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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas last night.  It's here.

MAY 14,  2018

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

JERUSALEM – It's being noticed that not a single Democrat attended the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, despite the fact that it was President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, who made the United States the first nation to grant de facto recognition to Israel when it was founded in 1948.  The Democratic Party is, today, truly the party of Barack Obama.  I'm sure the Dems didn't show because they were afraid to offend the big Hamas vote.  At the same time, Willie Brown, iconic African-American Democratic leader and former mayor of San Francisco, pleaded with Democrats to end their chronic Trump bashing.  The Democratic pros know that the bashing is turning voters off and making the Democratic Party into nothing more than an attack machine.  Not popular.

GROUNDED – FROM CBS LOCAL:    NORTH TEXAS – Starting July 1, ferrets, goats and hedgehogs can no longer fly American Airlines, even if they’re support animals.  They’re just three of a somewhat lengthy list of barred animals the airline has put out in response to an increase in customers transporting a service or support animal onboard their aircraft — more than 40 percent from 2016 to 2017.  “We support the rights of customers, from veterans to people with disabilities, with legitimate needs for a trained service or support animal,” AA said in a statement. “Unfortunately, untrained animals can lead to safety issues for our team, our customers and working dogs onboard our aircraft.”  Some of the changes include additional restrictions on animal types, including sugar gliders and snakes.  There are already reports of a revolt in the goat community over this bigoted act.  A new movement, "Goat Flights Matter," is being formed.

ANOTHER SANDERS? – FROM AMERICAN MIRROR:  Levi Sanders, the only biological son of Vermont senator and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, is running for Congress in New Hampshire, and he’s speaking his mind about problems in the Democratic Party.  Among the biggest issues is Democrats don’t make voters feel good enough about themselves, he said, unlike the “incredible job” Donald Trump and the Republican Party are doing, the Independent reports.  “The Democratic Party has done a very poor job of bolstering people’s confidence and self-esteem, and that has significant consequences when it comes to reaching out to low-income and working-class people,” Sanders said, pointing to Hillary Clinton’s penchant for talking down to voters.  “When Hillary Clinton used the word ‘deplorable’ that had a significant effect on so many people. They basically said ‘We understand that Donald Trump is not a nice guy, but he is one of us.’ He said ‘Yes, I know I’m a billionaire, but I’m like your weird uncle. I’m not politically correct and I’m not judging you’ and that’s the key.”  Well, one member of the Sanders family has common sense.  That's reassuring. 

May 14, 2018       Permalink

DEM HOPES FADING – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  The media hype told us that this was going to be a banner year for the Democrats.  Why, a blue wave would engulf us.  Obama would bless us.  The non-deplorables would be back.

Uh, not so fast, Barack.  A new reality seems to be settling in.  From The Hill: 

Each day, the impending electoral “blue tidal wave” gets upgraded on the Hawaiian scale of electoral wave strength. Every special election, no matter how small, is inflated to an epic scale that “spells disaster” for the president and the party he commandeered in 2016.

Just one thing stands in the way of this electoral disaster of biblical proportions.

Reality.

The writing is simply not on the wall for a Democratic blow-out. The president’s approval rating has been consistently higher than Obama enjoyed at the same point in his presidency. Economic news has been staggeringly good. The unemployment rate is at a 44-year low. The Democrats have no coherent message. The NRA is flush with cash following this year’s extremist anti-gun rhetoric. And the RNC has 40 million dollars more than the “dead broke” DNC.

Now, this is not to suggest that Republicans will make huge gains themselves. Honestly, how many more offices are left for Republicans to win? The only place where Republicans could see real growth is California, where we might not even be able to field a candidate for governor or senator.

The party’s silver lining for the Golden State is, as always, that California is the living embodiment of the failure of left-wing politics. With no grown-ups in Sacramento, California’s pain is the Republicans’ gain.

And for their electoral woes in the other 49 states, Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

The party that once genuinely championed the working-class and traditional liberal values has been hijacked by elite coastal millionaires; insane college professors; impossible-to-please social justice warriors; and an unending, unthinking mob of protesters. The Democrats’ “big tent” has become a three-ring circus.

Liberals no longer call themselves “liberal” because they have abandoned the values that word embodies: “liberty.” Instead they now use the Orwellian term “progressive.” Only what we want is progress. Those who disagree will report to the Ministry of Love for re-education.

COMMENT:  I think that says it quite well, don't you?  Rather lovely, indeed.  The numbers right now are just not going in the Dems' direction...but please note that the election is almost six months away.  That's about ten lifetimes in politics.  Republicans should run hard, as if they're 20 points behind. 

Democrats might try to come up with some ideas.  But I'm being unrealistic.

May 14, 2018       Permalink

WHAT CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:  The United States Embassy in Jerusalem opens today.  President Trump, unlike his predecessors, actually kept his promise and moved our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, not only keeping a campaign pledge, but recognizing reality.  Of course Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and has been its capital for thousands of years.

Most of the Europeans, of course, are appalled, even though they've been meeting Israeli officials in Jerusalem for decades.  The hypocrisy flows.

But it is a tragic day as well.  Although most of the Arab world appears reasonably quiet, that is not the case with the fanatical followers of the terror group Hamas, who are storming the Israeli border with firebombs and weapons.  At this writing Hamas is claiming that almost 40 have been killed.  Photographs clearly show youngsters being sent into the fight.  You have to ask what kind of movement sends young kids into a battle.  You have to ask what those kids are taught in school.

From Fox: 

At least three of the 37 Palestinians reportedly killed Monday in clashes ahead of the Jerusalem opening of the U.S. Embassy to Israel were “armed terrorists” caught trying to plant a bomb near the border fence in Gaza, Israel's military said.

Israel says more than 35,000 protesters have amassed at a dozen locations along the security fence, and the death toll in Monday’s confrontation is the highest in Gaza since a cross-border standoff between the militant group Hamas and the Jewish state began in 2014, according to the Associated Press.

“Moments ago, an IDF patrol foiled a bomb-laying attack by a cell of three armed terrorists near Rafah, close to the border,” the Israeli military said Monday. “This is a particularly violent protest point. The troops responded with fire at the terrorists. The terrorists were killed.”
Israel also said its aircraft targeted a Hamas post in Jabaliya after troops in the area came under fire. None of the Israeli soldiers were hurt.

“Rioters are hurling pipe bombs and firebombs at IDF troops, burning tires, throwing stones and burning objects, with the intention of setting fires in Israel and hurting IDF troops,” the army was quoted by The Times of Israel as saying.

A senior figure in Gaza's ruling Hamas group said Monday that the border protests will continue until Palestinians have achieved their rights.

COMMENT:  Of course, the Western left is already out with its fake anguish about the plight of the Palestinians (although the deaths of 450,000 Syrians don't interest them at all).  But it's possible that the TV pictures of fanatics charging the border with firebombs will force some people to recognize that the Palestinian "cause" has fallen into terrible hands.

May 14,  2018     Permalink

MAY 13,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:41 P.M. ET: 

THE MADNESS WATCH – FROM FOX:   A California assemblyman vehemently argued against a bill that would adopt International Workers’ Day as a paid holiday.  The bill, introduced by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D), would designate the third Monday in February "as a single school holiday to be known as 'Presidents’ Day.'"  "Are we in competition to become the laughingstock of the United States?" Assemblyman Matthew Harper (R) asked. "This is ridiculous. This is insane."  The bill would subsequently get rid of either George Washington or Abraham Lincoln's birthday as a holiday and designate May 1 as “International Workers’ Day."  International Socialist Workers' Day, or "May Day" had been observed in countries under Communist rule and was an official holiday of the Soviet Union.  "Seriously, the substitution of adding International Socialist Workers' Day? May Day? The day of parades in the Soviet Union?" Harper said.  "I'm aghast that a bill like this would be able to get through committee.”  As usual, the hard left is pushing too far.  But it's widely reported that a backlash against leftist extremism is building in many communities of California.

BEYOND THE MADNESS WATCH – FROM DAILYWIRE.COM:  A so-called "sexuality expert" and author became the subject of much-deserved mockery this week when she suggested parents and guardians ask for their baby's "consent" before a diaper change.  Deanna Carson appeared on an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News segment about "changing consent culture," when she was asked how young some of the children she works with are.  "We work with children from three years old, we work with parents from birth," she said.  "From birth?" the host reasonably inquired.  Here's where Carson turned up the insanity dial to 100: "Yeah, just about how to set up a culture of consent in their homes. So, 'I’m going to change your nappy now, is that ok?'"  What if the baby says no? 

YOU MEAN, SOMETHING WORKS? – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  Westfield State University apparently used to have a hate crime epidemic. Not any more.  After the Massachusetts school installed 400 security cameras, the weekly rate of people reporting bias and hate crimes there dropped by a whopping 93 percent.  During an 11-week period during the fall 2017 semester there were 23 incidents reported. Since the cameras were installed, there have only been three complaints.  That according to a log kept by the university that is up to date, Tricia Oliver, a spokesperson for the school, told The College Fix.  On Dec. 4, installation began, and by the time students returned from winter break in January, nearly all cameras were positioned, Oliver said via email.  The vast majority of the incidents last fall were racist notes slipped under students’ doors or left in mailboxes, as well as racist vandalism and racial slurs “overheard” by others.  Hmm.  Are you thinking what I'm thinking?  Maybe some of those reporting "bias" crimes were faking it, and now know that they'd be caught in the act. 

May 13,  2018     Permalink

A WISE SUGGESTION – AT 7:31 P.M. ET:  The president will soon be negotiating with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, a negotiation that could result in an important agreement.  Senator Lindsey Graham makes a wise suggestion about how that agreement should be considered.  From The Hill: 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday he would encourage President Trump to get Senate approval on any deal he negotiates with North Korea. 

“I would urge the president if he can negotiate an agreement with Kim Jong Un, that he takes that agreement and sends it to the Senate,” Graham said on CBS News's “Face the Nation.”

Graham's comments about a potential agreement with North Korea come as Trump prepares to meet with Kim on June 12 in Singapore. The meeting comes amid thawing relations between the two countries. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said if Kim agreed to fully dismantle his nuclear program, the U.S. could offer North Korea economic assistance in the form of sanctions relief and private capital.

“We can create conditions for real economic prosperity for the North Korean people that can rival that of the South. It won’t be U.S. taxpayers,” Pompeo said Sunday.

Graham said he believes that if North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program, “there would be a lot of support in Congress to give North Korea a better life.”

"Provide aid, relieve sanctions with one condition: that you give up your nuclear weapons program in a verifiable way," he said. "When it comes to North Korea, I think there’d be a lot of congressional support."

COMMENT:  Thoughtful words from Graham.  Yes, submit any agreement to the Senate, as prescribed in the treaty clause of the Constitution.  That is the right way to do it, a contrast with Obama's going around the Senate and making the disgraceful Iran nuclear deal an executive agreement rather than a treaty.  The executive agreement didn't bind the United States to anything once the Obama administration ended.  A treaty has the force of law and the moral force of democracy – the people's representatives in the Senate having final say over whether an agreement is put in force or not.

May 13, 2018       Permalink

MORE ON FRANCE – AT 2:06 P.M. ET:  We've gotten so used to terrorism that attacks disappear from the news in a day or so.  That's wrong.  Each attack tells us something about the worldwide threat of killing, which some day can turn into mass killing.  From AP:

PARIS (AP) — Investigators working to understand why a 20-year-old French citizen born in the Russian republic of Chechnya went on a stabbing rampage in central Paris detained the dead suspect’s parents and a friend Sunday, French officials said.

Counterterrorism investigators want to know if the assailant, identified by Chechnya’s leader as Khamzat Azimov, had help or co-conspirators. The attacker killed a 29-year-old man and wounded four other people with a knife before police fatally shot him Saturday night.

The suspect was on a police watchlist for radicalism, a judicial official not authorized to speak publicly about the case told The Associated Press. But he had a clean criminal record and did not know his victims, Interior Ministry spokesman Frederic de Lanouvelle said.

The parents were detained in Paris’ northern 18th district and the friend was detained in the eastern French city of Strasbourg on Sunday afternoon, the judicial official said.

French media reported Sunday that Azimov had lived in Strasbourg, which is 492 kilometers (306 miles) from Paris. It was unclear if he was residing with his parents in the French capital when he carried out the attack.

Witnesses reported hearing the man shouting “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great,” during the attack that happened at about 9 p.m. in a lively area near the Opera Garnier.

The Islamic State group claimed the attacker was one of its “soldiers” three hours later, but provided no evidence to back the claim or details about his identity.

The assailant was listed in a nationwide database of thousands of people suspected of links to radicalism, according to the judicial official. Extremists behind multiple attacks in France in recent years have turned out to be on the watchlist.

The official said the suspect was born in November 1997 in the largely Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya, where extremism has long simmered.

COMMENT:  Not exactly a "lone wolf," but someone who was probably radicalized years ago.  Foolish, shortsighted immigration policies have allowed many potential terrorists into France, but don't tell that to the 1930s-style French foreign ministry.

May 13, 2018       Permalink

SUPERB – AT 12:24 P.M. ET:  Sam Tanenhaus, former editor of The New York Times Book Review, has written a superb piece reminding Democrats of the aftereffects of Watergate.  The Dems love to think of the Watergate era as a sublime time, the time they brought down Richard Nixon, after failing to defeat him in an actual election.  Why, they saved the Constitution, and humankind, and...and, the Universe.

Not so fast, says Tanenhaus.  From Bloomberg:  

In the current debate, we’ve become used to these reminders that Watergate was a political story, not just a legal one. But the lessons are more numerous — and more deeply rooted — than we may think. While many Americans may be hoping for a Watergate-style salvation from Trump, think again: It helped Democrats for a total of four years but also set the stage for a powerful conservative backlash. America in 2018 looks a lot like America in the 1970s — divided, polarized, riven with tribal antagonisms.

Nixon was elected — and re-elected — in a time of bitter disagreements over wrenching issues like the Vietnam War and civil rights. His approach was to pit one group against another. This “positive polarization” exploited what his speechwriter William Safire called the “us-against-them syndrome.”

And...

... in fact there were two Watergates. One had come to an end when Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, assured the country: “Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.” This was the version later romanticized in the movie “All the President’s Men.” Its heroes were the intrepid reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. (Last year’s film “The Post” reiterated this theme.)

The second Watergate lived on for conservatives who believed it was really about what the revisionist Nixon scholar Joan Hoff has called “the insatiable desire to ‘get’ Richard Nixon on the part of a tiny group of New York and Washington reporters.”

Post-Watergate politics was, in effect, a referendum on these two competing versions. Liberals emphasized the rule of order, and the dangers of an increasingly imperial and corrupt presidency.

Conservatives argued that the country was under siege from the people who had brought Nixon down, a “new class” or “elite” who disdained the values and ideals of middle America.

And, finally...

Many of the “Watergate babies” in Congress came from affluent suburbs, where good-government issues, like campaign-finance reform, resonated. But they didn’t speak to a lot of voters, including blue-collar Democrats, who had voted for Nixon and then been slow to accept his guilt in Watergate — as had the three in four people who, in a poll published before the Senate Watergate hearings began, agreed with the statement “Nixon’s campaign people were no worse than the Democrats, except they got caught.” Carter too failed to connect with those voters.

Four years later, the Republicans roared back, led by Nixon’s staunch defender, Ronald Reagan.
In heartland districts like Michigan’s Macomb County, outside Detroit, “Reagan Democrats” rejected their old party. It happened again in 2016, when Macomb voters who had helped elect Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 switched over to Trump.

None of this is lost on Trump, who returned to Macomb for a rally on the same night that beltway journalists gathered in tuxes and evening gowns for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

This is the Watergate legacy that Democrats fear, and they have every reason to do so.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's well worth it...one of the best articles I've read recently.

May 13,  2018     Permalink