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

MAY 29,  2018

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

ROSEANNE – The major historical news of the day was Roseanne Barr tweeting a foolish, racially tinged message, then getting her show cancelled as a result.  She was also dropped by her agency.  She has a history of doing and saying foolish things, so the episode was not that shocking.  But there are red lines you cannot cross, and she crossed several.  However, a backlash is already building.  Plenty of people on social media are asking why she's fired, yet entertainers who say the most vile things about the president, his family, and conservatives, are kept on.  Of course, we know the answer.  Hollywood is left, and applies double standards as a matter of principle.  Roseanne's show, although successful, was an embarrassment, as it tilted conservative.  My own sense is that the A-list party crowd in Hollywood was looking for a way to get rid of her, and, unfortunately, she gave them the route. 

WHAT A WHOPPER – FROM VARIETY:   Netflix has inked a multiyear deal with the Obamas for original programming — but the content from the former First Couple will not have any political bias, according to chief content officer Ted Sarandos.  “This is not The Obama Network,” said Sarandos, speaking Tuesday at the Paley Center for Media in New York. “There’s no political slant to the programming.”
Sarandos was interviewed by journalist Ken Auletta at the event. Noting that the Netflix exec is a Democrat, Auletta asked what he would say to Republicans about Netflix’s seeming political push to the left — including the appointment of former Obama adviser Susan Rice to its board.  “Umm, wait for the programming,” Sarandos responded.  I can't wait.  I'm sure it will be inspirational and non-political.  Just like Obama's presidency.  Choke.

RESEARCH DOLLARS AT WORK – FROM BRITAIN'S TELEGRAPH:  It may seem merely a cliche born of centuries of educated people straining their eyes in dimly-lit libraries, but new genetic research suggests those who wear glasses really are more intelligent.  Researchers at the University of Edinburgh analysed the genetic data of more than 44,480 people.  They found that, overall, those who were more intelligent were nearly 30 per cent more likely to have genes indicating they require reading glasses than those who scored poorly. 

May 29, 2018      Permalink 

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE THE TERROR BUSINESS – AT 11:38 P.M. ET:  A lesson in how to clean up financially through the profitable world of moral sickness.  From the Algemeiner: 

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has amassed a net personal worth of around $250 million due to his organization’s illegal drug smuggling operations, Al-Ittihad, an Arabic language newspaper published in the United Arab Emirates, reported on Monday.

According to the report, which relies on senior Lebanese government sources, the scope of Nasrallah’s fortune was discovered within the framework of a US Drug Enforcement Administration investigation against Hezbollah – which aside from its designation as a terrorist organization also operates as one of the largest drug cartels in the world.

Due to economic sanctions the US has reimposed on Iran and the massive reduction of Tehran’s budget to Hezbollah, Al-Ittihad reported, compounded by the heavy financial toll exacted by involvement in the Syrian civil war, Nasrallah ordered an expansion of the organization’s drug-related activities – which resulted in extensive financial gains for Hezbollah and a personal windfall for Nasrallah himself.

Nasrallah, the report continued, appointed his most trusted associates to closely oversee the organization’s drug smuggling operations.

COMMENT:  A real humanitarian, right?  And some people look up to him as a great spiritual leader.   This kind of illegal profiteering goes on in a number of strife-ridden countries, and the press rarely notices.  Or cares.

May 29, 2018       Permalink

GETTING SERIOUS – AT 11:17 A.M. ET:  The Norks are sending one of their top guys here to help arrange the possible upcoming summit.  I have a feeling that this conference will actually come off.  From the New York Post: 

North Korea is sending its former spymaster to America in hopes of jump-starting the potential summit with President Trump, according to a report Tuesday.

Gen. Kim Yong-chol, former head of his nation’s spy agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, will soon travel to Beijing and Washington D.C. in the latest bid to reschedule the cancelled June 12 North Korea-US summit in Singapore, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

Kim will fly to New York City before heading to Washington, Yonhap said

Kim is well-known in North Korea and represented his nation at this year’s winter Olympics in South Korea — a key moment in the thawing North-South relationship.

President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un had been set to meet in Singapore on June 12 until Trump cancelled it this past Thursday.

Trump later said the meeting could potentially move forward as originally planned.

COMMENT:  An American team is already in North Korea.  The president is, essentially, already negotiating.  He is also being attacked regularly by Washington establishment types who are horrified that he's not doing things their way.  Before you listen to any of these yappers, check their histories to see if they ever succeeded in any negotiations.  It will be a brief answer.

May 29, 2018        Permalink

AGAIN – AT 10:22 A.M. ET:  There has been an Islamic terror attack in Belgium, and three people, including two policewomen, have been killed.  From Reuters:

LIEGE, Belgium (Reuters) - A man killed two policewomen and a bystander in the Belgian city of Liege on Tuesday before being shot dead in a gun battle at a school in what prosecutors are treating as a terrorist attack.

The man was named by public broadcaster RTBF as a 36-year-old petty criminal who had been let out on day-release from a local prison on Monday. It said investigators were looking into whether he had converted to Islam and been radicalized in jail.

A public prosecutor told a news conference that the man attacked the policewomen from behind with a knife, described as a box-cutter by RTBF, around 10:30 a.m. (4.30 a.m. ET) on a boulevard in the center of Belgium’s third city, near the German border.

After stabbing the officers, prosecutor Philippe Duple said, the man seized one of their handguns and shot both women dead before walking down the street and shooting dead a 22-year-old man who was sitting in the passenger seat of a parked car.

And…

La Lib re Oblique newspaper quoted a police source as saying the gunman shouted “Allah Ak bar” — God is greatest in Arabic.

COMMENT:  I'm sure the Islamist angle will be played down by the usual left-wing suspects in European governments.  Or, we will be told this is a "lone wolf." 

Europe and, yes, Britain, seem to be playing down Islamist attacks these days.  Wonder if it has anything to do with encouraging trade deals with the Islamic nation of Iran.  Just gaskin'.

May 29,  2018     Permalink 

MAY 28,  2018

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

I LOVE IT – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  John David Rice-Cameron can trace his conservative roots to his middle school years. Back then, his father would often have talk radio on during rides home from school or tennis practice.  “Sometimes my dad would listen to Rush Limbaugh and he would kind of argue with him,” recalls Rice-Cameron, 20, a sophomore at Stanford University. “I just found myself agreeing with basically everything Rush Limbaugh was saying.”  Rice-Cameron’s parents are Democrats. His mother, Susan Rice, served in the Obama administration, first as U.N. ambassador, then as National Security Advisor.  Is this kid allowed back home?  How do the parents explain him to the Washington cocktail circuit?  It's so hard to hide a family disgrace.

THE BACKLASH BEGINS – FROM DW.COM:   The plan announced on Monday by the Chancellor in Vienna would bar all foreigners from claiming the main benefit payment for five years.  "The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit," Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told a news conference. "That means that whoever has insufficient language skills will not be able to claim the full minimum benefit."  Kurz said that most people on the minimum welfare payment were in Vienna. Roughly half of them were foreign citizens, he said, something he described as "frightening."  This is what happens when immigration policies are set by Western liberals infatuated with their own goodness and virtue.  Steps like this are inevitable until Europe establishes sane, thoughtful immigration reforms.

DISGRACEFUL, BUT COMMON – FROM TODD STARNES:   What was supposed to be a celebration of a four-year collegiate journey for conservative writer and activist Kassy Dillon, was soured by a group of hecklers who booed her at the Mount Holyoke College commencement earlier this month.  Dillon was a guest on the Todd Starnes Radio Show – describing how a group of 15-20 students proceeded to boo her as she stepped forward to receive her diploma.  “It’s a very small school, so most of the students knew what my political ideology was, and so during graduation, as I’m watching all the commencement speakers, there’s students already kinda heckling me, and just saying rude things to me” Dillon said.  Dillon said that she was “not expecting to get booed,” but by doing so, the students “kinda proved what I’ve been saying for four years, that civil discourse is not going well on college campuses, and that’s because the left and the right aren’t communicating because the left has demonized everyone one the right.”  Students who behave that way should have the awarding of their diploma delayed.  It is time for the cowardly "educators" to impose a standard of behavior.

May 28,  2018     Permalink

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PARTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE? – AT 11:28 P.M. ET:   There was a time when the Democratic Party was strong on national defense.  John F. Kennedy's inaugural address was symbolic of his party in that era.

But what's happened since?  Well, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Field Marshal of the United States and the Rest of the Universe Barack Obama, and General of the Armies Nancy Pelosi. 

Now we come to Keith Ellison, deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, who uses Memorial Day to post another patriotic gesture.  From The Hill: 

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said that he will boycott NFL games this upcoming season over the league's new policy requiring players to stand during the national anthem.

“Friends who know me, know that I love football. But I won’t be watching this NFL season because of the unfair cowardly and idiotic kneeling ban,” the progressive lawmaker tweeted on Sunday, adding the hashtag “Boycott NFL.”

The NFL last week approved a new policy requiring that players on the field stand during the anthem. Players will also be allowed to stay in their locker rooms during the anthem, but any players who protest during the “Star Spangled Banner” will face a penalty.

COMMENT:  The new league policy is fine, and doesn't interfere with anyone's "rights."  There is no Constitutional right to stage a political demonstration on someone else's time, on someone else's field, in someone else's uniform and on someone else's team.

The NFL is a private organization.  No one is forced to join it.  Like any other private organization, or company, employers have a right to impose reasonable standards of behavior.  If the players wish to engage in politics, or make political speeches, they have a perfect right to do so on their own time and in another space.

It would have been far more useful if Ellison had come up with some creative suggestions for players to help their communities, but that's not the way of the modern "progressive."

May 28,  2018     Permalink

SEND IN THE CLOWNS – AT 1:18 P.M. ET:   As we commemorate Memorial Day, we recall that many of our battle deaths occurred in Europe, as a result of failed, inept European foreign policies.  We came to the rescue, at great cost.

Our "allies" are at it again, meeting with the arch-terrorist regime that runs Iran, trying to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, from which America has wisely withdrawn.  Lots of trade with Iran, the highest goal apparently, is involved.  As usual, our "allies" seem prepared to appease the enemy for a short-term goal.  From the Algemeiner:   

As EU foreign ministers convened in Brussels on Monday to try and keep alive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Tehran regime’s deputy foreign minister warned that the country’s ballistic missile program — a key factor behind the US decision to reinstate punishing sanctions earlier this month — was a “red line” that could not be crossed in negotiations.

Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Vienna on Sunday that while European parties to the deal, in particular the French government, wanted to address the missile program, Iran was “not willing to discuss such matters.”

French President Emmanuel Macron was reported to have raised the missile issue during a May 9 telephone conversation with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in the context of a broader appeal to Tehran to stick with the agreement despite the US withdrawal.

Araghchi was in the Austrian capital for  first “joint commission” meeting  between Iran and the other signatories of the 2015 deal — China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany — since President Donald Trump announced on May 8 that the US was pulling out of  the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the technical name for the deal, and would instead impose sanctions on Tehran.

One anonymous Iranian official who spoke to the AFP news agency said that as far as the Iranians were concerned, the deal was already in “intensive care.” Iran has threatened to resume more intensive uranium enrichment activities if the deal collapses.

Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, described the atmosphere at the Vienna talks as “good” as she arrived for Monday’s discussions in Brussels with the bloc’s foreign ministers.

“Our work first and foremost is to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran,” she said.

COMMENT:  That's the problem.  The Europeans always go in begging.  The Iranians need this deal far more than the West does.  Make them earn it.  They'll get off the dime with missiles if they feel the weight of the United States, and know that the Europeans will eventually side with the Americans.

Mogherini is a European leftist.   Expect her to try to give away Montana.

May 28, 2018       Permalink

ON MEMORIAL DAY – AT 12:52 P.M. ET:  A sacrifice on Memorial Day.  From Fox: 

Rescuers are searching for a 39-year-old National Guard member Monday who was reported missing a day after he was swept away by fast-moving floodwaters in Maryland’s Ellicott City while attempting to rescue people during devastating floods, family and officials said.

Eddison Hermond, of Severn, was reported missing around 12:30 a.m. Monday, hours after sudden, violent floodwaters destroyed businesses, submerged vehicles and left some flipped and in pieces, Howard Co. Exec Allan Kittleman said. Friends and relatives on Facebook said Hermond, a National Guard member, was rescuing people after 4 p.m. Sunday when he was swept away by floodwaters, FOX45 Baltimore reported. 

Hermond was last seen in the La Palapa area near Lot D on Main Street around 5:20 p.m. Sunday, Howard County Police Department said. Hermond was described as being 5 feet 10 inches tall and 160 pounds.

"He has not been located despite ongoing searches of the area," police said. 

COMMENT:  Our armed forces do many things, and most of them are dangerous.  We hope that Eddison Hermond is found alive, but the picture is grim.

May 28,  2018    Permalink