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JUNE 3,  2017

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

LONDON LATEST – FROM THE TELEGRAPH:  Six people have been killed and almost 50 people were injured in a "rampage" in central London, the third terrorist attack to hit the UK in less than three months. Three attackers were shot dead by police in the attack on London Bridge and Borough Market. Police said they believed there were no more than three attackers.  A white transit van ploughed into a crowd of people on the bridge at speed shortly after 10pm. The three men then stabbed people with 12-inch knives at nearby Borough Market, with a transport police officer among those injured.  It is reported by multiple witnesses that the attackers shouted, "This is for Allah."  Britain's national election is only four days away.  We can't say with any certainty how this latest attack will affect the vote.

SICK CELEBRATIONS – FROM DAILY CALLER:  Islamic State sympathizers are reportedly celebrating the latest attacks to shake the United Kingdom online.  Attackers slammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge late Saturday evening. The incident was immediately followed by a string of stabbings at Borough Market nearby. Pro-ISIS channels are heralding the attacks as “the black days we’ve promised” and are anticipating an ISIS claim, reports the SITE Intel Group, which monitors jihadi activity worldwide.  ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing in Manchester that killed almost two dozen people and injured numerous others. In the wake of the attack, ISIS warned that “what comes next will be more severe on the worshipers of the Cross and their allies,” and in this month’s magazine, ISIS said that another terrorist attack in Britain was inevitable.  How many hours do you think it will take the leftists to caution that we must understand the pain of the attackers and not hurt their self-esteem?

HELP FROM THE NORTH – FROM DAILY CALLER:  They might not achieve one million participants, but the numbers were already building towards 5,000 Saturday morning. As one organizer, Mike Wain put it: “I was hoping for a million but I guess this will do.”  They had come to protest the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in general but they weren’t without specific grievances against a regime that they say overtaxes, overspends and is a clear and present danger to free speech. They began their march on Parliament Hill in Canada’s capital of Ottawa and they will proceed throughout the city today.  Wain is passionate about the Million Deplorables March. He says he was inspired to lead this weekend’s event because he felt Trudeau was getting a free ride from the media and a pass from too many voters...Unlike most of the Canadian media, Wain is exultant over President Donald Trump’s decision to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Accord  “Donald Trump’s a smart man; he knows a con when he sees one.”  I think Trump's support domestically, and to a degree internationally, is importantly underestimated. 

June 3, 2017       Permalink

EXCELLENT ADVICE – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 1:28 P.M. ET:  Monica Crowley, the broadcast commentator and print columnist, worked closely with Richard Nixon after Nixon was driven from office.  From that experience she's developed some sound advice for President Trump, including this statement, our quote of the day:  From the New York Post:   

“I always knew that there was a double standard,” Nixon once said to me. “I just didn’t realize that when it came to me, there’d be a triple standard.” Later, he said, “I should have known that since so many hated me, I couldn’t even sneeze as president without someone ordering an investigation.”

His point was that he should have recognized that, given the grave threat he posed to the establishment and media, he should have been hyper-vigilant and hyper-ethical, leaving no openings anywhere for anyone to leverage against him.

Several years after his resignation, Nixon gave a series of interviews to David Frost, during which he made a profound admission: “I brought myself down. I gave them the sword, and they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I’d been in their position, I’d have done the same thing,” he said.

He later added, “I made so many bad judgments. The worst ones: mistakes of the heart rather than the head . . . But let me say, the man in that top job has got to have a heart, but his head must always rule his heart.”

Trump can enjoy a successful presidency if he heeds the warnings of a former “man in that top job” who learned the hard way the brutal ending in store when you undercut your own presidency — and give your enemies the sword.

COMMENT:  Well said.  Read the whole thing.  It's well worth it.  The dream of the establishment right now is to drive Trump from office and reinforce its own power.  And the establishment often succeeds.

June 3, 2017       Permalink

WILL SOMEONE SHUT HER UP? – AT 12:40 P.M. ET:   Hillary Clinton is out of control and a growing danger to the republic.  Her comments are becoming downright embarrassing, and I get the feeling she spends much of her time throwing darts at pictures of her enemies.  She has run out of darts.  From the Daily Mail:

Hillary Clinton said former President Barack Obama was able to shatter the racial barrier due to his looks.

Speaking at Recode’s Code Conference on Wednesday, the former secretary of state said that misogyny played a part in her election loss to Donald Trump this past fall.

After the Democratic Party nominee implied that her being a woman cost her votes since she didn’t ‘look like and talk like and sound like everybody else who’s been president,’ she then mentioned Obama’s historic election in 2008.

‘And you know, President Obama broke that racial barrier, but you know, he’s a very attractive, good-looking man with lots of ...’ Clinton says before her interviewer, Kara Swisher, interjects.

Well, he’s likable enough,’ Swisher said – a reference to a line Obama uttered about Clinton during a debate in the middle of their 2008 primary battle.

‘He’s likable enough, absolutely,’ Clinton responded.

COMMENT:  Can you just imagine the reaction if a Republican had spoken about Obama that way?  CNN would devote a week to the comment.  There'd be a documentary on stereotyping.  Panelists would ask if we're entering a new period of oppression, based on looks.

Hillary must be presented with the joys of retirement.

June 3, 2017       Permalink

MIKE GOES TO THE MIKE – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  Mike Pence has been on the move recently.  The vice president will be in Iowa this weekend, shoring up the Republican base.  The Trump/Pence base seems solid, but there are areas of discontent.  From AP: 

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence is trying to solidify the Republican base in Iowa, where some conservatives complain President Donald Trump has much to prove and party leaders say he’s being undermined from within.

Headlining Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual summer fundraiser, Pence will promote steady job numbers under Trump, who campaigned last year on promises of economic growth.

But it’s Pence’s boss who has more work to do to satisfy Iowa’s disproportionately influential Christian right, despite carrying Iowa by 9 percentage points in the 2016 election after Democrat Barack Obama won there in 2008 and 2012.

“I’m still waiting to see a conservative agenda put forward,” said Iowa Republican Kay Quirk, a retired nurse from the socially conservative northwest region of the state. “I haven’t given up hope by any means. But I’m still waiting.”

Chiefly, Quirk and other Iowa conservatives are bothered that Trump has not delivered on the promise to repeal the 2010 health care law. But that’s not all. Mike Demastus, a pastor from Des Moines, pointed to Trump’s announcement Thursday that he would keep, at least for now, the U.S. Embassy in Israel in Tel Aviv. Trump promised during the campaign last year to move the embassy to Jerusalem, the place most closely associated with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

“When it comes to moral issues, he hasn’t moved the needle one notch,” Demastus said.

It’s not as if there is a revolt brewing within the Iowa GOP.

Republicans control both houses of the Iowa Legislature, the governor’s office, both U.S. Senate seats and three of four House seats. Trump also chose Iowa’s longtime Republican governor, Terry Branstad, to be his ambassador to China.

And the vast majority of Iowa Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing. Surveys this year have shown Trump’s job approval among Republicans around 85 percent, about the same as it is nationally.

COMMENT:  There's something else here.  Mike Pence is, understandably, popular among Republicans, and he's strengthening his own constituency, while becoming better known to the general public.  If the current probes don't go well for Trump and he's forced from office, as was Nixon, Pence will have ready-made support as he moves into the presidency.  We hope Trump will be fine, but you never know.

June 3,  2017     Permalink

JUNE 2,  2017

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

WE'RE SO IMPRESSED – FROM BREITBART:  NEW YORK, NY — On Saturday, over 135 cities will join a coalition of 17 “national progressive groups,” Democrat and progressive members of Congress, a Watergate prosecutor, writers, celebrities, musicians and activists in a series of national rallies known as the “March for Truth.”  The coordinated rallies are calling for an independent commission to investigate alleged collusion between the Trump administration and Russia, investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 elections, and call for President Trump to release his tax returns.  Yes, I'm certainly convinced that "progressives" are deeply concerned about Russian influence in the United States.  This would be a first for them.  What frauds.

FEELING THE HEAT – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Former terror leader Oscar López Rivera will not be honored at this year’s Puerto Rican Day parade, after the ex-FALN chieftain decided to turn down the award in the face of a widespread parade boycott.  Organizers of the June 11 march said the freed terror boss will forgo the “National Freedom Hero” honor and instead just march as a “humble” grandfather.  “He declined the honorary title at the parade. We respect that decision,” parade spokesman Andres Chavez said.  Lopez Rivera freed the parade organizers from having to take a stand on their decision to fete him, when he announced in an op-ed column published Thursday that he no longer wants the controversial award.  “I will be on Fifth Ave. not as your honoree but as a humble Puerto Rican and grandfather who at 74 continues to be committed to helping raise awareness about the fiscal, health-care and human-rights crisis Puerto Rico is facing at this historic juncture,” López Rivera wrote in the piece.  López Rivera did not address his terrorist roots, which sparked the outcry over his involvement in the parade.   It was a disgrace to honor this degenerate in the first place.  Many died at the hands of his group.  The list of those boycotting the parade started to grow, and I'm guessing Rivera was pressured to step down to avoid destroying the event.  One who did not boycott was Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, a man with a Marxist past.  We'll remember that.

IT'S ABOUT TIME – FROM CAMPUS REFORM:  State lawmakers in Washington are fed up with the antics of Evergreen State College, and plan to introduce legislation to privatize the left-leaning institution.  As Campus Reform initially reported, hundreds of students marched through campus last week demanding the resignation of Professor Bret Weinstein, who had questioned the school’s decision to ask white people to leave campus for a day of diversity programming in an all-staff email.  In previous years, non-white students and faculty members voluntarily left campus to attend diversity workshops while their white counterparts conducted their own programming on-campus, but this year the format was flipped in response to complaints that non-white students feel unwelcome on campus in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.  Despite the protesters’ profanity-laced denunciations of him, school President George Bridges praised their “passion and courage” while capitulating to demands that they be excused from homework assignments for the duration of their demonstration.  Evergreen State is one of the most leftist colleges in the country.  Its main quad is actually called Red Square.  And the charge is that non-white students feel unwelcome?  Seriously?  It's sad to see what the civil rights movement has come to.

June 2, 2017       Permalink

STATES AIDING TRUMP ON IMMIGRATION POLICY – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:   Quietly, and with little network coverage, many states are taking tough stands against sanctuary cities.  In turn they're aided by voter support.  Sanctuary cities are highly unpopular.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Two thirds of the nation's states have taken action to join in President Trump's bid to crackdown on illegal immigration and "sanctuary cities," a sweeping national move that would bolster the administration's effort even if it loses in the Supreme Court.

The Migration Policy Institute reports that 33 states have moved to choke off illegal immigration, led by Texas which OK'd a law to block cities from giving "sanctuary" to illegals.

"While Texas was the first state to pass a sweeping law focused on illegal immigration since the presidential election, at least 32 other states have introduced immigration enforcement bills," said the Institute.

Trump has focused on deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records or who are facing criminal charges. He is also hoping to block refugees and immigrants from several countries with terrorist ties.
States, meanwhile, are looking mostly at restricting the ability of cities to become sanctuaries for illegals, even those with criminal records. 

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, as of May 8, 2017, 24 states were considering anti-sanctuary bills and four had passed such legislation during their 2017 legislative sessions, said the Institute.

COMMENT:  Sanctuary cities are illegal, and fly in the face of the rule of law.  We can try to be sympathetic to people who come here seeking a better life, but breaking the law must in some way be punished.  After all, what do you say to people who follow our laws and wait years to get into the United States by legal means?  Do you tell them they're suckers?  That's what they're being told in too many places. 

June 2, 2017       Permalink

DECLINE OF A STATE – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:   I have a certain affection for Illinois, having gone to the University of Chicago and worked for an Illinois US senator.  But the truth cannot be denied – the state has come on hard times, poorly run and poorly financed, and the city of Chicago is driving it down.  From Bloomberg: 

Illinois had its bond rating downgraded to one step above junk by Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings, the lowest ranking on record for a U.S. state, as the long-running political stalemate over the budget shows no signs of ending.

S&P warned that Illinois will likely lose its investment-grade status, an unprecedented step for a state, around July 1 if leaders haven’t agreed on a budget that chips away at the government’s chronic deficits. Moody’s followed S&P’s downgrade Thursday, citing Illinois’s underfunded pensions and the record backlog of bills that are equivalent to about 40 percent of its operating budget.

“Legislative gridlock has sidetracked efforts not only to address pension needs but also to achieve fiscal balance,” Ted Hampton, Moody’s analyst, said in a statement. “During the past year of fruitless negotiations and partisan wrangling, fundamental credit challenges have intensified enough to warrant a downgrade, regardless of whether a fiscal compromise is reached.”

Illinois hasn’t had a full year budget in place for the past two years amid a clash between the Democrat-run legislature and Republican Governor Bruce Rauner. That’s left the fifth most-populous state with a record $14.5 billion of unpaid bills, ravaged entities like universities and social service providers that rely on state aid and undermined Illinois’s standing in the bond market, where investors have demanded higher premiums for the risk of owning its debt. Moody’s called Illinois “an outlier among states” after suffering eight downgrades in as many years.

"The rating actions largely reflect the severe deterioration of Illinois’s fiscal condition, a byproduct of its stalemated budget negotiations," S&P analyst Gabriel Petek said in a statement. “The unrelenting political brinkmanship now poses a threat to the timely payment of the state’s core priority payments."

COMMENT:  The states around Illinois – Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa – seem to be doing quite well.  Although it has a Republican governor, Illinois is run as a liberal state.  You don't think that has anything to do with its plight, do you?  You don't think Chicago politics...?  Nah, let's not go there. 

June 2, 2017       Permalink

HILLARY'S SUICIDE MISSION – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:  It's pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is going down in flames.   She may have dreams of running again in 2020, but her own party is getting fed up with her blame-everyone crusade, in which she tries to cast the blame widely for losing last year to a very problematical GOP nominee named Donald Trump.  From CNN: 

Washington (CNN) Democratic data gurus are lashing out at Hillary Clinton after she complained publicly that her campaign was hamstrung by a party that had out-of-date information on individual voters.

Clinton said Wednesday in an interview with Recode's Kara Swisher that once she became the Democratic nominee, she inherited "nothing." The Democratic National Committee's data, she said, "was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into it."

Her comments drew swift rebuttals from some Democratic operatives who built, or worked with, that data.

Andrew Therriault, the former DNC director of data science, lashed out in two since-deleted tweets.

"I hope you understand the good you did despite that nonsense," he said in a message directed to DNC data staffers.

David Radloff, the co-founder of the Democratic data and analytics firm Clarity Campaign Labs, tweeted: "Used DNC data on numerous campaigns this year, well managed, efficient, accurate. Real question is who's feeding Clinton bad info and why??"

John Hagner, a partner at Clarity, added: "I worked with DNC data every day last cycle, on winning Gov races. It was accurate and up-to-date and I'm grateful for their hard work."

Many Democrats noted that Clinton -- just like her opponent Bernie Sanders -- had access to the DNC's data from the outset of her campaign. Therefore, they said, if there was trouble with the data, her staff would have known long before she won the Democratic presidential nomination.

COMMENT:  The idea in politics is to make friends, not enemies.  Hillary hasn't gotten the memo, and her enemies list is growing.   She's coming off as an embittered former candidate who was memorizing the oath of office before the votes were counted.

She might wish to spend more time with the family.  I suspect that's her future. 

June 2,  2017     Permalink