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LAST SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE OF 2016

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DECEMBER 8,  2016

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

MAJOR HILLARY WORSHIP NEWS –  FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Thursday his family's pet chicken named Hillary died right before the election. McAuliffe, a Democrat and a top Clinton ally, was asked about his four chickens in an interview with the Atlantic.  "I hate to say this, one chicken died," he said. "About a month before the election, Hillary died."  "We've got Hillary, Jr. now," he added. "She is bright and fluffy and making a lot of noise and healthy as an ox."  Ah, the change of generations.  How moving and spiritual.

HILLARY FINDS ANOTHER REASON WHY SHE LOST – FROM THE HILL:    Hillary Clinton on Thursday decried the spread of fake news online, calling it an “epidemic” that Congress should take action against.  “The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences,” Clinton said during a speech on Capitol Hill.  Some Democrats have argued the spread of anti-Clinton fake news online contributed to her electoral loss to Donald Trump.  The issue has received renewed attention this week after a gunman entered a pizzeria in Washington that was at the center of a false viral conspiracy theory that alleged it was home to a pedophilia ring operated by Clinton and her inner circle.  “This isn’t about politics or partisanship,” Clinton continued during her speech Thursday at a ceremony honoring retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).  Fake news has been going on since before this Republic was founded.  It's gone under many labels, including yellow journalism.  So far, Clinton has blamed everyone but herself for her loss.  Watch – she'll blame a girlfriend of Bill's that we don't even know about.

OUTRAGEOUS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   The Ohio State University student who allegedly ran over several students and stabbed others to defend Islam should not have been shot by police before he could hurt more people.  That’s the explicit message coming from the OSU Coalition for Black Liberation, which added Abdul Razak Ali Artan’s name to a list of every person of color that has been killed by police since October, The Lantern reports.  The group periodically reads from the list in public, and it gave a “eulogy” for each name and held a moment of silence on Wednesday.  These people are sick.  Nothing more need be said.

December 8,  2016     Permalink

MICHIGAN FOR TRUMP – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  The Michigan recount, instigated by the overwhelmingly popular Jill Stein, has been canceled.   From Fox: 

DETROIT – A federal judge who ordered Michigan to begin its recount effectively ended it on Wednesday, tying his decision to a state court ruling that found Green Party candidate Jill Stein had no legal standing to request another look at ballots.

The ruling seals Republican Donald Trump's narrow victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton for Michigan's16 electoral votes.

U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith agreed with Republicans who argued that the three-day recount must end a day after the state appeals court dealt a blow to the effort. The court said Stein, who finished fourth in Michigan on Nov. 8, didn't have a chance of winning even after a recount and therefore isn't an "aggrieved" candidate.

"Because there is no basis for this court to ignore the Michigan court's ruling and make an independent judgment regarding what the Michigan Legislature intended by the term 'aggrieved,' plaintiffs have not shown an entitlement to a recount," Goldsmith said.

It was the judge's midnight ruling Monday that started the recount in Michigan. But Goldsmith's order dealt with timing — not whether a recount was appropriate. More than 20 of 83 counties already were counting ballots again. They reported minor changes in vote totals, although many precincts couldn't be examined for a second time for a variety of reasons.

Earlier Wednesday, the Michigan elections board voted, 3-1, to end the recount if Goldsmith extinguished his earlier order.

State Republican Party Chairman Ronna Romney McDaniel and Attorney General Bill Schuette said it's a victory for voters and taxpayers. Stein now is left with asking the Michigan Supreme Court to intervene, which is a long shot.

"Jill Stein, who received only 1.07% of the vote in Michigan, is not legally entitled to hijack the will of voters and drag them into an arduous and expensive publicity stunt," McDaniel said.

Stein got about 1 percent of the vote in three states where she's pushed for recounts — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump narrowly won all three.

COMMENT:  Hillary Clinton could have stopped any of these ridiculous recounts by going into court and accepting the results of the election.  Or, at least she could have made a statement to that effect.  Instead, she took the tacky route and went along.  No class.  Why am I not shocked?

December 8, 2016       Permalink

A UNIVERSITY GETS IT RIGHT – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  Purdue University is now run by Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana and a man many Republicans believed should have run for president.   Daniels gets it right in the debate over free speech on campus.  And other besieged colleges are noticing.  From College Fix: 

Indiana’s Purdue University is making a strong play for best public university in the country, based on its demonstrated commitment to free speech.

And now it’s getting interest in taking that approach to other schools, whose leaders may be tiring of giving in to student demands to censor and punish students, faculty and staff for their speech and nonthreatening behaviors.

The university has been approached by NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education) to present the “methodology” for its “free speech orientation program” – the first of its kind in the nation – at an upcoming conference, Director of Student Success Programs Dan Carpenter told the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

FIRE has a big glowing profile on Purdue’s first such orientation, which was created at the direction of President Mitch Daniels, the former Republican governor and longed-for presidential candidate:

Carpenter said NASPA was interested in a presentation featuring model methodologies for how universities can navigate the tricky process of teaching students to honor all of those values.

How did Purdue do it? By presenting scenarios that students are likely to encounter on campus so they are prepared to encounter diverse and conflicting ideas without freaking out, FIRE says.

More than 6,000 incoming students “voluntarily” attended the program, which included “a combination of skits inspired by real-life events at Purdue, a faculty panel discussion, and video clips.”

Those student-performed skits included “encountering an inflammatory campus preacher, dealing with objectionable symbols displayed in residence halls, handling an in-class disruption, and protesting an invited speaker.”

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  This is a well-thought-out program guided by the wise hand of Mitch Daniels.  But stand by for the usual suspects to come forward and call Daniels a racist, or a misogynist, or a generalized pig who probably wanted to be a cop.

December 8, 2016       Permalink

WILL MATTIS MAKE IT THROUGH? – AT 8:06 A.M. ET:  No nomination made so far by President-elect Trump has met with as much approval as the selection of James Mattis for secretary of defense.  A highly respected retired Marine Corps general, Mattis is just the man to raise the morale of our forces and oversee their expansion. 

But there is a problem.  Under law, Mattis must have been retired from the military for seven years to serve as secretary of defense, unless Congress grants a waiver.  It was done only once, for George Marshall, in 1950.  Now the Dems are threatening to block Mattis, hilariously citing their fear that a waiver would put civilian control of the military at risk.  Right.  Two waivers in 66 years, and we're told we risk a coup.

John McCain is worried that the Dems might succeed, and prevent this outstanding American from serving his country further.  From the Washington Examiner:

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said Tuesday he is concerned about the looming confirmation process for retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, who President-elect Trump says he will nominate to become the next secretary of defense.

McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters in the Capitol he is "very worried" about Mattis' confirmation process. Mattis will have to receive a waiver allowing him to serve in a civilian position less than seven years after retiring from the military.

"I'm very worried about it," McCain said when asked about receiving a waiver for Mattis. "We have to work on it."

Mattis left active service in 2013 after concluding his time as commander of Central Command, forcing the need for a waiver. George C. Marshall, who received one in 1950 in order to also become secretary of defense, is the only person to have received one in the past.

"I was active in helping move that process forward as quickly as possible. The Democrats should do the same for us," McCain continued. "And when they don't, and we have to resort to parliamentary action to force them to, then that's disgraceful because we're talking about defending our nation.

COMMENT:  The Dems are in their own world, and national defense is not a major part of it.  If they block Mattis they satisfy their leftist base, but the Trump administration will have the people on its side.

December 8,  2016     Permalink

DECEMBER 7,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:41 P.M. ET:

TRUMP HITS 50% – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Half of the country – 50 percent – now view President-elect Donald Trump favorably, up 17 points from August, a new Bloomberg National Poll shows.
The survey also gives Trump a glimmer of good news as two-thirds of U.S. adults believe Trump needs to choose between being president and a businessman, though a higher percentage, 69 percent, believe it's a step too far to force him to sell off his businesses to become president of the United States.   Another 51 percent say they believe the billionaire will put what's best for the country ahead of his own individual interests.  Americans are also giving the president-elect some wiggle room on issues, with three-quarters saying it's OK for him to re-calibrate some of his campaign pledges, including one to 'lock up' his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.   'The public seems to be giving him a long leash,' said pollster J. Ann Selzer, whose in charge of the survey. 'Most Americans don't seem concerned about him changing positions that were the core of his campaign.'   The poll reflects, I believe, Trump's genuinely thoughtful approach to picking his Cabinet. I also believe the American people have started to see through the press bias that is directed at Trump every day.

TRUMP ON PEARL HARBOR DAY – FROM BREITBART:   President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement remembering the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor today.  He’s urging the country to remember the 2,403 Americans killed and the 1,178 Americans who were wounded.  “Their shared sacrifice reminds us of the great costs paid by those who came before us to secure the liberties we enjoy, and inspires us to rise to meet the new challenges that stand before us today,” Trump said.  He recalled Reagan’s use of the quote of Gen. Douglas MacArthur reminding Americans that “there is no substitute for victory” in war.  “Today we are the bearers of the torch of freedom these brave Americans passed on to us,” he said. “In honor of their faithfulness, and for the sake of generations to come, we will never allow that flame to be extinguished.”  Very well put.  Trump is developing a presidential style all his own, and it is working.  We're entitled to have our concerns about him, but I'm being won over.

I LOVE THIS – FROM THE BANGOR DAILY NEWS:   PORTLAND, Maine — Thirty-five people gathered at a popular Portland bistro on a recent weeknight to learn how to talk.  Cards were passed and conversations sparked, but this group of branders, photographers, auditors and teachers weren’t merely networking. They were “adulting.”  “Small talk is hard for me,” said Julie Moulton, a thirtysomething marketing coordinator who was attending the happy hour networking class at Sur Lie on Free Street.  The event was organized by The Adulting School, a new program devoted to helping people learn skills they might not have picked up in college or from their parents. The founders take their inspiration from a similar program, The Society of Grownups, in Brookline, Massachusetts.  Adulting is a newly verbed noun that Time magazine described as a way for millennials to “acknowledge and/or make fun of and/or come to grips with that transition [to adulthood] (or how late they are to it).”  Long overdue.  You might wish to send anonymous scholarships to young people you know.

December 7, 2016       Permalink

ON THIS DAY – AT 12:31 P.M. ET:  This is the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, or, as leftists would have it, the imperialist American warmonger attack on Japanese tourist planes making a peaceful visit to their brethren in the far islands. 

To those of us of a certain age, December 7th will always be sacred.  It is one of a small number of days on which a single event marked our time – September 2, 1945, when World War II ended; November 22, 1963, when the president was assassinated; September 11, 2001, when we were attacked in our own homeland. 

Young people today know very little about Pearl Harbor.   They are taught very little contemporary history.  And so they really don't understand the sacrifice, bravery, and determination of "the greatest generation," a generation that survived the Great Depression of the 1930s, only to face bullets and bombs.

Here is a great, and personal, Pearl Harbor story.  Please read the whole thing...and note the last paragraph, which will get to you.  From Reuters:

LOS ANGELES/HONOLULU (Reuters) - It has been 75 years, but U.S. Navy veteran James Leavelle can still recall watching with horror as Japanese warplanes rained bombs down on his fellow sailors in the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War Two.

Bullets bounced off the steel deck of his own ship, the USS Whitney, anchored just outside Honolulu harbor, but a worse fate befell those aboard the USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS Utah and others that capsized in an attack that killed 2,400 people.

"The way the Japanese planes were coming in, when they dropped bombs, they'd drop them and then circle back," said Leavelle, a 21-year-old Navy Storekeeper Second Class at the time of the attack.

Leavelle, now 96, was among 30 Pearl Harbor survivors honored at a reception in Los Angeles before heading to Honolulu to mark Wednesday's 75th anniversary of the attack.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor took place at 7:55 a.m. Honolulu time on Dec. 7, 1941, famously dubbed "a date which will live in infamy" by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. Fewer than 200 survivors of the attacks there and on other military bases in Hawaii are still alive.

Wednesday's commemoration at a pier overlooking the memorial to the sunken USS Arizona built in the harbor is set to begin with a moment of silence at precisely that time.

About 350 World War Two veterans and their families will be serenaded by the Navy's Pacific Fleet Band with a musical remembrance made bittersweet by the knowledge that every member of the USS Arizona band - one of the best in the Navy - died that day.

Attendees will watch a parade, and two families will participate in a private ceremony in which the ashes of crew members who survived the attack and later died, will be interred in a turret of the Arizona.

Across the United States on Wednesday, Americans will pause to remember those who died at Pearl Harbor, and the long and difficult war that followed.

And...

For his part, Leavelle would be touched twice by the hand of history. After the war, he became a policeman in Texas. On Nov. 24, 1963, he was the Dallas officer handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy was shot to death by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

COMMENT:  Present at history twice.  How remarkable.

December 7, 2016       Permalink

REAL HOMELAND SECURITY – AT 11:38 A.M. ET:  President-elect Trump chooses another experienced military man for his Cabinet.  The left is reaching for its Zoloft.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump has settled on Gen. John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general whose son was killed in combat in Afghanistan, as his choice for secretary of homeland security, placing defense of American territory from terrorism in the hands of a seasoned commander with personal exposure to the costs of war.

General Kelly, 66, who led the United States Southern Command, had a 40-year career in the Marine Corps, and led troops in intense combat in western Iraq. In 2003, he became the first Marine colonel since 1951 to be promoted to brigadier general while in active combat.

Mr. Trump, a person briefed on the decision said, has not yet formally offered the job to General Kelly, in part because the general is out of the country this week. The president-elect plans to roll out the appointment next week, along with his remaining national security positions, including secretary of state.

In 2010, General Kelly earned a painful distinction when his son, Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, was killed after stepping on a mine while leading a platoon in Afghanistan. General Kelly became the highest-ranking military officer to lose a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan.

General Kelly has said little about that experience, but it played a role in his selection by Mr. Trump, according to people close to the Trump transition. Mr. Trump, his aides said, wanted people on his national security team who understood personally the hazards of sending Americans into combat.

COMMENT:  Once again Trump shows his analytical side, and the thought he puts into choosing the people around him.  General Kelly, like General Mattis – Trump's choice for secretary of defense, is outstanding.

December 7, 2016       Permalink

MAN OF THE YEAR – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  TIME has made its choice, and it's an obvious one.  From TIME: 

This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year. So which is it this year: Better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer.

It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur—never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own—now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously. Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse.

For those who believe this is all for the better, Trump’s victory represents a long-overdue rebuke to an entrenched and arrogant governing class; for those who see it as for the worse, the destruction extends to cherished norms of civility and discourse, a politics poisoned by vile streams of racism, sexism, nativism. To his believers, he delivers change—broad, deep, historic change, not modest measures doled out in Dixie cups; to his detractors, he inspires fear both for what he may do and what may be done in his name.

COMMENT:  Well, I guess that's kind of fair, although I wish one mainstream journalist would have the guts to call the cries of "racism" what they are, grossly false.  I have not seen any racism coming from the mouth of Donald Trump.  There may have been some poorly phrased comments early in his campaign, but certainly no racism.  The way he runs his companies proves the charge to be a fraud.

I was not enthusiastic about Trump, as readers know.  But I must say that I've been impressed by the way he's managed his transition.  He comes off as thoughtful, contemplative, willing to listen to others.  Perhaps most important, he's learned to speak over the heads of the media, as Reagan did.  I look forward to his inauguration.

December 7,  2016     Permalink