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MARCH 17,  2017

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

IT'S TIME TO GET OFF THE STAGE – FROM FOX:  SCRANTON, Pa. – Hillary Clinton said Friday she's "ready to come out of the woods" and help Americans find common ground.  Clinton's gradual return to the public spotlight following her presidential election loss continued with a St. Patrick's Day speech in her late father's Pennsylvania hometown of Scranton.  "I'm like a lot of my friends right now, I have a hard time watching the news," Clinton told an Irish women's group.  But she urged a divided country to work together to solve problems, recalling how, as first lady, she met with female leaders working to bring peace to Northern Ireland.  Common ground?  She's in for the shock of her life.  Her party has been taken over by the far left, which never seeks common ground with anyone...and the far left despises her.

REASONABLE CONCERN – FROM CNN:  Palm Beach, Florida (CNN) Palm Beach County officials, facing the prospect of paying millions of dollars in overtime costs associated with protecting President Donald Trump during his frequent visits to the tony Florida enclave, want either the federal government or Trump himself to foot the bill.  Protecting Trump while he is at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, primarily falls on the Secret Service. But when the President visits Florida, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office is asked to assist in a variety of public and private ways. With Trump making his fifth trip as president to what he calls the "Winter White House," the costs are rising.  According to estimates provided to CNN by the sheriff's department, it costs about $60,000 in overtime every day Trump spends in Florida. Trump has spent, before this weekend, 14 days in Florida since taking office in January, meaning costs to the sheriff's department will likely top $1 million during this weekend's visit.  The concern is reasonable.  The federal government should pick up a portion of the tab, and Trump should volunteer to pick up the rest.

PT FOR LEFTIES – FROM POLIZETTE:   Coping strategies used by distressed liberals to deal with President Donald Trump’s November election victory are now being used to prepare activists to “resist” the Trump agenda.  Coddled college kids across the country tried group cry-ins, group hug-ins, coloring with crayons, and even finger-painting to deal with the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.  “Our breath is so precious,” Johnson continued, “and if it wasn’t so precious Eric Garner would be alive, rest in peace.”
Now adult snowflake activists are using breathing exercises to prepare for anti-Trump protests.  During a MoveOn.Org “Ready to Resist: Emergency Call” this week — part of a weekly teleconference organized by the Working Families Party that brings together leftist activists to discuss “the resistance” — Mark-Anthony Johnson, health director for a group called Dignity and Power NOW, led those on the call in a number of breathing exercises.  "Right now I'm going to ask everyone who's on this call to take a moment and just breathe with me," Johnson began. "This is a simple technique that you can use as we're in the tactics, as we're in the strategy, as we're in the back-to-back actions that we're going to be in we can take a moment to breathe," he said.  Next they might try asking everyone to take a moment to think...but that would be so 20th century.

March 17,  2017     Permalink

TV WEBS WOBBLY – AT 9:56 A.M. ET:  Is it only bad shows, or are Americans turning on the entertainment industry?  From Hollywood Reporter: 

The broadcasters have launched 17 new shows since Jan. 1 — with zero breakouts — as CBS signals an end to its wait-and-see strategy.

The year 2017 hasn't been forgiving to the broadcast networks. With a whopping 17 scripted launches since Jan. 1, nearly all new series are languishing with low ratings, even by today's modest standards. But that may not be entirely the new shows' fault: The root of midseason's problem, some say, is the middling fall that preceded it.

"In the past, midseason success was typically built on the foundation established in the fall," says Sam Armando, lead investment director at MediaVest-Spark, noting all but NBC (and sports-lifted Fox) are down this year. "Since only This Is Us popped in the fall, there just aren't any coattails to ride on."

Even Fox's Super Bowl-launched 24: Legacy, a seemingly safe bet, can't crack a live 1.0 rating in the key demo on Monday nights. Spinoffs are stumbling elsewhere, with The Blacklist: Redemption essentially DOA on NBC, though the network does seem to have a solid player with Dick Wolf's fourth installment in his Windy City franchise, Chicago Justice.

The writing also is on the wall for TV's time-travel trend, with neither ABC's Time After Time nor Fox's Making History making an impression on Sundays.

What's interesting is CBS' reaction to its poor performers. With one struggling freshman shipped off to Saturdays (Training Day) and another axed after just two episodes (Katherine Heigl starrer Doubt), the network potentially is signaling a shift away from the wait-and-see attitudes that have displeased some advertisers in recent seasons.

COMMENT:  Network TV just ain't where it's at.  And the constant, unrelenting, political messages from Hollywood turn off a good chunk of the audience before they even turn on their TVs.

I don't know what model the networks will turn to in coming years, but what they're doing now is failing.  Maybe some of the "creative" types should make cross-country trips in their SUV's and talk to some actual viewers.  It's an education they need.

March 17, 2017       Permalink

THE RELIGION OF PEACE REACHES OUT AGAIN – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:   Nothing to fear, nothing to fear.  All cultures are equal.  It's all our fault.  From Heatstreet: 

Teachers at a primary school in Sydney, Australia have been threatened with beheading and other violence from young Islamic students, prompting one of them to quit her job.

Students as young as those in Year 5, according to the Daily Telegraph, are making the violent threats and pressuring others to read the Koran at Punchbowl Public School in Sydney.

Documents given to the newspaper allege that three staff members have taken a leave of absence owing to stress, received counselling and been awarded compensation after bullying from Islamic students.

One female teacher reportedly quit her job after it got too much for her. She claims she quit after receiving death threats to her family from her year 5 and 6 students, with some saying they would behead her.

The teacher also said she made numerous complaints back in 2014 about the extraordinary behavior in the class. For example, she said, she was abused by students after she stopped them from hanging a Syrian flag in the classroom.

In another example, she claimed she was pushed into a corner by students who began marching around her chanting the Koran.

The bullying wasn’t restricted to teachers. The woman also reported an incident where children bullied other students by saying that someone had “betrayed his religion” by “not going to Muslim scripture”. In another incident, she said a “group of boys had stood around a girl and called her horrible names like dog”.

COMMENT:  It is remarkable how violence, and the threat of violence, is infiltrating Western education, whether it's coming from religious extremists or leftist extremists, as was the case recently at Middlebury College.

Threats of beheading are, I would suggest, things to be taken seriously.  But educators are generally not heroic, and prefer to bury these incidents or call them cases of cultural misunderstanding.

March 17,  2017     Permalink

BLUNTNESS – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson continues his verbal campaign against North Korea with a level of bluntness and truth that is refreshing, considering the mush that emerged from the mouth and limited brain of his predecessor, John Kerry.  From Bloomberg:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. is considering “all options” to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat while criticizing China over moves to block a missile-defense system on the peninsula.

In some of his most detailed comments yet on North Korea, Tillerson ruled out a negotiated freeze of its nuclear weapons program and called for a wider alliance to counter Kim Jong Un’s regime. He also left the military option on the table if the North Korean threat gets too large.

“If they elevate the threat of their weapons programs to a level that we believe requires action, that option is on the table,” Tillerson told reporters on Friday on a trip to South Korea when asked about the possibility of a military strike. He ruled out talks with North Korea until it commits to giving up its nuclear weapons.

The remarks were some of the most forceful yet from President Donald Trump’s administration and signaled the U.S. was closing the door on a more conciliatory approach as it looks to curtail Kim Jong Un’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. With the range of North Korea’s missiles getting closer to North America, Tillerson is seeking a new approach as part of a trip to Japan, South Korea and China.

“Let me be very clear: this policy of strategic patience has ended,” Tillerson said. “All options are on the table. North Korea must understand that the only path to a secure, economically prosperous future is to abandon its development of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other weapons of mass destruction.”

COMMENT:  Diplomacy has failed with North Korea.  If Hillary Clinton had been elected, we would have simply continued the same diplomacy. 

The North Koreans are being sent a powerful message.  Field Marshal Obama is no longer in the White House.  How the North responds to our message may well turn out to be one of the most important stories of our time.

March 17, 2017       Permalink

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