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OCTOBER 19,  2017

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

PRESIDENT DOWN – FROM RASMUSSEN REPORTS:  The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 41% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-seven percent (57%) disapprove.  The latest figures include 25% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 47% who Strongly Disapprove.   Trump was at 46% in the Rasmussen poll just two weeks ago.  Obviously, there's been slippage, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly why.  Mr. Trump will never catch a break from the media, and he must avoid the unforced errors, especially in public statements, that add to his problems. 

A DISGRACEFUL IDIOT – FROM DAILY CALLER:   Democratic Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson is laughing and bragging after White House chief of staff John Kelly said he was “stunned” Thursday that Wilson criticized President Donald Trump’s call to the widow of a dead soldier.  “You mean to tell me that I’ve become so important…that the White House is following me and my words? This is amazing. That’s amazing. That is absolutely phenomenal. I’ll have to tell my kids that I’m a rock star now,” Wilson told Miami Fox affiliate WSVN-TV, while laughing.  What a total jerk.  She's talking about the death of an American soldier.  But it's all about her.

THE HYPOCRISY TRAIN ROARS ON – FROM PAGE SIX:  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — having removed Harvey Weinstein — is now under pressure to boot Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby and other members who have been charged with and/or convicted of serious crimes.  While Weinstein has denied ever forcing himself on women and has not been arrested for anything, Polanski was convicted in 1977 of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.  The academy proceeded to nominate Polanski for Best Director two more times and gave him the Oscar in 2003 for his Holocaust film, “The Pianist.”  Cosby, accused by more than 50 women, was tried for sexual assault earlier this year in Pennsylvania. The trial ended with a hung jury, but he faces a retrial next spring.   It's so phony.  If these men deserved punishment, they deserved it years ago.  Why were they not punished by the industry?  Because there was no pressure to do so.  Now the heat is on.  Next year the heat will be off.  And the creeps will come back out of the woodwork.  I've worked in Hollywood.  There are many fine people in the business, but there too many who'd lie about what they had for lunch. 

October 19, 2017       Permalink

MAJOR ADVANCE IN EDUCATION – AT 2:31 P.M. ET:  We announce a major breakthrough in protecting students from undue stress.  From the Independent: 

Academics have criticised "trigger warnings" after Cambridge University students were warned about "potentially distressing topics" in plays by Shakespeare. 

English literature undergraduates were apparently cautioned that a lecture focusing on Titus Andronicus and The Comedy of Errors would include "discussions of sexual violence" and "sexual assault". 

According to The Telegraph, the trigger warnings were posted in the English Faculty's 'Notes on Lectures' document which is circulated to students at the university. 

Academics have expressed concern that colleges trying to protect young adults from certain issues may render them incapable of dealing with real life when they graduate. 

Supporters of trigger warnings say they serve to help students who may be upset if a text reminds them of a personal traumatic experience. 

However critics such as Mary Beard, a Professor of Classics at Cambridge, say allowing students to avoid learning about traumatic episodes of history and literature is "fundamentally dishonest".

Beard said previously: "We have to encourage students to be able to face that, even when they find they're awkward and difficult for all kinds of good reasons."

COMMENT:  At least there are some thoughtful professors fighting back against political correctness, but there aren't enough of them.,

October 19, 2017       Permalink

A NEW, SHARP WARNING – AT 11:16 A.M. ET:  Severe terror warnings are being issued by Britain and the United States.  From the Telegraph: 

Islamic State and other terrorist groups are planning to target aircraft as they aim to carry out another major attack on the scale of 9/11, a top US security official has said. 

Elaine Duke, acting US Homeland Security Secretary, said the groups were using smaller attacks to raise money and “keep their members engaged”.   

“The threat is still severe,” she said in London after meeting Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

“The terrorist organisations, be it Isis or al-Qaeda or others, want to have the big explosion like they did on 9/11. They want to take down aircraft, the intelligence is clear on that."

Britain and Europe have seen a string of crude attacks, from the ramming and stabbing attack on London Bridge to the homemade bomb in Manchester. 

“In the interim they need to keep their finances flowing and they need to keep their visibility high and they need to keep their members engaged, so they are using small plots and they are happy to have small plots,” Ms Duke said. 

“Creating terror is their goal. A bladed weapon attack causes terror and continues to disrupt the world but that does not mean they have given up on a major aviation plot.”

Ms Duke said the US and Britain would push social media firms at a meeting of G7 interior ministers this week to do more to tackle online militant material.

COMMENT:  It's not if, but when.  Are we ready?  Probably not.  Democracies are almost never ready.  If the Democrats get control of the federal government again, we certainly won't be ready.  And any terror attack will never be described honestly if the Dems are in power.  Remember that the terror attack at Fort Hood, carried out by a Muslim Army doctor, was described by the Obama administration as "workplace violence."   That's the party line.

We must prepare for another 9-11.  We must also prepare for the probability that terror groups in the future will have weapons of mass destruction.

October 19, 2017       Permalink

GETTING HOT – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  The economy is heating up.  If good tax legislation is passed, it will get even better.  From Bloomberg: 

Filings for unemployment benefits plunged last week to the lowest level since 1973 as workers affected by hurricanes Harvey and Irma continued to return to their jobs, Labor Department figures showed Thursday.

The larger-than-projected decrease in claims probably reflected difficulty adjusting for the Columbus Day holiday. At the same time, the report showed further declines in claims in hurricane- affected states. The storms initially led to a spike in applications in Texas and the southeastern U.S. in late August and early September.

The latest period also encompasses the reporting week that the Labor Department surveys for its October employment figures. Claims are at the lowest level in more than four decades, indicating employers have little desire to cut staffing levels amid a shortage of qualified workers.

COMMENT:  That's good.  It reflects confidence in the economic environment.  Despite Trump's relative unpopularity, business people – those who do the hiring – seem to have confidence in his economic leadership. 

A good tax bill will work wonders.  So will demonstrated success in bringing manufacturing jobs back to America.

October 19,  2017     Permalink

OCTOBER 18,  2017

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

THE WORLD WE'VE CREATED – FROM STUDYFINDS:   NEW YORK — If the emoji movie wasn’t symbolic enough of today’s youth, perhaps this will rattle your foundation: A new survey finds that 7 in 10 millennials and the younger Gen Z prefer to communicate digitally — mostly by text message — than in person.  Researchers at LivePerson, a business solutions provider, polled more than 4,000 young adults under between age 18 and 34 in a handful of Western nations, helping them discover the priorities and preferences of today’s millennials and Gen Z.  Globally, 65 percent of those surveyed indicated they talk to peers more frequently via texting or a mobile, but that number is even higher in English-speaking nations. In both the United States and in the United Kingdom, about 74 percent of millennials and Gen Z communicate digitally more frequently with others.  I'm not so sure I like this new world.  What comes next?  Movies where the characters never talk, but just text each other?

OUR FISCAL MESS – FROM CNS:   Real per capita federal spending has increased more than sevenfold since fiscal 1941, which concluded on June 30 of that year — or about five months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  In fiscal 1941, real per capita federal spending was approximately $1,718. In fiscal 2017, which concluded at the end of September, it was about $12,239.  Back in 1941, at the beginning of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's unprecedented third presidential term, the federal government spent $13,653,000,000, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Although that was a massive increase from the $4,598,000,000 the federal government had spent in 1933, when Roosevelt first took office, it was a pittance compared to what it would spend in the years to come.  What a fiscal legacy we're leaving to the next generation.    And the Democrats want more money for government, not less.

CANADA ACTS ON MASKING – FROM THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL:   Quebec has adopted a law that will force people to show their faces when taking the bus or borrowing a book from the library, pushing ahead with legislation that is being criticized for targeting Muslim Canadian women.  Bill 62, which the Justice Minister described as a North American first, requires one's face to be uncovered when giving or receiving public services. The law marks the outcome of a contentious, decade-long debate about the place of religious minorities in Quebec.  Details of how the law would apply have yet to be worked out, but critics are concerned it will empower civil servants such as front-line hospital workers to refuse service to a woman in a niqab or burka.  The law is appropriate.  Respect for religion can be shown, and should be, but governments have a legitimate need to see someone's face.  Identification is important, especially in law enforcement, and masking has a bad history in Western societies.  When in Rome...

October 18, 2017       Permalink

OH COME ON – AT 11:27 A.M. ET:  As the late Jimmy Durante used to say, "Everybody wants to get into the act."  The Hollywood Weinstein case is the latest act, and everybody wants to get into it.  From Fox: 

Harvey Weinstein may face criminal charges.

The Los Angeles City Attorney urged any of the women who say they were sexually assaulted by the disgraced movie mogul to come forward.

"The Weinstein allegations have placed a bright spotlight on sexual harassment and sexual abuse, especially in the workplace," LA City Attorney Mike Feuer said in a statement on Tuesday. "As brave victims come forward, others have been encouraged to do the same. And our nation must now confront these significant issues in a profound way."

Feuer said it takes "tremendous courage for women and men" to share their stories of sexual harassment or abuse and said it is a major issue not only in Hollywood, but across all industries.
He said he is taking the allegations "very seriously" and "where the facts support conviction, we will prosecute."

COMMENT:   Oh the anguish, oh the outrage, oh the shock.  So the L.A. city attorney, whose beat covers the movie industry, never had any inkling of what was going on?  I'd love to see the names on his campaign donor list.  Probably reads like film credits. 

There are real, serious issues here.  And a lot of unserious phonies who are exploiting them.

October 18, 2017       Permalink

A VICTORY – AT 11:06 A.M. ET:  We are winning the war on the battlefield against ISIS.  Our victories have been dramatically accelerated since President Trump and Secretary of Defense Mattis took office.  From IBD: 

Nine months after President Trump promised to defeat ISIS "quickly and effectively," U.S.-backed forces captured Raqqa, which until Tuesday had served as the ISIS capital. The battle now is over who deserves credit: Trump or President Obama.

Trump, not surprisingly, claims it for himself: "It had to do with the people I put in and it had to do with rules of engagement," Trump said in a radio interview.

Before dismissing this as typical Trump self-aggrandizement, consider that for several years Obama insisted that a quick and decisive victory against ISIS was all but impossible.

After belittling ISIS as a "JV" team and then being surprised by its advances, Obama finally got around to announcing a strategy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the militant Islamic group.

As his strategy dragged on and seemed to go nowhere, Obama kept telling the country that this was just the nature of the beast.

"It will take time to eradicate a cancer like (ISIS). It will take time to root them out."

"This is a long-term and extremely complex challenge."...

...And he kept insisting that winning the war against ISIS has as much to do with public relations as it did weapons. "This broader challenge of countering extremism is not simply a military effort. Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas."

What Obama didn't say is that reason defeating ISIS was taking so long was of how he was fighting it.

COMMENT:  That is correct.  It is the changes Trump made that led to victory.  Read the whole piece.  It shows the difference between a wandering non-leader without enthusiasm and a real, if imperfect, leader who has the will to win.

October 18, 2017       Permalink

SCANDAL, SCANDAL – AT 10:37 A.M. ET:  Let's see if the GOP can hang onto this for more than two days.  If what's reported is true, this is a giant Obama-era scandal.  From the New York Post: 

The Obama administration knew that Russia had used bribery, kickbacks and extortion to get a stake in the US atomic energy industry — but cut deals giving Moscow control of a large chunk of the US uranium supply anyway, according to a report Tuesday.

The FBI used a confidential US witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed the Kremlin had compromised an American uranium trucking company, The Hill reported.

Executives at the company, Transport Logistics International, kicked back about $2 million to the Russians in exchange for lucrative no-bid contracts — a scheme that violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the report said.

The feds also learned that Russian nuclear officials had gotten millions of dollars into the US designed to benefit the Clinton Foundation at the same time then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government committee that signed off on the deals, sources told The Hill.

The racketeering operation was conducted “with the consent of higher-level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, an agent later stated in an affidavit.

But the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder did not bring charges in the case prior to the deals being cut.

COMMENT:  Well of course Holder didn't bring charges.  The Justice Department under Eric Holder was entirely politicized.

This is worthy of a major Congressional investigation, with Holder and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifying.  Even Barack Obama could be called to testify.

In any decent legal universe, criminal charges might be involved.

That is, if the Republicans have the stomach for real political combat.  Remains to be seen.

October 18,  2017     Permalink