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JANUARY 6,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:21 P.M. ET: 

CLOSE CALL – John Boehner was able to put down a revolt among House Republicans, some of whom wanted him replaced, but the result was much closer than expected.  From WaPo:  "In the end, their rebellion was not enough to unseat Boehner: The speaker won on the first round with 216 votes, 11 more than he needed. But it was far larger than a similar coup attempt against Boehner in 2013. In fact, it was the largest rebellion by a party against its incumbent speaker since the Civil War."  A warning that party conservatives will not be potted plants.

OH, THANK YOU, SIR – The president of Mexico is helping us absorb his citizens.  From the Washington Times:  "Mexico’s president told President Obama Tuesday that his government will supply the documents necessary for millions of illegal Mexican immigrants to prove they’ve been living in the U.S. prior to 2010, a move that will help them qualify for Mr. Obama’s recently announced deportation amnesty.  In an Oval Office meeting, President Enrique Pena Nieto praised Mr. Obama’s executive action on amnesty as 'very intelligent and audacious,' and said his government will do everything in its power to ensure that Mexicans who want to stay in the U.S. can do so."  Disgraceful.  You'd think he'd be ashamed that so many citizens want to leave his country, which is an oil-exporting nation.  How about trying to help your citizens stay and build Mexico?

PRESIDENT CHRISTIE? – From WaPo:  "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie watched his beloved Cowboys win a playoff game Sunday in Dallas, hugging and yukking it up with Jerry Jones in the Cowboys owner’s luxury suite.  The trip, however, is proving to be controversial. Christie flew to Dallas and accepted the ticket to the game at the expense of the Cowboys’ owner, who just so happens to have a business relationship with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey."  Look, the optics are terrible.  Christie is really not presidential material.  He's a good governor, but his state is losing an embarrassing number of businesses and people.  The party has better presidential timber. 

MAJOR CULINARY NEWS – From AP:  "Venezuela's more than 100 McDonald's franchises have run out of potatoes and are now serving alternatives like deep-fried arepa flatbreads or yuca, a starchy staple of traditional South American cooking.  McDonald's is blaming a contract dispute with West Coast dock workers for halting the export of frozen fries to the country. The dispute also caused several days of French fry rationing in Japan last month. But Sonia Ruseler, an Argentina-based spokeswoman for Arcos Dorados, which runs McDonald's restaurants in Latin America, declined to say Tuesday why Venezuela's neighbors are not suffering from similar scarcity.  Accustomed to shortages of their favorite foods, and equally in the habit of grumbling about the government as they walk away empty-handed, many Venezuelans assume the embattled socialist administration is to blame."  I'm researching to see whether cutting off French fries is an act of war.

January 6, 2014       Permalink

DEMS LOSE ON "TORTURE" – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:   Nobody, I hope, likes torture.  At the same time, bombing from 10,000 feet ain't a day in the park either.  Dems on the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by the usually grown-up Dianne Feinstein, tried to hang "torture" around the necks of Bush administration officials, but the whole thing backfired.  From Marc A. Thiessen at WaPo: 

As we begin 2015, we can take solace that the “torture” debate is finally behind us. But before we close the book on six sordid years of Democratic demagoguery and investigations, let the record show that the opponents of the CIA interrogation program were completely and utterly defeated.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, launched a six-year, 6,000-page, $40 million investigation into the CIA interrogation program, with the goal of convincing Americans that a) the program did not work and that b) enhanced interrogations were wrong and should never again be permitted.

She failed on all counts.

Just before Christmas, a Post poll revealed the American people’s final verdict. The vast majority agree with the CIA that these techniques were necessary and justified. A majority think that Feinstein should never have released her report. And — most importantly — 76 percent said they would do it again to protect the country.

Americans were asked, “Looking ahead, do you feel that torture of suspected terrorists can often be justified, sometimes justified, rarely justified or never justified?” Note that the pollsters used the loaded word “torture” (even though the CIA contends that the techniques did not constitute torture), which should have biased the question in favor of the critics. Instead, 17 percent replied they would support using the techniques “often,” 40 percent “sometimes” and 19 percent “rarely.” Only 20 percent said the techniques should “never” be justified.

COMMENT:  The maturity of the respondents came through.  They realize what war is.  They realize what the threats are.  They understand that sometimes, under strong controls, some very harsh things must be done.  We don't like it, but lives must be protected.  The Dems are pushing fairy tales.

January 6,  2014        Permalink

HOUSE GOP REVOLT – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:  There is a revolt among House Republicans aimed at denying John Boehner another term as speaker.  It probably won't succeed, but it does show that conservatives will not be content with business as usual.  From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — A long-shot effort to deny John Boehner a third term as speaker gained traction before Tuesday's House vote as two Republicans jumped into the race against the Ohio leader and at least nine GOP lawmakers said they would vote for an alternative candidate.

The brewing rebellion is unlikely to succeed — at least 29 Republicans would have to vote against Boehner to strip him of the gavel. That would force the leadership election to a second ballot.

But having an attempted coup in the works should make Tuesday's roll call on the House floor a dramatic, tense scene as the speaker's conservative critics shout out the names of other candidates and the anti-Boehner votes add up. Even if Boehner wins a comfortable majority, the public rebellion will serve as a high-profile reminder of the opposition he faces within his own Republican ranks as the 114th Congress gets underway.

"It's not good because it shows there's dissatisfaction with him inside his own conference, and it shows he has an ideologically divided conference," said Ronald Peters, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and an expert on the speakership.

Monday, Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman became the latest Republican to announce he would oppose Boehner. He said voters "want new leadership in Congress that will stand up to President Obama's big-government policies and advance a common-sense conservative reform agenda. ... I gave my word to my constituents back home in Indiana that I would do everything I could to bring a fresh start to Washington. My word will be kept, and I am hopeful tomorrow's vote will help bring that fresh start."

COMMENT:  Actually, I think the revolt is a good thing.  Conservatives must make their voices heard.  They faced brutal opposition from the establishment in 1980, when the establishment tried to block the presidential nomination of Ronald Reagan.  Reagan won, and went on to become one of the most consequential presidents of our time. 

We don't want reckless opposition to the president.  But we want principled opposition in tune with public sentiment. 

January 6, 2015       Permalink

AND AGAIN – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Two more cops have been shot in New York.  One is in critical condition.  It does not appear that the perps, who are on the loose, are black.  From CBS: 

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A massive manhunt is under way for two suspects after police said two NYPD officers responding to a robbery were shot and wounded in the Bronx.

The shooting happened around 10:30 p.m. Monday on Tiebout Avenue.

Police said a team of plainclothes officers had just finished their shifts in the 46th precinct when a call came in about a grocery store robbery.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the five officers, part of an anti-crime unit, then spotted two possible suspects in connection with the robbery.

One of those suspects then went into a Chinese restaurant on Tiebout Avenue near East 184th Street while the other remained on the street, police said.

As the officers approached the man on the street, police said the other man inside the restaurant pulled out a gun and began shooting from the doorway.

COMMENT:  The story emphasizes the danger of police work, danger that exists every hour of every day. 

January 6, 2015       Permalink

COPS AND BLACKS – REMARKABLE – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  Some remarkable research on the shooting of black suspects by cops.  Not what we're being told.  From the Washington Times: 

It’s widely assumed that white police officers are more likely to shoot black suspects as a result of racial bias, but recent research suggests the opposite is true.

An innovative study published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology found that participants in realistic simulations felt more threatened by black suspects yet took longer to pull the trigger on black men than on white or Hispanic men.

“This behavioral ‘counter-bias’ might be rooted in people’s concerns about the social and legal consequences of shooting a member of a historically oppressed racial or ethnic group,” said the paper, which went practically unnoticed when it was published online on May 22, but took on new significance in the wake of a series of high-profile police-involved shootings involving black victims over the summer.

The results back up what one of the researchers, University of Missouri-St. Louis professor David Klinger, has found after independently interviewing more than 300 police officers: While they don’t want to shoot anybody, they really don’t want to shoot black suspects.

“Across these 300 interviews, I have multiple officers telling me that they didn’t shoot only because the suspect was black or the suspect was a woman, or something that would not be consistent with this narrative of cops out there running and gunning,” said Mr. Klinger, a former cop and author of “Into the Kill Zone: A Cop’s Eye View of Deadly Force” (2006).

“When it comes to the issue of race, I’ve never had a single officer tell me, ‘I didn’t shoot a guy because he was white.’ I’ve had multiple officers tell me, ‘I didn’t shoot a guy because he was black,’ ” Mr. Klinger said. “And this is 10, even 20 years ago. Officers are alert to the fact that if they shoot a black individual, the odds of social outcry are far greater than if they shoot a white individual.”

COMMENT:  Why do I think this research will be buried rather quickly by the mainstream media and the grievance industry?  Just askin'.

January 6, 2015        Permalink

JANUARY 5,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:18 P.M. ET: 

OH, THE BOTHER – From Hollywood Reporter:  "Beverly Hills High School was evacuated at 11 am on Monday after the school received a bomb threat that was called by telephone.  'The Beverly Hills High School campus has been cleared by officers and determined to be safe,' a police alert from the Beverly Hills Police Department read. 'The Beverly Hills High School Administration, as a precaution, has chosen to close the school for today and is in the process of reuniting students with their parents.'  Earlier in the day, police were on the location and investigating the incident, Beverly Hills Police Department Sgt. Max Subin told THR.  The police department also had stated in an earlier alert that 'No suspicious package or device has been located.'"  The evacuation was carried out in a string of white Rolls Royces driven by out-of-work actors.  Students signed autographs as they left the campus.  Movie rights are being negotiated.

TORTURE NEWS – From Britain's Telegraph:  "A small bowl of porridge each day could be the key to a long and healthy life, after a major study by Harvard University found that whole grains reduce the risk of dying from heart disease.  Although whole grains are widely believed to be beneficial for health it is the first research to look at whether they have a long-term impact on lifespan.  Researchers followed more than 100,000 people for more than 14 years monitoring their diets and health outcomes.  Everyone involved in the study was healthy in 1984 when they enrolled, but when they were followed up in 2010 more than 26,000 had died.  However those who ate the most whole grains, such as porridge, brown rice, corn and quinoa seemed protected from many illnesses and particularly heart disease."  YUCH!  DOUBLE YUCH!  I only regret that I have but one life to give for Edy's chocolate chip.

SUFFER! – From Newsmax:  "Harvard professors are up in arms after learning they will have to pay more towards their healthcare costs under Obamacare, which many of them have championed, The New York Times reports.  The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the center of the venerable institution, has voted overwhelmingly to fight changes that would force them, along with thousands of other Harvard employees, to pay more for their health benefits.  'Harvard is a microcosm of what’s happening in healthcare in the country,' said David Cutler, a health economist at the university who was an adviser during President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign."  Maybe now they'll understand what "real world" means.

LONG OVERDUE – From Fox:  "A lawyer for victims of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and their families says the combat-related benefits that come with the Purple Heart -- now being considered thanks to new legislation -- will be a lifeline for many of his clients, who are still so damaged physically and mentally they are unable to work five years after the massacre.  'No one will be the same,' Neal Sher told Fox News. 'The people who have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) -- both those who were hit by bullets and others who were in that area -- that is a very, very debilitating condition. And they're suffering on a daily basis. And as I said, families have been broken apart.'  The legislation that funds the Defense Department in 2015, known as the NDAA or National Defense Authorization Act, includes new language that requires the Pentagon to reconsider whether the victims of the Fort Hood massacre qualify for the Purple Heart -- one of the department's highest honors."  Disgracefully, the Obama appeasers still classify Fort Hood as "workplace violence," a lie.  It was a terrorist act committed by a perpetrator with deep ties to radical Islam. 

January 5, 2015       Permalink

A STAR IS BORN – AT 11:53 A.M. ET:  The new Congress starts business tomorrow, and with it come some new Republican stars.  They are starting to define a new conservatism that is more inclusive and more creative.

One such star is Mia Love, the new African-American Republican congresswoman from Utah.  She is here.  She is vocal, and she's taking on Obamacare.  She will not be silenced by the old Republican "get along" establishment.  From the Washington Times: 

Rep.-elect Mia Love vowed to walk the talk she promised voters of Utah and that as part of that pledge, she would stand strong on Obamacare and push for its repeal and replacement.

Specifically, she vowed to “do everything humanly possible to stop Obamacare,” she said during an interview on “This Week” on ABC News.

“Look, I was elected by my district to make sure we get the decision-making back in their hands,” she said, National Review Online reported. “And I’ve said I was going to do everything I can to repeal and replace it with broad health-care reforms, free-market health-care reforms. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Ms. Love was elected in a tight race against Democrat Doug Owens. She made the strong statement in response to ABC host Martha Raddatz’s question about whether she would support Sen. Ted Cruz’s plan to defund, repeal or dismantle Obamacare.

COMMENT:  At least she has spirit.  The latest on Obamacare, and we'll report on it in detail, is that it's starting to have a devastating impact on the middle class.  Obamacare, at base, is a wealth transfer program.  The Americans who were "uninsured" before it was passed – in fact everyone who wanted health care actually got it – are now comfortable with their plan.  But middle class people are seeing soaring rates, cutbacks in coverage, and the inability to choose doctors.  Change we can believe in.  Right.

Will Americans wake up and vote out the Obama crowd in 2016?  I think it's close.  Many Americans get checks from the government, and they're subject to intimidation and scares.

January 5, 2015       Permalink

DEPARTMENT OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES – AT 10:49 A.M. ET:  Minimum wage laws just changed in a number of states.  The intent is good, to give people a better life.  But does it work?  A cautionary tale from The Wall Street Journal: 

More than two dozen states and cities raised their minimum wages on Jan. 1. It’s well-established in the economic literature, if not in the minds of proponents of these laws, that the result will be job losses. Yet this empirical reality fails to capture the emotional reality of the employees who are let go, or of the business owners who had no choice but to let them go. I learned this on a snowy November day in Hillsdale, a college town in rural south-central Michigan.

Michigan’s minimum wage rose in September to $8.15 an hour from $7.40 (the minimum wage for tipped employees rose 17%, to $3.10 an hour). The wage will rise to $9.25 by January 2018. The law was enacted by a Republican legislature, and signed by a Republican governor to head off a more draconian proposal that left-wing activists were attempting to place on the November ballot.

But the good intentions behind these political machinations didn’t make a difference to Jack Mosley, a pastor who until this fall operated a restaurant in Hillsdale called Tastes of Life. The increased minimum wage, he told me, was “the straw that broke that camel’s back,” forcing him to close his doors and lay off his 12-person staff.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole story.  The road to Hell is, indeed, paved with good intentions.

January 5, 2015       Permalink

SMART MOVE BY JAPAN – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  One of the problems in Asia is the bitter memory that countries have about Japan's actions in World War II.  That was not the Japan of the SONY Playstation or the Honda Accord.  It was imperial Japan, and it was brutal.

There is now a nationalist government in Japan, and, at a time when we need to keep our alliances together in the Pacific, the fear has grown that this government might paper over the lingering resentment toward Japan's history.  Japan itself has never faced that history as directly as Germany has.  Our fears may be exaggerated.  From Weekly Standard: 

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe will "express remorse" for World War II, the Associated Press reports:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that his government would express remorse for World War II on the 70th anniversary of its end in August.

Abe is known for his nationalist views, and many analysts have speculated that he may downplay Japan's responsibility for the war. At a year-opening news conference Monday, he sought to reassure the world that he wouldn't veer from past official statements on Japan's wartime responsibility.

"The Abe Cabinet will uphold the general stance on history of successive prime ministers, including the Murayama statement," he said, referring to the 1995 apology made by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the 50th anniversary of the war's end.

He said the government would draft a new statement "that includes Japan's remorse for the war," though he stopped short of saying it would apologize.

The Japan Times has more on the move:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he will express remorse for Japan’s actions in World War II while highlighting the country’s bid to contribute more actively to world peace in his statement marking the 70th anniversary of the war’s end in August.

“I would like to write of Japan’s remorse over the war, its postwar history as a pacifist nation and how it will contribute to the Asia-Pacific region and the world,” Abe said in Ise, Mie Prefecture, during his first news conference of the year.

To mark the anniversary, the government is preparing to craft a new statement, a document that will be closely watched due to the implications it could to have on relations with China and South Korea.

COMMENT:  That's a relief.  The rise of China, and its military strength, makes it imperative that the American-Japanese alliance be strong, and that Japan and South Korea have decent relations. 

We probably will be seeing a dramatic rise in Japanese military power.  We want other Pacific nations to welcome it, not be fearful of it.

January 5, 2015       Permalink

A NEW YEAR'S WARNING FOR US – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  Yes, we want a happy new year.  But we want to be around for a new year next year as well.  And we face serious threats that are rising to meet us.  From WTOP, in Washington:

WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is warning Americans that they’ve been working long and hard on a new tool to attack the U.S.

In the latest issue of the terror group’s Inspire electronic magazine, an individual called the AQ Chef was quoted as saying they developed a bomb in 2009, but “the brothers in the external operation committee did not give us the green light until recently.”

Hinting at al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s dedication to building undetectable bombs, he said in the winter 2014 edition of Inspire, released in late December, “they have developed other bombs that are more effective.”

AQ Chef indicates that lessons learned from failures in past assassination attempts and plots to attack U.S. airplanes and buildings have fed the development of a new generation of what it calls “undetectable” bombs.

In “The Hidden Bomb,” a 20-page section of the magazine, the writer goes into painstaking detail about how to build and test such a bomb: “For several months, we conducted a number of experiments. As a result we came up with these simple materials that are readily available around the globe, even inside America. We spared no effort in simplifying the idea in such we made it ‘another meal prepared in the kitchen’ so that every determined Muslim can prepare.”

COMMENT:  It might be bluster, but, given the record, I'd take this claim very seriously.  Remember, the terrorist has to be lucky only once.  Sooner or later, one of these guys is going to get through, and wreak havoc, and we have Barack Obama in the White House.

January 5,  2015     Permalink