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JUNE 24,  2017

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

TAKING ON THE MEDIA – FROM GATEWAY PUNDIT:  Texas Trump supporter Kyle Courtney bought a billboard to bash ABC News over their “unfair” and “excessive” coverage of the Russia investigation.   The Boerne, Texas resident has the following message on his billboard:  “I grew up with you. We are through. The Russians didn’t elect Donald Trump. I did.”  Great message.  Click on the link to see the actual billboard.  Despite all Trump's problems, a number self-inflicted, his support in at least some polls is holding at a respectable level.   And he and his followers regularly do better in actual elections than in polling. 

PARTYING AGAIN – FROM STRAITSTIMES:  UBUD, Indonesia (AFP) - Barack Obama has kicked off a 10-day family holiday in Indonesia that will take in Bali and Jakarta, the city where he spent part of his childhood, officials said on Saturday (June 24).  The casually dressed former president arrived in the resort island of Bali with his wife Michelle and their two daughters, a local military commander said.  "They arrived late last night and went straight to the hotel in Ubud," a local military commander, I Gede Widiyana, told AFP.  One thing Barack Obama learned to do as president was to party.  He is the world's expert, and certainly deserves to run the entire world, based on that talent.  That's right, isn't it?

CALIFORNIA FLOPS ON HEALTH CARE – FROM THE SACRAMENTO BEE:  Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon put the brakes on a sweeping plan to overhaul the health care market in California Friday, calling the bill “woefully incomplete.”  Rendon announced plans to park the bill to create a government-run universal health care system in Assembly Rules Committee “until further notice” and give senators time to fill in holes that the bill does not currently address.  “Even senators who voted for Senate Bill 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill, including the fact it does not address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump administration and voters to make SB 562 a genuine piece of legislation,” Rendon said.  A few minor problems.  Neither party has addressed health-care legislation on the state or federal level with the seriousness it deserves.  Both parties will have trouble facing the voters next year. New parties anyone?

June 24,  2017      Permalink

YEAH, I'D SAY HE WAS TOO CAUTIOUS – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:   As noted in our first post this morning, attention is now being paid to the Obama administration's actions during the late presidential campaign, especially as they involve the Russians.  Some balance, finally.  From The Hill:

The Obama administration is under fresh scrutiny for its response to Russian meddling in the election after new details emerged this week about how the White House weighed its actions against the 2016 political environment.

Then-President Obama was too cautious in the months leading up to the election, frustrated Democratic lawmakers and strategists say. 

“It was inadequate. I think they could have done a better job informing the American people of the extent of the attack,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who co-chairs the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.

And even after the election was over, they say, the penalties Obama levied were too mild to appropriately punish what by all accounts was an unprecedented attack on a U.S. election.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), another House Intelligence member, called the penalties “barely a slap on the wrist.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who supports tougher sanctions Russia, said in a statement Friday that the administration “abjectly failed to deter Russian aggression” and “failed to impose any meaningful costs on Russia.”

Some Republicans argue the Obama administration only started to take the Russia threat seriously after President Trump had won the election.

COMMENT:  Slowly, a more complete picture of the Russia issue is starting to emerge.  The Obamans don't look any better than the Trumps.  I wish Washington could accelerate the investigative process, and allow the new administration to govern.  I think that's what they were elected to do.

June 24, 2017       Permalink

A GOOD DECISION – AT 10:01 A.M. ET:   Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, or somewhere in the middle, it's important that the civil liberties of those who represent these positions be protected.  A good court decision has been made in California.  From The Weekly Standard: 

Even in famously abortion-friendly California there is justice for abortion foes. On June 21, the San Francisco County Superior Court threw out 14 of the 15 felony counts that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra had brought against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, the anti-abortion activists who had made widely circulated undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials haggling and joking over the compensation they expected to receive for supplying the organs of fetuses aborted at Planned Parenthood clinics to for-profit “tissue-procurement” companies.

I wrote about the case for THE WEEKLY STANDARD shortly after Becerra lodged the felony charges on March 28, and it seemed to me more persecution than prosecution. California law forbids the recording of conversations without the consent of all parties involved, so Becerra, a former Democratic congressman from Los Angeles, assigned a separate criminal count to each of 14 secretly recorded conversations that Deleiden and Merritt, posing as tissue-procurers themselves, had had with high-level Planned Parenthood employees at restaurants, abortion conventions, and other venues during 2013 and 2014, and also with the CEO of StemExpress, a Placerville, California, tissue supply firm, that had partnered at the time with some of Planned Parenthood’s Northern California clinics to retrieve fetal body parts onsite. For the statute in question, California Penal Code Section 632, prosecutorial discretion allows charges to be brought as either felonies or misdemeanors. Becerra went the felony route. His aim seemed to be to put Daleiden and Merritt behind bars for as long as legally possible; each separate felony conviction for violating Section 632 could entail a year in state prison plus a hefty fine.

There were always legal issues that could have stood in the way of automatic Section 632 convictions for the pair: How much expectation of privacy—an essential element of a violation of the anti-recording law—did the alleged victims really have in the public places where the conversations occurred, for example. But what really killed the greater part of Becerra’s case, at least for now, was his office’s insistence on keeping secret such key information as the names of the alleged Planned Parenthood victims. Superior Court Judge Christopher Hite ruled that those 14 charges were simply legally insufficient. “The complaint did not provide Merritt with the minimum notice required by the Constitution and California law as to what she supposedly did wrong, so that she can mount a proper and vigorous defense,” her lawyer, Mat Staver of LibertyCounsel said.. “The complaint was also vague and full of inconsistencies.”

COMMENT:  It was political persecution.  Increasingly, our courts are being used by the left to make social decisions, rather than legal ones, or to enforce political correctness.

We've seen some pushback recently, and this decision is part of it.

June 24, 2017       Permalink

LORETTA DEAR, YOU'RE NEXT – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  Republicans are finally moving on a probe of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  This is long overdue, and may send a message to the Dems that the other side knows how to investigate as well.  From the Washington Times: 

The Senate Judiciary Committee has opened a probe into former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s efforts to shape the FBI’s investigation into 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the committee’s chairman announced Friday.

In a letter to Ms. Lynch, the committee asks her to detail the depths of her involvement in the FBI’s investigation, including whether she ever assured Clinton confidantes that the probe wouldn’t “push too deeply into the matter.”

Fired FBI Director James B. Comey has said publicly that Ms. Lynch tried to shape the way he talked about the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails, and he also hinted at other behavior “which I cannot talk about yet” that made him worried about Ms. Lynch’s ability to make impartial decisions.

Mr. Comey said that was one reason why he took it upon himself to buck Justice Department tradition and reveal his findings about Mrs. Clinton last year.

The probe into Ms. Lynch comes as the Judiciary Committee is already looking at President Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the committee, said the investigation is bipartisan. The letter to Ms. Lynch is signed by ranking Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and also by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse, the chairman and ranking member of the key investigative subcommittee.

COMMENT:  I suspect there's a lot there.  The whole Justice Department under Barack Obama was heavily politicized.  Even those who came to office with fine reputations, like Loretta Lynch, may well have been compromised.

June 24,  2017     Permalink

JUNE 23,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 8:20 P.M. ET: 

AND NOW SAUDI – FROM REUTERS:   Saudi security forces on Friday foiled a suicide attack on the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, cornering the would-be attacker in an apartment, where he blew himself up, the Interior Ministry said.  In a statement read on state television, the ministry said that three cells had planned the attack on worshippers and security forces at the mosque as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan nears its climax.  Historically, Saudi Arabia has been one of the great state sponsors of terrorism.  Some 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in our 9-11 attacks were Saudi.  But in recent years the Saudis seem to have moderated, and we hope they've now learned something about the madness they originally unleashed.

REAL POWER IN GEORGIA – FROM CONSERVATIVE TREEHOUSE:   […] John Anzalone, Ossoff’s pollster, said the Democrat’s campaign succeeded in turning out its voters — but they were swamped by Republicans who came out in numbers that ended up dwarfing previous high-profile special elections.  That’s a very interesting admission/statement for a Politico article.  That’s also an example of what happens when President Trump’s ‘Monster Vote‘ turns out...Pollsters say sky-high turnout drove Handel, the GOP nominee, to a nearly 4-point victory on Tuesday, despite most pre-election surveys showing Ossoff with a small-but-shrinking lead.  The pollsters continue to underpoll Trump and his supporters.  That's why I'm skeptical about the "presidential approval" numbers I see today.  Americans are still angry about what's been done to them by liberals.

UH, JUST A SEC – FROM CBS:   The tallest building west of the Mississippi River will celebrate its grand opening Friday in downtown Los Angeles.  The 73-story Wilshire Grand Center at 900 Wilshire Blvd. was developed by Korean Air, which is owned by Hanjin International Corp., at a cost of about $1.2 billion.  The high-rise is 1,100 feet tall, surpassing the height of the U.S. Bank Tower, which was previously the tallest building in Los Angeles at 1,018 feet...The tower includes a massive, stabilizing central core and braces designed to act as shock absorbers to withstand gusty Santa Ana winds and earthquakes. Southern California has dozens of faults and the building is designed to withstand about a 7.5 magnitude temblor.  I've been in two California earthquakes, and I don't care what they say.  I still wouldn't want to have an office on the 73rd floor when the ground starts trembling.  Include me out.

June 23,  2017     Permalink

THE COLLISION – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:   We still demand to know what happened to the USS Fitzgerald earlier this week.  Seven American sailors are dead.  From the distinguished defense reporter, Bill Gertz, at the Washington Free Beacon: 

The deadly collision between a U.S. destroyer and a container ship June 17 took place while the freighter was on autopilot, according to Navy officials.

The Philippines-flagged cargo ship ACX Crystal was under control of a computerized navigation system that was steering and guiding the container vessel, according to officials familiar with preliminary results of an ongoing Navy investigation.

Investigators so far found no evidence the collision was deliberate.

Nevertheless, an accident during computerized navigation raises the possibility the container ship's computer system could have been hacked and the ship deliberately steered into the USS Fitzgerald, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer.

A more likely explanation is that collision was the result of an autopilot malfunction, or the autopilot's warning signals, used to notify the ship's operators, were missed.

The destroyer was severely damaged when the protruding undersea bow of the cargo ship struck Fitzgerald on the right side. Seven sailors died as a result and the captain and two others were injured.

The two ships hit about 64 miles off the coast of Japan.

The collision occurred at around 1:30 a.m. local time but was not reported by the freighter's crew until around 2:25 a.m. Investigators believe the time lag was the result of the crew not realizing they had hit another ship.

Commercial ship autopilot systems normally require someone to input manually the course for the ship travel. The computer program then steers the ship by controlling the steering gear to turn the rudder.

The system also can be synchronized with an electronic chart system to allow the program to follow courses of a voyage plan.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's fascinating.  The story contains this line:  "For the Navy, investigators are trying to determine why the ship's radar and other sensors did not detect the Crystal in time to take steps to avoid the collision."

This may be a larger story, and we will follow it.

June 23, 2017       Permalink

MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN – AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  This is what we like to see.  At its best, this is what the Trump administration can be about.  From Reuters: 

Foxconn (2317.TW), the world's largest contract electronics maker and a major Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier, plans to invest more than $10 billion in a display-making factory in the United States and will decide on the location of the plant next month.

The Taiwan-based firm has been eyeing U.S. investments for some time and its CEO, Terry Gou, had previously said the company hoped to spend over $7 billion to set up a display-making plant in the country - which has no panel-making industry but is the No.2 market for televisions.

Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, is currently considering Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as possible locations, Gou told reporters after the company's annual shareholders meeting on Thursday.

All those Trump states.  Hmm.

"In July we will make a conclusion," Gou said, adding the company would invest the money over five years.

COMMENT:  Hard to say how many actual jobs will be created, as factories are highly automated.  But whatever the number, it's better than what we have now.

Trump is clearly working behind the scenes, and he's getting things done.  Don't tell CNN.

June 23, 2017       Permalink 

YOU MEAN THE SANDERS HOUSEHOLD IS LESS THAN PURE? – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  We have learned that Bernie, the people's candidate, earned a million last year, and that the down-to-Earth guy owns three houses.

And did you know that Bernie's down-to-Earth wife, Jane, has some substantial legal problems?  Yeah, it must be Trump doing this.  So she's hired some good-ole simple country lawyers, very down-to-Earth, to keep her out of trouble.  This could get serious, and affect Bernie's influence as chief leftist philosopher and guide.  From the Washington Free Beacon:

Jane Sanders, wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), has hired attorneys to represent her in a Department of Justice probe of her time as president of Burlington College.

A former Burlington employee who coordinated the school’s response to an FBI subpoena in February 2016 said that she was contacted by Sanders's lawyers, VT Digger reports. The probe concerns a land deal Sanders conducted while she was president.

Land deal?  You mean, like the big people in Washington do?

Coralee Holm, the former employee, said that the lawyers "wanted information on what I had been asked by the FBI. They were trying to get clarification on what the accusations are because they had not been contacted by anybody as to an investigation." She received a call from Burlington attorney Rich Cassidy in late April or early May.

She also received one from Jennifer Windom, a lawyer with a D.C. law firm, in late May.

Two former Burlington trustees also said they were contacted by Sanders's lawyers.

The controversy centers around a $6.7 million loan that Sanders obtained to purchase a 33-acre campus for the school.

The loan agreement required that Burlington show at least $2 million in collateral. But three of the donors, including the largest, said their pledges were misrepresented.

Between 2010 and 2014 the college collected only $676,000 in donations, and it was unable to enroll as many students as Sanders had projected. It closed in May 2016, with debt from the land purchase cited as a primary reason.

The FBI was reviewing Burlington's financial records as recently as February.

COMMENT:  But I'm sure the college was very diverse, and, in its bankruptcy, thoroughly multicultural.  I wish these capitalist lenders would leave poor Jane alone.

June 23,  2017     Permalink