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FEBRUARY 13,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:14 P.M. ET: 

IN CASE GOD DOESN'T SAVE THE QUEEN – FROM BBC:  The Commonwealth has secretly begun considering who might succeed the Queen as its head, the BBC has learned.  The issue is hugely sensitive because the role is not hereditary and will not pass automatically to the Prince of Wales on the Queen's death.
The Commonwealth has set up a "high level group" to look at the way the international organisation is governed.  This group is meeting later, officially to review how the Commonwealth is run by its secretariat and governors.  It said the issue of the succession of the head of the Commonwealth was not part of the group's mandate, but described the day-long discussions as "open".  However, senior sources added that the gathering in London would also consider what happens when the Queen, who turns 92 in April, dies.  Send your nominations in.   Look, bottom line, this would be a great way to get Hillary out of our hair.  And she'd finally have the gold carriage she's always wanted.  Maxine Waters is reportedly interested.

CRAZY, MAN – FROM BREITBART:  California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is threatening to sue if the Trump administration includes a question regarding citizenship on the 2020 census.  The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Becerra worries citizenship questions will dissuade some California residents from taking the census, thereby under-representing themselves and running the risk of a loss of federal funding for certain parts of the state.  Becerra is part of a coalition of 19 attorneys general who fighting against inclusion of a citizenship. They sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Monday, in which Becerra described counting everyone, citizen or not, as a “sacred responsibility.”  What an absurd position.  Doesn't a country have the right to know how many actual citizens it has within its borders?  I guess we're just a little old-fashioned at Urgent Agenda. 

WORRISOME – FROM THE HILL:   Democrats on Tuesday won yet another special election for a state legislative seat once held by a Republican, this time in a battleground seat south of Tampa, Fla.  With all precincts reporting, attorney Margaret Good (D) took 52 percent of the vote, ousting Sarasota real estate agent James Buchanan (R).  President Trump carried the state legislative district by a 5-point margin in 2016. It opened when the incumbent Republican quit to spend more time with her family and building her business.
 Good won despite Buchanan's well-known name: His father, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R), owned some of the largest car dealerships in the area. He now represents a district in Congress that includes the legislative seat in which his son ran.  There have been too many of these cases recently.  The GOP had better get its act together, especially in vulnerable districts around the country. 

February 13, 2018       Permalink

THE WRONG LIST TO BE ON – AT 6:25 P.M. ET:  Look, not everyone can be nominated for an Oscar.  From the Washington Times: 

Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley are used to being ranked among America’s top colleges, but a ranking issued by a campus watchdog on Monday isn’t much to write home about.

Both schools are included on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s annual list of the 10 worst colleges for free speech.

The foundation’s executive director, Robert Shibley, said students, faculty and administrators are going to “greater and greater lengths to justify muzzling expression on campus.”

“This type of censorship makes for a sterile environment where lively debate and discussion can’t thrive,” Mr. Shibley said in a statement. “The public deserves to know which colleges will defend free expression — and which ones will go to seemingly any length to silence it.”

Rounding out the top 10 in no particular order are Fordham University in New York City; Albion College in Michigan; Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington; Drexel University in Philadelphia; Northwestern University in Evanston, Illionis; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York; Los Angeles Community College District; and Texas State University in San Marcos.

COMMENT:  I hope the colleges are humble as they accept the honor – it's an honor on the left – of being placed on this list.  Many are called, few are chosen.

February 13, 2018       Permalink

SAD DAY – AT 12:36 P.M. ET:    No matter how you feel about guns, and I can understand a variety of feelings, it's sad when an old, respected name is in trouble.  From Fox: 

U.S. firearm manufacturer, Remington Outdoor Company, said it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but stay in business throughout the process.

"Difficult industry conditions make today's agreement prudent," said Jim Geisler, Remington's executive chairman, in a statement released by the company on Monday.

The company has been dogged by falling sales after one of its rifles was used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 2012.

The restructuring will help the company to cut its debt by around $700 million and inject $145 million in new capital into its different units.

Remington said its business operations will not be affected by the restructuring.

Remington is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, but according to reports, once the restructuring process is over, the private equity firm will no longer own the company.

COMMENT:  We need a capable arms industry for national defense.  Yes, there are legitimate issues regarding guns in wrong hands, but they're not going to be addressed by putting a company out of business.

February 13, 2018        Permalink

IRAN THREATENS, BIG TIME – AT 11:54 A.M. ET:  We are focusing on North Korea right now, but Iran is crawling all over the Mideast.  Last week an Iranian stooge group sent a drone into Israel, setting off a brief but violent air battle.  This is a reminder of the real world.  From the Washington Free Beacon:

Iran unveiled a series of new homemade nuclear-capable ballistic missiles during military parades held over the weekend, a move that experts view as a bid to bolster the hardline ruling regime as dissidents continue efforts to stir protest.

On the heels of an encounter between an Iranian drone and Israeli forces, Iranian military leaders rolled out the latest ballistic missile technology, which includes a nuclear-capable medium-range missile that appears to share similarities with North Korean technology, according to experts.

The missiles are capable of reaching Israel even when fired from Iranian territory, raising concerns about an impending conflict between Tehran and the Jewish state that could further inflame the region.

Iranian military leaders bragged the ballistic missile "can be launched from mobile platforms or silos in different positions and can escape missile defense shields due to their radar-evading capability," according to reports in Iran's state-controlled media.

The latest technology could further inflame tensions between Israel and Iran, which funds and controls terror organizations operating along Israel's border. Concerns that this nuclear-capable technology could be shared by Iran with its terrorist proxies are fueling longstanding concerns among the Israelis that an attack is imminent.

COMMENT:  Iran is on Israel's borders, and Russian troops are in Syria.  Gee, you don't think the Obama foreign policy was a failure, do you?  Why, you warmonger!

February 13,  2018     Permalink

FEBRUARY 12,  2018

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

YOU MUST ACCEPT THE NEW ORDER – FROM FOX:  A Utah mother is concerned after finding out her child couldn’t reject a classmate’s invitation to dance at a Valentine’s Day school party because it would be against school rules.  Natalie Richard, whose daughter is in sixth grade at Kanesville Elementary School in Weber County, told Fox 13 Salt Lake City that she was shocked to hear her child tell her she couldn’t tell a fellow student “no” if he asked her to dance at the upcoming event.  Confused, Richard told her daughter that she was “misunderstanding” the situation, because “that’s not how it is.”  The daughter’s teacher, however, confirmed to Richard that, in fact, her daughter “has to say yes” and “has to accept” such a proposal.  It's all about kindness, you see.  Everyone must be included.  A girl must not say no.  Hmm, I wonder what kind of trouble that could lead to.

WILL CORKER UNCORK AGAIN? – FROM THE POLITICO:    Retiring Sen. Bob Corker is “listening” to Republicans urging him to run for reelection, according to a person close to him, a development that would quell anxiety among Republicans over losing a must-win seat to Democrats this fall.
The two-term Tennessee GOP senator decided to call it quits in September amid an on-again, off-again dispute with President Donald Trump that has eroded his standing with the party’s base. But now a faction of Republicans in Tennessee and Washington are worried that the favorite for the Republican Senate nomination, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), could lose the general election — and with it the Senate majority.  They want Corker to get back in to hold the seat and preserve waning foreign policy experience in the GOP. And there are signs that he is open to it, despite the steep climb a Republican primary might entail.
“While Corker is listening to the concerns that have been raised, he hasn’t made any commitments,” said the person close to Corker. Corker himself said on Monday he had no comment on the race.   Not my favorite guy, but if he has to run again to preserve the Republican seat, I'm all for it.

AMERICANS OPTIMISTIC – FROM BLOOMBERG:   Americans are more optimistic about wage growth than they have been in years. U.S. consumers anticipate earnings will rise 2.73 percent in the coming year, the most since data collection began in 2013, according to the results of a New York Fed survey released Monday and conducted last month. January was only the third month in the survey’s 56-month history in which expected wage growth topped expected consumer price inflation, which fell slightly, to 2.71 percent.   If Trump's policies can keep this going, we may be saved from a Democratic congressional takeover in November.  That is truly the meaning of salvation.

February 12,  2018     Permalink

OUR COUNTRY'S FUTURE?  LET'S HOPE NOT – AT 12:47 P.M. ET:   We now have the ultimate in "diversity" indulgence.  As they say, you cannot make this up.  From the invaluable Heather Mac Donald at City Journal:

The diversity bureaucracy has finally swallowed an entire college. San Diego State University has just named to its presidency a vice chancellor of student affairs and campus diversity, hired from the University of California, Davis. The new SDSU president, Adela de la Torre, is a peerless example of the intersection of identity politics and the ballooning student-services bureaucracy.

As vice chancellor of student affairs and campus diversity at UC Davis, de la Torre presided over a division made up of a whopping 28 departments—not academic departments, but bureaucratic and identity-based ones, such as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual Resource Center; the Center for African Diaspora Student Success; the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Student Success; the Native American Academic Student Success Center; the Middle Eastern/South Asian Student Affairs Office; the Women’s Resources and Research Center; the Undocumented Student Center; Retention Initiatives; the Office of Educational Opportunity and Enrichment Services; and the Center for First-Generation Student Scholars. This gallimaufry of identity-based fiefdoms illustrates the symbiosis between an artificially segmented, identity-obsessed student body and the campus bureaucracy: the more that students carve themselves into micro-groups claiming oppressed status, the more pretext there is for new cadres of administrators to shield them from oppression. (The causation runs in the opposite direction as well: the very existence of such identity-based bureaucracies encourages students to see themselves as belonging to separate tribes.)

The admission of students who do not share the academic qualifications of their peers also creates a vast bureaucratic genre of retention services, one now taking aim at traditional pedagogy said to handicap underrepresented minorities.

COMMENT:  Just read the whole thing.  You can laugh or you can cry.  There are valid reasons for both.

February 12, 2018       Permalink

THE APPALLING SPECTACLE – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:   We have been treated to the absurd spectacle of American TV networks sucking up to the North Koreans at the Olympics, once again showing the unique ability of American journalists to destroy themselves.  Even Jake Tapper of CNN is rapping his fellow scribes.  From Fox: 

CNN star Jake Tapper appeared to troll his own network on Sunday night when he tweeted against media members who “hate” American leaders more than they “hate the Kim Jong Un regime” on the heels of CNN being mocked for a glowing puff piece about Kim Jong Un’s sister.

“If you hate US leaders more than you hate the Kim Jong Un regime, you really need to read up on North Korea,” Tapper wrote. He also attached three links to websites that highlight various human rights violations that North Koreans face on a regular basis.

The dictator’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, appeared at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and CNN reported over the weekend that she was “stealing the show.” The article, published Saturday afternoon, began with these cooing words about the woman who gave South Korean President Moon Jae-in an invite to visit North Korea:

“If ‘diplomatic dance’ were an event at the Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister would be favored to win gold. With a smile, a handshake and a warm message in South Korea’s presidential guest book, Kim Yo Jong has struck a chord with the public just one day into the Pyeongchang Games.”

CNN did not immediately respond when asked if Tapper was referring to his own network. CNN did not immediately make Tapper available for comment.

COMMENT:  I'm glad to see Tapper speaking out, although CNN will probably ignore his comments.  When he came to CNN he had a reputation for independence and good reporting, a reputation that has suffered somewhat in his CNN role.  Maybe we're seeing a spiritual reawakening.

February 12, 2018       Permalink

RECOVERY? – AT 11:16 A.M. ET:  There are no guarantees here, but the stock market is making something of a recovery this morning.  From CNBC: 

U.S. stocks rose on Monday as the major indexes rebounded from their worst weekly performances in two years.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 213 points after gaining as much as 369 points. Cisco Systems and Apple were the best-performing stocks in the Dow, advancing 2.8 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.

The S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent after rising as much as 1.4 percent, with energy and tech as the best-performing sectors. Utilities and real estate were the worst-performing sectors as interest rates climbed higher. The Nasdaq composite advanced 0.6 percent after rising as much as 1.4 percent.

The Dow and S&P 500 both pulled back 5.2 percent last week, notching their worst weekly declines since January 2016. The Nasdaq composite, meanwhile, dropped 5.1 percent, marking its biggest one-week pullback since February 2016. The indexes also dipped into correction territory.

The 30-stock Dow closed more than 1,000 points lower twice last week and rose more than 300 points in two other trading days. The S&P 500, meanwhile, posted moves greater than 1 percent in four-of-five trading days last week.

"This looks like a corrective phase rather than the start of a bear market," said Katie Stockton, founder of Fairlead Strategies. "The biggest risk to the marker prior to this sell-off was sentiment and we've seen that go from overly bullish to overly bearish."

COMMENT:  There are no serious signs of panic.  The economy is strong, and I sense that there is real trust in President Trump to maintain economic growth.

But, as we said, there are no guarantees.

February 12,  2018     Permalink