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

EARTH-SHAKING POLITICAL NEWS – There was a Democratic debate tonight.  Teams of Navy SEALS and Army Rangers have been dispatched to try to find anyone who watched.  There are rumors of an old guy in New Jersey.  So far, we haven't gotten much pundit reaction, except we hear that Bernie Sanders did well, Hillary did less well but held her own, and Martin O'Malley didn't tell anyone he was there.  The debate was scheduled opposite the NFL and "Downton Abbey."  It is reported that Bill Clinton was watching "Downton Abbey" throughout.  Has a thing for Lady Mary.  So I guess we'll have to wait for tomorrow for some serious analysis, if any is needed.  With two weeks to go before Iowa, the analysis will soon reflect actual voting.

LOWER EDUCATION – From the College Fix:   A professor and two graduate students in the University of Denver’s Department of Communications Studies today assert in an op-ed for college’s newspaper, The Clarion, that university emails regarding the November terrorist attacks in Paris were “biased towards white life.”  “It is our opinion that, despite these emails, DU participates in making its ‘marginalized communities’ feel unwelcomed because of an implicit bias toward white life not extended to the lives of nonwhite people. Our discussion of Paris is not meant to ignore the loss of life there, but to point out the valorization of white life assumed by DU,” they write.  Professor Armond R. Towns and graduate students Raisa Alvarado and Jamie Guzmán say the university shows “no concern with life returning to ‘normal’ when ‘terrorists’ attack Muslims,” and that “the assumption is that DU is most impacted by events that occur in Western countries,” not in, for example, “Mexico, Kenya, Baltimore, Palestine, or Baghdad.”  Last time I looked, Baltimore was in a Western country.  But who am I to challenge an alternative narrative?

KASICH ROMPS?  REALLY?  From the Washington Examiner:   The Nashua Telegraph endorsed John Kasich for the Republican nomination Sunday, an announcement that follows endorsements by two other New Hampshire papers during the week.  On Thursday, the Portsmouth Herald and the Foster's Daily Democrat endorsed Kasich for the nomination while also endorsing Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.  "Kasich is not the flashiest candidate in the field, but he has proven a highly effective leader both in Congress and as Ohio's top executive. In a race awash in half-truths and exaggerations, Kasich can stand on his record of accomplishment without the need to embellish it," Foster's and the Portsmouth Herald write in a joint editorial. The two papers share a publisher.  The Nashua Telegraph endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012, who went on to win New Hampshire and the GOP nomination.  If John Kasich's campaign for president is going to catch fire, it will be in New Hampshire. He polls best in the Grantite State out of any state other than his native Ohio, and he has invested heavily in succeeding there.   I doubt if these endorsements will have much impact.  Voters have seen Kasich, and they simply don't respond.  That's the bottom line.  There are plenty of people who'd vote against Abraham Lincoln because he had a high-pitched voice.

January 17, 2016