support them.  From Daily Caller:

Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker told his reporters Monday the paper would not abandon objectivity in its coverage of President Donald Trump, and directed them to find work somewhere else if they want to adopt a more oppositional tone.

“It’s a little irritating when I read that we have been soft on Donald Trump,” he told his reporters and editors, a source at the newsroom meeting told The New York Times. Baker held the meeting ostensibly to have a casual conversation on the editorial direction of the paper, but it was held on the heels of reports the newsroom is in turmoil over the Trump coverage.

The Trump coverage is “neutral to the point of being absurd,” one source inside the newsroom recently told Politico. Criticism peaked when Baker sent a memo to staff instructing reporters and editors to tone down the use of “loaded” language in coverage of Trump’s immigration ban.

Baker strongly defended his paper’s coverage as objective in the meeting, going so far as to read from a list of past WSJ headlines compiled to refute the criticism. He suggested it is other outlets such as The New York Times that have abandoned fair reporting standards and objectivity — not The Wall Street Journal — and that those standards aren’t going anywhere.

Reporters who don’t like that, he said, might want to find work somewhere else.

COMMENT:  Yippee.

February 14, 2017       Permalink

HATING IVANKA – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  Even seasoned observers are stunned by the sheer hatred directed at first daughter Ivanka Trump.  Normally, at least in recent times, children of presidents have been off-limits, except for some light chiding of Ron Reagan Jr's ballet background.  But Ivanka is a major target.  Why?  Marc Giller has an insightful view at Erick Erickson's site, The Resurgent:   

By all accounts, she’s been a lifelong Democrat, and spent a lot of time on the campaign trail talking about child care, equal pay for women and other issues that the feminist left purports to care about. She has been a businesswoman and an entrepreneur, a person who would otherwise be held up as a feminist icon. So what’s with the boycotts of Ivanka’s clothing line, or the nasty responses to a cute Instagram picture of her taking a phone call at the White House while holding her cute-as-a-button baby boy? Sure, the left hates Donald Trump–but why should Ivanka be held responsible for her father’s actions?

A lot of conservative publications have held this up as yet another example of feminist hypocrisy–and while this is true, it’s important not to treat the hypocrisy as incidental. Like Teddy Kennedy’s attack on Robert Bork, the Ivanka hate is being cultivated very carefully by activists who are attempting to block her father at every turn. The line of thinking is really quite simple: Ivanka is beautiful, personable, and aligns with feminists on a lot of issues–and that makes her a threat. If people who are left-of-center were allowed to like her, they might dislike her father less. After all, if he raised a daughter like Ivanka, he couldn’t be all bad, could he?

The hardcore left can’t have that, obviously, because the abject hate is the one thing that keeps the whole house of cards from tumbling down. If wounding Ivanka–or her husband, or even her kids–keeps it propped up, the left is fully prepared to do just that. That’s why arguments about hypocrisy won’t change a thing: these people know full well they’re hypocrites, they just don’t care. To them, politics is war. And in war, there are casualties.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's well worth it, and describes how this style of hate goes back to Ted Kennedy's destruction of Robert Bork, a federal appeals court judge nominated by President Reagan to be an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.  Kennedy's assault was so vicious that the phrase "to Bork" entered the vocabulary, as in "We're gonna Bork him."     

I'm afraid we'll see more.  The left is relentless, and is never satisfied.  You cannot appease leftists.  They are on a religious crusade, and conquer they must.

February 14, 2017       Permalink

THE "NEW" DEMOCRATS – WHAT A JOKE – AT 9:30 A.M. ET:  I am moved.  I hear the national anthem playing in my head.  Why, the Democratic Party is coming home to Jack Kennedy.  A surge of interest in the threat of Russia.  A new reverence for national security.  Gee, I never noticed this when Barack Obama (come to save us) was president.  Did you?  Maybe we missed something.  Maybe Barack was, secretly, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division.

I'm not being serious.  From The New York Times:

Democrats hold no levers of power in Washington, but they have pulled out their megaphones to demand that Mr. Flynn’s resignation open the first chapter — not the last — of investigations into contacts between Trump aides and Moscow — during and after Mr. Trump’s campaign for president.

In a joint statement, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said, “We in Congress need to know who authorized his actions, permitted them and continued to let him have access to our most sensitive national security information despite knowing these risks. We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security."

COMMENT:  Oh my, oh my.  John Conyers?  As close to a Marxist as you'll get in Congress.  Elijah Cummings?  The very definition of a partisan hack.   And suddenly they're waving the stars and stripes, while their party is being taken over by the Bernie Sanders crowd?

If you believe that, I have an old Edsel I'd like to sell.  Wonderful transmission.

February 14,  2017     Permalink