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MARCH 20,  2016

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

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – From Time:   About 4,000 students living in the Virginia area recently received an email from the University of California at Santa Cruz congratulating them on admission—an impressive accomplishment, no doubt, considering they never applied to the school.  A regional admissions officer mistakenly sent an email invitation to a list of prospective students instead of admitted students, the Washington Post reported, citing university officials.  “Congratulations on your admission to UC Santa Cruz!” the email read. “To celebrate your achievement and to provide an opportunity to learn more about UC Santa Cruz, you and your family are cordially invited to a special reception in the Virginia area on March 28th, 2016.”  I think all those kids should show up at the reception and demand that UC honor its word.  The person responsible for this mess need only declare himself oppressed, and in need of a safe space.  He'll get a promotion.

MAYBE STICK TO SPORTS – From Mediaite:   The Twitter account for ESPN’s SportsCenter sent out a tweet Sunday about Fidel Castro’s love of sports that was criticized for painting the Cuban dictator in a positive light.  “Savior and scourge, Fidel Castro was many things to many people,” the now-deleted tweet read. “One thing all can agree on: He loved his sports.”  And that Adolf Hitler.  The way he loved dogs.  What a sporty guy.

MAJOR POLITICAL OPINION – From the New York Daily News:   Leonardo DiCaprio said China — the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases — could end up being the “hero of the environmental movement” for its work to combat climate change.  DiCaprio, who exhorted the world to fight climate change during his Oscar acceptance speech for Best Actor, praised China’s record during a trip to Beijing on Sunday to promote his movie “The Revenant.”  “As we all know, the United States and China are the two biggest contributors, and I think that China has made radical movements forward as far as alternative energy and ways to be sustainable,” DiCaprio said at a press conference in Beijing.  Well that does it for me.  I'm making a renewed commitment to wonton soup, just to show my appreciation.

NICE, HUH? – And this actually comes from a leading left-wing newspaper, Britain's Guardian:   Cuban police forcibly broke up a pro-democracy demonstration and arrested several dozen activists on Sunday, just hours before Barack Obama was to arrive in Havana to become the first US president to visit Cuba in almost 90 years.  The protesters, from the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) and other opposition groups, were bundled into buses and police vans after a shouting match with pro-Castro supporters during their usual weekly demonstration near the Santa Rita church.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.  Probably just members of the Tea Party in Cuban disguise.

March 20, 2016       Permalink

TERROR WARNING – AT 12:32 P.M. ET:  The warnings from Britain and Europe have become increasingly stark and alarming.  From The Times of London: 

POLICE and special forces troops have been told to prepare for up to 10 simultaneous terror attacks on the streets of London.

The National Crime Agency has been ordered to make a crackdown on firearms a priority amid fears of a Paris-style attack by terrorists returning from Syria.

A minister familiar with the proposals said: “We used to plan for three simultaneous attacks but Paris has shown that you need to be ready for more than that. We are ready if someone tries with seven, eight, nine, ten.”

Army regiments outside London are also on standby to help the SAS and Metropolitan police in the event of a multiple target attack.

COMMENT:  It's inevitable.  Europe and Britain are flooded with "refugees," some of whom have to be infiltrators.  Yet, if you raise questions about the refugee programs, you're a racist, an Islamophobe. 

I love that a crackdown on firearms has become a priority.  Why not tell your opponents exactly where you're looking?  You may be sure that the terror groups know exactly how to hide firearms.  A crackdown will probably make no difference at all, but will pacify the politically correct crowd. 

Democracies, in order to act, need to be woken up occasionally.  That is the coming tragedy here.

March 20, 2016       Permalink

A VIEW OF TRUMP – AT 11:45 A.M. ET:  Michael Goodwin is one of the most incisive writers around, and so, even though I may sometimes disagree, I take him seriously.  He has a view of Donald Trump that has evolved.  Although I'm not a Trump supporter, I thought it was important to reprint it.  From the New York Post:  

My gut tells me much of the contempt for Trump reflects contempt for his working-class white support. It is one prejudice gentry liberals and gentry conservatives share.

It is perhaps the last acceptable bigotry, and you can see it expressed on any primetime TV program. The insults don’t all seem good-natured to me. I grew up in central Pennsylvania, surrounded by the kind of people supporting Trump, and I sympathize with their worsening plight.

For generations, they went all in for the American dream. Their families fought the wars, worked in the factories, taught school, coached Little League and built a middle-class culture. Now they are abandoned and know it.

Nobody speaks for them. The left speaks for the unions, the poor and the nonwhite, even shedding tears for illegal immigrants and rioters and looters. The GOP speaks for the Chamber of Commerce, big business and Wall Street.

Trump alone is bringing many of these forgotten Americans into the political system, much as Obama did with millennials and black voters. Trump has done it with full-frontal attacks on lopsided trade deals and a broken immigration system. His message is a potent brew of populism and nationalism that reaches across the partisan divide, and the public response is stirring the country.

In fact, many who despise Trump concede he is right that globalization and the open-border flood of cheap labor, while benefitting many Americans, has hurt many others. But instead of working to fix a broken status quo, many on the left and right echo each other’s venomous attacks against him. One day he is Mussolini, the next he’s Hitler, and he’s routinely accused of hate speech and racism.

What is his great sin? Breaking the taboo about what ails the middle class? Daring to challenge a power system that only pretends to have the consent of the governed?

The shame is that others didn’t beat him to it.

COMMENT:  That is very well said, and it needs to be said.  It's too bad, though, that Trump is such a flawed messenger.  Ronald Reagan spoke to many of these same concerns, but he did it so much better.

Can Trump grow into a better candidate, and move the nation in the right direction?  No one can predict that.  The "stop Trump" groups and individuals are meeting and planning, but the primary voters will eventually decide whether he'll get the nomination.  I'm guessing he will.  Late reports have it that the "stop Trump" crowd is giving up on the idea of a third party and is trying to find some candidate who can save the day.

But Dwight Eisenhower isn't available.  Neither is Ronald Reagan.  And David Petraeus stumbled. 

The two big questions in the primary season are, "Will Trump be stopped?" and "Will Hillary be indicted?"

It's come to that.

March 20, 2016        Permalink

YANQUI COMING! – AT 11:22 A.M. ET:  President Obama is on his way to Cuba.  Aren't you excited?  I'm sure he wishes he had Desi Arnaz with him.  From AP:

HAVANA (AP) — Eyeing a new future with the U.S., Cubans are preparing their famed capital for a long-awaited visit by President Barack Obama, who will make history when Air Force One touches down in Havana on Sunday.

Obama's visit to the island nation will serve as a powerful symbol of the relationship that the U.S. and Cuba are now forging. For Obama, the 2 1/2-day trip offers one of the last, best chances to advance the diplomatic opening with President Raul Castro before Obama leaves office early next year.

Ahead of Obama's arrival, American flags were raised in parts of Havana alongside Cuban flags, an improbable image for those who lived through more than a half-century in which the U.S. and Cuba were bitter foes. Cubans have been hard at work cleaning up Old Havana in recent days and giving buildings a fresh coat of paint, as the city buzzed in anticipation of Obama's visit.

Will some brave reporter ask why the buildings weren't painted earlier?

Yet while Obama remains a popular figure in Cuba, the jubilation that surged here in the early days of detente has been tempered by the absence of tangible improvement in most people's lives.

What a shock.

"I haven't seen anything" change since Washington and Havana renewed ties, said Roberto Albar, a 68-year-old retiree. Pointing to his decaying house near the sea, he added, "That's falling down, and the poor are still poor."

Nonetheless, he sees the thaw as a sign that both countries can benefit from the relationship: "We are practically neighbors," Albar said, and Cuba's political system "doesn't mean we have to be enemies."

In a reminder of how tightly Cuban society is still controlled, the Castro government announced a virtual shutdown of Havana during Obama's stay, and few Cubans expected to see him in person.

Extensive closures of main boulevards were planned during the day, and the city's seaside Malecon was largely deserted in the morning except for a few cars, joggers, fishermen and pelicans.

Still, the historic significance of Obama's visit was impossible to overlook. Not in nearly 90 years has a sitting American president visited Cuba.

COMMENT:  The main beneficiaries of the "detente" will probably be the Castro brothers and the big American corporations who yearn to make profits in Cuba.  These are the very corporations the American supporters of Castro have always despised.  Irony.

March 20,  2016     Permalink

MARCH 19,  2016

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

INCREDIBLE – It isn't just Republicans who are out of sorts about Obama making a Supreme Court pick.  Leftist House Dems are grumbling that Merrick Garland, by all accounts a brilliant and respected judge, doesn't meet the race and gender test.  From The Hill:   Liberal House Democrats are holding their fire on President Obama's choice of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court.  Many liberals on and off Capitol Hill had pushed the president to pick a minority nominee –– specifically a black woman, which would be an historic first –– and some liberal advocacy groups quickly condemned Obama's choice of an older white man with a centrist track record.  But a number of House liberals, while privately grumbling about the decision, have been exceedingly careful not to criticize the president publicly. Instead, they're praising Garland's legal bona fides and training their attacks on the Senate Republicans blocking the nomination.   It's a sign that Democrats appreciate the tactical acumen behind the Garland pick, even if they are not especially enamored of the judge himself.   The highlight of the civil rights movement came when Martin Luther King Jr. told us that people should be judged, not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.  The Democratic Party has come a long way down.  Now you're just a member of a group.

FOX VERSUS TRUMP –  From Fox:   Donald Trump’s latest attacks against Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly are “beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate,” the network said in a statement Friday.  The Republican candidate, who first attacked Kelly in August for her hard-hitting questioning at a GOP debate, called for a boycott of the top-rated primetime cable news show “The Kelly File.” As with past social media insults directed at Kelly, Trump got personal, calling Kelly “sick” and “overrated.”  “Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate who wants to occupy the highest office in the land,” Fox News said in a statement.  Fox is correct.  Donald needs to grow up. 

DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT – From Fox:   As the opposition makes arrangements to call a referendum on President Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan government has launched a preemptive strike that looks to reinforce the ailing Chavismo by rewarding loyalty.  Focused on securing power, the socialist ruling party will start issuing so-called “Bolivarian cards” – with not yet disclosed privileges – to its followers, as well as “socialist cards” loaded with a monthly allowance of approximately $70; that's 10 times the minimum wage in Venezuela.  The third tier of the survival strategy is a full-blown campaign with the motto that can be translated to “Nobody surrenders here” (“Aquí no se rinde nadie,” in Spanish).  The Bolivarian cards will be handed out to self-proclaimed Chavistas during a national house-to-house survey to take place in early April, Maduro announced last weekend.  Frequent flyer points?  Hotel credits?  What kind of a card is this?

March 19, 2016       Permalink

OBAMA TO HAVANA – AT 12:22 P.M. ET:  The president will be in Cuba tomorrow.  Ah, socialism.  He loves it so.  He makes Bernie Sanders sound like John D. Rockefeller. 

But there's a bit of bother, and it involves Cuban dissidents and how Obama deals with them.  From the Washington Examiner:   

The White House won't yet say which political dissidents President Obama plans to meet with during his upcoming historic visit to Cuba, or whether any of those dissidents include prisoners the Castro regime is holding.

Obama will arrive in Cuba on Sunday, and with less than 48 hours before he leaves, the White House is putting off providing a list of dissidents it invited for a meeting with Obama. Instead, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday he hasn't seen the list, which the administration plans to release at an unspecified time over the next few days.

"I haven't seen the list [of dissidents] that the president will meet with ... so I'm not able to vouch for the status of those people," he said.

Still, Earnest and other administration officials stress that Obama will meet with prominent dissidents of his own choosing, a demand the Castro government has grudgingly allowed.

COMMENT:  Why won't they release the list?  I sense the start of a cover-up, a photo op with some "dissidents," but not the heroic dissidents who've risked life and limb.

This will be fascinating.  Critics of the new opening to Cuba, including me, have noted that the United States has made very few demands on the Castro regime, which needs the opening a lot more than we do.  Will that change with this visit?  Will the lot of the people of Cuba improve?  Don't hold your breath, but do hope.

March 19, 2016       Permalink

REPUBLICANS IN SHOCK – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:   The Republican Party is in shock.  Few ever expected Donald Trump – seen as the political equivalent of a carnival barker – to come anywhere near the presidential nomination of the party of Reagan.  (Or is it the party of Reagan?)  Now look where he is.  And his opponents, many of them at least, are losing heart.  From The Politico: 

With Donald Trump marching toward a nomination that few believed he could win, Republicans once bent on defeating him are now reassessing their efforts to stop him.

Trump’s dazed and demoralized adversaries find themselves at a defining moment: After unloading millions of dollars in attack ads aimed at destroying the real estate mogul, after the party’s 2012 nominee delivered a no-holds barred speech targeting him, and after conservatives far and wide spoke out in unrelenting terms about how he could never be president, he’s more dominant than ever — with another rival vanquished, a massive delegate lead and his two remaining opponents looking increasingly like the next to go.

While some Republicans insist on standing firm against the businessman, more and more are contending that it’s time to reach a point of acceptance — and that a drawn-out primary or convention battle could be worse.

“I’m soul-searching right now,” said Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, who last year explored the possibility of launching an anti-Trump campaign. “There’s still a pathway to defeating him, but it’s getting harder to see that.”

COMMENT:  "Stop" movements rarely succeed because, by the time they're launched, the person they want to stop is pretty much unstoppable.  And it may well be with Trump.  He's tapped into a substantial anger among the American people, or at least that segment of the American people who vote in Republican primaries.  He really has no solutions, he's brash, he's crude, but he seems to be a fighter, which is what his supporters love.  The more abrasive he is, the louder they cheer.  And they believe that his business success, his brand, will translate into good government. 

I hope they're right.  But I'm not ready to bet the Republic on it.

And yet, who's out there?  Ted Cruz is brilliant, a true Constitutionalist, and would probably make a fine president.  But he has a personality that even a mother would reject, and is intensely disliked in the U.S. Senate.  I mean, a guy should have at least one friend.  I could support him, but he doesn't warm the heart.

John Kasich has won one state, his own.  Only he knows why he's still in the race.

The odds are favoring Trump.  And we think back to the one event that allowed this to happen, the conviction of General David Petraeus.  I felt at the time that the administration pursued Petraeus with such a vengeance because it wanted to destroy him as a potential presidential nominee.  If my suspicion was correct, they succeeded.  He would be the obvious antidote to Trump today, playing the same role Eisenhower played in the Republican Party in 1952, but he's been neutralized.  How sad for the country.

March 19, 2016       Permalink 

HEY, SOMEONE'S FINALLY SAYING IT – AT 11:08 A.M. ET:  The "it" is that Hillary Clinton could be forced out of the presidential race due to her legal problems.  I've noticed in the last four or five days that discussions about this have grown more serious, with news that the FBI investigation may wind down in May, only two months from now.  That's when the real drama begins:  what will the FBI recommend?  From The Hill: 

It’s the scenario that Republicans dream of and Democrats believe is all but impossible: Hillary Clinton being forced to drop out of the presidential race due to criminal charges over her email server.

Any bombshell findings in the FBI’s investigation of Clinton could plunge the Democratic race into chaos.

Bernie Sanders could stand to gain. As the only other candidate in the Democratic race, the party could quickly coalesce around him in an effort to halt the bedlam. But that’s far from a sure thing, with many in the party fearful he would be a weak general election candidate.

Democrats insist there’s virtually no chance that Clinton will be indicted over her server. The candidate has said repeatedly that no laws were broken, and that classified information was never sent over the server. Asked about an indictment at the last Democratic debate, Clinton responded: “That's not going to happen.”

In the event that Clinton stepped aside after winning the nomination at the convention, the Democratic National Committee could decide on the replacement on its own.

If an indictment came before the convention, the path would be more difficult.

Unlike the Republican Party, which binds most of its delegates to candidates regardless of delegates’ personal preferences, Democratic candidates have input on who represents them on the convention floor.

“There are no Clinton-bound delegates who would prefer voting for Sanders, for example,” delegate expert and University of Georgia professor Josh Putnam, told The Hill.

“Those folks are essentially hand-picked to be loyal. They are unlikely to stray.”

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's fascinating.  And I'm glad to see that attention to this possibility is finally being paid.  It's possible, of course, that the case can be "fixed" in the Justice Department, or even that the FBI director could be threatened with political retaliation if he recommends indictment.  He could certainly be subjected to a Clinton smear campaign.

But there are scores of federal agents at work on the Clinton case.  If their work is dumped because of political pressure, they'll start leaking to the press, and the cover-up can make matters even worse for Clinton. 

And then, of course, there's the role of the press.  Will the press do its job, or will there be the traditional cover-up of Democratic sins?  Hillary is not particularly popular with reporters, and may not get the support that Obama got.

We may yet see the biggest story of this political season.  How juicy.

March 19,  2016     Permalink