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MARCH 16,  2017

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

SOCIETY NEWS – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  Former President Barack Obama is spending a month at a luxury resort near the tourist island of Tahiti.  He checked into the Brando, a luxury resort on French Polynesia's atoll of Tetiaroa according to local TV channel Tahiti Nui TV, AFP reported. Not much is known about the nature of Obama's visit. He arrived without his family and has no political meetings planned.  Rates at the villas on the atoll, purchased by Hollywood star Marlon Brando in the 1960s, run anywhere between 2,000 euros (about $2,150) to 12,300 euros ($13,241).  I'm sure he's there to plan his comeback in isolation.  Either that or Michelle is elsewhere spending the first chunk of the $65-million he's getting for his memoirs.  Just a man of the people.

ARTIST AT WORK – FROM THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON:   Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) has previously accused President Donald Trump of being part of a "Kremlin Klan" beholden to Russian interests, but she took the charge a step further on Thursday, disseminating a graphic she created of Trump associates who she has deemed part of this group.  The graphic, with Moscow in the background and an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin looming overhead, pictures several senior Trump administration officials and other associates of the American president labeled with their names.  Waters tweeted out the image from her official account, with the note "Prepared by Rep. Maxine Waters" in the bottom right corner of the graphic.  Okay, so she has a career as a graphic artist after she retires from Congress, but she apparently also has dreams of being the next Joe McCarthy.

BAKE SHOP CONSPIRATORS – FROM THE MIAMI HERALD:   Facing a bread shortage that is spawning massive lines and souring the national mood, the Venezuelan government is responding this week by detaining bakers and seizing establishments.  In a press release, the National Superintendent for the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights said it had charged four people and temporarily seized two bakeries as the socialist administration accused bakers of being part of a broad “economic war” aimed at destabilizing the country.  In a statement, the government said the bakers had been selling underweight bread and were using price-regulated flour to illegally make specialty items, like sweet rolls and croissants.  The government said bakeries are only allowed to produce French bread and white loaves, or pan canilla, with government-imported flour. However, in a tweet on Thursday, price control czar William Contreras said only 90 percent of baked goods had to be price-controlled products.  Socialism is great, isn't it?  Can't you wait for it to come here?  Better get your quota of cookies before that day arrives.  And nothing culturally insensitive.

March 16, 2017       Permalink

TRUMP APPROVAL UP IN ONE POLL – FROM MORNING CONSULT: 

More Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as president and of the direction the country is headed, according to Morning Consult/POLITICO surveys conducted over the past six weeks.

The most recent poll, conducted March 9-13, found that 52 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, compared with a 49 percent approval rating shortly after Inauguration Day. This month’s survey found that 43 percent of respondents do not approve of the president’s job performance.

When asked about the direction of the country, 46 percent of Americans said they believe the country is on the right track, up 4 points since a late January poll and up 17 points since immediately after Election Day, when just 29 percent of voters felt the same way. Still, 54 percent of voters said the country is on the wrong track, 4 percentage points lower than immediately after Trump took office.

Despite several public controversies, the two measurements have remained relatively steady, and almost all of the movement has been in Trump’s direction among all voters.

Much of the gains track with positive economic indicators during his first few weeks in office, including a strong jobs report and stock market gains. The S&P 500 Index is up more than 100 points since Trump’s inauguration, and on Friday the White House took a victory lap after government figures showed a gain of 235,000 jobs during his first full month in office.

COMMENT:  We should point out that the Morning Consult poll contradicts most other polls, which show Trump's approval rating in negative territory.  But we don't know, of course, which polls are accurate. 

One thing we see over and over:  The key issue to the American people is jobs.  That is Trump's specialty.  He can do other stuff, but he must be focused on jobs. 

March 16, 2017       Permalink

ABOUT TIME – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  If the Trump administration gets its way, the federal government will soon be out of the public broadcasting business.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

The Trump administration will end federal involvement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, according to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.

On a background call with reporters Wednesday, Mulvaney said defunding public television and public radio, including National Public Radio, will not be immediate because of the nature of government contracting.

"We proposed ending funding, but technically what you'll see—it's an elimination—but you'll see an amount of money in the budget, and it is some amount of money that's necessary for us to unwind our involvement with CPB," Mulvaney said during the briefing on the administration's budget blueprint. "So you won't see a zero next to it, but the policy is that we're ending federal involvement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."

"Next year it might be zero, it may take a while to unwind that relationship, it's just the nature of contracts," he said.

The Washington Free Beacon previously reported defunding NPR and public radio would likely take years because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets its funding two years in advance.

The CPB receives roughly $450 million each year, with $99.1 million going to public radio.

COMMENT:  We absolutely do not need federal involvement in broadcasting.  In fact, it can be dangerous, a government-supported propaganda operation, which really serves the poliical left.

It's much better for private sources to provide the funding, which is the case with most of broadcasting. 

March 16, 2017       Permalink

CONFRONTING NORTH KOREA – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  Our new secretary of state is in Japan, and has spoken words that have needed to be spoken for years:  our policy toward North Korea has failed.  From The New York Times: 

TOKYO — At a time of multiplying tensions in Asia, Rex W. Tillerson, the American secretary of state, began his first major foreign trip in Japan and said on Thursday that the United States needed a “different approach” to North Korea’s escalating nuclear threat, though he declined to give specifics.

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo after talks with Japan’s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, Mr. Tillerson said that “the diplomatic and other efforts of the past 20 years to bring North Korea to a point of denuclearization have failed,” noting that during those 20 years, the United States had provided $1.35 billion in assistance to North Korea to encourage it to abandon its nuclear program.

“Part of the purpose of my visit to the region is to exchange views on a new approach,” Mr. Tillerson added, saying he would highlight the issue in Seoul and Beijing, the next stops on his trip.

On the eve of President Trump sending a federal budget to Congress that proposes a 29 percent cut in the State Department’s budget, Mr. Tillerson, who took questions only from reporters who had been preselected by one of his press advisers, said he would take on the challenge of the cutbacks “willingly.”

“The level of spending that the State Department has been undertaking, particularly in the past year, is simply not sustainable,” Mr. Tillerson said, explaining that current spending reflected the “level of conflicts that the U.S. has been engaged in around the world as well as disaster assistance.”

COMMENT:  It's nice to see a Cabinet officer who doesn't whine about budget cuts to his department, but sees them as a welcome challenge.

On North Korea, Tillerson is dead on.  Everything we've tried has failed.   The situation is ominous.  North Korea not only goes on developing weapons of mass destruction, but there are indications that the country is exporting that technology to willing buyers. 

Tillerson is right to go to east Asia first to hear the opinions of our allies before developing new strategies.

March 16,  2017     Permalink

MARCH 15,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

COATS IN – FROM FOX:   WASHINGTON – Former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats was confirmed as the Director of National Intelligence on Wednesday afternoon.  The intelligence position was created in 2004, fallout from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and has become critical in helping prevent another terror attack.  Coats replaces James Clapper, who retired at the end of the Obama administration.  Historically, the director of national intelligence has had a close ear to the president. Questions though have arisen as to the director’s exact role in President Donald Trump’s administration but reports indicate newly-appointed national security adviser H.R. McMaster would like to keep it as is.  Trump has a seasoned national-security team.  I like the idea of a former senator as director of National Intelligence.  Relations with Congress are critical in that role.

DON'T SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED – FROM TMZ:  Hillary Clinton was at a small gathering recently with some politically connected people in NYC, and it seems she's noodling the idea of running for mayor.  A source who was at the gathering last month says Hillary brought up the topic of running and made it clear she was honestly considering it.  We're told she was talking to people in her close circle to gauge the level of interest and support in a Clinton candidacy.  I dunno.  She'd have to first depose incumbent Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio.  The mayor is unpopular, but he represents the hard left of the party, and the hard left has only contempt for Clinton.  She would not be assured the nomination. 

OUR VALUES – FROM LONDON'S TELEGRAPH:   The prospect of losing a smartphone stresses people out almost as much as the fear of a terror attack, a new study has shown.  A report by The Physiological Society, asked 2,000 people to rate how stressful they found key events.  While obvious situations such as the death of a loved one, or becoming seriously ill scored highly, so did modern concerns such as identity theft, commuter delays and even going on holiday.  The threat of a terror attack came 13th on the list of stressful events, just one point above losing a smartphone, and well below planning a wedding, or moving house.   I guess Hallmark will have a sympathy card for losing a smartphone.  "Thinking of you on the loss of your iPhone 7."

March 15, 2017       Permalink

OUR BARACK WOULD DO THAT? – AT 1:48 P.M. ET:  I'm so upset.  I can't believe it's true.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

A group of leading senators is calling on newly installed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately launch an investigation into efforts by the Obama administration to sway foreign elections by sending taxpayer funds to "extreme and sometimes violent political activists" that promote leftist causes, according to a copy of the letter.

The lawmakers disclosed multiple conversations with foreign diplomats who outlined active political meddling by the Obama administration's State Department, including the use of taxpayer funds to support leftist causes in Macedonia, Albania, Latin America, and Africa.

A portion of this State Department funding appears to have gone to organizations supported by the controversial liberal billionaire George Soros, according to the letter, which was authored by Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Ted Cruz (Texas), David Perdue (Ga.), and Bill Cassidy (La.).

The senators are asking Tillerson to launch a full-scale investigation into these funding efforts in order to determine how exactly the Obama administration sought to promote left-leaning causes and political parties across the globe.

The latest disclosures of this activity mirror efforts by the Obama administration to send taxpayer funds to Israeli organizations that opposed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the country's last election.

Political leaders from a range of nations spent months informing the lawmakers about these activities.

COMMENT:  Oh this could be juicy, some fun for a change.  I want to see St. Barack himself called to be questioned.  Maybe Congress could get involved with its own investigation.  I want to hear the excuses
put out by CNN and The New York Times.

March 15, 2017       Permalink

A REASONED ANALYSIS – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  There is an uproar over the proposed Republican replacement for Obamacare.  Even many Republicans are raising objections.  But economist Lawrence Kudlow, whom I respect, argues that the plan presented by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is a very good first step.  From RealClearPolitics: 

The good should never be the evil of the perfect. The Paul Ryan health-care bill is a very good first step. Massive repeal of Obamacare tax hikes will be great for the economy. Getting rid of the Affordable Care Act mandates will be great for health care. Private-sector competition and choice are always better than government-run anything. The GOP has to practice bipartisanship within itself.

All this health-care reform stuff makes my head spin. And that’s why I’m putting all my conclusions at the top of this piece.

I think the House and Senate GOP can make the Ryan blueprint even better. And I’m hopeful that the congressional leadership, along with the Trump administration, will do just that.

But let’s just review a couple key points about the Ryan bill -- or the American Health Care Act (AHCA). (There’s no way to go through this whole deal.)

First, there’s no point in obsessing over the CBO numbers. Their Obamacare enrollment predictions were so off the mark that there’s no reason to believe their estimates for the AHCA will be any better. And we have so little experience, so little data, and such massive reform, I don’t think anybody could accurately model it. In this case, policies, not forecasts, are the key. Americans are a lot smarter than the professors think.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's a clear, no-nonsense argument, and largely persuasive.

March 15, 2017       Permalink

RACHEL STRIKES OUT – AT 8:54 A.M. ET:  There was this YUGE buildup for Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show last night.  It had been announced that Rachel had President Trump's tax returns.  OHMEGOD!

This was it.  D-Day.  Lawrence O'Donnell, another MSNBC "host," proclaimed, "This is the night we've been waiting for."  Even Putin must have tuned in.  And Queen Elizabeth.

And it was nothing.  From Fox: 

Hours after a much-touted MSNBC “scoop” revealed part of President Trump's 2005 tax returns -- and in the process, undermined the left's speculation that he was a tax dodger -- the commander-in-chief fired back Wednesday morning with another volley of barb-laden tweets.

Though Trump was set to hit the road for a stop in Detroit and a rally in Tennessee on Wednesday, he kicked off his travel with a victory lap on Twitter after DCReport.org reporter David Cay Johnston revealed 2005 Trump tax documents to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Johnston said he found the president’s 1040 form “in the mail,” a story Trump wasn’t buying as he took aim at Maddow’s parent network.

“Does anybody really believe that a reporter, who nobody ever heard of, ‘went to his mailbox’ and found my tax returns? @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!” Trump tweeted.

And...

The tax documents, which showed Trump made $153 million in 2005 and paid $36.5 million in income taxes, did not exactly amount to a bombshell. His effective rate was close to 25 percent. It appeared so favorable to the president that Johnston -- a longtime reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 -- speculated to Maddow it was possible “Donald sent this to me.”

COMMENT:  A major nothingburger.  We learned that Trump is a rich guy and that he pays a ton of taxes.  Oh, and the only "tax documents" Maddow could produce were two pages of Trump's 1040 form.

Score this one for the president.

March 15,  2017     Permalink