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JUNE 24,  2015

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

NO CONFIDENCE – From Fox: Voters are worried about Iran developing nuclear weapons -- and they doubt the White House can negotiate a deal to stop that from happening.  That’s according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday.  Nearly three-quarters of voters are concerned about Iran getting nukes (74 percent), including 31 percent who say they are “extremely” concerned.  At the same time, many lack confidence in the Obama administration’s ability to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear program: 48 percent are confident, while 50 percent aren’t. Moreover, nearly twice as many voters are “not at all” confident (31 percent) as are “very” confident (17 percent) in the White House’s negotiating skills.  I have seen nothing to suggest that any informed American should be confident in this administration's ability to negotiate even the transfer of a used car.

BOBBY IN – From Gateway Pundit:  Governor Bobby Jindal became the 13th Republican to announce his entry into the 2016 presidential race today.  Jindal is the first Asian-Indian to ever run for president.
He won reelection in Louisiana with 66% of the vote.  It's strange, but among polite intellectual society Jindal isn't considered a minority.  The groups he comes from are too successful, too studious, too scholarly.  A group of Asian Americans is currently suing Harvard for admissions discrimination.  Jindal's speech today was superb and inspiring, but he's been around for a time, and it would be a struggle for him.  I think he'd make a fine president.

JEFFERSON DISSED – CNN, which has gone completely nuts over racial issues in American society, now has one of America's greatest founders in its sights.  Ashleigh Banfield, who never ceases to amaze with her on-screen mediocrity, suggested that we should look at whether it's appropriate to have a memorial to Thomas Jefferson in Washington.  Jefferson, and it's hardly a secret, was a slaveholder.  He was also the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia statutes on religious freedom.  And he lived in the 18th and early 19th centuries.  Slavery, an awful institution, was accepted in his day.  But the ideas he put forth provided the intellectual foundation for its abolition later on.  The left would love to bring down Jefferson, and another slaveholder, George Washington.  I don't think it will happen, but a move to banish them from American history would have wide support on college campuses. 

NUTS – From Breitbart:  When it comes to the Left, it is always only a matter of time before they show their fascist colors. We’re seeing it all over the place in a media frenzy that began with a cause I agree with (removing Confederate Flags from state capitols) into what is now a full-blown mob waging a bullying witch hunt to completely memory-hole the flag.  Wednesday, the thing that you believe could never happen, did happen: a New York film critic has called for the banning of The Greatest Movie Ever Made.  In just three days, the left’s mob mentality took us from removing the Rebel Flag from a state capitol to banning “Gone with the Wind.”  Everyone knows that Scarlett O'Hara is a threat to civilization. 

June 24, 2015       Permalink

CHARLESTON – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:   With all the self-righteousness thrown around, its time for some thought.  From Jonah Goldberg at NRO:

‘Lots of folks expected us to do something strange and break out in a riot. Well, they just don’t know us,” the Reverend Norvel Goff told the packed, multiracial congregation of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., on Sunday. It was the first service since the horrific slaughter of nine innocent souls by a racist fanatic.

Not being a Christian, I can only marvel at the dignity and courage of the victims’ relatives who forgave the shooter. If I could ever manage such a thing, it would probably take me decades. It took them little more than a day.

Less shocking, but almost as uplifting, was the conduct of the broader Charleston community, which has been unified and dignified, despite the expectations of some in the media — and the accused gunman, who had singled out Charleston because of its success at racial integration.

And this points to Goff being right, not just about Charleston but about the South in general.

There are few subjects that ignite more casual, uninformed bigotry and condescension from elites in this nation than Dixie. “Practically the whole region has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment,” the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky wrote last year.

How then to explain the tens of thousands of South Carolinians, white and black, marching in unity across the Ravenel Bridge on Sunday night? Did the city bus in decent Northerners?

COMMENT:  Wonderfully said.  Read Jonah's whole piece.  It's an elegant attack on Northern presumption and arrogance, something I've seen all my life.

June 24, 2015       Permalink

RIDICULOUS JOURNALISM – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  The New York Times, once a great paper, has gone completely berserk since Charleston, reflecting the radical views of its publisher.  Every second article is about race, race, race.  The paper's return to the sixties is almost complete.  And it's gone even further left on the Middle East.

Yesterday, in an absolutely disgusting display of intellectual corruption, The Times ran an editorial essentially exonerating Hamas, and stating that the extremist group could not be expected to live up to international norms because, get this, as a terrorist entity it couldn't meet those standards.  But Israel would be expected to.  Talk about cynicism.  Give the terrorists a break.  They are, after all, terrorists.  Next we'll be told that kids in school who fail should be given A's since we can't expect much of them, so why not make them feel good?

This morning The Times runs a story that equals any in cynicism, as follows:

WASHINGTON — In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media rants.

But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.

The slaying of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church last week, with an avowed white supremacist charged with their murders, was a particularly savage case. But it is only the latest in a string of lethal attacks by people espousing racial hatred, hostility to government and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies the legitimacy of most statutory law. The assaults have taken the lives of police officers, members of racial or religious minorities and random civilians.

Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period.

COMMENT:  What deceptive rubbish.   The whole purpose of that piece is to take attention away from radical Islam and put it on "right-wing" groups.

Of course domestic terror organizations will produce greater casualties.  In fact, it's stunning that there aren't more.  Domestic groups are here.  They're organized here.  They operate easily on American soil, and blend in.  Jihadist groups have a tougher task, but that didn't prevent the Fort Hood jihadist from murdering 13 people on his base.

Ignored by the story are the attempts at mass terror by jihadists that have failed, like the attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit or to set off a large bomb in Times Square in New York.  Also ignored are the terror attempts by jihadists that have been broken up by law enforcement.  And while no one really believes that white supremacist groups are trying to get weapons of mass destruction, it's a foregone conclusion that jihadist groups are working on just that.

The objective of The Times, as a leftist paper, is to link domestic terror with "conservative" causes.  It's downright dishonest, but typical.

June 24, 2015       Permalink

ANOTHER ACT OF NUTTINESS – AT 8:53 A.M. ET:  It is hard to figure out the logic behind something like this, except to do as much damage to American credibility and strength as possible.  From CNN: 

Washington (CNN) The White House will release on Wednesday a presidential directive and an executive order that will allow the government to communicate and negotiate with terrorist groups holding Americans hostage, a source briefed on the matter told CNN.

While the government will maintain its policy of not making "substantive concessions" to captors or paying ransoms, the White House will announce that officials will no longer threaten with criminal prosecution the families of American hostages who do pay ransoms to their relatives' captors, according to a senior administration official.

Family members of former hostages were meeting at the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday to learn of the administration's decisions after a months-long review of U.S. policies in dealing with American citizens held captive. The families were set to meet with President Barack Obama on Wednesday.

COMMENT:  The change may be presented as "compassionate," but the practical effect will be to put a target on the back of every American working in a dangerous area.  Why not take hostages if there's money to be made? 

And what of families who can't afford ransom?  Are we to have a caste system? 

There is a history of paying ransom.  Even the tough Israelis have often gotten people back by releasing prisoners.  But there is no evidence that payments or concessions have ever resulted in anything good.  The same process – capture then ransom – is just repeated over and over.

June 24, 2015       Permalink

SIX DAYS TO GO – AT 8:19 A.M. ET:  The deadline to complete a nuclear arrangement with Iran is six days away.  It doesn't look as if the sides are close, but never underestimate the willingness of Barack Obama to make enough concessions to get a piece of paper.  From Fox:

The United States and its allies are willing to offer Iran state-of-the-art nuclear equipment if Tehran agrees to pare down its atomic weapons program as part of a final nuclear agreement, a draft document has revealed.

The confidential paper, obtained by the Associated Press, has dozens of bracketed text where disagreements remain. Technical cooperation is the least controversial issue at the talks, and the number of brackets suggest the sides have a ways to go, not only on that topic but also more contentious disputes, with less than a week until the June 30 deadline for a deal.

However, the scope of the help now being offered in the draft may displease U.S. congressional critics who already argue that Washington has offered too many concessions at the negotiations.

The draft, titled "Civil Nuclear Cooperation," promises to supply Iran with light-water nuclear reactors instead of its nearly completed heavy-water facility at Arak, which would produce enough plutonium for several bombs a year if completed as planned.

COMMENT:  It is such a farce.  The idea of Iran having any nuclear capability is frightening, but apparently not to the Obamans, who live in the world of the left – every country has its own "validity" and its own legitimate "grievances." 

A wise American strategy would be to pull out of the talks, rejecting Iranian demands, and stating that we would look to alternative means of bringing Iran to accept our demands.  That means sanctions.  It means not taking military force off the table. 

However, there is no chance of that strategy being implemented.  It goes against every grain of Obama's being. 

June 24,  2015     Permalink

JUNE 23,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET: 

MORE HYPOCRISY – From the Washington Times:   Hillary Rodham Clinton beseeched voters Tuesday to confront the “deep-seated biases and prejudice” that she said many Americans harbor in their hearts as she pushed racial politics to the forefront of her presidential campaign.  The former secretary of state already had been aggressively wooing black voters but plunged headlong into the race debate following a shooting massacre last week at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. There are certainly bigoted Americans, but a racist society doesn't produce a black president, nor does it permit an Oprah Winfrey, nor would it name a day in January for a black hero.  Clinton shows once again how the liberal left divides the country and plays the race card to drag people to the polls.  Shame.

THE MARCH OF DUMBNESS – From the College Fix: Hobart Boulevard Elementary School’s Rafe Esquith, who’s “written several books on teaching and received multiple awards for his work,” hasn’t been allowed back in the classroom since March.  That’s because he read a passage from Mark Twain’s "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," which … apparently miffed another teacher.  It happened in Los Angeles.  Esquith is getting a lot of support from educators, but will undoubtedly be labeled a racist for using Huck Finn.  Such is our condition.

HUH?  As the comedian Red Buttons used to say, "Strange things are happening."  From The Wall Street Journal:   He’s dismissed by the political professionals, but there is no denying that the appetite for Donald Trump among Republican primary voters is real.  The New York developer and reality television star is second among 2016 presidential candidates in a new Suffolk University poll of New Hampshire Republicans – behind only former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.  The poll of 500 likely GOP presidential primary voters found 14% back Mr. Bush. Mr. Trump is right behind at 11%. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio come next, with 8% and 7%, respectively. The poll tested 19 GOP candidates – a rare survey that included ultra-longshots like Mark Everson and former Govs. Bob Ehrlich and Jim Gilmore.  This is nuts.  But the low numbers – the frontrunner only gets 14% – indicate that we're at the very start of the race, with no serious trend in public opinion.

ARE YOU CONFUSED, TOO? – From London's Express:   Climate experts warn the amount of light and warmth released by the sun is nosediving to levels "not seen for centuries".  They fear a repeat of the so-called 'Maunder Minimum' which triggered Arctic winter whiteouts and led to the River Thames freezing 300 years ago.  The Met Office-led study warns although the effect will be offset by recent global warming, Britain faces years of unusually cold winters.  A spokesman said: "A return to low solar activity not seen for centuries could increase the chances of cold winters in Europe and eastern parts of the United States but wouldn't halt global warming.  "Return of 'grand solar minimum' could affect European and eastern US winters."  Do you sometimes get the feeling these people know a lot less than they claim?  Do you also get the feeling there's a lot of money tied up in this whole area? 

June 23, 2015     Permalink

UNBELIEVABLE – AT 11:58 A.M. ET:  We tend to forget the horror of ISIS, what it stands for, what it does.  And of course the multiculturalist crowd tends to downplay the nightmare, at times suggesting that we just don't understand the "frustrations" and "grievances" of those who do awful things.  From Fox:   

BERLIN – A Syrian woman believed responsible for helping to deliver hundreds of young European girls to ISIS has defected, and is now warning young women of the hell that awaits them in the black-clad Islamist army's so-called caliphate.

“You are young," the defector, who used the alias Um Asma in an interview with German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, told young women considering running away to join ISIS. "The caliphate is not what you think it is. Women are whipped, sold and stoned. Corpses are on display publicly for weeks.”

Asma described her efforts as a member of the women’s terror group al-Khansa, named after a 7th century female poet who converted to Islam and wrote odes to dead Muslim fighters. The 23-year-old wore a full covering niqab that shields everything but her eyes in the interview, and used the alias because she fears ISIS retaliation. Before the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011, she said, she wore “entirely normal clothes, had Christian friends, listened to music and went dancing.”

But after ISIS conquered Raqqa in 2013, she said she joined in order to survive. Al-Khansa, which believes women can marry jihadists as early as age 9, and advocates a frighteningly misogynistic view of their role in Islamic life, picks up the women and girls on the Turkish border and takes them to Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS caliphate.

COMMENT:  It is a chilling picture, but notice the silence of so-called "feminist" groups in the West.  They are so drunk on their left-wing ideology that the real interests of women are forgotten, or even ridiculed. 

When will the media start calling out these "feminist" groups?  When will the media challenge their silence?  Don't hold your breath.  The left protects the left.

June 23, 2015       Permalink

THE HORRIBLE IRAN DEAL – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  We don't often recommend op-ed pieces from The New York Times, but this vigorous critique of Obama's presumed Iran deal is superb.  It comes from Alan J. Kuperman, a nuclear-proliferation expert at the University of Texas: 

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S main pitch for the pending nuclear deal with Iran is that it would extend the “breakout time” necessary for Iran to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. In a recent interview with NPR, he said that the current breakout time is “about two to three months by our intelligence estimates.” By contrast, he claimed, the pending deal would shrink Iran’s nuclear program, so that if Iran later “decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go for a bomb, we’d have over a year to respond.”

Unfortunately, that claim is false, as can be demonstrated with basic science and math. By my calculations, Iran’s actual breakout time under the deal would be approximately three months — not over a year. Thus, the deal would be unlikely to improve the world’s ability to react to a sudden effort by Iran to build a bomb.

Breakout time is determined by three primary factors: the number and type of centrifuges; the enrichment of the starting material; and the amount of enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon. Mr. Obama seems to make rosy assumptions about all three.

Most important, in the event of an overt attempt by Iran to build a bomb, Mr. Obama’s argument assumes that Iran would employ only the 5,060 centrifuges that the deal would allow for uranium enrichment, not the roughly 14,000 additional centrifuges that Iran would be permitted to keep mainly for spare parts. Such an assumption is laughable. In a real-world breakout, Iran would race, not crawl, to the bomb.

And, finally:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, says that he wants 190,000 centrifuges eventually, or 10 times the current amount, as would appear to be permissible under the deal after just 10 years. Such enormous enrichment capacity would shrink the breakout time to mere days, so that Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb before we even knew it was trying — thus eliminating any hope of our taking preventive action.

Nothing in the pending deal is worth such risks. Unless President Obama can extract significantly greater concessions at the negotiating table, Congress should refuse to lift sanctions, thereby blocking implementation of a deal that would provide Iran billions of dollars to pursue nuclear weapons and regional hegemony.

COMMENT:  I doubt if any of this will influence the little man in the White House.  I doubt if he's even interested.  In 2009 he had the chance to apply moral pressure on Iran as the regime was murdering its opponents in the streets.  He barely lifted a finger.

He doesn't care.  To Barack Obama, Iran is not the problem.  America is the problem.

June 23, 2015       Permalink

SPEAKING THE TRUTH – AT 8:49 A.M. ET:   The left, especially in Europe, loved Obama's "reset" with Russia, in part because the left never had much of a problem with the old Soviet Union.  But the reset button is in for servicing as it never seemed to work.  Now an American general speaks the blunt truth.  From, ironically, Britain's Independent, a lefty newspaper: 

The US commander in charge of most of America’s nuclear missiles has warned that too much power is concentrated in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and drawn parallels between Russia’s recent behaviour and that of Nazi Germany.

Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson, commander of US Global Air Strike Command, said: “I don’t think we’ve ever seen so much power put in one person in Russia, and some of the things happening there are troubling and concerning for everybody.”

He added: “[They’ve] annexed a country, changing international borders, raising rhetoric unlike we’ve heard since the cold war times, and so lots of people are trying to figure out what is the strategic intent of Russia.

“Some of the actions by Russia recently we haven’t seen since the 1930s, when whole countries were annexed and borders were changed by decree

Lt Gen Wilson, who is responsible for US intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear-capable bomber forces, made the comments at a briefing in London attended by The Independent.

His outspoken remarks come amid rising tensions between the West and Russia. Yesterday, the EU extended economic sanctions against Moscow over its actions in Ukraine, and the US Defence Secretary, Ashton Carter, declared that America’s Nato allies must join it in standing up to Russian aggression.

COMMENT:  And what has Obama done about the rise in Russian aggressiveness?  Almost nothing, and that is unlikely to change.  Obama was brought up in a leftist family, openly admits his early attraction to Marxism, and hung out with an extreme crowd at the University of Chicago.  He has appeased Putin regularly.

And the person who carried out the "reset" with Russia was Hillary Clinton.

June 23, 2015       Permalink

RURAL MEDIA IN REVOLT – AT 8:33 A.M. ET:  It's a great idea.  Rural media, fed up with being ignored by the big guys downtown, is starting to hold candidate interviews of its own. Yippee.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Tired of big city media taking over political coverage in early rural primaries and caucuses, local media is elbowing in to demand that the parties and candidates address small town issues such as agriculture beyond basic talking points.

Led by the Nashville-based RFD-TV, the goal is to force candidates to get up to speed on rural concerns rather than focus simply on questions posed by the national media.

"Rural states set the tone," said RFD-TV founder Patrick Gottsch, noting that four — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — are the first to choose presidential nominees. "There aren't enough rural questions being asked," he added.

In a move endorsed by the parties, RFD-TV working with SiriusXM and cable provider Mediacom are planning a new one-hour interview program called "Rural Town Hall" that will feature one candidate at a time addressing rural issues and questions from group such as the 4-H.

Host Orion Samuelson said questions will range from agriculture to small-town education, water supplies and aging workers and migrant immigration.

One thing it won't be, added Gottsch, is gotcha journalism: up to 200 questions will be provided to candidates in advance. "Hopefully," he said, "we'll light a fire and create an understanding. We're in the business of building a bridge between urban and rural."

Samuelson said that RFD-TV's audience will be encouraged to email questions and ideas for discussions. He said the sessions should help to discover both where the candidates stand on rural issues and help connect those with the concerns of city dwellers.

COMMENT:   Now the question is whether the big guys will cover these forums.  Or will they dismiss them as pablum for the "flyover people"?  The fact that we have to ask the question tells us much about big media.

June 23,  2015     Permalink