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JANUARY 7,  2016

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

WEBB MOVING – From the Washington Times:   As he ponders an independent run for the White House, former Sen. James Webb of Virginia has retained the services of Sam Jones, the national finance director for the past effort to draft Vice President Joseph R. Biden into the race.  Mr. Webb’s camp said it has given a thorough look at ballot access requirements for independent candidates.  “After weeks of study, including consultations with ballot experts and independent activists around the country, we have a handle on what it takes to give voters in every state a real choice,” said Webb spokesman Craig Crawford. “We are so pleased that Sam Jones is coming on board to help us examine what is now the decisive issue: How to pay for it.”  What's a ballot expert?  Is that a real job?  Is there a degree for it in the Ivy League?  Is the field sufficiently diverse?  I mean, these are the important things.  Don't underestimate a Webb independent challenge.  Even if he takes three percent of the vote, he can change the outcome of the election.

AND NOW FINLAND – From Breitbart:  Finnish police reported Thursday an unusually high level of sexual harassment in Helsinki on New Year’s Eve and said they had been tipped off about plans by groups of asylum seekers to sexually harass women.  Helsinki deputy police chief Ilkka Koskimaki told AFP: “There hasn’t been this kind of harassment on previous New Year’s Eves or other occasions for that matter… This is a completely new phenomenon in Helsinki.”  Security guards hired to patrol the city on New Year’s Eve told police there had been “widespread sexual harassment” at a central square where around 20,000 people had gathered for celebrations.  Note, once again, the silence of "women's" groups in the West.  When are they going to be exposed for what they are, front operators for the political left, with very little interest in the horrors inflicted on women?

MAJOR PHOTOGRAPHY NEWS – From Fox:   SAN FRANCISCO – A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs cannot be declared the copyright owner of the photos, a federal judge said Wednesday.  U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in a tentative ruling in federal court in San Francisco that "while Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act."  The lawsuit filed last year by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sought a court order allowing PETA to represent the monkey and let it administer all proceeds from the photos for the benefit of the monkey, which it identified as 6-year-old Naruto, and other crested macaques living in a reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.  You know I kind of sympathize with the monkey.  I've worked in Hollywood where non-human species routinely get royalties – snakes, pigs, sharks.  You get the idea.

January 7, 2016       Permalink

GETTING HOTTER – AT 10:30 A.M.  ET:   The clash between Saudi Arabia and Iran is escalating, in a region that's already a tinderbox.  Wow, this Obama foreign policy has really stabilized things.  From BBC: 

Iran has accused Saudi-led coalition warplanes of damaging its embassy and injuring staff in an air strike on Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

State media quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying planes had deliberately targeted the site.
But some later reports in Iran said missiles struck only in the vicinity of the embassy.

Residents and witnesses in Sanaa reported there was no damage to the main embassy building.

Sanaa residents reported dozens of air strikes on Thursday by the coalition, which is battling Houthi rebels.

Residents quoted by Reuters said missiles had struck 700m (2,300 feet) from the embassy, causing shrapnel and rocks to land near the building.

COMMENT:  The United States, incredibly, is tilting toward Iran in this crisis, and against its longtime ally, Saudi Arabia.  I have no love for Saudi Arabia, but this betrayal by Obama will be noted throughout the Mideast.  Apparently, the logic is that nothing must be allowed to interfere with the Iran nuclear deal, which is the centerpiece of Obama's so-called "legacy."  Some legacy.

January 7, 2016       Permalink

FRENCH TERROR SCARE – AT 9:58 A.M.  ET:   A knife-wielding terrorist was killed by Paris police today on the first anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.  From Fox:

A man who tried to attack a Paris police station with a knife was shot and killed Thursday as France marked the anniversary of the terror attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Police shot the unidentified man, who a police union official said was shouting "Allahu Akbar" as he tried to enter a police station in the northern portion of the city. Another police official said the man was carrying a butcher's knife.

A search of the man's body uncovered a sheet of paper with the Islamic State flag and a claim of responsibility from the terror group, a Paris prosecutor said, according to Reuters.

Alexis Mukenge, who saw the shooting from inside another building, told the network iTele that police told the man, "Stop. Move back." Mukenge said officers fired twice and the man immediately dropped to the ground.

The Goutte d'Or neighborhood in Paris' 18th arrondissement, a multi-ethnic district not far from the Gare du Nord train station, was locked down, as were two metro lines running through the area, though they later reopened.

Police cleared out hundreds of people who had gathered at a subway station and along nearby streets. Shops were ordered shuttered along neighboring streets, and shop owners hastily rolled down metal shutters.

COMMENT:  What strikes us is the utter relentlessness of ISIS.  It's one attack after another.   We know that the assault in San Bernardino was ISIS-related.  We can, I'm afraid, expect more.

We note that the French police were equipped with firearms today.  When the magazine Charlie Hebdo was attacked last year, some police arrived on bicycles, unarmed.  Maybe lessons have been learned.

January 7, 2016       Permalink

THE BIDEN FACTOR – AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  Joe is back in the news, saying that he regrets not running for president, but that he made the right decision for his family.  I don't know.  Does this mean he's really running?  You decide.  From The Hill:

Vice President Biden said Wednesday he regrets not running for president in 2016, but stressed it was ultimately the right call.

“I regret it every day but it was the right decision for my family and for me and I plan on staying deeply involved,” he said in an interview with Hartford, Conn., NBC affiliate WVIT.

It’s one of the first times Biden has publicly conveyed remorse about not jumping into the race to succeed President Obama.  Biden agonized over the decision for months during the late summer and early fall following the death of his son, Beau, from brain cancer.

But after road testing his campaign message and holding dozens of meetings with advisers and family members, he chose not to run, saying it was too late to mount a viable campaign.

COMMENT:  Ah, Joe, it's never too late, especially if the frontrunner, a woman named Clinton, gets slammed by the FBI and possibly indicted.  Does Joe have some inside info on that?  He'd almost have to.  Why do I think he's waiting in the wings, ready to save the country if Hillary suddenly can't make it to the nearest microphone?  I swear that I am not, nor have I ever been, a conspiracy theorist.  But these statements of Joe's are pretty suggestive of an active political hunger.  Besides, there are some credible reports that the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton will wrap up within 60 days. 

January 7, 2016       Permalink

WATCH YOUR WALLET – AT 9:17 A.M. ET:  There are serious rumblings in the international financial markets, with China at the core of the unrest.  Will this be 2008 all over?  From Bloomberg:

Global markets shuddered as turmoil emanating from China spread around the world and billionaire George Soros warned of a crisis.

Chinese shares fell 7 percent within a half hour of opening, triggering a full-day trading halt, after the central bank cut the yuan’s reference rate by the most since August. Other equity markets tumbled, with European shares falling the most since September and U.S. futures indicating a lower open. Commodities weren’t spared as crude headed for its lowest settlement in 12 years. Haven assets gained, with Treasuries rising for a sixth day, the yen reaching a four-month high and gold surging.

“China has a major adjustment problem,” Soros said Thursday at an economic forum in Colombo, Sri Lanka. “I would say it amounts to a crisis. When I look at the financial markets there is a serious challenge which reminds me of the crisis we had in 2008.”

COMMENT:  Soros may be a revolting man (he is), but he knows his markets.  Things are rumbling.  Another collapse would have a profound impact on this country, and, by definition, the presidential campaign.  It might well elect Donald Trump, who people could see, correctly or not, as an economic fixer.

January 7,  2016     Permalink 

JANUARY 6,  2016

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

UNREAL – From Pamela Geller:   The Mayor of the City where hundreds of women were robbed, sexually attacked, molested, and even raped on New Years Eve is blaming the victims. Worse still, the Mayor is a woman.  The mayor of Köln, Henriette Reker, intends to publish a behavioral code for the forthcoming carnival in Köln. But if you think that this behavioral code is meant for the Muslim mobs, you are wrong. This behavioral code is meant for the victims, the women.  Rather than focus on the astonishing number of criminals involved in the incident and the broader issues such violence points to, however, Reker determined women, such as those who were randomly attacked days ago, are the key to a solution. In order “to prevent such incidents from ever happening again,” Reker proposed that women adhere to a “code of conduct,” the Independent reported on Tuesday.  Notice, once again, the silence of the "feminists."  Many "women's" groups in the West have become captives of the far left.  And the far left will not criticize Muslims.

ALSO UNREAL – From The College Fix:   Black college students across the country have demanded that they be segregated from white peers, calling for “safe spaces” on campuses meant only for so-called students of color.  The requests for segregated spaces are found among some of the demand lists put forth by students who took part in protests this fall alleging their campuses are oppressive, discriminatory, and represent institutionalized racism.  The demands have been presented to campus administrators and are chronicled by TheDemands.org, a website run by a racial advocacy group called the Black Liberation Collective.  Not all of the 76 demand lists, each from a different university, seek segregated spaces — but several do.  Isn't this what respectable people were supposed to be against?  Maybe a cutoff of all federal aid to higher education, outside the sciences, would be a helpful jolt.  We have children attending college.

THE H-BOMB – The official position of the United States is that North Korea did not set off a hydrogen bomb, as the North Korean government claimed.  Many scientists are backing this assessment.  However, many others are more cautious, pointing out that North Korea's nuclear program is relentless, and that the blast recorded a few days ago may well be a significant step on the way to an H-bomb.  Given the total failure on our part to stop the North Korean nuclear program, I would choose to go with the most pessimistic assessment.  It's usually accurate.

January 6, 2016       Permalink

OUR PRESIDENT-IN-TRAINING – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  A reader notes that, despite one crisis after another, President Obama is still seen as untouchable by the national press.  It's understandable.  How can a man sold to us as godlike be blamed for any mistakes.  Perfect men don't make mistakes.  From the Washington Examiner: 

And while Bush was held responsible for every last casualty that occurred anywhere while he held office, Obama is absolved from responsibility for the massacres, rapes and enslavement of innocents that have followed his numerous foreign policy blunders — given a pass as the victim of forces he did not enable and disasters he didn't create.

"Be very glad we don't have a Republican president," Walter Russell Mead told us in May of last year, warning that if such were so we would be enduring a "merciless media pounding" on the series of "failures, mistakes, and false starts" that have been our lot since Obama took office. Instead, we have a Democrat who is allowed by the press to fail quietly, discreetly, and off center stage. Thus, into a second year of beheadings and horror, we see headlines like "Attacks Don't Shake President's Faith in Patient Strategy" (Washington Post); "Speech Was a Plea for Patience and National Unity" (New York Times); and "Obama Addresses a Shifting Landscape," (Washington Post), suggesting support for a put-upon leader facing conditions he never expected to meet.

And...

When Bush ducked a shoe thrown at him by an Iraqi during a press conference in 2008, Eleanor Clift said that he might have deserved it for what he had done to that country by starting the war. By those standards, by letting the war start again after Bush ended it, what Obama deserves from Iraq (and from most of the rest of that suffering region) is a volley of combat boots. But none will be flung by the press of his country, in whose eyes he can do nothing wrong.

COMMENT:  We should note that a small core of journalists is challenging the president, but most of the mainstreamers act as if he were just inaugurated, still wearing his top hat, and needs time to settle into the job.

He'll be out of that job in a year and 14 days.  I'm counting.  Please start.

January 6, 2016       Permalink

QUOTES THAT COME BACK TO HAUNT – AT 8:54 A.M. ET:  We note, in the light of North Korea's claim that it has the hydrogen bomb, that we had an...er...agreement with that nation negotiated under a guy named Clinton.  (Seems he's back in the news.)  That was in 1994.  Here's what President Clinton said then, from the Jerusalem Post:

In 1994, North Korea signed a nuclear agreement with the US, under the administration of former US president Bill Clinton. He said at the time that the deal meant "North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.”

Clinton said that the “United States and international inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its commitments. Only as it does so will North Korea fully join the community of nations."

Twelve years later, in 2006, North Korea detonated its first underground nuclear explosion.

COMMENT:  As they say, a lesson from history.  I hope Clinton's quote is used against Hillary in the upcoming campaign.  She bought into that childlike thinking when she was secretary of state.

The nuclear agreement with North Korea failed.  We never stood up to North Korea's violations.  The nuclear agreement with Iran is already failing, as Iran blatantly tests nuclear-capable ICBM's.  Our reaction is meekness.  The only thing we seem to have learned from our failure with North Korea is how to fail again, more quickly this time.

January 6, 2016       Permalink

THE BOMB – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  Clearly the biggest story of the day, and a major story in international affairs.  This, and the Saudi-Iranian crisis in the Mideast, show how quickly events can overtake us, and probably affect the presidential election. 

North Korea's announcement that it has exploded a hydrogen bomb, if truthful, gives that country a vastly more powerful weapon than anyone thought they possessed.  As news organizations are reporting, it would put the West Coast of the United States within missile and H-Bomb range.  From CNBC: 

North Korea tested a hydrogen nuclear bomb on Wednesday, state news agency KCNA reported, marking the politically isolated country's first nuclear test in three years, a move that was condemned by the U.S., Britain and Japan, among others.

The report on the KCNA website came within hours of reports from various agencies that a large earthquake had been detected near a known North Korean nuclear test site.

According to KCNA, North Korea tested a miniaturized hydrogen nuclear bomb "in the most perfect manner," putting it in possession of hydrogen bomb capability, which it described as "the most powerful nuclear deterrent."

North Korea wanted what it called "the H-bomb of justice" as protection from the "ever-growing nuclear threat and blackmail by the U.S.-led hostile forces," according to the statement on KCNA.

It would use the weapons only if its sovereignty was encroached upon, the statement on KCNA said, but would not roll back its nuclear development until the U.S. had dropped its "vicious, hostile" policy toward the isolated Communist state.

"The U.S. is a gang of cruel robbers which has worked hard to bring even a nuclear disaster to the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korean], not content with having imposed the thrice-cursed and unheard-of political isolation, economic blockade and military pressure on it for the mere reason that it has differing ideology and social system," according to the statement.

COMMENT:  So it's our fault.  The U.S., under the weakest president it has had in living memory, is a threat to North Korea, according to North Korea.

Afraid not.   I doubt if North Korea would have conducted this test if we had a real president in the White House instead of the president from Disney World.  The North Koreans, allies of Iran, have watched us buckle before every Iranian demand.  They're following the leader.

And, if the news turns out to be accurate, Iran can be the beneficiary of this thermonuclear technology.

January 6,  2016     Permalink