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SEPTEMBER 20,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET:

BULLETIN:  GLORIA STEINEM, NOT PREVIOUSLY KNOWN FOR SCIENTIFIC SCHOLARSHIP, SPEAKS OUT – FROM LIFENEWS.COM:   “Forced childbirth is the single biggest cause of global warming,” Gloria Steinem said at a recent gala celebrating Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region’s 75th Anniversary.  Steinem, a prominent abortion activist in the feminist movement, gave the keynote address at the event, The Commercial Appeal reported. She used the opportunity to celebrate the nation’s largest abortion chain and push abortions.  Steinem began her 20-minute speech by promoting “reproductive rights.” She said: “Nothing but nothing is more important than ensuring our fundamental right to reproductive freedom. The principle that government power stops at our skin.”  She then went on to attribute global warming to “forced childbirth.” This comment reflects prior statements she made last year regarding Pope Francis and global warming. During an interview with Cosmopolitan, Steinem attributed global warming to the teachings of the Catholic Church on the sanctity of human life.  Well that settles that.  No further research needed.  Next time a dear one has a baby, just say to her, "Congratulations, but you've just caused the Interstate Highway System to melt."

MORE WORRIES?  – FROM ZERO HEDGE:   If there was a time Hillary needed to make a public appearance in the key battleground state of North Carolina to drum up voter support, it was today, if for no other reason than a just released Elon University poll finding Trump now has a modest 44% advantage among likely voters in the Tar Heel State, with 43% going to Clinton...Which is why we find it surprising that with Hillary's desperately needing to make an appearance, overnight CBS reported that Clinton campaign officials said that a Tuesday fundraiser in Chapel Hill was postponed.  The Clinton event was billed as “lunch with Hillary Rodham Clinton” and had four donation levels to attend. Those contribution levels were described as $100,000, which featured “chair reception with Hillary,” $33,000, which included a “host reception with Hillary,” $5,000, which included “preferred seating” and $2,700.  No reason was given for postponement of the Clinton event, which was planned to take place at the home of Betty Craven and Michael Warner.  Doesn't sound good.  The reason the Clinton camp finally gave is that she had to study for Monday's debate.  Really?  She's been a national figure for 25 years.  How much study does she need?  There are suspicions that the reason for the cancellation is medical, that she needs rest.  It's a legitimate concern.

THE GENIUS – FROM DAILY CALLER:  CNN contributor and progressive activist Sally Kohn criticized free speech advocacy during a Friday debate at the University of Missouri (MU), saying such advocacy was really just an excuse for attacking multiculturalism and other progressive attitudes.  Kohn was at MU as part of a two-day symposium on the topic of campus free speech. Kohn’s event was a debate with fellow CNN contributor Kirsten Powers, in which the two clashed about whether recent campus trends have been harmful to free expression.   Victoria Stroup, a student at MU, described the event in a piece for Campus Reform. She said Kohn’s argument defended recent protests that seek to silence conservative speakers and events, arguing that those claiming to champion “free speech” are really just trying to give cover for regressive, anti-diversity views.  Sally Kohn suffers from terminal obnoxia.  She would have had a great old time in the Soviet Union sending dissidents to the Gulag.   

September 20,  2016     Permalink

TRUMP RISING WITH HISPANICS – AT 11:55 A.M. ET:  It is clear that if Donald Trump can cut significantly into Hillary Clinton's lead with blacks and Hispanics, he could probably win the election, and possibly win it easily.  He seems to be doing better with both groups.  The Hill reports on Hispanics: 

Donald Trump is performing about as well with Hispanic voters as GOP nominee Mitt Romney did in 2012, according to opinion polls — something that unsettles Democrats and surprises even some Republicans.

Skeptics had suggested that Trump would suffer a blowout among Hispanics, given that his rhetoric, on illegal immigration in particular, has been controversial.

Trump’s promise to build a wall on the southern U.S. border and force Mexico to pay for it is perhaps the best known of his campaign pledges. And at his campaign launch in June 2015, he said people coming into the country illegally were “rapists.”

But as of right now, there is not much evidence to suggest that Trump is faring any worse among Hispanics than did Romney, who at one point argued that illegal immigrants in the United States could be persuaded to “self-­deport.”

In some places, Trump is actually outperforming Romney. In Nevada, for example, President Obama ran up a 47-point margin of victory among Hispanic voters in 2012, according to exit polls, defeating Romney 71 percent to 24 percent. A recent Marist poll in the state for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal showed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leading among Hispanics, but by the smaller margin of 35 points, 65 percent to 30 percent.

A series of Univision polls earlier this month surveying Hispanic voters in four battleground states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Nevada — also put Trump in the same ballpark as Romney four years ago. Clinton’s lead over Trump among Hispanics in Colorado was smaller than Obama’s margin in that state in 2012.

A Bloomberg Politics "poll decoder" on Tuesday averaged several national surveys and found Clinton leading among Hispanics by 38 points. But Obama won the group by six points more in 2012, according to exit polls.

That has led some Democrats to question Clinton’s strategy. In a Washington Post report over the weekend, some suggested her campaign was too slow to begin Spanish-language advertising.

COMMENT:  The press likes to assign to ethnic groups the opinions that journalists think they should have.  Thus, the press is shocked when African Americans or Hispanics support Trump.  Reports from a few days ago suggested that Trump's black support is growing.  That may well be what prompted President Obama to make the bizarre statement that he'd consider it a personal insult if blacks voted for Trump.  And now we have this piece from The Hill on Hispanics.

I look forward to new polling, and especially polling after next week's first debate.  That should give us a clearer indication of where ethnic groups are going.  If they are going toward Trump, Hillary can cancel the moving van.

September 20,  2016     Permalink

OUR FIGHTING PRESIDENT – THAT IS A JOKE – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  The condition of our military is frightening.  The commander-in-chief is out to lunch, or out to ice cream, or something.  Military leaders, including those appointed by Obama, are clearly frustrated.  From the fine defense journalist Rowan Scarborough, at the Washington Times:   

As the four armed forces chiefs testified in the Senate about the national security dangers of mandated budget caps, Sen. Lindsey Graham asked each officer if he had discussed the readiness crisis with President Obama.

Their unanimous answers before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week underscored a key aspect of the Obama presidency, noted by his own past defense secretaries and, in a recent disclosure, a former NATO commander: The president maintains a wary approach in dealing with the four-star generals and admirals who direct his wars.

“Have you told the president what you’re telling us about the state of the military under sequestration?” asked Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican. “Have you had a conversation with the commander in chief, telling him what you just told us?”

Army Gen. Mark Milley was the first to answer. “I have not personally had a conversation.”
As Mr. Graham’s roll call continued, Navy Adm. John Richardson, Marine Corps. Gen. Robert Neller and Air Force Gen. David Goldfein gave the same answer: “No.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said this month at an NBC News forum that generals have been “reduced to rubble” by Mr. Obama. Although that may be Trump hyperbole, the president’s own political appointees acknowledge a problem.

Robert M. Gates, Mr. Obama’s first defense secretary, wrote in his memoirs that Mr. Obama deeply distrusts senior military leaders and suspects them of conspiring against him. He recalled one meeting in which the president resorted to a clipped “That’s an order” to the top brass.

“That order was unnecessary and insulting, proof positive of the depth of the Obama White House distrust of the nation’s military leadership,” a “shocked” Mr. Gates wrote.

COMMENT:  You put a left winger in the White House, that is what you get.  You put a left-wing amateur in the White House, you get even worse.  That is what we did in 2008 and 2012, and I'm afraid our children will pay the price.

Not that the political left ever cared much about children.  Children are so...so...last generation.

September 20, 2016      Permalink     

A DAY IN NEW YORK – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  Oh, we are so lucky here in New York.  The UN is coming to town.  Funnier and more entertaining than anything put out by Ringling Brothers.  And the irony is that we will be giving a warm welcome to the very people who organize and advocate the kind of terror we've seen in New York in recent days.  From the brilliant Anne Bayefsky, at Breitbart. 

The leaders of terror-sponsoring states are currently descending on Manhattan for the annual opening of the UN General Assembly and their words are guaranteed to be blasted across the global airwaves. It is about time we made the connection between the terror-enablers in Turtle Bay and the terrorism in the streets beyond.

Monday brought new meaning to the phrase “upstairs, downstairs.” Above ground, the limousines glided in and out of UN Headquarters – recently renovated with more than half a billion dollars from U.S. taxpayers alone. Below ground, millions of New York straphangers were held up in subway and train stations until police gave the all-clear.

The contrasts get even starker. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is being protected by New York’s finest, while he is endangering American sailors and pilots in the Persian Gulf.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is paying “martyrs” that kill Americans and Israelis, while Americans are paying to take good care of his health and welfare when he is in town.

Then there are the other so-called “world leaders” that New Yorkers are hosting. All have immunity to travel to and from the UN in the name of “world peace.” And yet they include despots and dictators from terror hotspots like Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

COMMENT:  Oh no, Anne, there's nothing wrong with it if you're a good leftist.  Why, it's just a wonderful multicultural gathering.  Who are we to question other cultures?  One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.  Isn't that right?

No, it really isn't.

September 20,  2016     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 19,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET

WHAT IS THIS? – FROM CBS MIAMI:    MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) — Three men have been arrested after creating a security scare atop a Miami Beach penthouse.  Mohamed Azab Youssef, 39, Artur Schaback, 28, and Ivan Suhharev, 28, were apprehended by Miami Beach Police Friday, September 17th.  Police said Schaback and Suhharev were witnessed aiming an AR-15 rifle off the penthouse balcony at 1100 Collins Avenue, including Schaback wearing a mask over his face.  One caller told 911 they were pointing the firearm towards the busy street at citizens and tourists walking by.“I did see a handful of different officers with rifles, pistols, shotguns, the whole nine,” said witness Chris Clayborne. “It was the real deal.”  Imagine arriving to your vacation spot and that’s what you’re greeted with.  We'll try to get more on this.  I wonder if it was a dry run.  Things are getting creepy.

EMMY FLOP – FROM AP:   NEW YORK (AP) — Facing tough competition, the Emmy Awards telecast on ABC reached a record-low total of 11.3 million viewers.  The Nielsen company said Monday that the Jimmy Kimmel-hosted awards show had the smallest audience for any Emmy Awards since records have been kept. Last year's Fox telecast had 11.9 million viewers.  In a simpler age, rivals wouldn't compete aggressively, reasoning it didn't make sense to distract from a show that celebrated television. That's changed: NBC's Green Bay-Minnesota NFL game had 20.5 million viewers, Nielsen said. Also, CBS had 10.3 million viewers for a two-hour special on the JonBenet Ramsey murder mystery.  The 11.3 million figure represented how many people were watching the Emmys during average minute. Nielsen estimated that nearly 26 million people tuned in to at least some of ABC's telecast.  I guess many viewers just got tired of hearing attacks on Donald Trump and tributes to inclusion, as long as the inclusion didn't include conservatives.

SMILING ON TRUMP – FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:    Donald Trump is enjoying his strongest position in the presidential race since immediately after his nominating convention and, for the first time, has started to significantly close the gap with Hillary Clinton on the question of which candidate voters expect will win — a shift that could boost turnout on both sides.  The nominees have moved up and down in polls over the summer and into the fall, but until now, large majorities of voters, regardless of whom they supported, expected to see Clinton win.  That’s now changed, according to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak tracking poll of the election. Although Clinton still holds an edge on that question, Trump has narrowed it to the point that the results are within the poll’s margin of error.  The voter expectations question is important because it often — although not always — has proved a more accurate way to forecast elections than asking which candidate a person plans to vote for. The expectations question has an especially good track record when an election remains a ways off — seven weeks in this case.  Things have changed, but Monday's debate will hold the key.

September 19, 2016       Permalink

BULLETIN:  AT 11:52 .M. ET:  Ahmad Khan Rahami, subject of our first post this morning, and wanted by the FBI in connection with the terror incidents in the New York and New Jersey region in the last two days, has been capured in Linden, New Jersey, after a shootout.

A CLINTON FAIL – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:   There are reasons why Hillary Clinton is slipping in the polls.  Here's one of them.  From CBS, Philadelphia: 

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – John McNesby, the President of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, discussed their endorsement of Donald Trump for President over Hillary Clinton and criticized the Democratic nominee for not engaging with them in their selection process.

McNesby, who was a member of a three person committee who made the recommendation to the national organization on their choice, told Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the Clinton campaign showed no interest in winning their support.

“They didn’t care. Their attitude, then, back in July, during the Democratic National Convention, was they were going to win this thing anyway, so who cares? Now, I think the tides have turned a little bit and she’s on her heels. As many times as we’ve tried to…have it a fair process and an open process, the emails back were that they’re not interested and no thanks. Just snide things like that.”

He stated his local chapter will heed the recommendation for Trump, who he met with personally in New York.

“We’re falling in line with the national FOP and, basically, she just disregarded and blew the police off. You can’t go in and expect to get respect when you didn’t give it to us. We gave a very fair process, we thought. We put out a questionnaire and she absolutely refused…outright refused, with a nasty campaign rebuttal to why she wouldn’t. Simple as that, we went in and we participated with the candidate that cooperated. He filled it out. We met with him.”

COMMENT:  She refused because she's indebted to the Black Lives Matter movement, which is hostile to the police.  Can you imagine a president of the United States who's hostile to police officers?  Oh wait.  We already have one.  No imagination needed.

Another reason why Hillary Clinton should not be president. 

September 19, 2016       Permalink

TRUMP ON TERROR – AT 10:45 A.M. ET:   It may be vulgar to talk politics at a time like this, with bombs going off, but we are in the midst of a presidential campaign with only a week to go before the first debate.   The candidates are talking terror, and Donald is coming out way ahead.  From Fox: 

Donald Trump revived his calls for tightening immigration following a rapid-fire succession of terror attacks involving foreign-born suspects spanning from Minnesota to New York and New Jersey, describing the threat as “cancer from within.”

The Republican presidential nominee, in an interview Monday morning with Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” pointed to the latest threat in doubling down on his criticism of his Democratic opponent wanting to boost refugee admissions.

“Hillary Clinton wants to allow hundreds of thousands of these same people,” Trump said.

Trump has called for “extreme vetting” for U.S.-bound immigrants and for a temporary suspension of all immigration from certain countries with a history of terror – proposals his critics have blasted as overly broad.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, wants to boost the total number of refugees to the U.S. next year to 110,000, a nearly 30 percent increase. Clinton specifically wants to increase the number of Syrian refugee admissions from 10,000 to 65,000.

Trump questioned whether refugees can be property vetted.

Clinton also addressed the attacks, speaking to reporters Monday on the tarmac at Westchester Airport in New York.

“This threat is real, but so is our resolve,” Clinton said.

She said she supports “tough vetting” but noted that millions of “law-abiding” Muslims and other naturalized citizens are in the country. “Let us be vigilant, but not afraid,” she said.

COMMENT:  Trump has proposals, no matter how controversial.  Clinton speaks in clichés.  The polls should be very interesting this week, in light of the resurfacing of terror.

September 19, 2016       Permalink

THEY'RE GETTING THERE – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  Pretty much as many expected, there appears to be an international connection to the terror events of recent days.  From Fox:

Authorities released the name and photo of an "armed and dangerous" Afghan-born man wanted in connection with bombings in New York City and New Jersey, as raids and detentions in the metropolitan area pointed toward a terror cell being behind the series of weekend attacks.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, is being sought for questioning regarding the Saturday night blast in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, an explosion in Seaside Park on Saturday morning and a foiled bomb attack Sunday night near a train station in Elizabeth, NJ.

Rahami's last known address was in Elizabeth, and the FBI had launched a raid at the apartment, located above a fried chicken restaurant, on Monday morning. Elizabeth is the city where investigators discovered five suspicious devices -- one of which exploded while a bomb squad robot tried to disarm it -- near a train station on Sunday night.

"Today I believe we're going to find out that [the bombing] was influenced by foreign sources," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday on"Fox & Friends."

COMMENT:  This is going well beyond a local story.  And we have to ask how many terrorists or potential terrorists are out there. 

President Obama speaks to the UN tomorrow in New York.  I wonder if he'll mention this little terrorism issue, or leave it to the little people.

September 19,  2016     Permalink