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

SAD – FROM US NAVAL INSTITUTE:  The commanders of the two guided-missile destroyers that were involved in fatal collisions with merchant ships in 2017 will face military criminal charges that include charges related to dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide, after the two incidents that resulted in the death of 17 sailors total, USNI News has learned.  Cmdr. Bryce Benson, former commander of USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62), along with three Fitzgerald junior officers, face a mix charges that include dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide related to the June 18 collision between the ship and ACX Crystal that resulted in the death of seven sailors, defense officials confirmed to USNI News.
Cmdr. Jessie L. Sanchez, former commander of USS John S. McCain (DDG-56), faces similar dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide charges for the Aug. 21 collision between the guided-missile destroyer and a chemical tanker off the coast of Singapore that resulted in the death of 10 sailors.  The individuals will have the charges preferred via Article 32 preliminary hearings soon, defense officials confirmed to USNI News.  How sad, but the charges indicate how seriously the Navy takes these incidents. 

PRESIDENT'S BRAIN FUNCTIONING, DEMOCRATS SHOCKED! – FROM THE SUN:   CAN you count backwards in sevens, draw a clock that reads 10 past 11 or memorise a list of five words?  These tasks may seem pretty basic but they make up questions in the world's standard cognitive assessment test, which Donald Trump passed with flying colours.  The President scored a perfect 100 per cent on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) - a 30 question task created by medical professionals to test for dementia.
It's designed to assess attention, memory, concentration, orientation, visual skills, calculations and executive functions.  To the able-minded, the test may seem overly simple but they are some of the basic mental processes people with the disorder sadly lose.  Trump's doctor earlier revealed how the president scored a perfect 30 on the test, where anything above 26 is considered "normal" and anything below is a cause for concern.  The test, first used in Montreal, Canada, is now one of the most widely respected methods for assessing cognitive health across the globe and is available in 55 languages.  The Democrats and their friends in the press will still suggest that the president has mental problems.  They're down to that.

MORE BRILLIANCE – FROM METRO:    Oddly, the founder of the church of Satan, Anton Lavey, predicted sex robots more than two decades ago – and today’s Satanists still believe they could save us all. In Lavey’s ‘Five Point Plan’, drawn up in the Eighties, he recommended the use of ‘humanoids’ as an outlet for people’s darker impulses. The Church of Satan’s Magistra Blanche Barton wrote, ‘Scientists and techno-geeks are doing a bang-up job in these departments, developing exceedingly realistic artificial human companions, both of the Real Doll and virtual Facebook-friend variety.’  Yeah, that sounds like Satan.  Please reject any offers.  Real men and real women will prevail!

January 16, 2018