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APRIL 29,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:37 P.M. ET: 

NOT STERLING – The NBA is severely punishing Donald Sterling, the owner of the L.A. Clippers, for racist remarks.  From CBS:  "NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced Tuesday Clippers owner Donald Sterling will be suspended for life and fined $2.5 million following racist remarks he made in a recorded audio clip.  Silver spoke to the press at an 11 a.m. news conference from New York, stating he will 'do everything in my power' to force the sale of the Clippers."   Perfectly fine.  I'd like to see a little more consistency, though.  Apparently, Sterling's obnoxious behavior was well known over the years.  It's only when he was caught on tape that the truth brought him down.  In other words, the NBA was forced to act.  I'd also like to see harsher penalties for players who fall below standards in their behavior.

YOUTH TURNING FROM GOVERNMENT – From Business Insider:  "A new poll surveying young Americans' political attitudes released by Harvard University's Institute of Politics Tuesday found millennials have less trust in government than ever before.  Harvard's poll showed millennials, which the pollsters defined as peopled aged 18 to 29, have lost trust in a variety of different major public institutions including the President, the military, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the federal government as a whole. Of all the institutions tracked by the poll, the President and the military lost the most trust among young Americans with a seven point drop. Overall, the pollsters said the level of trust millennials have in 'most American institutions tested in our survey' had dropped below even 'last year’s historically low numbers.'"  I'm not surprised at the drop in the presidency.  I am surprised at the drop in trust of the military.  I'm guessing this is happening because of what young people are taught in left-wing schools.

BULLETIN:  DARYL HANNAH OPPOSES KEYSTONE PIPELINE – We're rushing this to you.  From Fox:  "Actress Daryl Hannah and FBN’s Stuart Varney got into a heated debate on Tuesday over the Keystone pipeline.  Off the bat, Hannah expressed support for President Obama’s decision to delay the final ruling on Keystone XL – but said he didn’t go far enough.  'I don’t actually think the delay was a great move. What I think would be a great move is all-out rejection,' said Hannah.  Varney, however, argued that the pipeline could help wean the United States off of oil from countries like Venezuela."  I'm so sorry I missed that debate.  I would have recorded it.  If there's one person whose political opinion I value, it's Daryl Hannah.  Who is she?

STUNNING – From the Daily Beast:  "The United States has proof that the Russian government in Moscow is running a network of spies inside eastern Ukraine because the U.S. government has recordings of their conversations, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a closed-door meeting Friday."  What is stunning here is not that we're listening in on phone conversations, but that a secretary of state would acknowledge it publicly.  It's bad practice, for it provides propaganda to enemies and allows them to change the subject from what they're doing to what we're doing.  Kerry has a kind of blundering quality about him.  Maybe he's just trying to imitate his boss.

April 29, 2014       Permalink

YEAH, REAL PROGRESS – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  The perception that millions of Americans are less well off than they were decades ago turns out to be true.  From CNS: 

(CNSNews.com) - The real median income of American men who work full-time, year-round peaked forty years ago in 1973, according to data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 1973, median earnings for men who worked full-time, year-round were $51,670 in inflation-adjusted 2012 dollars. The median earnings of men who work full-time year-round have never been that high again.

In 2012, the latest year for which the Census Bureau has published an estimate, the real median earnings of men who worked full-time, year-round was $49,398. That was $2,272—or about 4.4 percent—below the peak median earnings of $51,670 in 1973.

In 1960, the earliest year for which the Census Bureau has published this data, the median earnings for men who worked full-time, year-round were $36,420 in 2012 dollars. Between 1960 and 1973 that increased $15,250—or about 41.9 percent.

By comparison, the real median earnings of American women who work full-time year-round peaked in 2007, when women who worked full-time earned $38,872 in constant 2012 dollars. From 1960 through 2007, the real income of American women who work full-time increased $16,774 or about 76 percent. From 2007 to 2012, the real earnings of women who work full-time declined $1,081, or about 2.8 percent.

COMMENT:  You sense a real frustration in the country.  Households now need two incomes to buy what one bought in the middle of the last century.  And both men and women feel that, no matter how hard they work, they run in place. 

One of the key answers to the problem is economic growth, and we're not getting that.  To the contrary, many current policies, including stifling over-regulation, hold back growth.

What happens if Americans decide they have no stake in the future?  I don't know, but I doubt if it will be a pretty picture.  The sense of frustration is one of the biggest time bombs in America today, and little is being done to address it.

April 29, 2014       Permalink

DEMS IN TROUBLE? – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  I added a question mark because I see great overconfidence on the part of some Republicans, who simply assume the party will make great gains in November.  And yet, polling does suggest that the Dems may not have a merry Christmas.  From National Journal: 

President Obama's approval rating remains ominously weak among the constituencies that could tip the battle for control of the Senate in November, the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll has found.

Obama's overall approval, standing at just 41 percent, remains near the lowest level ever recorded in the 20 Heartland Monitor Polls since April 2009. And only one in four adults say his actions are increasing economic opportunity for people like them, also among his worst showings in the polls. His numbers are especially meager among the non-college and older whites that dominate the electorate in the seven red-leaning states where Democrats must defend Senate seats in November.

These findings are taken from the 20th quarterly Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll conducted by the Strategic Communications Practice of FTI Consulting. The full results, exploring Americans' views on how to drive social and political change, will be published next month in National Journal's magazine.

The one solace for Democrats in the new poll is that Congress is even more unpopular than the president. Just 11 percent of those surveyed said they approved of Congress's performance, while 80 percent disapproved. In the five times the Heartland Monitor has tested Congress' rating since November 2012, only last November did it score more poorly, with just 9 percent approving and 84 percent disapproving.

Generally, though, attitudes toward the incumbent president have played a bigger role than views about Congress in shaping the results of mid-term elections. And attitudes toward Obama, and the nation's direction, remain distinctly chilly.

COMMENT:  Let us be optimistic, but also remember that the election is six months away.  That's 48 lifetimes in politics.  Anything can happen between now and November, including an eruption of Republican suicidal instincts.  And there's no app for that.

April 29, 2014       Permalink

WALL STREET FOR HILLARY – AT 8:08 A.M. ET:   You'd think these birds would be smarter.  But they're only richer.  From Breitbart: 

The permanent political class and their donors think a Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton battle in 2016 would be a win-win scenario, and many Republican Wall Street donors would rather have Clinton in the White House than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

According to a Politico report, "the darkest secret in the big money world of the Republican coastal elite is that the most palatable alternative to a nominee such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky would be Clinton."

“If it turns out to be Jeb versus Hillary we would love that and either outcome would be fine,” a Wall Street donor told the publication. “We could live with either one. Jeb versus Joe Biden would also be fine. It’s Rand Paul or Ted Cruz versus someone like Elizabeth Warren that would be everybody’s worst nightmare.”

Fearing "heavy blowback," no one would go on the record in an article that tries to set the establishment narrative that Jeb Bush should get support because Hillary would have an easier road to the White House if a conservative candidate won the nomination in 2016.

Other Wall Street Republicans have said there would not be any "panic" with Hillary Clinton, while another told the outlet that "Hillary seems relatively tolerable" if Jeb Bush does not run.

Cruz, whom the permanent political class has particularly targeted, emphasizes in his speeches that the biggest divide is not between Republicans and Democrats in D.C. but between the bipartisan permanent political class and the rest of America.

COMMENT:  Pretty conventional thinking from Wall Street, where the term "self interest" has been raised to a religious status.  Of course, the country doesn't count for anything.

I'd imagine that, in Wall Street terms, the analysis is correct.  Jeb and Hillary are relatively safe.  Ted and Rand would shake things up.  Wall Street doesn't love shakers.

April 29, 2014       Permalink

OH PLEASE – AT 8:01 A.M. ET:  President Obama is trying to defend his foreign policy, which is like the captain of the Titanic trying to defend icebergs.  From AP:

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — President Barack Obama vigorously defended his foreign policy record Monday, arguing that his cautious approach to global problems has avoided the type of missteps that contributed to a ‘‘disastrous’’ decade of war for the United States.

What an insult to the men and women who fought for us in this last decade.  And, of course, Obama never mentions that we went to war only after the 9/11 attacks, which killed more Americans than died at Pearl Harbor. 

Obama’s expansive comments came at the end of a weeklong Asia trip that exposed growing White House frustration with critics who cast the president as weak and ineffectual on the world stage. The president and his advisers get particularly irked by those who seize on Obama’s decision to pull back from a military strike in Syria and link it with virtually every other foreign policy challenge, from Russia’s threatening moves in Ukraine to China’s increasing assertiveness in Asia’s territorial disputes.

‘‘Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force after we’ve just gone through a decade of war at enormous costs to our troops and to our budget?’’ Obama said during a news conference in the Philippines.

Note the phrase "...everybody is so eager to use military force..."  I don't know of anyone who's advocated military force in Ukraine, for example.  And certainly no one is eager to go to war.  Once again Obama poses a false premise and then answers it.  Slick, not honest.

Summing up his foreign policy philosophy, Obama said it was one that ‘‘avoids errors.’’

That's the whole thing?  How about advancing the national interest?

White House advisers argue in part that Obama’s approach puts him on the side of a conflict-weary American public, some of whom voted for him in the 2008 election because of his early opposition to the Iraq war. Yet the president’s foreign policy record of late has provided plenty of fodder for his critics.

COMMENT:  It certainly has.  It's one setback after another.  And it's joined by drastic, dangerous cutbacks in national defense. 

Indeed, Obama can't legitimately point to a single major foreign-policy victory since taking office, except for the killing of bin Laden, and that would have been ordered by any president.

Question:  Does anyone think America is stronger under Obama?  No, I didn't think so.

April 29,  2014     Permalink

APRIL 28,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 7:58 P.M. ET: 

FEARLESS JOURNALISM AT WORK – From Fox:  "Producers behind a CNN documentary series on Rahm Emanuel -- a series billed as unscripted -- coordinated closely with the Chicago mayor's staff on everything from camera shots to storylines, according to a new report based on hundreds of internal emails.  The Chicago Tribune reviewed more than 700 emails pertaining to the making and filming of 'Chicagoland,' an eight-part series which finished airing last week."  CNN does some good work, and has some very good people, but its ratings continue to sag.  I believe that one reason is the feeling that CNN is a liberal network that gives us the news through a liberal filter.  This new revelation won't help erase that image. 

DANGEROUS WINSTON – From London's Daily Mail:  "A candidate in the European elections was arrested on suspicion of racial harassment after quoting a passage about Islam, written by Winston Churchill, during a campaign speech.  Paul Weston, chairman of the party Liberty GB, made the address on the steps of Winchester Guildhall, in Hampshire on Saturday.  A member of the public took offence at the quote, taken from Churchill's The River War and called police.   The passage from the book, written by the wartime Prime Minister and first published in 1899, focuses on Churchill's observations about Islam while serving during the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan."  That is truly chilling.  I suspect we'll be seeing it here before too long.  We see colleges restricting free speech all the time, preparing our young generation to live in the kind of totalitarian state that too many "intellectuals" favor.

ANOTHER WIN FOR TEXAS –  At a time when Texas Governor Rick Perry is considering another run for the presidency, he can chalk up one more economic victory for his state.  From the Dallas News:  "Toyota plans to start moving people to its new U.S. headquarters in Plano starting this summer.  The headquarters relocation – confirmed Monday afternoon – will bring about 4,000 jobs from California, Kentucky and New York.  The worldwide automaker said it will consolidate its three separate North American headquarters for manufacturing, sales and marketing, and corporate operations to a state-of-the-art campus to be built in Plano.
Toyota will also move its finance division headquarters to the new operation, which Dallas real estate brokers say will be located in the Legacy business park near the Dallas North Tollway and State Highway 121."  Another economic loss for my state of New York, which now is propped up largely by Wall Street deals.

GLOBAL WARMING WATCH – From Real Science:  "US temperatures through April 26 are third coldest on record, just barely behind 1899 and 1912. This week is forecast to be cold, and will likely push 2014 into the #1 spot."  Incredible.  And yet the mainstream media will not challenge the "consensus" on global warming.  Watch.  Al Gore will request a recall of all thermometers used to establish 2014 as potentially the coldest year on record.

April 28, 2014       Permalink

TERROR WARNING – AT 10:36 A.M. ET:   The mess in the Mideast is affecting our security at home, according to Homeland Security.  From CNS:

(CNSNews.com) - Syria has become a matter of homeland security, and we're very concerned about Syria foreign fighters, people who are going into Syria, being recruited by extremists there," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Johnson, worried that fighters trained in Syria could travel to Europe and even the United States, said the U.S. is "working together" with European governments to share information that could help track potential terrorists returning from Syria.

Asked if some of those individuals have been in the U.S., Johnson said, "We are continually monitoring the situation, and we are concerned, yes."

(Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also has identified Syria as the "largest and most significant threat" to U.S. security.)

Johnson said other terrorist threats include Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; and the "lone wolf, the independent actor," such as those who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon.

COMMENT:  Syria is becoming a great incubator for terrorist movements.  In addition, and one subject that is not discussed enough, is the increasing proliferation of high technology, including high-tech weaponry.  We still aren't sure where thousands of Libyan small surface-to-air missile systems have gone.  Just one launcher can bring down an airliner, and send a shock through the international airline system. 

The war on terror is far from over, but I wonder if, 13 years after the 9-11 attacks, we have lost the will to fight it.

April 28, 2014        Permalink

AMERICANA – AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  Gallup has completed a survey of what Americans think of their individual states.  From IBD:

A new Gallup Poll has discovered, among numerous revealing info nuggets on American tastes, that Illinois residents think their state is the worst possible one to live in. Bar none. They are the least trustful of state government. (Gee, why would that be with so many Illinois pols in prison?) And they are the most resentful of the tax burdens their elected leaders lay on them.

"Illinois," Gallup reports. has the unfortunate distinction of being the state with the highest percentage of residents who say it is the worst possible place to live. One in four Illinois residents (25%) say the state is the worst place to live, followed by 17% each in Rhode Island and Connecticut."

Oh, look! All three states are governed by Democrats.

Now, for the good stuff. Gallup has completed a massive, six-month survey of at least 600 residents in all 57 of Obama's states. It asked everyone if their residence was "the best possible state to live in," "one of the best possible states to live in," "as good a state as any to live in," or "the worst possible state to live in."

Tied at the top at 77% for the best/one of the best states are Montana and Alaska. Something else Sarah Palin was right about. They're followed by Utah at 70% and Wyoming at 69%.

Oh, you say, that's just because the top four are among the least-populated states. Wrong, crowded city-dweller.

Texas is No. 5 with Hawaii at 68% atop New Hampshire (67%), North Dakota (66%), Colorado (65%) and Minnesota, Oregon and Vermont at 61%.

Do you see the pattern there? Eighty-percent of the most popular states are West of the Mississippi River.

Just as 80% of the bottom ten best/one of the best states are East or partially East of the Mississippi: Rhode Island (18%), Illinois (19%), Mississippi (26%), Louisiana (27%), Michigan, New Mexico and New Jersey at 28%, Maryland and Missouri at 29% and Connecticut at 31%.

Although Texas on average ranked fifth overall, it had the highest percentage of residents who said it was the single best place to live. After 18 years of Republican governors and legislatures, it remains the country's top job-creating state and one of its fastest-growing in population. And it has a balanced budget and no state income tax. Probably just coincidences.

Typical of many of the top-tier states are large landscapes (or oceans), beautiful geographies, world-class winters and in the case of Montana and Alaska, borders with Canada, which has better beer.

COMMENT:  One of the glories of our state system is that people can actually make comparisons, then vote with their feet. 

The results of Gallup's survey don't surprise me. 

April 28, 2014       Permalink

A NOTHINGBURGER – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  President Barack ("Tuffy") Obama has just announced new sanctions on some Russians for their country's behavior in Ukraine.  Looks like the international equivalent of "Go stand in the corner for 20 minutes, Vladimir."  From the Chicago Tribune: 

MANILA / SLAVIANSK, Ukraine — President Barack Obama announced new sanctions against some Russians on Monday to stop President Vladimir Putin from fomenting the rebellion in eastern Ukraine, but said he was holding broader measures against Russia's economy "in reserve."

I'm sure Putin is impressed by "in reserve."

On the ground, pro-Moscow rebels showed no sign of curbing their uprising, seizing public buildings in another town in the east. Interfax news agency reported that the mayor of a further major eastern city, Kharkiv, had been shot and was undergoing an operation. It gave no details of the shooting.

Germany demanded Russia act to help secure the release of seven unarmed European military monitors, including four Germans, who have been held by the rebels since Friday.

The new U.S. sanctions, to be outlined in detail later on Monday, will add more people and firms to a list announced last month of figures whose assets are frozen and who are denied visas to travel to the United States.

That'll show Mother Russia!  Frozen assets!  Visa denials!  Why, we're going nuclear!

The European Union is also expected to add targets to its Russia sanctions list on Monday.

Ambassadors from the 28 EU states met in Brussels and an EU diplomat said they were expected to add around 15 new names.

COMMENT:  What kind of a farce is this?  Everyone knows that putting some new sanctions on individuals and businesses will not move Putin an inch.  Besides, it's widely reported that the Europeans don't even favor further sanctions because they have business interests in Russia, and their economies are stressed. 

Putin will get what he wants in Ukraine, unless the West toughens up substantially, which is unlikely to happen.  Obama must be praying that any major Russian action to seize part of Ukraine is delayed until after our midterms.

April 28, 2014       Permalink

THE CLIMATE SCANDAL – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Thoughtful skeptics of global-warming theories have long suspected that there is some real malpractice involved in this issue.  Now a serious charge becomes public.  Oh, I haven't read this in mainstream American reporting.  Wonder why.  From London's Daily Mail: 

A top US academic has dramatically revealed how government officials forced him to change a hugely influential scientific report on climate change to suit their own interests.

Harvard professor Robert Stavins electrified the worldwide debate on climate change on Friday by sensationally publishing a letter online in which he spelled out the astonishing interference.

He said the officials, representing ‘all the main countries and regions of the world’ insisted on the changes in a late-night meeting at a Berlin conference centre two weeks ago.

Three quarters of the original version of the document ended up being deleted.

Prof Stavins claimed the intervention amounted to a serious ‘conflict of interest’ between scientists and governments. His revelation is significant because it is rare for climate change experts to publicly question the process behind the compilation of reports on the subject.

Prof Stavins, Harvard’s Professor of Business and Government, was one of two ‘co-ordinating lead authors’ of a key report published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) earlier this month.

His chapter of the 2,000-page original report concerned ways countries can co-operate to reduce carbon emissions.

IPCC reports are supposed to be scrupulously independent as they give scientific advice to governments around the world to help them shape energy policies – which in turn affect subsidies and domestic power bills.

Prof Stavins said the government officials in Berlin fought to make big changes to the full report’s ‘summary for policymakers’. This is the condensed version usually cited by the world’s media and politicians. He said their goal was to protect their ‘negotiating stances’ at forthcoming talks over a new greenhouse gas reduction treaty.

COMMENT:  Investigations anyone?  Will the fashion plates of American journalism take notice?  Will Congress?  How about the Republicans? 

This could be a decisive moment in the debate over climate change, and one in which real questions are asked about the integrity of some of the "research."   I suspect the moment will pass rather quietly.  At we see a Harvard professor with the courage to speak out.

April 28,  2014     Permalink