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DECEMBER 4,  2018

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

ONE DOWN – FROM TOWNHALL:   Well, it’s official. Trump has beaten his first Democratic opponent, and I use that term generously. Creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti has decided he’s not running for president in 2020. BASTA! Yeah, we’ve all had enough of this clown, even Democrats—who are probably secretly fuming that he inserted himself into the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation fight with a nut job who had a totally unbelievable and completely unsubstantiated story that the judge was part of a gang rape ring in high school. The two other women who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct also had similar shoddy stories that were totally baseless. How bad were they? The New York Times refused to do stories on two of them because they couldn’t confirm anything.   So sad.  Everywhere I heard the wanting of Michael.  How often do you get such presidential talent?  Well, I guess there was Warren Harding.

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   Good news for Columbia University undergraduates of modest intelligence: Your graduate instructors are being taught to let you grade yourselves.  The Ivy League university’s Center for Teaching and Learning is hosting a five-part “Inclusive Teaching Seminar” this spring, covering topics including “learning through diversity, growth mindset, microaggressions and implicit bias, trigger warnings, stereotype threat, and inclusive assessments.”  It’s intended for graduate and postdoctoral students who are “committed to creating inclusive classroom environments.”  The fourth session is titled “Inclusive Grading and Assessments,” and it says participants will learn how to reduce “stereotype threat” in their classrooms.  I'm excited.  We'll produce another generation of mature, informed students, just like the ones we see in the streets of Berkeley.

THE CRISIS OF OUR TIME – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   An a cappella group at Princeton University has temporarily stopped singing a hit Disney song after at least one student complained that it can “catalyze violent tendencies toward, and assault against, women.”  The group, the Princeton Tigertones, have stopped singing the song “Kiss the Girl” from the movie The Little Mermaid until “the members can perform it in a way that’s comfortable for the entire audience,” Inside Higher Ed reports.  That song, which in the film is sung largely by the anthropomorphic crab Sebastian, features lyrics urging a suitor to “go on and kiss the girl, kiss the girl.” At their performances of the song, Higher Ed reports, the Tigertones would pick a young woman and a young man from the audience, sing to both of them, and then urge them to smooch, “and the couple will comply, sometimes on with a peck on the cheek, sometimes briefly on the lips.”  Yet in a recent op-ed in The Daily Princetonian, sophomore Noa Wollstein argued that the Tigertones “elevate [the song] to an offensive and violating ritual.”  “The song launches a heteronormative attack on women’s right to oppose the romantic and sexual liberties taken by men, further inundating the listener with themes of toxic masculinity,” Wollstein writes, claiming:  “The fervor with which the all-male Tones press the man to kiss the female subject eerily amplifies the song’s assertions of toxic masculinity.”  There was a time when college students were fighting World War II.

December 4, 2018       Permalink

JOE SPEAKS, AND HE SOUNDS LIKE A CANDIDATE – AT 1:16 P.M. ET:   The former vice president has his eyes on 2020, and would enter the race as, probably, the best-known candidate.  From The Hill:

Former Vice President Joe Biden fueled speculation he might make a 2020 bid for the White House, saying Monday night that he believes he is the “most qualified” person to take on President Trump.

“I'll be as straight with you as I can. I think I'm the most qualified person in the country to be president,” Biden said at a stop for his book tour in Missoula, Montana. “The issues that we face as a country today are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I've worked on my whole life.”

“No one should run for the job unless they believe that they would be qualified doing the job. I've been doing this my whole adult life, and the issues that are the most consequential relating to the plight of the middle class and our foreign policy are things that I have – even my critics would acknowledge, I may not be right but I know a great deal about it,” he added.

Several election prognosticators believe Biden is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign and that his association with former President Obama, who remains popular, and the Scranton, Pennsylvania native's appeal to middle America could make him a worthy opponent to the Republican nominee. However, Biden said the decision will be made in consultation with his family. 

“I have two young grandchildren my son left who love me and adore me and want me around. I want to be there to take care of them, so we've got to figure out whether or not this is something we can all do as a family,” he said. “We're going to make that decision in the next six weeks to two months, and that's the basis of the decision.”

Biden deflected several possible disadvantages of a potential campaign, including his gaffe-prone rhetoric, his age and his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Anita Hill hearing, which has sparked concerns that he is not in touch with the concerns of the #MeToo movement.

COMMENT:  Biden is generally seen as one of the more decent liberal Democrats, but he has a history of being wrong on foreign-policy issues, and he is hardly a dazzling campaigner.  He will be 78 in 2020.  The president will be 74. 

Biden could be useful as a compromise candidate, a party peacemaker, someone who is respected by most factions.  That is also a weakness – the proverbial voice from nowhere. 

December 4, 2018       Permalink

FRENCH KISS – AT 11:31 A.M. ET:  The president of France, facing enormous demonstrations that were turning into near-riots, has backed down, to try to cool tempers.  From Reuters:

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s prime minister on Tuesday suspended planned increases to fuel taxes for at least six months in response to weeks of sometimes violent protests, the first major U-turn by President Emmanuel Macron’s administration after 18 months in office.

In announcing the decision, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said anyone would have “to be deaf or blind” not to see or hear the roiling anger on the streets over a policy that Macron has defended as critical to combating climate change.

“The French who have donned yellow vests want taxes to drop, and work to pay. That’s also what we want. If I didn’t manage to explain it, if the ruling majority didn’t manage to convince the French, then something must change,” said Philippe.

“No tax is worth jeopardizing the unity of the nation.”

Along with the delay to the tax increases that were set for January, Philippe said the time would be used to discuss other measures to help the working poor and squeezed middle-class who rely on vehicles to get to work and go shopping.

Earlier officials had hinted at a possible increase to the minimum wage, but Philippe made no such commitment.

He warned citizens, however, that they could not expect better public services and lower taxes.

COMMENT:  We get the feeling that this is a Band-Aid, and nothing more.  Discontent in France, and, actually, throughout Europe, is great, and the economic situation is only part of it.  Mass immigration is the seething issue, as Europeans see their cultural identity ridiculed and degraded by governing elites that despise their own people.

December 4,  2018     Permalink 

DECEMBER 3,  2018

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

I'M SO RELIEVED – FROM SKY NEWS:   The Nigerian president has denied rumours he died following a period of ill health and was replaced by a Sudanese clone.  Muhammadu Buhari addressed the speculation as he met members of the Nigerian community in Poland, where he is attending the UN COP24 climate summit.  "It's the real me, I assure you," he said, answering a question from the audience. "I will soon celebrate my 76th birthday and I will still go strong."  The repeated claims, spread on social media and in YouTube videos, alleged that the Nigerian leader was an impostor named "Jubril".  According to a statement issued by the president's spokesman Garba Shehu, President Buhari said: "A lot of people hoped that I died during my ill health.  "Some even reached out to the vice president to consider them to be his deputy because they assumed I was dead."  The leader branded those behind the rumours "irreligious" and "ignorant", but said later in a tweet that they were "not surprising".  I worried about this every night. 

HE APPARENTLY HEARS THE CALL OF THE PEOPLE – FROM THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON:   CNN President Jeff Zucker said he is "very interested in politics" and is considering running for office some day in a newly released interview.  Ex-Obama administration official David Axelrod for his podcast "The Axe Files" asked Zucker where he thought he would be in five years at the end of their discussion published on Monday.  "With regard to be where I'll be in five years … I don’t know for sure where I’ll be but here’s the two things I do know: if the Miami Dolphins call, that’s where I’ll be," Zucker said. "And number two, I still harbor somewhere in my gut that I’m still very interested in politics."  "You turned down an opportunity to work for Al Gore in 2000," Axelrod said. "You've talked in the past about potentially running for office."  "So, I’m still interested in that and it’s something I would consider," Zucker said.  It would get him out of CNN, which would be a plus for viewers.

WELCOME, FRIENDS – FROM THE SUN:  A NASA scientist admits that it's entirely possible aliens have already visited Earth – and we simply never noticed.  The space expert also noted that not all UFO sightings can be "explained or denied", and said scientists should be more open-minded about the possibility of alien visitors.  NASA has long been investing in SETI, the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence" – better known as aliens.  And in a recently publisher paper on SETI, Professor Silvano P. Colombano suggested that alien life may have already visited us.  He suggested that aliens could look so different from how we expect, and that they may be able to travel huge distances – because we simply can't comprehend their make-up or technology.  "I simply want to point out the fact that the intelligence we might find and that might choose to find us (if it hasn’t already) might not be at all be produced by carbon based organisms like us," said Professor Colombano, of NASA's Ames Research Centre in California.  I think he's right.  I've long wondered about the origins of some liberal members of Congress.

December 3, 2018       Permalink

FRENCH TOAST – AT 1:55 P.M. ET:  France is in deep trouble.  The government is more unpopular than a mature adult at the Democratic National Convention.   From Reuters: 

France’s prime minister met with opposition leaders on Monday as President Emmanuel Macron sought a way to defuse nationwide protests over high living costs that led to widespread rioting in Paris at the weekend and are hurting the economy.

The “yellow vest” revolt caught Macron unawares when it erupted on Nov. 17 and poses a formidable challenge to the 40-year-old as he tries to counter a plunge in popularity over his economic reforms, which are seen as favoring the wealthy.

Riot police were overrun on Saturday as protesters wrought havoc in Paris’s fanciest neighborhoods, torching dozens of cars, looting boutiques and smashing up luxury private homes and cafes in the worst disturbances the capital has seen since 1968.

The unrest is hitting the economy: hotel reservations are down, retailers are suffering, unsettling investors, and Total said some of its filling stations were running dry.

Tourism and transport stocks fell in an otherwise buoyant market.

Emerging from Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s office, opposition leader Laurent Wauquiez of the centre-right Les Republicains said the government failed to understand the depth of public anger.

“The only outcome from this meeting was word of a debate in parliament,” Wauquiez told reporters.

“What we need are gestures that appease, and these must be born out of the one decision every Frenchman is waiting for: scrapping (fuel) tax hikes.”

The “yellow vest” movement, whose supporters cut across age, job profile and geographical region, began online as an impromptu rebellion against higher fuel prices but has morphed into a broader outpouring of anger over the squeeze that living costs are putting on middle-class household budgets.

COMMENT:  In truth Western Europe is in decline.  The West Europeans lecture America, but cannot run their own affairs.

Increasingly, this looks like the Asian Century, preventable only if the United States becomes great again, the nation of doers, dreamers and empire builders.  The president is trying.  The opposition party isn't helping.

December 3, 2018       Permalink

WE REALLY NEED THIS – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  Bernie Sanders takes himself seriously.  That is regrettable.  From AP:

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — An insurgent underdog no more, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is laying the groundwork to launch a bigger presidential campaign than his first, as advisers predict he would open the 2020 Democratic presidential primary season as a political powerhouse.

A final decision has not been made, but those closest to the 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist suggest that neither age nor interest from a glut of progressive presidential prospects would dissuade him from undertaking a second shot at the presidency. And as Sanders’s brain trust gathered for a retreat in Vermont over the weekend, some spoke openly about a 2020 White House bid as if it was almost a foregone conclusion.

“This time, he starts off as a front-runner, or one of the front-runners,” Sanders’ 2016 campaign manager Jeff Weaver told The Associated Press, highlighting the senator’s proven ability to generate massive fundraising through small-dollar donations and his ready-made network of staff and volunteers.

Weaver added: “It’ll be a much bigger campaign if he runs again, in terms of the size of the operation.”

Amid the enthusiasm — and there was plenty in Burlington as the Sanders Institute convened his celebrity supporters, former campaign staff and progressive policy leaders — there were also signs of cracks in Sanders’s political base. His loyalists are sizing up a prospective 2020 Democratic field likely to feature a collection of ambitious liberal leaders — and not the establishment-minded Hillary Clinton.

Instead, a new generation of outspoken Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris are expected to seek the Democratic nomination. All three have embraced Sanders’s call for “Medicare for All” and a $15 minimum wage, among other policy priorities he helped bring into the Democratic mainstream in the Trump era.

COMMENT:  The country doesn't need this aging child running a presidential race.  There's an old saying – we've quoted it here before – that democracies survive until people realize they can raid the nation's treasury.  Sanders embodies that idea.

He might win.  The press is corrupt enough to put him in office, just as it mightily helped a glorified town councilman, Barack Obama, win the presidency.

Sanders is a fool.  He and I went to the University of Chicago at the same time, although I don't recall ever meeting him.  I know his roots.  They're Obama's roots on steroids.  He's a bad piece of work.

December 3,  2018     Permalink