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 17,  2017

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

ADVICE FOR TOURISTS – FROM LONDON'S MIRROR:  French people have been told not to fear wolves roaming Paris streets - as "they only eat four-legged animals".  Parisians are frightened that the endangered beasts - which have fought back from near extinction in the 1930s - are now within howling distance of the capital.  Indeed the discovery of paw prints, messy droppings and late-night howls from wolves - a distant relative of the domestic pet dog - are reported to be a now frequent occurrence in the city's suburbs.  While they are known to normally hunt in packs - when they are notoriously most dangerous - only lone wolves have been spotted so far wandering its streets.  Experts and eyewitnesses claim they are freely roaming French 'departments' (an administrative district) of Yvelines and Essone in Île-de-France - which overlaps with the Paris metropolitan area in the south and west - at night.  The French left will soon demand that the wolves be given the vote, the better to integrate them into French society.

HOW HELPFUL – FROM POLICE ONE:    WASHINGTON — Officers patrolling during the inauguration and days after will not be allowed to turn on their body cameras until they make an arrest.  A law bans officers in D.C. from recording demonstrators unless the officer has to take action and make an arrest, according to WJLA.  The ACLU said the camera shouldn’t be on because police shouldn’t be able to surveil first amendment activities.  “Our concern is around the availability of body cameras, what is done with that data, who looks at that data and what that data’s used for,” ACLU Spokeswoman Monica Hopkins-Maxwell told the news station.  While police won’t be allowed to film demonstrators, the ACLU is encouraging citizens to film police.  Along with citizens watching the police, federal law enforcement will be monitoring DC cops as well, the news station reported.   Must be fun to be a D.C. cop.  Much more fun to be a criminal.

OUTRAGE – FROM FOX:   Top Congressional Republicans condemned Tuesday the decision by President Barack Obama to commute former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning’s 35-year prison sentence for leaking classified documents.  House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., blasted the decision, calling it “outrageous.”  “Chelsea Manning’s treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation’s most sensitive secrets. President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won’t be held accountable for their crimes,” Ryan said in a statement.  Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the decision was a “grave mistake.”  "It is a sad, yet perhaps fitting commentary on President Obama’s failed national security policies that he would commute the sentence of an individual that endangered the lives of American troops, diplomats, and intelligence sources by leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive government documents to Wikileaks, a virulently anti-American organization that was a tool of Russia’s recent interference in our elections."  As if Obama cares.

January 17,  2017     Permalink

NOT A TRIBUTE TO MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. – AT 11:31 A.M. ET:  From CBS, Chicago: 

CHICAGO (CBS) — At least 39 people have been shot across Chicago over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend, leaving 10 dead.

The latest killing happened at 11:36 a.m. Monday in the West Side Austin neighborhood, where a vehicle pulled up to 24-year-old Allante Elmore on a porch near his home in the 4800 block of West Hubbard, and shot him repeatedly, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he died.

About 1:10 a.m., 36-year-old Marlon Pollard was standing outside in the 2200 block of West Chicago in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood when someone in a black SUV opened fire, striking him in the abdomen, face and left leg. The Evanston resident died in less than an hour at Stroger, authorities said.

Early Sunday on the Near West Side, officers responded to a call of a person down about 5:30 a.m. in the 2600 block of West Van Buren and found a man in his 30s or 40s dead at the scene with a gunshot wound to the head, according to authorities, who were still working to identify him.

About 1:15 a.m., a 34-year-old man was gunned down in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side.He got into an argument with someone who shot him in the chest in the 4700 block of West Polk, police said. He died at Mount Sinai Hospital, authorities said. His name has not been released.

COMMENT:  This is what Donald Trump was referring to when he admonished Congressman John Lewis, the "civil rights icon," to pay more attention to the horror of the inner cities than to Mr. Trump's "legitimacy."  Trump was right.

January 17, 2017       Permalink

BETSY UP NEXT – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  President-elect Trump's nomination of the brilliant and devoted Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education, will get the usual Democratic meat grinder approach as Ms. DeVos now comes up for confirmation.  From Fox:   

Three of the groups challenging the reform agenda of President-elect Donald Trump and his education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos received more than $2.6 million from teachers unions and their allies, according to federal labor filings.

DeVos, a pioneer in the school choice and charter school movements over the last two decades, has received vocal opposition from Democrats and some of the country’s most powerful unions. The National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and AFL-CIO, which serves as an umbrella group for dozens of unions including the AFT, have all called on the Senate to reject the nomination.

They have also pumped millions of dollars into think tanks and activist groups that have supplied Democrats with intellectual ammunition to oppose her.

DeVos, the head of the American Federation for Children, has come under scrutiny from a number of liberal groups and media outlets, along with unions. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and Center for American Progress (CAP) have each released reports critical of charter schools since President-elect Donald Trump announced the nomination in November.

COMMENT:  Once again we see how backward these "progressive" groups are.  They oppose any real school reform, especially if the reform threatens teachers' unions.

I am not anti-union.  I'm a union member.  But teachers' unions often don't act in the interest of children, but in their own interest alone.  Charter schools are a breath of fresh air in education, but they're a threat to union control of schools, and thus the Democrats oppose them.  Children?  Who needs children? 

It goes beyond this.  Like any thoughtful educator, Ms. DeVos wants to clean up the swamp known as the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education – the so-called "Title IX" office.  This office promulgates regulations right out of the Kremlin playbook.  Students accused of offenses like sexual violence, the campus term for rape, are often denied even the basics of due process as they try to defend themselves.  The standard of evidence decried by this federal office is so low that a ham sandwich could be convicted. 

Ms. DeVos has been accused by the modern McCarthyites of making financial contributions to FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.  This is one of the finest, fairest organizations I've seen developed in my lifetime.  It is a model civil rights group, fighting against lynch-mob justice on college campuses, and for basic Constitutional rights for college students and faculty.  But it is a threat to the Title IX industry, and thus is being smeared as some kind of dark force. 

I think Betsy will win out, and the real forces of darkness defeated.

January 17, 2017      Permalink

THREE MORE DAYS! – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  And the tension builds in Washington, which is bracing for what could be a frightening inauguration day.  From Scott Johnson at Powerline: 

The leftover left that materialized during the Bush administration is returning in force as of January 20. Whatever they do to disrupt events related to the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, it is a preview of coming attractions.

Alex Pfeiffer’s Daily Caller report links to undercover audio posted by FOX News. Jim Hoft seems to be in their sights. Rick Moran notes at American Thinker “Inauguration protests could get very ugly.”

The leftist groups seeking to disrupt the inauguration have formed a front under the name DisruptJ20 (January 20), of which the DC Antifascist Coalition seems to be a constituent. James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has released the first of a series of undercover videos (below) that features planning to disrupt one event. Stink bombs figure prominently, but that “DC Antifascist Coalition” moniker is a stink bomb all by itself. It harks back to the Communist Party’s Popular Front in the days before World War II. The Popular Front survived as a supposed antiwar movement until the day the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.

Project Veritas has posted the video along with its own account here. Joseph Klein has a useful overview at FrontPage.

COMMENT:  This is truly chilling stuff.  Scott's report, above, has a number of useful links.  I suggest you read the whole report and use the links.  What Scott presents is a picture of old-style hard-left violence or near-violence.  I saw it many times during the Vietnam War. 

This isn't funny.  Some of these hard-left groups are getting, if not outright approval, then an approving glance, from the left-wing fringe of the Democratic Party.  C.N. (Certified Nutbag) Maxine Waters, congresswoman of California, is already talking impeachment of the president. 

Joe McCarthy must be pleased.  Today he has so many disciples on the political left.

January 17,  2017     Permalink

JANUARY 16,  2017

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

SAD – Monica Crowley, the distinguished conservative commentator, has withdrawn her acceptance of a national-security position with the Trump White House after being accused of multiple cases of plagiarism.  Her withdrawal announcement made no reference to the charges, simply saying that she wanted to explore other opportunities.  It was clear to anyone with a publishing background that the charges were extremely serious and well documented.  They included assertions that she had plagiarized part of her Ph.D. thesis at Columbia.   One wonders if Crowley, who has done fine work on television and in print, can recover from this blow.  My own assessment, which is surely tentative, is that she can't. Plagiarism is considered sinful among writers and editors.  Multiple cases will almost certainly end a career.  It is very sad.  She's been one of my favorite commentators. 

THIS IS A SPORT? – FROM ESPN:   The Super Bowl ticket resale market slumped minutes after the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night.  Before Sunday's playoff game, the cheapest ticket to Super Bowl LI on StubHub was $4,195. Shortly after the Cowboys were defeated 34-31 on a field goal as time ran out, the get-in price was down 20 percent to $3,349. Tickets in the lower end zone dropped 18 percent to $4,307.  Whaa?  Would you look at those prices?  I mean, who can afford to go to these games?  What kind of a sport is this?  Are children being starved to pay for tickets?  At any rate, I'd rather be watching at home, with my own supply of popcorn and ice cream.

MAJOR CIVIL RIGHTS ADVANCE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:   Hollywood activist Ashley Judd wants media companies to issue “standard issue” black emojis – those little smiling or sad faces you see in e-mails and other messages – as a way of combating “white privilege.”  A Facebook post on Tuesday promoting Jan. 21’s “Women’s March on Washington” turned into a lecture on race for Mrs. Judd’s nearly 300,000 followers. The long-time Democratic Party supporter and activist allotted her “evening interaction” to the prevalence of “white/yellow-ish” icons as in indicator of “white privilege.”  “If you’re other than white, you have to scroll to search for an emoji of color that more closely resembles your experince [sic],” the actor wrote. “A little thing, perhaps. But … what if emojis, came, standard issue, in black? So WE whites had to scroll to find a color that more accurately resembled US? Multiply that times the incalculable. … And that gives me a glimpse of what it may be like to be a person of [color] in a white-centric world. Everything set to the standard of whiteness, everything else a variation thereof.”  The former Golden Globe nominee then shifted to her Twitter account to inform another 280,000 followers that yellow emojis are allegedly “code for white.”  I know this will mark a major step forward in race relations and social justice.  And I will never buy a white car again.

January 16, 2017       Permalink

ORLANDO COMES UP AGAIN – AT 11:54 A.M. ET:   A new arrest has been made in connection with last year's massacre in Orlando.  From The New York Times: 

WASHINGTON — The wife of the man who carried out a deadly terrorist attack in Orlando, Fla., has been arrested in connection with the mass shooting, a law enforcement official said Monday.

The woman, Noor Salman, was taken into custody by F.B.I. agents at her home outside of San Francisco. Prosecutors had been weighing charges against her in the aftermath of the attack that killed 49 people and wounded dozens. A person familiar with details of the arrest said Ms. Salman was charged with obstruction.

Ms. Salman’s husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with police during the rampage in a gay club on June 12, 2016. Investigators interviewed Ms. Salman for hours after the attack and came to believe she was not telling the truth about her husband’s plans to carry out the rampage.

She is expected to make an initial appearance on Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco.

COMMENT:  I want to know a lot more about this.  Who inspired Mateen?  Who, if anyone, directed him?  He claimed he'd been taunted because he was a Muslim.  So he went out and murdered 49 people? 

There may well be a bigger story here.  Maybe, with this arrest, we'll learn the whole truth.

January 16, 2017       Permalink

BULLETIN:  IVANKA THINKS! – AT 11:09 A.M. ET:  Ivanka Trump is smart as a whip, but you'd never know it from some of the reporting, in which she's portrayed as a rich lady married to a rich man, who just bought a rich house in Washington so she could dabble in politics.

Ivanka is anything but a dabbler.  She could probably be president, and might be some day.  From the Daily Mail:   

Ivanka Trump attended a dinner last Thursday with a group of female leaders to discuss women's economic empowerment, suggesting that she will be focusing her energies on these issues after she moves to Washington DC this week.

The dinner was held at the $34m penthouse apartment of her close friend Wendi Deng, and among the invitees who turned up to give Ivanka advice were Tory Burch, Mika Brzezinski, Tina Brown, Christy Turlington Burns, and former White House press secretary Dana Perino.

Pattie Sellers, the executive director of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit, was another guest at the dinner, and wrote about the evening for Fortune.

'Trump explained that she wanted to learn from the efforts of leaders in their fields,' said Sellers.
'We talked about entrepreneurship, equal pay, paid leave, and a lot about where the Donald Trump Administration may have the most opportunity: education.'

Also on hand Thursday night was Goldman Sachs executive Dina Powell, who the Trump team announced earlier that same day would be joining the administration in a senior role focused on entrepreneurship, economic growth and the empowerment of women.

It is expected that Ivanka will now be working closely with Powell once her father is in the White House.

Powell put the dinner together on Thursday, and was in charge of coming up with the guest list for the event.

COMMENT: I suspect that Ivanka will turn out to be one of the most interesting people in Washington in the next four years.  Her husband will be a counselor to the president, and together they will be Washington royalty.

I fear she may be a Democrat, but I'm hopeful that she is not.  Smart she is.

January 16, 2017        Permalink

FOUR MORE DAYS – AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  In four days, at noon, Donald Trump will be president.  It happens automatically.  He doesn't actually have to take the oath of office to become President Trump.  If a president dies in office, it is usually hours before the vice president takes the presidential oath, but he is already president.  Trump will be the chief executive as the clock strikes twelve.

There are certain things that we know will happen this week, by law or tradition.  But there are certain things we don't know.  We don't know how far the anti-Trump extremists will go to block the inaugural activities.  We don't know what actions foreign nations will take.  We don't know what recklessness is in the minds of ambitious, career-advancing journalists of the left.  On inauguration day, for example, will journalists try to make a scandal out of a line that might appear in the inaugural address that appears similar to a line once delivered by someone else?

And...we don't know what Barack Obama will do this week.  What policies might he put in place at the last minute?  And one thing a president does as he's leaving, just before he shuts out the lights, is to grant pardons.  Many eyebrows were raised high during President Clinton's last hours in office when he granted pardons to some very strange candidates.  Some of those pardons, like those for members of the Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN), an extremist Puerto Rican terror group, presumably helped Hillary Clinton's political career in New York.  Who cared about the families of the terror victims?  They're the flyover people.

Who will Obama pardon?  Hillary herself?  He could, even though she's never even been charged with a crime.  Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon, after all.  But I wonder if Hillary would want it.  Once pardoned, there is a public perception of guilt. 

He could pardon Bowe Bergdahl, who is charged with desertion and misbehavior in Afghanistan.  Bergdahl was eventually captured by the enemy, became a POW, and was famously, and controversially, returned to the United States in a trade.  There are those who claim that the search for Bergdahl, after he left his post, cost American lives.

He can pardon any number of drug dealers.

We just don't know.  But we'll be watching.

January 16,  2017     Permalink