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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas last night.  It's here.

SEPTEMBER 22,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:5 P.M. ET: 

HILLARY'S PROBLEMS – From Fox:  The FBI has recovered emails from Hillary Clinton’s private computer server Clinton had used while secretary of state, Bloomberg News reported late Tuesday.  The news outlet, quoting a source familiar with the federal investigation into Clinton's private email server, said the recovered emails may signal that the messages Clinton deleted are able to be retrieved, and may become public.  When asked about the Bloomberg report, Clinton’s presidential campaign spokesman Nick Merrill told Fox News that Clinton’s team “will always cooperate with the FBI,” and that Clinton and her staff “simply don’t know what the FBI has, and doesn’t have” in regard to the ongoing investigation. Could be a bombshell if the messages,which Clinton said had been deleted, contain classified or embarrassing information.

MAJOR BIRTHDAY PARTY NEWS – From the L.A. Times:  In a stunning reversal of decades of copyright claims, a federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that Warner/Chappell Music does not hold a valid copyright claim to the "Happy Birthday To You" song.  Warner had been enforcing its copyright claim since it paid $15 million to buy Birch Tree Group, the successor to Clayton F. Summy Co., which owned the original copyright. The song brings in about $2 million a year in royalties for Warner, according to some estimates.   Judge George H. King ruled Tuesday afternoon that a copyright filed by the Summy Co. in 1935 granted only the rights to specific arrangements of the music, not the actual song.  Next time I'm forced to sing that song in a restaurant to some relative I barely know, at least I'll be legal.  There are small victories in life.

CARSON IN THE DOCK – The assault on Ben Carson continued nonstop today, especially on CNN, which apparently sees its mission as proving that every Republican is a bigot.  Carson's poorly phrased comments on whether he'd vote for a Muslim for president have fueled new hysteria.  But I also note a backlash building – with some commentators asking why only Islam is protected by the media.  Attacks on Christianity and Judaism go virtually unnoticed in many cases.  In other cases, liberal journalists join in, as when followers of mainstream conservative religions oppose abortion.  Carson seems to be weathering the storm quite well. 

September 22, 2015       Permalink

GREAT MOMENTS IN JOURNALISM – AT 11:54 A.M. ET:  Brian Williams is back on the air for NBC.  Oh, how we have missed his integrity.  From The New York Times: 

Brian Williams was eating dinner in early June at the Bronxville, N.Y., house of his new boss, Andrew Lack, discussing his fate at NBC News.

It had been nearly four months since Mr. Williams had been suspended from his position as anchor of “Nightly News,” and he had been reflecting on how he might make a return to the air.

Mr. Williams said that he hoped to focus on live, breaking news.

Mr. Lack responded that he had the perfect fit. Mr. Williams could resume his career at MSNBC, the ratings-challenged cable network that was in the midst of overhauling its daytime coverage.

“His passion fit exactly with one of our biggest needs,” Mr. Lack, chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, said in an interview on Monday. “Brian will be such an important contribution to MSNBC’s page-turn here.”

Now, after seven months of making news, Mr. Williams will start covering it once again. He is expected to return to the air on MSNBC about 3 p.m. on Tuesday (today) in his new role as a breaking news anchor, starting with coverage of Pope Francis’s visit to the United States.

His re-emergence represents the opportunity for Mr. Williams to rehabilitate his image and restore the trust he once commanded as head of the country’s No. 1 evening news broadcast.

COMMENT:  I just don't get it.  With all the qualified, honest journalists available, why does NBC continue to depend on a man with a history of making things up?  Okay, people often deserve a second chance.  But others, who have proved themselves, deserve a first chance.  Mr. Williams has plenty of cash.  Maybe he could be an occasional commentator.  But NBC had better choices here.

September 22, 2015        Permalink

CLINTON VS. BIDEN – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  It's on.  And it will be deliciously vicious.  From The Politico: 

Joe Biden isn’t running for president yet, but Hillary Clinton’s already running against him.
Clinton and her aides have their line—the vice president deserves the time and space to decide, they repeat over and over and over—and so far they’ve held off the heavy artillery.

Instead, they’re firing warning shots. Tightly targeted warning shots.

The hints from the campaign come in heavy: Biden would be to Clinton’s right if he ran, more out of touch with the party’s progressive base. Surrogates have sounded off, questioning his chances and his political abilities, wondering if he’d be up to the job. Clinton even leapt in herself, bringing him up out of nowhere as she spoke to a woman in a diner last week in New Hampshire to knock him for how disappointing he’d been when they were working on the bankruptcy bill in the Senate. That was followed by her campaign chair John Podesta, sprinkling a little of his own shade in front of the pro-Clinton Priorities super PAC in New York—it’s already too late for Biden to mount a real challenge, and he’s not going to decide for a few more weeks on top of that.

They’ve stepped up the roll-out of their endorsements and organization. Their operation is just so massive and well put together, they want Biden and anyone considering supporting him to think, there’s just no space left for him.

So sure, take your time, is the message people in and around the campaign seem to be sending—but if you end up at yes, you’re going to get hurt. Saint on the sidelines is far different from actual candidate, they want him to realize, when they and everyone else unleash on him, raking through every gaffe and every vote in 36 years in the Senate, digging through his personal life. In the campaign headquarters and in Clinton's wider orbit, they take care to say how much they like him, how much they respect him, don't want to say a bad word about him. But “Should a man like Joe Biden run?” is going to be a very different question for them than “Should a man like Joe Biden be president?”

COMMENT:  Very well said.  The Clintons are hardly known for ethics, and will rough Biden up should he get into the race.  I have no doubt that the gender card will be played. 

It can get very ugly.  Biden is a decent man, but he can get very tough when he wants to.  I seriously doubt his judgment, especially in foreign policy.  And he is aging.  Despite the fact that Obama picked him for vice president, he has never been a hot commodity within the Democratic Party.  He has no appeal to the "diversity" crowd, for example.   But he's known on both sides of the aisle as a man of character, and the contrast with Slick Hillie could be an advantage.

I watched some videos of Hillary Clinton yesterday.  She is an awful campaigner, at times weird and seemingly detached from the world.

The whole thing is fascinating.  One of the most interesting political years since the great Reagan year of 1980.

September 22, 2015       Permalink

CORPORATE SCANDAL – AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  We're very pro-free enterprise here, but we call 'em as we see 'em, and this is a major scandal.  People at the top must be punished.  Our health has been put at risk.  From Fox: 

Volkswagen says that an internal investigation has revealed that 11 million of its vehicles sold worldwide are fitted with the same software designed to trick emissions testing equipment as the 500,000 vehicles involved in an emerging scandal in the United States.

In a statement, Volkswagen said it “does not tolerate any kind of violation of laws whatsoever. It is and remains the top priority of the Board of Management to win back lost trust and to avert damage to our customers. The Group will inform the public on the further progress of the investigations constantly and transparently.”

On Monday night at an event in New York to unveil the updated 2016 Passat sedan, Volkswagen’s US President and CEO, Michael Horn, told the audience that "we have totally screwed up."

In the wake of its statement, VW's share price was down another 17.6 percent at 110.20 euros and near a four-year low. The fall comes on top of Monday's hefty 17 percent decline and means the company has lost an eye-watering 25 billion euros or so in just two days of frenzied trading.

The trigger to the company's market woes was last Friday's revelation from the U.S.'s Environmental Protection Agency that VW rigged nearly half a million cars to defeat U.S. smog tests.

The company then admitted that it intentionally installed software programmed to switch engines to a cleaner mode during official emissions testing. The software then switches off again, enabling cars to drive more powerfully on the road while emitting as much as 40 times the legal pollution limit.

In its statement Tuesday, Volkswagen gave more details, admitting that "discrepancies" related to vehicles with Type EA 189 engines and involved some 11 million vehicles worldwide.

"A noticeable deviation between bench test results and actual road use was established solely for this type of engine," it said. "Volkswagen is working intensely to eliminate these deviations through technical measures."

To cover the necessary service measures and what it says are "other efforts to win back the trust of our customers," VW said is setting aside some 6.5 billion euros in the current quarter.

COMMENT:  Volkswagen's statements have a bit of the "I'm shocked, shocked" character.  Didn't anyone at the top know that the car was rigged to pass tests?  Who paid for that software to be developed? 

I wonder if individual citizens can sue if they feel their health was specifically affected.  Can owners of the car sue?  Maybe some of you lawyers among the readership can answer that.

I also wonder whether Volkswagen will be punished in the marketplace.  This looks like a good "60 Minutes" story.

September 22, 2015       Permalink

SCOTT WALKER – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  The political world is still reacting to the withdrawal of Scott Walker, formerly a giant candidate, from the presidential race.  The best quote I've read comes from Dan Balz, Jenna Johnson and Matea Gold in the Washington Post: 

Walker’s decision, like that of Perry, points to another reality of campaigning in this cycle: Having a well-funded super PAC is no insurance that a candidate can survive in the face of poor poll numbers. In the vicious cycle of modern-day campaigning, weak poll numbers quickly dry up fundraising, making it difficult to pay for everyday operations, which brings further retrenchment and, in the case of Walker, eventual extinction.

In an era of reality-TV politics, Walker, a Harley-riding Midwest everyman, suffered as well from a personality that was easily overshadowed. His advisers believed he had performed adequately in last week’s debate, but he was judged more harshly by critics who said he seemed to fade into the background through long portions of the forum.

Gary Marx, who coordinated Walker’s outreach to conservative movement groups, said Monday that it had been hard to generate enthusiasm from the start.

“The ‘conservative governor who is a fighter with results’ wasn’t the right message for these times,” Marx said. “It has not been resonating at all this year, across the board and throughout this process.”

Walker can bequeath few supporters to other candidates, but he has something of great value: a national network of major contributors who had flocked to him during his battles against labor unions in Wisconsin and who helped his super PAC raise $20 million in just two months this summer. Other teams were already at work to woo those contributors as Walker bowed out.

COMMENT:  The question being asked this morning is, "Who's next?"  Attention is being focused on Bobby Jindal, the superb governor of Louisiana, who never seems to get national traction, although he deserves it.  Other names on the death watch are former New York Governor George Pataki and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, fine men both, but candidates of the past.   Lindsey Graham, a stalwart on national defense, doesn't seem to be gaining any ground.  Of the "top tier" candidates, it is more difficult to make choices.  Even ones down in the polls, like Rand Paul or Mike Huckabee, have legitimate reasons to remain in the race – a constituency that is loyal to them.

September 22,  2015     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 21,  2015

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

WALKER OUT – Scott Walker, not many months ago a leading Republican prospect for the presidency, has dropped out, after consistent declines in poll numbers.  It's a crying shame.  The two dropouts from the GOP race thus far have been two of the most qualified candidates – former Texas Governor Rick Perry and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.  Perry could not overcome the poor impression he made when running the first time in 2012.  Walker never seemed quite ready for a presidential run, especially when foreign policy came up.  And his soft, measured personality didn't help in an age of reality-show television. 

THINGS TO COME – From Gateway Pundit:   In September 2014 the Danish Muslim Party claimed that Denmark would be the first Muslim Country in Europe. In their press release the Muslim party website claimed their party would be the largest in Denmark.  “Muslim party will be biggest party of Denmark – and it may be soon. First day after Turkey becomes EU member country – about one million 20-50 year old Muslims [may] move to Denmark, and after that Denmark [may] be a muslim country. Be ready!”  Now this…A video posted this weekend shows Muslims with police escort marching in Denmark screaming and demanding a caliphate.  This will happen more and more in Europe, as refugees – and non-refugees – flood in.  I'm afraid that European civilization as we know it is coming to an end. 

NOT MY KIND OF TOWN ANYMORE – I used to love Chicago.  I went to the University of Chicago.  But Chicago has fallen on hard times.  I'm not so sure I'd love it today.  From AP:   CHICAGO — After watching for years as their city's financial troubles piled up, Chicago homeowners will be told this week that it's time for them to start paying the tab.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to propose a large increase in property taxes to help eliminate billions of dollars in pension and other municipal debt and to repair the school system's low credit rating. Residents also may face more taxes and fees on garbage collection, sugary drinks and other services.  The steps would help reverse the city's financial slide but could dent Chicago's reputation for a relatively affordable cost of living. Median home prices in the nation's two larger cities, New York and Los Angeles, are double Chicago's.  "There's no way around it," said Alderman George Cardenas of the additional taxes. "If we don't face the consequences, you pay more (later), your children will pay more and that's no way to run a city."  Chicago used to be "the city of broad shoulders."  Now it's the city of broad taxes.  The business environment is considered marginal already.  A tax-caused exodus is possible.  The Democrats will blame Bush and Cheney.

September 21, 2015     Permalink 

CARLY RISING – AND DEFENDING – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  Carly Fiorina is rising in the polls.  With that are coming increasing scrutiny and attacks from everywhere.  She has a controversial business history.  How she will hold up in the weeks ahead will be a key test, and will determine whether her rise in the numbers will continue.  From Fox: 

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Sunday again backed a government shutdown to defund Planned Parenthood and said she wasn’t “afraid” to be the rising star in the GOP field.

“I’m not afraid,” the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview. “I’ve battled cancer. I’ve buried a child.”

Fiorina vaulted into second place in a CNN/ ORC International poll released Sunday, after a strong debate performance Wednesday night.

She barely qualified for the CNN main debate of top-10 candidates and had until now often polled in the single digits.

Fiorina, whose personal story includes a breast cancer diagnosis in 2009 and losing a stepdaughter to drug addiction, is now at 15 percent, up 3 percentage points from a CNN poll last month.

“It’s obviously a very important moment because now more people know who I am,” she said Sunday. “As people come to know me and they understand who I am and what I've done and, most importantly, what I will do, they tend to support me.”

Fiorina will have to continue to defend her corporate record, including her tenure at Hewlett-Packard, from 1999 to 2005, during which she laid off 30,000 employees and outsourced jobs. She was fired by the company’s board of directors amid sharply declining stock prices.

Fiorina says she navigated the company through the most tumultuous time in U.S. history for the tech industry.

COMMENT:  She is being challenged not only on her HP record, but on her management style, her alleged rigidity, and the fact that, since Hewlett-Packard, she hasn't been offered another CEO position.

The heat will be on.  She's a spectacular debater.  The challenge now will be to face down and defeat her critics. 

A Republican attribute has turned into a challenge.  There are too many candidates up there, and narrowing the field will take longer than it normally does.  That means we will not be able to focus early on choosing the best ticket. 

September 21, 2015       Permalink

THIS IS MADNESS – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  They use a lot of reassuring lingo, but it's madness just the same.  From AP:

VIENNA — The chief of the UN nuclear agency insisted Monday that a probe of a suspected nuclear weapons research site in Iran does meet strict agency standards, while acknowledging that Iranian experts provided samples from the site for analysis.

Such sampling is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested.

The samples, on which no details were given, were taken under “established procedures,” Amano said, noting that “significant progress” was being made in its long-running probe that Iran had sought to develop nuclear weapons in the past.

The arrangement was first revealed in confidential draft agreement between the sides seen last month by The Associated Press. The draft said that Iranian experts, monitored by video and still cameras, would gather environmental samples at the site and hand them over to the agency for analysis.

Iran’s atomic energy agency spokesman, Behrouz Kalmandi, said IAEA experts were not physically present during the sampling. But Amano said the procedure meets strict agency criteria that ensure “the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples.”

COMMENT:  How could this joke meet "strict agency criteria"?  If the Iranians have nothing to hide, why would they bar UN inspectors from the actual collection of samples?

This looks very bad.  Looks like the fix is in.

September 21, 2015       Permalink

IF YOU'RE LOSING YOUR HOME STATE... – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  To demonstrate the extent of Hillary Clinton's decline, one need only look at a new poll in her claimed home state of New York.  It's pretty stunning.  From The New York Times: 

A rough political summer has left Hillary Rodham Clinton with negative favorability ratings in a New York State poll for the first time, a low mark in the state she represented as a senator for eight years.

Mrs. Clinton was viewed unfavorably by 51 percent of the voters polled, compared with 46 percent who see her in a favorable light, a new Siena College survey showed. That is a change from a 56 percent favorable rating and a 40 percent unfavorable rating she had in the same survey in July.

Mrs. Clinton is still viewed positively by 70 percent of Democrats, the poll shows. But even in the state she adopted and represented from 2001 through 2008, her poll numbers have followed the same trend as her national numbers, suffering after a summer of questions about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

COMMENT:  And yet, one new national poll shows her increasing her lead over Bernie Sanders.  The numbers are less important than the perception, and the perception is that 1) her political position is deteriorating, and 2) that she's a terrible candidate who rarely handles a moment well. 

With news that Joe Biden will almost certainly enter the race, there is cause for serious concern in the Clinton camp.  The cloud of FBI investigations still hangs over her.  She can, of course, still win the nomination, but damaged goods don't look well on any shelf.

September 21, 2015       Permalink

DR. CARSON – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Oh the fire, oh the brimstone!  I see the lightning flashes outside my window.  Dr. Ben Carson has stumbled in a manner that outrages the select order of mainstream journalists, and the tumult is great indeed.

Appearing on "Meet the Press," and goaded by moderator Chuck Todd, the politically inexperienced world-class physician committed what, in baseball, is known as an unforced error.  He said something he shouldn't have said, and didn't have to say. "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," Carson said.  He elaborated on the show, and later in the day, by expressing the belief that Sharia law (Muslim law) is inconsistent with the Constitution.

First, he shouldn't have gone there.  Second, he should have phrased his answer far differently by saying that he agrees with the Constitution that there should be no religious test for the presidency, but that, of course, citizens may evaluate a candidate's religious commitments to determine whether they violate Constitutional principles. 

The left has now gone bonkers.  The bonkerism is led by CNN, which considers it a religious commandment to prove that all Republicans are racists.  

The hypocrisy flows.  The very people who are in deep anguish over Carson's "bigoted" remarks are the very same souls who regularly mock Christians and Jews who've asked for religious exemptions from certain requirements of, say, Obamacare, because they violate religious principles.  CNN, and others, both find religion and mock religion, depending on the political circumstances.

If a Catholic organization asks for an exemption for a requirement that it cover abortions in its health plan, that organization is called "anti-woman" or charged with "trying to inject religion into government."  I well recall how Senator, and presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy had to appear before a group of Houston ministers in 1960 to assure them that, in public office, he would never let his personal religious beliefs interfere with his public duties.  His 14-year record in Congress proved his claim.  Political figures regularly have differentiated between private belief and public responsibility.  

Religious authorities often clash with government, and government must, on occasion, overrule religious authorities.   I remember, as a journalist, interviewing Dr. Milton Halperin, the legendary medical examiner of New York City, in his office, when he received a call from an orthodox rabbi.  The rabbi asked that a deceased parishioner not be subjected to autopsy because autopsy is barred by Jewish law.  Dr. Halperin, himself Jewish, explained to the rabbi that the civil law must prevail, and that the autopsy had to go forward because the parishioner had died at home, not in the presence of medical personnel.  Therefore, the death had to be investigated.  The rabbi understood and withdrew his request.

It is a complicated subject.  Dr. Carson should have avoided it or made clear his specific concern.  But we cannot grant to Islam a pass that we would not give to any other religion.  Voters have a right to know whether a Muslim candidate would try to impose Sharia law, especially if that candidate had a history that suggested that he would.  When raised tastefully, with evidence and respect, questions about the intersection of religion and public policy are appropriate.  Dr. Carson failed, and it is hurting him, but he is no bigot.

September 21, 2015     Permalink