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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas last night.  It's here.

FEBRUARY 19,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

THE INEVITABLE LEFTIST RESPONSE – FROM FOX:   Calling the Trump administration’s tax reform plan a “middle-class tax increase,” two California lawmakers introduced a bill that would force large companies to fork over half of their expected saving to the state.  Assemblymen Kevin McCarthy and Phil Ting, both Democrats, introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 22, which calls for a 10 percent surcharge on companies with a net earnings over $1 million. The plan could potentially raise billions for the state's social services programs.  “It is unconscionable to force working families to pay the price for tax breaks and loopholes benefiting corporations and wealthy individuals,” Ting said in a statement, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. “This bill will help blunt the impact of the federal tax plan on everyday Californians by protecting funding for education, affordable health care and other core priorities.”  Driving more business out of California.  Brilliant.

THE MARKET RESPONDS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   The president of the embattled Evergreen State College — where racial unrest last spring thrust the small Washington campus into the national spotlight — is predicting that the public institution will see a nearly 20 percent drop in student enrollment come fall.  President George Bridges has told the campus community that the school’s 3,800 student population is predicted to hover at about 3,100 when the 2018-19 school year begins. This 700-student loss represents an 18.5 percent decrease.  This estimate sent shock waves among faculty, and some speculate it spurred an anonymous call for Bridges’ resignation by way of flyers recently inserted into faculty mailboxes declaring “Please Resign,” among other disparaging comments.   Of course, none of the fashionable leftists on the faculty blame the "demonstrators," who disrupted the school and made learning nearly impossible.  We saw the same effect after racial unrest at the University of Missouri, when enrollment plunged.  Parents won't write checks to campuses that cannot or will not retain order. 

I'M SURE IT WAS FROM THE HEART (CHOKE) – FROM REUTERS:    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s run for a U.S. Senate seat in Utah, despite Romney often being critical of Trump.  During the 2016 presidential campaign, Romney excoriated Trump as a “fraud” who was “playing the American public for suckers.” Trump responded that Romney had “choked like a dog” in his 2012 campaign against President Barack Obama.  Trump said on Twitter that Romney “will make a great Senator and worthy successor to @OrrinHatch, and has my full support and endorsement!” Romney announced Friday he would run to replace retiring Senator Orrin Hatch.  Romney thanked Trump for the endorsement in a Tweet posted soon after the president’s statement. “I hope that over the course of the campaign I also earn the support and endorsement of the people of Utah,” Romney said.  I can just feel all the sincerity.  Can't you?

February 19, 2018       Permalink

OVERREACTION? – AT 1:40 P.M. ET:  Some state election officials are returning to paper ballots, reacting to fears that the Russkies, or some other bad actors, can hack computerized election systems.  From the Boston Globe: 

WASHINGTON — Hoping to counter waves of Russian Twitter bots, fake social media accounts, and hacking attacks aimed at undermining American democracy, state election officials around the country are seizing on an old-school strategy: paper ballots.

In Virginia, election officials have gone back to a paper ballot system, as a way to prevent any foreign interference. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolfe this month ordered county officials to ensure new election equipment produces a paper record. Georgia lawmakers are considering legislation to replace a touch-screen voting system with paper.

Top election officials around the country are growing increasingly alarmed about this fall’s midterm elections, with a drumbeat of dire warning signs that Russia is determined to influence them. And many are concerned that President Trump has not focused on the potential for more attacks on America’s election system like the one Russia launched in 2016.

With little leadership from the White House or Congress, they are acting locally, trying to outwit potential hackers by upgrading equipment and enhancing the cybersecurity of systems that contain sensitive voter registration rolls. Secretaries of state and other elections officials around the country in recent months also began applying for security clearances so that federal officials can start briefing them on classified information — and potential threats to election integrity.

COMMENT:  Should we be concerned?  Yes.  Should we panic?  No.  We used non-computerized voting throughout most of American history.  But paper ballots are hardly invulnerable to tampering.  You've heard the phrase "stuffing the ballot box," haven't you?  What do you think it refers to?

I find this sudden concern for election security a bit amusing.  Some of these states have within them cities where people meet their long departed relatives at the polls, and where certain precincts traditionally record more votes than there are residents in the precinct.   I guess some forms of corruption are more charming than other forms of corruption.

February 19, 2018       Permalink

NOT AT ALL FUNNY – AT 11:48 A.M. ET:  The FBI is our first line of defense in many areas, including terrorism and espionage.  But the FBI is in trouble.  Something is wrong.  It has missed a number of cues involving people who later are involved in mass killings.  Emails show some senior officials of the Bureau casually involved in partisan politics.

I have no doubt whatever that the overwhelming majority of FBI personnel do their jobs superbly, and often heroically.  But there are problems that may involve training, political correctness, and improper political influence.

It's not the first time,  When I was at The New York Times, some decades ago, knowledgeable journalists told me that the New York Police Department considered the FBI behind the times.  The Bureau, while brilliant in fighting Nazi espionage and sabotage, faltered when it came to attacking organized crime.  J. Edgar Hoover, the patriot who founded the modern FBI and led it to prestige and success, stayed too long and let the Bureau lose ground.

Okay, those things happen at even the best organizations.  It seems it's now time for a thorough Congressional review of the FBI, with attendant recommendations for improvement.  From Fox: 

From the storied hallways of the J. Edgar Hoover building to field offices around the country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation faces a crisis of confidence as rank-and-file agents are blamed for not preventing recent attacks and top brass finds itself in the middle of an unfolding political fight.

The blitz of bad news is taking a toll on the intensely proud bureau's members, both past and present.
“In my experience, I can’t say I know of any parallel to what is going on now,” former FBI Assistant Director Ron Hosko told Fox News.

The two-pronged attack on the bureau's credibility reached a crescendo last week, when the bureau admitted it had not acted on a tip that might have stopped Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz.

President Trump, in turn, seized on the grave error to effectively accuse the bureau of making mistakes because agents have been consumed with the Russia probe.

While the DOJ triumphantly announced Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation had indicted 13 Russian nationals, Trump stressed that the case did not show collusion with his campaign.

The ignored warning about Cruz was especially painful, because it was the second such admission in the case. Cruz gunned down 17 students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. It quickly emerged that a YouTuber had warned the FBI someone sharing the same name had said he wanted to be a "professional school shooter" back in September.

Then came word on Friday that another tipster had given the bureau an even more specific warning Jan. 5, and that had also been ignored.

“This kid was flashing red and the system failed,” Hosko said. “The FBI has had its piece in that and it’s a significant piece.”

Trump was quick to tie the two issues together, tweeting that the bureau missed signals because it was "spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign," then urging it to "Get back to the basics and make us all proud!'

COMMENT:  Let the probes begin, but let some elements of the American press cover them in a fair and mature way.  Some elements of the media were overjoyed when the Obama administration went after cops, almost to the point of fanaticism.  Witness the smearing of the Baltimore Police Department, which now has difficulty finding enough qualified candidates for police work.

Now that the FBI is under scrutiny, those same media elements are shocked, just shocked.  They see the FBI, rightly or wrongly, as being a check on Donald Trump.  Oh, ain't law enforcement grand?

February 19,  2018     Permalink

FEBRUARY 18,  2018

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

MAJOR EDUCATION NEWS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  The average college experience is full of uncomfortable situations, but Kentucky State University is taking a brave stand against it.  The taxpayer-funded institution includes “embarrassment” on a list of punishable “offenses against persons” in its student code of conduct, flagged this week by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.  It puts embarrassment in the same league as sexual assault, stalking, physical abuse and coercion.  Students suspected of this code violation will be investigated by the Office of Student Affairs and held “accountable for their behavior in a fair, yet developmental manner,” the code promises.  The university will take “necessary and appropriate action” to protect students from this offense, including deploying campus police to respond to off-campus accusations of causing embarrassment.  So if a student yells, "I'm embarrassed," another student can receive the death sentence?  Explain that to me.

WILL THE DEMS LET HIM LIVE? – FROM DAILYWIRE.COM:  A Democratic candidate running in Pennsylvania's upcoming special election is cautioning people that calling for more gun control in the wake of the recent shooting in Florida is not the answer to reducing the number of mass shootings in the United States.  Democrat Conor Lamb insists that the best way to prevent mass shootings is to enforce the laws that already exist and not enact more gun control laws.  Smart guy.  He may win.  The Dems are boasting about some recent victories around the country, but, if you look carefully, you'll see that the Dems who actually get elected are moderate and mainstream, not the denizens of the fringe left.

THIS REVERSES A STORY WE REPORTED EARLIER – FROM USA TODAY:  PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — After agreeing to an offer to work for NBC, Adam Rippon decided overnight that he would rather remain as an Olympian and has declined.  When Rippon and his team realized he would have to relinquish his official Olympic standing, give up his Olympic credential, move out of Team USA Housing and not be allowed to march in the closing ceremony, he changed his mind and turned down NBC. “I am so flattered that NBC wanted me to work as a correspondent, but if I took this opportunity, I would have to leave the Olympic team and I would have to leave the (Olympic) Village," Rippon said on NBCSN. "It’s so important to me, you know, I worked so hard to be on this Olympic team, and my teammates and my friends were there for me during my events, and that meant so much to me, that I really feel like I need to be there for them during their events."  Okay, a decent decision.  It also lifts the embarrassment that NBC should have felt in bringing on board an athlete it supposedly was covering in a neutral manner only a day earlier. 

February 18, 2018       Permalink

REMARKABLE INSIGHT – AT 3:31 P.M. ET:   Readers send us links all the time, but there's a current article that's been sent to us more times than any other in about a year.  It notes that the left is now reaping the whirlwind from the culture it has created.  From PJ Media: 

It was after a school shooting near Spokane last September that Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich addressed a clutch of reporters:

When I was in high school, every one of those rigs in the high school parking lot had a gun in the gun rack. Why? We went hunting on the way home. None of those guns ever walked into a school, none of those guns ever shot anybody... Did the gun change or did you as a society change? I'll give you odds it was you as a society. Because you started glorifying cultures of violence. You glorified the gang culture, you glorified games that actually gave you points for raping and killing people. The gun didn't change, we changed.

It seems clear to me the sheriff was speaking about rap music with its hateful, violent and misogynistic lyrics, and video games like Grand Theft Auto, where you can have sex with a prostitute then strangle her or pull an innocent person out of a car, beat him, then steal his vehicle.

I am a First Amendment purist and don't want to see expression censored in any way. And I don't argue that there's a straight line between any specific cultural creation and bad acts. But surely, a culture in which those in authority approve of and argue for things like gangsta rap and GTA — and indeed for the use of violence to silence speech that offends them — well, such a culture becomes a machine for transforming madness into murder.

It reminds me of some wisdom from another two sheriffs, the fictional sheriffs from the Coen Brothers movie of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men discussing the mindless violence that has taken over society.

"Once you stop hearing 'sir' and 'ma'am' the rest is soon to follow," says one.

"It's the tide, the dismal tide," says the other. "It's not the one thing."

The left wants to defend gangstas and "transgressive" art and antifa thugs — but when the shooting starts, they blame the guns.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  There is much wisdom here.   We are suffering from severe cultural decay.

At one time we had beautiful popular music in this country, written by real composers like Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Meredith Willson, and Richard Rodgers.  Our lyricists, like Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Johnny Mercer, and that same Mr. Porter, were poets.

Look at it today.  Oh, we're told, we must respect other cultures, other forms.  Why?  Who ordered that?  Why must we respect things that tear us down, degrade women, and mock our families?

The decline happened so quickly, in the last part of the 1960s.  And we never realized it.  Maybe the wiser men and women in America will finally alert us.  There isn't much time.

February 18, 2018        Permalink 

OH, HERE IT COMES – AT 1:12 P.M. ET:  This was inevitable, and will be useless.  From College Fix: 

A petition and Twitter account have gone viral over the last few days in response to the Parkland, Florida school shootings.

The former, on Change.org, has at present almost reached its goal of 35,000 signatures. It’s calling on high school students across the country to walk out of class (and school) on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine school massacre.

“We are the students, we are the victims, we are change, fight gun violence now!” the petition reads.

“High School students across the U.S.A, the way to fight back is here. There has been too much complacency on the part of politicians when it comes to gun violence. The time to act is now!”

It notes that President Trump “has not addressed any form of gun legislation” and that “the government does not hear or care how these tragedies affect [kids’] lives.”

The Twitter account National School Walkout already has over 50,000 followers and gets a bit more specific: The April 20 walkout will occur at 10am. It also was featured as a “Twitter Moment” on Saturday which, as you’d expect, was hyped by mainstream media types.

COMMENT:  Ah, a 1960s moment.  We must listen to the children.  They're so wise and knowing.  And, of course, the little wise ones take a dig at the president. 

Gee, you don't think the political left has something to do with this, do you? 

I can't wait for April 20th to see how many high schools allow their charges to just leave to become public-spirited citizens for a day.

Break out the pizza.

February 18, 2018       Permalink

DEPRESSING – AT 11:47 A.M. ET:   NBC News is a mess.  I mean, really.  Have you been watching?  Their Olympic coverage has been filled with errors and gaffes, and terminal dullness.  They brought their regular news anchors to South Korea, apparently as publicity agents to boost Olympic audiences.

Thus, when the Florida tragedy occurred, NBC's heavyweights (in a manner of speaking) were in Korea.  A top news organization would have had some of these worthies get their butts on airliners and jet to the story.  Instead, the Florida shooting was covered from Asia.  Brilliant thinking.  Nothing beats a sense of priorities.

Now we have a new joke, from the network that once gave us Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, and graced us with the wisdom of Edwin Newman and the quality of NBC White Paper.  From USA Today:

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea -- U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon, the openly gay Olympic team bronze medalist who has become one of the best-known names at these Games, has been hired by NBC to work as a correspondent during the remainder of the Olympics, NBC spokesman Greg Hughes told USA TODAY Sports Sunday evening.

Rippon, 28, will work for the network on a variety of platforms, including television, digital and social media, Hughes said.

Always outspoken, Rippon made news in mid-January when he criticized Vice President Pence in a story in USA TODAY. When Pence fired back little more than an hour after the story appeared online, Rippon’s profile was on the rise.

Rippon, who said he was bullied and teased as a boy growing up in Scranton, Pa., came out publicly as being gay in an October 2015 story in Skating magazine. He often talks about how he hopes his story can help others, especially young people who might be struggling with their sexuality.

He also is one of a few U.S. athletes who said they will not go to the White House for a post-Olympic celebration hosted by President Trump. 

COMMENT:  Are we serious here?  That is a gross conflict of interest.  NBC Sports was just covering Rippon this very week, during the men's figure skating competitions.  Was he under consideration as a commentator then?  Did that affect NBC's coverage?  The appearances are bad.  

And Rippon has now injected himself into politics.  Is this good for NBC's image?  I certainly don't think so, especially as the network's Olympic programs are struggling in the ratings.

More journalistic dumbness. 

February 18,  2018     Permalink