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APRIL 16,  2015

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

PREVIEW OF HER PRESIDENCY – From Weekly Standard:  "Iowans had their cellphones and cameras confiscated before getting to meet the Democratic presidential frontrunner, Hillary Rodham Clinton. 'On Thursday, Clinton´s motorcade left the SpringHill Suites for Main Street Cafe, where she met privately with party leaders for about an hour and a half,' reports KETV in Omaha.  'Pottawattamie County Democratic Chairwoman Linda Nelson said the meeting was so private that everyone invited was asked to hand over their cellphones and cameras before taking part.'"  I'm assuming they all swore allegiance to her.

MORE HILLARY, THE COMMON WOMAN – From London's Daily Mail:  "The Secret Service will have to drive Scooby One and Scooby Two back to Chappaqua without Hillary Clinton riding shotgun. Instead, she's flying coach and toting her own luggage.  A United Airlines regional jet carried her back to the East Coast on Thursday from the Omaha, Nebraska airport. Her flight was bound for Newark, New Jersey, the major airport most convenient to her spacious Chappaqua, New York home."  There were photos of Ms. Average rolling her luggage around the airport...but apparently not checking it.  Reporters noted that it was too big for the overhead bins.  I guess a little helper eventually took the bags.  She was met at Newark by a limo, right on the tarmac, pretty much like any other passenger.

ANOTHER FOR-THE-PEOPLE MSNBC STAR – From the Winston-Salem Journal:  "The Internal Revenue Service has placed a tax lien on Melissa Harris-Perry and her husband, James Perry, for about $70,000 in delinquent taxes, according to a notice filed in Forsyth County Hall of Justice earlier this month…
In an email Wednesday, Harris-Perry said she was unaware of the tax lien but knew about the debt. She said she and her husband paid $21,721 of the debt when they filed their taxes Wednesday. The remaining debt, $48,581, covers a tax period ending Dec. 31, 2013, according to the notice.  Harris-Perry said she and her husband had been working to pay off the debt but had to deal with a series of personal crises that caused the couple to pay off the debt a lot slower than expected."  Well, if you're on MSNBC you face a personal crisis every day.

IT'S ABOUT TIME – From Fox:  "FORT HOOD, Texas – Dozens of soldiers and surviving family members of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting are receiving additional Army pay that they felt was long overdue.  The announcement from Army Sec. John McHugh on Thursday comes a week after 36 Purple Hearts were awarded to victims and relatives of the deadliest shooting on a U.S. military base.  Thirteen people were killed in the attack and 31 others were injured.  McHugh said the Purple Heart recipients will receive extra hostile fire pay and other compensation."  It probably took this long because the propagandists around Obama tried to portray the incident as "workplace violence" rather than a terrorist attack on U.S. soldiers.

April 16, 2015       Permalink

NORTH KOREA AND IRAN – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:   There's the fantasy world of Barack Obama and his team of undergraduates, and then there's the real world.  From the great Bill Gertz at the Washington Free Beacon: 

North Korea supplied several shipments of missile components to Iran during recent nuclear talks and the transfers appear to violate United Nations sanctions on both countries, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they transited from North Korea to Iran, said officials familiar with intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Details of the arms shipments were included in President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings and officials suggested information about the transfers was kept secret from the United Nations, which is in charge of monitoring sanctions violations.

Critics of the U.S.-led nuclear framework agreement reached in Switzerland earlier this month have said one major deficiency of the accord is its failure to address Iran’s missile program, considered a key nuclear delivery system for the Islamist regime.

CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani declined to comment on the missile component shipments, citing a policy of not discussing classified information.

But other officials said the transfers included goods covered by the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary agreement among 34 nations that limits transfers of missiles and components of systems with ranges of greater than 186 miles.

One official said the transfers between North Korea and Iran included large diameter engines, which could be used for a future Iranian long-range missile system.

COMMENT:  I hope Congress takes this up, and quickly.  Obama outdistances even Neville Chamberlain in appeasement.  Indeed, I'm not even sure he sees Iran and North Korea as enemies.  And we have a year and a half of this administration. 

What is remarkable is the shamelessness of the Obama crowd.  But they see no cause for shame.  Indeed, they're quite proud of what they're doing.

April 16, 2015       Permalink

ISIS IN AMERICA – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:   This is absolutely chilling.  We cannot absolutely confirm it, but it should be taken very seriously.  From Fox: 

Islamic State fighters are operating training bases near the U.S. southern border and are being aided by violent drug cartels to smuggle terrorists into states like Texas, a report published Tuesday by a watchdog group claims.

The Judicial Watch report, which cited an unnamed Mexican Army officer and a Mexican police inspector, raises new fears that the fight with ISIS is closer to the U.S. than previously thought.

The report identified the locations of the two bases, and said one is as close as 8 miles from Texas in a town west of Juarez. Mexican authorities found possible evidence -- plans written in Arabic and Urdu -- last week in the town of "Anapra," the sources said. These sources told the watchdog that "coyotes" who work for drug cartels assist in smuggling terrorists between Fort Hancock, Texas, and other undisclosed locations.

The U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an inquiry from FoxNews.com to confirm the report. But the Mexican border has long been seen as a potential vulnerability.

FoxNews.com reported last summer that social media chatter shows ISIS is aware of the porous border, and are “expressing an increased interest” in crossing over to carry out a terrorist attack.

COMMENT:  Another great contribution to national security by Field Marshal Obama, who has shown no interest in the vulnerability of the border. 

April 16, 2015       Permalink

SLICK HILLY – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Hillary is already changing her tune to block a challenge to her nomination from the militant left.  From the New York Post: 

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton wants the Supreme Court to rule gay marriage legal nationwide, her campaign said Wednesday, marking a shift from her previous state-by-state approach.

“Hillary Clinton supports marriage equality and hopes the Supreme Court will come down on the side of same-sex couples being guaranteed that constitutional right,” Adrienne Elrod, spokesperson for Hillary for America, told BuzzFeed News after a story questioning Clinton’s stance.

Now, 37 states allow marriage for gay couples, but the Supreme Court is poised to decide the issue when justices hear oral arguments this month on whether states can ban same-sex couples from marrying.

The campaign issued the position on Clinton’s second day campaigning in Iowa, where she greeted restaurant owners in Marshalltown and then held a discussion at a Norwalk fruit warehouse with small-business leaders.

During her tour, she also stopped at two coffee shops stacked with supporters her campaign had arranged.

Bret Nilles was among nine local Democratic activists who were dropped off at a Mount Vernon espresso shop to talk with the candidate.

“With her notoriety, I think it’s hard to find an organic event,” Nilles told The Post.

COMMENT:  Reports from her "campaign" are hardly raves.  Again, everything is a gimmick.  There's no "real" Hillary, at least not one that can be presented publicly.  But the mainstreamers present her as the ultimate celebrity, not one consumption of one sandwich to be missed. 

It will still be tough for Republicans, but we can win with the right candidate.  The field is growing, and it's substantive.

April 16, 2015       Permalink

WITH THE CLINTONS, THERE'S ALWAYS A GIMMICK – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  There has been concern that the Clinton family foundation has accepted large donations from some pretty foul foreign dictatorships.

So the Clintons have now gone into action to solve the problem...but notice the gimmick they're pulling.  From The Wall Street Journal:

The board of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has decided to continue accepting donations from foreign governments, primarily from six countries, even though Hillary Clinton is running for president, a summary of the new policy to be released Thursday shows.

The rules would permit donations from Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the U.K.—countries that support or have supported Clinton Foundation programs on health, poverty and climate change, according to the summary.

But get this:

That means other nations would be prohibited from making large donations to the foundation. But those governments would be allowed to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative, a subsidiary of the foundation where companies, nonprofit groups and government officials work on solutions to global problems.

COMMENT:  Ah, come on, Clintons.  This is not up to your usual standards of deviousness, smoke-and-mirrors, and deception.  Bottom line, any woman-hating regime can still send a check.  They just have to make it out a bit differently.

Corrupt.

April 16,  2015     Permalink

APRIL 15,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:24 P.M. ET: 

IT'S STARTING UP AGAIN – From CBS:  "NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Sources said two officers were injured Tuesday night, as police clashed with demonstrators on the streets of Brooklyn in a protest against police-related deaths and violent incidents throughout the country.  As CBS2’s Valerie Castro reported, the demonstrators started in Union Square and marched down Broadway before targeting the Brooklyn Bridge, 1010 WINS reported. They blocked traffic on the bridge in an effort to bring awareness to what they called police brutality."  When New York clocked more than 2,000 murders a year, these people, and their ideological ancestors, were not demonstrating.  I wonder why.

NOTHING TO SEE, NOTHING TO SEE – From PJ Media:  "Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would be removing Cuba from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terror list as part of his push to normalize relations with the communist dictatorship. But just hours later, a terror group long fostered by Cuba — even today, the Castro brothers are harboring several wanted members of the group — murdered 10 Colombian soldiers and wounded 17 others in a terror attack on a military base."  A misunderstanding, I'm sure.

NOBLE WORK – From Fox:  "HONOLULU – Tom Gray's family has waited for more than 70 years to bring home the remains of his cousin who was killed in the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.  On Tuesday, they got a step closer when the military announced it would exhume and attempt to identify the remains of almost 400 sailors and Marines from the USS Oklahoma who were buried as unknowns after the war.  Gray's cousin, Edwin Hopkins, of Swanzey, New Hampshire, was a 19-year-old fireman third class on board the USS Oklahoma when the battleship was hit by nine torpedoes and capsized on Dec. 7, 1941. His remains weren't identified and his family was told he was missing...All together, 429 sailors and Marines on board the Oklahoma were killed. Only 35 were identified in the years immediately after."   We hope this work can be completed while at least some friends and relatives who knew the servicemen are still living. 

SOUNDS RIGHT TO ME – From Daily Caller:  "With environmentalists calling for divestment from fossil fuels, the former United Nations climate chief has gone against the grain and defended using the 'Green Climate Fund' to finance coal projects.  'There are massive challenges in terms of poverty eradication where coal is a logical choice from a cost effectiveness point of view, and you really have to be in a position to offer those countries an economically viable alternative before you begin to rule out coal,' Yvo de Boer, the former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told the news site Responding to Climate Change (RCC)."  I wonder how long it will be before this guy's reputation is destroyed.

April 15,  2015     Permalink

FROM BRITAIN, WITHOUT LOVE – AT 11:25 A.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton will soon have another serious charge to contend with.  "What difference does it make?" may not cut it as an answer.  From Fox: 

A former British diplomat has claimed that Hillary Clinton oversaw a "dysfunctional" U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq during her tenure as Secretary of State in a book due to be published next month.

Britain's Daily Telegraph reported late Tuesday that Emma Sky, a former political adviser to U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno, writes that Clinton's choice as the Obama administration's first ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, had "lacked regional experience and was miscast in the role in Baghdad. In fact, he had not wanted the job," but was persuaded to accept it by Clinton. Sky writes that Odierno told her that Clinton had admitted as much when she met the general in Washington in early 2010.

Sky continues that Hill's main focus while ambassador appeared to be monitoring the activities of the U.S. military, as opposed to engaging with Iraqi leaders or his fellow diplomats. In fact, Sky claims that Hill repeatedly "made clear how much he disliked Iraq and Iraqis." She also says that Hill tried to get the fortified embassy to look more like a "normal" U.S. diplomatic mission, a task which apparently required importing rolls of sod "on which the ambassador could play lacrosse".

Sky's book, called "The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq," covers her seven years in Iraq beginning in 2003. Her thesis is that the hasty U.S. withdraw overseen by President Obama thrust then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki into the arms of Iran and exacerbated sectarian tensions that boosted support for what she calls "extreme sectarian actors, including the Islamic State, [who turned] local grievances over poor governance into proxy wars."

COMMENT:  We will await Clinton's answer to these serious charges.  But, of course, she'll have allies.  Book review editors in the mainstream media will do their part for the Clinton cause by assigning hostile reviewers to the book, or ignoring the book altogether.  Believe me, that's done.  I've seen it. 

April 15, 2015       Permalink

MARCO – AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  The contrast is beginning to show between Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio, who immediately emerged as an important contender for the Republican nomination. 

Clinton is on her magical mystery tour to Iowa, desperately trying to assert that she's human.  She's having a tough time proving the impossible.  By contrast, Marco Rubio is conducting a grown-up campaign, discussing, for example, the challenge of dealing with Russia.  From The Hill: 

Rubio called for the U.S. to reinvigorate a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and consider deploying additional troops in Western Europe. He also said the U.S. should arm Ukrainian forces facing Russian-backed separatists, something that President Obama has ruled out so far.

"At some point this spring, you mark my words, and you keep this recording, there is going to be at some point separatists moving on a spring offensive again," he warned.

"They’re going to try to seize key towns like Donetsk and Luhansk, and you’re going to see that happen here fairly soon. So we need to be prepared for that," he said.

Rubio said Russia's success in Ukraine was inviting further aggression, possibly against Eastern European NATO members, which the U.S. would have to protect.

Rubio also called for increased U.S. defense spending in 2016, and explained his decision to support increasing spending by $20 billion next year, without finding offsets.

"I have no problem offsetting it if it is possible," he said, but added, "The cause of our national debt is not military spending or discretionary spending in general.

"We need to fund national defense, because that is the priority of the national federal government, and that’s the reason, the primary reason why we have a federal government, is to provide for our national defense," he said.

He said the U.S. needed the Ohio-class nuclear submarine and a long range strike bomber, and that it should modernize nuclear stockpiles.

He also said the U.S. needed 12 or 13 aircraft carrier groups, over the current 10, to fill carrier availability gaps in the Asia Pacific.

He warned that although the U.S. had a military edge over China, it would be "not for much longer" unless the U.S. continued to improve its capabilities.

COMMENT:  That is a grown-up talking, and it's refreshing to hear.  Rubio would be a giant of a president compared to Obama, who, as we've said before, is more of a glorified town councilman.

Watch Rubio.  Americans are tired of mush, and he's not mush.

April 15, 2015       Permalink

HOW IT HAPPENED – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:   Yesterday's committee vote on the Iran nuclear program didn't come about by accident.  The brilliant work of Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, shaping the legislation to achieve bipartisan support, was a major factor.  But other events conspired against the president's rigid opposition to Congressional action.  From Jennifer Rubin at WaPo: 

We can trace events to Speaker of the House John Boehner’s decision to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress. The White House’s overreaction and openly expressed venom followed by Netanyahu’s masterful speech turned the national discussion, for the first time, to the substance of the Iran deal. Once the president was forced to fess up that there would be a sunset clause and that we would be leaving Iran with its nuclear infrastructure — facts that were only revealed in an Obama interview on the eve of (and in anticipation of) Netanyahu’s speech — the scene was set for a full explication of the dangers of such concessions. Observers could also see that the administration had slid from dismantling Iran’s nuclear capability to managing it.

And...

The next nail in Obama’s coffin was the framework itself. It was a fig leaf, unilaterally presented to conceal a lack of agreement on numerous key issues. But once again it had the effect of shocking the body politic and raising real concerns about the president’s judgment. The administration announced it as an “historic” deal, but over the weeks that followed the White House had to acknowledge there were lots and lots of fundamental issues to resolve.

Obama’s position was further eroded by an op-ed from former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz, who dissected the framework. That caught the attention of Democrats and of the foreign policy community, rendering ridiculous the president’s claim that opposition was simply unhinged partisanship. And finally, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s public repudiation of the U.S. fact sheet and public insistence on unattainable concessions laid bare a reality Democrats had deflected: The president was wildly casting concessions at the Iranians, getting nothing and systematically making it easier not harder for Iran to both lift sanctions and preserve the option of a nuclear breakout.

COMMENT:  I think that's a fair summary.  Even Democrats have to admit, although few will do so publicly, that this administration is grossly incompetent.  Either that, or grossly deceitful.  I'd imagine that many sane Democrats, and there are some left, can't wait for Obama to leave office. 

April 15, 2015       Permalink 

THE STUNNING MOMENT – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  I don't think we've yet absorbed the stunning significance of the unanimous vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to approve a bill giving Congress a say in the Iran nuclear deal.

It was a dramatic rebuke to the president, who tried to stop the legislation, which, of course, must still be approved by both houses of Congress.  The withdrawal of the White House's veto threat, in the face of the unanimous vote, makes passage likely, unless the legislation is torpedoed by either side along the way.

Max Boot comments on the significance, and the brilliant role of committee Chairman Bob Corker, in Commentary:

Corker managed to convince every member of the Foreign Relations Committee to endorse a bill that would give Congress the right to approve any lifting of sanctions as a result of the nuclear deal. So thoroughly did he manage to win over Democrats that Obama, facing a veto-proof majority, had no choice but to concede that he would sign the legislation. How did Corker do it? It’s hard to know exactly from the outside but it sounds as if, in negotiating with committee Democrats, he made some cosmetic changes, such as shortening the congressional review period from 60 to 30 days and not requiring Obama to certify that Iran has gotten out of the business of supporting anti-American terrorism. Such changes will spark criticism from some on the right, but the essential point appears intact—namely, that Obama will have to allow Congress to weigh in, something that he has so far adamantly resisted doing.

And...

The basic message, from Democrats and Republicans alike, is that there is deep unease in Congress, as well as in the country at large, about the terms of the accord that Obama is negotiating. And for good cause: As former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger have noted, “negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first 10 years.” Those concerns were only exacerbated by Russia’s announcement yesterday that it will move ahead with the delivery of a sophisticated S-300 air defense system to Iran that will make its nuclear plants much harder to hit from the air in the future. Now at least there will be a fighting chance for Congress to try to stop a bad deal, even if the odds still favor the president, given his enormous leeway in the conduct of foreign affairs.

COMMENT:  All true.  As Boot points out elsewhere, the bill, if passed by Congress, could actually strengthen Obama's hand in negotiations with Iran, if indeed he wants his hand strengthened.  By pointing out that any agreement must pass Congressional muster, he can try to get some concessions out of Iran, which needs a deal more than we do.

As the bill makes its way through Congress, the negotiators will return to Switzerland to iron out the actual details of an agreement with Iran.  The deadline for these new talks is June 30th, some two and a half months away.  We should know by then if we have a real deal, or an illusion.  I'm betting on the latter.

April 15,  2015     Permalink