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DECEMBER 26,  2014

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

JUST ROUTINE – From Fox:  "It was a violent Christmas Eve in the District as there were six separate shootings throughout the day. The shootings have resulted in five deaths.  D.C. police say officers shot and killed a robbery suspect in Southeast D.C. It was one of two police-involved shootings on Wednesday.  The first police-involved shooting occurred at around 3 p.m. near Naylor Road and 30th Street."  Hmm.  Nothing from the protesters.  I guess those black lives don't matter.

PERFORMING ARTS NEWS – From the New York Post:  "Claire Danes is lucky no Emmy voters live in Islamabad.  Pakistani officials are furious with Showtime after watching the fourth season of its hit show 'Homeland,' which they say portrays their country as an ugly, ignorant, terror-plagued 'hellhole.'  The diplomats took copious notes of every slight while binge-watching all 12 episodes — including the lack of greenery in the depiction of the nation’s capital, Islamabad."  It's the old lack-of-greenery slur.  Can't we all just get along?  Actually, the Islamabad scenes were photographed in Cape Town, South Africa.  Another garden spot.

FOR THE TECHIES – From Reuters:  "DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran is to expand what it calls 'smart filtering' of the Internet, a policy of censoring undesirable content on websites without banning them completely, as it used to, the government said on Friday.  The Islamic Republic has some of the strictest controls on Internet access in the world, but its blocks on U.S.-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are routinely bypassed by tech-savvy Iranians using virtual private networks (VPNs).  Under the new scheme, Tehran could lift its blanket ban on those sites and, instead, filter their content."  Why, it's practically Jeffersonian Democracy.  Oh, thank you, kind mullahs, for your smart filtering.  And I promise not to watch the evil, Western, Zionist-controlled sports shows.

December 26, 2014       Permalink

REWRITING HISTORY – AT 11:28 A.M. ET:  I've noticed one thing about successful groups – they always thank those who help them.  It allows them to build alliances, and it's the right thing to do.

Sadly, we've seen recently a rewriting of the history of the civil rights movement, apparently based on the idea that only blacks deserve credit for winning the victories of the civil rights era.  One element of this rewriting is to scratch out the remarkable work done by President Lyndon Johnson.  Indeed, it was Johnson's legislative skill, honed in the years when he was Senate majority leader, that was so instrumental in getting the major civil rights laws passed.  Add to Johnson the assistance given by Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.  It was Republican votes that put the civil rights laws over the top.

A new movie is infuriating people who actually know the facts.  From AP: 

AUSTIN, Texas - The widely acclaimed movie "Selma" about the 1965 Civil Rights movement has disappointed at least one moviegoer: a leading historian of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The director of the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, which hosted a major civil rights summit this year that was headlined by four U.S. presidents, said the film that opens in theatres Thursday incorrectly portrays Johnson as an obstructionist to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Selma" is based on the 1965 marches from the Alabama cities of Selma to Montgomery that were led by King. At the time, marchers were calling for voting rights.

LBJ Library Director Mark Updegrove said the film unfairly casts Johnson as a sort of composite character who represents the obstacles blacks faced in getting civil rights laws passed. What history shows, Updegrove said, is that Johnson and King had a partnership.

He said Johnson and King had disagreements but not like the film suggests. Updegrove called the portrayal unfortunate given the current climate following the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police.

"When racial tension is so high, it does no good to suggest that the president of the U.S. himself stood in the way of progress a half-century ago. It flies in the face of history," Updegrove said.

COMMENT:  This same game was played by the sickening John Edwards, when he ran for president in 2008.  In order to grovel to black activists he asserted that blacks won the civil rights victories themselves, and he referred to Johnson as "some Washington politician."  Very nice. 

Nothing will be done about the film.  The Hollywood crowd hates Johnson because of Vietnam, and because he didn't speak the way they do.  But without white help, there wouldn't have been a successful civil rights movement.  That was acknowledged at the time.  Sadly, some refuse to acknowledge it now, probably because hustlers sell the line that black America needs them, and only them, to make progress.

December 26, 2014       Permalink

SHE NOTICED – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  It is clear that Hillary Clinton is getting worried over agitation in the left wing of her party.  And what does Hillary do when faced with agitation?  Exactly what any red-blooded political hack would do – she adjusts her views.  From WaPo: 

Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for president, is working hard to shore up support among liberals in hopes of tamping down a serious challenge from the left in the battle for the 2016 nomination.

Clinton has aligned herself firmly with President Obama since the November midterms on a range of liberal-friendly issues, including immigration, climate change and opening diplomatic relations with Cuba. In an impassioned human rights speech this month, she also condemned the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation tactics and decried cases of apparent police brutality against minorities.

The recent statements suggest a concerted effort by Clinton to appeal to the Democratic Party’s most activist, liberal voters, who have often eyed her with suspicion and who would be crucial to her securing the party’s nomination.

But the positions also tie her ever more tightly to a president who remains broadly unpopular, providing new lines of attack for the many Republicans jostling to oppose her if she runs.

One Democratic strategist said the moves are “more prophylactic than anything. If she didn’t say anything, the media and the liberal groups that care about this stuff” would criticize her or nurse a grudge. Like others, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because Clinton has not yet said she is a candidate.

COMMENT:  The far left doesn't want Clinton.  It wants Elizabeth Warren, even if she did make up the bit about being Native American.  I mean, she's entitled to her own "narrative," isn't she?

The normal political process for Dems is to run to the left for the nomination, then pivot to the center.  But I wonder, with the 24-hour news cycle getting more powerful each year, whether that will still be possible.  Hillary isn't exactly renowned for integrity.  If she's caught in contradictions, they could sink her.  That's assuming the Republicans put up a presidential candidate with a pulse.

December 26, 2014       Permalink

DISGRACEFUL – AT 10:26 P.M. ET:  Of course, this is all in the interests of the people, who yearn to be led out of their downtrodden state.  From Breitbart: 

Demonstrators participating in a Christmas Day “Black Lives Matter” protest in Oakland against police smashed store windows, injured a journalist, and vandalized the city’s main Christmas tree in Jack London Square in the latest violence associated with the movement.

The protest was called “No Time Off,” in defiance of the holiday: “The idea is to give no time off to police in the context of racial discrimination and state violence happening every day,” one demonstrator told the local NBC News affiliate.

Activists from “Occupy Oakland” called the anti-police protests the “Best Xmas party of the year,” but for police forced to control dozens of violent protestors, it was anything but. Likewise for a photojournalist who was struck on the hand and injured by a bottle thrown by demonstrators, according to Evan Sernoffsky of the San Francisco Chronicle.

COMMENT:  Oakland has a particularly violent element on the fringe left.  They really don't seem to care about the damage they do to their own cause.  They'll have another cause tomorrow morning.  The people must be served!

December 26,  2014     Permalink

DECEMBER 25,  2014

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

RESPONSIBLE GUY – The black mayor of Berkeley, Missouri, where a black teen was killed by a white officer several nights ago, isn't providing any fodder for Al Sharpton.  From CBS:  "BERKELEY, Mo. (KMOX) – Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins is hoping to avert the kind of street violence that he saw in neighboring Ferguson just a few months ago.  This comes after another black teen was killed by a white police officer – the difference is that the suspect reportedly aimed a gun at the officer first.  Hoskins says from what he’s seen on the surveillance tape, this is not a repeat of Ferguson, and the officer was justified.
He says the surveillance video from the Mobil on the Run gas station is strong preliminary evidence that the Berkeley officer fired in self-defense after a gun was pointed at him."  Admirable behavior that probably will end the mayor's political career.

IT CONTINUES – More arrests in New York of those who threaten cops.  From Reuters:  "(Reuters) - Two more men have been arrested for threatening New York police, including one who called the precinct headquarters of two officers killed as they sat in their patrol car and asked to speak to one of them, a police spokesman said on Thursday.  The arrests bring to six the number of those detained for threats against the New York Police Department since officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were shot on Saturday by a gunman seeking revenge for unarmed black men killed by police."  The fear of copycat killings continues.  There are several stories out there about the police finding arsenals in the homes of some of those arrested for threatening cops.  We're sure Al Sharpton will calm the situation.

START THINKING – From London's Daily Mail:  "A new research study suggests that just thinking of exercising can have the same effects as actually hitting the gym, officials say.  A recent study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology found that simply imagining exercise can tone muscle, delay atrophy, and even make your muscles stronger. Researchers at Ohio University, according to the Breitbart News Network, conducted an experiment using two sets of 'healthy individuals.'  The researchers wrapped the wrists of one of the sets in a cast and gave them instructions to sit still for 11 minutes, five days a week, for four weeks, and 'perform mental imagery of strong muscle contractions,' -- or, imagine exercising. The other set were not given any instruction.  The results illustrated that the body and mind are more intertwined than we thought.
At the end of the four weeks, the participants who engaged in the 'mental exercise' were twice as strong as those who didn't, Breitbart reports.  Additionally, those participants had a stronger brain because the exercises created stronger neuromuscular pathways."  Great news for the couch potato "community."  But I'd like to see this verified.

December 25, 2014       Permalink 

OUTRAGEOUS – AT 12:06 P.M. ET:  We in New York have periodically suffered from the nuttiness of weird leftist judges.  Now we have another, and in the midst of unprecedented agitation against the police, she is doing real damage.  And she is acting despite repeated warnings from the administrators of her own court.  From the New York Post: 

She keeps turning ’em loose.

A day after freeing a gang member who posted an anti-cop death threat online, a Brooklyn judge ignored the admonishment of a court boss — and sprung a man who allegedly punched a police officer and threatened to kill his colleagues, The Post has learned.

Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson blatantly disregarded an Office of Court Administration boss who said she “should be setting an example to the public that threatening or assaulting police officers isn’t an acceptable thing,” a courthouse source said.

The admonishment came in the wake of Saturday’s execution-style slayings of two NYPD cops as they sat in a patrol car in Brooklyn.

“The court administrator told her she exercised poor judgment, and that she had a case on later that night, and that she should exercise better judgment in that case,” the source said.

“It was a stern conversation,” the source added. “And she totally ignored it.”

On Tuesday night, Johnson released Travis Maye, 26, without bail following his arrest in a violent melee with cops earlier that day.

According to court records, Maye took swings at cops at Flatbush Avenue and Prospect Place at around 1:35 a.m., socking one officer in the eye and sending him to the hospital.

After being pepper-sprayed, stunned with a Taser and put in handcuffs, Maye, 26, ranted at the cops that he would “find out where you live” and “get you,” court papers say.

“You will die!” he allegedly ranted.

Johnson, a former high-ranking Legal Aid lawyer, was appointed to the bench by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Her term expires next Wednesday, and Mayor de Blasio is “considering” her reappointment, a City Hall official said.

COMMENT:  The police unions should publicize this case widely, and make clear their passionate opposition to this clown being reappointed.  It should be a test case to be used to judge the current, blundering mayor.

December 25, 2014       Permalink

LIES ABOUT THE POLICE – AT 11:16 A.M. ET:  I'm glad to see there's a major pushback against the lies being told about the police.  Led by figures like Rudy Giuliani of New York, the pushback seeks to correct the record and put it in context.

Everyone agrees that there are some bad cops.  But the wild charges and exaggerations of recent days, many instigated by old red groups, are doing enormous harm to police morale and police/community relations.  Inevitably, they will have their impact on the effectiveness of the police.  From Rich Lowry at the New York Post: 

As Heather Mac Donald of City Journal writes: “Criminologists have spent decades trying to prove that the overrepresentation of blacks and Hispanic in prison demonstrates that the criminal justice system is racist. And each time they fail. Even the most left-wing academics have been forced to admit that crime, not race, determines criminal justice outcomes.”

Police go where the crime is, and at considerable risk to themselves.

Surely, if their own comfort and safety were all that mattered to them, they would spend all their time patrolling the poshest neighborhoods in America.

Police critics have taken Ferguson and Garner and have woven them into a narrative of reckless disregard for the lives of blacks.

After the grand jury declined to indict in the Garner case, Mayor de Blasio referred to a “profound” crisis.

The numbers suggest the opposite: As crime has declined — thanks, in part, to rigorous policing — police interactions with the public have declined and have involved fewer instances of the use of force.

Our national conversation has been a national fever. Now, perhaps it will break.

The next lines refer to the son of one of the assassinated police officers:

As Jaden Ramos, the 13-year-old son of Rafael Ramos, wrote in a heartbreaking Facebook post about his dad:

“Everyone says they hate cops but they are the people that they call for help.”

There is more wisdom in that simple statement than in most of the cable chatter, protest chants and op-eds written in the wake of Ferguson and the Garner case.

If we really want to reduce tensions between the community and men like Officer Rafael Ramos, it is imperative, first, to stop lying about the police.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  Read the whole piece.  The shooting of a black teenager by a white officer in a Missouri town a few nights ago was well handled by the town's black mayor, who refused to be dragged into cop bashing.  Thank you, sir.

December 25, 2014       Permalink

BEING CHRISTIAN IN BAGHDAD – AT 10:48 A.M. ET:   It is a terrible time for Christians in Baghdad.  The Islamic State is breathing down their necks.  From Breitbart:

(Reuters) – Baghdad’s embattled Christian community worshipped defiantly Wednesday night at Christmas Eve mass.

The pews filled at Baghdad’s Sacred Heart church, as people remembered the darkest year in memory.

Blast walls shielded the church and seven policeman flanked the outside of the house of worship, in an indication of the government’s fear of an attack on the religious groups by jihadists who consider them non-believers.

The congregation sang in unison: “Praise Jesus, our Lord. Oh praise him” as incense burnt in the darkened church.

The worshippers paid tribute to the thousands of Christians displaced this summer in northern Iraq when Islamic State seized the city of Mosul in June and in August pushed on toward Iraqi Kurdistan, over-running Christian towns on the Nineveh plain.

“The recent conditions have left us with a bit of sadness for our brethren, be they Christian or non-Christian, those who were displaced and harmed,” Father Thair Abdul Masih told Reuters.

“Christianity is the religion of peace and we pray for these people to return to their homes. We pray for all evil to vanish,” he said.

Some had personal stories of those displaced this summer in northern Iraq, who have scattered to Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey and Lebanon.

“They live in misery… yet we still exchange blessings and congratulations of Christmas and the New Year,” said Fadi Rafaat, 27, an assistant to the priest. “We celebrate the happiness of Christmas, but deep inside we carry the sadness of Iraq.”

COMMENT:  Obama should lead a major international effort focusing on the persecution of Christians in the Mideast.  He won't, of course.  Not unless there is a real uproar among Christians in the West, and their allies.  That is long overdue.

December 25,  2014     Permalink