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JANUARY 26,  2018

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

I CANNOT WAIT, CAN YOU? – FROM BUZZFEED:   One of President Donald Trump’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill will address the country just after next Tuesday’s State of the Union.  Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, will speak at the top of a Black Entertainment Television News special after Trump delivers the State of the Union, a BET spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. The program, “Angela Rye’s State of the Union,” is part of a broader partnership announced just days ago between the network and the Democratic strategist and political commentator.  I'm sure "Auntie Maxine" will be thoughtful and helpful.  Oh, by the way, she lives in a $4.5-million mansion in one of the whitest sections of Los Angeles.  Just another representative of the downtrodden.

MAJOR EDUCATION NEWS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  A professor of religious studies at Michigan State University recently argued that white people who practice yoga are guilty of enjoying a “system of power, privilege, and oppression.” To truly honor yoga, writes Michigan State University professor Shreena Gandhi, white Americans should understand its history, acknowledge the cultural appropriation they engage in, and possibly reduce the cost of yoga classes for poor people, a group that often includes people of color and “recent immigrants, such as Indian women to whom this practice rightfully belongs.”  Gandhi, in an article she recently co-authored, argued yoga as it’s practiced in America today is an extension of white supremacy and the “yoga industrial complex.”   Didn't Eisenhower warn about the yoga industrial complex?

DOES THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME? – FROM RT:  Men in France could be fined €350 (US$435) if they follow women in the street, whistle at them, make loud comments about their appearance or ask for their phone numbers, according to a draft proposal to combat “sexual contempt.”  The new report will be presented to the French government in the coming days, local media report. The plans come from a parliamentary working group set up by France's secretary of state for equality, Marlene Schiappa. The politicians behind the proposal suggest that men who “violate women’s freedom of movement in public space” should face a minimum fine of €90 for those who can pay on the spot. If the fine is delayed, it could reach €350, the report says. The document will be presented to Schiappa, Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet, and Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb.  A bit much, I think.

January 26, 2018       Permalink

THE DEMOCRATIC WORLD – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  The Dems, gearing up for the 2018 midterms, are trying to convince Americans that times are really bad.  From Fox:   

The disconnect between what congressional Democrats are saying about the recently enacted tax cut and what is happening in the real world is so wide that it is getting difficult to see across the chasm.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who as the 15th richest member of Congress has a minimum net worth of nearly $30 million, referred to the millions of dollars in bonuses and pay hikes announced by more than 100 companies in the wake of the new tax law as “crumbs.”

Among the crumb-dispensers is Apple, headquartered just a few miles from Pelosi’s district. The tech giant is paying out $2,500 stock bonuses, planning $30 billion in capital expenditures over five years, and adding 20,000 employees. The company estimates that the direct impact on the U.S. economy will be more than $350 billion over that timeframe.

But Pelosi is far from the only Democrat who voted against tax reform while arguing that it would be an economic “Armageddon” for everyday Americans. Behind her stands a long list of Democrats in states that Donald Trump won, in some cases by large margins, who will have to explain how they could have been so wrong.

COMMENT:  The sad fact is that most of the media will go along with the explanations, which is what gives the Dems such a boost.

January 26, 2018       Permalink

DESPERATE, AND HYPOCRITICAL – AT 8:53 A.M. ET:   The Democratic Party, which was once an actual political party, is making plans to counter President Trump's State of the Union message.  Ah, the originality.  Ah, the phoniness.  Let the circus begin.  From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Kennedy III is to give the Democratic Party’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, The Boston Globe reported, illustrating his rising profile in the party ranks.

From healthcare to economic justice to civil rights, the Democratic agenda stands in powerful contrast to President Trump’s broken promises to American families,” Kennedy, 37, grandson of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy and three-term congressman, told the paper.

Virginia Democrat Elizabeth Guzman of the Virginia House of Delegates will give the Spanish-language response, the paper reported.

COMMENT:  That's the best they can do?  A third-generation Kennedy?  I guess he was selected for his name, but his name means little to the great mass of Americans.  After all, President Kennedy was in the White House more than 55 years ago.

Guess there's no one else.

The hypocrisy here is that John F. Kennedy couldn't get anywhere a presidential nomination in today's Democratic Party, and might even be a Republican.  JFK favored a strong national defense, a vigorous space program, and tax cuts.  He believed America was a force for good in the world.  I wonder how this young Kennedy feels.

January 26, 2018        Permalink

GOOD - INVEST IN AMERICA – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  President Trump is having an impact in Davos.  People are reacting, and well, to the booming American economy.  From Daily Caller: 

President Donald J. Trump hosted a dinner with European business leaders and CEOs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Thursday evening. Trump has been making the rounds in Davos, holding bilateral meetings with other world leaders and conducting business roundtables. Trump met with various business leaders in shadow of the recent economic boom in America.

In a stunning moment, one by one, European titans of industry from companies like Adidas, Siemens and Bayer went around the table to thank Trump for the passage of tax cuts and the easing of corporate tax burdens. Almost every CEO had a new US-based investment or strategic business to announce.

The president of Seimens, Joe Kaeser, said, “since you have been so successful in tax reform we have decided to develop the next generation gas turbines in the United States.”

Trump responded “That’s great!”

COMMENT:  Trump knows who to talk to, and who to talk to seriously.  That might not include the windbags of the press and the ultra-windbags of many governments.  It's business that will be investing in America.  And international corporations like what Trump is doing.

American workers will benefit.  I'm not so sure the Dems care.

January 26,  2018     Permalink

JANUARY 25,  2018

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

OLYMPIC DRAMA – FROM USA TODAY:  USA Gymnastics’ status as the sport’s national governing body will be terminated unless it meets six conditions set out by the U.S. Olympic Committee, including the resignation of the entire board by next Wednesday.  USOC CEO Scott Blackmun outlined the conditions in an email sent Thursday to the USA Gymnastics board. While Blackmun had called on the board to resign Wednesday in an open letter to the Olympic community, the email was far more specific in both what the USOC expects from USA Gymnastics and the repercussions if it doesn’t deliver.  The letter comes a day after former national team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing more than 150 girls and young women, including Olympic champions Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber.  It's about time.  The Olympic movement itself has been plagued with corruption, phoniness and exploitation.  It seems the only times they clean up their act are when the media heat gets high.

MAJOR SOCIAL ADVANCE – FROM REASON:   Ian Calderon wants restaurateurs to think long and hard before giving you a straw.  Calderon, the Democratic majority leader in California's lower house, has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they specifically request one. Under Calderon's law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.  "We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans," Calderon explained in a press release.  This isn't just Calderon's crusade. The California cities of San Luis Obispo and Davis both passed straws-on-request laws last year, and Manhattan Beach maintains a prohibition on all disposable plastics. And up in Seattle, food service businesses won't be allowed to offer plastic straws or utensils as of July.  Forget nuclear proliferation.  This is the real challenge.

BARELY NOTICED – FROM BREITBART:  President Donald Trump announced plans for a $1.7 trillion infrastructure investment plan on Wednesday.  “We’re also working to rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure by stimulating a $1 trillion dollar investment, and that will actually probably end up being $1.7 trillion dollars,” he said.  The president revealed the price-tag during a meeting with about a hundred mayors of cities inside the United States. He plans to introduce the plan at his State of the Union address with further details afterward.  “Oh, you like that?” Trump asked as the mayors applauded wildly and cheered. “I can tell we have mayors in the room … only mayors could be that excited.”  He said that he wanted all of the projects funded by his plan to be “on time and under budget.”  A major move, as important as tax reform.  And the mainstream media went out of its way to ignore it.

January 25, 2018       Permalink

WE WONDER WHAT ELSE IS HIDDEN – AT 10:08 P.M. ET:  Our side has always been angered by the manner in which Barack Obama was elected president...without any serious vetting by the mainstream press.  This is an example of what happens when no one asks questions.  From Daily Mail:

A journalist has revealed a 13-year-old photo of Barack Obama posing with the Nation of Islam's leader that was kept under wraps in order to protect the former president's career. 

Askia Muhammad snapped the photo of Obama smiling alongside Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan during a Congressional Black Caucus meeting in 2005.

Muhammad, who revealed the photo on Thursday, told the Trice Edney News Wire that he 'gave the

picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy' out of concern that it could have 'made a difference' and damaged Obama's political future.

The former president was a U.S. senator from Illinois at the time the photo was taken.  

The picture was also taken before conspiracy theories developed that Obama was not born in the United States and is a Muslim. 

Muhammad told the news site that the photo was kept a secret until after Obama secured the Democratic nomination to run for president and 'all the way up until the inauguration'.

'Then for eight years after he was president, it was kept under cover,' Muhammad said. 'It absolutely would have made a difference.'

Muhammad recalled on Thursday that a 'staff member' for the CBC contacted him 'sort of in a panic' after he took the photo.

'I sort of understood what was going on,' Muhammad told Talking Points Memo, which published the photo Thursday.

COMMENT:  We of course know that having a picture taken with Farrakhan (the picture is in the story link) doesn't prove that Obama was a follower.  But the broad smile on the future president's face, and the fact that he let the photo be taken at all, are troubling.  The Nation of Islam is a virulently anti-American, anti-white and anti-Semitic hate group.  It would be like a political figure allowing himself to be photographed with David Duke.

I doubt this photo will cause much stir.  Standards are pretty low these days.

January 25, 2018        Permalink 

UTTERLY SICKENING – AT 11:36 A.M. ET:  Doesn't John Kerry realize he's not secretary of state any longer?  Doesn't he understand that a new, elected administration is running American foreign policy?  Apparently, this man, who betrayed his comrades in Vietnam, doesn't understand much of anything.  From Fox:   

Former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly tried to meddle in Middle East peace talks, allegedly telling a close associate of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not to “yield to President Trump’s demands.” 

Israeli news outlet Maariv reported on the apparent meeting between Kerry and Hussein Agha in London, where the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee also reportedly floated a possible encore bid in 2020.  

But in the conversation, Kerry reportedly told Agha to share a message with Abbas – urging him to “hold on and be strong” during talks with the Trump administration and “play for time ... [and] not yield to President Trump’s demands.”

Kerry, who served as former President Barack Obama’s secretary of state during his second term, also reportedly told Agha that Trump would not be in office for long, suggesting he could be out in a year. 

According to the report, Kerry used derogatory terms when referring to Trump, and offered to help the Palestinians create an alternative peace initiative. He reportedly asked Abbas not to attack the U.S. or the Trump administration, but rather focus attacks on the president himself.

One prominent Trump ally, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, voiced disbelief at the reported comments on Thursday.

“Kerry knows as a former secretary of state, a former U.S. senator, that kind of advice would be stunningly unpatriotic, and I don’t think John Kerry would do something like that,” Gingrich told "Fox & Friends." “I hope he wouldn’t. I would be very, very surprised if a former secretary of state, a former U.S. senator would have said anything that was that overtly anti-American.”

COMMENT:  Newt is being sarcastic, of course.  This story broke three days ago, and Kerry has never denied it.  Besides, it sounds like him – arrogant, pompous, sneering, self-satisfied.  What a guy!  You wouldn't want your sister to come home with him.  If she does, tell him to shut up and fix the refrigerator.

January 25, 2018       Permalink

BACK UP – AT 11:14 A.M. ET:  Despite all that's been thrown at him in the last few weeks, and despite the government shutdown, President Trump is back at the same level in the Rasmussen daily tracker as he was before the onslaught: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.
 
The latest figures include 29% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 44% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15.

COMMENT:  They used to call Reagan the "Teflon president" because criticism and attacks seemed to roll off him without doing any damage.  I don't think Trump is quite there yet, but maybe he's halfway there.  Attacks now seem to have little effect.  They've gone too far.  They've become too wild.  The American people have caught on to the game, as they always do.

I think the culmination came when the White House "press corps" went mad over the president's clean bill of health, and savagely questioned his Navy physician, who'd also been physician to Barack Obama and George W. Bush.  Reporters' behavior toward this good and experienced man was disgraceful.  It was embarrassing, and not one member of the press apologized.

January 25,  2018     Permalink