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

HOW THE GIPPER DID IT – FROM MEDIAITE:  The University of California, Berkeley was the site of a major protest this week, though this is hardly the first time the school witnessed a political demonstration. More than 40 years before students protested a speech from Milo Yiannopoulos, they challenged Ronald Reagan while he was the governor of California.  In 1969, UC Berkeley students protested over city plans for the use of a small community park (People’s Park) near the college. Reagan ordered the California Highway Patrol and Berkeley Police to the school, and he instructed them to use “whatever methods they choose” to crack down on the situation.  Watch the clip of Reagan taking on the press and the professors.  A steppingstone to the presidency.

NUT CASE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:   A former Defense Department official under the Obama administration has raised the specter of a military coup to remove President Donald Trump from power.  In an editorial penned for Foreign Policy, senior Pentagon policy official Rosa Brooks publicly suggested a military insurrection against the Trump administration may be the only option to oust one of the most divisive presidents in American history.  “Donald Trump’s first week as president has made it all too clear: Yes, he is as crazy as everyone feared,” Ms. Brooks wrote. “[One] possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.”  For the first time in her career in public service, including three years as senior counselor to the Pentagon’s policy chief from 2009 to 2011, “I can imagine plausible scenarios in which senior military officials might simply tell the president: ‘No, sir. We’re not doing that.’”
Ms. Brooks‘ editorial comes as a recent poll by Public Policy Polling group found that 40 percent of registered voters support Mr. Trump’s impeachment.  Rosa Brooks was one of the most left-wing officials in the Obama administration.  She is the daughter of hard-left writer Barbara Ehrenreich.  Her comments about the military are particularly uninformed, as the military is never required to follow an illegal order.  Indeed, the military is prohibited from following such an order.  A military coup, though, would clearly be an illegal act. 

MORE IRAN MISSILE TESTS? – FROM BLOOMBERG:   Iran carried out further missile tests during an annual military exercise, a day after President Donald Trump imposed fresh sanctions on a raft of individuals and companies in response to the country test-firing a ballistic rocket last week.  The country successfully tested a range of land-to-land missiles and radar systems during the drills in a 35,000 square-kilometer stretch of desert in the northern Iranian province of Semnan, the semi-official Tasnim agency reported Saturday, citing Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ aerospace division.  The issue is whether the missiles are of a type to concern us, and whether they violate the relevant UN resolution.  We'll know more in a few days.

February 4, 2017