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NOVEMBER 28,  2018

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

GREAT ADVANCE IN PUBLIC SAFETY – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A university in Michigan is taking a novel approach to the threat of school shooters, outfitting its faculty with hockey pucks in order to protect against potential mass murderers armed with firearms.  The weaponized pucks at Oakland University are “a ‘last resort’ precaution to throw at any active shooters on campus,” The Detroit News reports.
According to the university’s police chief, the program stemmed from an idea raised during an active shooter training session, in which “one attendee asked what staff and students could bring to prepare themselves for a fight.”  The chief “recalled once being struck in the head with a puck and said it ’caused a fair amount of damage to me’.”  The “spur-of-the-moment” decision “had merit to it and kind of caught on,” the chief said. The faculty union at the university went on to spend $2,500 on the pucks and are distributing them to faculty members, as well as students, for free.  According to one professor, “My first reaction was: You are talking about facing an assault weapon and asking us to fight back with hockey pucks? It sounded silly. Then I went through the training session, and it all made sense. None of us want to face an armed assailant. Students will look to us for leadership in a situation like that.”  Yes, I'm sure students will look to postmodern leftist professors in a situation like that.  The fantasy world of colleges never ceases to amaze.

FASCINATING – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  White liberals present themselves as less competent when addressing minorities, while conservatives use the same vocabulary no matter what the race of their audience, according to a newly released study.  Yale and Princeton researchers found that both white Democratic presidential candidates and self-identified liberals played down their competence when speaking to minorities, using fewer words that conveyed accomplishment and more words that expressed warmth.  On the other hand, there were no significant differences in how white conservatives, including Republican presidential candidates, spoke to white versus minority audiences.  “White liberals self-present less competence to minorities than to other Whites—that is, they patronize minorities stereotyped as lower status and less competent,” according to the study’s abstract.  Cydney Dupree, Yale School of Management assistant professor of organizational behavior, said she was surprised by the findings of the study, which sought to discover how “well-intentioned whites” interact with minorities.  There it is – what we've always suspected.  Liberals patronize minorities, whereas conservatives treat minorities with dignity.  We've always known it.

RETURN OF A WARSHIP – FROM ABC NEWS:   Fifteen months after a deadly collision that killed 10 U.S. sailors, the Navy destroyer USS John McCain is floating again, leaving its dry dock and mooring pier side in Yokosuka, Japan on Tuesday.  On August 21, 2017, 10 sailors were killed when the destroyer collided with an oil tanker as it entered the busy waterway into the port of Singapore, leaving a gaping hole in the port side of the ship. The incident occurred two months after seven sailors were killed when the destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan.  The McCain has been undergoing repairs for nearly a year with final repairs expected to be completed in late 2019, the Navy's 7th Fleet said in a press release on Tuesday. But the ship's move from dry dock to water was marked as a "major milestone" in the ongoing effort to repair and restore the destroyer.  Given the amount of time required for repair, the damage must have been enormous.  The ship, originally named for the late Senator McCain's father and grandfather, was rededicated earlier this year to include the senator.

November 28,  2018     Permalink

AN ABSOLUTE WINNER OF A STORY – YOU MEAN, MINORITIES ARE ALLOWED TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES? – AT 10:45 P.M. ET:   A shocking report from Florida.  Did a mini-revolt among African-American women cost Andrew Gillum the governorship?  It appears to be the case.  From Daily Signal:   

Conservative Republican Ron DeSantis and progressive Democrat Andrew Gillum presented voters with starkly different choices on an array of issues, none more distinctively polar than their plans for charter schools.

In short, DeSantis proposed expanding them while Gillum espoused “siphoning them off” as drains on the public school system.

That distinction—rather than the personalities and ideologies involved—may have compelled about 100,000 African-American women, the vast majority registered Democrats, to vote for DeSantis over Gillum on Nov. 6, according to William Mattox, director of the Marshall Center for Educational Options at the James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee-based conservative think tank.

According to a CNN exit poll, of the roughly 650,000 black women who voted in Florida, 18 percent chose DeSantis over Gillum—an unexpected wedge of support by “school-choice moms” that was the difference in the race, concludes Mattox in a Wall Street Journal analysis of Florida’s midterm elections.

“While 18 percent of the black female vote in Florida is equal to less than 2 percent of the total electorate, in an election decided by fewer than [32,463] votes, these 100,000 black women proved decisive,” Mattox writes.

More than 290,000 students are enrolled in the state’s 650 charter schools. In addition, about 108,000 low-income students participate in the Step Up For Students program, which grants tax-credit funded scholarships to attend private schools.

According to Mattox, most Step Up students are minorities whose mothers are registered Democrats.

COMMENT:  Obviously, Gillum was tone deaf on this issue.  He did the standard leftist thing – arguing that charter schools are an evil, when in fact minority parents love them.  If there's any issue more important than group loyalty, it's children.  Have leftist Democrats heard of children?  Do they approve?

November 28, 2018       Permalink

THERE WILL BE WIND, RAIN, FLOODS, STORMS – OR MAYBE NOT – AT 10:21 A.M. ET:  I immediately declare that I am not an expert on climate change, or global warming, or the end of the world, or any of the predictions made in government reports.  But I am surprised that even the most reckless "reports" are believed in full by the liberal flock, despite serious, informed doubts.  From IBD: 

Global Warming: A new White House report, issued just last Friday, makes alarming projections about future global warming. Not only will it cost billions and billions in lost economic output, that report says, but thousands of lives as well. Time for mass panic? Nope. Just more fake science.

The new National Climate Assessment (NCA) report, the fourth since 2000, seems to suggest a coming climate disaster, to paraphrase the film comedy "Ghost Busters," of "epic, even biblical proportions." But its forecasts and models border on the absurd. At some point, the scientific malpractice in these global warming scare reports has to end.

Some of the projections sound like something kicked around in a Hollywood brainstorming session for a science fiction thriller, and not like the results of sober scientific reasoning and balanced statistical modeling techniques. We shouldn't be surprised, however. The three reports that preceded this one were equally bad.

By the way, that's not us speaking,  but actual climate scientists. They say the latest government climate change report does a disservice to Americans by once again politicizing science and ignoring both real data and history.

The report's conclusions are so extreme as to be laughable. For one, it predicts that use of coal and other fossil fuels will destroy 10% of U.S. GDP by the end of the century. Those are nice projections, since none of those who made them will be alive to see them proven totally false.

The fact is, access to fossil fuels has been the key driver of global economic success since the industrial age began. Cheap, plentiful fossil fuels during the last 175 years led to the greatest economic surge in human history. Carbon-based fuels moved literally billions of people around the world out of lives of grinding poverty and hard physical labor and into unparalleled wealth and comfort.

And...

The entire global warming "reporting" process is so heavily politicized, it doesn't qualify as science. The group responsible for the report, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is largely a creation of the Obama administration. Global warming true believers are its backbone. Indeed, parts of the report just released were written during the Obama years.

The point is, there are no real skeptics on board for this report and the three dating back to 2000 that preceded it. Just true believers. And the worst, least believable part of the White House report is based on research by organizations funded in part by  global warming extremists and billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's very well argued.  What we need is a neutral presidential commission, like the Challenger commission, to examine the entire field of climate change.  What do we know?  What don't we know?  What must we know to make sound decisions?

We should remember that millions are being made in the "climate change" industry.  We should recall President Eisenhower's warning about the impact of federal grants on scientific results.  We are being asked to spend trillions to counter the effects of "climate change," but the science is under serious question.

Don't depend on the media for solutions.  They're on board with the liberal agenda, regardless of facts.

November 28, 2018      Permalink 

AMERICAN OPTIMISM RETURING – AT 9:31 A.M. Many pollsters see the right track/wrong track survey as key to understanding where America is politically.  It measures whether Americans think the country is on the right track or wrong track, and the judgments are often tough.  From Rasmussen: 

Forty-four percent (44%) of Likely U.S. Voters think the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey for the week ending November 21.

This week’s finding is up three points from last week and is the highest level of optimism since early September. This finding has been running in the 40s for most weeks this year after being in the mid- to upper 20s for much of 2016, President Obama's last full year in office.

COMMENT:  It's remarkable how the mainstream press keeps referring to Trump as unpopular, a label it never applied to Obama.  And yet, polling places Trump equal to or above Obama at this point in their presidencies. 

The president is actually reasonably popular.  He is on a fairly stable path to re-election.

However, there are danger signs.  I am starting to see a certain weariness, even among his supporters, over Mr. Trump's awkward statements, his unnecessary harshness, and his refusal to give detailed, thoughtful explanations for his policies.  Even Victor Davis Hanson, one of the president's strongest supports in the academic world and on the internet, has expressed frustration.  Mr. Trump has a self-destructive streak.  And his ego often overwhelms him.

So far, the president has survived his own personal faults.  But in the face of a personally attractive Democratic candidate in 2020, that may change.

Mr. Trump can start by delivering a presidential address to the nation, from the Oval Office, on the subject of immigration.  No insults.  No personal attacks.  Thoroughly presidential.  It will help him, and help his cause.

November 28,  2018     Permalink

NOVEMBER 27,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET: 

SET YOUR RECORDERS – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  Al Gore will host a 24-hour broadcast special on climate change next month featuring an array of celebrities and musical performances by artists that include Moby and the Goo Goo Dolls.  The former vice president on Tuesday announced the eighth annual “24 Hours of Reality: Protect Our Planet, Protect Ourselves,” which will be televised in more than 125 countries and streamed live online at 24HoursofReality.org, according to a news release.  The special will include performances by Moby, the Goo Goo Dolls, Sting & Shaggy, Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, among others, as well as celebrity appearances by Jaden Smith, Bill Nye, Téa Leoni, Claire Danes and Cody Simpson.   I hear the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra is right up there with Glenn Miller. 

LATEST CAMPUS SICKNESS – FROM THE COLLEGE FIX:  Students at the Georgia Institute of Technology have launched a protest against the upcoming appearance of former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the keynote speaker at the school’s upcoming December commencement ceremony.  Her pending visit has prompted a group of progressive students to pepper the campus with anti-Rice fliers and launch a campaign against the first African American woman to hold the post of Secretary of State.  A petition headlined “Say No to Condoleezza Rice” is now making the rounds. It was created by Georgia Tech’s Young Democratic Socialists chapter and decries Rice’s legacy as one of “deceit, torture, imperialism, illegal warfare, and other appalling human rights violations.”  What are nuts like this doing at a leading engineering school?

SHE'S BACK – FROM REUTERS:   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nancy Pelosi was expected on Wednesday to become the Democratic nominee for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, giving her the inside track to reclaim the House’s top job in January, when critics in her own party may seek to block her.  The 78-year-old San Francisco liberal, a frequent target of Republican critics, faces a small faction of Democrats who are refusing to back her for the post in which she made history from 2007 to 2011 as the first woman speaker.  Pelosi critic Representative Kathleen Rice said on Tuesday that while the rebels could not stop Pelosi from getting the Democratic caucus’s nomination for speaker at a closed-door party meeting on Wednesday, they could block her election on Jan. 3 when Pelosi must win a majority of the whole House, both Republicans and Democrats, to become speaker.  The party is a mess.  At least Pelosi has some experience.  Now all they need is ideas. 

November 27, 2018      Permalink

BULLETIN – AT 10:28 P.M. ET:  Republican US Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith has won the Senate runoff election in Mississippi, thus keeping the seat in Republican hands.  The new Senate will be 53 Republicans versus 47 Democrats (or independents who caucus with the Dems.)

With 73% of the vote in, Hyde-Smith has 56.1% versus 43.8% for Dem challenger Mike Espy.  It wasn't even close, despite the pre-election hype that an upset was very possible.  I wonder where the hype came from, or was it wishful thinking by liberal journalists.

The Senate is where judges are confirmed.  That is critical.  President Trump is reshaping the federal judiciary along conservative lines.  He already has put in place two new Supreme Court justices.  It's probable he'll have a third chance, although we certainly don't wish ill on any sitting justice. 

November 27, 2018       Permalink

OH, I JUST CAN'T WAIT – There are just things that send a tingle down my leg.  Isn't it true with you as well?  I bring you this with great excitement.  From The Hill: 

Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) said Monday that he would not rule out a run for president in 2020, backtracking on recent statements that he would not seek the White House.

O’Rourke, who rocketed to national fame with his campaign to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), indicated Monday that he and his wife are discussing the possibility.

“Amy and I made a decision not to rule anything out,” O’Rourke told reporters after a town hall in El Paso, according to The Washington Post.

Cruz defeated O’Rourke in a surprisingly close race in deep-red Texas, but the El Paso Democrat’s loss immediately sparked widespread calls for him to challenge President Trump.

During his Senate campaign, he pushed aside calls for him to run for president, saying on MSNBC: “I will not be a candidate for president in 2020. That’s, I think, as definitive as those sentences get.”
The progressive star, a three-term congressman, has drawn comparisons to former President Barack Obama.

O'Rourke's wife, Amy O’Rourke, said that the couple has not spoken with any political strategists, and said that the possibility of her husband running a presidential campaign was flattering and “scary.”

“To me that just seems like you have to give up so much,” Amy O’Rourke said, according to The Post. “I don’t know if this is a line that I or we really want to cross.”

O’Rourke would be entering a crowded field of Democrats hoping to take on Trump in 2020, with many speculating that former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) could all throw their hats in the ring.

COMMENT:  Oh yes, oh yes, there is a wanting of Beto on the part of "progressive" (read that "regressive") Democrats.  So what if he lost his most recent election?  So what if he has the mind of a child?  So what if he comes from a rich family and tries to hide it?  So what if his name isn't Beto, but Robert Francis, and that he took on "Beto" to sound Hispanic?  So what if he doesn't have one qualification to be president? 

Beto, or Robert Francis, is a personality, little more.  The press loves him because it loves a show, and it loves shallow personalities.  Recall one Barack Obama, who was sold to us as a savior for the nation.  Beto will be formidable, as he was in the recent Texas Senate election.  He will make news.  He will become a fashion icon, with his closely cut jeans, and the public will be "reminded" of the Kennedys, whom he's tried to mimic.

And he could be elected.  Talk about a tingle down your leg.  That could send a chill up your spine.

November 27, 2018       Permalink

PRESIDENT HOLDS – AT 11:38 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen is back after the Thanksgiving holiday, and reports that the president's approval rating is essentially unchanged from before the holiday.  From Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 49% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove. 

The latest figures include 35% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 40% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -5.

COMMENT:  We stress, always, that a poll is a snapshot in time.  Rasmussen tends to show higher numbers for the president than other polls, but it also polls likely voters, for a more accurate result.  It is also the only daily tracker left, and we use it to observe trends, not just specific numbers.

Other polls show the president in the mid-forties, which still isn't bad.  Pretty much where Obama was, or better. 

On a related matter, the number of House seats won by the Dems this past election keeps growing, one by one, as final results and recounts are tallied.  But what does that mean?  The fact that it has taken weeks to nail down final numbers in a group of races tells us how close those races were.  Many seats were flipped to the Dems by the narrowest of margins, and can be flipped back in 2020.  It was not a particularly great victory for the Democrats, but it is being sold as a blue wave by the compliant press.

November 27,  2018     Permalink