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NOVEMBER 25,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:08 P.M. ET: 

THIS MAN IS NUTS – FROM BREITBART:  Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” billionaire hedge fund manager and liberal activist Tom Steyer said President Donald Trump had already “met the grounds for impeachment.”  Partial transcript as follows:   TODD: Where would you prioritize impeachment right now for the new Democratic House? You think it’s front and center, don’t you?  STEYER: I think it’s an absolute first step to getting towards a positive vision for the country. And let me say this.  TODD: You would start with impeachment? If you with Elijah Cummings, well, he’s on Oversight. So Judiciary Committee, you would start drawing up these articles? STEYER: I think there’s no question that this president has both met the grounds for impeachment and that it’s urgent to get him out of office and everything. I was just listening to the last segment when you were talking about Saudi Arabia. Is there anybody in the United States who can tell you that the president is acting on Saudi Arabia not because the Saudis are paying him money?  Note the absolute lack of any evidence.  Who needs evidence when you're a billionaire?  I'm reminded of the old saying, "When you're rich they think you really know."  It isn't always true.

ANOTHER PERSON OF DUBIOUS STABILITY – FROM FOX:  Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted Sunday that the use of tear gas against Central American migrants who attempted to enter the U.S. illegally may have been a violation of international agreements governing the use of chemical weapons -- before he backtracked.  The Associated Press reported that U.S. agents shot several rounds of the gas after migrants tried to penetrate several points along the border at the San Ysidro border crossing between Tijuana, Mexico, and California. Migrants sought to squeeze through gaps in wire, climb over fences and peel back metal sheeting to enter.  In response to the reports, Schatz initially tweeted: "Tear gas across the border against unarmed families is a new low." Approximately 45 minutes later, Schatz tweeted: "Who gave the order? Did it implement or contravene policy?" He then tweeted "WHO GAVE THE ORDER?" in all caps.Schatz then asked: "Why tear gas? Is this consistent with the Conventions on Chemical Weapons?"  Another crazed liberal in need of medication covered by Obamacare.  He might ask who gave the order for "migrants" to charge the border.

WEDDING NEWS – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:   MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski tied the knot in a secret Saturday ceremony officiated by a top Democratic congressman in the rotunda of the National Archives.  Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., married Brzezinski, 51, and Scarborough, 55, in an intimate affair set in the historic building, according to Vanity Fair. Cummings, who is likely the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is a former colleague of Scarborough's, dating back to when the TV personality served as a Republican congressman from Florida.  The bride, wearing a lace Michelle Smith dress, met the groom in the middle of the rotunda to Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.” They then said their vows in front of a small group of family and friends, including Scarborough's four children from his two previous marriages and Brzezinski's two daughters with her ex-husband. Brzezinski’s daughter Emilie’s dog was also in attendance, providing Brzezinski’s "something blue" with the color of its leash.  How close is the media to the Democratic Party?  So close that Democratic congressmen officiate at their weddings?  I think I've seen everything.

November 25, 2018       Permalink

THE BIG WEEKEND – THE WEB TRIUMPHS – AT 2:53 P.M. ET:   Sales during this holiday weekend are critical to the nation's economy.   A first report, from Reuters: 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday kickoff of the U.S. holiday shopping season showed the increasing preference for online purchases, as more Americans opted to stay home and use their smartphones while sales and traffic at brick-and-mortar stores declined.

The ongoing shift to online shopping has forced retailers across the country to invest heavily in boosting their e-commerce businesses, and also highlights the impact of early holiday promotions and year-round deals on consumer spending.

The weekend also redefined the importance of Black Friday. For the past few years, Black Friday was believed to be waning in importance, but it is now turning into a day when shoppers do not necessarily flock to stores but spend heavily online...

...Online sales rose more than 23 percent, crossing $6 billion on Black Friday, according to data from Adobe Analytics, which tracks transactions at 80 of the top 100 U.S. retailers. On Thanksgiving, it estimated sales grew 28 percent to $3.7 billion.

Preliminary data from analytics firm RetailNext showed net sales at brick-and-mortar stores fell 4 to 7 percent over the two days, while traffic fell 5 to 9 percent, continuing the trend of recent years. No data was yet available for actual spending in stores.

And...

Retail consultants have said spending patterns over the weekend are not as indicative of the entire season as they were a few years ago the tendency now is to spread shopping over November and December.

COMMENT:  The overall comments that we've seen indicate a very solid holiday weekend in sales, but the details may have to wait for some time because of those changed spending patterns.  No one is crying.

November 25, 2018       Permalink

INCIVILITY AND ITS CAUSES – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 1:12 P.M. ET:  There is much whining about the state of civility in the United States.  Naturally, the media never blames itself for incivility, and certainly never blames its feeder system, the colleges and universities.  The great Walter Williams begs to differ.  From dailywire.com: 

Much of today's incivility and contempt for personal liberty has its roots on college campuses, and most of the uncivil and contemptuous are people with college backgrounds…

...A recent Brookings Institution poll found that nearly half of college students believe that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment. That's nonsense; it is. Fifty-one percent of college students think they have a right to shout down a speaker with whom they disagree. Nineteen percent of students think that it's acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking. Over 50 percent agree that colleges should prohibit speech and viewpoints that might offend certain people. One shouldn't be surprised at all if these visions are taught and held by many of their professors. Colleges once taught and promoted an understanding of Western culture. Today many professors and the college bureaucracy teach students that they're victims of Western culture and values.

Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech." Much later, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." From the Nazis to Stalinists to Maoists, tyrants have always started out supporting free speech, just as American leftists did during the 1960s. Their support for free speech is easy to understand. Speech is vital for the realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation. The right to say what they please is their tool for indoctrination, propagandizing and proselytization. Once the leftists gain control, as they have at many universities, free speech becomes a liability and must be suppressed. This is increasingly the case on university campuses. Much of the off-campus incivility we see today is the fruit of what a college education has done to our youth.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  We must stop thinking of education as a guaranteed positive good.  In fact, all over the world students are taught the worst ideas.  And in our country, as Walter Williams indicates, students are too often taught that the very civilization that gives them their freedoms is in fact their oppressor.

We have sent too many students to college without asking what was being taught, and who was doing the teaching.  That failure to ask may be fatal. 

November 25,  2018     Permalink

NOVEMBER 24,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET:

IT'S COME TO THIS – FROM FOX:   You’re a racist man, Charlie Brown!  Critics are slamming ABC’s “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” for seating its only black character, Franklin, alone on one side of the holiday table — in a rickety old lawn chair.  Meanwhile, white friends — including Peppermint Patty, Charlie Brown, Sally and even Snoopy — were all seated across from him in real chairs as they feasted, Twitter users pointed out.  The special, which debuted Nov. 20, 1973, aired again on Wednesday — prompting social media outrage over the gang’s highly unwoke picnic table arrangement.  “Why is Franklin in Charlie Brown Thanksgiving sitting all by himself at the table. Man. Things that I did not notice as a child,” @Asharp52 blasted on Twitter.  Others said good grief over a seating chart that would have thrilled George Wallace.  “Not watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving anymore, until they sit some people on the same side of the table as Franklin,” another critic tweeted, along with two black power-style fist emojis.
The scene in question centers on an impromptu holiday feast — of toast, jelly beans and ice cream — in Charlie Brown’s backyard.  I would suggest that critics concentrate on more significant social issues than chair placement in a cartoon.

WORD OF THE YEAR – FROM DAILYWIRE.COM:   Merriam's-Webster's dictionary says the word means:  1. containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation  2: exhibiting symptoms of infection...  3: extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful  4: relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market...So, with the way liberals and the mainstream media hate President Trump, it's not surprising that The Oxford Dictionaries has picked the Word of the Year: "Toxic."  "The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance," Oxford Dictionaries said.  Good choice.  Do our readers have other suggestions?  I'll publish them.

PROGRESS – FROM DAILY MAIL:    A medical scanner can take 3D images of the entire body at once for the first time ever.   A combination of two commonly-used scanners - positron emission tomography (PET) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) - the EXPLORER scanner offers a fascinating insight to the inner workings of the human body.    The machine produces a 3D video that could help diagnose disease, track the spread of cancer or infections, and develop new medicines by creating a whole-body diagnostic scan in 20-30 seconds.  Professors Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi, from the University of California, Davis, have spent millions of dollars and more than a decade building the machine.  'While I had imagined what the images would look like for years, nothing prepared me for the incredible detail we could see on that first scan,' Professor Cherry said.  The EXPLORER works using radiation, and is a combination of a PET scan and CT scan, both of which are used every day in healthcare around the world.  If only it could produce a 3D image of the inner workings of the Clinton Foundation.  We await that.

November 24, 2018       Permalink

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THESE DEMOCRATS? – AT 2:22 P.M. ET:  I don't get it.  We are seeing vague signs of maturity, of realism, of...sanity.  Is this the Democratic Party we know? 

Look who's changing this time?  Why, it's...it's...John Kerry.  Mr. Diplomacy.  From American Thinker:

It’s starting to look like some members of the Democrat establishment understand that open borders is a losing issue. It would be too dangerous to take on the issue domestically, so acknowledging that Europe is being harmed by mass immigration/asylum and turning to politicians who will control the borders is a first step. When Hillary Clinton warned of the danger of Europe turning to populists in order to stop the influx, it was startling. But now, it is a trend.

John Kerry has joined fellow failed presidential nominee Clinton in warning Europe that its refugee policies have been a disaster. Ryan Saavedra reports in the Daily Wire:

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry admitted last week during a trip to Europe that the continent has been "crushed" by a transformation that has taken place due to immigration.

Kerry made the remarks while speaking at a Guardian Live event at Central Hall in London where he weighed in on a number of issues and also used the opportunity to bash President Donald Trump.

"Europe is already crushed under this transformation that is taking place due to migration," Kerry said. "In Germany, Angela Merkel is weakened. Italian politics is significantly impacted."

Illegal immigration is currently the top concern of Americans. While the radical wing of the Democrats is explicitly in favor of open borders, the issue drives support to Republicans in key states. It is possible that the old guard of the Democrats is citing Europe and urging border control there as a means of opening the issue for debate in choosing the 2020 nominee.

COMMENT:  Man, that is weird.  John Kerry warning about open borders.  What's next – a call for a strong national defense?  No, never.  Not that crowd.

November 24, 2018       Permalink

THEY'RE RIOTING IN PARIS, AND IT'S SERIOUS – AT 1:34 P.M. ET:   We've had hints in recent months that the French government is becoming increasingly unstable.   President Macron makes Donald Trump look loved. 

Now, discontent is pouring into the streets.  As is usual with these things, it took one issue to trigger the chaos.  From Fox:

Thousands of French protesters flooded the nation’s capital Saturday to demonstrate against President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial fuel tax increase -- clashing with policies as they called for Macron’s resignation.

The angry clashes, both in Paris and other towns and cities across the country, marks the eighth day of “yellow jacket” protests against the tax, but have also come to encompass a growing anger against Macron and the French ruling class -- seen by many as out of touch.

The yellow jackets have become a uniform of sorts for the protesters, originating from the neon yellow jackets French drivers are required to keep in their vehicles.

Authorities said that at least 8,000 protesters flooded the Champs-Elysees in Paris alone, with 81,000 protesters in total nationwide compared to 244,000 last Saturday. Police deployed some 3,000 security forces after an attempt to march on the Elysee Palace last week.

Police used smoke, tear gas and even a water cannon to try and disperse the protesters. , Le Monde reported.

Officials said that a no-go zone, set up around key areas including the presidential palace and the National Assembly on the Left Bank of the Seine River, has not been breached.

At least eight people, including two police officers, were injured, while dozens of protesters were detained, including for throwing projectiles.

In La Madeleine, an area filled with luxury brand shops popular with tourists, businesses shut down due to the protests.

Demonstrators created a fire barricade and began chanting “Macron resign!” when tear gas was launched at them, sparking a brief dash. Thick black smoke was billowing into the sky and the area was completely shut down.

COMMENT:  President Macron was recently noticed giving a lecture to President Trump on the subject of nationalism.  He might have attended to business.

This story is likely to grow. 

November 24,  2018      Permalink