SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET: 

WHAT COUNTRY DO THEY REPRESENT? – FROM PJ MEDIA:  In multiple embassies around the world, particularly those staffed entirely by career Foreign Service officers, no portrait of President Trump or Vice-President Pence has been hung. Up until last week, the swamp had an excuse – there was no official portrait and the swamp refused to go to the trouble to find unofficial ones.  But it’s not just the entrances to embassies where it seems the 2016 election never happened. All throughout the government, Obama-holdovers rabidly opposed to President Trump and his policies still hold positions of extraordinary power. The swamp is alive and well.  Consider the National Security Council where Fernando Cutz is enabling Trump’s most mortal enemies – George Soros and the globalist Left – to threaten to topple the pro-American government of one of America’s closest allies, Guatemala.  Cutz is the director of South American policy at the National Security Council. He is a graduate of the Clinton School of Public Service, managed Obama’s cozying up to the Communists in Cuba, was on the Obama National Security Council staff in the “global engagement” office, and is a committed swamp creature of the foreign service genus.  This is poor management on the administration's part.  Drain the swamp.  The swamp dwellers can always get jobs with Castro.

GOOD GUY – FROM CBS SPORTS:   Saturday night, former Dodgers announcer and Hall of Famer Vin Scully was at the Pasadena Civic Center for an event called "An Evening With Vin Scully."  At some point during the event, Scully was asked about the NFL's national anthem protests, in which players have taken a knee during the anthem to protest police brutality and racism. Scully said he "will never watch another NFL game" because of the protests.  "I have only one personal thought, really. And I am so disappointed. And I used to love, during the fall and winter, to watch the NFL on Sunday. And it's not that I'm some great patriot. I was in the Navy for a year -- didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything. But I have overwhelming respect and admiration for anyone who puts on a uniform and goes to war. So the only thing I can do in my little way is not to preach. I will never watch another NFL game."   I remember Vin from the days of my youth in Brooklyn, when he first joined the Brooklyn Dodgers broadcast team.  Always a class act, and a good citizen.

INTELLECTUALS – FROM CONSERVATIVE REVIEW:  The stupid. It hurts. Less than a week after a jihadi drove a rented truck through a crowd of people in a terrorist attack, the lefties at BuzzFeed have come up with a solution. No, it’s not extreme vetting, or ferreting out radical Islamists hell-bent on jihad. No … BuzzFeed wants to ban cars from big cities.   I'm not at all shocked.  The left is anti-auto because...well, because.  It's part of the ideology.  Cars bad.  Subways good.  Cars bad.  Bikes good.  Cars bad.  Private fuel-guzzling jets...real good. 

November 5, 2017