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

A TWISTED MIND – FROM BREITBART:  A left-wing German politician has admitted she lied to police about the nationality of three men who raped her in case it triggered racism against migrants in her country.  Selin Gören, who is a spokeswoman for the left-wing youth movement Solid, was attacked in the city of Mannheim in January while working as a refugee activist. She was ambushed in a play area late at night and forced to perform a sex act on her attackers.  Although she went straight to the police after the attack, she did not report the ethnicity of the men, nor that they were speaking Arabic or Farsi.  Instead, she said the men spoke German and robbed her.  However, after her initial interview she went back to the police 12 hours later and told the truth.  She told the latest edition of Germany’s Spiegel magazine that, after the reaction to the Cologne sex attacks, she did not want to create “more hatred against migrants in Germany”.  A true case of left-wing brainwashing.  I wonder how other victims of sexual assault feel about this holier-than-thou fanatic.

DECISIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES – FROM US NEWS & WORLD REPORT:   Attorneys for people who allegedly mishandled classified information say the outcome of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton could be good news for their clients.  Though many see a double standard in FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to recommend charges against the former secretary of state who used a personal and unsecured email system for official business, others see possibilities.  Mark Zaid, a defense attorney for national security whistleblowers and people accused of mishandling secrets, says he plans to ask for “the Clinton deal” in the future.  And Zaid says he probably can get it.  In 2015, shortly after former CIA Director David Petraeus received a plea deal featuring probation and a fine for sharing highly classified information with his mistress Paula Broadwell, Zaid says he called the Justice Department on behalf of a client accused of taking classified records home.  “We absolutely got on the phone to the prosecutor and said, ‘We want the Petraeus sentence. We want the commensurate, parallel sentence.’ And we got it!” he says, winning a $5,000 fine and a short probation term instead of possible prison for a now-retired intelligence agency employee.  Another service the Clinton syndicate performed for America.

THE CRUMBLING MUSIC BUSINESS – FROM BILLBOARD:   It's the worst year (so far) for music sales since the 1991 debut of SoundScan (now Nielsen Music). Album sales, including track-equivalent albums (TEA, whereby 10 track sales equal one album unit) are down 16.9 percent in the first half of this year. But sales figures no longer tell the whole story of the record business.  First, let's bottom-line those disappearing sales. Album units overall fell 13.6 percent, with 100.3 million total sales. The compact disc continued to crumble, losing 11.6 percent and moving 50 million. Digital album sales fell to 43.8 million, from 53.7 million in the first half of last year. Vinyl sales continued to move up and to the right, growing 11.4 percent, to 6.2 million. New album releases have been most affected by the continued contraction, falling 20.2 percent overall, to 44.1 million units. Catalog albums fell "just" 7.7 percent, to 56.2 million.   It's streaming audio that's doing this.  Why buy albums when you can order them up digitally?  I still love the sound of vinyl records on a great stereo system.  But I'm over 16, so what could I know?

July 6, 2016