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.

SEPTEMBER 30,  2016

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

I JUST CAN'T WAIT – FROM McCLATCHY:   Many U.S. presidents, upon leaving office, try to fade from the national spotlight and live the rest of their lives as private citizens.  President Barack Obama implied in a Vanity Fair interview that he might choose to go a different route.  In the interview conducted by presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Obama talked about his use of the term “radical Islam,” how he would miss Air Force One and his desire to make the world better.  Then there’s a short bit where he hints at what life after the presidency might look like for him, a relatively young 55 years old as he exits the office. He says there are some things he suspects he’ll be able to accomplish better after being president.  “Having had this office has given me this incredible perch from which to see how the world works. The power of the office is unique and it is a humbling privilege,” Obama said. “With that power, however, also comes a whole host of institutional constraints. There are things I cannot say. There are things that...”  There are things every president can't say while in office.  But the best ones learn to work around that restriction and get things done.  The lesser ones complain.  Obama was too inexperienced for the job, and too egotistical.  Inexperience plus ego equals failure.

I LOVE IT – FROM FOX:   As Heat Street‘s Politics Editor Jillian Melchior reported this week, a new policy at the University of Michigan allows students to choose their preferred pronouns — including the gender-neutral “they” and “ze” — to appear on class rosters.  With that in mind, one conservative student, Grant Strobl, who is also chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom board of governors, decided to troll the university administration by officially requesting his pronoun to be changed to “His Majesty.”...“I henceforth shall be referred to as: His Majesty, Grant Strobl. I encourage all U-M students to go onto Wolverine Access, and insert the identity of their dreams,” he told the College Fix.  Apparently, he is now listed that way. 

CHICAGO TRIB ENDORSES JOHNSON – FROM BREITBART:    The Chicago Tribune has endorsed Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson for president saying he was a “principled choice” for the nation’s top job.  Joining the list of newspapers making unusual choices for endorsements for the 2016 election, Chicago’s somewhat conservative paper decided not to endorse the GOP nominee for president and instead picked the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson.  In choosing Johnson, the editorial board of the Tribune noted that millions of Americans “yearn” to be able to vote for someone other than the nominees for the two major parties and so, decided Johnson was a principled choice.  And USA Today, which has never endorsed a presidential candidate, announced its opposition to Donald Trump today, but did not endorse anyone else.  A number of newspapers are finding ways to express their frustration at the choices we're being given this year.  Ominous for Donald:  Some newspapers that have almost always, or always, endorsed a Republican are endorsing Clinton, although with no great enthusiasm.  I'm looking forward to 2020.

September 30,  2016     Permalink

TRUMP DOUBLES DOWN ON BILL CLINTON'S PAST – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:   I honestly don't understand it, and neither do a number of Trump watchers.  He was becoming so successful by delivering thoughtful, well-written speeches on major policy issues.  He was becoming a president.  And now he's back in the weeds, the old Trump returning.  He's down in the polls since the debate, and maybe he thinks is the way to get back.  I can't say I agree.  From Fox: 

Donald Trump’s campaign is signaling that Bill Clinton’s history of affairs and alleged sexual misconduct – as well as Hillary Clinton’s treatment of the women involved – is now fair game, after his Democratic opponent took the first shot by calling out his own negative comments toward women at Monday’s debate.

The Republican nominee took a direct swipe at the former president during a New Hampshire rally on Thursday, in a sign of jabs to come.

"The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal," Trump said. "And impeachment for lying. … Remember that?"

Trump and his surrogates argue that Clinton opened the door when she raised accusations during Monday’s debate that Trump called former Miss Universe Alicia Machado names like “Miss Piggy” and taunted her.

COMMENT:  Oh Donald, don't take the bait!  One of the first rules of politics is that only amateurs stay mad.  Clinton is trying to bait you away from a serious discussion of the issues, and you're going right along with it.

Go back to serious discussion.  Your numbers rose dramatically when you began to express your vision for America.  Voters are looking for assurance that you can be president. 

September 30, 2016       Permalink

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD? – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  Are you in Hollywood?  Are you for Trump?  Do you know what "unemployment insurance" means?  From the Wrap: 

Being a Republican in Hollywood has always been somewhat taboo. But many conservatives report the stakes are even higher for them this year since GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is an even more polarizing figure than past conservative candidates.

That has led some to remain silent about their support of the real estate mogul in order to avoid damaging consequences to their careers in an industry built on personal relationships.

“There are many people who are voting for Donald Trump but are too afraid to admit it,” Roger Neal, a Trump supporter and founder of the Hollywood PR and management firm NPR, told TheWrap. “Things have gotten really nasty in Hollywood lately.”

Also Read: How the Khans Inspired Hollywood Muslims to Stand Up and Be Counted

Neal was surprised to see many of his left-leaning colleagues, including some who owe him their start in the industry, post a recent GQ article titled, “If You Vote for Trump, Screw You” on their social media feeds.

“Some stars have gone to the far left this election and are really getting hostile,” he said. “You don’t see that from the other side.”

“There’s an unhealthy tension here right now,” Neal added.

Oscar-nominated writer Lionel Chetwynd, another prominent Hollywood conservative, described the political atmosphere within the industry this fall as “toxic.”

COMMENT:  The only way this will change is when decidedly left-wing programs and movies flop badly.  The American people vote with their checkbook.

September 30, 2016       Permalink

NICE TO KNOW – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  One of the worst aspects of the soon-to-be-history Obama administration has been its secret dealings with Iran.  The American people were shut out.  Congress was shut out.  But the damage is done.   From The Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration agreed to back the lifting of United Nations sanctions on two Iranian state banks blacklisted for financing Iran’s ballistic-missile program on the same day in January that Tehran released four American citizens from prison, according to U.S. officials and congressional staff briefed on the deliberations.

The U.N. sanctions on the two banks weren’t initially to be lifted until 2023, under a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that went into effect on Jan. 16.

The U.N. Security Council’s delisting of the two banks, Bank Sepah and Bank Sepah International, was part of a package of tightly scripted agreements—the others were a controversial prisoner swap and transfer of $1.7 billion in cash to Iran—that were finalized between the U.S. and Iran on Jan. 17, the day the Americans were freed.

The new details of the delisting have emerged after administration officials briefed lawmakers earlier this month on the U.S. decision.

According to senior U.S. officials, a senior State Department official, Brett McGurk, and a representative of the Iranian government signed three documents in Geneva on the morning of Jan. 17.

One document committed the U.S. to dropping criminal charges against 21 Iranian nationals, and Tehran to releasing the Americans imprisoned in Iran.

Another committed the U.S. to immediately transfer $400 million in cash to the Iranian regime and arrange the delivery within weeks of two subsequent cash payments totaling $1.3 billion to settle a decades-old legal dispute over a failed arms deal.

The U.S. agreed in a third document to support the immediate delisting of the two Iranian banks, according to senior U.S. officials. In the hours after the documents were signed at a Swiss hotel, the different elements of the agreement went forward: The Americans were released, Iran took possession of the $400 million in cash, and the U.N. Security Council removed sanctions on Bank Sepah and Bank Sepah International, these officials said.

COMMENT:  We were told we didn't pay ransom.  Sounds like a lot of ransom to me.  Am I wrong?

September 30,  2016     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 29,  2016

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

RASMUSSEN SEES DEAD HEAT – FROM RASMUSSEN REPORTS:   Following Monday night’s debate, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are running virtually even in Rasmussen Reports’ first daily White House Watch survey.  Our latest national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Clinton with 42% support to Trump’s 41%. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson earns seven percent (7%) of the vote, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein holds steady at two percent (2%). Three percent (3%) still like some other candidate, and five percent (5%) remain undecided. Trump had been moving ahead over the two previous weeks and held a 44% to 39% lead over Clinton last week at this time. It was the first time he had been ahead since mid-July.  Bottom line, the debate was costly to Trump.  He'll have to do better next time.  If he does, the history of debates shows that he can catch up.

ELECTION DANGER – FROM UPI.COM:   WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- As many as 10 state election databases have been hacked, not only the two previously reported in Illinois and Arizona, according to a report by CBS News.  The hacks come as officials in the Justice Department and Homeland Security warn state and local officials of the threat posed by hackers seeking access to the nation's election database.  The CBS report did not identify exactly how many states have been hacked, nor which ones. But according to multiple anonymous national security officials, as many as 10 have experienced some sort of hack.  This is chilling.  Elections are the heart of our democracy.  Yet, there seems to be a strange lack of interest in the story.   See our related post at 8:24 a.m.

EUROPE'S SLOW-MOTION SUICIDE – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   A ruling by European human rights judges has forced police to warn gangsters that their lives might be in danger - at vast expense to taxpayers.  An ex-justice minister last night revealed how senior officers are having to spend time and money issuing the villains and drug lords with 'threat to life notices'.  This is despite the fact they are putting themselves in peril through their own actions and it is diverting resources away from protecting 'innocent, law-abiding citizens'.  The European Court of Human Rights has decided that not passing on intelligence that another gangster wants to hurt them infringes their right to life.  Soon the Court of Human Rights will probably order reparations for gangsters to compensate them for loss of reputation.

September 29, 2016       Permalink

WALLS, EUROPEAN STYLE – AT 8:55 A.M. ET: Donald Trump talks about walls.  Europe builds them.  The European refugee crisis grows, and Europeans want solutions.  From the Washington Post:

CALAIS, France — So far, Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the Mexican border is all talk. Last week, France and Britain actually began building one along theirs.

Construction started here on a roughly mile-long concrete barrier intended to separate a sprawling migrant camp from the tunnels that offer passage to Britain, the latest attempt in what has become a global effort to throw physical barriers in the way of historic streams of human migration.

From a razor-wire-topped border fence in Hungary to the sealed border of Macedonia and Greece to Trump’s proposed wall , polarized societies across the world are finding that they can unite around keeping others at bay.

The “Great Wall of Calais,” as the project is informally known, is considerably shorter than Trump’s proposed partition of the United States and Mexico, but its message is much the same: keep out. The concrete wall, which will rise to 13 feet, extends a fence near the sprawling Calais migrant camp known as the “Jungle,” where more than 7,000 migrants have been stranded as they seek to enter Britain by all means possible. The concrete will be specially formulated to make it difficult to scale.

The camp here has become one of the most visible symbols of Europe’s migration crisis: a squalid no man’s land nestled between London and Paris, two of Europe’s wealthiest cities. The victorious British campaign to leave the European Union was partly fueled by concerns over immigration, while candidates for France’s presidential elections next year are already competing over being tough on migrant flows. Opponents of French President François Hollande have tried to turn the camp into a symbol of his weakness.

“It’s something scary, this resignation, this lack of authority,” France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy said while visiting Calais last week. Sarkozy’s campaign to recapture the presidency has pulled anti-immigrant rhetoric from the surging far-right National Front party, which has vowed to reestablish controls at France’s borders.

COMMENT:  Coming soon to a border near you, if the Democrats get their way.

September 29, 2016       Permalink

NOTHING TO SEE, NOTHING TO SEE – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  All these little legalities, like citizenship.  All these technicalities, like honest voting.  Aren't you frustrated by the busybodies who care about these things?  Why don't they just let everyone vote as soon as they leave the maternity ward? 

Oh, remember the guy who shot up the mall in western Washington a few weeks ago, killing five people?  From K5, NBC Local:

The Cascade Mall shooting suspect, Arcan Cetin, may face an additional investigation related to his voting record and citizenship status.

Federal sources confirm to KING 5 that Cetin was not a U.S. citizen, meaning legally he cannot vote. However, state records show Cetin registered to vote in 2014 and participated in three election cycles, including the May presidential primary.

Cetin, who immigrated to the United States from Turkey as a child, is considered a permanent resident or green card holder. While a permanent resident can apply for U.S. citizenship after a certain period of time, sources tell KING his status had not changed from green card holder to U.S. citizen.

While voters must attest to citizenship upon registering online or registering to vote at the Department of Licensing Office, Washington state doesn't require proof of citizenship. Therefore elections officials say the state's elections system operates, more or less, under an honor system.

"We don’t have a provision in state law that allows us either county elections officials or the Secretary of State's office to verify someone’s citizenship," explained Secretary of State Kim Wyman. "So, we’re in this place where we want to make sure we’re maintaining people’s confidence in the elections and the integrity of the process, but also that we’re giving this individual, like we would any voter, his due process. We’re moving forward, and that investigation is really coming out of the investigation from the shootings."

The penalty for voting as a non U.S. citizen could result in five years of prison time or a $10,000, according to Secretary of State's Office.

COMMENT:  Repeat after me:  There is no voter fraud in our elections.  And people who say there is are racist, colonialist, misogynist pigs.  Got that?

September 29, 2016       Permalink

THE CONTINUING FARCE – AT 8:06 A.M. ET:  As we run our election campaign, Congress continues to inquire into the strange FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton and her band of merry aides.  It is weird, and disturbing.  We may well elect a president whose main claim might actually be, "I got away with it."  From the New York Post: 

It’s bad enough that FBI Director James Comey agreed to pass out immunity deals like candy to material witnesses and potential targets of his investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illegal private e-mail server.

But now we learn that some of them were immunized despite lying to Comey’s investigators.

In the latest bombshell from Congress’ probe into what’s looking more and more like an FBI whitewash (or coverup) of criminal behavior by the Democratic nominee and her aides, the Denver-based tech who destroyed subpoenaed e-mails from Clinton’s server allegedly lied to FBI agents after he got an immunity deal.

That’s normally a felony. As a federal prosecutor, Comey tossed Martha Stewart in jail for it and helped convict Scooter Libby for it as well. Yet the key Clinton witness still maintained his protection from criminal prosecution.

With Comey’s blessing, Obama prosecutors cut the deal with the e-mail administrator, Paul Combetta, in 2015 in exchange for his full cooperation and honest testimony. But the House Judiciary Committee revealed Wednesday that he falsely told agents in a Feb. 18 interview that he had no knowledge that e-mails he bleached from the server were under congressional orders to be preserved as evidence.

COMMENT:  I can't wait for this election year to be over.  Then we can plan for the next one.  What a cast of characters we have this year. 

The image of the FBI has been damaged, and Director Comey, well regarded in Washington, has been damaged as well.  When the Clintons touch you, this is what happens.

September 29,  2016     Permalink