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SECOND SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE – 2014 – LAST FIVE DAYS

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JULY 9,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:51 P.M. ET: 

THE OPEN, TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION – Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar dared criticize President Obama's handling of the border crisis.  The Summer Palace objected.  From American Thinker:  "U.S Representative Henry Roberto Cuellar, a Democrat from Texas, told Brian Kilmeade on Fox and Friends this morning that he's already gotten a phone call from the White House, he wouldn't say from whom, warning him to stop criticizing Obama on his handling of the border.  Kilmeade mentioned to Cuellar that the WH doesn't take kindly to Democrats criticizing the president and cited Corey Booker catching flak and then backtracking.  Kilmeade pressed Cuellar about who called but the Congressman declined to say."  This White House remembers.  Cuellar may soon be toast.

THE KREMLIN HAS DECIDED... – From Education Action Group:  "NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee State Board of Education has passed sweeping new restrictions on student bake sales in order to be compliant with federal rules on school snacks, and a lot of people are unhappy about it.  In order to comply with the Michelle Obama-inspired regulations, Tennessee schools will only be allowed to have bake sales 30 days per school year.  State Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman said it was 'quite remarkable' that food fundraisers would be regulated by how many days they can be held, noting that this will prevent high school sports teams from holding weekly food fundraisers, according to The Tennessean.  Others were more direct in their criticism.  'It’s unbelievable to me the amount of guidelines that are there,' state Board of Education Chairman Fielding Rolston said, according to the newspaper.  'If somebody wants to object to federal intrusion in what’s going on in schools, I think this would be an ideal place to target their objections,' Rolston said."  Let the insurrection begin.

I'M SHOCKED, SHOCKED – From The College Fix:  "Young America’s Foundation has surveyed the required reading programs for incoming college freshmen nationwide and found that, over the past three years, none of the colleges have assigned a conservative-leaning book.  None of them.  Young America’s Foundation surveyed the top 50 schools as noted by Forbes, and 'found that many of the "required" books only offered left-wing perspectives on topics such as race, feminism, socialism, inequality, and wealth redistribution.'"  Why, I never would have thought it.

NOT EXACTLY "GONE WITH THE WIND" – From Hollywood Reporter:  "Robert Redford has signed on to play Dan Rather in Truth, a film based on the 2005 memoir Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power.  The book, written by Rather's producer Mary Mapes, centers on the firestorm that erupted in September of 2004 after Rather reported that George W. Bush had received special treatment while serving in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, a report that was based on documents that turned out to be forgeries."  Redford could have been something had he stayed an actor, avoided politics, and played cowboys. 

July 9, 2014       Permalink

FRANCE ACTS AGAINST WOULD-BE JIHADISTS – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  Sometimes I get the feeling that some European nations, especially France, are more serious about security than we are.  From AP: 

France plans to ban citizens suspected of links to radical Islamic groups from leaving the country in a new bill aimed at strengthening anti-terrorist legislation.

The draft bill unveiled Wednesday would allow authorities to stop French nationals from traveling if they are suspected of having links to a jihadist network. It would also allow investigators to question and charge people with individual terrorist plans, often described as "lone wolves."

The government is concerned to prevent attacks by individuals returning from Syria. Around 600 French nationals are in Syria to fight with radical Islamic groups or are planning to go there, according to the Interior Ministry.

The plan is to be presented to Parliament in the coming weeks with an aim for a vote by the end of the year.

COMMENT:  Sounds reasonable to me.  We should do that here, although we would have to introduce safeguards to be sure innocent people aren't held back from traveling.  I think that's easy to do, and common sense should prevail.  People aren't traveling to Syria or Somalia these days because of the tourist attractions. 

July 9, 2014       Permalink

NOW THEY TELL US – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  Wait a second, just wait a second.  Weren't we told that there were no WMD in Iraq?  I think that's what I heard.  Maybe I heard wrong.  Or maybe the party line has changed.  Whatever.  We now have this from Iraq.  From AP: 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iraq said the Islamic State extremist group has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility northwest of Baghdad, where 2,500 chemical rockets filled with the deadly nerve agent sarin or their remnants were stored along with other chemical warfare agents.

Iraq’s UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter circulated Tuesday that “armed terrorist groups” entered the Muthanna site on June 11, detained officers and soldiers from the protection force guarding the facilities and seized their weapons. The following morning the project manager spotted the looting of some equipment through the camera surveillance system before the “terrorists” disabled it, he said.

The Islamic State group, which controls parts of Syria, sent its fighters into neighboring Iraq last month and quickly captured a vast stretch of territory straddling the border between the two countries. Last week, its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the land the extremists control.

Alhakim said as a result of the takeover of Muthanna, Iraq is unable “to fulfil its obligations to destroy chemical weapons” because of the deteriorating security situation. He said it would resume its obligations “as soon as the security situation has improved and control of the facility has been regained.”

Alhakim singled out the capture of bunkers 13 and 41 in the sprawling complex 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad in the notorious “Sunni Triangle.”

COMMENT:  How many years has it been since the Iraq war ended?  And that facility is still there?  I guess the press and the professors were too busy chanting "Bush lied, thousands died," to notice. 

We also note that Syria seems to have an inordinate supply of WMD.  We were told by good sources before our invasion of Iraq that long convoys had been spotted traveling from Iraq to Syria, and that they might have contained Iraqi WMD.  But the reports were ignored by the mainstream media. 

Chickens do indeed come home to roost.

July 9, 2014       Permalink

SON OF KATRINA – AT 9:18 A.M. ET:   Remember when President Bush was roundly criticized for not spending enough time on the ground, in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina?   Well, in the immortal words of the philosopher Yogi Berra, it's déjà vu all over again.  Now the recipient of the criticism is Barack Obama, who, for some bizarre reason, refuses to visit the Texas border, which has now been breached by tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, many of them children.  Even Dems are dismayed.  From The Hill: 

President Obama should go see the humanitarian crisis developing on the southern border, the House Democrat leading the party’s effort to target Republican-held seats in the upcoming midterm elections said in an interview published Wednesday.

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program, told USA Today that if she were advising Obama, “I’d advise him to go to the border.”

“I have to tell you, I'm much more of a hands-on person,” Edwards said. “So, for me, visiting the border would make sense in terms of my ability to make decisions. People do things differently.”

The president will arrive in Texas on Wednesday for a two-day fundraising trip, but White House officials say he does not plan to visit the border while there. Instead, he’ll attend a meeting with local officials, faith leaders and Texas Gov. Rick Perry in Dallas, where they’ll discuss humanitarian efforts to assist the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors streaming into the U.S.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest has said the president doesn’t need to visit because he’s aware of the scope of the crisis, and the administration is not concerned about the optics involved.

“The president is well aware of exactly what’s happening on the border,” Earnest said Tuesday. “And what we are focused on right now are not political statements that would be made with an appearance, but rather with specific concrete action, steps that can be taken to mitigate this problem.”

COMMENT:  First, I think it's almost hilarious that Donna Edwards, a real certified lefty, is in charge of anything in the Democratic Party, but it tells you where the party is.

Second, contrast the treatment of George Bush, whose rescue effort in Katrina was remarkably successful, with the treatment of Barack Obama, who has failed miserably, continues to fail, and seems to enjoy failure.  Obama is still given a pass by much of the press. 

July 9, 2014       Permalink

OBAMACARE MESS CONTINUES – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  It's been out of the headlines, but the reality of Obamacare marches on.  The program is a mess, and now we find that the federal government can't even guarantee the number of participants.  From Investor's Business Daily: 

Buried in a largely overlooked government audit of the Obama-Care exchanges is a finding that casts still more doubt on the reliability of the 8 million enrollment number commonly cited by the administration and the press.

In a section titled "Other Issues," an inspector general report released last week found that the HealthCare.gov marketplace couldn't show it had been reconciling its monthly enrollment numbers with insurance companies.

That's despite the fact that the law specifically calls for this reconciliation, and the fact that, as the IG report notes, "the federal marketplace obtained the services of a contractor to reconcile enrollment information."

Obama administration officials "stated that the system to support reconciliations had yet to be developed."

But as the IG makes clear, without this monthly reconciliation, the government "cannot effectively monitor the current enrollment status of applicants, such as ... termination of plans."

In other words, there could be far fewer enrollees than advertised if these numbers were reconciled as required by law. The administration told the IG that it had "an interim process" in place until its automated reporting system was up and running.

COMMENT:  Ah, the old "interim process" gambit.  And once again another Obamacare system isn't yet "up and running."  We are talking about medical care.  We are talking about people's lives.  And yet, look at the incompetence.  But this is one area where Americans are watching because their own families are involved. 

July 9,  2014     Permalink

JULY 8,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:16 P.M. ET: 

GAZA WAR – For the first time, Hamas rockets reached Jerusalem and Tel Aviv today, essentially changing the nature of military action in the region.  The rockets did little damage.  Some were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system.  (Remember when they laughed at Ronald Reagan for wanting to develop anti-missile missiles?  Now they're being used.)  Israel responded by stepping up its air attacks on Hamas positions in Gaza.  At the same time, Obama's Mideast adviser picked today, a day of combat, to deliver a blistering speech in Israel lambasting the Israeli government.  It was sickening, and totally inept, but no one seemed to care.  The world has Obama's number, and has found that it's zero.

SHOCK, SHOCK – Are we to really believe that some images of the "suffering" in Gaza are actually fakes?  From The Blaze:  "An analysis by the BBC has uncovered that many of the images posted under the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack aren’t recent — and weren’t even taken in Gaza.  The hashtag has been used 'hundreds of thousands of times,' the BBC reported, providing a platform for those sharing photographs of what they purport to be destruction caused by Israeli strikes launched in recent days in response to sustained rocket attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza.  'Some of the images are of the current situation in Gaza, but a #BBCtrending analysis has found that some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq,' the BBC reported."  This is hardly the first time that the Islamic militant side has faked photos.  There are countless examples, and Western news organizations are taken in, or want to be taken in.

NO CLASS – From the Washington Examiner:  "The National Organization for Women, one of the nation's largest pro-abortion lobbies, named a Catholic order of nuns to a list called 'The Dirty 100,' a catalog of the 100 entities which filed lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate.  The order of nuns NOW finds 'dirty' are the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious institute for women founded by St. Jeanne Jugan in 19th century France. They are dedicated to care of the elderly impoverished, and describe their spiritual charism as 'grace of hospitality toward the aged poor.'"  NOW has never represented American women.  It represents a fringe, and has never conducted itself with anything approaching feminine sensitivity.  This is another example. 

POTENTIAL TRAGEDY – From Breitbart:  "MURRIETA -- Demonstrators opposed to illegal immigration stood their ground again at the Murrieta Border Patrol station on Monday, where U.S. Border Patrol had been scheduled to transfer a third round of buses, with approximately 140 illegal aliens aboard in total, transferred from overcrowded Texas detention facilities.  For a third time, the buses were rerouted to the San Ysidro, California Border Patrol station, near the U.S.-Mexico border, for processing. The demonstrators gathered in areas to the north and south of the Murrieta station after law enforcement blocked off the road near the station itself. "  This is a flashpoint.  The issue is not the demonstrators, but what happens if the authorities try to clear them.  I fear another Waco.

July 8, 2014       Permalink 

LATEST POLLING – AT 11:26 A.M. ET:   Here are latest Quinnipiac poll results, both presidential and congressional.  They tend to be in line with what I've been reading and seeing.  From The Politico: 

Sen. Rand Paul narrowly leads a tight 2016 Republican presidential field, while Hillary Clinton remains comfortably ahead among Democrats, a new poll says.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday, the Kentucky senator leads the way among national Republican voters with 11 percent of the vote in a potential 2016 GOP primary. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush all tied for second with 10 percent of the vote.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and 2012 vice presidential nominee Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan all pulled in 8 percent of the vote. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio received 6 percent.
Twenty percent of Republican voters remain undecided, underscoring a 2016 GOP presidential field with a lot of potential candidates but no clear favorite.

And that's the point.  The GOP contest is unformed.  These early polls prove that.  We have a long way to go to choose a nominee, and it may well be someone not even mentioned. 

Democrats, on the other hand, still have a clear front-runner in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who received 58 percent of the vote in a potential Democratic primary. Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in a distant second with 11 percent of the vote, Vice President Joe Biden received 9 percent and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo got 4 percent. Warren has said repeatedly that she isn’t running for president, though she has received considerable support from some in the liberal wing of the party.

I find that result interesting.  All the bad publicity hasn't much dented Hillary's standing, although that could change down the line.  There are reports, not confirmed, that Obama will endorse Warren, not Clinton, setting up a family feud of epic proportions.

Clinton also performed well in head-to-head matchups with many Republican candidates. In one-on-one matchups, voters preferred her to Christie, Paul, Huckabee, Bush and Ryan by anywhere from 7 to 9 percentage points. Clinton maintains a clear advantage among women, who gave her at least a 16-point edge in each of those matchups.

Actually, 7-9 points is smaller than leads registered in previous polls.

The poll also reported a divided electorate ahead of the 2014 congressional midterm elections. Forty-six percent of voters would like to see Republicans take control of the Senate, compared with 44 percent who would like Democrats to retain control. Voters reported a negative view of both parties, though they reported stronger negative feelings toward the Republican Party and congressional Republicans.

This is a key to Republican woes.  No matter how bad the Obama administration is, the Republican Party remains unpopular.  That unpopularity is digging into what should be a natural electoral advantage.

July 8, 2014        Permalink

IRAN LATEST – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  The formal goal is to have a nuclear agreement with Iran by July 20th.  That's 12 days away, and the talks aren't going very well.  (They can, of course, be extended.)  Indeed, the Iranians reportedly have made few concessions, and their leaders are becoming more, not less, demanding.   I suspect they sense that the sanctions regime, which held them in place, is starting to collapse, and that they can play for time.  From AFP: 

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s supreme leader revealed Tuesday that it ultimately wants 190,000 nuclear centrifuges — a figure he said was 19 times higher than world powers want to allow under a deal being discussed in Vienna.

The comments, published on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website on Tuesday, represent a dramatic intervention in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.

The talks have been taking place behind closed doors and Khamenei’s remarks are the most open declaration yet of Iran’s demands.

“Their aim is that we accept a capacity of 10,000 separative work units, which is equivalent to 10,000 centrifuges of the older type that we already have,” the supreme leader said, referring to the machines used in uranium enrichment.

“Our officials say we need 190,000. Perhaps not today, but in two to five years that is the country’s absolute need,” Khamenei, who has the final word on all matters of state, was quoted as saying.

Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for nuclear power stations or, in highly extended form, the core of an atomic bomb. The process is the most sensitive matter in the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1.

According to American media reports, the United States may accept Iran having between 2,000 and 4,000 centrifuges.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said last month that Iran could retain “several hundred centrifuges” but he said the Iranians were asking for “hundreds of thousands.”

The accord being sought by the P5+1 aims to finally allay international concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and silence talk of possible military action.

COMMENT:  Our fear is that Obama will cave in, as he always does, or agree to drag out the talks for so long that the sanctions regime collapses completely, under pressure from business interests, giving Iran no motive to make any concessions at all.

We used to believe that the credible threat of a Western military strike, aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear program, would provide incentive for the mullahs to agree to something reasonable.  But Obama has essentially taken the military option off the table, handing a huge advantage to the Iranians.  You never take the military option off the table.

But other questions arise:  Will the mainstream media continue to cover for Obama if the Iranian talks fail?  And will the Republican Party actually care, or start moving in the direction of Rand Paul, who has taken a soft line on Iran?  Wouldn't it be tragic if Iran's greatest ally turns out to be the party that used to be the party of Ronald Reagan?

July 8, 2014       Permalink

SHREWD ENEMY – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:  Just because the enemy in the Mideast is fanatical, that doesn't mean he's dumb.   It turns out that the group threatening Syria and Iraq, and reportedly moving into the Palestinian areas, is a shrewd operator that knows how to run its affairs.  From The Hill: 

When the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) stormed into Iraq and captured Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, the group not only walked away with a tremendous amount of abandoned military hardware, but also raided the city's central bank and took off with some $425 million. Perhaps even more amazing is that the group was already one of the best-funded terrorist groups in the world.

ISIS, which has renamed itself the Islamic State and unilaterally declared the reestablishment of an Islamic caliphate, has been financially self-sufficient for at least eight years, according to U.S. government estimates. Remember that before it renamed itself the Islamic State, the group was known as ISIS, as the Islamic State of Iraq, as al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), as Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin and as Jamaat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad.

And unlike other groups, which are reliant on state sponsors, major donors or abuse of charity, the group now calling itself the Islamic State has been financially independent by virtue of engaging in tremendously successful criminal activity enterprises.

By 2006, when the group was still known as AQI, it was already bringing in approximately $70 million through criminal activities. According to a November 2006 U.S. government assessment cited in The New York Times, AQI and other groups had successfully created a self-sustaining insurgency in Iraq, raising from $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities alone. The assessment highlighted oil smuggling, kidnapping for ransom and political corruption as the most significant and profitable enterprises. Even during the height of the Iraq War — and in large part because of it — AQI had established an independent financial structure.

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  This is fascinating stuff.  Far from defeating radical Islam in the years since 9/11, the threat has grown, and is now growing dramatically.  And these movements are taking on the characteristics of states.

And the response of the United States is an indifferent president and growing isolationism.  A price will be paid down the line.  But who cares about the next generation, right?  Hey, if it feels good, do it.  We're back to the spirit of the sixties.

July 8, 2014       Permalink

NEW MIDEAST FLAREUP – AT 9:03 A.M. ET:  And a new one seems to crop up almost every day, a direct result of the signal being sent from Washington that America is now a weak, vacillating nation with no real foreign policy to speak of.  The Israel/Gaza border has flared up as a result of incessant rocket attacks from Hamas terrorists (known as "militants" in the politically correct press).  They wouldn't be doing this if they felt there was a price to be paid.  But the price, some mild statements from Washington, is very small indeed.  From the Jerusalem Post: 

IDF chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz requested the call-up of 40,000 reserves in order to replace conscripted forces in the West Bank, and enable their deployment to the Gaza border.
The Prime Minister's Office would not confirm reports that the security cabinet approved the request which was made hours after Operation Protective Edge was launched in an effort to quell rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

The IDF had previously called up 1,500 reserves on Monday.

Operation Defensive Shield, which has seen the IAF strike some 100 terror targets in the Gaza Strip, came after more than 250 rockets were fired into southern Israel in recent weeks.

The rocket fire continued on Tuesday, with at least 30 rockets fired into Israel, including some which targeted Beersheba and Ashdod.

Following high level security deliberations Tuesday morning Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to expand the military operation in Gaza, including beginning preparations for a ground operation.

No time limit was put on the operation but senior diplomatic officials said it could be "for a long time."

COMMENT:  At the same time, Field Marshal Obama gave an interview to Israel's most left-wing newspaper, which largely features Israel-hating Israeli writers, in which he called, as usual, for "restraint."  That's a code word for pressure on any American ally that happens to be defending itself at the moment. 

Japan recently upgraded its defense plans dramatically, understanding that it could no longer depend entirely on the United States.  I'm sure Israel is getting the message, as are those in Iraq and Afghanistan who tried to help us, and are being abandoned.

The Mideast/west Asia region is the most explosive it's been in decades.  Congratulations Barack!  It's not all your fault, but finding anything you did positively is almost impossible.  In the immortal notion of Dwight Eisenhower, if you give me a week, I might be able to think of something.

July 8, 2014     Permalink