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MARCH 28,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:05 P.M. ET: 

THE MADNESS CONTINUES – FROM DAILY CALLER:   A university will be hosting a “Masculinity Confession Booth” along with a number of other workshops and screenings to combat “hypermasculinity.”  “We have all reinforced hypermasculinity one way or another regardless of our gender!!” explains the University of Regina event description. “Come and share your sins so we can begin to discuss how to identify and change our ways !!!”  The “Man Up Against Violence” initiative will be hosting these events at the University of Regina in Canada during the present week.  The Masculinity Confession Booth will be making its debut Monday, but is also listed on the schedule for Tuesday through Thursday — days on which students can also attend a “Healthy Relationships and Healthy Masculinity Workshop.” Yet another event will seek to redefine the phrase, “man up.”  I'm rushing with my application.

CONFIDENCE UP – FROM MARKETWATCH:   Consumer confidence in March soared to the highest level in more than 16 years, according to data released Tuesday.  The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index leapt to 125.6 in March from 116.1 in February, coming in well ahead of the MarketWatch-compiled consensus of 114.1.  The reading gave a pop to U.S. stocks DJIA, +0.73% , which turned higher after the report. The Dow closed 150 points higher.  Consumer confidence has taken off since the election of President Donald Trump, on the prospect of lower taxes and more infrastructure spending. Confidence has yet to be impacted by Congress’s inability so far to enact the president’s ambitions. The cutoff data for responses was March 16, before Republicans were forced to scrap a vote on repealing and replacing Obamacare.  I hope the Republican Congress understands the importance of consumer confidence, and doesn't destroy it by refusing to pass the president's economic program.

PRACTICALITY – FROM FAST FORWARD:   Brandeis physicist Daniel Perlman loves wine, but hates wine stains.  So he put himself to studying — for three years — how wine flows out of wine bottles, Daniel Perlman and has finally figured out how to prevent wine from dripping down the side of the bottle.  Perlman’s invention is simple, consisting of a small groove cut into the neck of the bottle just below the lip. The groove requires liquid to fight against gravity to move down the neck of the bottle, forcing the liquid to drip into the cup rather than down the side of the bottle.  Perlman is currently talking to bottle manufacturers about implementing his design in their products.  It's such a relief to see a college professor do something practical.  Build a statue to him at Brandeis:  Conquerer of Stains.  Man of the Century.

March 28, 2017        Permalink

BITTER DIVIDE IN FRANCE – AT 11:45 A.M. ET:   France has an election coming up, and a new poll reveals deep divisions and tension in the country.  From the Daily Mail:

Sixty one per cent of French people believe Islam is incompatible with their society, according to a new poll.

That figure had been falling sharply until the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015, and has been steadily growing ever since, an Ipsos survey found.

That is compared with six per cent of people who believe Catholicism is incompatible and 17 per cent who believe Judaism is incompatible.

A further 79 per cent of French people supported banning headscarves on university campuses, while another 77 per cent want to see the burkini banned.

France already has a nationwide law banning anyone from wearing a full-face veil, while several French Riviera towns attempted to ban full-body 'burkinis' in 2016, but the law was overturned.

COMMENT:  Those numbers are grim.  You just get the feeling that another terrorist attack could spark major violence.  Or, a real nationalist can be elected and pull France out of the European Union.

We are living in interesting times.  Too interesting.

March 28, 2017       Permalink

MAYBE THEY'RE LEARNING SOMETHING – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Some Democrats (not all) are studying the last election to determine what went wrong.  What they're finding is no ornament to their leaders.   From The Politico: 

As they investigate the forces behind the party’s stunning losses in November, Democrats are coming to a troubling conclusion. The party didn’t just lose among rural white voters on Election Day, it may have failed to capture them in its pre-election polling as well.

Many pollsters and strategists believe that rural white voters, particularly those without college degrees, eluded the party’s polling altogether — and their absence from poll results may have been both a cause and a symptom of Donald Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton in several states.

Determining what exactly happened is one of the most pressing problems facing the out-of-power party. In order to win those voters back — or figure out a future path to victory without them — party strategists say they first need to measure the size of that rural and working-class cohort.

John Hagner, a partner at Clarity Campaign Labs, a D.C.-based Democratic analytics firm, said 2016 taught the party a hard lesson about polling in the Trump era.

“The folks who would talk to a stranger about politics just aren’t representative of people who wouldn’t,” he said.

The first evidence of the party’s polling blind spot surfaced in a governor’s race, the 2015 contest in Kentucky. Both public and private polls going into the election showed Democrat Jack Conway and Republican Matt Bevin running neck-and-neck — Conway had a 3-point lead in the final RealClearPolitics average — but Bevin won by a comfortable, 9-point margin.

Like some of the more Democratic states where Trump upset Clinton last year, Kentucky has a large rural and a large working-class white population (often there is considerable overlap in the groups). Whites make up 88 percent of Kentucky’s population, and fewer than a quarter of Kentucky residents over age 25 have a college degree.

COMMENT:   Read the whole thing.  It's an excellent analysis of a recurring political phenomenon – a party losing contact with its constituency. 

We saw it in 1980 with the emergence of the Reagan Democrats – mostly working people who felt the Democratic Party was ignoring them.  They went to Reagan.  And last year they went to Trump.

Republicans shouldn't gloat.  The Democrats are now working the problem.  The Republicans in Washington are giving them plenty of ammunition.

March 28, 2017       Permalink

TERRORISM?  WHAT TERRORISM?  – AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  My, how quickly the media swept past that terror attack at the halls of Parliament in London last week.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.  Just a confused young man who visited the wrong websites.

But historian Niall Ferguson warns us, in our quote of the day, that there's plenty to see.  From the Boston Globe: 

Let's not be parochial. The world is in the grip of an epidemic of Islamist terror. Of the last 16 years, the worst year was 2014, with 93 countries experiencing attacks and close to 33,000 people killed. The second worst was 2015, with over 29,000 victims. In that year, four radical Islamic groups were responsible for three quarters of all deaths from terrorism: Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda.

Khalid Masood, who attacked Britain's Parliament, killing four people and wounding some 50, was born Adrian Russell Ajao, London's top counterterror officer said Friday.

Although Muslim-majority countries suffer the most from jihadist violence, the West is increasingly under attack. There were 64 ISIS-affiliated attacks in Western countries in 2015, including the massacres in Paris (137 dead) and Orlando (50 dead). Thus far, Britain has got off lightly.

No doubt there will whining about security lapses in the Masood case. But the reality is that only the constant vigilance of the UK security services has stopped many more people from being killed in the past dozen years. In 2014 and 2015, there were more terrorism-related arrests than in any year since 2000. What we must face is that even this intensified effort cannot pre-empt every jihadist.

The term "lone wolf" is a misleading one. No one becomes a jihadist all by himself, just by watching beheading videos. As my wife Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues in a powerful new report, jihad is always preceded by dawa - the process of non-violent but toxic radicalization that transforms the petty criminal into a zealot.

COMMENT:  Wonderfully said.  But will anyone in America listen, or will it take another 9/11 to accomplish that?

March 28,  2017     Permalink

MARCH 27,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 5:35 P.M. ET: 

DISGRACEFUL – FROM NBC NEWS:   Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee forced the delay of a vote on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch on Monday. The one-week delay in sending the nomination to the full Senate comes as the partisan battle lines over his final confirmation votes begin to harden.  At least 19 Democrats have come out in opposition to Gorsuch and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that he will filibuster the nominee, which means he'll force a 60-vote threshold once it clears the committee.  With Republicans holding 52 seats, they will need at least eight Democrats to vote with them under the current rules to send the nominee forward for a final confirmation vote that would then require a simple majority.  But Republicans do have the extreme option of employing the "nuclear" option -- a change of Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.  The nuclear option should be employed.  Delaying the vote shows the small-time mentality of the Democrats.  Gorsuch is a superbly qualified candidate.  He deserves better.

PERSONNEL NEWS – FROM DAILY CALLER:   Barack Obama’s former press secretary is now a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, the network announced Monday.  “Josh recently completed a ten-year run with President Obama, most recently serving as White House Press Secretary from 2014-2017,” NBC New President Noah Oppenheim and MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a joint statement.  “A native of Kansas City, Josh graduated from Rice University with a degree in political science and policy studies. With his wealth of experience and insight, Josh will be a great addition to our roster of contributors and will be an asset for our two networks as we continue to cover the White House, Congress and politics beyond the Beltway.”  I'm sure we'll get thoroughly fair and balanced commentary from Josh.  And if you believe that, there's a wonderful bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell yuh.

GREAT MOMENTS IN AUTO INSURANCE – FROM FOX:   MOSCOW, Idaho – A northern Idaho woman told police she crashed into a deer because she was distracted by a sasquatch in her rearview mirror.  The Moscow-Pullman Daily News reports that the 50-year-old Tensed woman was driving south on U.S. Highway 95 on Wednesday when she struck a deer near Potlatch.  The woman told Benewah County Sheriff’s officials that she saw a sasquatch chasing a deer on the side of the road while driving. She says she checked one of her mirrors to get a second look at the beast and when she looked up, the deer ran in front of her.  Sheriff’s officials marked the incident as a vehicle versus deer collision but did not report any evidence of Bigfoot.  Like a good neighbor, State Farm will undoubtedly search the area again.  I wonder if Bigfoot is insured.

March 27, 2017       Permalink

SEND IN THE CLOWNS – AT 11:42 A.M. ET:  The mouth has opened.  Bernie Sanders has spoken on health care, and his prescription.  It's frightening to think, but his prescription may soon be the prescription presented by the entire Democratic Party:  Socialism.  From Daily Caller: 

“The bill that was defeated should have been defeated,” Sanders said. “It was a disastrous piece of legislation primarily designed to provide $300 billion in tax breaks to the top 2 percent, throwing 24 million people off of health insurance, raising premiums for older workers in a very, very significant way.”

Sanders admits, however, that the current system is not without its flaws. “Of course, Obamacare has serious problems,” Sanders said. “Deductibles are too high. Premiums are too high. The cost of health care is going up at a much faster rate than it should.”

To fix the problems of Obamacare, Sanders thinks lawmakers need to look at other industrialized nations that have socialist models of health care. “Ideally, what — where we should be going is to join the rest of the industrialized the world and guarantee health care to all people as a right,” Sanders said.

Trump is now reportedly focusing on tax reform and pursuing his pro-growth “America First” economic agenda. The president is saying he will let Obamacare continue to implode, in hopes of bringing wayward Republicans and hard-line Democrats to the negotiating table when things get too bad.

COMMENT:  Do not underestimate the surface appeal of Bernie Sanders and his simplistic "everybody is equal" health plan.  It sounds so good, and so simple – until you look at the details.  Socialism always fails in the details, for it allows no competition, no choice, no progress.  Physicians will get their guidance from Washington.  Their relationship with patients will become vague, if there is a relationship at all.  Surgical procedures now available in the United States within days or even hours, might be deferred for months.  There will be a coldness in the system.  Socialism is very cold. 

We hope the GOP will be smart enough to see the onslaught coming from the left.  I'm not sure.

March 27, 2017       Permalink

DISASTERS – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  If you listened to CNN, you may have gotten the impression that the defeat of the GOP's health-care plan was the worst catastrophe in the history of the world, and certainly the worst setback any new president has ever suffered.  It was, borrowing the words of the great philosopher Jimmy Durante, a catastroscope!  Even David Gergen, the once-rational CNN panelist, announced that Trump was experiencing the worst first hundred days of any president. 

Just a sec, pundits.  The Bay of Pigs disaster occurred in the first hundred days of John F. Kennedy's administration.  His blunder was mammoth.  An invasion force of Cuban dissidents was sent to invade Cuba, with the goal of overthrowing the Castro government.  Kennedy panicked and refused to provide promised air cover.  The invasion quickly failed, leaving the young president thoroughly humiliated.  To his credit, he took full responsibility, but that didn't change the outcome.

Only two months later Kennedy met Soviet leader Nikita ("We will bury you") Khrushchev at a summit conference in Vienna.  Afterward, Kennedy conceded openly to his aides that Khrushchev had rolled him.  The president of the United States came away looking like an amateur.  He told James Reston of The New York Times that the conference had been the "worst thing in my life. He savaged me."

Khrushchev sized up Kennedy as weak and unprepared.  It was then that the Soviet leader built the Berlin Wall, which came to symbolize the Cold War.

Talk about a failing opening season for a president.  The year 1961 was choice.

And yet, Kennedy,very much a learning man, bounced back and defeated Khrushchev at the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.    Presidents learn. 

Just a little reminder from history.  Some of the judgments you're hearing from the chattering classes are childish and shallow.  Don't pay too much attention.

March 27, 2017      Permalink

I HOPE HE KNOCKS 'EM DEAD – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  The son-in-law also testifies.  Jared Kushner will testify before a Senate committee about a meeting with Russians.  From the New York Post: 

A Senate panel will question Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a top adviser, about a meeting he arranged with a Russian ambassador, according to a report on Monday.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, wants to talk to Kushner about meetings with Kremlin envoy Sergey Kislyak, the New York Times reported, citing administration and congressional officials.

The White House has confirmed that Kushner met Kislyak in early December at Trump Tower, but the report said Kislyak requested another meeting that month.

Kushner asked a deputy to attend that meeting.

But later Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, head of Vnesheconombank, which the Obama administration hit with sanctions after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, the report said.

A White House spokeswoman acknowledged the Kushner meetings, but said they were routine discussions.

Hope Hicks said Kushner met with foreign government officials as part of his duties with the Trump transition.

COMMENT:  By all means, let them investigate.  The Democrats will probably make fools of themselves, and ask dumb questions.  The fishing expedition will be fun to watch.   I hope Al Franken is one of the questioners.

March 27,  2017     Permalink