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NOVEMBER 8,  2017

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

NO SURPRISE HERE – FROM NEWSBUSTERS:  Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner reports a new poll shows more voters than not find the Big Three network newscasts and the nation’s three largest liberal newspapers “untrustworthy.”   The latest Zogby poll asked: “Compared to four years ago, how trustworthy do you think the mainstream media is? When we say mainstream media, we mean network newscasts – NBC, CBS, and ABC, along with large newspapers such as the New York Times, L.A. Times, and Washington Post?”  The results? Forty-eight percent believe these outlets are untrustworthy while 45 percent said they did trust them. The rest were unsure. The chart showed it broke down to 17.3 percent picked “very trustworthy” and 28 percent said “somewhat trustworthy, while 21.2 percent selected “somewhat untrustworthy” and 26.3 percent insisted they were “not at all trustworthy.”...Two-thirds of Democrats say they trust the media.  Sixty-nine percent of Republicans don’t trust the networks and three newspapers.  The major media must now be considered a branch of the Democratic Party. 

THE PRESIDENT IN CHINA – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Chinese President Xi Jinping and wife Madame Peng Liyuan rolled out the red carpet for Donald and Melania Trump on Thursday morning in an official welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.  Trumpets blared and a military band played the U.S. and Chinese national anthems as a ceremonial cannon fired shots in Tiananmen Square.
Presidents Trump and Xi will participate in several hours of official talks, then deliver a joint press statement. A state dinner is on the agenda for this evening, complete with a cultural performance.   I'm linking this basic story so you can scroll down through the photos, and see the magnificent reception the president and first lady received.  A very big deal it was, and Melania Trump was magnificent as usual.  The closest I ever came to this was some good local takeout, duck sauce included.

IS FOOTBALL DOOMED? – FROM USA TODAY:  As far as longtime sports broadcaster Bob Costas is concerned, the future of football in the United States is clear — and bleak.  “The reality is that this game destroys people’s brains," he said Tuesday night.  Speaking at a roundtable discussion at the University of Maryland, Costas, who hosted Football Night in America on NBC for more than a decade, said the sport could collapse over time, barring a development in technology to make it reasonably safe. He said the decline of football, which was once “a cash machine,” is the most significant story in American sports.
“The cracks in the foundation are there,” Costas said. “The day-to-day issues, as serious as they may be, they may come and go. But you cannot change the nature of the game. I certainly would not let, if I had an athletically gifted 12- or 13-year-old son, I would not let him play football.”  I hear that same comment all the time from parents.  And I knew a Miami Dolphins star who later turned against the game for the same medical reasons.  Also, in the last few years the NFL has become racially charged, further damaging the image of football.  I'm afraid the Costas assessment is correct.   

November 8,  2017      Permalink

AND IN THE REAL WORLD – AT 1:14 P.M. ET:  The war against terror continues, as we await the next incident in America.  From The Local:   

Nine suspects were arrested in a series of anti-terror operations carried out around France on Tuesday, with French media reporting a planned attack on the city of Nice had been thwarted.

The raids took place in the greater Paris region of Île-de-France and the Provence-Alpes-Côtes-d'Azur region of the south east.

According to reports some nine individuals aged between 18 and 60-years-old were arrested in the raids carried out by France's specialist counter-terrorist police.

The arrests were reportedly made in the Val-de-Marne department to the south west of Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis to the capital's north, the city of Aix-en Provence, north of Marseille and the town of Menton, on the border with Italy.

Those held included two brothers who were known to have been radicalised, sources told AFP.

An arrest was also made in Switzerland which brought the total number of suspects held to 10.

The 27-year-old man arrested in Switzerland was in contact with a 14-year-old French boy who was "about to carry out the attack," one of the sources said.

The teenager was arrested in the Paris region on June 20 and charged by an anti-terror judge, the sources said.

COMMENT:  At least the Trump administration takes it seriously.  Compare please to Obama's description of terrorism as "manmade disasters."

November 8, 2017        Permalink

DON'T CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINNY – AT 10:49 A.M. ET:  Let the explaining begin.  Let the excuses fly.  And let us change the channel.

We got beat in Virginia.  That's it.  The geniuses, who are only geniuses after the election, will be "analyzing" the statistics for weeks.  Bottom line:  This was a wake-up call to the Republicans, stating bluntly that they can lose the House next year, and possibly the Senate, setting up an almost certain impeachment of the president.  Never mind that there probably won't be any legal grounds for impeachment.  The left-wing bar will invent some.

Many of the analyses seem to fall short.  Virginia really isn't one state.  It's now several, with dramatically different cultures.  If truth be told, the Virginia suburbs around Washington D.C. are far more similar to the suburbs around New York than they are to the towns of the Old South.  Virginia was the only Southern state to go for Clinton last year.  So the Democratic victory wasn't so shocking, although the nine-point margin was not expected.

Doug Schoen, a lifelong Democrat but a critic of the current party, offers some light, noting that the incoming governor, Ralph Northam, is from the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, not the nutbag wing which is rapidly taking over the national organization.  From Fox: 

Most encouragingly, Northam campaigned on a moderate platform and offered the type of alternative agenda that the Democratic party must advance in order to succeed in 2018 and beyond.

To be sure, this victory alone does not change the disorder that was made abundantly clear in Donna Brazile’s recent revelations about the relationship between the DNC and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Throughout the course of the Virginia campaign, Northam was never beholden to the Democratic party’s loudest, most liberal voices, as evidenced by his shift on sanctuary cities just last week. In fact, he defeated the progressive base’s preferred choice in the June primary.

Northam put forward a well-structured economic plan, involving job training and re-training, as well as advancing the Democratic party’s tradition values in the areas of women’s issues and gun violence prevention.

COMMENT:  I doubt if the national Dems will learn anything from the Virginia race.  They're going headlong into building a hard-left party that will try to remove a president. 

But Republicans must now start building a record that they can take to the people in next year's midterms.  Virginia may be just what the GOP needed to wake it from its slumber.

November 8, 2017        Permalink

TRUMPIAN SPEECH – AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  President Trump, now in China, made a superb speech to the South Korean legislature last night, earning two standing ovations.  He pulled no punches, he sugar-coated nothing.  He made clear he was not Barack Obama.  From CNN: 

Seoul (CNN) Standing near the front line of the world's tensest standoff, President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a direct and personal warning to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, declaring during his first major speech in Asia that continued nuclear provocation could result in the communist nation's obliteration.

"The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger," Trump said during an address at South Korea's National Assembly in Seoul. "Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face."

In a bruising insult of the repressive regime founded by Kim Il-sung in the middle of last century and governed in his image ever since, Trump diminished the kingdom now ruled by his grandson.
"North Korea is not the paradise your grandfather envisioned," he said. "It is a hell that no person deserves."

It was a frank and cutting personal insult directed at the man who Trump has previously derided as "rocket man." He avoided that term on Wednesday, but was unsparing in his description of a failed state where the majority of citizens live in misery.

And while Trump similarly avoided his prior threats to rain "fire and fury" on North Korea should their nuclear threats persist, he was unequivocal in his vows to counter provocations with military force.

"That would be a fatal miscalculation," he said of North Korean threats to strike the US and its allies. "This a very different administration than the United States has had in the past. Do not underestimate us. And do not try us."

COMMENT:  Take that, John Kerry.  And you too, Barack.  It was wise for Trump to maintain his hard line and not to, in the words of Maggie Thatcher, "go wobbly."  North Korea is a direct threat, through its nuclear and missile programs, to the United States.

The president is now in China, the most critical part of his Asia trip.  He wants concessions from China on trade policy, but also wants the Chinese to apply more heat on North Korea.  This is an uphill climb, as China increasingly sees itself as a great world power in competition with the United States.  If Trump can get something substantial out of the Chinese, it would have to be considered a major accomplishment in foreign policy.  Whether it will be reported that way is a different story.

November 8,  2017     Permalink 

NOVEMBER 7,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:55 P.M. ET: 

GRIM IN VIRGINIA – Not a good night for our side.  With a larger-than-expected margin, Ralph Northam has defeated Republican Ed Gillespie for the Virginia governorship. With 99 percent of the vote in, Northam has 53.6 percent and Gillespie 45.2 percent, an 8.4-point spread.  The final polls showed Northam with about a 3-5-point lead.   Hillary Clinton carried Virginia a year ago by about 5 points.  Thus, Northam bested Hillary.  Most analysts attributed Northam's victory to the huge number of government workers living in northern Virginia, near Washington, and the African-American vote.  However, the usual suspects, led by The New York Times, are playing it as a YUGE defeat for President Trump.

AND THE GRIMLY EXPECTED – New York City's profoundly leftist Mayor Bill de Blasio, lover of Castro, support of the Sandinistas, was easily re-elected tonight, giving him four more years to do nothing of value.  After that he's term-limited.  As usual, the Republicans barely ran a mayoral campaign in the heavily Democratic city.  For a Republican to win, he literally must take over the party himself.  The last pure Republican to win the mayoralty was Rudy Giuliani, who became a truly great mayor and showed that crime could be confronted and defeated.   His successor, the very capable Mike Bloomberg, had no lasting party affiliation, and could best be described as a moderate.  De Blasio could have been beaten by a strong Republican with an imaginative platform, but the Republican Party in New York couldn't be bothered.

A NEEDED APOLOGY – FROM BREITBART:   Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times columnist and cartoonist David Horsey apologized to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday, after publishing an article in which he mocked her appearance, calling her a “slightly chunky soccer mom.”
Horsey’s “body-shaming” took up the first two full paragraphs of his column, which went on to accuse Sanders of lying on behalf of President Donald Trump.  Breitbart News highlighted the column on Friday morning, and Fox News made inquiries to the Times. On Friday afternoon, those paragraphs had been removed from the article, and replaced by an apology from Horsey:  "I want to apologize to Times readers — and to Sarah Huckabee Sanders — for a description that was insensitive and failed to meet the standards of our newspaper. It also failed to meet the expectations I have for myself. It surely won’t be my last mistake, but this particular error will be scrupulously avoided in my future commentaries. I’ve removed the offending description."  Even liberal journalists can occasionally do the right thing.  Savor the moment.

November 7, 2017       Permalink

I AM SHOCKED, SHOCKED, THAT THIS GOES ON – AT 2:47 P.M. ET:  You mean to tell me that there are evil doings at CNN?  Shame on you.  Shame on you!  Show respect!  From Daily Caller: 

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson reported Monday that according to sources, CNN had reporters discredit former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile over her revelations that made Hillary Clinton look bad.

Carlson said, “According to highly informed sources we spoke to–highly informed–top management at CNN directed its employees to undermine Brazile’s credibility. Anchors and producers were vocally offended by her attacks on their friends, the Clintons. If you’ve been watching that channel, you may have noticed CNN’s anchors suggesting that Donna Brazile cannot be trusted, precisely because she took part in efforts to break the primaries for Clinton.”

The Daily Caller co-founder then played a clip of CNN hosts trying to make Brazile look bad over her sharing a primary debate question with Clinton’s campaign, which he compared to political talking points.

Tucker also revealed that Brazile will join him on Wednesday to talk more about the DNC.
The former DNC interim chair revealed in Politico last week that the Clinton campaign had a fundraising agreement with the DNC long before it was clear she would be the nominee, a move that many saw as tipping the scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders.

COMMENT:  It is getting messy, but you may be sure that the most powerful elements of the mainstream media will do their job for the Clinton interests.

CNN clearly has a corporate party line, and enforces it.  It is the anti-Trump network, and the pro-Clinton network.  It's also boring.

November 7, 2017       Permalink

TREMORS IN SAUDI – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:   What is happening in Saudi Arabia is critically important.  The tremors are getting louder, as the Saudi government consolidates its power, moves toward real reform, and tries to suppress the opposition.  From Daily Mail: 

A Saudi prince is thought to have been killed in a firefight while resisting arrest as part of the kingdom's anti-corruption purge. 

It comes just 24 hours after another of Riyadh's royals died in a helicopter crash along with government ministers. 

Local media in the Gulf are reporting Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd, 44, was shot dead by authorities trying to arrest him as part of the anti-corruption sweep. 

Former FBI special agent Ali H Soufan announced on Twitter the son of the late King Fahd had died on Sunday.

It was also reported in The Duran, who said Prince Abdul Aziz was 'deeply involved' in Saudi Oger Ltd, a company that was once owned by the family of Saad Hariri who resigned as Lebanese Prime Minister on the weekend. 

The company ceased trading in the summer, fuelling speculation the Saudis forced Hariri to quit. 

If confirmed, Prince Abdul will be the second royal in the kingdom to die in 24 hours. 

A helicopter carrying a high-ranking Saudi prince and other government officials crashed Sunday in the kingdom's south, reportedly killing all eight people aboard.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said early Monday that the crash happened in Saudi Arabia's Asir province as the official took part in a tour of local projects near Abha, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the border with Yemen. 

The Saudi-owned satellite news channel Al-Arabiya, based in Dubai, reported that the crash killed Prince Mansour bin Muqrin and seven others. 

COMMENT:  Well, it's not exactly "Lawrence of Arabia," but it's something.  We haven't head this kind of upheaval in Saudi Arabia in my memory.  Saudi Arabia is also a bulwark against Iran.  And there are reports of cooperation, though discreet, between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Watch the story carefully.  If Saudi Arabia can be at least somewhat Westernized, and effective against Iran, it can be a major development in preventing further Iranian influence in the Mideast.

November 7, 2017        Permalink

VIRGINIA TODAY – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  Virginia elects a governor today.  It will be the most watched election this year.   The Dem candidate has a slight polling lead going into the vote, but there is a chance for an upset.  From RealClearPolitics:

Voters in Virginia and New Jersey head to the polls Tuesday to choose new governors in the first statewide elections since Donald Trump won the presidency. With Democrats expected to pick up the New Jersey seat, all eyes are on swing state Virginia for clues about the political climate ahead of next year’s midterms.

Polling shows a tight race between Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie in the final hours of a contentious and divisive campaign. The RCP average shows Northam with a 3.3 percentage-point edge, narrow enough for Democrats to be concerned that complacency among their ranks could limit turnout and harm their chances.

Virginia was one of the few bright spots for the party last year, as it was the only Southern state Hillary Clinton carried. The Democratic nominee won the Old Dominion by five points, and President Trump remains unpopular there. Former President Obama won Virginia twice. Current Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is term-limited, has been touting the state’s low unemployment rate and economic successes. And voters in the past few off-year elections there have tended to back the gubernatorial candidate from the opposite party of the president, with McAuliffe as a recent exception.

Yet even with these advantages, the race has become too close for comfort for Democrats, who are eager to secure a victory this year after a handful of special election House losses. Failure to capitalize on favorable conditions and hold on to the seat could portend trouble ahead for the party.

And...

“Virginia is this unique warning system for what direction the country is headed as we approach the midterms, and it will do that again,” says Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist with Virginia ties. “The state is such a petri dish of voters. It has a little bit everything.”

COMMENT:  We may get some reporting on turnout during the day.  The Dems must turn out their voters in northern Virginia, dominated by federal government employees who work in Washington, and in the African-American wards in cities like Norfolk and Richmond.  The GOP must drive its vote in the rest of the state.

November 7,  2017     Permalink