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JULY 10,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

SPEEDY GUYS, OR NEGLIGENT GUYS – FROM FOX:   Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Sunday that the sniper who shot and killed five Dallas police officers Thursday acted alone and does not appear connected to a known terror group.  “It was a single shooter, and we do not see any affiliation with a terror network like ISIS or Al Qaeda,” Johnson told “Fox News Sunday.”  Authorities have identified the shooter as Micah Johnson, a 25-year-old black Army veteran, purportedly angry about the two recent incidents -- in Minnesota and Louisiana -- in which police officers fatally shot and killed black men.  Johnson confirmed Sunday that the shooter said that he “wanted to kill white people.”  Amazing how they come to these conclusions so quickly.  Single shooter.  Acted alone.  Never knew anybody, even his mother.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.  I'd rather wait for a more detailed examination of this terrorist's past.  I don't trust the mouthpieces of the Obama administration.

MORE TROUBLE FOR HILLARY? – FROM FOX:   FBI Director James Comey is facing growing Republican calls to launch a perjury probe into whether Hillary Clinton lied under oath about her email use when she testified last year before the House Benghazi committee – even as the Justice Department closes the case on the former secretary of state’s private server. House Overnight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz first urged such a probe during Thursday’s hearing with Comey before his  committee. He wants the agency to investigate whether Clinton lied when she told lawmakers “there was nothing marked classified on my emails” – a claim Comey repeatedly contradicted this week.  Comey told Chaffetz a referral from Congress would be needed for an investigation.  “You’ll have one in the next few hours,” Chaffetz said.  When FoxNews.com contacted Chaffetz’s office on Friday, a referral had not yet been sent.  But Chaffetz is vowing to kick-start the process, and his Republican colleagues are voicing support.  It's about time the Republicans actually did something about this Hillary mess.  She cannot get away with what she's done.

FRIENDS? – FROM REUTERS:   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three countries have warned their citizens to stay on guard when visiting U.S. cities rocked by sometimes violent protests that erupted after a string of police shootings of black Americans...The U.S. embassy of Bahrain, a tiny Middle Eastern island nation, on Saturday urged citizens via twitter to "be cautious of protests or crowded areas occurring around the U.S."  Bahamas, a Caribbean nation where most people identify as being of African heritage, on Friday warned its people to be careful when visiting U.S. cities rocked by "shootings of young black males by police officers."  "In particular young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational and cooperate," Bahamas foreign ministry said in a travel advisory.  The United Arab Emirates urged its students and other citizens in the United States to also be careful, using similar language the U.S. State Department employs when warning Americans about countries that have fallen victim to attacks by extremists.  There will be some loss of tourist dollars because of the riots in America.  And who will get hurt most?  Minority workers.  I guess Black Lives Matter hasn't figured that out yet.

July 10, 2016       Permalink

FEARS ABOUT CLEVELAND – AT 12:53 P.M. ET:  The Republican convention begins in Cleveland a week from tomorrow.  Fears of violence are growing.  From McClatchy:

As the Republican National Convention approaches, several security experts, convention attendees and even the prospective protesters fear that Cleveland might erupt into violence reminiscent of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, where an estimated 10,000 protesters showed up to oppose the Vietnam War. Confrontations ensued between police and protesters that left hundreds injured and resulted in nearly 600 arrests.

“There’s a potential for that to happen,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research center. “There’s a lot of agitation on both sides.”

A turbulent political season fueled by the unpredictability of Trump supporters and opponents already has resulted in violent clashes at campaign events in San Jose and Burlingame, California, Chicago and Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Cleveland government and law enforcement officials insist they’re ready to host the 50,000 convention visitors, 15,000 media members and thousands of protesters expected to descend on the city and keep them safe. The city has sought to triple the size of its 1,600-member police force by recruiting officers from Ohio and other states.

Cleveland will be adequately staffed, Police Chief Calvin Williams wrote in an open letter on the department’s website and Facebook page Wednesday. “Our officers have trained with many partnering agencies at the local, state and federal level to ensure that the highest safety standards are maintained.”

The city’s municipal court is clearing jail space to process up to 1,000 people per day, Cleveland.com reported. Government officials increased Cleveland’s liability coverage from $10 million to $50 million to better protect it against damage from protests or other potentially violent acts.

“Given the climate nationally and internationally, the risk assessment was higher than it’s been for other conventions,” Cleveland Finance Director Sharon Dumas told The Associated Press last week.

COMMENT:  The governor is John Kasich, an opponent of Donald Trump.  I have no idea how that might figure into convention plans, but I thought I'd point it out.

I'm concerned.  Trump is a prime target of leftist demonstrators.   His convention will be a target.  The left is all fired up over policing.

There are definitely people out there who want to return to the 1960s.  They think it was a great era.  It was, if you had the intellectual maturity of a 12-year-old.  That's pretty much the level I see on the left today.

July 10, 2016       Permalink

ANOTHER PEACEFUL PROTEST – AT 11:34 A.M. ET:  I want to see journalism give us a detailed picture of the groups that become violent.  I want to know who they are, what their actual views are, their histories, and their goals.  Fat chance.  From Fox:   

More than 100 people were arrested and 21 police officers injured in Minnesota Saturday night when protests over recent police killings of black men morphed into rioting.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman detailed at a Sunday press conference what he called an “extreme incident” Saturday night that led to 102 arrests after protesters pelted police officers with rocks, rebar and incendiary devices, including Molotov cocktails. The injuries to officers were “significant, but none were life-threatening,” Coleman said.

The protests, which started with a march from the governor's mansion around 8 p.m., were among several demonstrations nationwide following the deaths of 32-year-old Philando Castile, a black man who was shot in a Minneapolis suburb by a police officer during a traffic stop, and 37-year-old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La. Sterling, who was black, was shot after a scuffle with officers outside a convenience store.

The riots came just days after five Dallas police officers were murdered by Micah Johnson, who targeted white cops in a sniper attack last Thursday. Sterling's and Castile's families denounced the attack on the Dallas officers.

In Minnesota, police used smoke bombs to clear demonstrators blocking Interstate 94. About 200 protesters refused to leave the roadway just after midnight as police in riot gear began to move in on the crowd.

“We hope for the best and prepare for the worst and, unfortunately, last night the worst occurred,” St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell said at a Sunday press conference. Axtell passed around to reporters a police badge that was bent from the impact of a rock as he said he was “disgusted” by the acts of some people and added, “we’re not going to tolerate it.”

“It’s the first time in my 28 years as a police officer that I have observed this level of violence toward our public servants,” Axtell said. “We’re hoping and praying that tonight is a better night.”

COMMENT:  I'm sure there are many people with legitimate concerns about law enforcement.  But there are always others who try to take over, and we're getting only a blurry picture of who those others are.

July 10, 2016       Permalink

A REMINDER – SOME PEOPLE HAVE ODD FAMILY VALUES – AT 11:22 A.M. ET:  The family business has apparently gone to the son.  From the Independent: 

The son of Osama bin Laden has threatened revenge against the US for assassinating his father, according to an audio message posted online by Al-Qaeda.

Hamza bin Laden promised to continue the global militant group's fight against the United States and its allies in the 21-minute speech entitled "We Are All Osama," according to the SITE Intelligence Group, an organisation that tracks white supremacist and jihadi organisations online.

"We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression," Hamza said.

"As for the revenge by the Islamic nation for Sheikh Osama, may Allah have mercy on him, it is not revenge for Osama the person but it is revenge for those who defended Islam."

COMMENT:  A chip off the old mosque.  I would take the message seriously.  Al Qaeda and ISIS are in competition, and I wouldn't be surprised if the former pulls off another 9-11-style attack, just to shame the latter.

July 10,  2016     Permalink 

JULY 9,  2016

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

OH PLEASE – FROM THE HILL:   President Obama said Saturday that he is "concerned" by the FBI assessment that the State Department has acted carelessly in handling classified information.  "I am concerned," he told reporters at a news conference in Warsaw Saturday, according to Reuters.  But he cast the problem as a government-wide struggle to keep up technology and the fast-paced flow of information.  "The advent of email and texts and smart phones is just generating enormous amounts of data," Obama said, which is "putting enormous pressure on the department to sort through it, classify it properly."  That is an almost perfect statement of an excuse mentality.  Nothing Clinton allegedly did could be attributable to anything Obama is talking about.  She was reckless and indifferent.  We had reckless and indifferent people in the age of pencil and paper.

VEEPSTAKES – FROM THE HILL:   Donald Trump is considering a retired Army general to be his running mate, the Washington Post reported Saturday.  Former Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn is on the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's shortlist for vice presidential candidates, the report said.
Flynn retired as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2014.  It is Trump himself, and not his advisors, behind the push for Flynn, the report said. Trump feels the current national unrest calls for a "tough and steady" figure, the Post said.  Flynn joins a shortlist that reportedly includes former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.  Flynn is an excellent man who gets the war on terror right.  But he has no political experience and is apparently a registered Democrat.  Trump needs someone to help him navigate the political waters.  Flynn has great strengths, but campaign skill is not on that list.

COMMON SENSE – FROM CNN:  London (CNN) There will be no "do-over" of the Brexit vote. The British government on Saturday rejected a petition signed by more than 4 million people calling for a new poll on whether Britain should remain in or leave the European Union.  In the original June 23 referendum across the UK, 52% of voters said they wanted to leave the 28-member European Union...Britain's foreign office broke the news to EU supporters Saturday in statement, saying that Prime Minister David Cameron had made clear that the "decision must be respected." Cameron announced after the vote that he would step down in October, saying a new leader would be needed to usher the country through the transition.  A mature decision.  The political class and the "young voters" (brats) among the population thought they could get a do-over.   They only do that in kindergarten. 

July 9, 2016       Permalink

HILLARY – I'M SWEET AND INNOCENT – AT 11:28 A.M. ET:  On a Friday, in the midst of a national crisis, Hillary Clinton managed to bring the discussion back to the most important thing in her life – herself.  Why, those nasty comments by the FBI director were just not true.  Little me, I'm an innocent, good person.  From The Hill: 

Hillary Clinton on Friday strongly disputed the FBI’s finding that she and her aides were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information.

Clinton, giving her first public interviews since the Justice Department’s decision not to press charges against her, said she thought FBI Director James Comey had "clarified that comment, to some extent, pointing out that some of what was thought to be classified apparently was not."

“I think the professionals with whom I communicated were very careful about how they handled classified material — as I was over the course of those four years,” the former secretary of State said on CNN’s “The Lead.”

“I do not believe that all of the professionals that I dealt with in the State Department were careless in handling classified material,” she added moments later, in a separate interview with Lester Holt on MSNBC.

The position is a striking rebuttal of Comey's statements. He twice this week called her behavior “extremely careless,” even while asserting it did not violate the law.

“Certainly, she should have known not to send classified information,” Comey testified before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday.

“I think she was extremely careless. I think she was negligent. That, I could establish,” he added. “What we can't establish is that she acted with the necessary criminal intent.”

In her interviews, Clinton referred to “over 300 people” she communicated with via email, including longtime diplomats and government officials.

“I do not believe that they did anything that they believed was in any way inappropriate,” she said on MSNBC.

“Other agencies have said maybe they should have known at the time, but these are professionals ... they were doing the best job they could. They were not careless. The material they sent to me they did not believe was classified.”

According to Comey, at least 113 email messages Clinton sent or received through her controversial private email setup contained information that was classified at the time it was sent — including eight email threads with information at the highest level of top secret.

An additional 2,000 emails contained information that was upgraded to classified after the fact.

Clinton might be staring down the barrel of a new criminal investigation for lying under oath to Congress. House Republicans have promised to refer questions about Clinton’s truthfulness to the FBI, noting that comments she made during a congressional hearing last year appeared to conflict with the FBI’s conclusions.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) blasted Clinton after the interviews, accusing her of continuing to lie.

COMMENT:  I have no idea why she's doing this.  She must think Comey's charges are going to stick, and will do her damage.  The reality is that any government employee who did what Hillary Clinton did would be in deep trouble. 

Anyone who's ever been in a position to handle classified information – and I've been there – is constantly bombarded with warnings about security.  Hillary Clinton ignored those warnings.  We had a slogan in World War II – "Loose lips sink ships" – and it was accurate. 

July 9, 2016       Permalink

NOTHING TO SEE, NOTHING TO SEE – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:  As we fight our domestic battles, Iran is having us for lunch internationally.  The propaganda organs of the administration, led by The New York Times, assure us that the Iran nuclear deal is working.  Reality tells us otherwise, and reality is what will determine our future.  From Powerline:   

The German domestic intelligence service says that Iran is making extensive and repeated efforts to obtain technology and materials needed for nuclear weapons, contrary to its longstanding assurances that its nuclear program is peaceful:

The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said in an annual report it has detected extensive Iranian attempts to acquire illicit materials in Germany, “especially goods that can be used in the field of nuclear technology.”

“Also in international comparison, the level of attempts remains high,” it added, according to i24news.

The German intelligence body in the regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia registered 141 such attempts last year, as opposed to 83 similar tries in 2014. 90 of those attempts were described as illegal activities to procure technology that could be used for the development of nuclear weapons and launchers.

The smuggling of the proliferation-sensitive goods is conducted usually by Iranian strawmen and shell companies through China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, the report estimated.

The vast majority of these attempts have been thwarted–which makes sense, since these are the ones the authorities know about–but “Iran’s covert and intensive procurement activities on German soil are expected to continue.”

Then there is this:

The findings mark the second time in the last few weeks that evidence has surfaced of Iran’s nuclear work.

Late in June, it was reported that the Obama administration had concluded that uranium particles discovered last year at the secretive Iranian military base in Parchin likely were tied to the country’s past, covert nuclear weapons program.

The findings contradict Tehran’s longstanding denials that it was pursuing a nuclear bomb.

COMMENT:  Like Britain in the 1930s, we are asleep, with much of the Democratic foreign-policy establishment resentful of anyone sounding an alarm.  Those warmongers, you know.

Who will pay the price?  Our children will pay the price.  But, given the kind of education they're getting today, will they even realize it?

July 9, 2016       Permalink

GIVE US A REAL CHOICE – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  That is what Americans seem to be saying about this year's presidential election, in which we're given a choice between Bonnie and Clyde.  From Reuters: 

Americans' demand for an alternative to the two main presidential candidates has surged since the last election, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll shows, underscoring the unpopularity of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Based on 2,153 interviews, Friday's poll results suggest a strong potential for a third-party candidate - like Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party or Jill Stein of the Green Party - to take enough of the vote in the Nov. 8 presidential election to influence its outcome.

According to the July 1-8 poll, 21 percent of likely voters will not back Trump or Clinton. That compares with about 13 percent of likely voters who opted out of the two main choices at the same point in the 2012 race between incumbent President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

The poll also showed a majority of American voters have an overall "unfavorable" view of both main candidates, with 46 percent of Clinton supporters and 47 percent of Trump supporters saying their top priority when voting will be to stop the opposing candidate from reaching the White House.

Demand for an alternative could be decisive in hotly contested battleground states. In Florida in 2012, for instance, Obama won by less than 1 percentage point. If this year's race is just as tight, third-party candidates could draw enough support to flip the state from one major party to the other.

COMMENT:  No one knows whether these figures will increase, decrease, or remain steady, for the rest of the campaign.  Some dream of a third force influencing the race enough to deny victory in the Electoral College to either major candidate.  That would throw the presidency into the House of Representatives, which would have to choose from among the top three contenders.  Precisely where does that get us?

A true third force would have a chance at outright victory.  But I'm afraid it's too late for that, and there may not even be a popular enough candidate to head such a force.  Had David Petraeus been able to control his hormones, he might have been such a leader. 

The bottom line is that, no matter who is elected in November, we will have a very bitter, divided country. 

July 9,  2016     Permalink