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SEPTEMBER 30,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:31 P.M. ET: 

A COACH'S WISDOM – FROM FOX:  Legendary football coach Lou Holtz recalled to "Fox & Friends Weekend" how he told his teams every fall to leave their causes at home.  "The first thing I told the football team every fall, we'll not use our football team to promote any cause, whether it be abortion, gay rights, gun laws," Holtz remembered. "You're not going to bring girlfriends, you aren't going to bring a slogan, you aren't going to bring a cause under our football team."  The National Football League's approval ratings are down again after more players protested the national anthem this week.  Good words from a great coach.

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP – FROM FOX:  A Massachusetts elementary school librarian rejected First Lady Melania Trump's “National Read a Book Day" donation of ten Dr. Seuss books.  Liz Phipps Soeiro, a librarian at a public school in Cambridge, wrote a letter to Trump, informing her that her school would not be keeping the books for their collection. She explained that her school didn’t have a “NEED” for the books and that Dr. Seuss's illustrations are steeped in "racist propaganda, caricatures and harmful stereotypes."  Stephanie Grisham, director of communications for the first lady's office, said in a statement that it's "unfortunate" to turn the gesture of sending young students books into something divisive.  A picture surfaced showing the librarian in a Dr. Seuss costume.  The hypocrisy flows.

REAL CLASS – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Once The Juice is loose, he’ll put the squeeze on TV networks for millions for rights to an exclusive interview, sources close to O.J. Simpson told The Post.  “He’s not talking for free,” a longtime confidant told The Post a few days before Simpson’s expected Monday release from High Desert State Prison near Las Vegas. “It has to be the big one because he’s only going to do it one time and it has to be worth his while.”  The disgraced gridiron great is expected to ask for $3 million to $5 million to sit down with the likes of NBC’s Matt Lauer, Megyn Kelly or Lester Holt; ABC’s Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan; or CBS’ newest “60 Minutes” correspondent Oprah Winfrey, the source said.  If Oprah can get him to admit his guilt, the country might make her president. But I hope nobody pays a cent to this guy.

September 30,  2017     Permalink          

PRESENTING, DIRECT FROM THE SWAMP, THE MUELLER TEAM – AT 2:17 P.M. ET:  The guy investigating the Trump campaign has assembled his team, and a mighty team it is.  And a Democratic Party team it also is.  From ABC:   

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has assembled a team of more than a dozen seasoned prosecutors to probe Russian interference in the 2016 election, including any potential collusion between Russian agents and members of Donald Trump’s campaign.

In addition to a squad of agents from the FBI and the IRS, Mueller has 16 attorneys on staff, a spokesperson for Special Counsel Robert Mueller confirmed to ABC News, but only 14 of them have been identified publicly.

COMMENT:  Please read the story and go down the list.  What stuns us is the number of people on the Mueller team who are contributors to the Democratic Party.  I mean, appearances count.  Don't they? 

If there are indictments, there's no doubt the Trump administration, and the pro-Trump media will start screaming about the Democratic loyalists working for Mueller.  They should be screaming now.

September 30, 2017       Permalink

REX:  WE'RE TALKING TO NORTH KOREA – AT 1:48 P.M. ET:    This may be no news, or may be important.  Hard to tell.  From ABC: 

The Trump administration confirmed Saturday for the first time that it is in direct communication with North Korea's government over its government's escalating missile and nuclear programs.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking off-camera with reporters during his trip to China's capital, acknowledged that the administration is speaking to North Korea "directly, through our own channels."

"We have lines of communication to Pyongyang. We're not in a dark situation, a blackout," he said from the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Beijing. "We can talk to them. We do talk to them."

Tillerson said the Trump administration has "three channels" open with the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The top U.S. diplomat also said that broad sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear program "are beginning to have an effect."

COMMENT:  It's always wise to have lines of communication open.  During the Cold War we had a hotline available so the president could speak directly to the Soviet premier, on a moment's notice.

However, I hope that having lines open does not mean more 1) appeasement or 2) kicking the can down the road.  We are in a nuclear and missile crisis with North Korea because its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction was never stopped, despite negotiations that went on for years.  Lines of communication are a tool.  They are not a solution.

September 30, 2017        Permalink

WHO IS THIS NUT? – AT 12:52 P.M. ET:  President Trump is now engaged in a new dispute, this time with the odd mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The island has been hit hard by the recent hurricanes.  Two days ago the mayor praised President Trump for his rescue efforts.  Yesterday, though, she savaged him, saying that the island faced "genocide," and begging for help.

Furious, the president tweeted, probably in a moment of anger, that the mayor is incompetent and that the islanders aren't doing enough in their own behalf.

The press has gone crazy, shades of Katrina, siding with the embattled mayor and trying to make the president, who has acted superbly in the face of these recent storms, look like a meanie.  It won't work.

Who is this mayor, who has suddenly turned against the mayor, probably under orders from the Democratic National Committee?  From Daily Caller: 

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who attacked President Donald Trump for his response to last week’s hurricane in Puerto Rico, previously praised FALN terrorist leader Oscar Lopez Rivera.

Yulin Cruz is a member of Puerto Rico’s Popular Democratic Party that wants the island to remain a U.S. territory. But she sounded more like a member of the island’s Independence Party in a video that surfaced back in January when President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Rivera Lopez...

...“Hello, San Juan. Freedom forOscar Lopez Rivera. Soon he will be with us. We have to thank every Puerto Rican man and woman, who for a long time, many of us who didn’t know Oscar Lopez Rivera. He was fighting the fight,” she said.

“We’re going to give you more details when we welcome this great Puerto Rican patriot in a cause that unites us and to know that, in spite of our differences, we can do big things in this country,” she continued.

Yulin Cruz added, “This great celebration is going to be the streets and it is going to be extraordinarily large, So do come by starting Thursday to celebrate what our hearts scream for. Thanks President Obama. Long live Oscar Lopez Rivera.”

Lopez Rivera was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in the FALN, a Puerto Rican separatist group that was responsible for more than 100 bombings in the U.S. during the 1970s and 1980s.

COMMENT:  Pretty nice, huh?  And now this fraud is attacking the president, who'll be visiting Puerto Rico on Tuesday, and who has already sent 10,000 emergency workers to the island.

Oh, by the way, Puerto Rico is bankrupt.  Do you see much on that from the media? 

September 30,  2017     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 29,  2017

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

WHAT TRUMP IS TALKING ABOUT – FROM BREITBART:    One-third of IBM employees are currently based in India, despite the company’s American roots, according to a report.  In a report, the News India Times claimed IBM “has about 130,000 employees in India which is about one-third of its total work force, and more than in any other country.”  The News India Times also reported IBM’s employment in India “has nearly doubled since 2007, while its work force in the United States has shrunk.”  Every job overseas is one less for an American.  We must pursue the president's goal of bringing jobs back to America.

THE WANTING OF OPRAH? – FROM THE WRAP:  Oprah Winfrey insists she’s “not running” for president.  Winfrey TV set off a media firestorm Friday after tweeting a New York Post article that proclaimed her as “Democrats’ best hope” in 2020.  “She was just thanking the reporter, she is not running for office,” a publicist for Winfrey told TheWrap.  In his op-ed, Post columnist John Podhoretz praised Winfrey’s “60 Minutes” piece last Sunday and how she handled a heated debate between Michigan voters on both sides of aisle.  I don't think this is the last word.  I mean, Oprah is probably thinking, "Look, if Trump could be elected..."  I wouldn't laugh at this prospect.  These are odd political times.

THE PRICE WASN'T RIGHT – FROM THE POLITICO:   HHS Secretary Tom Price resigned Friday in the face of multiple federal inquiries and growing criticism of his use of private and government planes for travel, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $1 million since May.  The White House said the former seven-term Georgia congressman, 63, offered his resignation earlier in the day and that President Donald Trump had accepted it.  Price becomes the first Trump administration Cabinet secretary to step down. The White House said Trump asked Deputy Assistant Health Secretary Don Wright to serve as acting secretary of the agency, which has an annual budget of $1.15 trillion and includes the Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as the FDA, NIH and CDC.  There is serious speculation about the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.  The president has criticized him publicly, and is believed by many credible observers still to be dissatisfied with him.  There have been a number of dismissals and resignations in the Trump administration.  Some see that as a sign of chaos.  I disagree.  I see it as a sign of an active president who watches over his administration very carefully, and wants the best. 

September 29, 2017       Permalink     

VERY SAD, VERY SAD – AT 1:42 P.M. ET:    The knee movement was begun by star football player Colin Kaepernick.  You'd think a man in his position would be careful to show respect for the cause he claims to represent.  Well, as they say, mistakes are made.  From the Washington Times:

Colin Kaepernick started out taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality, but his activism has since expanded to encompass a wide range of leftist causes, including a group named after a convicted cop-killer.

The Colin Kaepernick Foundation donated in April $25,000 to Assata’s Daughters, a Chicago “direct action” resistance organization honoring Assata Shakur, who escaped prison and fled to Cuba after being found guilty in the 1973 murder of Officer Werner Foerster.

The grant includes $2,500 for CopWatch, a program that trains volunteers to follow and video police, and $15,000 for teen training, part of the group’s commitment to “develop and train young people, ages 4-19, in the Black queer feminist tradition and in the spirit of Assata.”

Apparently Mr. Kaepernick is also a fan: He retweeted a July 16 message wishing Shakur a happy birthday.

The contribution came as part of Mr. Kaepernick’s pledge last year to donate $1 million over 10 months to “organizations working in oppressed communities.”

COMMENT:  Mr. Kaepernick has not yet commented on this matter, to the best of our knowledge.  Don't look for too much concern at MSNBC or CNN.

September 29, 2017       Permalink

YANQUI GOIN' HOME! – AT 11:48 A.M. ET:  The United States is withdrawing personnel from Cuba, after American diplomats became seriously sickened by some kind of attack.  I'm sure Obama would have done nothing, or covered it up.  Times have changed, I'm happy to say.  From CBS News: 

WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. officials say the United States is pulling roughly 60 percent of its staff out of Cuba and warning American travelers not to visit due to "specific attacks" that have harmed U.S. diplomats.

The officials say the U.S. is ordering all nonessential staff in the embassy in Havana to leave, along with all family members. Only "emergency personnel" will remain.

The U.S. is also warning American citizens they could be harmed if they travel to Cuba. A State Department travel warning will note that attacks on diplomats have occurred in hotels.

The officials say the U.S. is halting visa processing in Cuba indefinitely. They say the steps will remain until Cuba can assure the U.S. its diplomats are safe.

The officials weren't authorized to comment publicly and demanded anonymity.

CBS News reported Thursday that the U.S. had been preparing a major withdrawal of staff and family from the U.S. embassy in Cuba in response to attacks targeting diplomats.

An internal memo was sent to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggesting a drawing down of personnel in Havana. The meeting this week between Tillerson and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla did nothing to help assure the U.S. that Cuban officials are doing enough to protect the safety and welfare of U.S. diplomats in their country. Though Cuba is allowing U.S. investigators into the country, it has not convinced the U.S. that it's taken any real action to prevent the health attacks.

COMMENT:   Good, good, good.   The agreement made by Secretary of State John (Neville Chamberlain was my hero) Kerry to open relations with Cuba was a joke, entirely one-sided.  The United States got almost nothing, and the people of Cuba got zilch. 

There are still plenty of Obama holdovers in the State Department.  Fortunately, they couldn't stop this important move by the Trump brigade.

September 29, 2017       Permalink 

PRESIDENT HOLDS AND GAINS – AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  Politically, the question is whether President Trump gains or loses by the current controversy over knees and football.  It appears he is gaining.  From Rasmussen Reports: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.
The latest figures include 29% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 46% who Strongly Disapprove.

COMMENT:  When the controversy erupted, Trump was running at about 41 or 42 percent in the Rasmussen poll, which has a good record of accuracy.  Today's 45 percent number is clearly encouraging.  It's about where Barack Obama spent most of his presidency.

I think there are other signs that the president is winning.  The NFL is clearly concerned about its standing and the standing of pro football in general.  There has been a flurry of meetings, and some of the teams are trying to work out reasonable compromises.  Viewership is down.  Money is being lost.

I sense a widespread feeling that the "knee guys" simply chose the wrong timing in making their protests.  You don't insult the flag or the anthem.  You can protest on your own time, and even with a large group of players. 

I'd imagine the knee story will fade.  But at this stage, the president comes out on top.

September 29,  2017     Permalink