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.

JUNE 3,  2016

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

ALI DEAD – FROM FOX:   Muhammad Ali, the three-time heavyweight champion boxer whose electrifying prowess in the ring and controversial outspokenness outside of it made him one of the world’s most recognizable personalities of the 20th Century, died Friday after a battle with a respiratory illness. He was 74.  Ali, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome in 1984, died at a Phoenix hospital. Ali family spokesperson Bob Gunnell said in a statement that Ali’s funeral will take place in his hometown of Louisville, Ky.  RIP, but I must say that I preferred the quiet dignity of Joe Louis, the "brown bomber," who became a champion as well as a patriot.

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP DEPARTMENT – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  Over mocking objections from their own staff, two top Democrats on the politically divided Federal Election Commission voted to investigate one-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for joking that he hoped supporters would shower him with million dollar contributions.  In the latest display of FEC Democratic efforts to regulate speech and target Republicans, Commissioners Ann Ravel and Ellen Weintraub backed a complaint against Huckabee, who made the joke during his May 2015 presidential candidacy announcement.  We must not have humor in politics.  If humor were a good thing in politics, the  Declaration of Independence would begin, "A funny thing happened to the mother country today..."

HOMELAND INSECURITY – FROM CNN:   (CNN) An accused war criminal living in the United States is now working as a security guard at Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC.  A CNN investigation found that Yusuf Abdi Ali, who is accused of committing atrocities while he was a military commander during Somalia's brutal civil war, has been living a quiet life near the nation's capital for about 20 years.  He is just one of more than 1,000 accused war criminals living and working in the United States.  I'm sure they're all just misunderstood.

June 3, 2016       Permalink

NO GROWTH POLICY – AT 10:35 A.M. ET:  We expect presidents to grow in office.  Some do, Obama doesn't.  In many respects he's the same man we saw in 2008 – small, petulant, contemptuous of his own country, sure of his godlike qualities.

And now he's done it again.  In a speech a few days ago he seemed to belittle Americans as too easily influenced by right-wing radio and other sinister and dark forces.  He picked the wrong crowd this time.  One of the groups he mentioned as easily swayed was the Veterans of Foreign Wars.  They struck back.  From Fox:   

The nation’s largest veterans group hit back at President Obama on Thursday and urged him not to “denigrate” their intelligence after the president suggested their members were easily swayed by cable news and “right-wing radio.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars called out the president after Obama referenced the political opinions at “VFW halls” in an Indiana speech Wednesday that toggled between campaign politics and the economy.

“I don’t know how many VFW Posts the president has ever visited, but our near 1.7 million members are a direct reflection of America,” VFW National Commander John A. Biedrzycki Jr. said in a statement. “We don’t have confused politics, we don’t need left or rightwing media filters telling us how to think or vote, and we don’t need any President of the United States lecturing us about how we are individually [affected] by the economy.”

Obama, speaking in Elkhart, Ind., had lamented the “primary story” he claimed Republicans are telling about the economy – one that focuses on how “moochers at the bottom of the income ladder” are squeezing middle-class families.

“We have been hearing this story for decades,” Obama said. “Tales about welfare queens, talking about takers, talking about the ‘47 percent.’  It's the story that is broadcast every day on some cable news stations, on right-wing radio, it's pumped into cars, and bars, and VFW halls all across America, and right here in Elkhart.”

Obama continued: “And if you're hearing that story all the time, you start believing it. It's no wonder people think big government is the problem.”

Biedrzycki suggested veterans are not so easily swayed.

“Our nation was created and continues to exist solely because of the men and women who wear the uniform,” he said. “Let’s not denigrate their service, their sacrifice or their intelligence.”

COMMENT:  Good for the VFW.  Obama doesn't know his own country.  He should be introduced sometime. 

June 3, 2016       Permalink

AMERICA – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  The pompous and usually forgettable commencement addresses are largely over, but we were struck by one comment that actually wasn't part of a commencement address, but of a speech given to a private organization by a woman who's never invited to deliver commencement addresses.  She isn't politically correct.  She won't follow the leftist party line. 

She is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Muslim woman born in Somalia, a political activist in the Netherlands for years, and now a devoted American.   She spoke at a Gala given by the conservative magazine, The New Criterion: 

America: it’s an idea. I repeat it, it’s an idea. I’ve never felt more at home in any other place than in the United States of America. I’m at home with the idea of America. That doesn’t make me disloyal to being Somali or having lived in Kenya for several years. There are many things about Kenya and Nairobi that I’m attached to. I lived in The Netherlands and I was given a great deal of freedom. I couldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t happened to have lived in The Netherlands.

But there’s something that is unique and so exceptional about being in the United States of America and belonging to that idea of America. Four nights ago, I went to see Hamilton. Now, think about any other nation on the planet where you could have that kind of reflection on the founding fathers, all cast with African Americans and other minorities. Throughout, I thought, “I wish they were alive. I wish they could see this. I wish Thomas Jefferson could see this. I wish Alexander Hamilton could see how he was portrayed.” And maybe, in this audience, I am speaking to the choir. I know you appreciate how exceptional America is.

We have to pass on these ideas to the next generation. We often think about the next generation as our children. I have a four-year-old son. We’re teaching him about the flag and all, but he’s only interested in the swords and spears and the fighting process of it. But the next generation also includes immigrants. And we appreciate it more than you who are born here. In fact, I think that there are more immigrants willing to die for the idea of America than Millennials. I teach a class at Harvard, and there was someone who came to the Kennedy School, and he said, “I don’t care what America looks like 500 years from now. I don’t care if it’s dominated by Islam.” And I just thought, cringing, “Of course I care. I care. I don’t want the idea of America to be dominated by Islam.”

COMMENT:  Now you can see why she's not invited to deliver commencement addresses.  A few years ago she was offered an honorary degree by Brandeis University, and then saw the offer withdrawn publicly because of objections from the far-left faculty. 

But her words resonate.  The words of her detractors are quickly, and properly, forgotten.

June 3, 2016        Permalink

STUNNING ECONOMIC DECLINE – AT 9:17 A.M. ET:  Job creation in the United States fell to its lowest point in six years last month.  From Bloomberg:

Employers in May added the fewest number of workers in almost six years, reflecting broad cutbacks that may raise concern about U.S. growth and prompt Federal Reserve policy makers to put off an increase in interest rates.

The addition of 38,000 workers, the fewest since September 2010, followed a 123,000 advance in April that was smaller than previously estimated, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The increase in May was less than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey. The jobless rate dropped to 4.7 percent, the lowest since November 2007, as Americans left the labor force.

Smaller employment gains reduce the odds of a more pronounced upturn in household spending and economic growth after a poor start to the year. Fed officials will take into account more judicious hiring, at a time when corporate profits are on a downswing and global markets remain weak, as they consider whether to raise interest rates again.

“The slowdown in job growth looks pretty pervasive across industries,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “It raises some questions about the momentum of growth and about the outlook. The easy thing to say is, this takes June off the table for a Fed hike. To get to July, we’re going to need a pretty nice rebound in the data.”

The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 160,000 gain in May employment. Estimates of 90 economists in ranged from job gains of 90,000 to 215,000 after an initially reported 160,000 increase in April. Revisions to prior reports subtracted a total of 59,000 jobs from payrolls in the previous two months.

COMMENT:  Yikes.  Those are miserable numbers, yet President Barack ("J.P. Morgan") Obama assures us that we're soaring.  He also assured us that the oceans would recede once he became president. 

Numbers like that will hurt the Democratic nominee, and may help Donald Trump, who, in his blustering manner, is running as a businessman who knows how to create jobs.  He'd better know how.  If he's elected, and the economy tanks, he'll be escorted out of Washington after one term, unless they get him on an impeachable offense sooner.

June 3,  2016     Permalink 

JUNE 2,  2016

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

ANOTHER TRIBUTE TO EXCELLENCE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:    A Texas high school forbids overachieving students from wearing National Honor Society stoles at graduation because officials fear it might alienate other kids.  The principal at Plano Senior High School in Plano confirmed on Tuesday for a local ABC affiliate that NHS insignia is prohibited at its June 9 ceremony. The prestigious distinction is allowed at other schools in the area.  Students who qualify to wear the special stole have a GPA of 3.6 or higher and were heavily involved with community service projects.  “I’m not just an honor student — I’m an NHS student. I worked hard,” senior Garrett Frederick told the station. “I put in the hours.”  Mr. Frederick, who plans to attend the University of South Carolina, completed 20 hours of community service every semester.   Good lesson in life, Garrett:  Achievement is often resented, not admired.  There'll be other moments like this. 

FLYING DISCOUNTS – FROM BUSINESS INSIDER:   Walmart is getting into the drone game.  Walmart's VP of Emerging Sciences Shekar Natarajan demoed the retailer's new technology to reporters from a Bentonville, Arkansas, distribution center on Thursday, on the eve of its annual shareholders meeting.  The drone technology will be replacing the jobs of inventory quality assurance employees, cutting inventory checks across massive distribution centers (the one in Bentonville is 1.2 million square feet) from one month down to a single day.  Wonderful advance.  But Walmart will be judged, appropriately, by how it treats those employees whose jobs are being made obsolete.  Retraining, I hope. 

AND IT BEGINS – FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:   Cyclist Tejay van Garderen has removed his name from from consideration for the U.S. team that will compete in the Rio Olympics, becoming what is believed to be the first U.S. athlete to back out because of concerns about the Zika virus.  Van Garderen, who was likely to make the team, is concerned that, if he contracted Zika, he could pass it along to his pregnant wife, who is due to give birth in October.  “If Jessica were not pregnant right now, assuming I was selected, I would go,” he told Cyclingtips. “But the fact is, she is pregnant. If we were just going to start trying, I’d say we could start trying six months after the Olympics. But when she has a baby in her belly, I don’t want to take any chances.”  A good man.  He puts his wife and baby first. 

June 2, 2016       Permalink

GETTING MORE AND MORE SERIOUS – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  As each day goes by, Hillary Clinton's legal problems seem to mount.  A State Department inspector-general report on her use of a private server while secretary of state was damning.  Now comes this story, which make the reader wonder what is being hidden.   From the New York Post:   

WASHINGTON — Former State Department employee Bryan Pagliano, who set up Hillary Clinton’s infamous home email server, will refuse to answer questions in an ongoing civil lawsuit and doesn’t want to be videotaped invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, according to court documents obtained by The Post.

“Mr. Pagliano will invoke his right under the Fifth Amendment . . . at the deposition noticed for June, 6, 2016,” Pagliano’s legal motion says.

The deposition was scheduled as part of a suit against the State Department by Judicial Watch, a conservative group seeking access to Clinton’s emails.

COMMENT:  And the FBI probe into Clinton should soon wrap up.  The whole image is damaging, a kind of drip, drip, drip, that may explode at any moment.  It has to be hurting Clinton in the polls. 

And there are clearly growing doubts within the Democratic Party that Clinton can win in November.  Yet, the party powers hardly want a Vermont socialist to get the nomination.  Once again we're starting to hear the name Biden, the man to be brought in by the Obama forces if Clinton is forced out by her troubles.

Nothing would surprise me.  Not this year.  But I think we'd better take a hard look at the presidential nominating systems of both parties, because they're simply not producing first-class candidates.  The smoke-filled rooms did better.

June 2, 2016       Permalink

I'M SO SHOCKED AT THIS; WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT..? – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  You mean, the genius Obama's opening to Cuba hasn't produced instant democracy in that island nation?  My pills!  Get me my pills!  From the Miami Herald:   

A leading Cuban dissident Wednesday described his homeland as in foment, with political repression on the rise, opposition to the Castro government growing and a fledgling movement toward capitalist outposts in the communist country that has left people puzzled.

In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session in Washington, José Daniel Ferrer García, who was imprisoned from 2003 to 2011, said he supported the opening with Cuba that President Barack Obama initiated in December 2014. But he acknowledged that other dissident leaders are against it and said the opposition movement was generally split.

He also decried the continued flow of people from Cuba, which saw some 38,000 arrive in the United States last year, more than twice as many as in 2013. He urged his fellow Cubans to stay home.

“People feel that either you obey (the government) or you leave the country,” Ferrer said. “Our message is that there is a third option: You can enjoy freedom here if you fight for it.”

Ferrer’s news conference in Washington was part of a rare tour of the United States following the re-establishment of U.S.-Cuban diplomatic ties last year. His visit took him last week to South Florida, where he saw his mother and brother in Palm Beach for the first time since they left Cuba five years ago. While there, he met with the editorial board of the Miami Herald. A sister left Cuba more recently and lives in Austin, Texas.

After his Washington briefing, Ferrer flew to New York, where he met with Samantha Powers, the U.S. representative to the United Nations. He also was scheduled to meet with editors and reporters at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

COMMENT:  I think we could gotten so much more for the people of Cuba in our negotiations to begin ties with the Castro regime.   We threw the people of Cuba under the bus just so Obama could get his photo op while visiting Havana recently.  It's the legacy, you know.

He did the same last week when visiting Vietnam.  No mention of human rights.  Obama is truly a man of the left.  No liberal he.

June 2, 2016        Permalink

WHEN YOU LOSE AN ACLU EXEC... – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  This is quite a remarkable story, about a high-ranking official of the ACLU, who saw the light when her own children were at risk.  From Powerline: 

Maya Dillard Smith, interim director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, has resigned over the ACLU’s position on who can use which public restrooms. The resignation occurred after her two daughters were traumatized by encountering men in the women’s restroom. Dillard Smith explained:

I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women’s restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults, over six feet [tall] with deep voices, entered. My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer.

Dillard Smith complained that the ACLU has become “a special interest organization that promotes not all, but certain progressive rights” and that the “hierarchy of rights” the ACLU chooses to defend or ignore is “based on who is funding the organization’s lobbying activities.” Further expressing her disillusionment, Dillard Smith stated:

I understood it to be the ACLU’s goal to delicately balance competing rights to ensure that any infringements are narrowly tailored, that they do not create a hierarchy of rights, and that we are mindful of unintended consequences. I believe there are solutions that can provide accommodations for transgender people and balance the need to ensure women and girls are safe from those who might have malicious intent.

COMMENT:  Well, that ends her career in the "civil liberties" industry.  She's already under attack.  She's highly educated, and a heroine.  Do not expect to see her interviewed by the mainstream media.

June 2,  2016     Permalink