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APRIL 1,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:33 P.M. ET: 

GOOD FOR HIM – From Newsday:  "Seventeen-year-old Kwasi Enin of Shirley, New York, took a shot at -- and won -- what amounts to an academic royal flush: He applied to and was accepted at all eight Ivy League schools."  He's an African-American who has relatives who are also high academic achievers.  It shows it can be done.  He should be a role model in his community.  Sadly, he probably won't be.

STRANGE VICTORY – They were doing victory laps at the White House today, with Obama himself claiming that 7.1 million people signed up for coverage under Obamacare.  The deadline for signing was midnight yesterday.  However, some enterprising journalists and researchers are warning that the figure is distorted.  It's estimated by RAND Corporation that only a third of those signing up were previously uninsured.  The rest already had health insurance.  The whole idea behind Obamacare was to insure the claimed 40 million Americans who didn't have insurance.  Clearly, that goal is not being met.  And many people are losing their doctors and hospitals.  Still a loser for the Dems.

LEGAL NEWS – From The Times of Israel:  "Ahmad al-Gamal, an Egyptian columnist for Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sabi, advocated in the newspaper on March 11 that Egypt sue the State of Israel for damages caused by the 10 Biblical plagues.  'We want compensation for the plagues that were inflicted upon [us] as a result of the curses that the Jews’ ancient forefathers [cast] upon our ancient forefathers, who did not deserve to pay for the mistake that Egypt’s ruler at the time, Pharaoh, committed,' the cranky journalist wrote, according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute."  I think this will be settled out of court. 

HEROIC MARINES – From Fox:  "Three Marines were attacked early Sunday morning after police say they defended a woman wearing an Angels jersey arguing with two men in a Dodgers jersey.  Huntington Beach police Lt. Mitch O'Brien says the woman got into a heated argument with two men over baseball even though neither team was playing nearby. The passing Marines reportedly got involved when the conflict escalated and tried to help the woman.  Police say two Marines were stabbed, one of them cut with a broken bottle in front of police. They remain hospitalized, but are expected to survive. The third was treated and released."  I hope the Marine Corps formally recognizes the bravery of these off-duty Marines.

April 1, 2014       Permalink

LIBERALISM? – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  President Obama keeps complaining about financial inequality in the United States.  He should.  He's contributed to it.  From Breitbart:   

The rich keep getting richer -- and the gap between the super rich and poor has widened even more under President Barack Obama.

According to a report from Sadoff Investment Research, the "average household in the top 1% pulled in earnings of $1,264,065 in 2012," which is "41 times greater than the $30,997 average income of Americans."

But the top .1% did considerably better than the top 1%, posting "average earnings of $6,373,782, or 206 times the average families' income."

According to the report, nearly a quarter of the .1% work in the financial industry, 40% are "executives, managers and supervisors," and a "vast majority of the 0.1% live in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington D.C. or Houston."

COMMENT:  Even many conservatives agree that the income gap in America is too wide.  But the key to narrowing it, aside from more responsible compensation scales by corporations, is growing the economy, which is not being done to any great effect.  Our "recovery" has been anemic for five years, with little prospect for much improvement.

There is plenty of blame to go around, but a national administration that has a gut antagonism to free enterprise is not helpful.

April 1, 2014       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  From the great Mark Steyn, commenting on this "age of education":

In 1940, a majority of the US population had no more than a Grade Eight education.

By 2008, 40 per cent of 18-24 year-olds were enrolled in college.

So we're on track to a world in which the typical American is almost twice as old by the time he completes his education as he was in 1940, and has spent over twice as long in the classroom...

Eighth Grade America won the Second World War and emerged as the economic and creative dynamo of the planet. Complacency Studies America can't even put up a building within a decade - or find anyone other than a half-blind Muslim security guard to watch o'er it. (If al-Qaeda had a sense of humor, they'd blow up the empty World Trade Center "Freedom Tower" the day before the ribbon-cutting. But fortunately they don't, so they won't.)

You can't (as Obama wants to do) send everyone to university and still expect it to be "university" as that term was understood through the previous half-millennium. It's now a euphemism for (from the faculty's point of view) a little light social engineering in the manners and mores of progressive conformism and (from the students' point of view) an agreeable and undemanding extension of adolescence for another half-decade. Whether it's worth over a trillion dollars in collective personal debt or the attendant costs in later workplace participation, later family formation and general societal infantilization is another matter. But it's not "university".

COMMENT:  Well said, but don't expect the mainstream media to do any serious reporting on the state of higher education.  There are too many "star" journalists and news executives waiting for their honorary degrees or their invitations to deliver commencement addresses.  Indeed, one of the most corrupt relationships in media is the relationship between journalism and universities.  With all that we read in the alternative media about low standards, political correctness, hate-America-ism, and bloated college budgets and fees, we see little hint of these plagues in the mainstream media. 

And we must ask ourselves whether two generations of college graduates have actually improved the country.  I have my doubts.  Look around you.

April 1, 2014       Permalink

PUTTING US TO SHAME – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  It isn't always the case, but sometimes Britain and some European countries seem to understand the extremist Muslim threat better than we do, or at least better than the president does.  From London's Daily Mail:

David Cameron has ordered an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood to check whether it is planning attacks in the Middle East from Britain.

Seems a logical investigation to me.

Downing Street confirmed that the review will look at the ‘philosophy and activities’ of the organisation and whether official policy towards it should be hardened.

It was reported last night that the probe will include assessments from MI6, the foreign intelligence service, into whether the body was behind a spate of recent attacks in Egypt.

The domestic intelligence service, MI5, will be asked to look into how many senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are based in the UK.

The inquiry will also look into claims that leaders of the organisation met in London late last year to decide its strategy.

There are concerns that the capital is being used as a hub for its extremist activities.

Following the army-led coup in Egypt, some Brotherhood leaders are reported to have fled to London, and may be co-ordinating their next move from a flat in the north-west suburb of Cricklewood.

COMMENT:  Compare please to Barack Hussein Obama Jr, who was clearly heartsick when the Muslim Brotherhood regime was overthrown in Egypt.

Maybe there's life in British politics after all.

April 1, 2014       Permalink

WELL, IT IS APRIL FOOL'S DAY – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  And I suspect we're being made fools of by the sudden "good news" about Obamacare.  From Fox: 

On the last day to sign up for ObamaCare, the program reportedly was on track to sign up more than 7 million Americans for insurance coverage, though the number of enrollees who have paid for their insurance premiums is still unclear.

Very unclear.  Also unclear is the number of people who signed up only because their current coverage has been canceled.  And also unclear is the number of "uninsured" who have signed up.  Covering them was the original purpose of Obamacare, but we don't hear much about it anymore.

Government officials confirmed the 7 million target to The Associated Press late Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter ahead of an official announcement.

Seven million was the original target set by the Congressional Budget Office for enrollment in taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance through new online markets created under President Obama's signature legislation.

That was scaled back to 6 million after the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov last fall. Several state-run websites also had crippling problems. Time will tell how many of the 7 million or so pay their premiums.

On Monday afternoon, a technical glitch was temporarily preventing people from filing new applications. A tech team, though, was brought in to resolve the issue. Earlier Monday, a series of error messages also came up as the large volume of users stressed the system.

According to HHS, more than 100,000 people were using the system at once as of noon. The increased traffic is good news for the administration, but the recurring website problems are not.

COMMENT:  The devil, as always, will be in the details, and we aren't being given any details.  How many "enrollees" will have to change doctors?  How many will lose coverage at the hospital of their choice? 

And how will the quality of care be affected by the new rules?

Don't expect much talk about quality from a leftist administration obsessed with the equality of mediocrity.

April 1,  2014     Permalink

MARCH 31,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:43 P.M. ET: 

ALERT – From Fox:  "EXCLUSIVE: The FBI is searching for a recent Army recruit believed to be planning a 'Fort Hood-inspired jihad against U.S. soldiers,' FoxNews.com has learned.  The alert, whose legitimacy was confirmed by military and law enforcement officials, stated that a man identified as Booker had told friends of his 'intention to commit jihad.' Booker, who is also known as Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, was recruited by the U.S. Army in Kansas City, Mo., in February 2014 and was scheduled to report for basic training on April 7. But he was discharged last week, apparently after law enforcement authorities learned of his alleged plan."  You mean they just let him go?  I want to know more about this.  Law enforcement or political correctness?

INCREDIBLE – From CNN:  "They were words heard around the world as investigators searched for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.  Weeks ago, Malaysian authorities said the last message from the airplane cockpit was, 'All right, good night.'  The sign-off to air traffic controllers, which investigators said was spoken by the plane's copilot, was among the few concrete details officials released in a mystery that's baffled investigators and drawn global attention since the Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 people aboard mid-flight on March 8.  There's only one problem. It turns out, it wasn't true.  On Monday, Malaysia's Transport Ministry said the final voice transmission from the cockpit of Flight 370 was actually 'Good night Malaysian three seven zero.'"  No explanation has been given for this remarkable discrepancy.  But it makes us wonder what other bad information has been broadcast by the Malaysian government.  This is a botched probe.

PROTEST – From Fox:  "Former American hostage Barry Rosen, held by student extremists at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for more than a year, said Monday it would be an 'outrage' and 'disgrace' if Washington gave a visa to one of the militants recently named by Iran as its new U.N. ambassador.  'It may be a precedent but if the president and the Congress don't condemn this act by the Islamic Republic, then our captivity and suffering for 444 days at the hands of Iran was for nothing,' Rosen said. 'He can never set foot on American soil.'  Iran wants to send Hamid Aboutalebi to New York as its new U.N. ambassador. He may be a 56-year-old veteran diplomat, but it turns out that Aboutalebi was apparently a member of the hard-line Muslim student group that in 1979 took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days and held American diplomats hostage."  I don't know what international law is on this, but I certainly think our government should raise hell.  Oh, wait, I just realized who the president is.  He'll probably welcome the guy with flowers.

THIS JUST IN – Regarding the final story we posted this morning, the Rutgers University student government has decided not to reject the university's selection of Condi Rice as commencement speaker.  Campus leftists are up in arms over the choice of Rice, whom they regard as a war criminal.  I'm sure the president of Iran would get a much warmer welcome.  Isn't it time we started looking closely at federal aid to colleges and universities? 

March 31, 2014      Permalink

NUTS – AT 11:14 A.M. ET:  Two universities, Rutgers and the University of Minnesota, have invited Condi Rice to deliver an address, and in both schools there is organized opposition.  Leftists are offended by the mere presence of the other side.  The situation in Minnesota is particularly outrageous.  From the Daily Caller: 

A small group of angry white liberals is trying to force the administration at the University of Minnesota to revoke a speaking invitation extended to Condoleezza Rice because she played a role in the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rice, who served as National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, is now a professor at Stanford University.

She is slated to deliver a speech on April 17 on civil rights as part of the “Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series” at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

The two white people attempting to block Rice’s appearance at the University of Minnesota are math professor William Messing and undergraduate student Nick Theis.

Messing introduced a resolution in the school’s University Senate calling on the school’s administration to block Rice from speaking because, the text reads, she played “a prominent role” in efforts by the Bush administration “to mislead the American people” into the Iraq War. The resolution also condemns Rice for allowing “torture tactics” including waterboarding.

The balding, white-bearded math professor told the Star Tribune that he is “cautiously optimistic” about the vote on the resolution, which will occur next week.

The crusade against Rice was initiated by Theis. He is a member of Students for a Democratic Society, an obscure, tiny rehash of the leftist student activist group from the 1960s.

COMMENT:  Two faculty groups at Rutgers voted to ask the school to disinvite Rice, but the school is, admirably, standing firm.  The immaturity of some faculty members is breathtaking.

I'd imagine the attempt to bar Condi Rice from Minnesota will also fail.

March 31, 2014       Permalink

THE PROBLEM WITH RAND – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:   Readers of this site know that I am not a big fan of Rand Paul.  He seems, personally, to be a decent enough chap, and he has some interesting ideas.  But his foreign policy views, like his father's, are bizarre, and a throwback to the failed isolationism of the 1930s. 

I think that when Republicans actually learn of Rand's views, his bubble will burst.  The question about him has always revolved around how far the apple has fallen from the tree.  His father, who has a disturbing history of bigotry and an outrageous sympathy for America's enemies, tried to run for the GOP presidential nomination several times, and got little traction once the Republican electorate actually found out what he stood for.  Someone once described the father as head of the Taliban wing of the Republican Party.  Is Rand that different?  From Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post: 

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s push to be a Reaganite on foreign policy is eviscerated by remarks caught on video last year in which he denigrates the potential use of force in Iran and bizarrely claims the United States was partially to blame for causing World War II. In the video, posted on a Paul fan Web site and dated Feb. 24, 2012, he minimizes the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapons, saying merely “It is not a good idea” and claims an Israeli official doesn’t think an Iranian bomb is an existential threat to Israel, something no Israeli government official or Obama administration appointee has ever agreed with.

American Enterprise Institute’s David Adesnik studies the history of U.S. isolationism. After viewing the video, he tells Right Turn, “Blaming the U.S. for Pearl Harbor is a long-standing isolationist habit that reflects tremendous historical illiteracy. Sen. Paul is very poorly informed if he thinks U.S. sanctions ‘probably caused Japan to react angrily.’” He explains, “The U.S. cut off oil supplies to Japan in August 1941, long after Japan had launched its atrocity-laden war against China in 1937. The evidence is conclusive that Japan was determined to dominate all of East Asia. Believing that the U.S. would not stand by passively if it overran Thailand, Singapore, Malaya and the East Indies, Japan launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.”

And...

A foreign policy expert at a center-left think tank puts it simply, saying Paul sounds like the “unreconstructed Taft-Lindbergh-Buchanan wing of party, ” referring to isolationist Republican Sen. Robert Taft, America Firster Charles Lindbergh and Pat Buchanan (who has opined that WWII need not have been fought).

The remarks disparaging the potential use of force against Iran were echoed a year later at the Heritage Foundation when Paul opined that containment would be an option for U.S. policy. These comments, his bizarre take on historical events and his current opposition to sanctions (in accord with President Obama) raise troubling issues regarding his true beliefs and the degree to which his father’s radical libertarian ideas have rubbed off on him.

COMMENT:  Once Rand Paul's real views get circulated, Rand will make Hillary Clinton look like a stateswoman, which is extraordinarily hard to do.  There's a Rand Paul boomlet right now, but there was a Ron Paul boomlet at one time as well.

I really can't believe Paul will get the GOP nomination in 2016.  If he does, the party will be kaput.

March 31, 2014       Permalink 

RUSSIA IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  Russia is showing no remorse about its annexation of Crimea.  In fact, it's setting very tough conditions to settle the whole Ukraine matter diplomatically.  From the left-wing Guardian of the UK: 

Russia set out a series of tough conditions on Sunday night for agreeing a diplomatic solution to the crisis over its annexation of Crimea, demanding that the US and its European partners accept its proposal that ethnic Russian regions of eastern and southern Ukraine be given extensive autonomous powers independent of Kiev.

Emergency talks between Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, and John Kerry, the US secretary of state, got under way at the Russian ambassador's residence in Paris after a day in which tensions over Ukraine deepened appreciably. Neither man made any substantive comment before the talks began. Suggesting it might be a long session, Lavrov told reporters: "Good luck and good night."

The meeting took place against an ominous backdrop of the massing of an estimated 40,000 Russian troops on Ukraine's eastern border and warnings from Nato and the Pentagon that the Russian military activity, ostensibly relating to routine exercises, was abnormal and could be a prelude to an invasion.

General Philip Breedlove, Nato supreme allied commander Europe and the head of the US military's European Command, was ordered back to his post in Brussels during a visit to Washington after Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary, pointed to "a lack of transparency" from Russia about the troop movements. Unlike Moscow, Washington has said it will not resort to force to resolve the crisis.

COMMENT:  Yeah, great.  Obama already took the military option off the table, a brilliant act of strategy.  Why doesn't he just sign a surrender document now?  Of course we're averse to using military force, but you never give up that option.  It simply reduces your leverage, with nothing gained.  And Moscow knows that West European countries will be reluctant to impose serious sanctions on Russia because that may weaken their own economies.

So we'll "negotiate," and in the end Russia will get most or all of what it wants. 

Please notice that the word "victory" never passes Barack Obama's lips.

March 31, 2014       Permalink

VETERANS SPEAK – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are turning thumbs down on the current commander-in-chief.  From RealClearPolitics: 

Just 32 percent of military veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, according to a new poll from the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation. In a related question, only 42 percent of those surveyed said they believe Obama is a “good commander-in-chief of the military.” Forty eight percent said he is not.

Veterans were asked a similar question about former President George W. Bush. Sixty-five percent said they felt he was a good commander-in-chief, while 28 percent responded he was not.

The expansive collection of post-war polling asked current and former service members for their opinions on a series of political issues, as well as personal and cultural ones. Forty-seven percent consider themselves independents; 27 percent identified as Republicans, and just 17 percent said they were Democrats.

Only 44 percent of veterans believe that the war in Iraq “was worth fighting,” while 50 percent believe the opposite. Afghanistan, however, is still considered a more popular war: 53 percent believe it has been worth fighting and 41 percent think otherwise.

COMMENT:  One of the failures of the Bush administration was inadequate building of public opinion.  The war in Iraq was never correctly explained.  Americans were left with the notion that the war was useless because stockpiles of WMD were never found.  What was found, however, were programs to restart WMD production once UN sanctions were lifted, but that discovery was never emphasized in public statements.

Even with that, though, Bush comes off far better than Obama, a cynical commander-in-chief who seems to go out of his way to undercut the American military.  The vets have his number.

March 31, 2014     Permalink