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

FEBRUARY 26,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET:

WHAA..? – FROM THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON:    A CNN analyst insisted Saturday that arming school teachers is impractical, arguing that women who wear skirts and dresses can not carry guns on their person.  "A lot of these schools—Sandy Hook had an all-female faculty, from principal to teachers," noted CNN senior law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes. "For a woman, where are you going to hide that gun during the day?"  "You can't put it in your desk drawer; somebody might steal it, and you can't get to it," he said. "You're not going to have it in a safe in the principal's office; you can't get to it."  The only feasible option, Fuentes argued, is for teachers to have the gun "on your person, hiding it."  Can you imagine if a Republican had said that?  There'd be an uproar, with cries of "sexism" heard throughout the land.  In fact, there are many policewomen and female federal agents.  They have guns.  They know how to wear them.  I won't go into it, but be assured they're armed.

MAYBE – FROM AFP:   Miami (AFP) - It may rain once a decade or less in South America's Atacama Desert, but tiny bacteria and microorganisms survive there, hinting at the possibility of similar life on Mars, researchers said Monday.  The desert, which spans parts of Chile and Peru, is the driest non-polar desert on Earth and may contain the environment most like that of the Red Planet, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Life will exist on Mars when we send the Democratic National Committee to the planet, and leave them there.

DISGRACEFUL – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   A high school teacher in New Jersey said he was suspended last week for bringing up his concerns about his school’s safety in light of the Florida massacre.  Philly.com reported that Timothy Locke, 59, was placed on leave for talking about the Parkland shooting and then floating the possibility that a similar event could happen at Cherry Hill High School East, which is in Cherry Hill, N.J.  “He said the chances of East being shot up were high,” one 17-year-old student told the newspaper. The student said that she noticed another student upset and the two went to the principal’s office.  A spokeswoman from the school board told Philly.com that she could not discuss the personal matter.  Locke is reportedly well-liked by students at the school and some protested his suspension on Monday. Locke told the paper that he was called into the principal’s office and his bag was searched. He told the paper that he has to undergo a psychiatric exam.  So some brave little snowflakes went to the principal's office to whine about a teacher who was concerned about their safety.  What great kids.  You can just imagine what they'll be in college.

February 26,  2018     Permalink

EGADS, ANOTHER ONE – AT 1:54 P.M. ET:  I can't keep up with the number of names put forward for the 2020 Democratic nomination.   It seems every hour we get a new flavor-of-the-day, "the man who..!"  Oh wait, "The woman who, or the trans person who, or the person who doesn't wish a gender who."  We must be careful these days.  And now the latest, from the Washington Free Beacon:   

Democrat Terry McAuliffe said he would be the party's best choice to "take on" President Donald Trump in 2020.

"Who better to take on Trump than me?" McAuliffe said when asked by the Washington Free Beacon about a potential 2020 run for president, strongly indicating he will indeed throw his hat in the ring.

The former Virginia governor, Democratic National Committee chairman, and longtime party fundraiser's name is regularly included amongst the crowded field of Democrats thinking of running for president.

McAuliffe has been said to be "seriously considering" a presidential run but recently dodged a question from CNN's Jake Tapper on who would give Democrats the best chance to take back the White House, though he did indicate a belief that former governors with executive experience such as McAuliffe are better suited for a run.

COMMENT:  Terry, Terry, it's the new Democratic Party, Terry.  You're a white male from the seat of the Confederacy, and closely tied to Hillary Clinton.  And over there is Elizabeth Warren, who personally shot General Custer.  And there's Kamala Harris, whose family hails from 71 different countries.  And Bernie Sanders, who personally knew Lincoln.  Maybe a Cabinet job, Terry. 

February 26,  2018     Permalink

THE PRESIDENT HOLDS – AT 10:40 A.M. ET:   Rasmussen has the president's approval rating today at 49%: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 49% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove. 
By comparison, President Obama earned 44% approval on this date in the second year of his presidency. 

COMMENT:  We note that this is the highest approval rating currently reported by any major poll.  The lowest is Gallup, tied with Quinnipiac, at 37%.

The RealClearPolitics average of presidential approval polls is 41.5%.

Why, some readers ask, do we use Rasmussen, which sometimes appears an outlier?  First, it is the only daily tracking poll, which means it's always up to date.  Second, it was the most accurate major poll in predicting the last presidential election.  Third, Trump always underpolls, so a poll that seems to put him "too high" may be just right.  And fourth, Trump won the election when the average of polls also showed him behind.

No one knows how accurate a poll is until we read the election-day results.  But I am comfortable using Rasmussen, given the history.  Rasmussen can also compare its result to where Obama was at this point in his presidency, which is unique.

February 26, 2018       Permalink

THIS IDEA IS GAINING TRACTION – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  Governor John Kasich of Ohio, a somewhat eccentric Republican governor. said over the weekend what a number of voices have hinted at in recent months – that the two-party system may be near its end.   From the Washington Times: 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, one of the loudest Republican critics of President Trump, said Sunday that both parties are failing American citizens and that a “multi-party system” could materialize sooner rather than later.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program. Mr. Kasich — who has been rumored to be mulling a primary challenge against Mr. Trump in 2020, though he said Sunday he has no plans to mount such a run — said Americans, particularly young people, are increasingly disillusioned with both parties.

“I want to support candidates who I believe want to take the high road. Those that want to create discord and those that want to put the party in front of the country, I’m not showing up,” he said.

“I will tell you another thing. We may be beginning to see the end of a two-party system. I’m starting to really wonder if we are going to see a multi-party system at some point in the future in this country. Because I don’t think either party is answering people’s deepest concerns and needs.”

COMMENT:  He may be right, but I think it may come down to a third party developing that would eventually replace one of the two major parties.

The Democrats are probably in greater jeopardy than the GOP.  While the GOP has its nut cases and its factions, it has a kind of general unity.  However, the Democratic Party has truly been taken over by leftist extremists, way outside the American mainstream.  The Democratic Party of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy is only a memory, replaced by the party of Barack Obama.  The national chairman is a fringe leftist who curses during rallies where children are present.  The second-in-command is a former member of the Nation of Islam.  

It isn't hard to imagine a group of moderate Democrats, perhaps joined by some moderate Republicans, breaking off and forming a new party of the center-left.  Its immediate impact, if it is well funded, might well be to deny the current Democratic Party the voters it needs to win any national election. 

But that is speculation.

February 26,  2018     Permalink 

FEBRUARY 25,  2018

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

THAT'S IT FOR WINNIE – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  It was probably his darkest hour.
Winston Churchill, the revered British Prime Minister who led his country to victory in World War II, was outed on Saturday as a cheating husband.  The Sunday Times of London reported his galpal was Doris Castlerosse, the “promiscuous’’ great-aunt of model and actress Cara Delevingne.  The startling news came from Churchill’s aide, John “Jock’’ Colville. Two years before he died in 1987, Colville recorded his memories for the Churchill archive, but no one listened to all of it — until now.  “He [Churchill] did one terrible thing,” Colville said.   The one "terrible" thing was the affair.  Now I guess Churchill is finished, outed as just another Harvey Weinstein or Charlie Rose.  No more bust in the Oval Office.  Who will be the first to claim "me too"?  History is so cruel.

MICHELLE'S BOOK – FROM AP:  NEW YORK (AP) — Michelle Obama's memoir is coming out in November.  The former first lady tweeted Sunday that the book is called "Becoming." She is calling her memoir a "deeply personal experience."  The former first lady and her husband, former President Barack Obama, last year reached a joint agreement with Penguin Random House for their respective books. The deal is believed to be well in excess of $30 million.  Memoirs by former first ladies usually sell well and Michelle Obama's memoir is highly anticipated. She is admired around the world and has never told her story at length. Her only previous book was a 2012 work on gardening, "American Grown."  I can't wait.  I wonder if she's proud of her country now.

OLYMPICS END – Did anyone notice?  The next summer games will be in Tokyo in 2020, during our presidential campaign.  The next winter games will be in Beijing in 2022.  Are we getting a message about Asian dominance?  I assume so.  Asia has become an athletic center as well as a manufacturing center.  The next games scheduled for the United States won't take place until 2028, in Los Angeles.  I assume California will still be in the Union.

February 25, 2018       Permalink

THE MISGUIDED PRESS – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 2:18 P.M. ET:  Excellent words about the fact that some American journalists have trouble distinguishing between Ivanka Trump and the sister of the North Korean dictator.    From Fox: 

Ivanka Trump is in South Korea for the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games and, inevitably, she is being compared to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, who attended the opening ceremonies.

The disgusting fawning over Kim Yo Jong at the start of the Olympics exposed a truth about much of America’s mainstream media: any enemy of President Trump will be showered in praise.

It didn’t matter that Kim Jong Un is a brutal despot who is starving his own people, allows no freedom, and imprisons or kills his opponents. A documentary called "Secret State of North Korea” – made in 2014 using video smuggled out of North Korea – showed people in the countryside eating grass. What mattered was the opportunity to show up Donald Trump.

Writing in the New York Post at the start of the Olympics about the fawning coverage given Kim Yo Jong, Bethany Mandel, who frequently fundraises to rescue North Korean refugees hiding in China noted that it was “strange reading a red carpet-like report about a member of a regime that has concentration camps the size of Los Angeles, where children have been secretly photographed starving in the streets and whose leader uses anti-aircraft weaponry to execute his political enemies.”

But no, in the choice between Ivanka Trump or the sister of a murderous dictator (who is, actually said to have killed one of his other siblings), the American media just can’t decide which way to lean.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  But it's happened before.  During the Vietnam War, certain elements of the American media sanitized the North Vietnamese dictatorship.  And at home, those same elements sanitized the "anti-war" movement, which was heavily infiltrated by the pro-enemy left.

February 25, 2018       Permalink

THE VALUE OF SUNLIGHT – AT 12:30 P.M. ET:  Politicians, and other office holders who act like politicians, seek publicity.  They crave it.  But publicity has a downside.  With it comes sunlight, exposure, examination.  We often learn more about the publicity seeker than that person wants us to know.

Sunlight, Justice Brandeis wrote, is the best disinfectant.  And we're seeing an example of the disinfecting right now.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

Embattled Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said he had provided "amazing leadership" to his department on Sunday, drawing disbelief from CNN host Jake Tapper.

Tapper pressed Israel during a nearly half-hour interview about the response of his department before and during the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.

Israel announced Thursday that school resource officer Scot Peterson had been suspended and decided to retire rather than be terminated after learning Peterson failed to enter the school during the massacre and engage the shooter.

Israel also defended the conduct of his department in response to the 18 calls its deputies got about the killer, Nikolas Cruz, including fears he could be a "school shooter in the making." No report was initiated upon that tip.

Tapper asked Israel, who participated in CNN's town hall on guns on Wednesday and called for stronger gun control laws, if he could see how the public would be critical when it saw so many red flags go ignored by the department.

"How could there not even be a report on this one?" Tapper asked.

"If that's accurate, Jake, there needed to be a report and that's what we're looking in to, that a report needed to be completed, it needed to be forwarded to our homeland security or violent crimes unit and they would've followed up on it," Israel said.

And...

"Are you really not taking any responsibility for the multiple red flags that were brought to the attention of the Broward Sheriff's Office about this shooter before the incident?" Tapper asked.

"Jake, I can only take responsibility for what I knew about. I exercised my due diligence. I've given amazing leadership to this agency—" Israel started.

"Amazing leadership?" Tapper asked incredulously.

COMMENT:  It now turns out that three other sheriff's deputies also did not enter the school to engage the shooter. 

Maybe this politically ambitious sheriff thought this was his moment in the sun.  It was.  And the sunlight is doing its job. 

And a pat on the back for Jake Tapper, one of the more independent CNN reporters, for refusing to follow the CNN party line and blame the gun.

February 25, 2018       Permalink

THE NEW DEMOCRATS – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  Dianne Feinstein of California is the oldest senator.  She is also, in terms of service, the senior Democrat.  Say what you will about her, she's considered one of the more responsible Democratic senators, a moderate liberal who has talked about working with Trump, a mortal sin in her party.  When Kamala Harris, her new colleague from California, started to be mentioned as a presidential candidate, Feinstein firmly reminded her party that "she just got here."  Another sin.  Harris is a minority, and therefore qualified to be president.

Now the ultimate slap.  The Democratic convention of California, known for its radicalism, has refused to endorse Feinstein for another term.  From Fox: 

The California Democratic Party will not endorse Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s re-election bid this year, with delegates at the party’s annual convention giving the majority of votes to her top primary challenger, progressive State Sen. Kevin de Leon.

De Leon got 54 percent of the vote, compared to 37 percent for the more moderate Feinstein, according to results released Sunday. But neither Democrat will receive the state party endorsement because they failed to reach the 60 percent threshold.

The vote totals were not a surprise, considering the state party’s liberal leaning.
And Feinstein leads de Leon by 29 percentage points in the primary race, according to the most recent RealClearPolitics polls average.

“The outcome of today’s endorsement vote is an astounding rejection of politics as usual, and it boosts our campaign’s momentum as we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder against a complacent status quo,” said de Leon, according to Politico. “California Democrats are hungry for new leadership that will fight for California values from the front lines, not equivocate on the sidelines.”

Feinstein, the oldest member of the Senate at 84, is seeking a sixth term.

Feinstein took heat last fall from some on the left after appearing to voice optimism about Trump becoming "a good president.” Feinstein also recently said that former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which Trump is ending, was on shaky legal ground.

COMMENT:  Feinstein will still probably win another term, but her rejection by her party's convention is more indication that the Democratic Party is going further and further to the left.  Right off the cliff. 

February 25,  2018     Permalink