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DECEMBER 21,  2016

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

SIGN OF THE TIMES – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:  For the last 10 years, the number of American millennials who have failed to move out of their parents or grandparents homes has climbed steadily, according to new data.  Nearly 40 per cent of young adults are either living with their parents or other relatives, which is the highest point in over seven decades, new data from real estate analytics company Trulia states.  This is the highest point in 75 years where young adults have just stayed at home with no plans on moving out.  The only other time in American history where the share has been higher was back in 1940, when the economy was recovering from the Great Depression.  Not exactly a sign of a booming job market. 

GETTING ACTION – FROM FOX:    The CEO of Boeing told President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday that his company can build a new Air Force One for less than originally quoted -- after Trump complained about the cost.  Earlier this month, Trump made headlines for blasting the company on Twitter for alleged cost overruns with the new fleet of Air Force One planes.  Trump called on the government to cancel the contract and called the supposed $4 billion price tag out of control.  Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg, who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., addressed the media after the meeting and said, “We’re going to get it done for less than that, and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens.”  Hand it to Trump:  He gets action and he's a public-relations genius.  I hope it continues.

ANOTHER HOAX – FROM DAILY CALLER:   A Muslim University of Michigan student who said a man threatened to light her on fire after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory was lying about the whole thing, police said Wednesday.  The student grabbed national headlines in the days after Trump’s election victory when she claimed she was stalked by an intoxicated 20-something man with bad body odor and an unkempt appearance. The man, she said, forced her take off her hijab and threatened to set her on fire with a lighter if she did not.  Despite the lack of evidence for the woman’s claims, they were immediately treated as true by various media outlets, as well as by the university itself, which immediately condemned the incident as a “hateful attack.” The incident was also seized upon by the Center for American-Islamic Relations, which tried to explicitly tie the supposed attack to Trump’s election as president...The Michigan student’s story is just the latest high-profile “hate crime” to fall apart under scrutiny. Other bogus hate crimes have been exposed in Louisiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, California, and elsewhere.  We should tighten our false- reporting laws against things like this.  False reports create social tensions and burn police resources.  Penalties for making false reports should be increased.  And the media should be put on sharp notice that they, too, are responsible for spreading false reports.

December 21, 2016       Permalink 

DISGRACEFUL – AT 10:47 A.M. ET:  We knew that Obama would pull some last-minute fast ones, but some of his parting moves are absolutely vulgar.  From Daily Caller: 

Liberal news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN are keeping their readers in the dark about two aggressive appointments to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights made by President Obama with just weeks remaining in his presidency.

In addition to questions surrounding the appointees themselves, the move by Obama effectively blocks President-elect Donald Trump from any appointments to the eight-person commission until 2020, when Trump would be up for re-election.

One of the appointees is Debo Adegbile, who was previously nominated to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division but was blocked by a bipartisan group of senators due to his defense of former Black Panther and convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Unlike that nomination, Adegbile’s appointment — which pro-police groups have described as a “slap in the face” — does not require congressional approval.

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey has already called on Obama to withdraw Adegbile’s nomination.

“Mr. Adegbile did not simply defend a client. He supervised an effort to lionize unrepentant cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, who cold-bloodedly murdered Philadelphia police officer Danny Faulkner 35 years ago,” Toomey said in a statement last week. “Mr. Adegbile supervised the effort to spread misinformation about the trial and evidence, fabricate claims of racism, malign Philly police, and organize rallies across the globe that portrayed this brutal cop-killer as the victim.

Police groups decried Adegbile’s appointment as well. John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, called the appointment a “kick in the teeth to the cops.”

Sam Cabral, president of the International Union of Police Associations, said Adegbile’s appointment is a “slap in the face to every law enforcement officer in this great nation.”

The other appointee is Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, who spearheaded the Obama administration’s transgender mandate currently the subject of litigation. Lhamon has close ties to left-wing activists and played a key role in the infamous Rolling Stone rape hoax.

The two appointments will each last for six years.

COMMENT:  No profound comment is necessary.  This is despicable.

December 21, 2016       Permalink

YOU MEAN THERE IS IMPURITY IN WASHINGTON? – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  I'm shocked to be told that the Obama administration has engaged in impure acts.  There must be a mistake here.  From Fox: 

A new congressional investigation has determined that the Obama administration fired a top scientist and intimidated staff at the Department of Energy in order to further its climate change agenda, according to a new report that alleges the administration ordered top officials to obstruct Congress in order to forward this agenda.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, released a wide-ranging report on Tuesday that shows how senior Obama administration officials retaliated against a leading scientist and plotted ways to block a congressional inquiry surrounding key research into the impact of radiation.

A top DoE scientist who liaised with Congress on the matter was fired by the Obama administration for being too forthright with lawmakers, according to the report, which provides an in-depth look at the White House’s efforts to ensure senior staffers toe the administration’s line.

The report also provides evidence that the Obama administration worked to kill legislation in order to ensure that it could receive full funding for its own hotly contested climate change agenda.

The report also provides evidence that the Obama administration worked to kill legislation in order to ensure that it could receive full funding for its own hotly contested climate change agenda.

The report additionally discovered efforts by the Obama administration to censor the information given to Congress, interfering with the body’s ability to perform critical oversight work.

COMMENT:  Sounds more like Chicago machine politics than hope and change.   As we have said here before, we need a Challenger-type commission on climate change to determine 1) what we know, 2) what we don't know, 3) and what we must know to create an honest, effective policy.  Maybe then we can discuss climate change thoughtfully.

Don't hold your breath.

December 21, 2016       Permalink

DESPERATE SEARCH – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  A desperate search is on in Germany for the perpetrator of the Berlin terror atttack that killed 12.   (That number may rise.)  The objective is to get him before he strikes again.  From Britain's Sky News: 

German police are hunting a Tunisian man over the Berlin market attack after finding an identity document in the lorry, according to reports.

The document was found under the driver's seat of the vehicle that ploughed into crowds at the Christmas market on Monday evening, killing 12 people.

Der Spiegel and Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the document, apparently asylum office papers announcing a stay of deportation, was in the name of Anis A, born in 1992 in Tataouine, Tunisia.

The suspect was also known to have two aliases, according to the newspapers.

Bild said Anis A was known to police for bodily harm and is considered dangerous.

German media has said a police operation is under way in the North Rhine-Westphalia state as the manhunt continues.

A migrant shelter in Emmerich, near the border with the Netherlands, is also being searched, according to the Rheinische Post.

Die Welt said the identity documents were issued in Kleve, and the suspect - who had applied for asylum - had an address in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia.

He had been charged with assault in the summer, but failed to appear in court, the newspaper reported.

Newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said the suspect had been in contact with the network of a leading Islamist ideologist known as Abu Walaa.

COMMENT:  If the Obamans were running the search, they'd call it a case of road rage.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.

The attack follows a pattern in which ordinary vehicles are used, rather than weapons or bombs.  Such attacks are easy to mount and almost impossible to stop.

December 21,  2016     Permalink

DECEMBER 20,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:57 P.M. ET:

NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN...WELL...YOU KNOW – FROM AP:    ATLANTA (AP) -- Authorities say a former U.S. postal worker is charged with delaying and destroying mail after investigators found about 4,500 pieces of mail in the woods outside Atlanta.  Prosecutors say 25-year-old Thomas O. Beaurem of McDonough was indicted by a federal grand jury on the charge. He has pleaded not guilty.  Investigators say they found the mail in a wooded area in Decatur, and some pieces of the mail that was dumped had cancellation dates as early as Oct. 5. The Postal Service was first informed of the undelivered mail Oct. 18.  Authorities said that some of the correspondence was too badly damaged to deliver, but other mail from the woods has since been delivered.   Hillary would have made him postmaster-general.

THE DEMS HAVE AT LEAST ONE MATURE SENATOR – FROM BREITBART:   On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) stated that people “just gotta get over” President-Elect Donald Trump’s election in response to efforts to deny Trump a victory.  Manchin reacted to efforts to deny Trump an electoral victory by saying, “People just gotta get over it and go on. I mean, let’s get on with governing this country, making us the world leader, and keeping — maintaining that superpower status. And that means we’ve all got to get behind our president, whether you voted for him or not, and work with him, and try to make him successful, and be respectful if we disagree and find a different path forward. But I’m just — I mean, this is taking too much time and energy. There’s too much — too many other things to be concerned about. And I think we have the greatest system of democracy in the world. It’s not perfect. They’re going to make some mistakes, but it’s one we can trust. Now, I trust it, and I feel very comfortable with it.”  Sounds like a man who might switch parties if conditions are right.  West Virginia is becoming increasingly Republican and went for Trump.  Manchin is up for re-election in two years.

AT LEAST THERE WAS A FAIR INQUIRY – FROM HEATSTREET:  Two Babson College students who were alleged to have yelled racial slurs at black women during a celebration of Donald Trump’s election victory have been cleared of any wrongdoing.  After the election, Parker Rand-Ricciardi and Edward Tomasso decided to go out and celebrate their candidate’s win. They did so by driving onto the nearby Wellesley campus, an all-women college, with a Trump flag flying proudly.  Students at Wellesley, however, told a different story. Rand-Ricciardi and Tomasso, they said, spit on a student and shouted “racial and homophobic slurs while parked in front of the Harambee House, an on-campus gathering place traditionally meant for African-American students.” As a result of that, the two students were told to leave the Babson campus and not return until Dec. 11.  But no one was ever able to prove that the two students did anything other than yell “Make America Great Again.”  On Monday, the school officially ruled that Rand-Ricciardi and Tomasso did nothing wrong. Babson did not, however, apologize to the students for Babson President Kerry Healey’s apology to Wellesley, or for several professors signing a letter condemning the now-disproven actions on the night of Nov. 8.  I don't know what the facts are.  I wasn't there.  But at least the boys got what appears to be a fair hearing, which is rare in today's colleges and universities.  False charges are common.  This was handled correctly,  If the boys are innocent, justice has been served.  If they're actually guilty, they'll probably do something dumb again and get caught.  I hope they're innocent.

January 20, 2016       Permalink

OH PLEASE – AT 12:27 P.M. ET:  This is going much too far.  From College Fix: 

It’s going to be an interesting coming four years, to say the least.

According to The Huffington Post, three professors, two from Harvard and another from UC-San Francisco, tell the president in a letter dated November 29 that they have a “grave concern regarding the mental stability of our President-Elect.”

“Professional standards do not permit us to venture a diagnosis for a public figure whom we have not evaluated personally,” they write. “Nevertheless, his widely reported symptoms of mental instability — including grandiosity, impulsivity, hypersensitivity to slights or criticism, and an apparent inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality — lead us to question his fitness for the immense responsibilities of the office.”

The profs — Judith Herman, Nanette Gartrell, and Dee Mosbacher — “strongly recommend” Mr. Trump get a “full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation” before assuming his duties as president.

COMMENT:  This was tried by psychiatrists in 1964, when Barry Goldwater ran for president on the Republican ticket.  A group of shrinks got together and claimed he was psychiatrically unqualified.  Their outrageous "diagnosis" of a man they'd never met led to the stiffening of ethical standards for psychiatrists.

Now we find three professors doing pretty much the same time to Donald Trump, while inserting the qualifying language that they cannot actually do a diagnosis, but urging someone else to do it.

Trump might have some mental-health issues.  So might Obama.  So might Bill Clinton, given his sexual behavior.  But why is it that "professionals" are only concerned about conservatives?

Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, George McGovern's choice for vice president in 1972, had to leave the ticket because of psychiatric issues, but he had an actual history of treatment.

I know very little about this area.  Maybe there should be some means of evaluating candidates.  But the standard should be applied equally.  This new stunt looks entirely political, not medical.

January 20, 2016       Permalink

THE POWER OF PENCE – AT 11:15 A.M. ET:   Amidst all the flurry of activity around President-elect Trump, one element that's been largely ignored is the growing influence and power of Vice-President-elect Mike Pence.   He seems on track to be, possibly, the most consequential vice presidents in recent history.  From TIME: 

There is no one in America, save the President-elect himself, who has more responsibility to make Trump’s first term a success. Key among Pence’s tasks, after staffing the new Administration and keeping the peace with conservative activists, is finding a way to reach across party lines to make the government work. Perhaps that’s why he described his meeting with Pelosi as the first of many, called her “a worthy opponent” and reflected fondly on their debates over the years in the House. That same day, he offered incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer his personal cell-phone number with an open invitation to call. “Politics is the art of the possible, and knowing people and having relationships is finding out what is possible,” Pence told TIME weeks later during a brief interview at Trump Tower.

After 12 years in Washington as a Congressman (before becoming governor of Indiana), Pence has been putting a lot of his relationships to work. “If the President-elect is wise enough to use him very extensively, I think he will serve himself very well,” former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels tells TIME. “So much of what Vice President Pence brings fills gaps in President Trump’s background.”

Pence has already made a mark. “One of my great decisions in life was choosing Mike Pence to be my running mate,” Trump tells TIME. “He is truly a high-quality human being, first class in every respect. He is also a talented politician who loves people and wants to help them every step of the way.”

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  Agree or disagree with some of Pence's positions, he is clearly a man of action, with a remarkable sense of how to move.  He might be a future president.  We could do much worse, as the history of the last eight years demonstrates.

January 20, 2016       Permalink

ONE MONTH – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  Barack Obama leaves office one month from today.  It can't come fast enough.  More than being a failed president, this is a man who has shattered some of the fundamental ideals of the United States.  Leon Wieseltier, at the Washington Post, accurately articulates what this president has done: 

Contemplating the extermination of Aleppo and its people, I was reminded of a sentence that I read this summer. It appeared in an encomium to Elie Wiesel shortly after his death. It was a sterling sentence. It declared: “We must never be bystanders to injustice or indifferent to suffering.” That was Wiesel’s teaching, exactly. The problem with the sentence is that it was issued by the White House and attributed to President Obama. And so the sentence was not at all sterling. It was outrageously hypocritical.

How dare Obama, and members of his administration, speak this way? After five years and more in which the United States’ inaction in Syria has transformed our country into nothing other than a bystander to the greatest atrocity of our time, they have forfeited the right to this language. Their angry and anguished utterances are merely the manipulation of the rhetoric of conscience on behalf of a policy without a trace of conscience. You cannot be cold-hearted and high-minded at the same time. Historians will record — they will not have to dig deeply or interpret wildly to conclude — that all through the excruciations of Aleppo, and more generally of Syria, the United States watched. As we watched, we made excuses, and occasionally we ornamented our excuses with eloquence. The president is enamored of his eloquence. But eloquence is precisely what the wrenching circumstances do not require of him. In circumstances of moral (and strategic) emergency, his responsibility is not to move us. It is to pick up the phone. “Elie did more than just bear witness,” Obama said in his eulogy, “he acted.” And he added: “Just imagine the peace and justice that would be possible in our world if more people lived a little more like Elie Wiesel.” Just imagine.

COMMENT:  The most important responsibility of a president is foreign policy, which includes national defense.  There is an old saying in American politics that you can take four years of a bad domestic policy, but that four years of a bad foreign policy can be fatal.

We've now had eight years of a ridiculous, appeasement-ridden, hypocritical foreign policy, presided over by a cold man who speaks well, and carried out first by henchwoman Hillary Clinton and then by ace incompetent John Kerry.  It will be a relief to see the moving vans pull up to the White House.

At the same time we have no reason to rest.  While Donald Trump has taken a firm stand on terrorism, his curious relationship with Vladimir Putin deserves serious scrutiny.  His feet must be held to the fire.  We have seen what Obama's weakness has brought.  We don't need it repeated.

January 20,  2016     Permalink