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DECEMBER 15,  2018

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

DIVIDED NATION – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:    It is rare that Republicans and Democrats agree on something. But the two battling factions do see eye to eye on one thing: They are troubled by stark political divides among Americans.  A Fox News poll finds that 78 percent of all U.S. voters are now either “extremely or very concerned” about the polarized nation; that includes 75 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of independents and 82 percent of Democrats.  According to the poll data, only health care — which concerns 83 percent of the public — outranks political division on the national roster of worries.  Tied in third place, Americans fret about the opioid addiction crisis and the national economy; both issues concern 74 percent.  Next on the list: natural disasters (70 percent), followed by race relations (69 percent), gun laws, (69 percent) climate change (64 percent), sexual harassment (63 percent), illegal immigration (66 percent) and the Central America “caravan” (59 percent.)  I'm not so sure how useful this new Fox poll is.  It seems from the numbers that Americans are highly concerned about almost everything.  I suspect many numbers are just driven by the degree of coverage in the mainstream media.   Name recognition.

HE GETS IT RIGHT – FROM FOX:  A comedian who was born in the former Soviet Union said that when a British college asked him to sign an agreement stipulating that he could not transgress multiple factions of people with his jokes, he "felt right at home."  Tucker Carlson said Konstantin Kisin's case is another example of "free speech ebbing away on college campuses," adding that people are becoming "unable to take a joke."  A London-based School of African and Oriental Studies asked Kisin to sign a document that would ban him from joking about "racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-religion or anti-atheism."  "All jokes must be respectful and kind," Carlson said the document stipulated.  Kisin said, however, the situation is "an outlier" and that he is not usually required to curb his humor when performing.  An outlier now, common policy tomorrow.  A darkness is descending on colleges and universities throughout the West.  Britain is a particularly bad example.

ACTUALLY, A GOOD IDEA – FROM CBS LOCAL:   Millennials who feel they lack some basic life skills can now take "adulting" classes, which are expanding across the country. The classes teach life skills like cooking, budgeting and time management, CBS New York reports, and young adults are signing up for lessons in person and online.  Rachel Flehinger co-founded the aptly named Adulting School in Portland, Maine. This month, she is launching online classes geared toward millennials who want to learn how to sew on a button, understand modern art or even deal with love.  The course curriculum on love will include "how to have a relationship, how to talk to someone, conflict resolution — how not to fight," Flehinger said. It will even offer guidance on how to tell someone you love them.  Elena Toumaras, 29, is currently learning an adult skill she was never taught before – cooking. Toumaras is attending a cooking class in Queens to help fill a gap in her life skill knowledge.  "I was so used to -- when living at home -- my mom always cooking," she said. "Doing simple things now that I'm on my own, I'm struggling with it."  Good for them.  Learning basic life skills should be part of every education, and might even turn out to be more useful than attending anti-American rallies.

December 15, 2018       Permalink

AND ANOTHER FORM OF MADNESS – AT 2:30 P.M. ET:  If you want a taste of what's happening on our college campuses, just read this story.  From the Washington Examiner: 

A yoga club at American University has been shuttered due to a single complaint of cultural appropriation.

The campus Bhakti Yoga Club invited a non-Indian group to perform the Indian epic “The Ramayana." This did not sit well with American University student Maya Krishnan, who complained to the President’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion.

Krishnan also wrote an op-ed in the student paper, The Eagle, titled, "Opinion: ‘India Day’ festival and Viva Kultura performance shows that AU’s administration forgets their South Asian students."

“Having my culture represented by an almost entirely white troupe of dancers is incredibly frustrating,” Krishnan wrote.

She continued: “The sponsors of this show and the artists acted as if their actions were acceptable because they have converted to the Hare Krishna sect of Hinduism. The reality of this is that white European dancers will never know my intersectional experience as a Hindu woman, being a brown bodied person and the other aspects of systematic racism that I, as well as other South Asian people, have experienced.”

As a result, the yoga club's adviser, president, and vice president have all resigned.

The higher education watchdog site Campus Reform confirmed the club no longer exists as a direct result of this silly complaint.

COMMENT:  What have our colleges become?   Some have become sandboxes filled with children and cowards.  We are not going to make real progress in this society until our feeder systems – our schools – are reformed, brought up to date, and stiffened against madness.  I see no sign of that.

December 15, 2018       Permalink

A SENSE OF OUTRAGE – AT 12:44 P.M. ET:  Readers might notice that there's not much happening.  It's typical of holiday time.  You've got lots of document dumps, some public statements, and announcements of a guy in Washington getting a new job, or leaving an old one.  And CNN staffers can still give you an opinion on almost anything.

But people are distracted during the holidays, and the sense of size in the news is diminished.  Sometimes, during this period, I have to poke around for a story worth telling. 

There is one that is definitely worth telling, and that is a sense of outrage that I see emerging in the country at the growth of the investigative state.  Not since the so-called McCarthy era have I seen such concern over the power of investigators to paralyze and distort our government.

We elect a president to serve, not to be under constant investigation.  Yet, Mr. Trump, no matter what you may think of him, has been under siege almost since the day he took office.

We have the Mueller probe, which goes on and on.

We are told, with some enthusiasm, by the usual suspects, that the new, Democratic House will open a number of fresh investigations into the president.

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York is getting into the act with a new probe of Trump.

This week we learned that the New York State attorney general, a leftist hack of hacks, intends to investigate the whole Trump family.  Maybe even the ancestors.  No evidence presented, of course. 

And now we are told that the attorney general's office in New Jersey is starting its own inquiry into Trump business practices in that state.

Many of the announcements of investigations have come just in the last few weeks, right after the election. 

And it's an outrage.  Clearly, this package of probes is intended to bring down the president, to make it impossible for him to govern.  We elected this man, but it doesn't matter to the opposition.  To them, we made a mistake that they, in their greater moral position, must correct.  Democratic officials or supporters are involved in almost all of the investigations.

This is not the way a democracy can work.  If there is real evidence, pursue it.  But the sheer number of probes raises the gravest of questions – do we currently have government by investigation?  The power of the inquisitor is well known throughout modern history.  Sometimes it is used legitimately, other times it is not.

I have a feeling that this is one of those "other" times.  Too much like the early 1950s.  The sad fact today, though, is that the press is on the side of the grand inquisitors, and asks few probing questions of its own.  The inquisitors' power is unchallenged.

December 15,  2018     Permalink 

DECEMBER 14,  2018

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

THE NEW OFFICE TEMP – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:    President Trump said Friday that he’s tapped Mick Mulvaney to be acting chief of staff at the White House, adding yet another role to the man who’s already his budget director.  Mr. Mulvaney will take over for current Chief of Staff John Kelly, who is leaving at the end of the year. The White House said there is no time limit on the role.  “He’s the acting chief of staff, which means he’s the chief of staff. He got picked because the president liked him, they get along,” an official told reporters.  Mr. Mulvaney, a former Republican congressman, had been doing double-duty for the last year as both chief of the Office of Management and Budget, which is the nerve center of the administration, and as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFBP got a new permanent director last week, so Mr. Mulvaney is free of those duties.  And the White House said one of Mr. Mulvaney’s deputies at the budget office will take over his duties there, allowing him to fulfill the chief of staff’s role.  Seems like a solid choice. 

OBAMACARE TERMINAL? – FROM THE DENVER POST:   A federal judge in Texas threw a dagger on Friday into the Affordable Care Act, ruling that the entire health-care law is unconstitutional because of a recent change in federal tax law.  The opinion by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor overturns all of the sprawling law nationwide.  The ruling came on the eve of the deadline for Americans to sign up for coverage in the federal insurance exchange created under the law.  Since the suit was filed in January, many health-law specialists have viewed its logic as weak but nevertheless have regarded the case as the greatest looming legal threat to the 2010 law, which has been a GOP whipping post ever since and assailed repeatedly in the courts.  The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional in 2012 and 2015, though the first of those opinions struck down the ACA’s provision that was to expand Medicaid nationwide, letting each state choose instead. No matter how O’Connor ruled, legal experts have been forecasting that the Texas case would be appealed and could well place the law again before the high court, giving its conservative newest member, Justice Brett Kavenaugh, a first opportunity to take part.  Yes, I suspect we will see a Supreme Court drama on this, and very soon.  Obamacare will stay in effect until higher courts rule. 

YOU CAN'T MAKE IT UP – FROM PJ MEDIA:   A student club at the University of London is requiring that all comedians sign a "behavioral agreement" as a condition of performing at a January comedy night.  According to emails reviewed by PJ Media, the UNICEF on Campus chapter at the University of London sent five local comedians — including Russian-born free speech advocate Konstantin Kisin — a request to perform.  "Attached is a short behavioural agreement form that we will ask for you to sign on the day to avoid problems," wrote Fisayo Eniolorunda, the club’s event organizer, in an email to Kisin and four other comedians sent Sunday.  "This comedy night… aims to provide a safe space for everyone to share and listen to Comedy," states the behavioral agreement form. "This contract has been written to ensure an environment where joy, love, and acceptance are reciprocated by all."  "By signing this contract, you are agreeing to our no tolerance policy with regards to racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-atheism."  Can you imagine the kind of comedy they'll get?  "A funny thing happened to me after being sexually harassed by a privileged white male..."

December 14, 2018     Permalink

FRANCE IN DISTRESS – AT 1:20 P.M. ET:   France is just recovering from a terror attack in Strasbourg.  and is now bracing for new "demonstrations" by violent protesters.  The country is unstable.  And the British government barely has the support of Commons.  And other European countries are in economic distress.  And our own government is wracked with bitter clashes.

Welcome to the free world.

From AP:

PARIS (AP) — Anticipating a fifth straight weekend of violent protests, France’s president on Friday called for calm and the Paris police chief warned that armored vehicles and thousands of officers will be deployed again in the French capital.

Police chief Michel Delpuech told RTL radio that security services intend to deploy Saturday in the same numbers as last weekend, with about 8,000 officers and 14 armored vehicles protecting the streets of Paris during a planned anti-government protest by the yellow vest movement.

Delpuech said the biggest difference will be the deployment of more groups of patrol officers to catch vandals, who last weekend roamed the streets around the elegant Champs Elysees, looting and causing damage. Police arrested more than 1,000 people in Paris last weekend and 135 people were injured, including 17 police officers.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner also urged protesters to express themselves peacefully after a police shootout on Thursday ended a two-day manhunt for a man suspected of killing four people near a Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg. Hundreds of police were mobilized in the search, which ended with the suspect being shot dead.

“I can’t stand the idea that today people applaud police forces and that tomorrow some people will think it makes sense to throw stones at us,” Castaner said from Strasbourg.

A sixth “yellow vest” protester was killed this week, hit by a truck at a protest roadblock. Despite calls from authorities urging protesters — who wear the fluorescent safety vests that France requires drivers to keep in their cars — to stop their violence demonstrations, the movement rocking the country since mid-November has showed no signs of abating.

“Last week, we pretty much handled the yellow vests but we also witnessed scenes of breakage and looting by criminals,” Delpuech said. “Our goal will be to better control this aspect.”

The protests began Nov. 17 against a rise in gas taxes but have morphed into an expression of rage against France’s high taxes and a sense that President Emmanuel Macron’s government does not care about French workers.

Macron has acknowledged he’s partially responsible for the anger and has announced a series of measures aimed at improving French workers’ spending power but has refused to reinstate a wealth tax that was lifted to spur investment in France.

COMMENT:  We must be careful not to glorify the protesters.  Some deeper reporting suggests that the leaders of these protests have fascistic ideas, which wouldn't surprise me.  They are taking advantage of real frustration among the French people.

The instability in the West is striking.  It reminds me of 1968, when the United States suffered two political assassinations – Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy – and violence at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  Americans for a time seemed to lose confidence in their own country, and we went through a period of instability and doubt, culminating in the resignation of President Nixon in 1974. 

We were lucky, during that time, to have Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings.  I don't see another Reagan right now.

December 14, 2018       Permalink

NEW CHANCE FOR MARTHA? – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  Arizona just held a special Senate election to fill the seat being vacated by the terminally obnoxious Jeff Flake.  Sadly, ultra-liberal Kyrsten Sinema, posing as a moderate, defeated Air Force heroine Martha McSally, who ran a poor campaign.

However, there's new hope for Martha.  Former Senator Jon Kyl has been temporarily filling the seat made vacant by the death of John McCain.  He's now announced his resignation, and the word in Arizona is that the Republican governor may appoint McSally to fill out McCain's term.  It would be a good move.  From CNN:

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl will step down from the US Senate at the end of this year, a few months after being appointed to fill the late Sen. John McCain's seat.

Kyl wrote in a letter Wednesday to Arizona Gov. Doug Doucey that he will resign from the US Senate effective December 31, 2018.

Ducey, a Republican who was just re-elected to a second term, will now pick a replacement to serve until 2020, when there will be an election to fill the remaining two years of McCain's term.

"When I accepted your appointment, I agreed to complete the work of the 115th Congress and reevaluate continuing to serve," Kyl wrote in his letter to Ducey, released by the governor's office Friday. . "I have concluded that it would be best if I resign so that your new appointee can begin the new term with all other Senators in January 2019 and can serve a full two (potentially four) years."

In September, Ducey tapped Kyl to temporarily replace McCain, who died in August -- just two years into his sixth Senate term. At the time, Kyl committed to serving through at least this year and said from the start that he would not run for re-election in 2020.

And...

The governor's office said a replacement to the seat will be announced in the near future. Arizona law requires Ducey to pick an appointee that is the "same political party as the person vacating the office."

A month ago, before Kyl's decision was announced, Rep. Martha McSally emerged as one of several possible replacements after losing a Senate race to fill outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake's seat to Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been leveraging his political power to try to convince Ducey to choose McSally, several Republican sources told CNN.

COMMENT:  I'd be very disappointed, and so will many Republicans, if the governor does not pick Martha.  True, she ran a mediocre campaign, but she still came within a hair of winning.  And she's an outstanding person, the first American woman to fly in combat.

December 14,  2018     Permalink