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OCTOBER 25,  2017

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

VISITORS – FROM BBC:   At least 5,600 supporters of so-called Islamic State (IS) have returned to their home countries as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria, a new report says.  The Soufan Center, a US-based think tank, says 33 states have reported arrivals in the past two years.  The figure includes half of the estimated 850 people who left the UK.  The report says the returnees - most of whom are imprisoned or disappear from view - will continue to present a security challenge for years to come.   At least, under Trump, this is being taken more seriously.  And you can take it seriously, at the risk of being called a racist.

DEEP THINKING IN UNIVERSITIES – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A Christian student leader is demanding an apology after a poster distributed by Kent State University asked if stating “You need Jesus“ could qualify as hate speech.  The public university’s Center for Student Involvement created and circulated the poster on Twitter last week. It was designed to promote an event on free speech issues as part of Kent State’s KENTTalks, which are intended to “provide a safe place for discussions and transformational experiences for our student body” and promote “civil discourse.”  Silhouetted activists on the posters hold a range of placards with messages, overlaid with the rhetorical question “free speech or hate speech?” Alongside provocative expressions including “No More Gays,” “Women Need To Serve Their Man” and “Build a Wall,” the fourth placard bears a nonviolent, basic expression of the Christian faith: “You need Jesus.”  One of the great myths is that universities are places of great intellect and thought.  Not always, my friend.  Maybe sometimes.  A little.

TALK ABOUT MISPLACED PRIORITIES – FROM USA TODAY:   Kellogg's will be redesigning Corn Pops cereal boxes after a complaint about racially insensitive art on the packaging.  The Battle Creek, Michigan-based cereal and snack maker said on Twitter Wednesday it will replace the cover drawing of cartoon characters shaped like corn kernels populating a shopping mall. The corn pop characters are shown shopping, playing in an arcade or frolicked in a fountain. One skateboards down an escalator.  What struck Saladin Ahmed was that a single brown corn pop was working as a janitor operating a floor waxer. Ahmed, current writer of Marvel Comics' Black Bolt series and author of 2012 fantasy novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, took to Twitter on Tuesday to ask, "Why is literally the only brown corn pop on the whole cereal box the janitor?  This is teaching kids racism."  Okay, change the cereal box, but it won't save a single black life in Chicago.  Poor sense of priority.

October 25,  2017     Permalink

THE REAL POLITICS OF HATE – AT 1:47 P.M. ET:  And, naturally, the story deals with a college campus, a very unsafe place for many students today.  From Fox:   

The leader of a College Republican group in New York City said he felt like there was "a target on my safety" after an Antifa group distributed pictures and personal information about all of the group's members, imploring opponents to let them know "what you think."

The flyers – spread online and littered around the Columbia University campus as early as Friday, ahead of an event with right-leaning political blogger Michael Cernovich – identified the board members of the Columbia University College Republicans student group.

“It’s crazy,” Ari Boosalis, CUCR president, told Fox News on Tuesday. “It put a target on my safety.”

A financial economics student at Columbia, Boosalis said the “doxing” – a practice of publishing personal information online, typically with a malicious intent – is just the latest string of harassment he has encountered this semester since it was announced that several right-leaning speakers had been invited to campus.

The harassment came via Twitter and LinkedIn and not only targeted Boosalis but also the other members of the CUCR board.

“I am the face of the [CUCR] and I can take whatever they say,” he said. “You can slander me, you can attack me all you want, and I can take it.”

He added: “But it’s going to other board members in smaller roles. That’s different level.”

COMMENT:  This is the classic "chilling effect."  How many students will want to get involved with College Republicans if they risk "doxing."  It's the same as the old McCarthyite technique of "naming names," except this involves real physical threats.

But in the eyes of the mainstream media, the real threats are coming from the right.  They are not.

October 25, 2017       Permalink

IN THE REAL WORLD – AT 12:55 P.M. ET:   The president is going to Asia for conferences.  The 900-pound gorilla in the room will be North Korea.  This president, unlike the last one, is bringing with him real military power, a demonstration of force signaling to the Koreans that we have the strength to back up our words.  From Fox: 

A third U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group entered the western Pacific, the Navy announced Wednesday, just days ahead of President Donald Trump’s first trip to Asia next month.

The USS Nimitz joined the Roosevelt and Reagan in the region. The Nimitz announcement came a day after the Roosevelt entered the western Pacific.

The deployments came as U.S., Japanese and South Korean maritime forces were conducting a trilateral exercise aimed at improving ballistic missile defenses.

On Monday, Japan's defense minister asserted that North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities had grown to an "unprecedented, critical and imminent" level, requiring "different responses." 

The minister, Itsunori Onodera, said the rising threat compels his country to endorse the U.S. view that "all options" must be considered, which Trump has said includes possible military action.

Japan was alarmed by North Korea twice launching ballistic missiles over Japanese territory, in August and in September.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis slammed Pyongyang for defying U.N. Security Council resolutions against its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

"North Korea's provocations threaten regional and global security," he said.

COMMENT:  President Trump is left with a problem caused by his predecessors, who simply kicked the can down the road when North Korea ignored agreements and built its nuclear and missile programs.  At some point we will have to take effective action to terminate those programs, or accept unstable North Korea as a nuclear power.

October 25, 2017       Permalink

HOW BIG A DEAL IS THIS? – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  It's huge, as they say, if the Republicans know how to handle it.  And it's huge if our attorney general gets on the stick and pursues it.  From The Washington Post (strangely) via the Seattle Times: 

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.

Marc Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C., firm, to conduct the research. Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community.

Elias and his law firm, Seattle-based Perkins Coie, retained the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’ research into Trump was funded by a still unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’ research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.

COMMENT:  This is only the surface.  Only one of the Democratic scandals to bubble up in recent days.  Another deals with the fact that Russia controls 20% of American uranium because of a deal made during the Obama administration.  And those who pushed for the deal made massive contributions to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

Watch carefully over the coming weeks to see if these scandals go front and center, or whether they're buried.  The Republicans have the ball.  We're looking at their offense.

October 25,  2017     Permalink

OCTOBER 24,  2017

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

GREATEST SCANDAL IN HISTORY – FROM DAILY MAIL:  An actress alleged that President George H.W. Bush 'sexually assaulted' her and touched her from behind while in his wheelchair, and now Bush has apologized saying it was an 'attempt at humor.'   Heather Lind, 34, who starred in AMC's series 'Turn: Washington's Spies' made the allegations against the 93-year-old former president on Instagram in a lengthy post with accompanying photos.  'When I got the chance to meet George H. W. Bush four years ago to promote a historical television show I was working on, he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo. He didn't shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke,' Lind alleges.  I guess we'll have to put Bush in jail, or maybe even send him to the gallows.  Look, I don't defend improper behavior, but the sudden gang-up of recent weeks makes a mockery of a serious issue.

COMPLETELY NUTS – FROM BREITBART:   Fox Sports 1’s “Undisputed” brought civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson on to discuss the National Anthem protests in the NFL.  Jackson bashed Trump for referring to the anthem kneelers as “sons of b******,” and then took aim at the NFL.  “To go from picking cotton balls to picking footballs and basketballs without freedom is not very much progress,” Jackson said Monday.  That is absolutely disgraceful, and an insult to all those who've worked for civil rights.  Jesse Jackson's turn to get off the stage was sometime in the last century.

EVERYBODY'S GOT TO BE SOMETHIN' – FROM NBC WASHINGTON:   To celebrate Samhain, a Wiccan festival that falls on the evening of Oct. 31, Washington, D.C. resident Elizabeth Stephens usually prepares a pot of jambalaya to honor her late grandmother and a plate of roast beef in memory of her parents. She marks the festival with witches and fellow Wiccans, who offer their own dishes as a part of the day’s feast. The table they set becomes patterned with platters that were the favorites of family members and friends.  As a part of the celebration, a black cloth is held above the heads of the attendees and cut with a knife through the center, representing an opening between the spirit and material worlds. After some time has passed, participants encourage the spirits to return to their realm and the cut in the cloth is sewn.   Sounds more efficient than Congress.

October 24, 2017       Permalink

ANOTHER STEP FORWARD IN EDUCATION – AT 2:56 P.M. ET:   Yeah, forward.  That's what they label it on today's college campuses.  From Daily Caller:  

A University of Illinois math professor believes that algebra and geometry perpetuate “white privilege” because Greek terms give Caucasians unearned credit for the subject.

But that isn’t the professor’s only complaint. She also believes that evaluations for math proficiency perpetuates discrimination against minority students, if they do worse than their white counterparts.

Rochelle Gutierrez argues in a newly published math education book for teachers that they must be aware of the identity politics surrounding the subject of mathematics.

“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness,” she argues with complete sincerity, according to Campus Reform. “Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White.”

Gutierrez argues that subjects like algebra and geometry, which relate to arithmetic, also perpetuate racism and white privilege. She worries that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”

COMMENT:  When will some "leader" step forward and tell this teacher how much harm she is doing to minority kids?  She's turning them into perpetual victims, with an excuse machine all prepared for them. 

That, of course, is the objective.  Keep the peasants down so we can control them, and the revolution.

October 24, 2017       Permalink

THIS IS ABSURD – AT 11:30 A.M. ET:  A traditional gimmick of the Soviet Union was to declare political opponents mentally ill.  They'd be sent to the Gulag, and they disappeared into "treatment programs."

The left in America periodically tries the same gimmick.  They tried it with Goldwater, Nixon, occasionally with Reagan, and now full blast with Trump.  Strange, we never hear of any liberal declared mentally ill.  From Buzzfeed:   

A member of the House Intelligence Committee is going where many of her colleagues have not: reaching out to people in the mental health field to talk about President Donald Trump.

“It’s one thing from my non-professional, non-clinical standpoint [to] believe that someone does not have the capacity to do the job, it’s another thing to talk to experts and [those] who can deal with mental psychosis on a daily basis, so I wanted to hear from them,” Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, told BuzzFeed News.

Speier is one of the most left-leaning members of Congress.

While many Democrats have steered clear of speculation about Trump, Speier appears not to be alone in talking to mental health professionals. Half a dozen lawmakers have contacted Bandy Lee, a psychiatry professor at Yale, to talk about the president’s mental state over the past several months, Lee told BuzzFeed News. Although Lee wouldn’t identify the politicians, she said they were Democrats in both the House and Senate.

Speier said she has not spoken with Lee, but that she reached out to two experts to discuss Trump’s mental health, including John Gartner, a psychologist. Gartner is the founder of Duty to Warn, a network of mental health experts across the country making a concerted push into politics and who appear to be circumventing their profession's own rules about diagnosing public figures they have never evaluated themselves. (The traditional concept of a “duty to warn,” ingrained in law in most states, says mental health professionals who have reason to believe a patient may become dangerous or violent toward others must reveal that information, or else risk legal liability.)

Without having directly evaluated him, the group is arguing that the president, as Gartner put it recently, is “deeply and dangerously psychologically disordered."

The roughly two dozen vocal mental health professionals involved in the group have drawn harsh criticism from others in the industry who argue that their statements have little clinical basis and risk casting their field in an unprofessional light and stigmatizing mental illness.

“The solution to Trump is not psychological name-calling, it’s political action,” Allen Frances, former chair of the department of psychiatry at Duke, told BuzzFeed News.

COMMENT:  And that, of course, is the point.  The Dems couldn't win the election, so they fall back on the old left-wing argument that their opponent is deranged. 

Both Lincoln and Winston Churchill had moments of severe depression – Churchill called it the black dog – but neither man was tossed from office. 

October 24, 2017       Permalink

AN IMPORTANT STATEMENT – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:   One of our biggest headaches in the Mideast has been the extreme brand of Islam that Saudi Arabia spread throughout the world.  Some 15 of the 19 9-11 hijackers were Saudi.

But there is a change now, at least an announced change.  And it's a good change if carried out.  From AFP:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday vows to restore “moderate, open” Islam in a kingdom known for its ultra-conservative rule.

“We are returning to what we were before — a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world,” he says at an economic forum in Riyadh.

“We will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today,” he adds. “We will end extremism very soon.”

The crown prince’s statement is the most direct attack by a top official on the Gulf country’s influential conservative religious establishment.

Since his sudden appointment on June 21, Prince Mohammed has pushed ahead with reforms. He is widely regarded as the force behind King Salman’s decision last month to lift a longstanding ban on women driving

COMMENT:  If he does what he says, it could transform a good part of the Mideast and a good part of Islam.  We hope the crown prince has a long life, and completes his vision.

It has also been widely reported that there are now regular contacts between Saudi Arabia and Israel, bringing the Saudis closer to the Western orbit.  All to the good.

October 24,  2017     Permalink