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DECEMBER 30,  2015

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

SOBERING – From AP:   BRUSSELS (AP) — The New Year’s Eve fireworks display is being canceled in Belgium’s capital due to threats of an extremist attack.  Yvan Mayeur, the Belgian capital’s mayor, said the decision was taken Wednesday evening after consultation with government officials.  “We are forced to cancel considering the risk analysis done by the Crisis Center,” he told the French-language RTBF network.  Belgium has become a hotbed of Islamist extremism in Europe. 

ANOTHER FAKE "HATE CRIME" – They're now becoming routine.  From the Houston Chronicle:   A Houston man has been arrested in connection with a suspected arson at a mosque on Christmas Day, but the motive for the crime remains a mystery, with the suspect maintaining he was a regular at the mosque.  A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed that the suspect, 37-year-old Gary Nathaniel Moore of Houston, was arrested early Wednesday. Moore appeared in court at 7 a.m., spokeswoman Nicole Strong said, and bond was set at $100,000.  According to a charging instrument released by the Harris County District Clerk, Moore told investigators at the scene that he has attended the storefront mosque for five years, coming five times per day to pray seven days per week.  The cops nailed this one quickly, sparing us the required "interfaith solidarity rally" that follows virtually every report of a "hate crime."

THIS JUST IN – TRUMP DEFENDS HAIRSPRAY – From The New York Times:   Donald J. Trump appears to be more concerned about the quality of his hair than the quality of the air.  Mr. Trump has offered little in the way of an environmental policy during his presidential campaign, but on Wednesday he said that President Obama’s concerns about the environment were infringing on his rights as a consumer. More pressing than saving the ozone layer, he suggested, was the freedom to buy aerosol hairspray.  “You can’t use hairspray because hairspray is going to affect the ozone,” Mr. Trump said during a rally in South Carolina. “They don’t want me to use hairspray, they want me to use the pump.”  This is one of the great crises of our time, and calls for a special session of Congress.

December 30,  2015     Permalink

ANOTHER DOSE OF REALITY – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Yesterday we learned that Belgium had arrested two men who allegedly were planning an Islamic terrorist plot tied to New Year's.   And now Turkey.  From The Hill:

Turkish police on Wednesday detained two suspected Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants who were believed to be planning suicide bombings at New Year’s Eve celebrations in the nation’s capital, according to reports.

Authorities said the men were arrested in a raid on a cell house in the low-income Mamak neighborhood of Ankara. Police found a vest strapped with explosives and bomb-making equipment on the scene, according to the chief prosecutor’s office.

The men, who are Turkish nationals, were being questioned by anti-terrorism officials.
The would-be attackers had allegedly staked out possible targets during celebrations in the city, including two locations near bars and a shopping mall.

“They were caught before they had the opportunity to take action,” the prosecutor’s office told the Associated Press.

More than 100 people were killed in October when two suicide bombers detonated explosives outside of Ankara’s main train station during a peace rally.

More than 30 were killed in a July attack carried out by ISIS in a city near the Turkey-Syria border.

Turkish authorities said they foiled a terrorist plot in Istanbul on the same day as the Nov. 13 Paris terrorist attack, in which 130 were killed, when they arrested five suspected ISIS militants.

COMMENT:  We are being constantly warned that ISIS is planning attacks in the United States.  There is concern about New Year's Eve, tomorrow night.  The New York Police Department is assigning 6,000 cops to Times Square alone.  I have never seen this much official concern. 

December 30, 2015       Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:   From the distinguished African-American scholar, Walter Williams.  He's discussing the debate over whether black kids are better off at "elite" institutions, for which they might not be fully prepared, or at institutions that match their degree of academic readiness.  From WND.com: 

The issue for black parents is not whether their sons and daughters should be admitted to an elite college or one that is lower-ranked. The issue is whether their sons and daughters should be admitted to a college where they would not be admitted if they were white. The question for black parents and black people is: Which better serves our interests, a black student’s being admitted to an elite college and winding up in the bottom of his class or flunking out, or a black student’s being admitted to a less prestigious college and performing just as well as his white peers? I would opt for a black student’s doing well and graduating from a less prestigious college.

Think of it this way. Suppose you asked, “Williams, would you teach my son how to box?” I say yes, and after your son wins a few amateur matches, I set him up with a match against an elite boxer like Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis. Your son may have the potential to be a world-class boxer, but he is going to get his brains beaten out and have his career ended before he learns how to bob and weave.

It’s the same with any student – black or white. Pupils are less likely to succeed if they are placed in a fast-paced academic environment where their academic achievement levels do not begin to match those of their peers. Such students would have a greater chance of success in a slower-paced, less competitive environment, one more in tune with their preparation and where they might receive more personal help.

COMMENT:  So well stated, by a genuinely wise man.  Politically correct white college administrators seem less interested in guiding black students correctly than in feathering their own academic nests.  We are not serving these minority kids by putting them into high-pressure environments for which they're not prepared.

December 30, 2015       Permalink

HILLARY'S RECORD – AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  Stop laughing.  She actually has one.  Trouble is, it's nothing to brag about.  Take her Senate record...please.  From the Washington Examiner: 

For eight years, Hillary Clinton toiled away in the United States Senate, sponsoring many landmark pieces of legislation and getting them signed into law, forever changing the country.

Just kidding. Only three pieces of legislation that Clinton sponsored became law. None were of much consequence.

One renamed a post office in a New York town with fewer than 2,000 people. Another renamed a portion of highway outside Buffalo after the late Tim Russert. The third established a brick house in Troy, N.Y., as a national historic site to honor a 19th century female union leader.

During her Senate career, Clinton sponsored 713 pieces of legislation. Those were the three that became law. That's a legislative batting average of .004, and none of the bills had much consequence outside New York. For the most part, Clinton's bills were merely facelifts of public grounds.

COMMENT:  Devastating.  She was an inconsequential senator and a failed secretary of state.  And now she presents herself as a presidential candidate.  It's kind of like Hollywood, where many executives fail upward.  If they flop at a job, they get a higher job on the grounds that they have real experience.  If they fail again, they go higher.  After all, they've had more experience.

I recall Clinton's years as our senator.  Nobody noticed that she was there, and nobody much cared.  She was a symbol.  When she announced for the Senate, reporters noticed the number of mink coats in the crowd.  That pretty much says it.

Clinton is the classic ticket puncher.  She punches tickets along the route, and never does much that succeeds.

December 30,  2015     Permalink

DECEMBER 29,  2015

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

EARTH-SHAKING POLITICAL NEWS – George Pataki has dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination.  Oh, let me explain.  He was once governor of New York.  You may remember him.  Even people living in New York may remember him.  Not a bad guy.  Was governor during 9/11.  But that was 14 years ago.  His campaign this year failed to ignite. 

MAJOR GRIEVANCE – Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, never known for intelligence or ability, has raised a new demand.  She wants some hurricanes to have distinctly African-American names, like Jamal or Leticia.  She also wants hurricane warnings broadcast in language more understandable to people in inner cities.  Apparently there's some culturally distinct way to tell people that 150-mile-an-hour winds may strike their home.  Antics like this just demean the African-American community.  They help no one.  Maybe Ms. Lee can find an honest line of work.

REMINDER – From NBC – The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman came about 1,500 yards from an Iranian rocket in the Strait of Hormuz last week, two U.S. military officials told NBC News on Tuesday.  As the Truman was transiting the strait, which connects the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, Iranian Revolutionary Guards conducted a live-fire exercise right near the U.S. carrier Saturday, officials said.  A U.S. military official said an Iranian navy fast and short attack craft began conducting a live-fire exercise at the same time the carrier was nearing the end of the strait, firing off several unguided rockets. A French frigate, the U.S. destroyer USS Buckley and other commercial traffic were also in the area.  It's been reported that, in case of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, Iran's dream would be to take out an American carrier.

BOYCOTT! – From The Hill:   The founders of Ben and Jerry’s are making a fundraising pitch for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, days before the year-end fundraising deadline.  Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who co-founded the Vermont-based ice cream chain, sent an email to supporters Tuesday, urging them to volunteer and donate $3 before the Dec. 31 deadline.  The two are ardent supporters of the Vermont senator and frequently stump for him in the early-voting states.  I am personally boycotting Cherry Garcia and New York Fudge Chunk.  Take that, socialists!

December 29, 2015       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 12:35 P.M. ET:   The brilliant Thomas Sowell examines 2015 and finds it the year of the lie.  And he singles out one in particular.  From Townhall: 

More than anything else, 2015 has been the year of the big lie. There have been lies in other years, and some of them pretty big, but even so 2015 has set new highs -- or new lows.

This is the year when we learned, from Hillary Clinton's own e-mails, after three long years of stalling, stone-walling and evasions, that Secretary of State Clinton lied, and so did President Barack Obama and others under him, when they all told us in 2012 that the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed the American ambassador and three other Americans was not a terrorist attack, but a protest demonstration that got out of hand.

"What difference, at this point, does it make?" as Mrs. Clinton later melodramatically cried out, at a Congressional committee hearing investigating that episode.

First of all, it made enough of a difference for some of the highest officials of American government to concoct a false story that they knew at the time was false.

It mattered enough that, if the truth had come out, on the eve of a presidential election, it could have destroyed Barack Obama's happy tale of how he had dealt a crippling blow to terrorists by killing Usama bin Laden (with an assist from the Navy's SEALS).

Had Obama's lies about his triumph over terrorism been exposed on the eve of the election, that could have ended his stay in the White House. And that could have spared us and the world many of Obama's disasters in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. That is why it matters, and will continue to matter in the future.

Lying, by itself, is obviously not new. What is new is the growing acceptance of lying as "no big deal" by smug sophisticates, so long as these are lies that advance their political causes. Many in the media greeted the exposure of Hillary Clinton's lies by admiring how well she handled herself.

COMMENT:  So true.  And yes, the only reaction that many in the media had to Clinton's testimony before Congress on Benghazi was to comment on her fine style. 

Lying has indeed become accepted by the chattering classes.  And why not?  In college these days students are taught that each culture has its own "validity," and that a lie isn't a lie, but another "narrative."  And, after all, who are we to question it?

December 29,  2015     Permalink

TERROR WARNING – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:   There have been new terror arrests in Belgium, linked to New Year's Eve.  From the BBC: 

Belgian police have arrested two people suspected of planning attacks in Brussels on New Year's Eve.

Raids took place on Sunday and Monday in Brussels and the provinces of Flemish Brabant and Liege.

Police seized military clothing and propaganda materials in the raids, but no weapons or explosives.

Belgium has been on high alert since the attacks of 13 November in Paris. Several of the perpetrators are thought to have been based in Belgium.

However, the latest arrests are not linked to the Paris attacks, prosecutors say.

One of those arrested is suspected of leading and recruiting for a terrorist cell.

The suspects are accused of planning attacks against several "symbolic targets" in Brussels, as well as on the police, according to the Belgian broadcaster RTBF.

Propaganda for the so-called Islamic State group was among the materials seized.

COMMENT:  This comes several days after we learned that warnings have been issued to several European cities and to Boston, Massachusetts, about possible terror attacks between Christmas and New Year's.  We stress that we have no specific information.  But stay on the alert.  As they say, correctly, if you see something, say something. 

December 29, 2015       Permalink

SICKENING – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  It is hard to believe that this is happening in today's world.  From Reuters:

WASHINGTON: Islamic State theologians have issued an extremely detailed ruling on when "owners" of women enslaved by the extremist group can have sex with them, in an apparent bid to curb what they called violations in the treatment of captured females.

The ruling or fatwa has the force of law and appears to go beyond the Islamic State's previous known utterances on the subject, a leading Islamic State scholar said. It sheds new light on how the group is trying to reinterpret centuries-old teachings to justify the sexual slavery of women in the swaths of Syria and Iraq it controls.

The fatwa was among a huge trove of documents captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces during a raid targeting a top Islamic State official in Syria in May. Reuters has reviewed some of the documents, which have not been previously published.

Among the religious rulings are bans on a father and son having sex with the same female slave; and the owner of a mother and daughter having sex with both. Joint owners of a female captive are similarly enjoined from intercourse because she is viewed as "part of a joint ownership."

The United Nations and human rights groups have accused the Islamic State of the systematic abduction and rape of thousands of women and girls as young as 12, especially members of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq. Many have been given to fighters as a reward or sold as sex slaves.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing, but take nausea pills first.  Then please note the silence of so-called "women's" organizations.  Will some news operation please investigate what these groups actually do for women.  Seems to me that many of them (not all) have simply become functionaries of the Marxist left.  The plight of women appears secondary.

December 29, 2015        Permalink

POLL SPLIT ON OBAMA'S LEGACY – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  A new CNN/ORC poll does not bring particularly welcome news for the man who came to office pledging to sweep his hand over this country and cure its ills.  From CNN:

(CNN) Heading into the final year of Barack Obama's presidency, the American public is divided on whether he's brought positive or negative change to the United States, and expresses broad dissatisfaction with government and anger about the way things are going in the nation generally.

Americans are divided in their views of Obama generally: 48% have a favorable opinion of him, 50% an unfavorable one. According to CNN/ORC Poll results from the same survey that were released on Monday, his overall job approval rating tilts negative, 52% disapprove while 47% approve. But on the issue that dominated the 2008 election campaign which brought Obama to the White House -- the economy -- the president scores his highest marks and the public remains optimistic.

A narrow majority -- 52% -- approve of Obama's handling of the economy, an uptick since last month. Obama last reached majority approval on the economy in June of this year.

COMMENT:  Part of the economic approval is due to low gas prices, even though Obama has opposed the very practices that have brought those prices down, namely the vastly increased petroleum production in the United States.  It's not the first time Obama has taken credit for something he opposed.  He opposed increased sanctions on Iran.  But, when they began to bite and have an impact, he suddenly found himself a sanctions fan, at least for a time.

Obama will not leave office with the lowest approval ratings of modern times.  Bush 43's were far lower.  So were Harry Truman's.  Truman is now seen as a great or near-great president.  I don't think Obama can even dream of that.  Left-wing historians in the universities will help him out of course.  But there's not much success to look at, and his greatest domestic "achievement," Obamacare, is running into grim economic facts.

December 29,  2015     Permalink