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MARCH 7,  2017

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

IT'S COME TO THIS – FROM FOX:   A Pennsylvania gym is concerned that cardio isn’t the only thing affecting members’ blood pressure.  The Greater Scranton YMCA voted to ban 24-hour cable news channels from its facility, citing safety concerns, WBRE reported.  The board of directors wrote to members in a letter that stations such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have “raised concerns about the safety, both physically and emotionally, of our members.”  Members said the ban came after some political discussions in the locker room turned contentious.  “I understand why they did it because there was a lot of controversy with a lot of people talking and arguing,” member Susan Dimmick told WBRE. “There was a lot of arguing going on, but I don’t think it was right.”  Well, at least people feel passionate about their country.

IVANKA TRIUMPHS – FROM THE HILL:   Ivanka Trump’s eponymous women’s fashion line is reporting record sales figures despite calls for a boycott and controversies surrounding President Trump.  “Since the beginning of February, they were some of the best performing weeks in the history of the brand,” Abigail Klem, the president of the Ivanka Trump fashion brand, tells Refinery29 in an interview published Tuesday. “For several different retailers Ivanka Trump was a top performer online, and in some of the categories it was the [brand’s] best performance ever.”  Good.  I like to see ridiculous boycotts defeated.

RIDICULOUS – FROM THE HILL:   All schools in Prince George’s County in Maryland outside of Washington, D.C., will be closed to students on Wednesday for “A Day Without a Woman” after more than 1,000 teachers asked to take the day off.  The school district made the announcement one day after the school system in Alexandria, Va. said it would close for the strike as well.  The protest, organized by the group that planned the Women’s March in Washington, is scheduled for March 8, International Women’s Day.
The group planning the strike have suggested a variety of ways to participate, including taking the day off. Other ideas include spending money only at businesses owned by women and minorities or wearing red in support.  What an outrage.  I wonder how all the single working moms will provide day care for their kids, and who pays for it.  I'm sure many of the "protesters" will be found in front of TV's watching soap operas.

March 7,  2017     Permalink

UNBELIEVABLE – AT 11:53 A.M. ET:   Sometimes you read something and think it must be a fake story, a misprint, a journalistic prank.  I'm afraid this one is dead serious.  From the New York Post: 

Does New York’s Board of Regents care if teachers can read? If so, then why is it set to scrap the literacy tests they must pass?

At its meeting Monday, the board will vote on eliminating the Academic Literacy Skills Test, which is designed to measure prospective teachers’ reading and writing ability. It’ll also consider lowering standards on another test, called edTAP, which requires teachers to show their skills by videotaping their lessons.

Why drop the bar? To make it easier — especially for minorities — to become teachers. In 2013-14, just 48 percent of blacks and 56 percent of Hispanics passed the literacy test, versus 75 percent of whites. To fix the problem, the geniuses at the board would simply scrap the test.

But that means potentially unqualified teachers may be let loose upon New York’s kids — including minority kids. And what’s especially scary is that once teachers are certified and have tenure, it’s virtually impossible to fire them.

“We’ve now abandoned or watered down the teacher evaluation process, and now we’re lowering the bar for entry certification as well,” says Manhattan Institute education-policy expert Charles Sahm.

“This is a literacy exam,” he adds. “If you’re going to be a teacher… this is a criteria you should be able to meet.”

COMMENT:  What a fraud.  When I was growing up in the New York City school system, we had teachers who could diagram an English sentence.  Now, it appears, some "educators" are perfectly fine with teachers who can barely read an English sentence. 

What happens to the kids?  It's obvious that a lot of people don't care.  What counts is group solidarity.  You don't need high reading skills to be stuffed in a bus and carted off to a street demonstration.

March 7, 2017       Permalink

THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  One of the most fascinating trends in the conflict between President Trump and the media is that the American people are consistently siding with Trump.  From IBD: 

The mainstream media's open hostility to President Trump may be starting to backfire, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll.

The poll found that 55% of the public says they've grown "weary from the media's persistently negative coverage of President Trump." A roughly equal share (54%) also believe that the news media "has assumed the role of the opposition party, constantly opposing the president and his policies at every turn."

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly hold these views (88% say they're tired of the relentless negativity), but the media's attacks are also turning off independents (55% of whom say they're weary of the negative coverage) and moderates (54% of whom are weary). Most also believe that the press has assumed the role of the opposition party.

The poll, conducted from Feb. 24 through March 4, included 909 responses who were surveyed using live interviewers on cellphone and landlines. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.

The results are understandable, given the unusually hostile relationship the press has with Trump.

A study by the nonpartisan group Media Tenor found that only 3% of network news stories in the first month of the Trump administration could be described as positive. Of the rest, 43% were deemed negative, and 54% neutral. That's a stark contrast to the overwhelmingly positive coverage of the early Obama administration, despite the fact that Obama had his own share of early stumbles.

COMMENT:  Obama?  Why, he was a godlike figure, come to save us.  At least, that's what the mainstream press and its northeast amen corner told us. 

Some journalists are now explaining their clear bias by saying that their job is to hold Trump accountable.  Sure it is.  It was also their job to hold Saint Barack accountable, but we didn't see much holding, did we? 

The press bends to the left, and the bend is getting deeper every day.  News organizations are simply giving up their credibility to bash President Trump whenever possible.  They are living out the 1960s notion of "making a difference."  The difference they make, though, can easily turn out to be tragic, just as "speaking truth to power" can be tragic if the speakers don't actually have the truth. 

March 7, 2017       Permalink

THIS IS GETTING GRIM – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  While we spend our time reading speculative stories about wiretapping, the situation involving North Korea is deteriorating.  From Fox: 

The U.S. decision to send equipment needed to set up a controversial missile defense system in South Korea is likely to add to tensions with Beijing and Moscow, countries that have spoken out in the past about deploying the system.

China said Tuesday it would take measures against the U.S. missile system deployed in South Korea, and that the U.S. and Seoul would bear the consequences.

"China firmly opposes the deployment of THAAD," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. "We will definitely be taking necessary measures to safeguard our own security interest. All consequences entailed from that will be borne by the U.S. and (South Korea). We once again strongly urge the relevant sides to stop the process of deployment and refrain from going further down that wrong path."

Lou Yuan, an outspoken, retired Chinese general, wrote in the Global Times, a state-run paper, that the Chinese military “could conduct a surgical hard-kill operation that would destroy the target, paralyzing it and making it unable to hit back,” The New York Times reported.

He went on, “Since the United States, Japan and South Korea choose not to respect China’s major security concerns, China does not need to be a gentleman on everything."

Washington and Seoul says the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, is not meant to be a threat to China or Russia. The U.S. military said in a statement that THAAD can intercept and destroy short and medium range ballistic missiles during the last part of their flights.

Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Seoul’s Dongguk University, told The Korean Times that it is “apparent that China is trying to draw its two Cold War allies to its side, at least over THAAD-related issues. It will also highlight the alliance between South Korea and the U.S. as well as their ties with Japan as part of tactics against THAAD.”

COMMENT:  Pretty nervy of Beijing to accuse us of provocations, although I'm sure the hard left in America will support the Chinese position.  The THAAD deployment is designed to reassure South Korea of our support in light of recent North Korean missile tests. 

North Korea is a rogue regime, far less shrewd than Iran, and already equipped with nuclear weapons.  One clash on the Korean peninsula, even if unintended, could have enormous consequences.

At the same time, this may well turn out to be Trump's first foreign-policy crisis.  He must be firm, but not reckless.  It is common for foreign enemies to test new American presidents.  Stay cool, but strong.

March 7,  2017     Permalink

MARCH 6,  2017

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

GOOD NEWS – FROM FOX:   Exxon Mobil (XOM) will spend $20 billion by 2022 to expand its footprint along the U.S. Gulf Coast, creating more than 45,000 jobs.  The world’s largest publicly traded oil company said Monday it will invest in refining and chemical-manufacturing projects at 11 proposed and existing sites, located in Texas and Louisiana. Speaking at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Exxon's new CEO Darren Woods noted that 35,000 temporary construction jobs will be needed. The investments will also create 12,000 permanent jobs.  Many of the new positions will be for high-skilled, high-paying jobs with an average salary of about $100,000 a year, Woods said in Exxon’s announcement.   It was immediately claimed, of course, that this was all planned during the Obama administration, but I've heard that story zillions of times.  Jimmy Carter claimed that Ronald Reagan's defense buildup actually started under the Carter administration.  A failed mayor of New York, defeated for re-election by Rudy Giuliani, claimed that he actually started Giuliani's successful crime-fighting program.  Recall the old saying, roughly translated as "Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan."

I'M A BIT CONFUSED – FROM THE GUARDIAN:   For thousands of years, parts of northwest Europe have enjoyed a climate about 5C warmer than many other regions on the same latitude. But new scientific analysis suggests that that could change much sooner and much faster than thought possible.  Climatologists who have looked again at the possibility of major climate change in and around the Atlantic Ocean, a persistent puzzle to researchers, now say there is an almost 50% chance that a key area of the North Atlantic could cool suddenly and rapidly, within the space of a decade, before the end of this century.  That is a much starker prospect than even the worst-case scientific scenario proposed so far, which does not see the Atlantic ocean current shutdown happening for several hundred years at least.  A scenario even more drastic (but fortunately fictional) was the subject of the 2004 US movie The Day After Tomorrow, which portrayed the disruption of the North Atlantic’s circulation leading to global cooling and a new Ice Age.  Wait a sec.  Didn't I hear something about "global warming"?  I thought I did.  Please inform me.

ESPN SINKING – FROM THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER:  Faced with the combined pressure of declining advertising revenue and a steady loss of subscribers, ESPN will undergo another round of “significant” layoffs over the next four months.    Sources confirm a report by Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch that ESPN will target its on-air talent in this latest round of cuts, which will spare behind-the-scenes staff but include many hosts and reporters whom fans know and recognize.  ESPN is still working on the exact details of the cuts, which aim to remove tens of millions of dollars of salary from the network’s payroll. In addition to the layoffs, ESPN reportedly will buy out the contracts of some well-known hosts, something the network has largely avoided in previous cuts.  Why doesn't someone say what everyone knows?  A major reason for ESPN's loss of "subscribers" is that it's become a highly politicized left-wing operation that has turned off large numbers of viewers.  Get back to basics and you might survive, guys.

March 6,  2017     Permalink 

NORTH KOREA DEFIANT AGAIN – AT 11:48 A.M. ET:   President Obama left President Trump an advisory that North Korea would be Trump's greatest foreign problem.  That may turn out to be true.  Nothing thus far has worked to stem North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.  From Fox:

North Korea fired four banned ballistic missiles that flew 620 miles into the ocean off its eastern coast, South Korean officials said Monday, in an apparent reaction to huge military drills by Washington and Seoul that Pyongyang insists are an invasion rehearsal.

It was not immediately clear the exact type of missile fired; Pyongyang has staged a series of missile test-launches of various ranges in recent months, including a new intermediate-range missile in February. The ramped-up tests come as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for a nuclear and missile program that can deter what he calls U.S. and South Korean hostility toward the North.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday's firing shows that North Korea has become "a new kind of threat." Japanese officials said three of the four missiles landed in the 200-nautical-mile offshore area where Tokyo has sovereign rights for exploring and exploiting resources.

South Korea's Joint Chief of Staff said in a statement that Monday's launches were made from the Tongchang-ri area in North Pyongan province. The area is the home of the North's Seohae Satellite Station where it has conducted prohibited long-range rocket launches in recent years.

Seoul and Washington call their military drills on the Korean Peninsula, which remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty, defensive and routine.

COMMENT:  They key point here is that North Korea, a true hard-line Communist nation, is forging ahead with the development of, and the exporting of, very dangerous weapons.  And it is already a nuclear power that threatens our allies South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and even threatens, with its missiles, the western part of the United States. 

March 6, 2017        Permalink

NOT QUITE WHAT WE'VE BEEN TOLD – AT 11:14 A.M. ET:   For months we've been sent the message that President Trump is literally in bed with Vladimir Putin, that there's something going on, that Putin has something on Trump, that Moscow was about to become capital of Trump's America, that American kids would be served vodka in schools. 

Not so fast.  From Powerline: 

Lost in all the fake news about President Trump’s alleged affinity for Russia is the real news that he has tapped a harsh critic of Vladimir Putin to be the White House senior director for Russia and Europe. The Putin-critic he reportedly has selected is Fiona Hill, a former intelligence officer now with the Brookings Institution.

Hill was on the National Intelligence Council from 2006-09, serving under Presidents Bush and Obama. She has argued in favor of keeping sanctions in place on Russia in response to Moscow’s aggression in Crimea and Ukraine. In addition, she has argued that Putin’s desire for a “weakened U.S. presidency” is behind his meddling in the 2016 president election. If so, as I have suggested, it’s looking like a case of “mission accomplished.”

Hill is more than just a conventional critic of Putin. She is the co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. According to The New Yorker, the book describes Putin’s system as a “protection racket” in which he views himself as the “CEO of Russia, Inc.,” and is served by “crony oligarchs.” “In reality,” Hill writes, “his leadership style is more like that of a mafia family Don.”

The selection of Hill has been praised by liberals who have expressed what I assume are good faith concerns about what the Trump administration’s Russia policy will end up being. For example, Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Obama called it a “great hire,” adding that “Fiona is both a first-class scholar and an experienced former government official.”

COMMENT:  Hill is not exactly a Kremlin lover, not the kind a Kremlin lover would appoint.  I wonder what the anti-Trump will say about this.  Never mind.  They might not even notice.

March 6, 2017       Permalink

A REAL AUTHORITY SPEAKS – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  With all kinds of creatures weighing in on the wiretapping story, it's a relief to have a real expert render an opinion.  Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served under George W. Bush, assesses the controversy.  From The Hill:

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Sunday said that President Trump is likely correct that there was surveillance on Trump Tower for intelligence purposes, but incorrect in accusing former President Barack Obama of ordering the wiretapping.

“I think he’s right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general — at the Justice Department,” Mukasey told ABC’s “This Week.”

Trump on Saturday accused Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in New York City just before the November election.

A spokesman for Obama denied that the former president or the White House ordered any such surveillance.

"A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Lewis said in a statement.

"As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen," Lewis added. "Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

Mukasey, who served as the attorney general under former President George W. Bush, said he believes there was surveillance on Trump Tower after reading certain news reports.

Mukasey said if there were a wiretap on Trump Tower, it would mean that there was suspicion someone had been acting as Russian agent.

COMMENT:  One thing that might also be considered is that any wiretapping could have been conducted by a secret contractor, Watergate style.  Recall that the Watergate "break-in" was carried out by a clandestine group called "the plumbers," on behalf of some people in the Nixon 1972 presidential campaign.  The assumptions now are focusing only on the FBI, which may be too narrow.

It's unlikely we'll know the real story until the Congressional probes are held.  Recall also that it was a Congressional inquiry that led to the discovery of the Nixon taping system in the White House.  Alexander Butterfield, a Nixon administration official, revealed it in sworn testimony.

March 6,  2017     Permalink