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MARCH 21,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:46 P.M. ET: 

GREAT MOMENTS IN LAW – From sfgate.com:  "An extremely drunk Los Angeles County deputy public defender created a scene at San Francisco International Airport, screaming at officers and assaulting them, singing the 'Happy Days' theme song and asking for cocaine, authorities said Thursday.  Monica Marie Jenkins, 37, pleaded not guilty Wednesday in San Mateo County Superior Court to misdemeanor charges of assault and battery on a police officer, obstructing officers and being drunk in public. She was released on her own recognizance. "  The "Happy Days" theme?  Fonzi?  This is cause for disbarment.

INCREDIBLE – From the New York Post:  "The Freedom Tower, America’s top terror target, doesn’t have a single working surveillance camera inside — a stunning security lapse that let a New Jersey teen roam the top floors undetected for two hours, The Post has learned.  The video system for 1 World Trade Center 'won’t be operational until the building opens later this year,' said a source familiar with the security plan.  That means there is no footage of Justin Casquejo, 16, as he slipped by a sleeping guard to the antenna of the 1,776-foot-tall building Sunday morning.  'This place has a big bull’s-eye on it, and I don’t even want to think what could have happened if it was somebody with bad intentions' said a hardhat at the site Thursday."  Another effective day in the war on terror, which, according to the commander-in-chief, is over.

THE WISDOM OF BARACK OBAMA – How often have you seen that phrase here?  But we found a case where it applies.  From Mediaite:  "Jimmy Carter has been very active in the decades since his presidency, and his successors have occasionally called for his advice. Except, it turns out, the current occupant of the office. A clip from Carter’s upcoming Meet the Press interview reveals that President Obama is the first president since Carter left office not to solicit the Southern Democrat’s advice."  Maybe it's because Obama already has mastered Carter's approach.  Carter is, after all, the president to whom Obama is most often compared.  But staying away from Carter himself is a good Obama move.

March 21, 2014       Permalink

BARACK LINCOLN – AT 11:14 A.M. ET:  This president compares himself to another.  You can't make it up.  From Breitbart: 

Appearing on ESPN Radio’s The Herd with Colin Cowherd, President Obama explained that his pop cultural tour to push Obamacare – a tour that has spanned from The Ellen Degeneres Show to the Funny or Die! sketch Between Two Ferns – was actually Lincolnesque. He stated:

First of all, if you read back on Lincoln, he loved telling the occasional bawdy joke, and he went out among regular folks. One of the hardest things about being President is being in a bubble that is artificial. Unless you make a conscious effort, you start to sound like some Washington stiff. So you got to consciously try to get out of that, if you want to remind yourself of the wonderful people you are supposed to be serving with a sense of humor and aren't thinking every day of position papers.

Obama’s words were actually a rip-off of a defense used by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes shortly after Obama’s appearance on Between Two Ferns. Undoubtedly, the MSNBC-watching president parroted the Hayes line.

The president's answer took 93 words.  This is what Lincon did with 89:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live.

COMMENT:  I suggest there's a bit of a difference between the two gents.

March 21, 2014       Permalink

PATHETIC – Reader Joseph J. Gallick alerts us to an important piece in The Wall Street Journal.  We watch our enemies laugh at us, and ignore our thinned-out threats.  And this is what they see when they do a hard assessment of the United States:

Americans may be war-weary after Iraq and Afghanistan. But the world is still a hostile place, and the U.S.Navy is stretched too thin. And in a new sleight of hand, the Obama administration has changed what it considers a warship when reporting the size of the Navy's "battle force." From now on it will include the two hospital ships, Mercy and Comfort, 10 small coastal patrol vessels and a high-speed transport. Add those, subtract a few minesweepers, and voilà—the Navy fleet has grown to 293 from 283 ships.

Most of the new additions are lightly armed coastal-patrol craft and not true oceangoing ships. Originally designed to carry Navy SEALs and other special-operations forces, these 179-foot ships turned out to be inadequate for that role. Instead, armed with machine guns, they can be used to support "low intensity conflicts." They were launched in the early 1990s and recalled in 2010 to deal with fatigue damage to their hulls. Their military role is questionable and they're well past their expiration date, yet they sail on for public-relations purposes.

The Navy takes great pride in its humanitarian relief work, and its recruiting commercials feature photos of tsunami and earthquake survivors receiving food, water and medical care delivered by aircraft carriers, amphibious command ships, and of course, the two hospital ships. Such soft power diplomacy is an essential part of our foreign-policy strategy.

But substituting hospital ships, a former car ferry (which the Navy itself refers to as a noncombatant) and over-the-hill coastal craft for capital ships is delusional when calculating the battle force. So is the boast that the U.S. Navy has an 11 aircraft-carrier fleet.

Last month I was flown onto the USS Carl Vinson while its crew conducted training exercises about 150 miles off San Diego in the Pacific. Commissioned in 1982, the Vinson is one the Navy's oldest nuclear-powered carriers. In a briefing before the flight to the carrier, I asked how many carriers the Navy had deployed world-wide that day, and how many it could deploy within 30 days. A Naval officer said three were deployed that day, and one more could get under way within a month—a far cry from the 11-carrier fleet mandated by Congress.

COMMENT:  This is especially painful because the Navy needs more lead time to prepare for combat than any other service.  It takes years to build a capital ship.  And our shipbuilding capacity has diminished substantially since World War II.

Obama doesn't care.  The left wing of the Democratic Party, like the old "progressives," believes we are the problem, and that the Pentagon is the heart of the problem.  Distinguished novelist and major-league whackjob Toni Morrison said in a commencement address at Wellesley College in the late 90s that the American military was "out of control."  I hadn't noticed.  It's the left, and its allies in the press and the universities, that's out of control.

March 21, 2014       Permalink

THE REAL IRANIAN REGIME – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  Occasionally the UN gets it right – kids should get a day off from school to celebrate – and they just got it right on one item.  From Fox:

The election last year of self-professed moderate President Hassan Rouhani has not brought Iran's Christians any relief, according to a new United Nations report which finds the Islamic Republic's Bible believers more persecuted than ever.

The detailed report finds Iran has continued to imprison Christians for their faith and designated house churches and evangelical Christians as "threats to national security.” At least 49 Christians were among 307 religious minorities being held in Iranian jails as of January 2014, noted the UN, which also blasted the regime for its hostility to Jews, Baha’is, Zoroastrians and Dervish Muslims, the UN report stated.

“These are indicators that President Rouhani has no influence over hard-liners, who remain fully in charge of the judiciary and security apparatus, government entities that are responsible for the most severe abuses against religious minorities," Dwight Bashir, deputy director for policy at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told FoxNews.com.

Among the Christians held in Iranian prisons is American citizen and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, who is serving an eight-year prison term for alleged crimes related to his faith. President Obama has called for Abedini's release, even as his administration has negotiated a disarmament deal with Iran.

"This report is as an important reminder about the true nature of the Iranian regime," Sen. Mark Kirk, (R-III), told FoxNews.com. "We can't pretend we are negotiating with Western moderates – we are negotiating with Islamic radicals who persecute Christians, Baha'is, other religious and ethnic minorities and women, while denying all of its citizens basic human rights -- including the freedom of speech and assembly."

COMMENT:  But once again we see the silence of too many "Christian" institutions.  I don't expect much from the National Council of Churches, whose relationship to Christianity has been vague for decades.  Or from the American Friends Service Committee, the "Quaker" group that is so anguished over the existence of Israel.  But surely there are others.  The evangelicals speak out.  All the time.  We must help them and amplify their voices, regardless of our religion.  When it comes to persecution of Christians in Iran, we should all be Christians.

March 21, 2014       Permalink

A DONE DEAL – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  And, in a reversal of the Reagan doctrine regarding Moscow, they win, we lose.   From Fox:

MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin signed bills at the Kremlin Friday officially completing the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Putin hailed the incorporation of Crimea into Russia as a "remarkable event" before he signed the bills into law. Ukraine and the West have rejected the earlier vote by Russian parliament held two weeks after Russian troops had taken over Crimea.

The U.S. and the European Union have responded by slapping sanctions on Russia. President Obama ordered a second round of sanctions Thursday targeting members of Putin's inner circle and a major bank supporting them.

International agencies downgraded Russia's outlook, and Russian stock plummeted Friday.

Putin said in televised remarks at Friday's session of the presidential Security Council that he sees no immediate need for further Russian retaliation and said sardonically that he would open an account in the targeted bank.

COMMENT:  The Russians will get some knee scrapes over the sanctions, but the fact is that they've clearly won this round.  Anyone disagree?

March 21, 2014       Permalink

MARCH 20,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:50 P.M. ET: 

AN ATTACK ON TWITTER IS AN ATTACK ON ALL OF US – From AFP:  "ANKARA — Turkey’s combative prime minister warned on Thursday that he would eradicate Twitter in the wake of damaging allegations of corruption in his inner circle that have spread across social networks in recent weeks.  'We will wipe out Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says' premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at an election rally in the western province of Bursa."  And the UN Security Council does nothing.

TAKE THAT, YANKEES – From Reuters:  "MOSCOW - Russia imposed retaliatory sanctions on nine US officials and lawmakers on Thursday as tension over Moscow's annexation of Crimea mounted, warning the West it would hit back over 'every hostile thrust.'  Deputy national security advisers Ben Rhodes and Caroline Atkinson and senators John McCain, Harry Reid and Mary Landrieu, Dan Coats and Robert Menendez were among the Americans barred from Russia, the Foreign Ministry said.  The others were House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama."  Dem senators running for re-election in swing states are desperately trying to get on that list.

DISGRACEFUL – From The New York Times:  "HONG KONG — The chairman of Bloomberg L.P. said in a speech here on Thursday that the company should have reconsidered articles that deviated from its core of coverage of business news, because they jeopardized the huge sales potential for its products in the Chinese market.  The comments by the chairman, Peter T. Grauer, represented the starkest acknowledgment yet by a senior Bloomberg executive that the ambitions of the news division should be assessed in the context of the business operation, which provides the bulk of the company’s revenue. They also signaled which of those considerations might get priority."  I think Mike Bloomberg ought to get involved personally on this, and reassure his news division that it has editorial independence – or abolish the news division. 

AIRLINER – Don't be shocked if you see the Malaysian airliner story start to fade, unless of course the plane is found.  The massive search now going on off Australia may take as many as 26 days to complete, with no guarantee of success.  The flow of relevant facts is slowing.  The mystery may never be solved.  I have no idea what cable news will do with their time. 

March 20, 2014       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:06 A.M. ET:  From the editorial page of the Washington Post, which once again demonstrates that it has the best, most responsible, liberal editorial page in the country.  Regarding Obama's, Kerry's, and the West's view of Vladimir Putin: 

Western officials seem to be betting that Mr. Putin won’t dare to extend his aggression beyond Crimea. But then, just last week they were saying they did not expect Moscow to move quickly on Crimean annexation. The Obama administration and its European allies have been too slow to grasp that Mr. Putin is bent on upending the post-Cold War order in Europe and reversing Russia’s loss of dominion over Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Worse, some in and outside of Western governments may be feeding Mr. Putin’s imperialism by rushing to concede “Russian interests” in Eurasia. President Obama and Mr. Kerry are among those who have said they recognize such “interests” in Ukraine. But the fact that there are ethnic Russians in a country should not give Mr. Putin’s regime a privileged say in its affairs. The idea that areas populated by Russians must be ruled or protected by Moscow is less the ideology of the 19th century, as Mr. Kerry would have it, than of the 1930s.

And...

The two countries that Mr. Putin has invaded since 2008, Ukraine and Georgia, were rejected for NATO membership action plans that year. Can it be argued seriously that Estonia and Latvia, with their large Russian minorities, now would be less vulnerable to Russian aggression had they had not joined NATO? The crisis in Europe has come about not because Western institutions expanded, but because they did not fulfill their post-Cold War promise of “a Europe whole and free.”

COMMENT:  So well said, and well argued.  Puts The New York Times to shame. 

March 20, 2014       Permalink

THE WARNING – AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  This expands on an earlier report we ran.   An Al Qaeda online magazine is urging followers in the United States to mount individual attacks.  From WCBS, New York: 

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The latest edition of al Qaeda‘s English-language online magazine urges its readers to attack the United States with car bombs and includes a photo of Times Square.

The terrorist organization’s magazine, Inspire, specifically mentions New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago as preferred targets, WCBS 880′s Rich Lamb reported.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Wednesday the website calls for its readers to act as “lone wolf” terrorists.

“It certainly is an issue that we will continue to stay focused on,” Bratton said. “It is a magazine that is very widely read by that world.”

The magazine also advises potential terrorists to attack places holding lots of people, CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer reported.

“As for the field target for the car bomb,” the magazine advises, “you have places flooded with individuals e.g. Sports events in which tens of thousands attend, election campaigns, festivals and other gathering(s). The important thing is that you target people and not buildings.”

“This is typical of al Qaeda’s targeting, which is to kill as many people as possible,” said John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy police commissioner for intelligence.

Bratton noted the city has a large number of officers dedicated to counterterrorism and that every plot against New York City since 9/11 has been foiled.

Miller told CBS News the magazine edition is “one-stop shopping for an amateur terrorist.”

“What it talks about is targeting … specific places, specific targets, specific events, but it goes beyond that call, and it says, ‘and by the way, here is a simple set of instructions for a car bomb that you can make with essentially, you know, a trip to a big-box hardware store and a couple of chemicals,’” said Miller, a former CBS News senior correspondent.

And...

The Inspire website includes a letter from editor Yahya Ibrahim, which reads, in part: “Many Feisal Shahzads are residing inside America, and all they need is the knowledge of how to make car bombs. They are all yearning to fulfill their duty of Jihad. … The American government was unable to protect its citizens from pressure cooker bombs in backpacks, I wonder if they are ready to stop car bombs!”

COMMENT:  Nice, huh?  Let us repeat the assurances of Dear Leader:  The war on terror is over. 

Only in his head.

March 20, 2014        Permalink

HILLARY GETS TOUGH AGAIN – AT 9:04 A.M. ET:   We noted earlier this week how Hillary Clinton had made a speech on Ukraine tougher than any her old boss, Barack Obama, had given.  Now she's done it again, this time on Iran.  It's clear she's charting her own course, separating herself from the mess that is Obama.  From WaPo: 

NEW YORK – Hillary Rodham Clinton cast doubt on the interim nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, saying in a speech here Wednesday night that she is “personally skeptical” that Iran’s leaders would follow through on a comprehensive agreement to end Iran’s march toward nuclear weapons.

Still, the former secretary of state told a pro-Israel audience that she stands behind the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran and commended the work of her successor, John F. Kerry.

Clinton said the United States should “give space for diplomacy to work” and avoid imposing new unilateral sanctions or any other actions that might lead any allies to back out of existing international sanctions against Iran.

“The odds of reaching that comprehensive agreement are not good,” Clinton said. “I am also personally skeptical that the Iranians would follow through and deliver. I have seen their behavior over years. But this is a development that is worth testing.”

If the negotiations with Iran fail, Clinton said, the United States should explore “every other option.”
“Let’s be clear,” she said, “every other option does remain on the table.”

COMMENT:  I'm not troubled by her praise of Kerry.  That's required and routine.  It's her other language, her own skepticism about the success of the Iran talks, and her emphasizing that "every other option does remain on the table" that interests me.  That last phrase is a code term for military action.  Obama will use it if it is dragged out of him.  Everyone knows he doesn't mean it.  Hillary is trying to convince the American center that she does mean it.

True, she was speaking to a pro-Israel audience, but that's insignificant.  She's Hillary, and her words are flashed around the world whenever she opens her mouth.

Is she real, or deceptive?  I don't know, but she did have a reputation for being tougher as secretary of state than Obama.  And, as we've also noted, she seems to be taking a page from Jack Kennedy's 1960 playbook – run to the right of the Republicans on foreign policy, reassure independents, and neutralize the "soft on defense" charge.

She's running.

March 20, 2014        Permalink

AIRLINER LATEST – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  Given journalism's record on this story, every report must be greeted very skeptically.  We're now told that satellites picked up some large objects in the ocean, some 1,400 miles southwest of Perth, Australia.  The objects could not be identified, but search aircraft are being sent.  From CNN:

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- Two objects spotted by satellite in the southern Indian Ocean may be debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Australian authorities said Thursday, fueling cautious hopes of a breakthrough in an international search of unprecedented scale.

A Royal Australian Air Force search plane dispatched to the remote spot was unable to find either object amid rain, clouds and limited visibility Thursday afternoon, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Twitter. A U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft also searched the area and found nothing, a Navy official said.

A Norwegian merchant ship had also reached the site, its owner confirmed Thursday. But as darkness fell over the region, it seemed unlikely further information would come until Friday.

Authorities cautioned the objects could be something else -- shipping containers that fell off a vessel, for instance. But they said they represent the best lead so far in the search for the missing airliner, which vanished 13 days ago with 239 passengers and crew aboard.

COMMENT:  We'll follow it, but the news coverage of the missing plane is coming under increasing criticism and ridicule – hours of "discussions" and "inside" reports that seem to fade away. 

The last big deal was a report that the pilot, who had a "flight simulator" at home, had erased some data from the device's computer.  But people erase data from computers all the time, just to clear space.  The simulator turned out to be a rudimentary device, more akin to a video game, but the FBI is trying to recover the erased data.  So far, no real story.

March 20,  2014      Permalink