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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas last night.  It's here.

JANUARY 22,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:46 P.M. ET: 

A COMPLETE OUTRAGE – FROM ARMY TIMES:   WASHINGTON — AMVETS officials are decrying “corporate censorship” from the National Football League for their decision not to run an ad in their Super Bowl program which responds to league players’ decision to kneel for the national anthem in protest of national equality issues.  The ad, which would have cost the veterans organization $30,000, features the tag “#PleaseStand” with a picture of service members saluting the American flag and information on how to donate to the congressionally-chartered organization.  Group leaders said NFL officials refused to include the ad in their Super Bowl publication, but did not issue a reason why. In a statement, AMVETS National Commander Marion Polk said the issue is one of fairness and respect.   The NFL has truly become an embarrassment.  Who are they afraid of?  The fringe left?  MSNBC?  Bernie Sanders?  NFL ratings are plunging, and the NFL is showing disrespect for veterans.  Smart.  Real smart.

CUISINE WARNING – FROM FOX:  A Utah State University student was rushed to a hospital Saturday after ingesting a Tide Pod, the latest incident from the social media craze that's motivated teens to dare each other to eat the miniature, neon, detergent-filled pods.  Campus police initially called the incident a "Tide Pod overdose," but Eric Warren, director of media relations at USU, told FOX 13 Salt Lake City the female student ingested a Tide Pod.  Warren said it was unclear what motivated the student to ingest the Tide Pod while in on-campus housing, but added, "For students and members of our university who are feeling overwhelmed, we have services available. There are people here to talk to you."  The female student was taken to a local hospital, but details about her condition were not immediately available.  I mean, who would want to eat Tide?  And how did this girl get admitted to a functioning college?

USEFUL INFORMATION – FROM DAILY MAIL:  If you're wondering what you can possibly do for partners when they're in excruciating pain, just holding their hand could be enough, new research shows.
The familiar urge to reach for a hand when we're hurting, or desire to be held when we're sick, now has a biological explanation.  A Colorado University, Boulder study found that the mere touch of a partner can communicate empathy, and reduce the sensation of pain.   Women reported a milder pain experience from heat experiments when their male partners were in the room and holding their hands.  Maybe now we know why politicians like to shake hands.  They think they're reducing our pain, or feeling our pain, as Bill Clinton used to put it. 

January 22, 2018       Permalink  

BULLETIN:  SHUTDOWN APPARENTLY TO END – AT 12:55 P.M.   From Fox: 

The Senate on Monday voted 81-18 to break a Democratic filibuster on a government spending bill, clearing the way for Congress to approve the stopgap measure and end the three-day government shutdown. 

The Senate still has to vote on the bill itself, which the House would have to consider next. But the show of support early Monday afternoon virtually guarantees it will pass. The measure would fund the government through Feb. 8. 

Democrats effectively backed off their opposition, after being given assurances from majority Republicans. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced on the floor ahead of the procedural vote that they’d reached an agreement. He said it comes with a commitment to negotiate on immigration, and immediately consider such legislation if there’s no agreement by Feb. 8.

The Trump White House and Capitol Hill Republicans had cranked up the pressure earlier Monday on Democrats to abandon their immediate demands for immigration measures and vote in support of the temporary spending bill.

“They shut down the government,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “The pressure is on them.”

COMMENT:  We trust that the Dems will not pull anything like a shutdown again.  These things are not popular with normal people. 

Remember, this isn't over.  If the measure goes through both houses, as expected, it only funds the government through February 8th.  We could repeat this cliffhanger stuff unless wise heads prevail.

January 22, 2018       Permalink

DEMS RETHINKING SHUTDOWN? – AT 11:45 A.M. ET:  The great political reporter, John Fund, says that some Democrats are rethinking the strategy behind shutting down the government.  Yes, there are Democrats whose minds are not completely cooked.  From NRO:

No one knows when the government shutdown will be ended, but it’s increasingly likely that Democrats will rue the day they launched it. “I’m concerned that we don’t have an exit strategy,” one Democratic aide for a liberal senator told NBC News on Sunday. He went on to say: “This is a question of who’s going to flinch first.”

One reason Democrats are nervous is that the longer the shutdown goes on, the longer voters will start to realize the Democrats are fighting not so much for the Dreamers — people brought to this country as children by adults who entered illegally — but for the concepts of “chain migration” and the “diversity lottery,” which have done so much to warp our immigration policy and make it a shambles.

Even staunch pro-immigration voices increasingly recognize that emphasizing family reunification through chain migration shouldn’t be the heart of our immigration policy. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a prominent pro-immigrant voice for decades, and his co-author Clint Bolick wrote back in 2013:

Since the 1960s, the vast majority of legal immigrants have come pursuant to a very broad definition of “family reunification” — which includes not only spouses and minor children but parents and siblings. Family preferences account for two-thirds of all legal immigrants.

It’s because Democrats fear that bringing these facts to light in a debate over Dreamers that they are trying to run away from the term “chain migration.” Media Matters, the pro–Hillary Clinton propaganda group, derides the term as “a misleading nativist buzzword.”

COMMENT:  Add to that some new polling by CNN showing that the "generic" gap between Democrats and Republicans regarding the 2018 mid-term elections has narrowed considerably.  Only a month ago, the Dems were up by double digits.  Now they're in the mid single digits.  Some Dems are starting to realize that the 2018 races won't be the cakewalk they'd thought.

The Democrats have always underestimated Donald Trump and his ability to bring people behind him.  May they make the same mistake again.

January 22, 2018       Permalink

VOTING SOON ON SHUTDOWN – AT 11:26 A.M. ET:  The Senate will vote at noon on a bill to end the government shutdown.  From CNN: 

Washington (CNN) Key senators are meeting ahead of a high-stakes vote at noon Monday on a bill to reopen the government and fund it for three weeks, though it remains unclear if this plan will win over enough Democrats to pass.

The vote comes several hours after the workday for hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees was supposed to have begun, and comes three days after the government officially shut down Friday at midnight. Many of the shutdown's full effects were less visible during the weekend, when much of the federal workforce would typically be off anyway.

"I don't think this is the right way to get policy outcomes is to shut the government down. When we tried it, it didn't work well for us," GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters, appearing alongside GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jeff Flake of Arizona. "Here's what I predict. Once we start talking about immigration and voting on immigration, we'll find 60 votes to make sure these DACA recipients' lives are not ruined by March 5."

The Senate vote was moved from 1 a.m. ET Monday to noon after it became clear Democrats would block the spending bill over disagreements on a variety of issues, most notably what do about young people affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said he thought Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York agreed to push back the vote to give his caucus "a chance to chew" on a GOP proposal to break the impasse.

COMMENT:  We are awaiting the vote.  Maybe the Dems will come to their senses.  But history doesn't guarantee that.

January 22,  2018     Permalink

JANUARY 21,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:32 P.M. ET: 

SMILE – FROM AXIOS:  Congressional Republicans have seen a bounce in generic polling against Democrats after passing tax cuts last month. A new CNN poll tightened the margin to 5 points — with Democrats at 49% and Republicans at 44%. The same poll showed Democrats leading by 18 points last month.  Why it matters: The GOP is banking its 2018 hopes on the tax law, and while it's far from universally popular it is making a difference. A 5-point deficit is still bad, though at least the sky isn't falling. One thing that should be worrying: that CNN poll has those excited about turning out for the midterms favoring Democrats by 15 points.  This is good news.  I wouldn't worry too much about the "excitement" factor.  Democrats are usually excited, and yet Republicans usually lead in turn-out, no matter what the polls say.  It's much too early to be certain of trends, and Mr. Mueller may have an election-week surprise for the Trump White House, but Democratic optimism is, I believe, premature and misplaced.

BAD POLICY, BUT TRENDY – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  Following a controversial move by the Toronto Public Schools to get rid of police officers in its schools, a new study shows that doing just that is actually a pretty bad idea.  In August, the district caved to Black Lives Matter and immigration activists who demanded school-based officers be removed from buildings. The activists claimed scrapping the police presence was needed to “combat perceived anti-black racism in education.” (And it’s not just a Canadian thing.)  Toronto’s School Resource Officers program had been in place since 2008.  Research from Carleton University says keeping officers in schools makes students feel safer, less stressed, and helps “build positive relationships with law enforcement,” the Toronto Star reports. Data from the Peel region (west of Toronto) was culled from 1,300 student surveys, and interviews with school administrators and police.  “Every single one of these different groups (said) students feel safer at school,” said Carleton business professor Linda Duxbury, one of the study’s lead researchers. “The goal of the Peel program is to make people feel safer in schools so they can learn more . . . every single source of data said it (met that goal).”  Black Lives Matter criticized the study saying it should have focused on the “well-being of racialized students in particular.”  Of course police make the kids feel safer.  But trendiness comes first in education these days, and Black Lives Matter, which has never saved a black life, is the trendiest of the trendy.

THE SHUTDOWN - LATEST - FROM THE POLITICO:   Party leaders and rank-and-file senators spent all day Sunday haggling over a deal to reopen the government. But Washington's painful shutdown will nonetheless drag into Day Three.  Shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the chamber would vote on a plan at noon Monday to fund the government through Feb. 8. In an attempted concession to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, McConnell said he would take up legislation to protect some young immigrants from deportation if a deal to address their status is not reached by the time funding expires in early February.  But Democrats were not ready to call it a deal, even as McConnell implored the Senate to vote Sunday night to reopen the government. "The shutdown should stop today," he said.  Schumer said further negotiations were needed and spurned McConnell's request, pushing a vote until Monday, when hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be furloughed.  "Talks will continue, but we have yet to reach an agreement on a path forward that would be acceptable for both sides," Schumer said.
Aides expect the Monday vote to fail absent further progress between the two party leaders before then.  The Dems are playing a dangerous game.  They think the public will perpetually blame Trump for the shutdown, but that may not be the case, especially if the shutdown drags on.

January 21, 2018       Permalink

NOT QUITE A PARADISE – AT 9:04 P.M. ET:  Remember when the lefties ran around describing Sweden as a paradise?  Ah, those were the days.   Hula hoops.  Tie-dyed jeans.  Jane Fonda sitting on enemy AA guns.  And Sweden was this wonderful place, always at peace, always happy.

Yeah, right.

As a Swedish editor once told me, half of Stockholm was taking care of the other half of Stockholm.  But we weren't supposed to know.

Now Sweden is in serious trouble.  Like many countries in Europe, it embarked on a crazed mission to take in far too many "refugees," many of whom hate their new country.  From the London Times: 

The blast was so powerful that it shook windows a mile away. Ahmad’s first thought was that someone had thrown yet another bomb at the police.

He was right. On Wednesday night an explosive device was hurled at the police station in Rosengard, a troubled area of Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city.

Attacks on the police are increasingly frequent. Rosengard’s force works from a black fortress of reinforced concrete with narrow windows and a 10ft-high electric fence.

“I knew it was a bomb again,” said Ahmad, 53, who lives in the area with his wife and their four teenage children.

COMMENT:  In some areas of Sweden, firemen can't answer a fire call without a police escort.  Extremist groups are demanding changes in the schools to eliminate certain topics, like the Holocaust.  Sweden's nutty multicultural experiment is failing rapidly.  The Swedish experience is being repeated all over liberal Western Europe.  Instead of a thoughtful immigration policy, Sweden went hard left, and is paying the usual price that the hard left extracts.

January 21, 2018       Permalink

NEWT SPEAKS – AT 12:31 P.M. ET:  Newt Gingrich continues to be one of the great rhetorical voices among conservatives.  He probably knows more than anyone else about politics, and has great clarity of thought.  He summarizes Trump's first year in office.  From Fox: 

Here’s my assessment of President Trump as we mark the first anniversary of his inauguration Saturday: I have known nine presidents, beginning with President Richard Nixon. Of those nine, the only one who was as effective as President Trump in his first year was President Ronald Reagan.

That judgment may surprise a lot of people, because the opposition in the news media and among the left-wing “resistance” has been so strong and one-sided that they have consistently misrepresented and maligned President Trump and his administration.

This effort has produced a distorted, minimized view of what has been accomplished by this remarkably energetic and controversial commander-in-chief. 

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  It's impossible to summarize it well.  Whether you like him or not, and we did not support him in the primaries, President Trump has become one of the most consequential presidents of our time. 

When President Reagan was elected in 1980, one Democratic sage called him "an amiable dunce."  Amiable, he was.  Dunce he was not.  In 1984, Reagan carried 49 states.

Are we seeing a repeat?  Too early to say, but I'm optimistic.

January 21, 2018       Permalink

TERROR – AT 11:43 A.M. ET:  This has been almost completely ignored by the mainstream media.  From Fox: 

More than 40 people were killed after Taliban gunmen stormed the Intercontinental Hotel in Afghanistan's capital on Saturday, a government official told Fox News on Sunday.

The assault pinned down security forces for more than 13 hours before the last attacker was killed, as guests were forced to flee the building while parts of the structure caught fire.

Some guests couple be seen shimmying down tied-together bedsheets from upper-floor windows, while others were rescued by Afghan forces. The heavily-guarded luxury hotel is popular among foreigners and Afghan officials.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at a press conference among those killed included a foreigner and a telecommunications official from the western Farah province who was attending a conference. Six other people, including three security forces, were reported wounded and more than 150 people, including 41 foreigners, were rescued from the hotel, Danish said.

Ukraine said one of its citizens was killed in the attack. Vasyl Kyrylych, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, announced the death of the Ukrainian citizen in a brief statement on Twitter, without providing further details. The Afghan government officials told Fox News on Sunday bodies are still being discovered, and the final death toll may not be known for a while. 

COMMENT:  We are reminded once again that the terrorists never rest.  President Trump fortunately understands the importance of fighting terror at every turn, and of breaking the backs of groups like ISIS.  President Obama wanted terrorism to be called "man-caused disasters," and refused to acknowledge the radical Islamic origins of most terror acts.  A tale of two presidents.

January 21, 2018       Permalink