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MAY 25,  2018

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

THE NEW SHOW BUSINESS – FROM NOTTINGHAMPOST.COM:  Have you ever watched a film and wished the direction in which it is going would change?  Well, a new brain-controlled movie has now been launched, which picks up reactions from the viewer via an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and switches the storyline depending on their response.  The film, called 'The Moment', has been developed by the University of Nottingham's computer science PhD researcher and creative director Richard Ramchurn.  It is being officially launched at Sheffield Doc/Fest on June 7.   Now we need a device that will change Hillary Clinton's speeches if we just tell our brains that we're bored.

IVANKA ON THE TRAIL – FROM THE HILL:  Ivanka Trump is set to headline two fundraisers for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in California next month, according to a Friday report in Politico Playbook.  President Trump's daughter and senior adviser will appear alongside McCarthy at events in Fresno and Los Angeles on June 18. The proceeds will go to Protect the House, McCarthy's joint-fundraising committee with Vice President Pence.  “At the request of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Ivanka Trump will be headlining a June 18 Protect the House fundraiser with the Leader in California," a statement from Ivanka Trump's office reads, according to Playbook.  Don't underestimate her.  This may be practice for future campaigns...with her as the candidate.

MAJOR DIETARY NEWS – FROM AFP:  Paris (AFP) - Still looking for the secret to effortless weight loss? It may be as simple as chewing gum while walking, Japanese researchers suggested on Saturday.
In experiments, they said, the heart rate of 46 people, aged 21 to 69, increased when they were given gum to chew while walking at a natural pace.  And while masticating caused a measurable physical difference in participants of both genders and across all age groups, it was most pronounced in men over 40, the team reported at the European Congress on Obesity in Vienna.  "Combining exercise and gum chewing may be an effective way to manage weight," the researchers said -- particularly in countries such as Japan where walking is the "most widely performed movement".  Previous research had found that gum chewing boosts heart rate and energy expenditure in people at rest.   So walking and chewing gum at the same time is actually beneficial?  But what happens to people who can't do it?  Liberals.

May 25,  2018     Permalink 

AND WHAT IS THIS? – AT 12:50 P.M. ET:  Something similar to this happened at Brown University a few weeks ago.  Is something happening?  Something good?  Something that gives us a belief in the future of higher education?  I certainly hope so.  From College Fix: 

Student leaders of the Harvard Crimson campus newspaper have come to an important conclusion:

“It is impossible to make every member of the Harvard community feel completely welcome all of the time.”

They point that groundbreaking realization out in a new staff editorial that calls out the Ivy League institution for its lack of political diversity, dearth of conservative scholars, and few challenges to students’ worldviews.

They argue those are problems campus leaders must address.

The student editors cite their recent poll which found only 1.5 percent of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences identify as conservative or very conservative, compared to 83.2 percent who identify as liberal or very liberal, then essentially call on campus leaders to hire more right-of-center professors.

“These statistics do not reflect America: 35 percent of Americans identify as conservative, 23 times the fraction of the faculty survey’s respondents, and 26 percent identify as liberal. This stark divide has harmful effects on the University’s ability to train our nation’s leaders, and it risks alienating current and potential conservative students,” the Crimson argues. “It has also likely contributed to the declining trust of Americans in higher education, which has deleterious effects.”

COMMENT:  Hooray for the Crimson.  I hope its editors survive the night.  There was a similar call at Brown, another Ivy League school, and we have to ask if this is a coincidence, or the start of a trend.  I hope it's the latter.  It will be bitterly resisted by the intolerant left, but they can be overcome, as their attention span is from six to nine seconds.

We have heard reports that the new young generation, the one behind the disgraced millennials, is less ideological and more open to new ideas.  It is apparently also more pro-life.

Maybe the real revolution is just beginning.

May 25, 2018     Permalink

TRUMP THE NEGOTIATOR – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  The Trump/Rocket Man summit is not dead.  Trump the negotiator is at work, and I'll bet very few of the "analysts" at CNN and elsewhere have any idea what he's doing.  From Fox: 

President Trump kept the diplomacy door open with North Korea on Friday, welcoming the regime's latest “productive” statement and saying the two sides are still talking following the administration’s decision to cancel a planned summit with Kim Jong Un. 

Trump nixed the summit, which was slated for June 12 in Singapore, following threats from North Korea. But hours after the U.S. pulled out of the meeting, North Korea issued a statement suggesting the regime was open to talks.

“Very good news to receive the warm and productive statement from North Korea. We will soon see where it will lead, hopefully to long and enduring prosperity and peace. Only time (and talent) will tell!” Trump tweeted on Friday morning. 

He also told reporters that “we’re talking to them now,” adding, “It could even be the 12th.”

“They very much want to do it, we want to do it, we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “Everybody plays games.”

A top North Korean official had issued a statement Thursday evening expressing the regime’s “willingness” to sit down for a summit with the U.S.

COMMENT:  Secretary of Defense Mattis made a similar comment this morning.  The game is still on, and Trump's pullout yesterday has apparently put enough of a scare into the Norks that they're starting to sound reasonable again.

Trust but verify.

May 25,  2018     Permalink

MAY 24,  2018

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

PREDICTABLE – FROM FOX:   A second founding board member of a progressive group inspired by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ failed 2016 presidential run resigned Wednesday, raising concerns of a racial strain within the organization, a report said.  Our Revolution former co-vice chair Catalina Velasquez, an undocumented immigrant and transgender activist, said she left the group because it was insensitive to Latino and immigrant issues. The departure fueled worries of tension between Latinos and African-Americans within the group, Politico reported.  “For the past month, we have been fighting divisive narratives targeting immigrants and pinning us against other oppressed peoples,” Velasquez wrote in a letter she posted on Twitter. “I have faced this with little to no support from the organizational leadership.”  This is what happens when you make identity politics the core of your beliefs.  No emphasis on policy.  No emphasis on results.  Only an emphasis on who is more oppressed, and who gets what right now.

THE TIME WASTERS – FROM THE HILL:   Various NFL players are reportedly discussing different forms of protesting in response to a new policy requiring players to stand for the national anthem.  “I talked to a former NFL player yesterday who has said that players are already talking about other ways in which they can protest," NBC's Craig Melvin said on "Today" on Thursday.   Melvin did not specify which players he spoke to, or what other forms of protesting they were considering.   Meanwhile, black children are being murdered by the carload by their neighbors.  I wonder how many black lives are being saved by football players who have salaries in the millions.

MORE ANTI-FUN AGGRESSION – FROM MEDICALXPRESS:   New research suggests graphic warnings on junk food packaging would prove an effective deterrent to consumers when deciding what to eat – and it appears the more graphic and negative the message the better.  The finding by researchers at the University of Melbourne and Cancer Council Victoria reinforces arguments for mandatory health warnings on unhealthy food as an effective tool in improving diets and combating rising rates of obesity-related chronic diseases.  More important for our future:  How about warning labels on liberals?

May 24,  2018     Permalink

THE DECISION –AT 11:18 P.M. ET:   The usual suspects have been out in force, anguishing over President Trump's correct decision to cancel, at least for now, is upcoming meeting with North Korea's rocket man.

The Dems have been in high anguish, refusing to back the American leader in his entirely appropriate diplomatic move.  Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times's resident Democratic Party pen pal wrote, as quoted in The New York Sun, that "we’re entering a 'more dangerous' patch and Mr. Trump’s decision to cancel 'topped a particularly inept diplomatic period.'  The old policy of 'maximum economic pressure on North Korea,' he reckons, 'may no longer be viable.'"

Ah, but the same Sun editorial said, "Call it President Trump’s Reykjavik moment. He canceled the Singapore summit with the North Korean communist party boss, Kim Jong Un, the way Reagan walked out on the Soviets at Reykjavik. Our guess is that Americans will back Mr. Trump. The minute the North Koreans issued a statement calling Vice President Pence 'stupid,' it was time to kaput the parley. No president could stand for his vice president to be spoken of that way."

The editorial is correct, Kristof's comment merely predictable.

At any rate, by afternoon the Norks had reacted with a letter that criticized Trump's decision, complained about all things American, but also left the door wide open for future negotiations.  We are reminded that, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, never an elegant man, sent a message to Washington bashing the United States, but inserting one conciliatory sentence.  President Kennedy ran with that sentence, and eventually negotiated an end to the crisis, getting the Soviet missiles removed from Cuba, and not firing a shot. 

We await further diplomacy.  My guess is that some kind of meeting will eventually take place.

May 24,  2018     Permalink

BULLETIN:  TRUMP PULLS OUT OF KOREA SUMMIT – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  Fox is reporting that President Trump has sent a letter to Kim Jong Un, pulling out of the June 12th summit.  From Fox: 

President Trump on Thursday cancelled the highly anticipated summit with North Korea that was set for next month, calling the talks “inappropriate” following the “hostility” displayed in the latest comments from dictator Kim Jong Un.

The move to pull out of the summit, slated to take place in Singapore on June 12, came after threats from Kim to call off the talks. In a letter to Kim on Thursday, Trump said the world, and North Korea, has lost a "great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity." 

“Based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump wrote in a letter to Kim on Thursday. “Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.” 

COMMENT:  The president has probably made the right decision.  This, in a way, is part of the negotiating process. 

To go to the talks now would have represented a comedown for the United States, and President Trump, unlike Field Marshal Extraordinaire and Super Barack Obama, does not bow down.

The Dems, and their echo chamber in the press, will call this a Trump failure.  No, it is a decision along the way.  The American people will understand that.  The alumni of the sixties and seventies generation who run the media, will not.

May 24, 2018       Permalink

FLUKE OR REAL? – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  A second major poll, following Reuters earlier, now shows a dramatic tightening in the "generic ballot," which is a good predictor of miderm Congressional results.  From Rasmussen: 

Republicans have closed the gap in the Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest telephone and online survey finds that 43% of Likely U.S. Voters would choose the Democratic candidate if the elections for Congress were held today. Forty-two percent (42%) would opt for the Republican. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and 10% are undecided.

This is the closest the ballot has been all year, but it remains to be seen whether this is a developing trend or a fluke.

Democrats held a 46% to 40% lead last week.

COMMENT:  We note that the election is a bit more than five months away.  That's about 20 lifetimes in politics.  If this is a trend, and not a fluke, the Dems are in serious trouble.  If they wish to take back the House and Senate, they should be much further ahead by now. 

One problem the Dems have is that they offer nothing besides hatred of Trump.  There is no real Democratic program.  Any attempts within the party to formulate one runs into the deep split between traditional Democrats and the new, radical left, which must be called what it is – socialist.  Most Americans are not socialists.

May 24,  2018     Permalink