Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

Our Angel's Corner archive is here.

OCTOBER 28,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:51 P.M. ET: 

MADNESS – FROM FOX:    Leaders at the church that George Washington attended decided that a plaque honoring the first president of the United States must be removed.  Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia will take down a memorial marking the pew where Washington sat with his family, saying it is not acceptable to all worshipers.  “The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome," leaders said, a reference to the fact that Washington was a slaveholder.  "Some visitors and guests who worship with us choose not to return because they receive an unintended message from the prominent presence of the plaques.”  I guess we'll tear down the Washington Monument next, and replace it with a statue of Jane Fonda. 

AND THE VERDICT PLEASE – FROM CNBC:  Former President Barack Obama will serve on a jury in Cook County sometime next month, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.  Chief Judge Tim Evans told county commissioners this week that although Obama resides in Washington, D.C., the former president will report for duty next month, the publication reported.   Obama is registered to vote in Illinois.   They probably won't pick him to serve, as the first words out of his mouth are likely to be, "The cop is always guilty."

BUSH 41 GETS UNWANTED HEAT – FROM THE PORTLAND PRESS HERALD:  The number of women accusing former President George H.W. Bush of groping them has grown to five, with two of them saying he did so during photo shoots in Maine.  The women include two actresses, a Pennsylvania journalist, a best-selling author raised in Bangor and a former Maine Senate candidate.  Amanda Staples, a former Republican state Senate candidate from Standish, wrote in an Instagram post that Bush fondled her in 2006. Staples, who was 29 at the time and running for the Kennebunkport area’s Senate seat, visited the former president at Walker’s Point when he “grabbed my butt and joked saying ‘Oh, I’m not THAT President,’ ” Staples wrote alongside a picture of her standing next to Bush.  I don't defend what Bush is alleged to have done, but can someone tell me why Bill Clinton continues to receive a pass from the very people who are so "outraged" by that kind of behavior? 

October 28, 2017       Permalink

IF DONE WELL, AN EXCELLENT IDEA – AT 3:18 P.M. ET:   From Breitbart:  

The University of California, once the home of the Free Speech Movement, announced Thursday that it will launch the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement to study First Amendment issues and educate students about them.

The center will be based in Washington, DC.

“Our nation needs an outlet to grapple with the questions of free speech on college campuses — and what it means for free speech in America more broadly,” UC President Janet Napolitano said in a video for the new center’s website.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Napolitano said: “There have been more serious issues about the 1st Amendment on campuses today than perhaps at any time since the free speech movement.

The students themselves are raising questions about free speech and does it apply to homophobic speech, does it apply to racist speech? We have to consider the student concerns but return to basic principles about what free speech means and how do we better educate students about the extent of the 1st Amendment.”...

...So far, the center’s advisory board includes former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA); New York Times columnist Bret Stephens; Anne Kornblut, director of strategic communications at Facebook; Geoffrey R. Stone, a First Amendment scholar and professor at the University of Chicago Law School; and Washington Post columnist George Will. Both Stephens and Will have been subject to efforts at “dis-invitation” from liberal campuses.

COMMENT:  I could do without Barbara Boxer, but, overall, the selections are reasonable for a first effort.  Napolitano herself is a liberal, but a sane one. 

If Napolitano can avoid contamination from the extreme left, and the usual demands for every aggrieved group to be represented, she might actually accomplish something.

October 28, 2017     Permalink

AND NOW FROM THE GROWN-UPS – AT 12:48 P.M. ET:  While CNN tries to whip us into hysteria in its drive to get President Trump tossed out of office, things are happening in the real world.  From AP: 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Saturday the threat of nuclear missile attack by North Korea is accelerating.

In remarks in Seoul with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo at his side, Mattis accused the North of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs — and vowed to defeat any attack.

Mattis said North Korea engages in “outlaw” behavior and that the U.S. will never accept a nuclear North.

He added that regardless of what the North might try, it is overmatched by the firepower and cohesiveness of the decades-old U.S.-South Korean alliance.

COMMENT:  Pretty serious stuff.  Don't expect much reporting on it in the MSM.  There are more important things to do. 

Actually, we haven't seen a North Korean nuclear test or missile launch for a time.  Is American pressure, under Trump, working?  We certainly hope so.

The president is about to travel to Asia.  His trip has been well prepared by his defense people.  We have three carrier groups in the region.  The message is sent.

October 28, 2017        Permalink

THE TIMING IS ODD – AT 11:50 A.M. ET:  First charges are being filed under the auspices of Robert Mueller.  Gee, as soon as national attention is shifted to possible crimes by the Democrats, and their relationship to Russia, charges are filed against Republicans.  The timing is precise.  From CNN, which seems to get its information on this right from the inside:

Washington (CNN) A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.
The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.

A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment. The White House also had no comment, a senior administration official said Saturday morning.

Mueller was appointed in May to lead the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Under the regulations governing special counsel investigations, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has oversight over the Russia investigation, would have been made aware of any charges before they were taken before the grand jury for approval, according to people familiar with the matter.

COMMENT:   Ah, the sanctity of the legal system.  All this secret stuff comes out...through CNN, a major branch of the Democratic Party.  I wonder what other secret information we'll be told.

David Gergen, once a respected analyst and now a CNN hack, is already saying that the dam is about to break on the Trump administration.  That will be the party line.

Much came out this week about the Democrats' collusion with Russia.  One journalist already boasted that all that will now be pushed aside to make way for Mueller.

So goes the fate of the nation.

October 28,  2017     Permalink

OCTOBER 27,  2017

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

REAL CLASS – FROM NEWSBUSTERS:    The New York Times carried a column last weekend by Maureen Dowd where Jimmy Carter shocked the liberals by saying “I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I've known about...I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”  Times columnist Thomas Friedman took it to a new level on Wednesday's Charlie Rose on PBS. Trump isn't mentally ill...he's a brain-eating disease.  Such style, such elegance.  These are the people who consider themselves superior to we mere citizens.  Well-dressed trash talkers.

THE PAIN, THE STRESS – FROM POWERLINE:   Student anxiety and hostility at public high schools have worsened since Donald Trump became president, according to a study. More than half of the 1,535 teachers who responded to a survey claimed to see more students than ever with “high levels of stress and anxiety” between January and May of this year.  The study was conducted by UCLA’s director of the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access. The title of the institute suggests to me that the study was looking for the result it found.  Indeed, there are some obvious problems with the study. First, more than 10,000 teachers were invited to respond. Only about 15 percent did. One suspects that the teachers who responded were among the most likely to tell the researchers that student stress is rising under Trump. One suspects that many of these teachers, if asked, would report that mildew in their classroom has increased since Trump became president.  Yes, I've heard that a major mildew crisis is about to be declared by Hillary Clinton and CNN.

LAND OF THE FREE? – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   The Supreme Court’s 1969 Tinker decision is supposed to protect the constitutional rights of children in public schools, particularly peaceful political expression.  Several Senate Democrats couldn’t care less. They are demanding that the Department of Education illegally squelch children’s political speech they dislike.  Education Week reports that eight members wrote a letter to Secretary Betsy DeVos* Wednesday asking her to “outline its plan to address the rise of discrimination and harassment in our schools” that they blame on her boss, President Donald Trump.  The signatories all serve on the Senate committee that handles education, including Ranking Member Patty Murray, and they trace the alleged spike in harassment (contradicted by Education Week itself) to the election of Trump.  The best thing the Republican Party has going for it is the Democratic Party.Dysfunction and madness, together again.

October 27, 2017       Permalink  

TERRIFIC – AT 12:21 P.M. ET:   The economy is starting to roar under Trump.  A tax cut will make things even better.  But the news is already good.  From Reuters: 

The U.S. economy unexpectedly maintained a brisk pace of growth in the third quarter as an increase in inventory investment and a smaller trade deficit offset a hurricane-related slowdown in consumer spending and a decline in construction.

Gross domestic product increased at a 3.0 percent annual rate in the July-September period after expanding at a 3.1 percent pace in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

The department said while it was impossible to estimate the overall impact of hurricanes Harvey and Irma on third-quarter GDP, preliminary estimates showed that the back-to-back storms had caused losses of $121.0 billion in privately owned fixed assets and $10.4 billion in government-owned fixed assets.

Harvey and Irma struck parts of Texas and Florida in late August and early September. Hurricane Maria, which destroyed infrastructure in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, had no impact on third-quarter GDP growth as the islands are not included in the United State's national accounts.

COMMENT:  There are still some soft spots, and there's always a risk of slippage, but there is clearly economic optimism in the country, and the president has a right to take some of the credit. 

October 27, 2017       Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:43 A.M. ET:   The first anniversary of President Trump's election is coming up.  The fanatical anti-Trumpers plan a commemoration.  Piers Morgan at the Daily Mail has a vivid interpretation of what this will look like: 

In two weeks it is the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s astonishing US election victory.

To ‘celebrate’, thousands of Trump-hating liberals in cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia are planning a day of protest in which they will go outside, stare upwards and shout their little heads off in rage.

I’m not joking.

The planned event is actually titled on Facebook: ‘Scream helplessly at the sky on the anniversary of the election’.

Organizer Johanna Schulman told Newsweek: ‘This administration has attacked everything about what it means to be an American. Who wouldn’t feel helpless every day?’

Hmmm.

Well, let me try to explain, Johanna, if you haven’t already started preemptively screaming.

There are tens of millions of Americans right now who don’t feel helpless at all. In fact, they’ve never felt happier that they’ve finally got a guy in the White House who THEY believe stands up for THEM.

They don’t share YOUR view of what it means to be an American.

They share Trump’s view, because it’s THEIR view.

That’s why he was elected President, and that’s why I am beginning to think he will be comfortably re-elected in 2020.

COMMENTS:  I was not a Trump supporter, but I think Piers has it generally right.  I don't think we'll know for quite a time whether Trump can pull off an easy re-election, but I do think he has far more backing than current polls indicate.  He did during last year's election campaign, after all.

October 27, 2017       Permalink

MAJOR EMPLOYMENT NEWS – AT 9:54 A.M. ET:  As a public service, we try to keep readers informed of important self-improvement opportunities.  From reason.com: 

At Oberlin College, students interested in social justice can apply for a job teaching their classmates about microaggressions and the nature of oppression.

The position is called "Social Justice Education Facilitator," pays $8.15 an hour, and requires "knowledge on the various forms of oppression, including but not limited to: race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, citizenship, etc.," according to the listing on the college's website. Students chosen for the job will be expected to help run the Multicultural Resource Center's various training modules: Power, Privilege, and Oppression Training; Beyond the Binary Training; and Microaggression Training.

Note that the center is not an academic department. It's an administrative office run by an assistant dean of students. Its website makes the place seem explicitly ideological and highly partisan.

That difference matters. It's one thing for a professor within a classroom setting to teach students about the nature of oppression, or to discuss how certain people have been marginalized because of their gender or skin color. It's quite another for the college to train—and pay!—students to serve as activists outside of the classroom.

The theory behind microaggressions—unintentional insults based on race, sex, or another protected status—is woefully inadequate and lacks scientific rigor. Scott Lilienfeld, a clinical psychologist at Emory University, took a close look at the core assumptions that undergird the academic understanding of microaggressions and concluded that there should be a "moratorium on microaggression training."

"There is insufficient justification for concluding that the potential benefits of microaggression training programs outweigh their potential risks, including a substantial increase in the number of false-positive identifications of statements as microaggressions," he wrote. I am going to take a wild guess and say that students who sign up to be Social Education Facilitators won't be learning about Lilienfeld's work, or discussing whether the microaggression concept has merit.

COMMENT:  Gee, I've got a radical idea:  How about some training in physics, chemistry, math and engineering – things the country needs?  Anyone interested?

Are you sending a kid to Oberlin?  Better provide an inheritance.

October 27,  2017     Permalink