Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

Our Angel's Corner archive is here.

FEBRUARY 17,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:53 P.M. ET:

WARNING – FROM THE HILL:   The Secret Service is reportedly investigating after a vehicle in President Trump's motorcade was hit by an object in south Florida, where the president is spending his weekend.  A US Secret Service spokesperson told members of the President's press pool that they are investigating an incident: “The Secret Service can confirm that an object appears to have been thrown at the motorcade this afternoon. We are investigating at this time and don’t have anything further.”  According to ABC News, law enforcement said the object was a rock. It didn't hit the presidential limo, but another vehicle in the motorcade.  I'm increasingly uneasy, and I know many readers share that feeling, about the level of hate directed at the president.  If anything ever happens to him, this country might well suffer a severe splitting asunder.

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER – FROM THE HILL:   Retired general and former CIA Director David Petraeus has reportedly pulled his name from consideration to replace Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser.  According to a report by the Wall Street Journal Friday, Petraeus's name was floated for the role, but the White House was miffed by his concerns about staffing and independence. It's not clear how seriously he was being considered.  Still reportedly on the short list for the position are acting national security adviser Keith Kellogg, a retired three-star Army general and Flynn's chief of staff, former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, and Army strategist Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.  The Washington Examiner reported that Kellogg, Bolton and McMaster will meet with Trump separately at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this weekend to discuss the position, citing an administration official.  The most fascinating name is McMaster.  He's a protégé of Petraeus, and the author of a brilliant book about Vietnam analyzing what went wrong.  But he has a glowing military career, and I wonder if he'd leave it to be caught up in the Washington meatgrinder.  I also wonder if Trump would select a man known as a rebel.  This is getting interesting.

MISPLACED PRIORITIES – FROM HEATSTREET:   A Yale student group has waged a war on the university fraternities and will use Title IX to force them into admitting women—while letting female-only sororities off the hook.  Engender, a group led by students of Yale, claims it will lobby the university—citing Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on gender, and internal Yale policies against discrimination—to issue sanctions against male-only fraternities.  Will McGrew, a co-director of the organization, told Yale News that it’s a “logical next step” to approach the Yale administration “because all of these organizations fall under the purview of Yale legally, either because they are registered as Yale organizations or it is literally all Yale students that constitute them.”  Of course, all proper ideologists know that this is more important than nuclear proliferation.  It's obvious.

February 17, 2017       Permalink

WELL, LOOK AT THIS – AT 11:16 A.M. ET:   Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with President Trump earlier in the week.  Trudeau is a Canadian leftist, a self-avowed feminist, and a big fan of almost unrestricted immigration.   He is the non-Trump.  But look what he's saying.  From Daily Caller: 

Sounding like a voice from President Donald Trump’s administration, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that he was impressed with Trump during their meeting this week in Washington.

“What I saw from the American president was a focus on getting things done for the people who supported him and who believe in him, while demonstrating that good relations with one’s neighbors is a great way of getting things done,” said Trudeau.

Trudeau was speaking at a news conference in Strasbourg, France along with the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani. Tajani echoed Trudeau’s message of reassurance and suggested that Canada can play a special intermediary role between the U.S. and Europe because Monday’s Washington summit had “paved the way for better relations between European Union and the United States of America,” Tajani said.

“We want to work with the Americans. Over the next years, the Canadian work is very good for relations between us and America. It’s easier for the Canadians to speak to the Americans.”

COMMENT:  What is being missed by the media is the number of good meetings Trump is having with foreign leaders...who come away impressed by Trump.   One by one he is building his relationships.  This may well be a very successful foreign-policy president.  Compare please with the last one.

February 17, 2017       Permalink

IN THE MATTER OF CNN – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:  The president really took off at CNN during his press conference yesterday...and he was right.  The anti-Trump barrage from the network is relentless, beginning from early in the morning to late at night.

And it didn't start recently.  From Daily Caller:  

You may think Trump is too harsh on CNN.

But take a look at how the network treated Trump back in November.

Less than a week after Trump won the election, a cadre of CNN employees made their way to the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington to attend the 2016 International Center for Journalists awards dinner.

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was the emcee of the November 14, 2016 event. Zucker, CNN’s Worldwide president, was also there — sitting near the front of the ballroom — where he had the pleasure of witnessing two of his employees receive awards.

First up was Clarissa Ward, a war correspondent for the network, who gave a gracious speech about how journalists “have to listen to voices we don’t want to hear.”

Carmen Aristegui, on the other hand — whose popular show airs on CNN Espanol — compared Trump to Adolf Hitler.

The Mirror requested a comment from Zucker as well as a CNN publicist. Neither answered our questions.

In a speech that, at times, stunned the audience into silence, the Mexican journalist began by saying “[t]he triumph of Donald Trump has left us shaken. We are all still in a state of shock.”

And...

Twice during her speech, Aristegui dramatically raised two fingers to her upper lip to emphasize Trump’s supposed similarities to Hitler.

COMMENT:  CNN now says that it will hold the Trump administration to account.  That's fine.  But when did it ever hold the Obama administration to account? 

The president yesterday said that he'd inherited a mess.  Yes he had.  And it was news outlets like CNN that defended that mess, or looked the other way.

I find CNN unwatchable, but I have to watch it to understand what media is doing.   Media is destroying itself by destroying its credibility.

February 17, 2017       Permalink

SICKENING – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:   Some leftists started this game when Goldwater ran for president in 1964.  It's right out of the Kremlin playbook, and it's revolting.  From The Hill:

A growing number of Democrats are openly questioning President Trump’s mental health.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) in a floor speech this week called for a review of the Constitution's procedures for removing a president. He warned the 25th Amendment of the Constitution falls short when it comes to mental or emotional fitness for office.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) during a weekend interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” said that “a few” Republican colleagues have expressed concern to him about Trump's mental health.

And Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of a psychiatrist or psychologist in the White House.

The Democrats justify their questions by pointing to Trump’s habit of making demonstrably false claims. At a press conference Thursday, he said he’d had the biggest Electoral College win since President Ronald Reagan, for example, when his margin was lower than either of President Obama’s wins.

Blumenauer told The Hill he started taking another look at the 25th Amendment because Trump had casually repeated easily disproven claims, such as stating that it wasn’t raining during his speech on Inauguration Day when it was.

“It’s not normal behavior. I don’t know anybody in a position of responsibility that doesn’t know if they’re being rained on. And nobody I work with serially offers up verifiably false statements on an ongoing basis,” he said in an interview steps from the House chamber.

But suggesting the president has a mental health problem invites criticism that Democrats are going too far.

COMMENT:  Of course the Democrats are going too far, and some of their more thoughtful leaders realize it.  They'd be better off coming up with ideas that would benefit the American people.  Then they might get some votes as well, to counter their historic decline.  The Democrats have lost about a thousand legislative seats in recent years, and have no obvious, popular presidential candidates for 2020.  Elizabeth Warren, the sentimental favorite of the Dem fringe, is in trouble in her own state of Massachusetts.  She may be too obnoxious even for her own party. 

I'd rather have Trump's eccentricities than Obama's self-love.

February 17,  2017     Permalink

FEBRUARY 16,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET: 

ISN'T THAT PRECIOUS – FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:   Bay Area restaurant owners are joining the national debate about immigration policy.  President Donald Trump’s hard-line stance on the issue has sparked the Sanctuary Restaurants Movement, which launched in early January and now counts more than 240 restaurants across the country. The Bay Area is home to about two dozen participating restaurants, including Alfred’s Steakhouse in San Francisco, Cancun Sabor Mexicano in Berkeley and Flea Street in Menlo Park.  Largely symbolic in nature, the collaboration is led by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United and promotes safe, tolerant spaces to restaurant workers, employers and consumers. While the sanctuary restaurant label doesn’t protect immigrants from law enforcement, the classification does spur business owners to educate themselves and their staff about how to handle federal officials during possible raids.  Another national protest — dubbed “A Day Without Immigrants” — took place Thursday, where foreign-born workers and students stayed home to demonstrate their importance to the country’s workforce and way of life; several dozen Bay Area restaurants closed for the day in solidarity.  I'm waiting for San Francisco restaurants to launch an "observe the law" day.  I guess it's too much to ask.

SWEET REVENGE – FROM TOWNHALL:   After Ivanka Trump's brand was placed on the "Grab Your Wallet" boycott list, several stores have dropped the line, citing poor sales. While Amazon is on the list as well, they certainly aren't seeing any effects of the boycott. In fact, an Ivanka Trump-branded fragrance is the top seller on the entire site in the women's eau de parfum category.   A majority of the fragrances' negative reviews made reference to President Trump.  As Katie Pavlich wrote, considering that Ivanka is by far the most liberal member of the Trump family, this boycott is completely moronic.  The left is completely moronic.  Its conduct is disgraceful and damaging to our country, and its inability to accept an election loss is adolescent, like most of its ideas.

DANGER – FROM CNS:   Sixty percent of the refugees admitted into the United States since a federal judge halted President Trump’s executive order designed to prevent “foreign terrorist entry into the United States” originate from five of the seven countries identified by the administration and its predecessor as most risky.  Of the total 2,576 refugees resettled in the U.S. from around the world since U.S. District Judge James Robart’s February 3 restraining order, 1,549 (60.1 percent) are from Syria (532), Iraq (472), Somalia (363), Iran (117), and Sudan (65). No refugees have arrived from the other two applicable countries, Yemen and Libya.  Are we supposed to be okay with this?  We can be compassionate and cautious at the same time. 

February 16, 2017       Permalink

TERROR IN THE MIDEAST – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:  While we're covering every little bump in the administration's road, the Mideast is still in a state of continued eruption.   As we've seen with the refugee stream, this affects us, and the violence can be duplicated here.  From ABC News: 

A car bomb in Baghdad killed at least 45 people and wounded nearly 50 others on Thursday, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Saad Maan confirmed the toll from the attack, which took place in the southwestern al-Bayaa neighborhood.

The Islamic State group claimed the bombing in an online statement circulated by its Aamaq news agency. The Sunni extremist group said it was targeting Shiite Muslims.

Iraqi officials said the bomb targeted car dealerships in the mostly Shiite neighborhood.

The extremist group has carried out near-daily attacks in Baghdad despite suffering military setbacks elsewhere in the country, including in the northern city of Mosul, where U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have been waging a major operation since October.

Another four attacks in and around Baghdad on Thursday killed eight people and wounded around 30, police and medical officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

COMMENT:  When ISIS suffers defeats on the battlefield, it turns to terror.  There are even reports that it may merge with al Qaeda.  Whatever the mechanism, terror launched by Islamic extremists will be with us.  It is based on an ideology, not "legitimate grievances," and ideologies are very hard to break.

February 16, 2017       Permalink

AN OPTIMISTIC VIEW – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:   The mainstreamers can't wait, each morning, to put labels on the new Trump administration – "chaotic," "out of control," "amateurish," "dangerous."  Almost anything bad will do.  But there are some signs, says the Canadian publisher, Conrad Black, in the New York Sun, that point to some light ahead:

The preliminaries of the Trump presidency are ending, and difficult though it is to appreciate, the atmosphere is lightening somewhat. It is a little early to opine on the Trump foreign policy, but his first three visits from other government leaders have gone well. He did brilliantly saying publicly to the British leader, Theresa May, that “a strong and independent Britain is a blessing to the world” — a stirring contrast to Obama’s threat, delivered in London, to put Britain “at the back of the queue” if it left the European Union.

President Trump’s conversations with the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, seemed to go well also, as have conversations with the Chinese president. Comparisons between the Trump references to “America First” and the pre-war isolationist movement led by Colonel Charles Lindbergh have died away, as has most of the alarmist nonsense about Donald Trump. It is no longer possible to frighten the children of America with suggestions that Trump is a reckless warmonger.

The exchange with Canada’s Justin Trudeau was virtually a love-in, as was the remarkably cheerful joint press conference of Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. It remains to be seen what will come of the “notice” that departed national security adviser General Michael Flynn gave the Iranians, but the president will pick his time and send a starkly different message to the groveling to Tehran of his predecessor.

And...

The reality that Mr. Trump is president, is not going to be impeachable, and is substantially unstoppable, is seeping into the Democratic mind.

Finally...

The confected hysteria is subsiding, and Democrats must now face the fact that many of their cherished mistaken policies are about to be torched and the ashes dispersed over the country. Mr. Schumer, Minority Leader Pelosi, and the rest will soon have to decide whether to make a course correction, and show some tactical maturity, or hurl themselves like grieving widows in colonial India on the funeral pyre of the fools’ socialist paradise they have been promoting for 15 years.

COMMENT:  Very good and, I think, accurate.  Too many news outlets are becoming tabloid services, screaming disasters and grimness.   Meanwhile, the new administration is formulating policies to carry out its campaign pledges.  I think, barring some serious blunders, that we'll see a very different situation as fall begins.

Read Black's entire piece.  It'll make your day.

February 16, 2017       Permalink

OBAMA'S LEGACY – AT 9:40 A.M. ET:  We heard the term "death spiral" when Obamacare was first being considered.  It referred to a projected situation in which the program would just start collapsing from within, in an unstoppable series of failures.  We may be at that point right now.  From Fox:   

The leader of one of the U.S.’s largest health insurance agencies—who has been saying for months that ObamaCare is on the ropes-- said Wednesday that statistics indicate that the law has now entered a “death spiral.”

Aetna’s CEO Mark Bertolini told The Wall Street Journal that the health law’s market is nearing failure because healthier people have dropped out while premiums continue to climb.

Health insurer Humana announced it is leaving the law’s public insurance exchanges for next year as it regroups after ending its proposed combination with rival insurer Aetna. Humana Inc. covers about 150,000 people on exchanges in 11 states.

The Trump administration took steps Wednesday intended to help calm jittery insurance companies and make tax compliance with former President Obama’s health law less burdensome for some. The administration's actions signal a change in direction.

COMMENT:  Much of this was anticipated by people smarter and more experienced than those who wrote the Obamacare law, or the man for whom it was named.

Obamacare must be repealed and replaced, or, at the very least, substantially improved.

What enrages me is that Obamacare is based on a false premise – the premise of tens of millions of Americans being "uncovered" before the law was passed.  In truth, all Americans were covered in some way.  If you needed medical care, you could get it through some program.  The problem was that the system was cumbersome, and millions did not have formal plans that they could consult.  The system needed improvement, not the radical overhaul that has been attempted, and is now failing.

February 16,  2017     Permalink