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JANUARY 8,  2017

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

THE TRUMP EFFECT – FROM FOX:   Fiat Chrysler said Sunday it would spend $1 billion on U.S. manufacturing, including modernizing plants in Michigan and Ohio, in a move that’s set to add 2,000 new jobs, Reuters reported.  According to the company’s plan, the plant in Warren, Michigan will be made capable of producing a pickup truck currently built in Mexico.  The Warren plant will make the new Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer large SUVs. A plant in Toledo, Ohio also will get new equipment to make a new Jeep pickup.  The move by Fiat Chrysler follows a similar recent announcement made by a competing auto brand.  The brand was Ford, and the impetus came from President-elect Trump.  If Trump can truly rebuild American manufacturing, his legacy will be sealed.  And things are starting to happen.

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   They are titans of philosophy, without whose work an understanding of the subject is all but inconceivable.  But now students at a University of London college are demanding that such seminal figures as Plato, Descartes, Immanuel Kant and Bertrand Russell should be largely dropped from the curriculum simply because they are white.  These may be the names that underpin civilisation, yet the student union at the world-renowned School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is insisting that when studying philosophy ‘the majority of philosophers on our courses’ should be from Africa and Asia.  Yawn.  Are there any courageous faculty members who can take on these "students" and show them how reckless they are?  I hear only silence.

THE NEXT TWO WEEKS – FROM AFP:    Washington (AFP) - A Rastafarian prophet, a former Taliban captive and thousands of minor drug traffickers have one thing in common: Their names have been submitted to President Barack Obama for clemency before he leaves office in two weeks.  Some US presidents have used this regal power of leniency in a pointed way near the end of their term in office.  On the last day of his term in 2001, Democratic president Bill Clinton granted pardons in a highly controversial move to late fugitive trader Marc Rich, whose ex-wife had been a major donor to Democrats.  Sixteen years later, Obama is fielding pressure from all sides to grant unlikely pardons or commutations of sentences to people whose supporters say have been unjustly sentenced or sought out by the justice system.  Among them is Bowe Bergdahl, a US Army sergeant held captive for five years by the Taliban before his release in a prisoner swap, who is due to be court-martialed for desertion.  There is legitimate concern that Obama might go nuts and grant pardons to dangerous people, but I'll withhold any comment until I see the actual list.  I think he should grant a general pardon to political pollsters for the crimes they committed before the election.

January 8, 2017     Permalink

SO GLAD TO HEAR IT – AT 1:20 P.M. ET:  Outgoing President Obama (that sounds so good) has finally conceded that he might be a little bit responsible for his party's devastating losses at the polls.  But just a little bit.  A little weeny bit.  From The Hill: 

President Obama in an interview broadcast Sunday accepted some of the blame for the Democratic Party's loss of seats in the House, Senate, governorships and state houses during his time in office.

"I take some responsibility on that," the president told ABC's "This Week."

"I think that some of it was circumstances."

Obama said he came into office in the middle of one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression.

"And unlike FDR who ... didn't take office until about three years into the Great Depression, it was happening just as I was elected," Obama said.

"I think we did a really good job in saving this economy and putting us back on the track of growth."

But, he added, there were still a lot of people who were out of work in 2010.

"There were a lot of folks who had lost their homes or saw their home values plummet, their 401(k)s plummet," Obama said.

"And we were just at the beginnings of a recovery. And the, you know, whoever is president at that point is gonna get hit and his party's gonna get hit," he continued.

COMMENT:  Obama has never been very good in history.  Doesn't read much.  Never released his grades.  FDR was re-elected in 1936, 1940, and 1944.  His successor, Harry S. Truman, was elected in 1948.  It wasn't until 1952, 20 years after FDR's first presidential victory, that the Republicans won a presidential election, and then only with war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

Democrats also dominated Congress, with few interruptions, for decades after FDR's first national victory.  They did so, however, by having a broadly based party, and one that actually knew how to do things, not just think things.  Contrast that, please, with the party of Obama.

January 8, 2016       Permalink

THE DEM PLAYBOOK – AT 12:18 P.M. ET:   What we are seeing in Washington, as we approach inauguration, is chilling.  The Democratic Party has gone into full obstruction mode.  Having learned nothing from the election, the party that has forgotten who Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy were, is now attempting to prevent Donald Trump from governing.  We have never seen this before.  From the brilliant Michael Goodwin at the New York Post: 

This is a first: Donald Trump is guilty of an understatement, of making a molehill out of a mountain. He called the Washington furor over Russian hacking a “witch hunt” when it is actually far more sinister and dangerous.

Witch hunts end. The Washington mob aims to make sure the election never ends and that Trump can never govern.

There are no modern precedents to the scandalous attempts to smear and undermine the president-elect. Nearly nine weeks after his victory and less than two weeks before he takes the oath, the voter-nullification plot is growing more vile.

It began when the Clinton campaign and her donors tried to overturn results in key states, then tried to steal the election outright by intimidating electors of the Electoral College.

When all that failed, the establishment forces that opposed Trump all along — the Obama White House, members of both parties, the Democratic media and Big Government activists — switched their goal to thwarting his presidency. One example: They aim to deny confirmation to as many as eight Cabinet picks.

This is not mere politics. This is half the country going rogue in a fit of madness.

COMMENT:  Read the entire thing.  It's a superb summation of what the Democrats, and a small number of Republicans, are doing.

Trump should be planning a strategy right now to get around these obstructionists.  He will get no help from the press, but can get considerable help from the American people.  Trump must be prepared to go to the people with very specific plans, and show how the Democrats are obstructing them.  Public pressure is a powerful tool.  Reagan used it.  He learned it from Roosevelt, one of his idols.  Let Trump propose a tax cut for the middle class.  Let him propose an economic plan for inner cities.  Then let the Democrats try to obstruct. 

January 8, 2016       Permalink

ATTACK IN JERUSALEM – AT 10:54 A.M. ET:  One day after a gun attack at Fort Lauderdale airport, carried out by a man who'd been photographed giving the ISIS salute, there is news of another attack in Jerusalem.   From Fox: 

A Palestinian who may be linked to ISIS rammed his speeding truck into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem Sunday, killing four people and wounding 15 others before being shot dead in one of the deadliest attacks in a year-long campaign of violence, Israeli police said.

Five people were arrested Sunday -- including the assailant's father and brother -- in connection with the attack.

"Today we saw evil and cruelty incarnate," Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said in a statement. "This murderous attack is a direct result of murderous Palestinian incitement. I call on the Secretary General and the Security Council to condemn this terror attack immediately."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the truck's driver had been identified and appeared to be "a supporter of the Islamic State." Netanyahu, speaking at the scene of the slaughter, added there "definitely could be a connection" between Sunday's horrific attack and similar ISIS truck attacks that took place in France and Germany in recent months.

COMMENT:  In a sad way, we're getting used to these attacks, even here in the United States.  They're forgotten quickly, and no real retaliation is carried out.

What did France do after the horrific attacks in its homeland?  Mostly nothing.  Next week it will host an international conference stacked against Israel, another act of French appeasement of the West's enemies.  European and British appeasement were among the leading causes of World War II.

But within two weeks we will have a new president, and maybe, just maybe, things will change for the better.

January 8,  2016     Permalink

JANUARY 7,  2017

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

THE ELITES HAVE THEIR FAREWELL PARTY – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Dozens of celebrities turned out to party until 4am at the White House in a farewell bash that saw the likes of Paul McCartney, Meryl Streep and SJP tear up the dancefloor.  The strictly VIP guestlist were banned from recording inside the party where Barack and Michelle served chicken and waffles to weary partygoers in the early hours of Saturday morning.  But that didn't stop A-list attendees from spilling the beans and their selfies to social media revealing how many of the Hollywood elite turned out to say goodbye to the beloved first family.   Syrian refugees, Israeli terror victims, unemployed American workers and parents of murdered children in Chicago did not receive their invitations in time.

NAT HENTOFF IS DEAD – FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:  NEW YORK — Nat Hentoff, an eclectic columnist, critic, novelist and agitator dedicated to music, free expression and defying the party line, died Saturday at age 91.  His son, Tom Hentoff, said his father died from natural causes at his Manhattan apartment.  Schooled in the classics and the stories he heard from Duke Ellington and other jazz greats, Nat Hentoff enjoyed a diverse and iconoclastic career, basking in “the freedom to be infuriating on a myriad of subjects.”  He was a bearded, scholarly figure, a kind of secular rabbi, as likely to write a column about fiddler Bob Wills as a dissection of the Patriot Act, to have his name appear in the liberal Village Voice as the far-right WorldNetDaily.com, where his column last appeared in August 2016.  He was one of my idols, one of the last of the great, honest, liberal journalists who pursued the truth wherever it led.  He was pro-life, which could have easily gotten him banished from the circles in which he traveled.  He called out Communist infiltration of institutions.  He was fiercely pro-freedom.  I don't know of anyone like him today.

ATTACK ON MONICA – FROM CNN:   Conservative author and television personality Monica Crowley, whom Donald Trump has tapped for a top national security communications role, plagiarized large sections of her 2012 book, a CNN KFile review has found.  The review of Crowley’s June 2012 book, "What The (Bleep) Just Happened," found upwards of 50 examples of plagiarism from numerous sources, including the copying with minor changes of news articles, other columnists, think tanks, and Wikipedia. The New York Times bestseller, published by the HarperCollins imprint Broadside Books, contains no notes or bibliography.
Crowley did not return a request for comment. Multiple requests for comment by phone and email over the past two days to HarperCollins went unreturned.  Crowley, a syndicated radio host, columnist, and, until recently, a Fox News contributor, will serve as Trump’s senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.  Obviously, these are serious charges, and the Trump team has an obligation to look at them carefully.  Was it really plagiarism, or did Crowley have the personal permission of others to use their material?  It's been my experience that plagiarism and other literary crimes are only taken seriously when they are charged against conservatives.  Liberal offenses are swept under the hand-made Native American rug.  There'll be more to this story.

January 7,  2017     Permalink

THE TRIUMPH OF HISTORY – AT 1:26 P.M. ET:  A piece of sculpture is finding its way back to the Oval Office.  From Britain's Telegraph: 

Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he intends to rip up Barack Obama's legacy when he takes office - ending the Trans-Pacific Partnership, redrawing Obamacare and loading up Guantanamo with "some bad dudes".

However, one expected action is likely to be less controversial, certainly in Britain: that of restoring the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office.

Mr Trump, who has frequently professed his admiration for Britain's wartime leader, was asked earlier this week whether he was considering returning the bust, sculpted by Jacob Epstein, to the White House.

“I am, indeed, I am,” he said, during an interview at the New York Times, at which he was sitting in front of a picture of Churchill.

Mr Obama replaced the Churchill bust with one of Martin Luther King in the Oval Office in 2009, soon after he took over the presidency, causing outrage on both sides of the Atlantic.

Boris Johnson controversially wrote earlier this year, while he was Mayor of London, that Mr Obama's decision to send the bust back to the British embassy in Washington had been a “snub to Britain”.

COMMENT:  When, in 1939, Churchill regained his position as First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he had held a quarter century earlier, a signal went out to the Royal Navy, "Winston is back."

Now we can send the same message throughout the United States government.  And it will symbolize the enduring British-American partnership.

January 7, 2017        Permalink

PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS, A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL SCANDAL – AT 12:22 P.M. ET:   And yet it receives so little attention from our mainstream media, our "educators," or even our "moral leaders."  From Fox: 

Christians continued to be the most persecuted group across the globe in 2016, according to a study.

The upcoming report from Italian-based Center for Studies on New Religions, determined that 90,000 Christians were killed for their beliefs worldwide last year and nearly a third were at the hands of Islamic extremists like ISIS. Others were killed by state and non-state persecution, including in places like North Korea.

“U.S. policy has not had a strategy for specifically addressing the persecution of Christians,” Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project, told FoxNews.com “For example, very few people are even aware that Iraqi Christians began organizing to defend themselves and needed our help."

The study also found that as many as 600 million Christians were prevented from practicing their faith in 2016.

The findings continue a disturbing trend from the previous year in which Christians around the world endured horrific acts of persecution, including imprisonment and beheadings.

“These numbers underscore what we already know," Robert Nicholson of the Philos Project said to Foxnews.com."There are many places on earth where being a Christian is the most dangerous thing you can be.

"Those who think of Christianity as a religion of the powerful need to see that in many places it’s a religion of the powerless. And the powerless deserve to be protected.”

While the situation is most dire in the Middle East, Christianity is under assault in Africa and Asia, too, according to an Aid to the Church in Need study of incidents in 2015. It cited persecution at the hands of Islamist terror groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and other extremists in Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and other parts of the continent.

COMMENT:  Of course, persecution of Christians is not recognized as a problem by the far left, or the political trendies in Western capitals and universities.  It brings no anguish to most journalists.  Some major protest marches are required, and maybe some subscription cancellations as well.

January 7, 2017       Permalink

MOTIVE? – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  As Lt. Joe Kenda (Investigation Discovery – "Homicide Hunter") likes to say, "My, my, my."  Do we have a motive, or at least an inspiration, for yesterday's shootings at Fort Lauderdale?  From the Daily Mail: 

A photo of Florida airport gunman Esteban Santiago appears to show him making a jihadist one-fingered salute while wearing a Mid-Eastern keffiyeh sometime prior to him carrying out the shooting massacre.

The 26-year-old Iraq war veteran was pictured in the photo gesturing with his index finger in a pose that has become notorious among supporters of the Islamic State.

Law enforcement officers are currently looking at whether Santiago had any links to ISIS or if he was mentally disturbed as part of their investigation into the deaths of five people in the baggage claim hall at Ft. Lauderdale airport on Friday.

FBI officials said late on Friday night they had not ruled out terrorism and were investigating all angles as they try to determine a motive for the shooting spree.

It was not immediately clear where or when the photo of Santiago was taken in which he appears to be making the jihadist salute.

The traditional Islamic gesture - which refers to the tawhid or 'the belief in the oneness of God' - has been widely adopted by Islamic State supporters.

Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev posed in a similar stance in front of an Islamic flag in his bedroom.

COMMENT:  Now, of course, the Obama administration, in its last days, might just label this "baggage carousel violence," but look at the picture on the Daily Mail story that we link.  Pretty chilling, in my view, unless this dude has strange tastes in fashion and finger usage. 

Looks like what is impolitely called a "lone wolf."

January 7,  2017     Permalink