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DECEMBER 27,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:52 P.M. ET: 

NEWS ALERT – From Fox:  "Air traffic controllers in Indonesia have lost contact with an AirAsia plane with 162 people on board, local media reported Sunday.  Indonesia's Metro TV station reported that contact with the plane, Flight QZ 8501, was lost sometime after takeoff. Sky News reported that an official with Indonesia's Transport Ministry said that contact with the Jakarta air traffic control station was lost at 6:17 a.m. local time Sunday (6:17 p.m. Eastern Time Saturday). Sky also reported that the official said that the aircraft had requested an unusual route before losing contact."  Unusual route?  Memories of the Malaysian airliner.  We'll be watching this.

HOLIDAY TRAGEDY – From CNN:  "(CNN) -- A rookie police officer who was answering a domestic violence call has died from gunshot wounds, the Flagstaff, Arizona, Police Department said Saturday.
Officer Tyler Stewart, 24, was shot several times in a residential area and died at a hospital, officials said.
The gunman apparently killed himself, police said.  'We are a very close-knit organization, and know that all members of the Flagstaff Police Department are grieving at this time,' Chief Kevin Treadway said."  Eric Holder could not be reached for comment.

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE REPORT – Britain's strained health system, from BT:  "More than 3,000 operations have been cancelled by the National Health Service in the first two weeks of this month as an 'unprecedented demand' takes its toll.  Figures show 3,113 elective operations were cancelled in that period, up by almost half since 2012.  In terms of operations classed as urgent 161 were cancelled in the two-week period, with some having been cancelled twice or more.  The figures, highlighted by Labour, show the repercussions of A&E departments under severe stress and a lack of beds for patients in need, a consultant and member of the Royal College of Surgeons said.  Shafi Ahmed said: 'There is currently unprecedented demand on the NHS resulting in more cancellations of planned surgical operations.'"  Coming soon to an Obamacare center near you.

December 27, 2014       Permalink

BACKLASH GROWS – AT 1:55 P.M. ET:  We started reporting on this yesterday.  There is a growing backlash against the film, "Selma," which is almost a sure bet for an Oscar this year, considering the political leanings of Hollywood.  But the film contains outright lies, and many are speaking out.  Among them is Joe Califano, one of the key members of the Johnson administration, writing in the Washington Post, which is brave for taking on the subject: 

The makers of the new movie “Selma” apparently just couldn’t resist taking dramatic, trumped-up license with a true story that didn’t need any embellishment to work as a big-screen historical drama. As a result, the film falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself.

In fact, Selma was LBJ’s idea, he considered the Voting Rights Act his greatest legislative achievement, he viewed King as an essential partner in getting it enacted — and he didn’t use the FBI to disparage him.

On Jan. 15, 1965, LBJ talked to King by telephone about his intention to send a voting rights act to Congress: “There is not going to be anything as effective, though, Doctor, as all [blacks] voting.”

Johnson then articulated a strategy for drawing attention to the injustice of using literacy tests and other barriers to stop black Southerners from voting. “We take the position,” he said, “that every person born in this country, when he reaches a certain age, that he have a right to vote . . . whether it’s a Negro, whether it’s a Mexican, or who it is. . . . I think you can contribute a great deal by getting your leaders and you, yourself, taking very simple examples of discrimination; where a [black] man’s got . . . to quote the first 10 Amendments, . . . and some people don’t have to do that, but when a Negro comes in he’s got to do it, and if we can, just repeat and repeat and repeat.

“And if you can find the worst condition that you run into in Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana or South Carolina . . . and if you just take that one illustration and get it on radio, get it on television, get it in the pulpits, get it in the meetings, get it everyplace you can. Pretty soon the fellow that didn’t do anything but drive a tractor will say, ‘Well, that’s not right, that’s not fair,’ and then that will help us on what we’re going to shove through [Congress] in the end.”

COMMENT:  He's got the facts.  He's got the quotes.  The movie lies.  Hollywood has always taken liberties with history and biography.  "The Babe Ruth Story," still one of my favorites movies, was "fictionalized," to put it mildly, but it was fun.  This one is not fun.  It distorts and it smears public servants like Lyndon Johnson, who took risks to correct a historic wrong.

It's occasionally not a bad idea to say thank-you to those who helped.  Amazing how many friends you make.

December 27, 2014       Permalink

BERNIE? – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, is considering a presidential run.  Is it laughable?  No, it's not.

I don't agree with Sanders, obviously, but there's a world of difference between him and some of the others on the left.  Bernie is a thinking man who comes off as decent and committed.  He won't get the Democratic nomination, but he can be a provocative voice for an issue that is growing dramatically in American life – the wealth gap.  I've written about this before.  Don't ignore it.  It's a legitimate issue that even has many thoughtful conservatives worried.  The gap between rich and poor, and even rich and middle class, has grown to alarming proportions, proportions that can threaten the stability of this country.

You don't have to be a socialist to wonder about the vast ratio between a CEO's salary and the average salary in his or her corporation.  The gap, on average, is the largest in the world and still growing.  Nor can you shrug this off as "the market."  Something has gone wrong.  Whether it's rigging at the top, the shortage of good jobs in manufacturing, or something else, it is riling plenty of people.  Elizabeth Warren talks about it, but she's a fraud, a woman worth about $14-million, but "worried" about the little guy.

No matter what you may think of Sanders, he's no fraud.  He can move the debate.  He can force candidates to come up with creative solutions, or force them to prove him wrong.  From AP:

Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’ll decide by March whether to launch a 2016 presidential campaign and, if so, whether he’ll seek the Democratic nomination. Either way, Sanders says he wouldn’t run just to nudge the debate to the left.

“I don’t want to do it unless I can do it well,” he told The Associated Press. “I don’t want to do it unless we can win this thing.”

Sanders, a socialist, said he grew up “solidly lower middle class” in a Jewish family in Brooklyn — his father, an immigrant and Holocaust survivor from Poland, sold paint for a living —and his views about the distribution of wealth were formed early.

“A lack of money in my family was a very significant aspect of my growing up … kids in my class would have new jackets, new coats, and I would get hand-me-downs,” Sanders said.

After his graduation from the University of Chicago, Sanders spent time on a kibbutz in Israel. He then moved to Vermont in the 1960s as part of the counterculture, back-to-the-land movement that turned the state from solid Yankee Republican into one of the bluest in the country.

He won his first election — for Burlington mayor — by 10 votes, and since then has carried a consistent message thought eight terms in the House and now his second term in the Senate: The rich have too much, the poor and working class not enough.

Sanders said the issues about which he’s been railing all these years are only becoming more dire. The wealth gap has grown, and the middle class, he says, is “collapsing.”

“You have one family, the Walton family of Walmart, owning more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the American people,” he said. “We have 95 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent. You have millions of families unable to afford to send their kids to college. People are desperately worried about whether or not they are going to retire with dignity.”

COMMENT:  Sanders has a great deal of warmth.  Do not dismiss him.  I welcome him to the debate as I welcome all serious, honest candidates, no matter what their view, as long as they are patriots. 

The Democratic Party, as it's currently constituted, has no chance of building a strong, fair economy.  The party ran out of ideas decades ago and just presents government programs.

But the Republican Party does have a chance of building a stronger economy that truly could improve the lot of all, an economy based on free enterprise, but yet one that needs fixin' from time to time to minimize the destabilizing imbalances we see now.  If Sanders can move the debate, he might force our side to be truly creative.

This could get interesting.

December 27, 2014        Permalink

UGLY STUFF – AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  North Korea doesn't bother with diplomatic niceties.  Jerks at work.  From London's Telegraph:   

North Korea called President Barack Obama "a monkey" and blamed the US on Saturday for shutting down its internet services amid the hacking row over The Interview.

North Korea has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures but has expressed fury over the comedy depicting an assassination of its leader Kim Jong-un. After Sony Pictures initially called off the release in a decision criticised by Obama, the movie has opened this week.

On Saturday, the North's powerful National Defence Commission, the country's top governing body led by Kim, said that Obama was behind the release of The Interview. It described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.

"Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest," an unidentified spokesman at the commission's policy department said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

He also accused Washington for intermittent outages of North Korean websites this week, after the US had promised to respond to the Sony hack.

The official, who asked to be named only as

There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Saturday.

COMMENT:  The North Korean behavior, including a racist slur, is to a degree the result of years of American appeasement.  We tried to stop their nuclear program through "negotiation," and, when that failed, there was no serious punishment.  No matter what North Korea does, including the sinking of a South Korean warship several years ago, they only get a slap on the wrist.  They have contempt for us, for weakness always breeds contempt.

I wonder what answer we will give their latest statement.  Don't hold your breath.

December 27,  2014     Permalink

DECEMBER 26,  2014

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

JUST ROUTINE – From Fox:  "It was a violent Christmas Eve in the District as there were six separate shootings throughout the day. The shootings have resulted in five deaths.  D.C. police say officers shot and killed a robbery suspect in Southeast D.C. It was one of two police-involved shootings on Wednesday.  The first police-involved shooting occurred at around 3 p.m. near Naylor Road and 30th Street."  Hmm.  Nothing from the protesters.  I guess those black lives don't matter.

PERFORMING ARTS NEWS – From the New York Post:  "Claire Danes is lucky no Emmy voters live in Islamabad.  Pakistani officials are furious with Showtime after watching the fourth season of its hit show 'Homeland,' which they say portrays their country as an ugly, ignorant, terror-plagued 'hellhole.'  The diplomats took copious notes of every slight while binge-watching all 12 episodes — including the lack of greenery in the depiction of the nation’s capital, Islamabad."  It's the old lack-of-greenery slur.  Can't we all just get along?  Actually, the Islamabad scenes were photographed in Cape Town, South Africa.  Another garden spot.

FOR THE TECHIES – From Reuters:  "DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran is to expand what it calls 'smart filtering' of the Internet, a policy of censoring undesirable content on websites without banning them completely, as it used to, the government said on Friday.  The Islamic Republic has some of the strictest controls on Internet access in the world, but its blocks on U.S.-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are routinely bypassed by tech-savvy Iranians using virtual private networks (VPNs).  Under the new scheme, Tehran could lift its blanket ban on those sites and, instead, filter their content."  Why, it's practically Jeffersonian Democracy.  Oh, thank you, kind mullahs, for your smart filtering.  And I promise not to watch the evil, Western, Zionist-controlled sports shows.

December 26, 2014       Permalink

REWRITING HISTORY – AT 11:28 A.M. ET:  I've noticed one thing about successful groups – they always thank those who help them.  It allows them to build alliances, and it's the right thing to do.

Sadly, we've seen recently a rewriting of the history of the civil rights movement, apparently based on the idea that only blacks deserve credit for winning the victories of the civil rights era.  One element of this rewriting is to scratch out the remarkable work done by President Lyndon Johnson.  Indeed, it was Johnson's legislative skill, honed in the years when he was Senate majority leader, that was so instrumental in getting the major civil rights laws passed.  Add to Johnson the assistance given by Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.  It was Republican votes that put the civil rights laws over the top.

A new movie is infuriating people who actually know the facts.  From AP: 

AUSTIN, Texas - The widely acclaimed movie "Selma" about the 1965 Civil Rights movement has disappointed at least one moviegoer: a leading historian of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The director of the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, which hosted a major civil rights summit this year that was headlined by four U.S. presidents, said the film that opens in theatres Thursday incorrectly portrays Johnson as an obstructionist to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Selma" is based on the 1965 marches from the Alabama cities of Selma to Montgomery that were led by King. At the time, marchers were calling for voting rights.

LBJ Library Director Mark Updegrove said the film unfairly casts Johnson as a sort of composite character who represents the obstacles blacks faced in getting civil rights laws passed. What history shows, Updegrove said, is that Johnson and King had a partnership.

He said Johnson and King had disagreements but not like the film suggests. Updegrove called the portrayal unfortunate given the current climate following the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police.

"When racial tension is so high, it does no good to suggest that the president of the U.S. himself stood in the way of progress a half-century ago. It flies in the face of history," Updegrove said.

COMMENT:  This same game was played by the sickening John Edwards, when he ran for president in 2008.  In order to grovel to black activists he asserted that blacks won the civil rights victories themselves, and he referred to Johnson as "some Washington politician."  Very nice. 

Nothing will be done about the film.  The Hollywood crowd hates Johnson because of Vietnam, and because he didn't speak the way they do.  But without white help, there wouldn't have been a successful civil rights movement.  That was acknowledged at the time.  Sadly, some refuse to acknowledge it now, probably because hustlers sell the line that black America needs them, and only them, to make progress.

December 26, 2014       Permalink

SHE NOTICED – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  It is clear that Hillary Clinton is getting worried over agitation in the left wing of her party.  And what does Hillary do when faced with agitation?  Exactly what any red-blooded political hack would do – she adjusts her views.  From WaPo: 

Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for president, is working hard to shore up support among liberals in hopes of tamping down a serious challenge from the left in the battle for the 2016 nomination.

Clinton has aligned herself firmly with President Obama since the November midterms on a range of liberal-friendly issues, including immigration, climate change and opening diplomatic relations with Cuba. In an impassioned human rights speech this month, she also condemned the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation tactics and decried cases of apparent police brutality against minorities.

The recent statements suggest a concerted effort by Clinton to appeal to the Democratic Party’s most activist, liberal voters, who have often eyed her with suspicion and who would be crucial to her securing the party’s nomination.

But the positions also tie her ever more tightly to a president who remains broadly unpopular, providing new lines of attack for the many Republicans jostling to oppose her if she runs.

One Democratic strategist said the moves are “more prophylactic than anything. If she didn’t say anything, the media and the liberal groups that care about this stuff” would criticize her or nurse a grudge. Like others, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because Clinton has not yet said she is a candidate.

COMMENT:  The far left doesn't want Clinton.  It wants Elizabeth Warren, even if she did make up the bit about being Native American.  I mean, she's entitled to her own "narrative," isn't she?

The normal political process for Dems is to run to the left for the nomination, then pivot to the center.  But I wonder, with the 24-hour news cycle getting more powerful each year, whether that will still be possible.  Hillary isn't exactly renowned for integrity.  If she's caught in contradictions, they could sink her.  That's assuming the Republicans put up a presidential candidate with a pulse.

December 26, 2014       Permalink

DISGRACEFUL – AT 10:26 P.M. ET:  Of course, this is all in the interests of the people, who yearn to be led out of their downtrodden state.  From Breitbart: 

Demonstrators participating in a Christmas Day “Black Lives Matter” protest in Oakland against police smashed store windows, injured a journalist, and vandalized the city’s main Christmas tree in Jack London Square in the latest violence associated with the movement.

The protest was called “No Time Off,” in defiance of the holiday: “The idea is to give no time off to police in the context of racial discrimination and state violence happening every day,” one demonstrator told the local NBC News affiliate.

Activists from “Occupy Oakland” called the anti-police protests the “Best Xmas party of the year,” but for police forced to control dozens of violent protestors, it was anything but. Likewise for a photojournalist who was struck on the hand and injured by a bottle thrown by demonstrators, according to Evan Sernoffsky of the San Francisco Chronicle.

COMMENT:  Oakland has a particularly violent element on the fringe left.  They really don't seem to care about the damage they do to their own cause.  They'll have another cause tomorrow morning.  The people must be served!

December 26,  2014     Permalink