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.

JANUARY 10,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:06 P.M. ET: 

NO ENDORSEMENT FROM THE CHIEF – From Fox:   President Obama will not endorse a Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential primary race, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Sunday.  "That's not our job,” McDonough said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That's the job of the party to make those decisions and then they'll take a look at the agendas and the positions of those candidates."  McDonough said that Obama, in the final 11 months of his presidency, will wait until voters pick a nominee, as he has in the past.  Squirm, Hillary, squirm.  What does Obama know about you that prevents him from nominating his first secretary of state?

HILLARY'S NIGHTMARE – From Newsmax:  The FBI and intelligence community "would go ballistic" if there's no indictment in the case of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of her private email server to conduct government business, former federal prosecutor Joseph diGenova tells Newsmax TV.  In an interview with "Newsmax Now" hosts John Bachman and Miranda Khan on Friday, the former U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia says the FBI will wrap up its probe of Clinton's email use in the next two to three months.  "This case is about the future of enforcement of classified information," diGenova declared. "[Clinton] has gotten a pass up to this point on any accusation being made public. But those days are going to be short lived."  Put some gas in Joe Biden's car.  He's ready.

TRUMP ON CRUZ –  Donald Trump renewed pressure Sunday on fellow GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz to resolve questions over his eligibility to run, warning that the matter could be used against him by Democrats in a general election.  Trump, in a tight race with Cruz in the fast-approaching Iowa caucus vote, said on “Fox News Sunday” that he was unsure whether the Texas senator, born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban citizen father, is a natural-born American citizen.  “I really don't know,” he said. “Does natural born mean born to the land? In that case he's not. But nobody knows what it means. And … it hasn't gone to the Supreme Court. I speak well of Ted. I'm only saying that Ted has to get this problem solved because if he's running against a Democrat, and they bring a lawsuit, he's got a hell of a thing over his head.”  Trump again said he thinks Cruz should get a declaratory judgment to clear up the matter.  This is absurd.  Ted Cruz's mother is an American, born in Delaware.  Trump was born in Canada while his parents were working there.  I doubt if any federal court, including the Supreme Court, would have the audacity to declare ineligible a presidential candidate, especially if he has his party's nomination, unless his citizenship was based on outright fraud.  The American people would never tolerate such blatant interference in the political process.

January 10,  2016     Permalink 

WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING – AT 1:10 P.M. ET:  At the end of World War II in Europe, General Eisenhower ordered American troops to be marched through the Nazi death camps.  He said that our soldiers might not always understand what they'd been fighting for, but at least they could understand what they'd been fighting against. 

Today we must constantly be reminded of what we're fighting against.  It is a fanatical ideology.  Here is an example.  From Reuters:

BEIRUT An Islamic State militant executed his mother in public in the Syrian city of Raqqa because she had encouraged him to leave the group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday.

The woman in her 40s had warned her son that a U.S.-backed alliance would wipe out Islamic State and had encouraged him to leave the city with her.

She was detained after he informed the group of her comments, according to the British-based Observatory, which monitors the war through a network of sources on the ground.

Citing local sources, the Observatory said the 20-year-old man executed his mother on Wednesday near the post office building where she worked in front of hundreds of people in Raqqa, a main base of operations for the group in Syria.

The Islamic State group, which controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq, has executed hundreds of people it has accused of working with its enemies or breaching of its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam.

COMMENT:  Mothers' lives matter.

January 10, 2016       Permalink

GLAD TO SEE SOMEONE NOTICED – AT 11:56 A.M. ET:  The rape scandal in Europe is growing due to some good reporting.  From Reuters:

The mass attacks on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve have prompted more than 500 criminal complaints, with Cologne investigations focused largely on asylum seekers or illegal migrants from north Africa, police have said.

The attacks, mostly targeting women and ranging from theft to sexual molestation, have prompted a highly-charged debate in Germany about its open-door policy to migrants and refugees, more than one million of whom came to the country last year.

In Cologne, police said that 379 criminal complaints had been filed by individuals or groups, while police in Hamburg said 133 similar complaints had been lodged in the north German city. Frankfurt also registered complaints, although far fewer.

The Cologne attacks also heated up debates on immigration in neighboring Austria and Switzerland.

"What happened in Cologne is unbelievable and unacceptable," Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, a member of the conservative People's Party that is junior coalition partner to the Social Democrats, told newspaper Oesterreich.

There had been a handful of similar incidents in the border city of Salzburg. "Such offenders should be deported," she said, backing a similar suggestion by German chancellor Angela Merkel.

COMMENT:  There is also a terrible rape problem in Scandinavia, attributable to mass immigration from the Mideast.   But the political left will not acknowledge it.  And neither will "women's" organizations, which often act as front operators for that same left.

January 10, 2016       Permalink

HILLARY NOW SERIOUSLY CHALLENGED BY BERNIE – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:   Few seriously believe that Bernie can win the nomination, but he can hurt Hillary, who is also extremely vulnerable to the results of an FBI investigation.  From The Hill:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has maintained his lead over Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and pulled to within the margin of error of her in Iowa, a new poll finds.

According to a NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist survey released on Sunday, Clinton has only a 3-point lead over Sanders in Iowa, well within the poll’s 4.8 percentage point margin of error. Clinton takes 48 percent support in the Hawkeye State, compared to 45 percent for Sanders.

That’s a much closer race in Iowa than other recent polls have found. According to the RealClearPolitics average of surveys, Clinton leads by 12.5 points in Iowa.

New Hampshire has long been a more competitive race between the two, and here the poll found Sanders leading with 50 percent of the support over Clinton at 46, in-line with other recent polling. According to the RCP average, Sanders leads by 5.3 points in the Granite State.

The Sanders campaign has been seeking to draw attention to polling that finds the Vermont senator performing better than Clinton in head-to-head match-ups against Republicans in the general election, and the NBC survey confirmed those claims.

Sanders leads GOP front-runner Donald Trump head-to-head by 13 in Iowa, while Clinton only leads him by 8. In New Hampshire the disparity is even greater, with Sanders leading Trump by 19, and Clinton only edging him by 1.

COMMENT:  The lack of enthusiasm for Clinton is startling.  The "first woman president" idea seems to have little traction.

But Republicans work hard to lose elections, so I am not ordering my inaugural tickets just yet.  Let's see who the Republicans nominate.

January 10,  2016     Permalink

JANUARY 9,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:46 P.M. ET: 

IS THIS SERIOUS? – From the New York Daily News:  The United States showed off its own military might by buzzing North Korea with a B-52 Bomber.  The Guam-based Stratofortress had an entourage as it cruised 60 miles south of the North Korean border on Saturday, near the city of Osan. The aircraft was flanked by an American F-16 Falcon and a South Korean F-15 Eagle.  Though the U.S. government has not confirmed that North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon at its underground test site Tuesday, U.S. Pacific Command officials said the show of muscle was prompted by the incident.  "This was a demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to our allies in South Korea, in Japan, and to the defense of the American homeland," said U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. in a statement.  I'm sure the North Koreans are shivering in their boots.  Not.  They know we won't do a thing.

A STUNNING RECORD – From the Daily Signal:   Emanuel Lutchman was arrested on Dec. 30 for his support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and planned attack for New Year’s Eve in Rochester, N.Y.  Lutchman planned to attack a local restaurant/bar armed only with a machete, knives, and supplies to take hostages.  This marks the 76th Islamist-inspired terror attack/plot on the United States since 9/11 and the 13th in 2015—making 2015 the year with the greatest number of attacks or plots over the past 14 years.  And it is likely to get worse.  ISIS is far more relentless than Al Qaeda, and much more shrewd.

KERRY ROARS – THAT IS A JOKE – From AP:   WASHINGTON — The State Department said Saturday that Secretary of State John Kerry will respond “as appropriate” to a letter from executives at 25 news organizations, including The Associated Press, asking him to press Iran to free jailed Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.  The department is “working very hard to get our citizens back home and we call again on Iran to release them,” spokesman John Kirby said.  Besides Rezaian, three other Iranian-Americans are known to be held by Iran. Separately, a former FBI agent disappeared in Iran in 2007 while working for the CIA on an unapproved intelligence mission.  How pathetic.  Our secretary of state will respond "as appropriate."  Meaning he will do nothing to upset our precious "relations" with Iran.  North Korea all over again, as noted above.

January 9,  2016     Permalink

OH, THESE BORING, HONEST PEOPLE – AT 11:47 A.M. ET:  Former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has made a new, scathing attack on the foreign policy of the Obama administration, in which he served.  From Daily Caller: 

Former defense secretary Robert Gates, who served during the Obama administration, thinks that President Barack Obama’s national security aides are totally and completely naïve, a naiveté which has brought about disastrous foreign policy consequences.

Gates pointed to deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes and former special assistant Samantha Power, both in their 30s, as prime examples of youth and inexperience run amuck, Politico reports.

As top-level national security advisors, however, Rhodes and Power had Obama’s ear. But for Gates, the absurdly optimistic rhetoric coming from the White House regarding prospects for spreading democracy and human rights through the Middle East has crashed on the rocks.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  I don't always agree with Gates, but he's an honest public servant.  The views he expressed here are spreading, and I get the sense that they're spreading in what remains of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. 

Obama has a year to go as president.  His successor will be chosen in 10 months.  My great fear, and I think it is shared by many, is that Obama and his adolescent sycophants will do enormous harm in the time they have left, and that the harm will be mostly in foreign policy.

January 9, 2016       Permalink 

NATIONAL SECURITY TOP ISSUE FOR GOP VOTERS – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:   Not surprising.  If national security becomes the top issue for voters generally, that should be a distinct advantage for the Republicans, if they nominate the right candidate.  From foxbusiness.com: 

In the aftermath of the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Republican primary voters are shifting their focus. In a new Fox News poll released Friday, 43% say national security will be the deciding factor when casting their vote for the nomination, while economic issues rank second with 27%.

The last time the survey was taken in November, prior to the attacks, 38% of voters said economic issues were most important compared to national security at 26%.

Here is the breakdown of the Fox News Poll:

Most Important Issue When Deciding Vote

Among GOP Primary Voters

                                   Now            Nov. 2015

National Security         43%                26%

Economic Issues          27%                38%

Immigration Issues      15%                 15%

Social Issues                 4%                  7%

COMMENT:  We commented a few days ago about the relentlessness of the ISIS attacks around the world.  We will have more here.   The issue will not go away.

January 9, 2016       Permalink

WHITE HOUSE SILENCE – AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  The shooter who allegedly tried to assassinate a Philadelphia police officer Thursday night has a bit of a past.  From Fox:

The FBI is investigating two trips alleged Philadelphia police shooter Edward Archer made to the Middle East, a spokesman told Fox News late Friday.

Special Agent Eric Rouna said federal authorities are investigating a trip Archer made to Saudi Arabia in 2011 where the suspect spent “a couple” of weeks. Authorities are also seeking more information about the several months Archer spent in Egypt in 2012.

Rouna said law enforcement officials have plenty of time to investigate because the suspect is in custody and isn’t going anywhere.

Archer was caught in surveillance video ambushing Officer Jesse Hartnett in his squad car, shooting him multiple times, and claimed he acted “in the name of Islam,” police said at a news conference Friday.

Police Commissioner Richard Ross said the suspect’s gun, a 9mm Glock 17, had been stolen from police in 2013.

COMMENT:  Meanwhile, the White House has not issued a single statement on this presumed terrorist attack.  As many police departments, including the NYPD, put their officers on high alert, the president cannot be bothered. 

And the president's ally, the hack mayor of Philadelphia, continues to insist that this incident has nothing to do with the teachings of Islam.  His first comment after the brutal attack was that there are too many guns on the street, the Democratic Party line.

January 9,  2016     Permalink